Easy and Hard Ways Out (32 page)

“You have to sign, Harvey,” said Ardway.

“Where's LoParino?” asked Brank. His nose was totally stuffed. His head ached.

“You know,” said Rupp in an avuncular tone, “that little petition was really spectacularly naïve. We knew about it faster than you feel the pain from a kick in the—” He grinned. “Palo Alto, about now,” he continued. “Your friend's location, I mean. Taking advantage of a very fine arrangement we made for him with a vendor of ours out there. A truly unique position, at a unique salary. Fitted him perfectly.”

Someone must've had an opening for a schizophrenic, thought Brank.

“The need was immediate, the opportunity was there … and he took it. That's where your friend is, Harvey. All of a sudden, he grew up.”

Brank took the pen in his hand, fingered it absently. I have confidence in you, Joan had said.

“The same type of opportunity could just as easily be yours,” said Rupp, his voice rising sonorously, filling the room. “Just evaluate things objectively, look at them as they are in the real world.”

Personal integrity, thought Brank. Personal integrity. Or vanity. Unless one existed in a vacuum, the two were inseparable. He looked at Pat, saw instantly what Steinberg had missed. She was wearing contact lenses. Her expression was pained, but also remote, as if witnessing an ax murder in a movie. For the first time, Brank noticed she had tits.

“Really,” said Ardway, “all it is is a formality.” He swiveled his head in a series of jerky, birdlike movements.

Brank felt sorry for him.

Brank looked down at the data sheet, noticed the last two columns duplicated exactly the third column. They should've changed them a
little
, he thought.

“This isn't even a good fake,” he said.

“If you don't sign,” said Rupp, his voice very calm and resigned now, “one of the other engineers will simply sign in your place, and your protest will have gone totally unnoticed. There'll be no dramatic, martyr-type firing. Instead we'll merely, ah, ‘re-evaluate' your judgment and decision-making capabilities, probably give you tasks that are less challenging, perhaps assign you to work under other engineers, such as Lubell. Or have you help out in the Drafting Department. In six months, possibly a year, we'd quietly let you go. Actually, I'd hazard a guess that by that time the decision to leave would come from you, not us. After that, of course, things might be somewhat sticky. Your employment record and our references would probably rule out aerospace; teaching positions have ten applicants for every opening, and … But, I suppose you have savings.”

“I could tell the Air Force right now,” said Brank. “I could tell that lieutenant.”

“An embarrassment,” said Rupp, nodding. “Poor Wizer would have to swear the data was true, we'd invoke the Auerbach name, produce records of your work history to suggest an unreliable, disgruntled employee … in short, we'd have to talk ourselves blue for about ten minutes. But knowing Colonel McGuinn—and I do, quite well—I think we'd emerge reasonably unscarred. In those circumstances, of course, your termination would have to be instantaneous.”

Steinberg sneezed. Brank remembered he had a cold, and also sneezed.

“But why be so negative?” said Rupp. “We think you've done an excellent job. You've shown unusual conscientiousness. We're aware of that, and we intend to reward it properly, just as we've done with LoParino. Now you're not going to throw all that away, Harvey, for any reason, much less a pointless gesture. I know you're not. You've worked too hard.”

Brank felt like laughing.
LoParino had shown unusual conscientiousness
, they were telling him.

“It's only a formality, Harvey,” said Ardway. “It really doesn't matter.”

Stand up to those … fucks, Joan had said. Brank leaned over the data sheet. For an instant he understood, sensed really, why his son ripped to shreds the things he made.
You'll find something. I have confidence in you
. Brank shook his head. I won't, he thought.

And signed.

“It was entirely cowardly,” Brank admitted to Schneck later, in the Accounting men's room. “A rotten, craven, pusillanimous, mean-spirited act.”

Schneck perched on the top railing of a partition separating commodes. “Oh, it's not that bad. I think you could leave out ‘mean-spirited.' I mean, look at
my
disaster. Besides, after all that happened, I think your signing LoParino's name is a kind of poetic … injustice.”

“The Air Force team didn't seem to pick it up,” said Brank forlornly. “But at least maybe Rupp sweated a bit. A vein did pop out in his forehead when he saw it. Just like he was having a difficult bowel movement, same look, same vein. Ah, but of course it had no practical value, accomplished nothing.”

“Always an accomplishment to pop management veins,” said Schneck. “Naturally, they're going to fire you. Naturally.”

“I don't know,” said Brank. “After all, I did sign.”

“You could live here,” said Schneck hopefully, his hirsute fingers curling tightly around the metal rod. “I could show you things, we could build another gun, it's really quite comfortable actually.”

“Thank you,” said Brank. “I don't think so. But thank you anyway.”

“What will you do then?”

In the end, Brank thought, there aren't many sensible alternatives to living in the men's room. “Same as always,” he said. “Try to keep my weight off the foot that's about to step in the crap.”

They were just ready to shake hands when the outer door opened and Schneck quickly slid from view. Brank left, mumbling a greeting to Lubell, who was casually entering one of the cubicles. Brank felt simultaneously relieved and sick, a familiar sensation, one he'd learned to tolerate. He went to a phone and dialed “O.”

“Please page Larry Lubell to call Mr. Redberry. It's extremely urgent.”

He was a third of the way down the corridor when the page came, and he barely noticed an anxious Lubell bursting from the men's room, eyes wide, wet hands holding up his pants. At least they don't have my name, thought Brank, as Lubell scrambled toward the phone.

Buchfarer's eyes were still on Chaplin when he heard Kinsella's high-pitched scream in his ears.

“SAM! SAM! SAM! SAM!”

He looked down to his left and saw them coming, three telephone poles whooshing up above the clouds, two headed directly at him, one veering off in a flat arc and beginning to wobble erratically. The latter was probably trying to home in on Chaplin, who was already diving, the standard evasive maneuver. For Buchfarer, it was too late for evasive maneuvers; the low ceiling had prevented them from spotting the SAM launching flashes in time. His instruments made the rhythmic pulsing sound that indicated the SAMs had locked on to his plane. He flicked his break-lock switch, banked sharply right, and looked back to see them whiz by. Instead, they turned with him, drawing closer—slim, vicious, robot cylinders that could not be shaken, terrifyingly fast, twin dots converging on the center of his radar screen. He put the aircraft into a dive and yelled into the intercom.

“Kinny, did you actuate your break-lock? Kinny!”

Inside the metal container that held the electronic counter-measures gear, inside a separate aluminum chassis, a microscopic polished black sphere, having fallen off its mounting rod, rolled freely in a small stainless steel cavity.

“Not working!” shouted Kinsella.

Almost subliminally then, Buchfarer perceived the tiny black clouds of exploding anti-aircraft shells, quiet, deadly
pff
s seen in watery slow motion off to one side. Eighty-five millimeter, he recorded distantly, and one second afterward a jagged, exploding chunk of white-hot metal tore him neatly in half, just below the waist.

Months later, Buchfarer's wife would claim that the instant before his death she'd received a telepathed message—“I love you”—from her husband. She found the thought comforting, and under the circumstances, no one was inclined to dispute her. In fact, however, there'd been no more time for messages than there'd been to eject. Buchfarer's last set of nervous impulses were involuntary and chaotic, an ebbing wave radiating hysterically across the surface of his cerebrum, a final, conscious burst of dream: He is seated at a table on a summer day, nibbling plums from a large red bowl. The juice runs down the corners of his mouth. It is sunny out, but not too hot, and the plums are unbearably sweet.

AUERBACH LABORATORIES

Inter-Office Memorandum
1/11/67

From: S. Brine

To: S. Rupp

cc: ——

Subject: J. Dubrowolski

FBI agents were recently at the Labs investigating the whereabouts of J. Dubrowolski, engineer, Microwave Dept., who apparently had neglected to return numerous Selective Service questionnaire forms, had subsequently been drafted, and then could not be located. As you know, at the time, the matter was handled by Personnel, who, after a record search, informed the agents that no such person ever worked here. At the insistence of the FBI, Personnel eventually referred the matter to me. My investigation has showed that the individual in question was known to EPICAC simply as “Dubrowo,” which is why no “Dubrowolski” appeared in the company records. According to the FBI, whereabouts of this individual are still unknown.

Very truly yours,

S. Brine              

AUERBACH LABORATORIES

Inter-Office Memorandum
1/12/67

From: A. Lancelot

To: Appropriate Personnel Files

Subject: Leon Peretz—Engineer, Advanced Devices

Subject has resigned, no reason given. Subject had communication and psychological difficulties. (See memo to file, 8/11.)

Subject: Rocco Capobianco—Maintenance

Subject, a long-term employee, caught stealing towels from men's room. According to information from S. Brine, subject responsible for series of thefts, as well as abuse of the paging system and various crank memos. In view of subject's age and length of service, no charges will be pressed, although subject terminated as of 12/30. No severance pay granted.

Subject: Harvey Brank—Engineer, Microwave

Subject recently signed false name on important test data. In view of this, and subject's erratic history of previous employment (see initial application), H. Ardway has recommended termination. S. Rupp, however, has suggested probationary period, with subject initially assigned to replace L. Peretz (see above). Will discuss further.

News Item

NEW YORK—The Air Force announced today the award of a two-million-dollar follow-on contract to Auerbach Laboratories, Inc. of Long Island, New York, to “trouble-shoot, update and improve” the electronic countermeasures system on the currently grounded F24BZ fighter plane. Present at the awards ceremonies were Herbert Redberry of Auerbach Laboratories, Col. Eugene McGuinn representing the Air Force, and Congressman Jerold Schnerr (D–N.Y.) who stated, “The award of this contract, so vital to the security of our nation, to a firm located in this state and employing the people therein, represents a great and sacred trust, which we are honored to accept and pledge to faithfully discharge.”

—
Combined Wire Services,
September 18, 1969

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

copyright © 1975 by Robert Grossbach

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