A Key to the Suite Read Online Free PDF Page A

dropped like a rocket. I called Jesse long distance about it a half dozen times. Did you know that?”
    “No, I didn’t.”
    “He kept telling me to hang on, and thank God I did. That merger thing made me fat. I got three shares of GAE for every two of AGM, and you know where the hell that has gone to in the last year.”
    “I know, I know. Speaking of GAE, that’s where this Hubbard came over from, the one maybe Cory will get to meet. Actually now we’re the AGM division of GAE, Inc.”
    “Anyhow, tell Jesse I’m grateful. Give him my new number, Freddy dear, and tell him to give me a ring while he’s in town. Maybe he could come over here for a drink. Will Connie be with him?”
    “Yes, I’m afraid so.”
    “Where is this deal?”
    “The Sultana.”
    “So it’s a ten-minute cab ride. He could slip out. How are things with you, Freddy? How’s Bert?”
    “Well, not so good. It’s a change of life thing, I guess, but she doesn’t want to admit it. She’s always been a nervous woman anyhow. Anyway, the kids are doing good. Kit’s getting good marks in Gainsville, and the Marines just sent Tommy to a special school, some kind of radar thing.”
    “You get Bert onto some hormones, Freddy, and you’ll see one hell of a change in her.”
    “There better be a change before she drives me nuts.”
    “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll give Cory a special briefing on this and tell her that it means a lot to me personally if she does a good job.”
    “I’d appreciate that a lot, Alma.”
    “She’s got a college degree.”
    “That could be a help in a deal like this. There’s more than just Jesse involved. He was the one hired me. We’ve been close ever since. Maybe I’ve done a little too much bitching about all the contol systems they’ve stuck in. I guess I wouldn’t have done so much bitching if I’d realized they might get rid of Jesse.”
    “Why would they want to?”
    “Maybe he’s too old timey, Alma. Hell, I don’t know. He could sell sun glasses in a coal mine, but he couldn’t write up a ten-page analysis of how anybody else should go about it, and he doesn’t know a market survey from a bagel.”
    “Isn’t a convention a crazy place to come to to fire a man?”
    “They don’t do it that way. He wouldn’t be fired here. We got tipped off they’d been evaluating him in every other aspect of his job, and this is the last part of it left, how he handles himself in this kind of a deal, how much good he does AGM. Hubbard is one of the guys they got doing those evaluations. They’re a cold-fish operation. They’ve weeded out the other divisions, and now they’ve got around to sales, promotion and advertising. What they don’t understand, there was never anything wrong with AGM sales. When we slipped, it was on account of they fell behind on the design and research, so the other outfits had better products on the market. We’re damn near caught up already.”
    “Somebody at the door, dear. You phone me a yes or no, okay?”
    “Okay, Alma. And thanks a lot.”
    He hung up and went up into the main lobby. The convention registration desk had been set up. COLUDA and NAPATAN delegates had begun to arrive. Their baggage had begun to clutter the lobby, awaiting the rooms being vacated by the delegates of the convention which had just terminated. The cashiers were busy checking out the APETOD people. There was a worn, weary, rueful flavor about the APETOD people checking out which was in sharp contrast with the holiday anticipation of the groups of men who stood near the convention registration tables. Fred Frick, moving toward the table, had to stop a half dozen times to shake hands with friends employed by other outfits in the industry, most of whom he hadn’t seen since the last regional convention.
    He went to the NAPATAN table where a rather briskly officious young lady said, “Welcome to the seventeenth annual convention of NAPATAN , Mr.…?”
    “Frick. Fred Frick, American