Morrissey had a standard employment contract, which provided that all his inventions and designs belonged to the company, but McAllister had been a sport about it.
He'd given Morrissey a ten-per-cent interest in the royalties as a bonus and last year, Morrissey's share was in excess of a hundred thousand dollars. The market was getting bigger all the time.
Tits weren't going out of fashion for a long time.
Morrissey didn't answer. But then, I hadn't expected him to.
He was one of those guys who don't give a damn about money. All he lived for was his work.
I finished my drink and lit a cigarette.
Silently I cursed myself. I should have known better than to let a chance remark about my father bug me like that.
I could afford it but nobody likes to throw a million dollars down the drain.
"Maybe I can do something," Forrester said.
A ray of hope came into Morrissey's eyes. "Do you think you could?"
Forrester shrugged.
"I don't know," he said slowly. "I said maybe."
I stared at him. "What do you mean?"
"It's the best plane I've seen," he said. "I wouldn't like to see us lose it because of the old man's stupidity."
"Thanks," I said. "We'd be grateful for anything you could do."
Forrester smiled.
"You don't owe me anything.
I’m one of those old-fashioned guys who wouldn't like to see us caught short if things suddenly started popping."
I nodded. "They'll start soon enough. Just as soon as Hitler thinks he's ready."
"When do you think that will be?"
"Three, maybe four years," I said.
"When they have enough trained pilots and planes."
"Where'll he get them from? He hasn't got them now."
"He'll get them," I said.
"The glider schools are turning out ten thousand pilots a month and before the summer is over, Messerschmitt will have his ME-109's on the production line."
"The general staff thinks he won't do much when he comes up against the Maginot line."
"He won't come up against it," I said. "He'll fly over it."
Forrester nodded.
"All the more reason for me to try to get them to check out your plane." He looked at me quizzically. "You talk like you know."
"I know," I answered. "I was there less than nine months ago."
"Oh, yes," he said, "I remember. I saw something about it in the papers. There was some kind of a stink about it, wasn't there?"
I laughed.
"There was.
Certain people accused me of being a Nazi sympathizer."
"Because of the million dollars you turned over to the Reichsbank?"
I shot a quick glance at him.
Forrester wasn't as simple as he pretended to be.
"I guess so," I answered. "You see, I transferred the money just the day before Roosevelt slapped on his restriction."
"You knew the restriction was about to be placed, didn't you?
You could have saved yourself the money by just waiting one day."
"I couldn't afford to wait," I said. "The money had to be in Germany, that was all there was to it."
"Why?
Why did you send them the money when obviously you realize they're our potential enemy?"
"It was ransom for a Jew," I said.
"Some of my best friends are Jews," Forrester answered. "But I can't imagine shelling out a million dollars for one of them."
I stared at him for a moment, then refilled my paper cup.
"This one was worth it."
His name was Otto Strassmer and he started out in life as a quality-control engineer in one of the many Bavarian china works.
From ceramics he had turned to plastics and it was he who had invented the high-speed injection mold I’d bought and sold to a combine of American manufacturers.
Our original deal had been on a royalty basis but after it had been in effect for several years Strassmer wanted to change it.