Easy and Hard Ways Out (5 page)

“No suh,” said Johnson. “Ah been checkin' ever' one of 'em.”

Brine scanned the parking lot, now almost a third full. Four hundred cars, he thought, each carrying one or more potential threats to the safety of the United States of America. And it was his responsibility to stop them, “them” being the assorted spies, provocateurs, saboteurs, and people who forgot their badges.

“Just keep your eyes open, George,” he said. “Don't relax for a second. Remember, no briefcases in or out without inspection. And no exceptions, got that? None.”

“None,” repeated Johnson.

Brine walked inside and Johnson slumped back in his chair and relaxed.

Even pedaling slowly, Wizer arrived fifteen minutes before he was due. He hitched his bicycle to a water pipe, removed his Haiku book and apple from his pack, and trudged inside, showing his badge to the guard. Wizer looked at the picture, taken ten years ago, the plastic protecting it grown murky yellow and cracked. It was a picture of someone younger, much younger, and yet, even then, something had faded around the eyes, some look of youth had disappeared forever behind the plastic.

“You could use a new one,” said Johnson. “Mistuh Brine likes the employees ta have clear snapshots.”

“Ah'll take this one to ma grave,” said Wizer. “Maybe it'll get me into heaven.”

“Not if Mistuh Brine has anythin' ta say about it,” said Johnson.

“Ah believe that's out of his jurisdiction,” said Wizer, grinning. “At least, as of last week it was.”

He went inside.

Brundage, of Advanced Devices, arrived. Pat Reilly, Electronics Section Head. The engineers started coming—Lubell, Peretz, LoParino. A line began to form in front of the time clock. The 7:55 bell sounded just as the Three drove up in Potamos's car. Potamos inched his way through the now crowded parking lot and pulled into a space about seventy yards from the building.

“We're just in time,” said Cohen, getting out.

“Terrible spot,” said Dorfman, following Cohen, but failing to slam the door so that Potamos had to lean way over to grab the handle and close it. The two engineers headed for the building.

Ten minutes later, Steinberg pulled into the lot, selecting a space far from everyone else to avoid the danger of crashing into their cars when he parked. Spaces far from everyone else, of course, were exceedingly far from the building. Steinberg began to walk. The 8:05 bell sounded. He was late. Though salaried employees were not docked for lateness, they were penalized in other, subtler ways. The higher the employee's position, the greater the subtlety. Steinberg walked as rapidly as he could. He vowed over and over to leave his apartment earlier. He reminded himself how often he worked late, and how foolish it was for the Microwave Section Head of fourteen years to worry over a few minutes in arrival time. His palms began to perspire despite the chill of the air. His stomach ached as he forced his legs to an ever faster pace. Just because Brundage and Pat arrived before him was no reason to promote them, he thought. There was more to the quality of a man's work than on-time arrival. The building loomed up in front of him. His body was quivering, an exquisitely sensitive, pulsating jelly atop speeding legs. Perhaps, perhaps … sometimes, if he were late by only two or three minutes … He bounded up the steps and through the door. He whipped open his coat so Johnson could see his badge. He began walking, encouraged. Perhaps …

Rupp emerged from behind a nearby staircase.

“Good morning, Stanley,” he said cheerfully.

Steinberg was crushed.

Eight fifteen. The line in front of the time clock had long since vanished. Cars driven for miles had cooled. Engineers were lingering over a last drop of morning coffee. Technicians had begun making measurements. Lathes hummed in the shop. The sun shone brightly. Brank entered the parking lot.

He parked in a space not far from Potamos's and began to walk to the building. Auerbach Laboratories. A two-story, all-brick, rectangular structure, sixty thousand square feet of floor space on a fenced-in, guarded, seven-acre plot of Long Island land. With translucent windows for security. Lit up at night by spotlights. With a small but well-kept lawn on one side. Brank approached.

The parking hierarchy spread before him, the reserved spaces with the wooden signs that started at the front of the building and bent around the side for those of less importance.
A
and Redberry right near the door, Rupp, Lingenfelter, Marchese, and Fish next, Ardway slightly farther, Lancelot and Van Lamm after him, and so on down the line. The hierarchy. Once, Brank had parked in Rupp's space just to see what would happen. Within five minutes Security had called and asked him to move his car. Mistake, he'd explained. Lost my head for a second. Mr. Rupp is my idol, you see, and I was thinking about him and I …

The hierarchy, Brank noticed now, seemed to extend to the make of car, too,
A
driving a Caddy, Redberry and Rupp Lincolns, the rest Oldsmobiles, Buicks, and so on. Brank wondered if perhaps this ordering didn't permeate all aspects of life, if
A
's wife weren't the best in bed, Rupp's and Redberry's next, Lingenfelter's third; if
A
's neighborhood didn't have the shortest lines in the bakery; if
A
's ears had the least accumulation of wax. It was possible. Some people might just be
better
than others in
all
respects. Bar none.

The clouds in the sky had miraculously vanished, leaving a crystalline, shocking field of blue. Brank turned his face briefly up to the sun before entering the employees' entrance and flashing his badge to Johnson, who sat with his chair tilted back against the wall and his feet up on his little desk. The picture on Brank's badge was that of a lion, the edges neatly trimmed to fit perfectly in the plastic rectangle. Johnson had either never noticed, or if he had, never said anything. Brank walked through the light green corridors, that special, vomitaceous green found only in industrial plants and old hospitals, and made his way toward the Microwave area. His movement was steady but unhurried. He had a peculiar, unreasonable sense of well-being; he felt that an exceptionally good day was coming up. He pondered briefly why he always ended up coming in late, almost; it seemed, independently of when he started out. Almost as if he adjusted his speed to ensure it. But that was impossible, of course. He couldn't control traffic, or weather, or any of a hundred other variables. But… he was always twenty minutes late.

He detoured through the Accounting area. Mavis sat in her typing chair, tiny skirt clinging to her thighs, her tight, rounded behind balancing on the seat like the nation's most perfectly inflated tire. Tonight, Brank thought. Just you wait. He caught a whiff of orangey perfume as he went by, and inhaled it deeply.

He entered the Microwave area, passed Steinberg's cubicle, and hung up his coat on the rack. Steinberg pretended not to see him. Brank walked slowly to his desk and sat down.

“Morning, Stan,” he yelled. The best defense, he knew, was a strong offense.

He noticed a form in his In box from Incoming Inspection. They had rejected back to the vendor a special, desperately needed heat-conductive epoxy he'd ordered. The supplier had sent a half ounce more than Brank requested and the rejection was for “Overweight.” It was signed by Karl Holtzmann and Erich Boltzmann, Incoming Inspection foremen. The time before, they had rejected the epoxy because it came in a jar instead of a tube.

Brank saw that Klein was in today, an unusual occurrence. Klein, a plump, balding technician who claimed obscure blood diseases, was often out for weeks at a time, returning with a full rundown of who was hiring and firing in the aerospace industry, plus an exact count of the number of days left till vacation.

“One ninety-three,” he said to Brank as he passed by. “Jesus, my platelets are killing me, I just hope I can hold out.”

Brank watched him waddle away, and when he turned back, Steinberg was standing over him.

“I spoke to Ardway,” said Steinberg in his characteristic clogged monotone. “He said they were going to cut your salary by ten percent until you came in on time for four weeks in a row. I didn't bring it up. He did. I didn't mention it. He also said we have to pass that tougher temperature test at the Air Force inspection. It's just a design goal, not a spec, but we have to make it. I didn't insist on it. He did. That's what he said.”

Brank looked at him without speaking.

“We're all guilty,” said Steinberg. “I come in late too. I know. The guilt lies upon us all.”

He retreated back to his cubicle. The offense-defense theory hadn't worked, thought Brank. Jesus, that ten percent cut would hurt. No more weekly movies, maybe skip a haircut or two. He'd better not tell Joan. And now also this business with the temperature test; how could he make it without the epoxy?

Funny how only two minutes before he'd had the distinct impression it would be a good day. It was his first error.

A GREAT AND SACRED TRUST

They'd pitched a huge tent in the parking lot that day a year and a half ago, the day of the announcement, and the maintenance boys had worked the entire morning setting up row after row of yellow wooden chairs and wiring up the public address system and readying the speakers' platform. The rumor was that Rockefeller himself would be there; some said even Mac-Namara might put in an appearance, or Humphrey. It was all enormously significant, and every Auerbach employee would be right at the center, vitally involved.

“This sucks,” said Bill Brennan, head draftsman, leaning over his drafting table. “First they tell ya not ta park in the lot because of that stupid tent, and now they're cuttin' ten minutes offa the lunch hour. I'm tellin' ya, we really get the shaft.”

Near Brennan, pasted to the wall, was a picture of cow udders, each with a draftsman's name written over it, Brennan's on a hind tit.

“Look at the bright side,” said Potamos at the next table. “We can sit outside in the fresh air for the rest of the day and listen to that bullshit instead of breaking our backs in here.”

“I'm going to sit in front of that Mavis from Accounting,” said Plotsky, a scrawny fellow with a large Adam's apple. He sharpened a pencil over and over. “That way I can turn around nonchalantly and stare up that teeny skirt of hers and maybe see her—oh God, I can't even say it, it's so wonderful.”

“You are a disease, Plotsky,” said Brennan.

The speakers on the wall crackled. “Attention! Your attention, please!”

“That's Carol,” said Plotsky. “Listen to how commanding she sounds. If only she would tie me up and grind her heel into my groin and throw dirt on me and—”

“The award ceremonies will begin in ten minutes in the parking lot. A covered area has been established for your convenience. All employees are invited to attend. Since many important dignitaries will be present, all employees are requested to act as courteously as possible in order to make the best impression. Your cooperation in this matter is appreciated.”

“—and slash my face open with a razor and urinate into the wound and then sob and cry hysterically and throw herself on me and beg my forgiveness. God! Then would I be happy.”

The employees, still wearing their uniforms, filed out of the building, machinists in gray smocks, technicians in T-shirts and chinos, precision assemblers in white coveralls, engineers in ties and shirt sleeves. They began filling the rows of yellow chairs, maintaining, as if by instinct, the hierarchical setup—engineers and physicists near the front, then draftsmen, then technicians, machinists, and finally, at the very rear even though intermediate seats were not yet filled, the maintenance men. The air was fresh and tangy; a slight breeze conveyed a gentle warmth from the spring sun.

LoParino and Brank emerged from the building. Brank, a new employee at the time, inhaled deeply.

“Stinks out,” said LoParino.

“What?” said Brank.

“Stinks. Stinks. The weather.”

Brank, not yet accustomed to LoParino's odd views, asked the required question. “All right, Mario, why does it stink?”

“It stinks because it's gorgeous,” said LoParino. “And when it's gorgeous, it reminds me how beserk it is to be entombed in this brick cube all day. That's why the nicest weather is when it rains.”

“Where you wanna sit?” asked Brank.

“Let's sit with Maintenance,” said LoParino.

“Oh, no,” said Brank. “That old guy, Rocco, likes to corner me and tell me endless fruit-stand stories. Pick someplace else.”

“I don't care,” said LoParino. “As long as we can't see. They got any pillars we can sit behind?”

They finally selected a place about halfway back, near a guy wire. LoParino sat behind Coletti, the company's tallest technician. On the platform, the two rows of chairs behind the podium were nearly full. Ed Lingenfelter, Vice-President of Sales, was near the podium microphone. He was a portly man with a friendly, open grin that was totally insincere. He had hair growing on the outside of his ears; the boys called him Teddy Bear.

“Testing,” he said, tapping the mike. “Testing, one two. Testing, one, two. Is there anyone who can't hear me? Raise your hand if you can't hear.”

LoParino raised his hand, but Lingenfelter didn't see it.

“Okay,” said Lingenfelter, “I think we can begin now. Ladies and gentlemen, honored guests, as you know, Auerbach Laboratories has been involved for some time now in a joint proposal with General Aircraft on the new, all-purpose fighter-bomber, the F24BZ. We started out—” Carefully, he traced the steps in Auerbach's multi-year struggle to win the contract. “—which is the most discreet way I know of saying that through your energy and your dedication and your efforts, we have … finally wiped out the competition. We've gotten the job.”

His face broke into a heavy-jowled smile, and polite applause came from the first eight rows of the audience.