The Erection Set

The Farnsworth Aviation report was brief. Barrin couldn’t handle its projected output, but certain McMillan plants could.

And the raid was on.

Until the recess when the Farnsworth vice-president asked me over a cup of coffee if I had full title to a certain piece of arid desert land and I told him I did ... acres and acres of it. In fact, quite a few square sections of the damn snake-infested place where the tourists took photographs.

Would I sell?

Conditionally, yes.

Leyland Hunter liked to have had a shit hemorrhage.

The picture of the old man was smiling more broadly now. I was taking the big run prior to leaping the chasm and he was waiting for me to fall in because I didn’t quite get up enough speed. All the dirty slob wanted was for me to hit the side and carom down into total disaster knowing I almost made it. And almost isn’t enough.

Pathos didn’t become the old lawyer. Sympathy wasn’t his bag at all, even when it came to me. He could purse his lips and remember the two broads in bed and even old Dubro, but legal sympathy he couldn’t afford. He shook his head politely, took a bite of his tuna fish salad and said, “It isn’t enough to save Barrin, Dog.”

“What do they need?”

“A miracle,” he suggested.

“Money won’t do it?”

“Didn’t a certain Roland Holland tell you the pros and cons of the great fiscal situation?”

“Somewhat, Mighty Hunter, but I’m no mathematician. Numbers come hard to me.”

“Only your dick comes hard to you.”

“Save the dirty talk for the dolls.”

“Your land sale can keep Barrin alive for a month, and that’s only because the public spotlight is on the scene. The minute it’s off ... good-bye.”

“You sound depressed,” I said.

“Naturally. I lived through an era. No, an epoch. I hate to see it destroyed. You opened the Pandora’s box and let them all take a peek. They went for the bait and now the world collapses around them.” He paused, looked at me intently, then asked, “How much are you worth in cash?”

“A few million left.”

“Forget it, unless you feel like playing Santa Claus in a town of unbelieving kids. In one day they’re all going to know and go home to broken dreams. I told you the worst thing to do was come back.”

“Horseshit.”

“You’ve lost, Dog.” The way he said it was adamant.

This time I had to fake it. “Bullshit.”

“No matter what animal drops it, the stuff is still feces,” he told me. “I’ll never know why you did it.”

“All I wanted was to come home.”

“You see what happened when you did?”

“Shit.”

“What happened to the animals?”

“Look behind you.”

Bennie Sachs hitched his gun belt up, nodded and took a seat beside my lawyer, but he didn’t bother to even look at him. “We traced the car.”

“I could have told you it was mine,” I said

“Plastics.”

“Uh-huh. On the exhaust pipe. Heat sensor.”

“Pretty smart, aren’t you?”

“Right, friend.”

“I had a call from New York.”

“To be expected.”

“I don’t like you, Mr. Kelly.”

“And I didn’t ask for any admiration, either. What’s your problem now?”

“Certain McMillan personnel are in town.”

“Good for them.”

“They’re guards in his other plant. They seem to have a project in mind.”

“Why haven’t they hit me then? I haven’t been hiding.”

“That’s what I can’t figure out. Yet. But I will.”

“Very nice, Officer. Just remember that you’re here to protect your constituency.”

“Go piss up a stick, Mr. Kelly.”

I said, “I tried that once, but it all ran down on my hand.”

When he left, Leyland said, “I didn’t get that.”

“I didn’t either,” I said. “Let’s go back to the meeting. The raid ought to be about over.”

The legal language sounded like a papal encyclical and it all boiled down to one thing. Cross McMillan owned Barrin Industries and Cross McMillan was committed to destroying Barrin Industries and there was no possible hope of keeping Barrin or Linton alive. The current contracts would be honored, but executed in other factories, leaving Barrin a shell without even a hermit crab to take occupancy.

Inside the building the machines were humming and the operators were smiling, but the crunch was on the way and the lunch buckets and thermos bottles would be just another nostalgic memory of days that almost were. How many times could a guy say “shit!” ... so that it was an expletive like saying something when you bashed your finger with a hammer?

Screw the money. They all had their social security, their guaranteed pension, and if the government kept up its comlib policies, they could get even more, except these weren’t the ones to ask for it.

All they had was a hope and I smashed it.

There sure would be a lot of people at my funeral.

Everyone would be laughing.

I lit a cigarette and lounged back against the wall until he came out and when I saw him I said, “Hello, Cross. I hear you want to kill me.”