Then it was eleven and time to see Martin. Pachs fussed a bit, rolling down his sleeves and hanging his green eyeshade from the arm of his dazor lamp; yet the moment could not be avoided. Pulling his shoulders back a bit he went out past Miss Fink hammering away industriously on the varityper, and walked in through the open door to Martin's voice.
"Come on, Louis.” Martin wheedled into the phone in his most syrupy voice. "If it's a matter of taking the word of some two-bit shoestring salesman in Kansas City, or of taking my word, who you gonna doubt?. . That's right. . Okay. . Right Louis. I'll call you back in the morning. . Right, you too. . my best to Helen." He banged the phone back onto the desk and glared up at Pachs with his hard beebee eyes.
"What do you want?"
"You told me you wanted to see me, Mr. Martin."
"Yeah, yeah," Martin mumbled half to himself. He scratched flakes of dandruff loose from the back of his head with the chewed end of a pencil, and rocked from side to side in his chair.
"Business is business, Pachs, you know that, and expenses go up all the time. Paper — you know how much it costs a ton? So we gotta cut corners…"
"If you're thinking of cutting my salary again, Mr. Martin, I don't think I could. . well, maybe not much…"
"I'm gonna have to let you go, Pachs. I've bought a Mark IX to cut expenses and I already hired some kid to run it."
"You don't have to do that, Mr. Martin," Pachs said hurriedly, aware that his words were tumbling one over the other and that he was pleading, but not caring. "I could run the machine I'm sure, just give me a few days to catch on…"
"Outta the question. In the first place I'm paying the kid beans because she's just a kid and that's the starting salary, and in the other place she's been to school about this thing and can really grind the stuff out. You know I'm no bastard, Pachs, but business is business. And I'll tell you what, this is only Tuesday and I'll pay you for the rest of the week. How's that? And you can take off right now."
"Very generous, particularly after eight years," Pachs said, forcing his voice to be calm.
"That's all right, it's the least I could do." Martin was congenitally immunje to sarcasm.
The lost feeling hit Pachs then, a dropping away of his stomach, a sensation that everything was over. Martin was back on the phone again and there was really nothing that Pachs could say. He walked out of the office, walking very straight, and behind him he heard the banging of Miss Fink's machine halt for a instant. He did not want to see her, to face those tender and damp eyes, not now. Instead of turning to go back to the studio, where he would have to pass her desk, he opened the hall door and stepped out. He closed it slowly behind him and stood with his back to it for an instant, until he realized it was frosted glass and she could see his figure from the inside: he moved hurriedly away.
There was a cheap bar around the corner where he had a beer every payday, and he went there now. "Good morning and top of the morning to you. . Mr. Pachs," the robot bartender greeted him with recorded Celtic charm, hesitating slightly between the stock phrase and the search of the customer-tapes for his name. "And will you be having the usual?"
"No I will not be having the usual, you plastic and gaspipe imitation of a cheap stage Irishman, I'll be having a double whiskey."
"Sure and you are the card, sir," the electronically affable bartender nodded, horsehair spitcurl bobbing, as it produced a glass and bottle and poured a carefully measured drink.
Pachs drank it in a gulp and the unaccustomed warmth burned through the core of cold indifference that he had been holding on to. Christ, it was all over, all over. They would get him now with their Senior Citizens' Home and all the rest, he was good as dead.
There are some things that don't bear thinking about. This was one. Another double whiskey followed the first, the money for this was no longer important because he would be earning no more after this week. And the unusual dose of alcohol blurred some of the pain. Now, before he started thinking about it too much, he had to get back to the office. Clean his personal junk out of the taboret and pick up his paycheck from Miss Fink. It would be ready, he knew that; when Martin was through with you he liked to get you out of the way, quickly.
"Floor please?" the voice questioned from the top of the elevator.
"Go straight to hell!" he blurted out. He had never before realized how many robots there were around: Oh how he hated them today. "I'm sorry, that firm is not in this building, have you consulted the registry?"
"Twenty-three," he said and his voice quavered, and he was glad he was alone in the elevator. The doors closed.
