The wife and I would like to spend a little time with them, get to know them before it's too late."
I laughed.
"You sound like you expect to kick off any minute.
You're a young man yet."
"I'm sixty-three.
I've been with you twenty years."
I stared at him.
Twenty years.
Where had they gone?
The Army doctors had been right. I wasn't a kid any more, either.
"We'll miss you around here," I said sincerely. "I don't know how we'll manage without you." I meant it, too.
Mac was the one man I felt I could always depend on, whenever I had need for him.
"You'll manage all right.
We've got over forty attorneys working for us now and each is a specialist in his own field.
You're not just one man any more, you're a big company. You have to have a big legal machine to take care of you."
"So what?" I said.
"You can't call up a machine in the middle of the night when you're in trouble."
"This machine you can. It's equipped for all emergencies."
"But what will you do?
You can't tell me you'll be happy just lying around playing grandpa.
You'll have to have something to occupy your mind."
"I've thought about that," he said, a serious look coming over his face. "I've been playing around so long with corporate and tax laws that I've almost forgotten about the most important part of all. The laws that have to do with human beings." He reached for the bottle again and poured himself another small drink.
It wasn't easy for him to sit there and tell me what he was thinking. "I thought I'd hang my shingle outside my house in some small town. Just putter around with whatever happened to come in the door.
I'm tired of always talking in terms of millions of dollars.
For once, I'd like to help some poor bastard who really needs it."
I stared at him.
Work with a man for twenty years and still you don't know him.
This was a side to McAllister that I'd never even suspected existed.
"Of course, we'll abrogate all of the contracts and agreements between us," he said. I looked at him.
I knew he didn't need the money. But then, neither did I.
"Why in hell should we?
Just show up at the board of directors' meeting every few months so at least I can see you once in a while."
"Then you- you agree?"
I nodded. "Sure, let's give it a spin when the war is over."
The sheets of white paper grew into a stack as he skimmed through the summary of each of the contracts.
At last, Mac was finished and he looked up at me.
"We have ample protective-cancellation clauses in all the contracts except one," he said.
"That one is based on delivery before the end of the war."
"Which one is that?"
"That flying boat we're building for the Navy in San Diego."
I knew what he was talking about.
The Centurion.
It was to be the biggest airplane ever built, designed to carry a full company of one hundred and fifty men, in addition to the twelve-man crew, two light amphibious tanks and enough mortar, light artillery, weapons, ammunition and supplies for an entire company.
It had been my idea that a plane like that would prove useful in landing raiding parties behind the lines out in the small Pacific islands.
"How come we made a contract like that?"
"You wanted it," he said. "Remember?"
I remembered.
The Navy had been skeptical that the big plane could even get into the air, so I'd pressured them into making a deal predicated on a fully tested plane before the war ended.
That was over seven months ago.
Almost immediately, we'd run into trouble.