and try to understand what goes on in each other’s shop.”
“That’s my point,” Max railed. “Nobody in this company
understands marketing! But R&D is the worst. You cut our
budget for their sake, and we’ll be out selling door-to-door!”
“You won’t have anything to sell,” Ava put in, “if R&D
doesn’t come up with new product. Put a sock in it, Max.
You made your point.”
He’d also made quite a lump on Russell Craven’s head,
but at least Max’s victim had come around. Andrea offered
him a glass of water or a snifter of brandy. Russell said he’d
prefer coffee, strong and black. Judith started back to the
kitchen.
She met Renie in the dining room. “What’s up?” Renie
asked. “Is somebody else dead?”
Judith shook her head. “Just wounded. I’m going to make
coffee.”
Nadia was still in the kitchen, fussing about, apparently
trying to find busy work to calm her nerves. “Is Russell all
right?” she asked when she saw Judith.
“He’s got a nasty bump on his head, but I think he’ll be
fine,” Judith replied, removing a regular-sized coffeemaker
from one of the cupboards. “He should be checked for concussion, though. He seemed a bit confused.”
“No wonder!” Nadia briefly closed her eyes. “Max hit him
awfully hard. It was so unnecessary.”
“Mr. Craven doesn’t strike me as a combative type,” Judith
said, putting coffee into a copper filter.
“He’s not,” Nadia responded. “But he’s very protective of
his R&D people. When someone like Max calls them a bunch
of dreamers and a waste of corporate funds, Russell
can become very mulish. Max resents all the other departments because he feels they don’t understand marketing. But
he despises R&D most of all, because of the way they work.
Or don’t, from his point of view.”
“You mean…?” Judith frowned. “They just sit and dream
up things?”
“Yes.” Nadia now seemed more relaxed, perhaps because
she was discussing a subject she knew backward and forward.
It was beginning to dawn on Judith that many of the OTIOSE
conferees were like that. They felt on safe ground only when
dealing with corporate matters. The rest of the world, even
everyday occurrences, seemed to threaten them. “You see,”
Nadia went on, “much of the R&D work is conceptual. As
Russell puts it, his people have to dream a long time before
they can even begin to cope with reality.”
That, Judith thought, explained Russell himself, who didn’t
seem quite plugged in. But it didn’t explain his response to
her question about his first name. “Did Russell know Barry
Newcombe?”
Nadia tipped her head to one side. The stylish platinum
