on about block times and block speeds and per kilo rates, his tongue on automatic, his spleen bubbled up again. He bore Tara no ill will, and so long as he earned a decent living, he could not have cared less if Knight Air played Avis to Pathways’s Hertz till the end of time. Why, then, was he talking himself hoarse to help Douglas realize his ambition? Because he couldn’t let him down, that was why. As much as he might resent his role as Man Friday, he realized that it was perfect casting. There was something in his character that suited him for the work of the deputy, the same something that made his father an effective hotelier. He was born to oblige, to cater to others’ wishes, to be of service.
His next stop was a group bearing the cumbersome and redundant name of Global International Aid Services. It employed a multiracial, multinational staff that served to veil, somewhat, its Washington origins and the identity of its principal donor, the U.S. Agency for International Development, which some people believed was an arm of the CIA. Global’s logistics chief was a dour Belgian known as the Flemish Phlegm, a sobriquet whose shortened version, “Flemmy,” was used so often that the man’s real name had been forgotten. He had been Fitzhugh’s main informant during his private investigation into the UN’s practice of destroying surplus food. Though he’d scrupulously kept the source of his information secret, Flemmy had suggested afterward that Fitzhugh owed him something more than the protection of his anonymity.
After he’d listened, patiently and without expression, to Fitzhugh’s spiel, he presented the bill.
Chewing on an unlit pipe, Flemmy complimented him for landing on his feet after his dismissal from the World Food Program’s staff. “But,” he added, “you seem to be still learning the nuances of your new job. You haven’t convinced me to make any changes in our present arrangements. You need to—the American phrase is ‘toot your own horn’— a little more . . . loudly? No. Not loud. More sweetly. Has anyone else pointed that out to you?”
“No, you’re the first,” he answered. That Flemmy had not flatly turned him down and had taken the time to point out the deficiency in his proposals represented progress of a sort; but he elected to say nothing more. He would feel better about himself if he left it to the other man to make the proposition.
“We have a lot of stuff to move, and you with only two airplanes—” He wagged a hand scornfully. “Why, that could delay a shipment for days, whereas your competitor has the means to deliver it right away.” Flemmy paused and tapped his thumbnail with the pipestem. “On the other hand, we aren’t contractually bound to Pathways, and you make a good case that we could save a thousand dollars per flight with you. I think I could see my way clear to . . . oh, you know, every third delivery, perhaps every other delivery.”
Fitzhugh heard the emphasis on “think” and listened to the irritating tap-tap. “Whatever you feel comfortable with,” he said.
“That depends upon what you feel comfortable with,” the Belgian said softly. “Just to be sure we’re clear on that.” He wrote on a piece of paper and passed it across the desk for Fitzhugh’s inspection. “I believe that follows established custom?”
Aware that he wasn’t acting under duress of circumstance, that he was making a clear, conscious choice and a compromise that could lead to further compromises, he nodded.
Flemmy tore the paper into quarters and tossed the fragments into the wastebasket. “Of course we don’t need to shake hands.”
“Of course.”
“Excellent. I’ll be in touch soon. In the meantime, may I suggest that you need not be shy about offering the full . . . the full range of your company’s services to whomever else you speak to. I think you’ll get better results.”
Fitzhugh followed that advice, and the results were more favorable. By the end of the day he’d made arrangements with three NGOs similar to the one he made with Flemmy. He might have gotten more if his discomfort hadn’t been so obvious. During the proceedings, his mind became a kind of TV split-screen; a scene from the famine was projected on one half—skeletal kids grubbing in the dirt for spilled kernels of airdropped grain—and a picture of himself negotiating sleazy deals was projected on the other. The two dissonant images produced a physical sensation, as if he were coated