I cleared my throat. "I have only Class-B coverage on my Blue Plate
policy," I repeated. "I, uh, I never went in much for such--"
He looked at me incredulously. "Boy," he said, "this is on the Company.
Now relax and let me order. Blue Plate coverage is for the peasants; I
eat like a human being."
It shook me a little. Here was a Regional Director talking about the
rations supplied under the Company's Blue Plate coverage as "slop." Oh,
I wasn't naive enough to think that no one talked that way. There were
a certain number of malcontents anywhere. I'd heard that kind of talk,
and even worse, once in a while from the Class-D near-uninsurables, the
soreheads with a grudge against the world who blamed all their troubles
on the Company and bleated about the "good old days." Mostly they did
their bleating when it was premium time, I'd noticed.
But I certainly never expected it from Gogarty.
Still--it was his party. And he seemed like a pretty nice guy. I had
to allow him the defects of his virtues, I decided. If he was less
reverent to the Company than he should have been, at least by the same
token he was friendly and democratic. He had at least twenty years
seniority on me, and back at the Home Office a mere Claims Adjuster
wouldn't have been at the same table with a Regional Director.
And here he was feeding me better than I had ever eaten in my life,
talking as though we were equals, even (I reminded myself) seeing to it
that we had the young ladies to keep us company.
* * * * *
We were hours at dinner, hours and endless glasses of wine, and we
talked continually. But the conversation never came close to official
business.
The girl Rena was comfortable to be with, I found. There was that
deep, eternal sadness in her eyes, and every once in a while I came
up against it in the middle of a laugh; but she was soft-voiced and
pleasant, and undeniably lovely. Marianna had been prettier, I thought,
but Marianna's voice was harsh Midwest while Rena's--