Cancel All Our Vows (23 page)

He was enormously relieved to get out of the house. There had been other mornings, other hangovers, other stirrings of shame and remorse. You waited and it all went away. But not this time. It wasn’t going to go away. In the back of his mind was a tiny cardboard stage bathed in moonlight where the doll figures of Jane and Sam Rice moved endlessly. No matter where he looked or what he thought of, he was aware of the doll figures back there, aware of their endless, blinded spasm.

He was aware of parking the car, and then he was suddenly
aware of being in the office, behind his desk, with the squat, blushing Marcia Trevin standing in front of him. He had no memory of the walk from car to office, or of the usual morning greetings to the people he had seen.

“I’m sorry, Miss Trevin. I was thinking of something else. What did you say?”

“Mr. Forman’s secretary just phoned and said the meeting would be at ten instead of nine thirty. Maybe you’d like me to type your notes.”

“That would be nice, if you can read them.”

“Oh, I’m used to your writing, Mr. Wyant. Mr. Wyant …”

“Yes, what is it?”

“Mr. Wyant, do you feel all right? I mean … you don’t look as if you felt very good this morning.” She was blushing furiously.

“Just type the notes, will you? I’m perfectly all right.”

He saw the quick suggestion of tears in her eyes as she turned and fled to her desk. It was a tone of voice he had never used with her before. He turned and looked out across the landscaped lawn toward the low modern plant buildings, and the glint and flicker of the neat lines of cars in the plant parking lot. Beyond the parking lot he saw the tiny doll figures, straining in the moonlight. He pushed his knuckles hard against his eyes and still saw them, beyond the darting colored spots that pressure made. And then they had walked in, and in the Dimbrough living room she had been sweetly casual, and the boy had been smiling and deferential.

The muted thump and murmur of the production floors came into the office building, providing a bass background for the thinner, sharper noises of administration. Thin clack of Miss Trevin’s electric typewriter. Distant obbligato on a calculator. A girl’s sharp heels ticking down the corridor.

Marcia Trevin came in and mutely laid the typed notes on the edge of his desk and turned, not looking at him, to leave.

“Miss Trevin.”

“Yes sir?” Poised, still not turning.

“I’m sorry I snarled. Maybe I am a little … out of sorts.”

He saw then the blushing, sunrise smile. “That’s all right, Mr. Wyant. Which do you want me to do first? That cost of sales analysis or the inventory level thing?”

“Use your own judgment.”

“Well …” she said uncertainly, “I guess I can finish the sales one today. Mr. Corban said maybe there was one part of it you wanted to change, though.”

“I haven’t heard anything about that. Type it up the way I prepared it. If Mr. Corban wants it changed, he can make out his own report.”

“Yes sir. Uh … Mr. Wyant …”

“What is it, Miss Trevin?”

“Mr. Corban is … very clever, isn’t he?”

“A very bright young man I should say.”

“When he mentions you to anybody, Mr. Wyant, he sounds funny.”

“What do you mean?”

“I shouldn’t say it. I don’t know how to say it, I guess. As though you were, well, sort of old-fashioned in your ideas. He’s sort of … patronizing. It makes me wonder if … he’s really your friend, Mr. Wyant.”

He was tempted to tell her to keep her nose at her typewriter and stop indulging her taste for intrigue. But she had such a serious, eager, adoring look. And she had let him know of other things which had been shaping up to his disadvantage, so that he had been able to prepare himself in time.

He made himself say, smiling, “I think we better both keep a weather eye on our bright young friend, Marcia.”

“It’s three minutes of ten, Mr. Wyant.”

He stood up and started to head for the door. “Thanks, Miss Trevin.”

“Mr. Wyant! Your notes!”

“Oh … thanks. That was stupid, wasn’t it?”

He walked through her small office to the corridor door, aware that she was looking at him with puzzled concern. His mind veered back to Jane and suddenly he found himself in the small conference room without any memory of
walking there. Stanley Forman was at the head of the table, carefully cutting the end from a cigar.

“ ’Morning, Fletch. All present and accounted for. This time, Miss Townsend, see if you can keep track of who said what. All right, Harry. This morning we’re discussing whether we can take on the big subcontract, or whether, in fact, we can afford not to. Let’s hear the production angle.”

Morose Harry Bailey began to read his notes in a dead flat monotone. Fletcher made himself listen for a time and then his thoughts drifted away, drifted back to the self-torture of his imaginings of Jane and Sam Rice and how they had been together. Harry’s voice droned on about percentages of capacity, and increased maintenance staff for two-shift operation and extension of gravity conveyors.

Fletcher saw Ellis Corban sitting on the far side of the table, several places away. His face was a model of junior executive attention.

Harry finished and Stanley Forman said, “To sum up then, this stuff is enough like our usual line so that we can take it on without too much expense in tooling and rearrangement of floor space. Vogaler, what’s the purchasing picture?”

Vogaler gave a brief crisp analysis of the tightening materials situation and how their normal line would inevitably be cramped.

There was a report from personnel on the labor supply picture. Fletcher was once again lost in his self-torment.

He woke up suddenly. “What?”

Stanley frowned at him. “If it isn’t too much trouble, Fletch, give us the financial picture.”

It was a bad start. He began to improvise from his notes, read the wrong figures twice and finally, ineptly, managed to get it straightened out. He leaned back with a sigh. They were all looking at him and the room was silent. He had the idea that they all knew about Jane. The idea was absurd, but he couldn’t get it out of his head.

“That isn’t as bright a picture as I’d hoped,” Stanley said. “Any comments.”

Ellis Corban coughed politely. “Mr. Forman, I shouldn’t bring this up because I haven’t had an opportunity
to discuss it with Mr. Wyant. In fact, the idea came to me just as the meeting was getting under way, and I don’t feel I have it very well organized, but I think it might be worked out if we … ah … kick it around here a bit.”

Fletcher stared down the table at Ellis. The man was doing it just right. With the proper mixture of humility and concern. Fletcher thought hard, trying to imagine what Ellis had dreamed up. And he knew it hadn’t been anything evolved in the last few minutes.

“Let’s hear it, Corban,” Stanley said quietly.

“I guess you could say my plan has two phases. As to the first phase, it is costing us money to warehouse our trade units pending the availability of the thermostats. There is, of course, not only the cost of the floor space involved, but also the interest on the money involved. Why couldn’t we do this? Contact the largest dealers. Offer them the units at a price a bit lower than our usual price provided they will accept immediate delivery and hold the units in stock until we can ship the thermostats. Every big dealer has a repair department capable of assembling the thermostats to the units. There is no good reason why that has to be done here. And we can make the price attractive without hurting ourselves because the cost of maintaining the inventory will be as great as the discount, and we can get immediate use of the funds. That, of course, would be subject to approval of Sales.”

They all looked at Homer Hatton. He took a tug at his underlip, frowning. Finally he said, “In normal times they wouldn’t stand still for it. But there isn’t enough floor stock to keep up with new construction. So I think it will be okay. But the discount shouldn’t be big enough to make the smaller dealers yammer about preferential treatment.”

Fletcher said, “I confess I didn’t think of that. It will be a help, of course, but I don’t think it will keep us from going into the money market to tide us over.”

“That’s where the second phase of my plan comes in,” Ellis said a bit blandly, and Fletcher cursed himself for not keeping his mouth shut, for forgetting that Ellis had mentioned two phases. “I was trying to think of all this,” Ellis continued, “from the point of view of K.C.I., who has the prime contract with the Quartermaster General. I can’t
help but think that they’re anxious for Forman to take on this job. They know we have the plant, the personnel and the know-how to fulfill a subcontract that large on time, and up to specifications. I would say that they are anxious to have us take it on. Wouldn’t you say that, Mr. Forman?”

“From what I’ve seen the last few weeks, I’d say you’re right, Corban.”

“I’ve read of quite a few instances during the past year or so, Mr. Forman, where a prime contractor would arrange for an advance payment on the prime contract before deliveries had started, with it clearly understood that the advance payment would be passed along, in part, to a critical subcontractor. I believe that if we approached K.C.I. properly and perhaps arranged a conference with the Contracting Officer involved, such a deal could be worked out. It would give us an interest-free loan, in effect, and that, combined with unloading our stock of completed units, would give us enough so that I believe we could get by without having to arrange any short-term working capital loans, as outlined in Mr. Wyant’s report.”

The room was silent. Fletcher wondered if Stanley Forman was aware of how neatly and cleverly Ellis Corban had knifed him. He knew that Corban’s plan would work out. It solved a rather unpleasant little problem. And Ellis had made certain that there would never be any misunderstanding about the authorship of the plan. Let the man do that a few more times and Forman would wonder why he should keep deadwood at the top while Corban did all the creative brainwork.

Fletcher said, “I’m willing to say that if Mr. Corban had had enough time to discuss this with me, I would have insisted that he bring it up at this meeting. That’s the sort of thinking which has kept us in such good shape since the war.”

It was, at least, an attempt, but Fletcher was aware that it had gone over a bit flatly. And, he realized to his dull surprise, it did not seem to matter very much. It didn’t matter now if Elllis moved in on him and took the whole thing over. Funny how I always imagined this work was aside and apart from my marriage, that the satisfaction I
took in it would continue no matter what. Now I can see how closely they were interwoven, how one cannot truly exist without the other.

“For God’s sake, Fletch! Are you asleep?”

He stared at Stanley’s frowning face. “I’m sorry.”

“I asked you for your opinion. As long as this was Corban’s plan, will you go along with sending him out to K.C.I. to see what he can swing?”

“Shouldn’t Mr. Wyant go?” Ellis asked quickly.

“I think it would be only fair, Stanley, to send him out there.”

“Done, then. Get off today if you can, Corban. Harry, you and Homer co-ordinate on getting those units out of here. Meeting dismissal.”

“Do you want that in the notes, Mr. Forman,” Miss Townsend asked plaintively, “about you asking Mr. Wyant if he was asleep?”

“No, for God’s sake!” Stanley exploded. The meeting broke up. Fletcher stopped for a drink of water. When he went through Miss Trevin’s office she said, “Mr. Corban is in there waiting for you, sir. And your wife wants you to call her.”

“Put in the call when Mr. Corban leaves, please.”

He shut the door behind him as he went into his office. He made himself smile, and he knew that this was precisely the right time to let Ellis know that one Fletcher Wyant was perfectly aware of the facts of life.

“Gosh, Fletch,” Ellis said, getting up quickly, “that was a tactical error and I realize it now. I should have kept my big mouth shut and talked it over with you after the meeting. It would have been simple enough to ask Mr. Forman to call another meeting after the two of us had kicked it around.”

Fletcher sat down behind his desk and leaned back, balancing his ankle on his knee. “Sometimes an idea is so hot you can’t keep still. Lucky you thought of it in time to present it at the meeting.”

“Yes, I guess it was. But, hell, you brought me in here. The last thing I’d want to do is make it look as though I was trying to go over your head and impress the boss.”

“I don’t think you have to worry, Ellis. I’ll tell Stanley
that you thought better of opening your mouth after you started to speak.”

“Well …” Ellis said uncertainly, “I guess the harm is done, if any.”

“I don’t think any harm has been done. You worry too much, Ellis.”

“That’s damn white of you, Fletch. To take it like this, I mean.”

“Take what? If my department comes up with a bright idea, it’s to my credit, isn’t it? I mean you
are
working for me, aren’t you?”

“Oh, certainly. But you know … I mean the way most companies are … I’d hate to have you think I’ve got any disloyalty in my system.”

“Now you’re joking, of course,” Fletcher said evenly.

Ellis looked faintly uncomfortable. “Uh … I don’t see what you mean.”

“Just that if I should think for one minute that you’re trying to cut the ground out from under me, I’d have you fired before you could get strong enough to make a fight of it.”

The two men faced each other. Fletcher stood up slowly. Now they knew precisely where they stood. It was fair warning to Ellis. A warning he couldn’t very well disregard.

“I guess I can get off today all right,” Ellis said. “Any special instructions?”

“I think you’re capable of handling it. Just one thing, though.”

“Yes?”

“Don’t try to move too fast. Don’t be too eager. Take a few days over there. Give the impression we’re not too terribly anxious to land the subcontract.” He allowed himself a smile. “That’s why I insisted you go, Ellis. If I’d gone, they might think we are placing too much importance on it.”