The Porkchoppers Read Online Free PDF Page B

like a new baby, Penry thought for the fourth or fifth time that day. Like a new, smart, fat, sassy, red-faced baby.
    The old man went on nodding for several moments, not conscious that he was doing it, but only of the thoughts that streaked through his mind. He could hold several thoughts in his mind at once and sometimes he wondered whether others could. Just now he was thinking about Sammy Hanks and what kind of a man he was and about whether Walter Penry was capable of successfully carrying out the assignment that he was about to be given, and just how long it would be before he could get rid of Penry so that he could get the remaining container of Sara Lee Golden Cake with the fudge icing out of the refrigerator.
    â€œHow old a man is Hanks, forty-three, forty-four?” Kensington said.
    â€œThirty-nine.”
    â€œAh.”
    â€œHow ‘ah’?”
    â€œWell, he’s young enough to get his personal concern for the future of the union so mixed up with his personal ambition that he can’t tell ’em apart. He’s a pisscutter, huh?”
    â€œHe tries to be.”
    â€œWell, Cubbin does that pretty well with that voice of his when he’s a mind to.”
    â€œIt goes over better when you’re on the attack.”
    â€œHow long’s Hanks been secretary-treasurer?”
    â€œSix years.”
    â€œWasn’t he sort of a protege of Cubbin’s at one time?”
    â€œYes.”
    The old man nodded. “At least we got us a familiar pattern. The president’s out acting big shot and shooting his mouth off on ‘Meet the Press’ while the secretary-treasurer’s out meeting with the locals, doing favors, building up his political capital until wham, the president’s out of a job and the secretary-treasurer’s got it. It’s happened before often enough.”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œTheir contract runs out when, October thirty-first?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAnd the election’s October fifteenth?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œSo whoever’s president is going to be doing the final negotiating when it comes to nutcracking time. What’s Cubbin got his mind set on?”
    â€œWell, he already got thirty percent over the next three years from fabricating and processing.”
    â€œThat’s fabricating and processing. What about the basics?”
    â€œHe figures he can get twenty-one percent from the basics without a strike. Maybe twenty-four percent with one.”
    â€œIt ain’t worth it then.”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œAnd Hanks wants to go for thirty percent?”
    â€œMore.”
    â€œSo he’ll pull ’em out.”
    â€œIt looks that way. He says there’s no reason why they shouldn’t beat or match the auto workers.”
    Kensington sighed. “Well, Hanks has got a point, but those people over in the White House ain’t interested in it. They don’t want any strike and they sure as hell don’t want any thirty-percent wage increase because they think it’ll hurt the economy which, translated, means it’ll hurt their own chances of getting reelected.”
    â€œSo?”
    â€œSo over there in the White House they’ve decided that they’d like to see Don Cubbin reelected president of his union. Can you fix that?”
    â€œIt’ll cost.”
    â€œYeah, well, anticipating just that we had a little meeting in Philadelphia last week. Some of the boys were there from Chicago and Gary and Los Angeles and New York and. Denver and all and they agreed to get up a little kitty to help Cubbin out, although it’d be best if he don’t find out too much about it.”
    â€œHe won’t.”
    â€œSo how much you gonna need to get him reelected? Just roughly.”
    â€œThree quarters of a million.”
    â€œThat all?”
    â€œHis own people will come up with another quarter of a million.”
    â€œSo that’s how much it takes