The redhead drew close to him, treating Wally Boyajian to a whiff of some indescribably alluring perfume. Since. he was allergic to perfumes, he sneezed.
"But," she said worriedly, "you are going to Boston, aren't you, Wally?"
Wally sneezed again.
"Oh, no!" a technician moaned. "He's sick!" The technician went three shades paler. "He can't go!"
Stricken looks replaced the worried ones.
"Of course he's going," shouted Antony Tollini, whipping a red travel-agency envelope from inside his coat and shoving it into the vent pocket of Wally's only suit. "We got him booked on a ten-o'clock flight."
"Boston?" Wally said, blowing into a hastily extracted handkerchief.
"First class."
"Oh, you'll love Boston, Wally," a chipper voice said.
"Yes, Boston is so . . . so historical."
" I . . ." Wally sputtered.
Antony Tollini said, "We're putting you in a first-class hotel. A limo will meet you at the airport. Naturally, since you won't have time to go home and pack, we've established a line of credit at the finest men's stores up there. And of course there's the three-hundred-dollar-a-day living allowance."
This reminded Wally Boyajian that the subject of his salary had never come up. In these lean times he was lucky to even have a job, and decided that with a three-hundred-dollar-a-day living allowance, they could keep the damn salary.
"Sounds good to me," said Wally, putting away his handkerchief.
The ring of white lab smocks burst into a ripple of delighted applause. Wally thought of how nice it would be to work here once the Boston job was done. These looked like a super bunch to work with, even if they did go through mood swings pretty fast.
"Okay," said Antony Tollini, "let's get you to the airport, Wally my boy."
The octopus arms urged him around and back out the door.
As he left the room, the calls of good luck rang in his ears.
"Oh, good-bye, Wally."
"Nice meeting you, Wally."
"Good luck in Boston, Wally."
"We can't wait to hear how it went, Wally."
They really cared about him, thought Wally Boyajian, twenty-two years old, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, never to reach twenty-three, never to see Philadelphia again.
As the company car whisked him away from IDC world headquarters in Mamaroneck, New York, Wally thought breathlessly that it was almost too good to be true. Techies like him dreamed of going to work at IDC the way schoolboys dreamed of pitching in the World Series.
With a lot of passion but minimal expectation.
The flight was short but very pleasant. Wally had never flown first class before. He was a teetotaler, so he passed up the complimentary drinks and settled for a bitter-tasting mineral water.
The stewardess was unfailingly polite but reserved as she served Wally. That was, until he blurted out that he had just joined IDC.
She practically sat in his lap the rest of the way.
Wally Boyajian decided that yessiree-bob, he was really, really going to enjoy working at IDC.
At Logan Airport there was an honest-to-goodness chauffeur waiting for him. The chauffeur didn't wear livery, only a neat dark sharkskin suit and a cap. He stood nearly seven feet tall and was built like a library bookshelf. Somehow, he seemed more like a chauffeur than if he had worn a uniform, Wally decided.
"You the guy from IDC?" the chauffeur had asked.
"Yes, sir," Wally had said, at a loss for how to address so imposing an individual. Since the Gulf War, he was very respectful of anyone in uniform.
"Come on, then. We're going for a ride."
The limousine was no stretch model, just a long black Cadillac with tinted back windows. The chauffeur opened the door and clicked it shut after Wally had slid in.
The car eased out of the congestion of the airport and into the tiled fluorescent paralysis of the Sumner Tunnel.
"Ever been in Boston before?" the chauffeur called back.
"No. I was reading about it on the plane, though. I hear this is where practically all the cranberries are grown."
"Yeah, there are lots of cranberry bogs out in the sticks."
"Maybe if I have the time, I might visit one. Cranberries remind me of the holidays coming up. This will be the first holiday season I've spent away from my folks. I miss them."
"Pal," said the gruff chauffeur, "if you can fix my boss's computer, I guarantee you all the cranberry bogs you wanna splash around in."
"It's a deal," said Wally Boyajian with the unbridled enthusiasm of a young man to whom all of life's rich possibilities beckoned.
After twenty minutes of stop-and-go riding, Wally noticed they were still in the white-tiled tunnel.
"Is Boston traffic always like this?" Wally asked at one point.
"Only on good days."
Thinking this was a local joke, Wally essayed a timid laugh. He swallowed it when the chauffeur failed to chime in.
Finally they emerged in a section of narrow, twisted streets where the brick apartments crowded one another with suffocating closeness. Almost no sun peeped down past the rooftops.
"By the way," Wally said suddenly, "this company you're taking me to-what is it's name?"
" F and L Importing," the chauffeur said in a bored voice.
"What's the F and L stand for?"