Teddy Osch led the way, under a faded red awning, into the restaurant's unpretentious interior. En route, no one had said more than a word or two. Now, on being shown to a table in a small rear room reserved for habituates, Osch silently raised three fingers. Moments later three martinis in chilled glasses were placed before them.
"I'm not going to do anything stupid like cry," Barbara said, "and I won't get drunk because you always feel so awful after. But if you both don't mind, I intend to get moderately loaded." She downed the martini.
"I'd like another, please."
Osch beckoned a waiter. "Make it three."
"Teddy," Barbara said, "how the hell do you stand it?"
Osch passed a hand pensively across his baldness. "The first twenty years are hardest. After that, when you've seen a dozen J. P. Underwoods come and go . . ."
Nigel Knox exploded as if he had been bottling up a protest. "He's a beastly person. I tried to like him, but I couldn't possibly."
"Oh shut up, Nigel," Barbara said.
Osch continued, "The trick is to remind yourself that the pay is good, and most times - except today - I like the work. There isn't a business more exciting. I'll tell you something else: No matter how well they've built the Orion, if it's a success, and sells, it'll be because of us and advertising. They know it; we know it. So what else matters?"
"Keith Yates-Brown matters," Barbara said. "And he makes me sick."
Nigel Knox mimicked in a high-pitched voice, "That's generous of you, J.P. Damn generous! Now I'm going to lie down, J.P., and I hope you'll pee all over me."
Knox giggled. For the first time since this morning's meeting, Barbara laughed.
Teddy Osch glared at them both. "Keith Yates-Brown is my meal ticket and yours, and let's none of us forget it. Sure, I couldn't do what he does - keep snugged up to Underwood's and other people's anuses and look like I enjoyed it, but it's a part of this business which somebody has to take care of, so why fault him for a thorough job? Right now, and plenty of other times while we're doing the creative bit, which we like, Yates-Brown is in bed with the client, stroking whatever's necessary to keep him warm and happy, and telling him about us, how great we are. And if you'd ever been in an agency which lost an automotive account, you'd know why I'm glad he is."
A waiter bustled up. "Veal Parmigiana's good today." At Joe & Rose no one bothered with frills like menus.
Barbara and Nigel Knox nodded. "Okay, with noodles," Osch told the waiter. "And martinis all around."
Already, Barbara realized, the liquor had relaxed them. Now, the session was following a familiar pattern - at first gloomy, then self-consoling; soon, after one more martini probably, it would become philosophic. In her own few years at the OJL agency she had attended several postmortems of this kind, in New York at advertising "in" places like Joe & Rose, in Detroit at the Caucus Club or Jim's Garage, downtown. It was at the Caucus she had once seen an elderly advertising man break down and sob because months of his work had been brusquely thrown out an hour earlier.
"I worked at an agency once," Osch said, "where we lost a car account. It happened just before the weekend; nobody expected it, except the other agency which took the account away from us. We called it 'Black Friday."'
He fingered the stem of his glass, looking back across the years. "A hundred agency people were fired that Friday afternoon. Others didn't wait to be fired; they knew there was nothing left for them, so they scurried up and down Madison and Third, trying for jobs at other places before they closed. Guys were scared. A good many had fancy homes, big mortgages, kids in college. Trouble is, other agencies don't like the smell of losers; besides, some of the older guys were just plain burned out. I remember, two hit the bottle and stayed on it; one committed suicide."
"You survived," Barbara said.
"I was young. If it happened now, I'd go the way the others did." He raised his glass. "To Keith Yates-Brown."
Nigel Knox placed his partially drunk martini on the table. "Oh no, really. I couldn't possibly."
Barbara shook her head. "Sorry, Teddy."
"Then I'll drink the toast alone," Osch said. And did.
"The trouble with our kind of advertising," Barbara said, "is that we offer a nonexistent car to an unreal person." The three of them had almost finished their latest martinis; she was aware of her own speech slurring. "We all know you couldn't possibly buy the car that's in the ads, even if you wanted to, because the photographs are lies.
When we take pictures of the real cars we use a wide-angle lens to balloon the front, a stretch lens to make the side view longer. We even make the color look better than it is with spray and powder puffs and camera filters."
Osch waved a hand airily. "Tricks of the trade."
A waiter saw the hand wave. "Another round, Mr. Osch? Your food will be here soon."
The creative chief nodded.
Barbara insisted, "It's still a nonexistent car."
"That's jolly good!" Nigel Knox clapped vigorously, knocking over his empty glass and causing occupants of other tables to glance their way amusedly. "Now tell us who's the unreal person we advertise it to."
Barbara spoke slowly, her thoughts fitting together less readily than usual. "Detroit executives who have the final word on advertising don't understand people. They work too hard, there isn't time. Therefore most car advertising consists of a Detroit executive advertising to another Detroit executive."
"I have it!" Nigel Knox bobbed up and down exuberantly. "Everybody knows a Detroit panjandrum is an unreal person. Clever! Clever!"
"So are you," Barbara said. "I don't think, at this point, I could even think panjan . . . wotsit, let alone say it." She put a hand to her face, wishing she had drunk more slowly.
"Don't touch the plates," their waiter warned, "they're hot." The Veal Parmigiana, with savoury steaming noodles was put before them, plus another three martinis. "Compliments from the next table," the waiter said.
Osch acknowledged the drinks, then sprinkled red peppers liberally on his noodles.
"My goodness," Nigel Knox warned, "those are terribly hot."
The creative chief told him, "I need a new fire in me."
There was a silence while they began eating, then Teddy Osch looked across at Barbara. "Considering the way you feel, I guess it's all to the good you're coming off the Orion program."
"What?" Startled, she put down her knife and fork.
"I was supposed to tell you. I hadn't got around to it."
"You mean I'm fired?"
He shook his head. "New assignment. You'll hear tomorrow."
"Teddy," she pleaded, "you have to tell me now."
He said firmly, "No. You'll get it from Keith Yates-Brown. He's the one who recommended you. Remember? - the guy you wouldn't drink a toast to."
Barbara had an empty feeling.
"All I can tell you," Osch said, "is I wish it were me instead of you."
He sipped his fresh martini; of the three of them, he was the only one still drinking. "If I was younger I think it might have been me. But I guess I'll go on doing what I always have: advertising that nonexistent car to the unreal person."
"Teddy," Barbara said, "I'm sorry."
"No need to be. The sad thing is, I think you're right." The creative chief blinked. "Christ! Those peppers are hotter than I thought." He produced a handkerchief and wiped his eyes.
Chapter 7
Some thirty miles outside Detroit, occupying a half thousand acres of superb Michigan countryside, the auto company's proving ground lay like a Balkan state bristling with defended borders. Only one entrance to the proving ground existed - through a security-policed double barrier, remarkably similar to East-West Berlin's Checkpoint Charlie. Here, visitors were halted to have credentials examined; no one, without prearranged authority, got in.
Apart from this entry point, the entire area was enclosed by a high, chain-link fence, patrolled by guards. Inside the fence, trees and other protective planting formed a visual shield against watchers from outside.
What the company was guarding were some of its more critical secrets.
Among them: experiments with new cars, trucks, and their components, as well as drive-to-destruction performance tests on current models.
The testing was carried out on some hundred and fifty miles of roads-routes to nowhere ranging from specimens of the very best to the absolute worst or most precipitous in the world. Among the latter was a duplicate of San Francisco's horrendously steep Filbert Street, appropriately named (so San Franciscans say) since only nuts drive down it. A Belgian block road jolted every screw, weld, and rivet in a car, and set drivers' teeth chattering. Even rougher, and used for truck trials, was a replica of an African game trail, with tree roots, rocks, and mud holes.
One road section, built on level ground, was known as Serpentine Alley.
This was a series of sharp S-bends, closely spaced and absolutely flat, so that absence of any banking in the turns strained a car to its limits when cornering at high speed.
At the moment, Adam Trenton was hurling an Orion around Serpentine Alley at 60 mph.