Chapter 2
Vic checked his watch and saw that it was time to start out for Sparling's office.
He entered the outer office, where he found Dana sitting at her typewriter, gazing vacantly at her stenographic book. Her eyes had a slight cast and her cheeks a certain looseness. While the change was probably imperceptible to anyone else, Vic was definitely aware of it. She sighted him and straightened up instantly. She looked at him with a great big question mark, the vacancy having fled from her eyes and a graveness and intensity replacing it. Vic was well aware that today, the day after, was more important for her than last night. The question mark in her eyes was preceded by "How do you feel about me this morning?" She said nothing, though, and awaited Vic's judgement.
Vic had no desire to pass judgement on her. It hadn't meant anywhere near as much to him as it had to her. He merely said "You don't stand up very well under dissipation, do you?"
She seemed to color slightly, and tried to manage a smile. "I usually don't dissipate myself quite that much. Why, does it show?"
"You look a little tired, that's all."
"I feel ... I feel a little tired." She still looked at him wonderingly, trying to pry some affirmation or denial out of him. "Vic...."
"Is Sparling ready to see me?"
She recoiled. "Go right in ... sir."
When he entered the oak paneled office of Harold Sparling he found him standing by his bookshelves on the far side of the room. A glass was in his hand, and it was filled with liquor. On a little bar setup in front of him stood four or five apothecary jars, the symbol of the trade, each marked with the Latin equivalent of Scotch, Rye, Gin, and so forth. It was very clever, and everyone thought the idea was another tribute to Sparling's genius.
Vic had had them made up from his own design.
Vic had also urged Sparling, when the company was in the midst of moving to these larger quarters, to put up these floor-to-ceiling bookschelves filled with expensively bound volumes on drug formulas and medicinal compounds, rare books dealing with magic and alchemy, new books describing the latest advances in the drug industry, and of course a specially constructed shelf to hold every issue-from the first to the latest-of the industry's trade magazines.
The impression conveyed by the room was that the man who resided in it was a veritable titan of the drug industry, a man of wisdom and learning, as evidenced by the bookshelves, but yet a man of wit and humor-the liquor decanters-and a man of infinite power-the sweeping rosewood desk with no evidence of Sparling's indulgence in labor of any sort, except for a built-in intercom with a dozen buttons which connected him with the twelve most important executives in the firm.
It was all Vic's idea, and he had played no small part in the actual designing of the room. In a commercial world where symbols and external manifestations meant so much, the man who could put forth the most impressive image traveled the farthest, and Vic had been called upon to help create this image around Sparling.
Some men, when you probe their image, are absolutely worthy of it. Either they really have what it takes, or they've weaved themselves a fantasy so complete that they can't distinguish themselves from their image. Other men are hopelessly and hilariously beneath the image they've had dreamed up for themselves, and they wear the garment as clumsily as an adolescent prince who dons the robes of his father, the king. The men who live up to their image are dangerous because they so shrewdly manipulate human lives and values; the others, the men who don't really know what to do with their image, are possibly more dangerous. They don't appreciate their power, and they can abuse it terribly-In a word, they're stupid.
Harold Sparling was. a stupid man.
Vic's sudden entrance caused him to juggle and nearly drop the decanter of Scotch and the mortar that served as a glass (a pestle, naturally, was the swizzle stick I. "Ah, Victor. Didn't expect you quite so soon. Not at all so soon."
"So I notice," Vic said to the bald, corpulent president, who was kicking a few drops of liquor off his patent leather shoes. "Isn't it a little early in the morning for a drink?"
"Under any other circumstances, I'd say by all means.
Couldn't you knock before bursting in here?"
"Dana said I should just go right in."
Sparling took a long sip of Scotch. "I'll have to speak to that girl. Can I interest you in a snort?" He held out decanter and glass.
"No, thanks."
"I must congratulate you on these things," he said, gesturing towards the bar set. "Get a lot of interesting comments. Just today Petrie-you know, Petrie Pharmaceutical-said he wished he'd thought of them. Petrie. You know, he's not bad at all for a competitor. Sharp young man. Reminds me somewhat...."
"What's up?" Vic said directly. Sparling straightened up.
"What's up? Yes, by all means, let's stop beating around the bush. Victor, how long you been with us? Two years?"
"Three years."
"Three years. You've come a long way in that time."
"So have you," Vic answered, counting on Sparling's dullness to interpret an insult as a compliment. After all, Sparling's progress was a direct result of Vic's influence.
"You mean so has Sparling Drugs."
"That's exactly what I meant," he said wryly. "Why do you want to know?"
"Well, I'm trying to determine whether I can trust you with a piece of confidential information." Sparling was a born diplomat.
"I think you know the answer to that," Vic said, controlling his anger at this man's obtuseness.
"I suppose I do, but there's a lot of money--a lot of money-riding on this information. One can't be too sure about the people one is dealing with."
"One has to take that chance sometimes."
"Yes, I guess one has." He paused and took another swallow of Scotch. It was obvious Sparling's mind was waddling around this ponderous matter, trying to find the best point at which to begin.
Vic offered to help him. "Why the unusual procedure, Sparling? You've called me in here for something other than decanters and data about my tenure here. You've seldom had me in here for any other purpose than the usual one. You're taking a drink before lunch, so you're obviously disturbed about something. You're talking all around something or other and wasting both your time and mine." Vic could get away with this kind of talk because Sparling stood in awe of him. Vic was indispensable to his employer. "So how about it, Sparling?
"You're right, Victor."
"Why don't you tell me, for instance, what the conference was all about this morning. That seems like a good place to begin."
"No, no it isn't. First there's something you ought to know. Maybe you do know it. You're an intelligent young man."
"Thanks. What is it?" Sparling's digressions were maddening.
"As you know, we put out a rather impressive line of drugs aimed at the popular market. Now, since you've been pretty much on the advertising end of this business and not on the, uh, scientific end, you may not be aware of the components of our drugs."
"I can read the labels. I have to know what I'm selling."
"Anyone can read labels. And anyone can print them, too. But I mean the real components."
Vic sighed in exasperation. "I've known about them for years. Anyone with an ounce' of sense knows about them."
Sparling looked startled. "You're exaggerating quite a bit. I can see how you might know about it, being a person of unusual insight, and probably having a lot of friends in the production department, but I greatly doubt if the public at large is aware. How could it be, if it buys so damned much of the stuff?"
"That's something I've never been able to understand," Vic said, making himself comfortable in one of i the straight-backed chairs facing the desk. "But I guess it proves beyond the shadow of a doubt the power of ' promotion."
"Very true. Very true," Sparling said. "Up until now, we've managed to get along very nicely on the of power of our promotion. But recent developments, which you're no doubt familiar with...."
"The statements made a few weeks ago by those congressmen?"
"Yes. Only they're more than statements. They're suggestions that may very well lead to full-scale investigations."
"I see. And if there ever is a full-scale investigation, it might turn the microscope on our anti-histamine and learn that it's nothing more than purple aspirin."
"Or our Loos-Wate and find out that it's 99% celulose.
"And 1% purple aspirin."
"More or less," said Sparling, a little surprised to hear himself talking so openly.
"So as I understand it, the top thieves in the drug business including yourself, gathered together here today to determine a course of action."
"Victor, I've never appreciated your outspokenness."
"Just calling things by their right names."
"Well, if you would call them nice names, they'd still be bad, but they'd sound a lot better."
"That's not the way I do things," Vic said. "And since I have a feeling I know what's coming, I want to make sure we don't mince words."
"All right," said Sparling, pouring himself another glass of Scotch and plumping down into his well-stuffed leather chair, "let's not. Yes, I had some of the big boys in the business over here today, and they're just as worried as I. They wouldn't admit it at first, but they wouldn't have come here if they weren't. I finally said 'Okay, boys, if you're not afraid of a congressional investigation, we might as well adjourn now,' and I raised my gavel. That brought 'em around fast enough. Imagine them trying to make me think they were all safe, and I was crying wolf."
"Then what?"
"We talked it out and decided just who it is that presents a threat to us, and we ended up with three men."
"Representative Wilton of New Jersey, Howard of Wisconsin ... and who else?"
"A man you're not likely to have heard of. Name of Lucas Clayboro. Georgia man."
"Congressman?"
"No, but as influential as anyone in Washington. Big man behind the scenes. Probably the most important figure of all in this little drama. He's been trying to buy into the drug industry, but we've prevented him from getting much of a grip. But now I see what he's getting to. An investigation would undoubtedly injure the industry, send stocks falling. He'd snatch them up and gain a lot of control. He stands to profit from an investigation, and he's been plumping for one."
Vic shook his head. "This is getting interesting. I think I'll have that drink after all." He got up and went to the Rye decanter and mixed hiself a rye and ginger ale. Going back to his seat, he said "Can these boys be bought?"
"Anyone can be bought. It's just a matter of what you can buy them with, and how much of it they want."
"I'll buy that."
"Now there are two ways to influence a man. Positive and negative. Negative, you threaten him. Positive, you bribe him. We're going to do both."
"Not quite so obviously, I gather."
"Right. Negative-we warn them we'll reveal their holding to the public. They're not supposed to have any, you know. Positive-we suggest we'll add substantially to those holdings. Those are basically the techniques, but there'll be others. Clayboro, since he's not a congressman, requires special handling. All in all, it's going to be a delicate task."
"And where do I come in?"
"You're going to set the stage for our finaglings. It'll be your job to provide what you might call a sympathetic climate for us to work in."
"What does that mean, exactly?"
Sparling stood up and went to the window. "We're going to be softening these guys up in one way or another, and by the time we're ready for the big push they'll be well primed. You'll be in charge of the big push. What we have in mind is a sort of convention where we can hit 'em every which way at once."
Vic shook his head. "And you want me to make the arrangements?"
"Yes. But this can't be merely just another convention. In the first place, they bore the hell out of everyone, and, in the second, no self-respecting congressman would allow himself to be seen at one of these shindigs."
"So it has to be fabulous, yet out of the way."
"Right."
"Sounds challenging," Vic said indifferently.
"It'll be the most important assignment you'll ever have." Sparling turned from the window and looked long and directly at Vic. "I don't expect you'll let me down."
Vic stood up and leaned on the desk, returning Sparling's gaze. "Sparling, up until now I've gone along with fraud, which after all is what we've been perpetrating. But this is bribing government officials. I don't know if I want to go that far."
"You have a strange sense of ethics. It's like saying that beating a man is fine, but killing him is against your principles."
"The law recognizes that distinction too," said Vic, "and punishes accordingly. The same goes for what we're talking about. There's a difference between winking a little at corruption and actively promoting it."
Sparling began to breathe faster. The beads of sweat began to run down over his temples in spite of the air conditioning. "Maybe I'm obtuse, but I don't make that kind of distinction, and I won't stand for it from you. A man who permits corruption is just as corrupt a: a man who promotes it. You're in this far, Victor, and all I'm asking you to do is go a little further to protect what we've done so far." Vic said nothing, and Sparling jumped in with a comforting word. "Come on, Vic, this isn't like you. We can settle this thing amicably."
"You mean pacify me with a raise in salary."
"I had a raise in mind. A substantial one."
"It'll have to be more substantial than substantial."
"Do the job right and money will be no problem. I'm working with unlimited funds. Both my own and those of several other companies."
"It's not really a question of money."
"Yes it is," said Sparling ironically, judging Vic's weakness precisely. " Yes it is. I trust you'll have a plan to submit in a day or two." He held the door open. Vic paused before it, and Sparling put a paternal hand on his shoulder. "Take the rest of the day off. Go swimming somewhere. Cool off."
Vic looked contemptuously at Sparling and marched off, slamming the door behind him.