The 1st Deadly Sin by Lawrence Sanders Read Free Book Online Page B

estimation—but they performed these tasks so swiftly that they could also be used for salary checks, personnel records, and pension programs. As a result, Javis-Bircham was able to dismiss more than 500 employees and, as Blank had carefully pointed out in his original prospectus, the annual leasing of the extremely expensive AMROK II resulted in an appreciable tax deduction.
    Daniel Blank was currently earning $55,000 a year and had an unlimited expense account, a very advantageous pension and stock option plan. He was 36.
    About a month after he took over, he received a very strange postcard from Bob White. It said merely: “What are you feeding the computer? Ha-ha.”
    Blank puzzled over this. What had been fed the computer, of course, were the past circulation and advertising revenue figures and profit or loss totals of all the magazines Javis-Bircham published. Admittedly, White had been working his worn slide rule during most of the years from which those figures were taken, and it was possible to say that, in a sense, White had programmed the computer. But still, the postcard made little sense, and Daniel Blank wondered why his former boss had bothered to send it.
    It was gratifying to hear the uniformed starter say, “Good morning, Mr. Blank,” and it was gratifying to ride the Executive Elevator in solitary comfort to the 30th floor. His personal office was a corner suite with wall-to-wall carpeting, a private lavatory and, not a desk, but a table: a tremendous slab of distressed walnut on a wrought-iron base. These things counted.
    He had deliberately chosen for his personal secretary a bony, 28-year-old widow, Mrs. Cleek, who needed the job badly and would be grateful. She had proved as efficient and colorless as he had hoped. She had a few odd habits: she insisted on latching all doors and cabinets that were slightly ajar, and she was continually lining up the edges of the ashtrays and papers with the edges of tables and desks, putting everything parallel or at precise right angles. A picture hanging askew drove her mad. But these were minor tics.
    When he entered his office, she was ready to hang away his coat and hat in the small closet. His black coffee was waiting for him, steaming, on a small plastic tray on the table, having been delivered by the commissary on the 20th floor.
    “Good morning, Mr. Blank,” she said in her watery voice, consulting a stenographer’s pad she held. “You have a meeting at ten-thirty with the Pension Board. Lunch at twelve-thirty at the Plaza with Acme, regarding the servicing contract. I tried to confirm, but no one’s in yet. I’ll try again.”
    “Thank you,” he said. “I like your dress. Is it new?”
    “No,” she said.
    “I’ll be in the Computer Room until the Pension Board meeting, in case you need me.”
    “Yes, Mr. Blank.”
    The embarrassing truth was that, as Mrs. Cleek was probably aware, he had nothing to do. It was true he was overseer of an extremely important department—perhaps the most important department of a large corporation. But, literally, he found it difficult to fill his working day.
    He could have given the impression of working. Many executives in similar circumstances did that. He could accept invitations to luncheons easily avoided. He could stalk corridors carrying papers over which he could frown and shake his head. He could request technical literature on supplies and computer systems utterly inadequate or too sophisticated for Javis-Bircham’s needs, with a heavy increase of unnecessary correspondence. He could take senseless business trips to inspect the operations of magazine wholesalers and printing plants. He could attend dozens of conventions and trade meetings, give speeches and buy the bodies of hat-check girls.
    But none of that was his style. He needed work; he could not endure inaction for long. And so he turned to “empire building,” plotting how he might enlarge the size of the Circulation Department and increase