As he walked to the cabinet, Holly Broon slumped down in one of the large leather chairs facing him across the table. She called out to his back, "A double in a big glass. No ice. No mix."
Another problem. Should he drink with her? Let her drink alone? Oh, the difficulties in drawing the line between corporate image and personal pushiness.
He poured Holly Broon's drink, using a shot glass to measure out exactly two ounces, decided on coffee for himself, but changed his mind at the last minute and poured himself tea. Coffee was so… so, plebeian.
Holly had taken her drink from his hand and when he turned toward her with his teacup, her glass was half empty.
"What are you doing here?" she asked.
He had anticipated that question all the way over in his car. And even though Holly Broon now stood to inherit control of ten percent of IDC's outstanding stock, and could guarantee him the corporate presidency, he had decided to tell her as little as he could get away with.
"Before your father's untimely demise," he said, "He put me in charge of a special computer operation. This is where it's headquartered."
How much did she know? Were the stories true about her being old T.L.'s brains? If they were, then she already knew what he was up to. His answer was bland enough to go either way if she gave him any inkling of how much she knew.
He met her eyes straight on, which he knew was the right thing to do, and raised the teacup to his lips so she could not see any telltale expression around his mouth. The eyes can usually disguise a lie, but the mouth rarely can.
"I know you were put in charge. What have you produced?"
"I was working on personal orders from T.L., Miss Broon. It was kind of a novel approach to corporate problems but one with great promise and that showed genius. T.L. wanted a computerized setup of the entire country… interrelationships between private industry and government at all levels, the impact of law enforcement, the courts, the unions, yes, even of the criminal element." There. That still gave away nothing.
"Why?" she said. She was making it difficult
"IDC needed to have solid information on the social structure of the country in order to make sensible long-range decisions based upon our very best planning."
Holly drained the rest of her glass and without a word held it out to Corbish for a refill. As he took the glass from her hand, she said, "You're full of shit."
He turned toward the liquor cabinet before saying, "I beg your pardon."
"I said, you're full of shit. First, T.L., didn't give a rat's ass about social structures. He wanted to sell computers. Second, even if he did, it's hardly likely that he would have bought you this mausoleum to fool around in. Why this place?"
As he refilled the glass, Corbish smiled slightly to himself. "Actually," he said, "this place has been kind of a testing ground for IDC computers for some time. All our latest models are here, even the newest generation that isn't on the market yet. I gather that this place was formerly some kind of government information-gathering network. Much of the information T.L. wanted was already in the computers here, and he sent me up to plug into it for maximum utilization."
He turned with the drink. Holly took the glass and nodded. She held it between the fingertips of both hands and looked over it at Corbish, her head tilted down, her heavy-lashed eyes fixed on him, seductively showing whites under her irises.
Corbish recognized the look and knew he had her. She had given up trying to break him; now she was going to use feminine wiles on him. Why, this would be a piece of cake, he thought.
"How would you like to be the next president of IDC?" she asked.
He lifted then put down his teacup and walked around behind his desk. "I'm overwhelmed, Miss Broon. I never…"
"Don't crap me," she said. "You always. All of you vice presidents. And don't think I just promised you anything. I only asked how you'd like to be president."
Blake Corbish, who that morning had considered the power he wielded through CURE, had already decided that he would indeed be president, but not just of IDC. He chose his words carefully and paused before speaking.
"More than anything else I can imagine," he lied.
"You know, as my father's heir, I'm the largest single stockholder."
"Yes, Miss Broon."
"I can't guarantee you anything," she said, "but between my stock holdings and my influence with the board, I think I could pick Mickey Mouse if I wanted."
Corbish nodded. No comment seemed necessary.
"I just wanted to be sure you aren't really Mickey Mouse," she said. "I don't know yet whether you are or whether you just think I am, with that ridiculous story you've been giving me about your work here."
She sipped at her vodka, waiting for a comment. The silence hung in the room for a moment as each cooly took the other's measure. Finally, Corbish said, "You must understand, Miss Broon, that I've been here less than ten days. It would really take more time than that to figure everything out and to draw the kind of conclusions T. L. must have been looking for."
They stared at each other a moment longer, neither satisfied with Blake's no-information answer, and then the telephone rang on Corbish's desk. Without taking his eyes off Holly Broon, he slowly snaked his hand toward it.
In Cleveland, Dr. Harold Smith walked into a telephone booth on a street corner, looked carefully at his newly purchased wristwatch, then dialed the operator.
He fished a stopwatch from his jacket pocket as he said, "I'd like to make a long distance call to Rye, New York." He gave the operator the area code and number.
"That will be three dollars and twenty cents," the operator said.
"I'm going to talk for three and a half minutes," Smith said. "How much will the extra minute be?"
"That will be, let's see, seventy cents extra."
"All right, operator. I'll pay for it now. Just a moment please." Smith hooked the receiver on the small shelf under the phone and began to click quarters out of the bus driver's changer he wore on his side under his jacket. He clicked out four, deposited them, did that twice more, then clicked out three more quarters, a dime and a nickel, and put them into the phone.
"Thank you," the operator said, "I'll put the call through now."
Smith heard the beeps on the line as the line transfers were made. He hoped that no one had changed the private line on his desk, which he had used only for outgoing personal calls. Then Smith heard the phone ring. Quickly, he depressed the pushbutton on the stopwatch and looked down at it. The phone was picked up on the first ring.
"Hello," came the voice, sharp, crisply efficient as Smith had remembered it, with little accent and no trace of regionalism.
Smith waited a few seconds until the voice said "hello" again.
"Corbish," Smith asked.
"Yes."
"This is Smith." Smith glanced at his watch. Twenty seconds had gone by. He heard a sudden sip of air at the other end of the phone and then a quick recovery.
"Well, hello, doctor, where are you?"
"That's really rather immaterial," said Smith drily. "You've installed yourself at Folcroft, I take it?"
"Why not? Someone has to keep things running."
"I've called, Corbish, to appeal to you." By now, Smith figured, Corbish should have recovered from the shock of Smith's voice and should be reaching for the switch that would activate CURE's elaborate phone-tracing system.
"What kind of appeal?" came Corbish's voice. Right, Smith thought. Ask questions. Keep the old fool talking.
"I wanted to appeal to you to give up this mad enterprise you're conducting."
"I don't know why you should consider it mad, doctor. It's very sensible, that is, from a corporate point of view. Don't you agree."
"No, I don't agree," Smith said. "But if I can't talk to you from that standpoint, perhaps as an American. Can't you see you're tampering with the very structure of our society? That there could be dangerous ramifications of what you are doing?"