Destroyer 87: Mob Psychology
By Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir
Chapter 1
Now that two men were holding him down on the soggy ground and a third had submerged his head in the cranberry bog, Wally Boyajian reluctantly concluded that it had all been too good to be true, after all.
This must be a hazing ritual, Wally thought wildly as he held his breath, his lips compressed to keep out the brackish bog water that was already clogging his nostrils. It was the only explanation.
He had showed up for the job interview bright and early at eight A. M. sharp. Wally had no more stepped up to the reception desk than the blue-blazered security guard immediately buzzed the vice-president in charge of systems outreach.
"Your eight o'clock is here, Mr. Tollini," he said crisply.
"Show him in, quick."
"Mr. Tollini will see you now," the lobby guard had said, pointing down the luxuriously carpeted hallway. "South wing. Last door at the end of the hall."
"Thank you," said Wally Boyajian, fresh out of the Darrigo Computer Institute on his first postgraduate job interview. He straightened his tie as his gray Hush Puppies gathered a charge of static electricity from the carpet.
The door at the end of the south wing was marked
"ANTONY TOLLINI, VICE-PRESIDENT IN CHARGE OF SYSTEMS OUTREACH."
Wally hesitated. He was a computer engineer. What was the VP in charge of systems outreach doing screening job applicants for customer service?
But this was International Data Corporation, the Mamaro neck Monster, the company that put the frame in mainframe and a PC in every office. They never made mistakes.
Steeling himself, Wally grasped the doorknob.
"Ouch!" he said, withdrawing his static-stung hand.
The door whipped open and the eager ferretlike face of Antony Tollini greeted him.
"Mr. Boysenberry. Come in. So glad to meet you," Tollini was saying, pumping Wally's tingling hand with both of his. Tollini had a handshake like a cold tuna steak. Wally barely noticed this as he was ushered into the well-appointed office.
"Sit down, sit down," Tollini was saying. His sparse, uneven mustache twitched and bristled as lie took his own seat. He wore Brooks Brothers gray. Everyone at IDC wore Brooks Brothers gray. Including the secretaries.
Wally sat down. He cleared his throat. "I want to tell you, Mr. Tollini, that I'm very excited that IDC agreed to interview me for the senior technician job. After all, I just graduated. And I know how tight the job market is right now."
"You're hired," Tollini said quickly.
Wally's eyes jumped wide. His eyebrows retreated into the shaggy shelf of hair above them.
"I am?" he said blankly.
"Can you start today?"
"Today?" blurted Wally, who was having trouble keeping up with the conversation. "Well, I guess so, if you really want"
"Fantastic," said Antony Tollini, jumping out from behind his desk. He practically gathered Wally Boyajian out of his chair with a friendly arm around his shoulder and piloted him out into the corridor. "You start now."
"Now?" Wally gulped.
The fatherly hand fell away like a deadweight.
"If you can't," Tollini said crisply, "there are other applicants. "
No, no. Now is fine. I just assumed I'd have to be called back for a follow-up interview before-"
"Here at IDC we take pride is recognizing talent early," Antony Tollini said, the warm arm returning to its place across Wally's shoulders like the waterlogged arm of an octopus slipping onto a coral shelf.
"I guess . ." Wally said as he found himself pushed through a half-open door marked "CUSTOMER SERVICE."
"Hey, everyone," Antony Tollini shouted out, "meet Wally Boysenberry--" ,
"Boyajian. It's Armenian."
"Wally's our new senior customer engineer," Tollini was saying.
All around the room, grave-faced technicians in white lab smocks perked up. The stony pallor dropped from their faces as if cracked loose by a sculptor's chisel. Smiles lit up the room. There was a smattering of polite applause.
Wally Boyajian smiled weakly. He had never been applauded for his technical knowledge before.
"Oh, when do you start, Wally?" asked a breathy-voiced redhead.
"Wally starts right now, don't you, son?" Tollini said, clapping Wally on the back so hard his horn-rimmed glasses nearly jumped off his narrow-bridged nose.
"That's right," gulped Wally, going with the flow. Going with the flow was very important at IDC, where it was said that when the CEO expired, the entire payroll was promoted and a global search for the perfect office boy was ?begun.
This time everyone stood up. The applause was unanimous.
They surged in his direction like groupies toward a rock star. Instantly Wally found himself besieged by white lab smocks.
"Oh, that's wonderful, Wally."
"You'll love it at IDC, Wally."
"Here's your LANSCII documentation, Wally."
Blinking, Wally accepted the heavy blue looseleaf notebook embossed with the IDC logo.
"LANSCII?" he said. "That's a language I never heard of"
"It's new," Antony Tollini was saying. "Pilot program stuff. You'll need it to debug our Boston client's system."
"I will?"
Suddenly the stony faces came back. Wounded eyes searched his perplexed face for signs of hope.
The redhead drew close to him, treating Wally Boyajian to a whiff of some indescribably alluring perfume. Since. he was allergic to perfumes, he sneezed.
"But," she said worriedly, "you are going to Boston, aren't you, Wally?"
Wally sneezed again.
"Oh, no!" a technician moaned. "He's sick!" The technician went three shades paler. "He can't go!"
Stricken looks replaced the worried ones.
"Of course he's going," shouted Antony Tollini, whipping a red travel-agency envelope from inside his coat and shoving it into the vent pocket of Wally's only suit. "We got him booked on a ten-o'clock flight."
"Boston?" Wally said, blowing into a hastily extracted handkerchief.
"First class."
"Oh, you'll love Boston, Wally," a chipper voice said.
"Yes, Boston is so . . . so historical."
" I . . ." Wally sputtered.
Antony Tollini said, "We're putting you in a first-class hotel. A limo will meet you at the airport. Naturally, since you won't have time to go home and pack, we've established a line of credit at the finest men's stores up there. And of course there's the three-hundred-dollar-a-day living allowance."
This reminded Wally Boyajian that the subject of his salary had never come up. In these lean times he was lucky to even have a job, and decided that with a three-hundred-dollar-a-day living allowance, they could keep the damn salary.
"Sounds good to me," said Wally, putting away his handkerchief.
The ring of white lab smocks burst into a ripple of delighted applause. Wally thought of how nice it would be to work here once the Boston job was done. These looked like a super bunch to work with, even if they did go through mood swings pretty fast.
"Okay," said Antony Tollini, "let's get you to the airport, Wally my boy."
The octopus arms urged him around and back out the door.
As he left the room, the calls of good luck rang in his ears.
"Oh, good-bye, Wally."
"Nice meeting you, Wally."
"Good luck in Boston, Wally."
"We can't wait to hear how it went, Wally."
They really cared about him, thought Wally Boyajian, twenty-two years old, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, never to reach twenty-three, never to see Philadelphia again.
As the company car whisked him away from IDC world headquarters in Mamaroneck, New York, Wally thought breathlessly that it was almost too good to be true. Techies like him dreamed of going to work at IDC the way schoolboys dreamed of pitching in the World Series.
With a lot of passion but minimal expectation.