Hayes made only one other request apart from the time. He asked that Neal reserve two rooms for the interviews, small ones isolated from the rest of the building, but next to one another.
“Put our interview subjects in one room, and I’ll prepare in the other,” he said.
“You need two rooms?” Neal asked flatly.
“Yes.”
“What if we don’t have two rooms?”
“Then we’ll wait. And when the Nail asks where we are and what the holdup is, you can tell them.”
“Fine, fine… What’s all this about, anyways?”
“Promotions,” said Hayes simply. “There are some spots to fill and we’re screening our prospects.”
They set up in a tiny corner of the building on the third floor, one room a small meeting room and the other practically a broom closet. Hayes dragged a chair into the closet and set the files on the floor.
“All right. I’ll stay in here and get ready,” he said.
“You want to stay here?” Samantha asked.
“Certainly. You sit in the meeting room and wait for Mr. McClintock. When he comes, tell him he’s to be interviewed by, oh”-he thought for a bit-“Mr. Staunton, and then come and tell me he’s here. Then go back in and tell him I’ll be in in a bit.”
“But why?”
“I want to make him wait.”
She went back to the meeting room and sat at the table, confused, but said nothing. At eight forty-five McClintock stumbled in, a short, squat man with a bloodred face and fat butcher’s hands. He looked extremely wary. Samantha wondered if he had ever been in the Southern Office before.
“Please take a seat,” she said, and gestured to a chair at the little table.
“Okay,” said McClintock, and sat.
“I’ll go and tell Mr. Staunton you’re here.”
“All right.”
She walked out, shut the door, then walked two feet over and opened the door of the broom closet. Hayes was seated in a chair and was leaning its back up against the wall, hands behind his head, eyes somewhat closed like he was dozing.
“He’s here,” she said softly.
“Mmm-hmm.” He did not open his eyes.
“When will you be in?”
He shrugged, then waved dismissively.
Samantha returned to the meeting room. “He’s somewhat delayed,” she told Mr. McClintock. “Please make yourself at home.”
McClintock blinked his red eyes and settled down in his chair further. His head drooped forward inch by inch and within a few minutes he was asleep. Samantha watched as his shoulders rose and fell, then sighed and checked her watch. After a half-hour she got up and walked back to the broom closet. Hayes was still in the exact same position, gently rocking back and forth on two legs of the chair.
“Well?” she said.
“Well what?” he said quietly.
“He’s asleep. If you’re trying to rattle him he certainly doesn’t know it.”
“I’m not trying to rattle him.”
“Then what are you trying to do?”
“Please go back in and do whatever it is you were doing. Note-taking, or whatever. It’s very important.” He waved her away again.
More time passed. Samantha slumped in her chair, taking notes every five minutes, mostly out of spite. Twenty minutes later the door burst open, causing her to jump and Mr. McClintock to snort and sit up. Hayes swept in and slammed McClintock’s file down on the table before him, saying, “Sorry I’m late, this place is incredibly confusing. Now give me a minute, if you please, because I’m not entirely sure why I’m here.” He dumped himself in the chair before McClintock and put his feet up on the table with a groan. “You don’t mind, do you?” he asked.
“No,” said McClintock, bewildered.
“Great. Grand,” he said, and began studying a report that, if Samantha was right, he had read twice already.
After several more minutes McClintock asked, “Why am I here, exactly?”
“Promotion, this says,” Hayes said. He slapped the paper. “You’re up for one, it seems. I’m to screen you.”
“To what?”
“To screen you. I’m Staunton, Andrew Staunton, Personnel.” He stuck out his hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you,” said McClintock, shaking.
“Great,” said Hayes. Samantha noticed he no longer spoke with an English accent. This was harder, American, inner-city.
“Did you say I’m up for a promotion?” McClintock asked.
“Seems that way,” said Hayes.
“To overseer?”
“That would be the one, it says,” said Hayes. “But there’s just a few general questions we need to ask first. You know, a procedure they send me around to have everyone go through. It’s nothing, just hoops everyone has to jump through. I’ve got a bunch more scheduled for today, very basic stuff. All right?”
“Sure,” said McClintock, still rubbing sleep from his eyes.
They did start out basic. They went over his job title, amount of time worked at McNaughton, marriage status, children, current wages, expected wages. Health, date of birth. Output. But eventually they shifted slightly, just slightly. Any issues on the line, Hayes asked. Problems with workers? Accidents, even? When? How long ago? Specific reasons for each? Were you present for these occurrences? McClintock became noticeably perturbed by these questions. He sat up straight in his chair and blinked as he tried to focus on Hayes and insisted that he ran a clean ship, you know, and he wasn’t sure what all these questions were about but he didn’t like them one bit. He’d been working diligently for more than thirty years and he didn’t like having such accusations tossed in his face at the crack of dawn. Hayes immediately understood. Course not, course you don’t, you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t run a clean ship, but no career goes by without a blotch or two. “It’s just for the records,” Hayes explained. “Just for records. I hate record-taking as much as you do.” Then Hayes took a deep, exhausted breath, glanced surreptitiously at Samantha, and leaned forward to softly ask McClintock something. Samantha could not hear what he’d said, but McClintock looked astonished. Then he half-smiled in disbelief and nodded. Hayes produced a small porcelain thermos from his coat and took a sip and passed it to McClintock, who drank deeply. Samantha opened her mouth and wondered if she should say something. Hayes did not look at her to communicate any message and so she chose to stay quiet.
From then on the two men were like brothers. They sat the same way in their chairs, the familiar bar slouch with their elbows on the table and their chests propped up against the edge. They talked the same and they laughed the same and they took the same dismissive attitude to Hayes’s questions. It stopped being an interview and started becoming a conversation. Hayes didn’t seem interested in the man’s accidents but in his war stories.
Then Hayes asked, “This one incident, about four months ago. Fella who got burned by the conduit. Remember that?”
“God, who wouldn’t,” said McClintock. “I remember. I never heard so much screaming. Everyone was shook up for weeks.”
“What the hell was that about? How does something like that happen?”
“Tricky job. They just happen. It’s part of it.”
“So there’s no specific reason?”
“People get tired. They go out one night, can’t sleep, come in, and don’t know what they’re doing. And they pay for it.”
“That’s how they all are?” asked Hayes. “Just honest mistakes?”
“Pretty much.”
Hayes watched him closely. His eyes took on a dreamy look, filmed over and sightless as if seeing someone else entirely. “What about that one with the hands?”
McClintock looked at him uneasily. “How’d you know about that?”
“Rumor mill,” said Hayes. “Something that vicious, well, you hear about it.”
“He got them caught in the cincher. It happens.”
“I can see one hand getting caught. But both? That’s a little odd.”
“It was odd. It was horrible, too.”
“Did you see it?”
“No. No, I didn’t see the accident. I saw them wheeling Tommy away, though. Belts around his wrists and cloth all over them. He’d passed out.”