This time I received no dentifice smile. The Colonel locked his hands behind him and stood with polished brown shoes about eight inches apart. Parade rest, I imagined. He thrust his chin at me.
“Mr. Dean, I think I can save us all a lot of time if I make my position clear. I represent the Pentagon here, Mr. Dean. In fact, you can quite safely say that I am the Pentagon insofar as Dean Products, Incorporated, is concerned. I am not going to mince words. There is no time for the niceties. I feel it is my duty to present my point of view straight from the shoulder, with no beating about the bush.”
His tone and manner made the back of my neck tingle. I took a step and a half and perched one haunch on the corner of Mottling’s desk. “If you have something to say, Colonel, I suggest you get to it. So far you’ve told me you’re the Pentagon.” I kept my voice mild. Dolson looked shocked. I heard a soft snort of amusement from Mottling.
Dolson was a brighter shade of pink. “Very well, sir. Your brother was not capable of carrying the load. Backed up by Stanley here, he could manage. According to my orders, I am merely the Contracting Officer here. However, I have an unwritten responsibility to see everything is done to keep this company efficiently managed. I have every confidence in Mr. Mottling. And thus I do not intend to keep my mouth shut and watch a group of reactionary old fuds toss Stanley Mottling out and put in a has-been like Granby. A has-been, or perhaps I should say a never-was.”
“An outrageously senile old man?” I asked him.
He paused for a moment and licked his lips. “Mr. Dean, it is your duty as a patriotic citizen of this country to put your vote solidly in back of Mottling at the Monday meeting. And if you are contemplating anything else, I should very much like to hear your reasons.” He gave me the forward thrust of the chin again and stood there watching me with his clear blue warrior’s eyes.
I sat swinging my leg. I looked at my shoe. I took out a cigarette and lit it and leaned over and tossed the match into Mottling’s ash tray. “I’ll be frank as you have been, Colonel.”
“I expect that of you.”
“You place your weight behind Mottling. In other words, you have taken a direct interest in the internal affairs of this organization.”
“Because it relates directly to production of key items. I will gladly defend my stand on that.”
“For the moment I’ll assume you have both the right and the obligation to meddle in the internal affairs of this company.”
“I do not consider it meddling.”
“There is a gap in your reasoning, Colonel. You claim Mottling is the better man. In other words you are exercising judgment. But how do I know the quality of your judgment, Colonel? On the basis of what past experience do you consider yourself qualified to judge the caliber of executive personnel?”
“I consider myself an excellent judge of human nature, Dean.”
“Have you ever heard anyone admit he was a poor judge? That little egotism seems to be a part of all of us. What experience do you have in industry that makes you a judge of executive ability?”
Dolson spluttered, “Young man, I have been here on the spot. I’ve watched Mottling and Granby at close range. I certainly am capable of judging—”
“Let’s not get off the point, Colonel. I see you’re not wearing a West Point ring. You must have some business background. What is it? How has it helped you judge these men?”
“I owned and managed my own business for a good many years.”
“Oh. A manufacturing concern, perhaps?”
He began to look uneasy. “In — in a rather small way, I guess you might call it that.”
“How many employees?”
“I don’t see how that is pertinent.”
“I intend to find out, Colonel, if you don’t see fit to tell me.”
He squared his shoulders “Four. But I don’t see—”
“Colonel, forgive me if I remind you that during World War II Dean Products employed over three thousand persons. The problems are quite different. I can see that you are fond of Mr. Mottling. He is a very likable man. Mr. Granby is not a likable man until you have known him for twenty years. You say you speak for the Pentagon. I imagine you know Major General McGay. He has employed tens of thousand of people in industrial operations, and he has lectured on industrial management at Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration. If you want to force an issue on this, Colonel, I would like to fly to Washington with you and listen to you tell General McGay exactly why you have taken sides in a question of the internal management of this company.”
“Are you trying to threaten me, young man?”
“I am threatening you, Colonel. I am speaking as a stockholder in this corporation. As a stockholder, I expect complete impartiality from you. You are the Military. As a stockholder, I am interested in my dividends, and I am interested in my right to elect, or help elect, the officers and directors of this corporation. I resent being pushed, and I resent your pushing other stockholders. There’s the phone. Tell me what you plan to do. I know I can get an appointment with General McGay for tomorrow.” Throughout all this I had kept my voice calm and reasonable. I smiled at him. He looked shaken. I had turned out to be a very different item from what he had imagined.
“I think you should know, Dean, that I have been trying to follow my orders to the best of my ability.”
“And I hope that I am making it clear you are stepping into an area where you don’t belong, Colonel. I question your ability to function in that area. I question your experience. And I question your judgment when you insist on calling me Dean. I’m Mister Dean, Colonel. So step out of this, or we’ll take it to Washington.” The business about the name was childish, but I needed it as an additional jab to keep him off balance.
It took him a long and unhappy twenty seconds. Some of the military starch wilted. He went over to Mottling and stuck out his hand. “Stanley, I did as much as I could. Good luck to you. And good day to you, Mr. Dean.” He walked out without looking back, and closed the door gently behind him.
As soon as he was gone I felt the familiar weakness in my knees, the results of reaction. Mottling knocked his pipe out and started restuffing it. “When you were a kid,” he asked, “did you pull the wings off flies?” He grinned at me.
“All the time.”
“You were right, of course. Absolutely right. He was anxious to back me. I didn’t think it would hurt to let him go ahead. Maybe it did, eh?”
“My reasoning doesn’t run that way, Mr. Mottling. I just wanted him out of the picture.”
“He’s out and that was a thorough enough job to keep him out. Nice technique, Gevan. You didn’t raise your voice once. By the way, who is this McGay? I can’t remember hearing about him.”
“I made him up.”
He stared at me, lighted match poised over his pipe. Then he lowered the match and lit the pipe, making little pah-pah sounds with his lips. He shook the match out. “For God’s sake, don’t ever let Curt Dolson know that.”
“I don’t intend to.”
“And don’t let me ever play poker with you. By the way, are you for me or against me?”
I liked the way he asked that. “I really don’t know yet.”
“Once you make up your mind, I’d appreciate a little advance warning. That is, if you intend to back Granby. Let me know privately and I promise to keep it to myself. You see, if I’m going to be out, I want to get other irons into the fire as quickly as I can.”
“I’ll agree to that.”
“Thanks. You know, I like the way you handled Dolson. I like the way your mind works, Gevan. I can understand better the difference between you and your brother. If I should be put in here as president, I’d like to have you stay around. You could be a big help.”