him a chance to renew his hate/hate relationship with New York.
Not back here, he thought. I’ll go to work throwing cartons of Pespi on a truck before I bring Althea and the girls back here.
Summers was on the fourteenth floor of a big, stupid-looking, energy-efficient skyscraper. The receptionist smiled and nodded when Roger identified himself. “Mr. Hewitt has just stepped out for a few minutes. Is Mr. Trenton with you?”
“No, he was called home.”
“Well, I have something for you. It just came in this morning.”
She handed Roger a telegram in a yellow envelope. It was addressed to V. TRENTON/R. BREAKSTONE/AD WORX/CARE OF IMAGE-EYE STUDIOS. Rob had forwarded it to Summers Marketing late yesterday.
Roger tore it open and saw at once that it was from old man Sharp, and that it was fairly long.
Walking papers, here we come, he thought, and read the telegram.
The telephone woke Vic up at a few minutes before twelve ; otherwise he might have slept most of the afternoon away as well. His sleep had been heavy and soggy, and he woke with a terrible feeling of disorientation. The dream had come again. Donna and Tad in a rocky niche, barely beyond the reach of some terrible, mythical beast. The room actually seemed to whirl around him as he reached for the telephone.
Donna and Tad, he thought. They’re safe.
“Hello?”
“Vic, it’s Roger.”
“Roger?” He sat up. His shirt was plastered to his body. Half his mind was still asleep and grappling with that dream. The light was too strong. The heat . . . it had been relatively cool when he went to sleep. Now the bedroom was an oven. How late was it? How late had they let him sleep? The house was so silent.
“Roger, what time is it?”
“Time?” Roger paused. “Why, Just twelve o’clock. What—”
“Twelve? Oh, Christ. . . . Roger, I’ve been asleep.”
“What’s happened, Vic? Are they back?”
“They weren’t when I went to sleep. That bastard Masen promised—”
“Who’s Masen?”
“He’s in charge of the investigation. Roger, I have to go. I have to find out—”
“Hold on, man. I’m calling from Summers. I’ve got to tell you. There was a telegram from Sharp in Cleveland. We’re keeping the account.”
“What? What?” It was all going too fast for him. Donna . . . the account . . . Roger, sounding almost absurdly cheerful.
“There was a telegram here when I came in. The old man and his kid sent it to Image-Eye and Rob forwarded it here. You want me to read it?”
“Give me the gist.”
“Old man Sharp and the kid apparently came to the same conclusion using different chains of logic. The old man sees the Zingers thing as a replay of the Alamo-we’re the good guys standing on the battlements, standing by to repel the boarders. All got to stick together, all for one and one for all.”
“Yeah, I knew he had that in him,” Vic said, rubbing the back of his neck. “He’s a loyal old bastard. That’s why he came with us when we left New York.”
“The kid would still like to get rid of us, but he doesn’t think this is the right time. He thinks it would be interpreted as a sign of weakness and even possible culpability. Can you believe it?”
“I could believe anything coming from that paranoid little twerp.”
“They want us to fly to Cleveland and sign a new two-year contract. It’s not a five-year deal, and when it’s up the kid’s almost sure to be in charge and we’ll undoubtedly be invited to take a long walk off a short dock, but two years . . . it’s enough time, Vic! In two years we’ll be on top of it! We can tell them—”
“Roger, I’ve got to—”
“—to take their lousy pound cake and pound it up their asses! They also want to discuss the new campaign, and I think they’ll go for the Cereal Professor’s swan song, too.”
“That’s great, Roger, but I’ve got to find out what the Christ has been happening with Donna and Tad.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I guess it was a lousy time to call, but I couldn’t keep it to myself, man. I would have busted like a balloon.”
“There’s no bad time for good news,” Vic said. All the same, he felt a stab of jealousy, as painful as a sliver of sharpened bone, at the happy relief in Roger’s voice, and a bitter disappointment that he couldn’t share in Roger’s feelings. But maybe it was a good omen.