I looked around the lobby as I walked back to the elevators.
The General should be somewhere around.
From what I had seen of his attitude toward Forrester, I figured there had to be more than just Army and airplanes between them.
I spotted him as he crossed the lobby to the men's room next to the nearest bank of elevators.
He was scowling and his face was flushed.
He looked like a man who needed more relief than he could find where he was going.
I waited until the door swung shut behind him before I walked over to the elevators.
For the first time since I’d landed the CA-4 at Roosevelt Field, I began to feel better.
Everything was falling into place now.
I wasn't worried any more.
The only problem that remained was how many planes the Army would buy.
3.
What I wanted most was to grab a shower and take a nap. I hadn't got to sleep until five o'clock that morning.
I dropped my clothes on a chair and walked into the stall shower, turning on the needle spray. I could feel the tightness leave my muscles under the soothing warmth.
The telephone rang several times while I was in the shower. I let it ring.
When I came out, I picked up the phone and told the operator I didn't want any calls put through until four o'clock.
"But Mr. McAllister told me to call him the moment you come in," she wailed. "He said it was very important."
"You can get him for me at four o'clock," I said. I put down the phone, dropped on the bed and went to sleep like a baby.
The ring of the telephone woke me.
I looked at my wrist watch as I reached for the receiver.
It was exactly four o'clock.
It was Mac.
"I’ve been trying to get you all afternoon," he said.
"Where the hell have you been?"
"Sleeping."
"Sleeping!" he shouted. "We have a board meeting over at the Norman offices.
We're due there right now."
"You never told me."
"How in hell could I, when you wouldn't answer your phone?"
"Get General Gaddis for me," I told the operator. "I think he's registered here."
I lit a cigarette while I waited.
The receiver crackled in my ear.
"General Gaddis speaking."
"General, Jonas Cord here," I said.
"I’m in my apartment. Thirty-one fifteen in the Towers.
I’d like to talk with you."
The General's voice was cold. "We have nothing to discuss. You're an unconscionably rude young man- "
"It's not my manners I want to discuss, General," I interrupted. "It's your wife."
I heard him sputter through the telephone.
"My wife?
What's she got to do with our business?"
"A great deal, I believe, General," I said.
"We both know whom she met in Peacock Alley today at one o'clock.
I can't believe that the War Department would look favorably at a personal animosity being the basis for rejecting the CA-4." There was a silence over the telephone. "By the way, General," I asked, "what do you drink?"
"Scotch," he answered automatically.
"Good, I'll have a bottle here, waiting for you.
Shall we say in about fifteen minutes?"
I hung up before he could answer and called room service.
While I was waiting for an answer, a knock came at the outer door.
"Come in," I yelled.