Too Many Women

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.

Everybody in the place regards your six men as dirty lowdown snoops, and you’re the Master Snoop.” It didn’t feeze him. He merely nodded back at me. “How do you propose to change that?” “Oh, I don’t. But it certainly ties it in with personnel difficulties. For instance, the man that got killed. Don’t you know there has been talk around that his death wasn’t an accident?” “Nonsense! Talk!” He tapped on his desk blotter. “Look here, young man, are you intimating that the functioning of this section has been the cause, directly or indirectly, of the commission of a crime?” “Yes.” His jaw trembled, and then came open and hung open. I was restraining myself from taking my handkerchief and wiping his eyes.

“That’s not the way to put it,” I said with emphasis, “but it was you who put it that way. I would say it more like this, that the talk about that man’s death is certainly one of the personnel problems around here, and Mr. Naylor himself suggested that I might use it as one of my starting points. Do you mind my asking a few questions about him? About Moore?” “I resent any insinuation that the operation of this section has resulted in any injustice or has been the cause of any legitimate desire to retaliate.” His jaw was back under control.

“Okay. Who said anything about legitimate? Desires to retaliate come in all flavors. But about this Moore, how did he rate with you? Was he a good worker?” “No.” “No?” I was matter-of-fact. “What was wrong with him?” The old man’s jaw trembled again, but it didn’t come open. When he had it in hand he spoke. “I have been in charge of this section ever since it started, over twenty years ago. Last April I had five men under me, and I regarded that as adequate. But a new man was hired and I was told to put him to work. He was incompetent, and I so reported, but my report was ignored. We had to put up with him. On several occasions his mistakes would have discredited the section if we had not been alert. It made it harder for all of us.” I thought to myself, my God, here we go again. I was trying to get started narrowing it down, and here were six more added to the list, Dickerson himself and five loyal checkers, who might have been irritated into killing Moore for the honor of the section. Now everybody was in except Kerr Naylor himself.

“But,” I objected, “what about the hiring regulations? I understand there is no overall personnel control and each department head rolls his own in theory, but in practice the section heads have the say. Who hired Moore and saddled you with him?” “I don’t know.” “How could you help knowing?” Dickerson used his own handkerchief on his eyes, which relieved the tension a lot for me. I hoped he would keep the handkerchief in his hand, but he deliberately and neatly returned it to his pocket.

“This,” he said, “is a very large concern, the largest in the world in its field, and beyond all comparison the best. Naturally the authority is tightly organized. No one on this floor is my superior except the head of the department, Mr. Kerr Naylor, the son of one of the founders. Therefore any exercise of authority can be brought to bear on me only through Mr. Naylor.” “Then it was Naylor who hired Moore?” “I don’t know.” “But it was Naylor who said you needed another man and wished Moore on you?” “Certainly. The line of authority is as I have described it.” “What else can you tell me about Moore besides his incompetence?” “Why, nothing.” Dickerson’s look and tone indicated that he regarded my question as silly. Obviously, if a man was incompetent that settled it; nothing else about him mattered one way or another. But it appeared that he was willing to concede that even a competent man must eat. He pulled a watch from his vest pocket, looked at it, and stated, “My lunch hour starts at twelve, Mr. Truett.”