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Authors: John D. MacDonald
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head and lashed it to a piece of wood. It must have given him a good satisfaction when he swung the completed tool. And there was a satisfaction in directing the skilled operation that made Dean Products tick, which turned materials into something that could be hefted, used. The skill was the value you added.
I remembered how it used to be with my father. When a new item was going into production, his desk top would be littered with machined component parts. He’d spend a lot of time picking them up and turning them over and over in his hands, holding them just so, so the light would turn machined steel surfaces into tiny mirrors. There was always a pair of coveralls hanging in his office closet and he was supposed to put them on before he went out into the production areas. But something would go wrong and he would forget and go bulling down and wade into the trouble and get grease smeared. Then Mother would give him a mean time, and so would his secretary, old Miss Brownell.
Remembering Miss Brownell made me think of my second valid source of information. When ancient Miss Brownell had finally retired, I asked Hilderman to recommend someone from the stenographic pool, someone I could take into my office on trial. Hilderman had sent Joan Perrit to me, and I wondered if he had suddenly acquired holes in the head. She was nineteen, and gawky andnervous, and she plunged around the office with such a reckless desire to please that I was in constant fear she would fracture herself on the furniture or fall out the window. She was painfully shy. But she could make a typewriter sound like small boys running and holding sticks against a picket fence. And she could take down and transcribe every mumble and grunt in a ten-man conference where everybody interrupted everybody else.
Technical excellence was just part of her arsenal of talents. Inside of a month she knew my style of expressing myself so perfectly that I couldn’t tell which letters I had dictated and which ones I had told her to handle. And she managed to fend off the pests, even those who would have gotten by Miss Brownell, without ever offending anybody, and without ever shooing away anyone that I wanted to see. She had schedules and timetables and appointments neatly filed away in her pretty head, and each morning when I came into the office there would be a typed notation on my desk, placed with geometric exactness atop the mail I should see. That notation would tell me not only the fixed appointments, but what was likely to come up.
She was a sweet kid, with dark red hair and a look of virginal freshness. She was so loyal it was embarrassing. On the morning I dictated my letter of resignation, she had to leave the office. She was gone a full ten minutes, and when she came back her eyes were reddened and swollen, but her voice was level and calm again as she read back to me the last sentence I had dictated.
I got her on the phone and her voice was just the same as on that last day. “I heard you were in town, Mr. Dean.”
I wondered how much four years had changed her. “I wonder if I could talk to you, Miss Perrit.”
“Of course, Mr. Dean. When?”
“Say this evening. After dinner sometime.”
“Will nine o’clock at the corner of Martin and Lamont be all right? In front of the leather shop.” I agreed. Though her voice had not changed, I knew she undersrtood I wanted information. Thus the quickness of her response was anindication she felt there was information to be given. I trusted her judgment.
After lunch I looked up car rental agencies in the phone book and found one quite close to the hotel. I rented a new Chevrolet sedan. I drove by the house where I was born, and headed south out of the city. At The Pig and It I found that Lita Genelli was off duty. I drove through the countryside for a time, parked near a place where we had always had family picnics. But they had changed everything. The elms and willows were gone. The area had been graded
I remembered how it used to be with my father. When a new item was going into production, his desk top would be littered with machined component parts. He’d spend a lot of time picking them up and turning them over and over in his hands, holding them just so, so the light would turn machined steel surfaces into tiny mirrors. There was always a pair of coveralls hanging in his office closet and he was supposed to put them on before he went out into the production areas. But something would go wrong and he would forget and go bulling down and wade into the trouble and get grease smeared. Then Mother would give him a mean time, and so would his secretary, old Miss Brownell.
Remembering Miss Brownell made me think of my second valid source of information. When ancient Miss Brownell had finally retired, I asked Hilderman to recommend someone from the stenographic pool, someone I could take into my office on trial. Hilderman had sent Joan Perrit to me, and I wondered if he had suddenly acquired holes in the head. She was nineteen, and gawky andnervous, and she plunged around the office with such a reckless desire to please that I was in constant fear she would fracture herself on the furniture or fall out the window. She was painfully shy. But she could make a typewriter sound like small boys running and holding sticks against a picket fence. And she could take down and transcribe every mumble and grunt in a ten-man conference where everybody interrupted everybody else.
Technical excellence was just part of her arsenal of talents. Inside of a month she knew my style of expressing myself so perfectly that I couldn’t tell which letters I had dictated and which ones I had told her to handle. And she managed to fend off the pests, even those who would have gotten by Miss Brownell, without ever offending anybody, and without ever shooing away anyone that I wanted to see. She had schedules and timetables and appointments neatly filed away in her pretty head, and each morning when I came into the office there would be a typed notation on my desk, placed with geometric exactness atop the mail I should see. That notation would tell me not only the fixed appointments, but what was likely to come up.
She was a sweet kid, with dark red hair and a look of virginal freshness. She was so loyal it was embarrassing. On the morning I dictated my letter of resignation, she had to leave the office. She was gone a full ten minutes, and when she came back her eyes were reddened and swollen, but her voice was level and calm again as she read back to me the last sentence I had dictated.
I got her on the phone and her voice was just the same as on that last day. “I heard you were in town, Mr. Dean.”
I wondered how much four years had changed her. “I wonder if I could talk to you, Miss Perrit.”
“Of course, Mr. Dean. When?”
“Say this evening. After dinner sometime.”
“Will nine o’clock at the corner of Martin and Lamont be all right? In front of the leather shop.” I agreed. Though her voice had not changed, I knew she undersrtood I wanted information. Thus the quickness of her response was anindication she felt there was information to be given. I trusted her judgment.
After lunch I looked up car rental agencies in the phone book and found one quite close to the hotel. I rented a new Chevrolet sedan. I drove by the house where I was born, and headed south out of the city. At The Pig and It I found that Lita Genelli was off duty. I drove through the countryside for a time, parked near a place where we had always had family picnics. But they had changed everything. The elms and willows were gone. The area had been graded
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