He smiled again. “Twenty minutes past ten,” he said resentfully. “I understand, Mr. Truett, that Mr. Pine has hired you to survey our personnel problems. What do you think he would say if he knew you were sitting here at your ease, prolonging a discussion of a murder which has no possible connection with your job?” The damn little squirt. The only satisfactory way to field that one would have been to pick him up and use him for a dust rag. Under the circumstances that satisfaction would have to be postponed. I swallowed it, stood up, and grinned down at him.
“Yeah,” I said, “I’m a great talker. It was nice of you to listen. Why don’t you put through a voucher in triplicate, or however you do it, docking me for an hour? I deserve it, I really do.” I left. If the “uh, complexities” that Pine had mentioned included a desire on the part of his brother executives and him to tie a can to Kerr Naylor’s tail, I was all for it. He sure was tricky and mean. He had me so sore that I went from his office straight to the main arena, took a random course through the labyrinth of desks, glancing in all directions at faces, shoulders, and arms, and took my time picking one who had probably been a Powers model and got fired because she made all her colleagues look below standard.
I sat on the corner of her desk and she looked up at me with the clear blue eyes of an angel and a virgin.
I leaned to her. “My name is Peter Truett,” I told her, “and I’ve been hired as a personnel expert. If your section head hasn’t told you about me…” “He has,” she said, in a sweet musical voice, a contralto, which is my favorite.
“Then please tell me, have you heard any gossip recently about a man named Moore? Waldo Wilmot Moore? Did you know him when he worked here?” She shook her head. “I’m awfully sorry,” she said, sweeter than before if anything, “but I only started here day before yesterday, and I’m leaving on Friday. Just because I can’t spell! I never could spell.” Her lovely fingers were resting on my knee and her eyes were going straight to my heart. “Mr.
Truman, do you know of any job where you don’t have to spell?” I forget exactly how I got away.
CHAPTER Seven
I had been assigned a room of my own, about the right size for an Irish setter but not big enough for a Great Dane, about midway of the row of offices that ran along the uptown side of the arena. It contained a cute little desk, three chairs, and a filing cabinet with a lock to which I had been given the key.
Apparently there were nothing but shanties across the street, since the window had space outside, and if you took it at a slant there was a good view of the East River.
I went there and sat.
It seemed I had breezed into something with insufficient consideration of strategy and tactics. As a result I had already pulled two boners. When Kerr Naylor had unexpectedly jumped the gun by shoving Moore and murder at me, I should have shrugged it off as a man with a single-track stomach and no appetite for anything but personnel problems. And when he side-stepped and caught me off balance, I should have backed clear up and looked it over, instead of getting peeved and spilling Moore’s name to a vision of delight that couldn’t spell. I was too exuberant.
On the other hand, I certainly didn’t intend to spend a week or so just getting myself established as a personnel expert. I sat there through two cigarettes, thinking it over, and then went and unlocked the filing cabinet and got out a couple of the folders I had stowed there. On one of them the tab said STOCK DEPARTMENT—STRUCTURAL METALS SECTION/font>, and on the other STOCK DEPARTMENT—CORRESPONDENCE CHECKERS SECTION. With the folders under my arm, I emerged to the arena, crossed it by a main traffic aisle, and knocked at the door of an office on the other side. When a voice told me to come in I entered.
“Excuse me,” I said, “you’re busy.” Mr. Rosenbaum, the head of the Structural Metals Section, was a middle-aged, bald-headed guy with black-rimmed glasses. He waved me on in.
“So what,” he said without a question mark. “If I ever dictated a letter without being interrupted I’d lose my train of thought. No one ever knocks around here, you just bust in. Sit down. I’ll ring later, Miss Livsey. This is the Mr. Truett mentioned in that memo we sent around. Miss Hester Livsey, my secretary, Mr.
Truett.” I was wondering how I had ever missed her, even in that colossal swarm outside, until it struck me that a section head’s secretary probably had her own room.
She was not at all spectacular, not to be compared with my non-speller, but there were two things about her that hit you at a glance. You got the instant impression that there was something beautiful about her that no one but you would ever see, and along with it the feeling that she was in some kind of trouble, real trouble, that no one but you would understand and no one but you could help her out of. If that sounds too complicated for a two-second-take, okay, I was there and I remember it distinctly.
She went out with her notebook and I sat down.
“Thanks for letting me horn in,” I told Rosenbaum, taking papers from the folder. “It won’t take long. I just want to ask a few general questions and one or two specific ones about these reports. You people have certainly got this thing organized to a T, with your sections and sub-sections. It must simplify things.” He agreed that it did. “Of course,” he added, “it gets mixed up sometimes. I’m Structural Metals, but right now I’ve got thirty-seven elephants in stock, over in Africa, and I can’t get any other section to take them. My basic position is that elephants are nonmetallic. I may have to go up to Mr. Naylor to get rid of them.” “Hah,” I said triumphantly, “so that’s where your stock is, Africa! And elephants. I’ve been wondering. With that settled, let’s tackle personnel.
Speaking of which, I noticed that your secretary, Miss Livsey, didn’t seem to be wading through bliss. I hope she’s not quitting too?” That proved she had had that effect on me as described, my going out of my way to mention her name, with no reason at all.
“Bliss?” Rosenbaum shook his head. “No, I guess she isn’t. The man she was engaged to died a few months ago. Got killed in an accident.” He shook his head again. “If it’s a part of your job to make our employees happy, I’m afraid you won’t get to first base with Miss Livsey. She’s a damn good secretary too. If I had that hit-and-run driver here I’d—do something to him.” “I’d be glad to help,” I said sympathetically. I riffled the papers. “The man she was engaged to—is he among these? Did he work here?” “Yes, but not in my section. He was a correspondence checker. It was an awful blow for her, and she stayed away—but here I go again, you’re not here to listen to me gab. What are your questions, Mr. Truett?” Since I had quit being exuberant I decided not to press it, only it did seem that wherever I went I met Waldo Wilmot Moore. We got down to business. I had questions ready that I thought were good enough to keep me from being spotted as a phony, and I stayed with him a good twenty minutes, which seemed ample for the purpose.
Then I went down the line to the office of the head of the Correspondence Checkers Section. The door was standing open and he was there alone.
Grandpa Dickerson was by no means too old or too watery-eyed to know the time of day. As soon as the preliminary courtesies had been performed and I had sat down and got the folder opened, he inquired, perfectly friendly: “I’m wondering, Mr. Truett, why you start with me?” “Well—you’re not the first, Mr. Dickerson. I’ve just had a session with Mr.
Rosenbaum. Incidentally, there’s a special problem there: are elephants personnel?” But he wasn’t having light conversation. “Even so,” he said, “I have the smallest number of employees of any section in the department. Only six men, whereas other sections have up to a hundred. Also, I have had no turnover; for nearly eight years, except one case, a man who got killed and was replaced. I’m quite willing to co-operate, but I really don’t see what you can do with me.” I nodded at him. “You’re perfectly right—from where you sit. From the standpoint of general personnel problems you’re out. But your section is something special.