“No,” Forlesen said.
“Let me give you an example. Guys come in the office all the time, either to talk to me or just because they haven’t anything better to do. They kid around with the girls, you know? Okay, this girl, you never know how she’s going to take it. Sometimes she gets mad. Sometimes she thinks the guy really wants to get romantic, and she wants to go along with it.”
“I’d think they’d learn to leave her alone,” Forlesen said.
“Believe me, they have. And the other girls don’t like her—they come in to me and say they want to be moved away from her desk.”
“Do they say why?”
“Oh, hell, no. Listen, if you’d ever bossed a bunch of women you’d know better than that; the way they always put it is the light isn’t good there, or it’s too close to the keypunch—too noisy—or it’s too
“Make her your permanent secretary,” Forlesen said.
“Just for a while. Give your mother a special assignment. That way you can find out what’s wrong with this girl, if anything is, which I doubt.”
“You’re crazy, Forlesen,” Fairchild said, and hung up.
The telephone rang again almost as soon as Forlesen set the receiver down. “This is Miss Fawn,” the telephone said. “Mr. Freeling wants to see you, Mr. Forlesen.”
“Mr. Freeling?”
“Mr. Freeling is Mr. Fields’s chief, Mr. Forlesen, and Mr. Fields is your chief. Mr. Freeling reports to Mr. Flint, and Mr. Flint reports directly to Mr. Frick. I am Mr. Freeling’s secretary.”
“Thank you,” Forlesen said. “I was beginning to wonder where you fit in.”
“Right out of your office, down the hall to the ‘T,’ left, up the stairs, and along the front of the building. Mr. Freeling’s name is on the door.”
“Thank you,” Forlesen said again.
Mr. Freeling’s name was on the door, in the form of a bronzelike plaque. Forlesen, remembering D’Andrea’s brass one, saw at once that Mr. Freeling’s was more modern and up-to-date, and realized that Mr. Freeling was more important than D’Andrea had been; but he also realized that D’Andrea’s plaque had been real brass and that Mr. Freeling’s was plastic. He knocked, and Miss Fawn’s voice called, “Come in.” He came in, and Miss Fawn threw a switch on her desk and said, “Mr. Forlesen to see you, Mr. Freeling.”
And then to Forlesen: “Go right in.”
Mr. Freeling’s office was large and had two windows, both overlooking the highway. Forlesen found that he was somewhat surprised to see the highway again, though it looked just as it had before. The pictures on the walls were landscapes much like Fields’s, but Mr. Freeling’s desk, which was quite large, was covered by a sheet of glass with photographs under it, and these were all of sailboats, and of groups of men in shorts and striped knit shirts and peaked caps.
“Sit down,” Mr. Freeling said. “Be with you in a minute.” He was a large, sunburned, squinting man, beginning to go gray. The chair in front of his desk had wooden arms and a vinyl seat made to look like ostrich hide. Forlesen sat down, wondering what Mr. Freeling wanted, and after a time it came to him that what Mr. Freeling wanted was for him to wonder this, and that Mr. Freeling would have been wiser to speak to him sooner. Mr. Freeling had a pen in his hand and was reading a letter—the same letter—over and over; at last he signed it with a scribble and laid it and the pen flat on his desk. “I should have called you in earlier to say welcome aboard,” he said, “but maybe it was better to give you a chance to drop your hook and get your jib in first. Are you finding M.P.P. a snug harbor?”
“I think I would like it better,” Forlesen said, “if I knew what it was I’m supposed to be doing here.”
Freeling laughed. “Well, that’s easily fixed—Bert Fields is standing watch with you, isn’t he? Ask him for a list of your responsibilities.”
“It’s Ed Fields,” Forlesen said, “and I already have the list. What I would like to know is what I’m supposed to be doing.”
“I see what you mean,” Freeling said, “but I’m afraid I can’t tell you. If you were a lathe operator I’d say, ‘Make that part,’ but you’re a part of management, and you can’t treat managerial people that way.”
“Go ahead,” Forlesen told him. “I won’t mind.”
Freeling cleared his throat. “That isn’t what I meant, and, quite frankly, if you think anyone here is going to feel any compulsion to be polite to you, you’re in for squalls. What I meant was that if I knew what you ought to be doing I’d hire a clerk to do it. You’re where you are because we feel—rightly or wrongly—that you can find your own work, recognize it when you see it, and do it or get somebody else to. Just make damn sure you don’t step on anybody’s toes while you’re doing it, and don’t make more trouble than you fix. Don’t rock the boat.”
“I see,” Forlesen said.
“Just make damn sure before you do anything that it’s in line with policy, and remember that if you get the unions down on us we’re going to throw you overboard quick.”
Forlesen nodded.
“And keep your hand off the tiller. Look at it this way—your job is fixing leaks. Only the sailor who’s spent most of his life down there in the hold with the oakum and . . . uh . . . Fastpatch has the experience necessary to recognize the landmarks and weather signs. But don’t you patch a leak somebody else is already patching, or has been told to patch, or is getting ready to patch. Understand? Don’t come running to me with complaints, and don’t let me get any complaints about you. Now what was it you wanted to see me about?”
