Good King Sauerkraut Read Online Free PDF

Sauerkraut went out, on his feets uneven …”
    On his feets uneven . What a dead perfect description of the young King Sarcowicz—stumbling, bumping into things, tripping over his own feet. The other kids had delighted in taunting him, calling him Good King Sauerkraut until he was sick to death of the sound of it. But after a time the first two words had disappeared, and it was just plain Sauerkraut from then on. The name dogged him everywhere; it had followed him to college and even on to work. Dennis Cox had never gone to school with King—they’d met when they were both doing some work for the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University—and yet Dennis had somehow learned of the loathsome soubriquet. That same thing had happened time and time again; it was a mystery King had never been able to solve.
    Dennis never called him Sauerkraut out of mean-spiritedness, though; he saved it for those times when he was thoroughly angry. So now his partner was mad at him too, in company with Mimi Hargrove and Gregory Dillard. Oh, this was going to be one beaut of a project, it was. Shit .
    But it was Dennis’s own fault, King rationalized; he should have known King would never agree to pass the design responsibility over to him. They’d been in business only a couple of years when it became clear that Dennis Cox would never be anything more than a good journeyman designer. He was totally reliable in what he did, but the imagination and ingenuity that had made Keystone Robotics successful were all King’s. Dennis had begun assuming the responsibilities of management as Keystone grew larger instead of hiring someone for the position, and he did a good job; he was needed in the office more than in the laboratory.
    For the very first time, King contemplated the possibility that Dennis might resent that turn of affairs. His partner seemed quite happy making their money decisions for them, and god only knew King needed him to do it. Dennis did not go unappreciated by his partner. All in all, it was a symbiosis that King had pretty much assumed was as satisfactory to Dennis as it was to himself; but now he had to wonder if Dennis was indeed as comfortable in the role of secondary designer as he’d thought. If he weren’t … King began to sweat. He didn’t know what he’d do without Dennis.
    But as worried as he was about getting the cooperation of the other three on the MechoTech project, he never once considered yielding control to one of them. It was unthinkable. Without King’s designs, there was no project.
    King put the problem out of his mind and worked steadily for four straight hours. When he finally shut down for the day, his neck and shoulders were stiff from sitting in the same position for so long. He reached high over his head and stretched his six feet ten inches until something popped; then he rotated his head and his arms. But the stiffness persisted, even during the drive home. Mrs. Rowe, he was happy to see, was not peeking out through her curtains.
    He took a scalding hot shower, and that plus a beer eased the stiffness considerably. King didn’t have much appetite, so dinner was two fried-egg sandwiches. Then he went into his study to perform his regular Saturday night chore of going through the week’s mail.
    But before he could get started, the doorbell rang. King groaned to himself when he saw the handsomely mustached, almost prissily dressed man on the other side of the now-opened door (too late!). Russ Panuccio, his closest friend. Whom he didn’t like much. “Russ! What’s up?”
    Russ walked in uninvited. “Ginnie broke her leg. I just took her to Shadyside Hospital.” Three blocks away. “You got any beer?”
    â€œYeah, sure. Is it a bad break?”
    â€œDoctor says not. God, I hate hospitals.”
    King followed him into the kitchen, where Russ took a bottle of Heineken from the refrigerator. “How did