“Yeah, Mac?”
“It’s about my conference with Major Feldkirk at ESD.”
“Yeah? What’d he want?”
“We’ve been offered a superblack.”
3
McPherson’s boss, Stewart Lemon, stands in his office before his big seaside window, looking out at the Pacific. It’s near the end of the day, and the low sun turns Catalina apricot, gilds the sails of the boats as they glide back in to Dana Point and Newport Beach harbors. His office is on the top floor of LSR’s tower, on the coastal cliff between Corona del Mar and Laguna, overlooking Reef Point. Lemon often calls his window view the finest in Orange County, and since it includes no land but the distant bulk of Catalina, it may well be true.
Dennis McPherson is on his way up to give him the details of the meeting with Feldkirk, and Lemon, considering the meeting, sighs. Getting one’s employees to put their maximum effort into the work is an art form; one has to alter one’s methods for every personality under one’s command. McPherson has been working for Lemon for a long time, and Lemon has found that the man works best when driven. Make him angry, fill him with resentment, and he flies into his work with a furious energy that is fairly productive, no doubt about it. But how tiresome the relationship has become! The mutual dislike has really become quite real. Lemon watches the contained insolence, the arrogance of this uncultured engineer, with an irritation that barely holds on to its amusement. Really, the man is too much. It’s gotten to be almost a pleasure to bully him.
Ramona buzzes to tell him McPherson is there. Lemon begins to pace back and forth before the window, nine steps turn, nine steps turn. In McPherson comes, looking tired.
“So, Mac!” He gestures him to a chair, continues to pace in a leisurely way, staring out the window as much as he can. “You got us a superblack program, eh?”
“I was told to pass along the offer, that’s right.”
“Fine, fine. Tell me about it.”
McPherson describes the system Feldkirk has requested. “Most of the components of the system are fairly straightforward, it’ll only be a matter of linking them in a management program and fitting them into a small enough package. But the sensing systems, covert terrain ranger and target detector both—there could be some dangers there. The CO-two laser Feldkirk has suggested is only lab-tested so far. So—”
“But it’s a superblack, right? It’s only between the Air Force and us.”
“That’s right. But—”
“Every method has its drawbacks. That doesn’t mean we don’t go for it. In fact, we can’t very well refuse the offer of a superblack—we might never get another one. And the Pentagon knows it’s a high-risk program, that’s why they’ve done it this way. And it’s always the high-risk projects that bring in the highest profits. What’s your schedule looking like, Mac?”
“Well—”
“You’re clear enough. I’ll assign the Canadair contract to Bailey, and you’ll be clear to go at this thing. Listen here, Mac.” Time to stick in a needle or two. “Twice in a row now you’ve been manager of proposals that lost. They were too expensive, too elaborate, and you almost missed the deadline for turning them in, both times. It’s important to beat the schedule deadline by a couple of weeks, to show the Air Force we’re on top of things. Now here you’ve got a superblack program, and there isn’t a schedule per se. But with something outside normal channels like this, the trick is to get it done fast, while all conditions still obtain. You get me?”
McPherson is staring out the window, not looking at Lemon. The corners of his mouth are tight. Lemon almost smiles. McPherson no doubt still believes his losing proposals were the best made, but the truth is you can’t afford to be a perfectionist in this business. Projects have to be cost-effective, and that requires a certain realism. Well, that’s Lemon’s contribution. That’s what’s gotten him where he is. And this time he’s going to have to ride herd a little more closely than before.
He stops his pacing and points at McPherson, surprising him. “You’re in charge of this one because I think the Pentagon people want it that way. But I want this done quickly. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
The clamming up does absolutely nothing to hide the anger and contempt in McPherson’s eyes; he’s as easy to read as a freeway exit sign. TURN OFF HERE, OVER THIS CLIFF. Now he will go back down there and work himself sick to get the program done quickly, to jam it back down Lemon’s throat. Fine. It’s that kind of work that makes Lemon’s division one of the most productive at LSR, despite the myriad technical difficulties they encounter. The job gets done.
“Let me know when you’ve got a preliminary proposal worked up. You’ll fly out and present it to them as soon as it’s done.”
“The targeting system and the management program may take a while—”
“Fine. I’m not denying there are problems to be solved, there always are, aren’t there? I just want them dealt with as soon as possible.” A bit of dictatorial irritation: “No more getting bogged down! No more excuses and delays! I’m tired of that kind of thing!”
McPherson leaves with his jaw clamped so hard that he can barely mumble his good-byes. Lemon can’t help but laugh, though there is a part of him that is genuinely angry as well. Arrogant bastard. It’s funny what it takes to get some men to give it their all.
Next comes Dan Houston, the last conference of Lemon’s day. They do this a lot. Dan is a completely different situation from McPherson: more limited technically, but infinitely better with people. He and Lemon have been friends since they both began working for Martin Marietta, years before. The same head-hunter lured them to LSR, bringing Lemon in at the higher position, a distance Lemon has only extended through the years. But Houston doesn’t begrudge it, he isn’t envious. Lemon can charm him. In fact, if Lemon were to come down hard on Dan it would only hurt his feelings, make him sullen and slow him down. It’s necessary to coddle him a bit, to pull rather than push. And the truth is, Lemon likes the man. Houston admires him, they have a good time together sailing, playing racketball, going out with their allies Dawn and Elsa. They’re friends.
So he sits down when Houston comes in, and they look out the window and critique the tacking of the boats clawing back from the south toward Newport. They laugh at some really bad luffs. Then Lemon asks him what the latest is with the Ball Lightning project. Houston starts bitching about it again.
It’s one of their three biggest contracts, and inwardly Lemon seethes; they can’t afford for it to get bogged down too much. But he nods sympathetically. “No one’s solved the dwell time problem,” he says, thinking aloud to himself. “The power requirements are just too much. The Air Force can’t expect magic.”
“The problem is, they thought we had it solved when they gave us the contract.”
“I know.” Of course he knows. Who better? It was Lemon who okayed the inclusion of those Huntsville test results. Dan can be kind of a fool.… “Listen, have you gotten McPherson’s input on this?”
“Well, I’ve asked him for it. He doesn’t like it much.”
“I know.” Lemon shakes his head. “But Dennis is kind of a prima donna.” Got to play this carefully, as Dan and McPherson are also friends. “A little bit, anyway. Get him to talk to your design team, and the programmers. See what he can suggest. He’ll be busy with a new proposal of his own, but I’ll tell him to take time for this. You can’t spend the whole of every day working on one project, after all.”
“No, that’s true. Lot of waiting to be done.” Dan sounds satisfied; he’d like the help. And McPherson has a certain flair for the technical problems, no doubt about it.
Not only that, but this way Lemon can begin to tie McPherson into the Ball Lightning program, and all its troubles. Lemon is just annoyed enough with McPherson to enjoy the idea of this move. He’ll really have the man under some screws, and who knows, McPherson might just troubleshoot Ball Lightning as well, even if he does dislike the program. Excellent.
They chat a bit longer, discussing in great detail the rigging of a ketch running down to Dana Point. Beautiful yacht. Then Lemon wants to go home. “I’m doing navarin du mouton tonight, and it’s a slow cooker.” Houston dismissed, Lemon’s off to his car in the executives’ lot. The Mercedes-Benz door slams with a heavy, satisfying clunk. He clicks in a CD of Schumann’s Rhenish Symphony, lights a cigar of Cuban tobacco lightly laced with a mild dose of MDMA, and tracks south on the coast highway toward Laguna Beach.
It’s been a good day, and they’ve needed one. LSR is a division of Argo AG/Blessman Enterprises, one of the world’s corporate giants; Lemon’s boss, Donald Hereford, president of LSR, is based in New York because he is also a vice-president at A/BE as well. Fascinating man, but he hasn’t been pleased with LSR’s record in the past year or two. News of this new superblack should take some heat off concerning the Ball Lightning problems and the recent string of lost bids. And that’s good. Lemon shifts over to the fast track, lets the Mercedes out.
He decides to dice two cloves of garlic rather than one into the navarin du mouton, and maybe throw in a basil leaf or two. It was a little bland the last time he made it. He hopes Elsa managed to find some good lamb. If she bothered to leave the house at all.
4
Dennis McPherson leaves LSR some time after Lemon and tracks home. Up Muddy Canyon Parkway past Signal Hill, through the Irvine condos to Jeffrey, turn left on Irvine, right on Eveningside, left on Morningside, up to the last house on the left, now a duplex; the McPhersons own the street half of the house, along with the carport and garage. As he tracks into the driveway and under the carport Dennis sees Jim’s shabby little Volvo out on the street. Here for another free meal. Dennis isn’t in the mood for any more irritants at the end of this long day, and he sighs.
He enters the house to find Jim and Lucy arguing over something, as usual. “But Mom, the World Bank only lends them money if they grow cash crops that the bank approves of, and so then they don’t do subsistence farming and they can’t feed themselves, and then the cash crops market disappears, and so they have to buy their food from the World Bank, or beg for it, and they end up owned by the bank!” “Well, I don’t know,” Lucy says, “don’t you think they’re just trying to help? It’s a generous thing to give.” “But Mom, don’t you see the principle of the thing?” “Well, I don’t know. The bank lends that money with hardly any interest at all—it really is almost like giving, don’t you think?” “Of course not!”
Dennis goes back to the bedroom to change clothes. He doesn’t even want to have the day’s debate clarified. Jim and Lucy argue like that constantly, Lucy from the Christian viewpoint and Jim from the pseudo-socialist, both mixing large matters of philosophy with questions of daily life, and making a mash of everything. Lord. It’s just theoretical for the two of them, like debaters going at it to keep in practice; just one more part of their constant talk. But Dennis hates arguments, to him they’re no more than verbal fights that can make you furious and upset you for days after. He gets his fill of that kind of thing at work.
They’re still at it when Dennis comes back out to read the daily news on the video wall. WAR IN BURMA SPILLS INTO BANGLADESH. “Stop that,” he says to them.
They eye each other, Jim amused, Lucy frustrated. “Dennis,” she complains, “we’re just talking.”
“Talk, then. No bickering.”
“But we weren’t!” Still, Lucy gives up on it and goes to prepare dinner, telling Jim about members of her church, with Jim asking highly informed questions about people he hasn’t seen in ten years. Dennis scans the news and turns the wall off; tomorrow the headlines’ll say the same thing, artfully altered to appear original. WAR SPILLS INTO (pick country)—
They sit down to dinner, Lucy says grace, they eat. Afterward Jim says, “Dad, um, sorry to mention it, but the old car is tending to shift lanes to the right whether I want it to or not. I’ve done what I could to check the program, but … I didn’t find anything.”
“The problem won’t be in the program.”
“Oh. Ah. Well, um … could you take a look at it?”
The visit is explained. Irritated, Dennis gets up and goes outside without a word. The thing is, he’s over a barrel; the freeways are in fact dangerous, and if he refuses to fix Jim’s car and tries to make him learn to do a little work of his own, then next thing he knows he’ll get a call from the CHP to tell him the fool’s car has failed and he’s dead inside, and then Dennis will have to wish that he’d done the damn repair. So he drives the thing into the garage and goes at it, unscrewing the box over the switcher mechanism by the light of a big lamp set next to him on the floor.
Jim follows him into the garage and sits on the floor to watch. Dennis slides back and forth on the floor-sled, putting all the screws in one spot, testing the magnetic function of all the points in the switcher … ah. Two are dead, two more barely functional, and commands are being transferred right on through to the right-turn points, which explains the problem. Small moment of satisfaction as he solves the little mystery, which wasn’t, after all, so mysterious. Anyone could have found it. Which returns him to his irritation with Jim. There he sits, spaced out in his own thoughts, not learning a thing about the machine he relies on utterly to be able to lead his life. Dennis sighs heavily. As he replaces the points with spares of his own (and they’re expensive) he says, “Are you doing anything about getting a full-time job?”
“Yeah, I’ve been looking.”
Sure. Besides, what kind of job is he fit to apply for? Here he’s been going to college for years, and so far as Dennis can tell, he isn’t qualified to do anything. Clerk work, a little marginal night school teaching … can that really be it? Dennis gives a screw a hard twist. What can Jim do? Well … he can read books. Yes, he can read books like nobody’s business. But Dennis can read a book too, and he didn’t go to college for six years to learn how. And meanwhile, here he is out on his back after an eleven-hour day, fixing the kid’s car!
Time to make him help. “Look here, take that point and reach down from above and insert it into this slot here,” pointing up with the screwdriver.
“Sure, Dad.” And Jim moves around the motor compartment, blocking the floor lamp’s light, and leans down into it, the point between his fingers. “There we go—oops!”
“What’d you do?”
“Dropped it. But I can see where it went—down between the motor and the distributor—just a sec—” And he’s leaning down, stretched out over the motor, blocking Dennis’s light.
“What’re you doing?”
“Just about—uh-oh—”
Jim falls into the motor compartment. His weight sinks the front end of the car abruptly and Dennis, flat on his back underneath it, is almost crushed by the underbody.
“Hey! For God’s sake!”
It’s a good thing the car has decent shocks—put in by Dennis himself last year—otherwise he would have been pancaked. Very carefully he tries to roll from beneath the car, but the edge of the body hits his ribs and … well, he can’t scrape under it. “Get your feet back on the ground and take your weight off the car!”
“I, um, I can’t. Seem to have my hand—stuck under this thing here.”
“What thing here.”
“I guess it’s the distributor. I’ve got the point, but—”
“If you drop the point, can you get your hand free?”
“Um … no. Won’t go either way.”
Dennis sighs, shifts sideways until he tilts off the floor-sled, it bangs up against the car bottom and he slides down onto the garage floor, smacking the back of his head. A slow, awkward shimmy past the track pickups, which are pressed against the ground, and he’s out from under the car.
He stands, rubs the back of his head, looks at the waving legs emerging from under the hood of the car. It looks like the kid just up and dived headfirst into the thing. In fact that’s probably pretty close to what he did. Dennis takes a flashlight and
directs its beam into the motor compartment; Jim’s head is twisted down and sideways against his chest.
“Hi,” Jim says.
Dennis points the flashlight at the end of Jim’s arm, where it disappears under the distributor. “You say you’ve let go of the point?”
“Yeah.”
Sounds like he’s had a clamp put on his throat. Dennis leans in, reaches down to the distributor, pulls the clips away and lifts the distributor cap. “Try now.”
Jim gives a sudden jerk up, his hand comes free and his head snaps back up into the hood of the car, knocking it off its cheap metal stand so that the hood comes down with a clang, just missing Dennis’s fingers and Jim’s neck. “Ow! Oops.”
Dennis looks over the frames of his garage glasses at Jim. He reopens the hood. He replaces the distributor cap. “Where did you say that point was?”
“I’ve got it,” Jim says, rubbing his head with one hand. With the other he holds the point out proudly.
Dennis finishes the job himself. As he screws the box back on he gives all the screws a really hard final twist; if Jim ever tries to get them loose (fat chance) he’ll know who screwed them in last.
“So how’s your work going?” Jim asks brightly, to fill the silence.
“Okay.”
Dennis finishes, closes up. “I’m going to have to be in Washington most of next week,” he tells his son. “Might be good if you came up an evening or two and had dinner here.”
“Okay, I’ll do that.”
Dennis puts the tools back in the tool chest.
“Well, I’m off now, I guess.”
“Say good-bye to your mom, first.”
“Oh yeah.”
Dennis follows him back in the house, shaking his head a little. Legs waving about in the air … kind of like a bug turned on its back.
Inside Jim says his farewells to Lucy.
“How come we haven’t seen Sheila lately?” Lucy asks him.
“Oh, I don’t know. We haven’t been going out that much, these last weeks.”
The Gold Coast Page 3