Maybe it was becoming throwing-up drunk at his sister’s apartment, just when things were getting good with Margaret. He made a mental note to dry out. He was acquiring too much responsibility to risk doing something like that at a business lunch. Mother had always said that Dad’s side of the family was full of alcoholics. “One drink, one drunk. But you know, they were always sweet,” she would say, looking at Dad. But when Dad drank—generally after a late frost destroyed the emerging potato plants—everybody avoided him.
Kevin was a sweet drunk—during college he had frequently awakened next to girls he didn’t know, who had always assured him of this. As he drove over the Mississippi, looking at the barge trains headed downstream, he resolved that he would have to get a grip on himself—learn what to drink, and how much of it.
The Chicago stations were dying out, and all he could pick up was country and western, which he didn’t like. He turned off the stereo, fished a pocket tape recorder out of his briefcase, and began to dictate his trip report for Professor Larsen. One of the secretaries in Larsen’s pool would type it and expertly clean up the phrases that weren’t very coherent. “Arrived D.C. 3 July for appointments at USDA’s Foreign Ag desk. Checked out the rumors that there might be some recision on our subcontinent wheat-rust grant. Your golfing buddy Congressman Fowler has great staff. They homed in on that sucker just as it was coming into committee and covered our butts. The National Geographic piece still works wonders, though it has precious little to do with science.”
Whoops, better erase that. He backed the tape up while passing a couple of semis at eighty-five miles an hour, fishtailed a bit, and got back into the right lane just in time for a red Corvette to whoosh by him doing at least one hundred. “Reggie Marsh, desk officer for Brazil, sends his regards. Then across the Mall and down a ways to State and a chat with our friends at USAID. They wanted us to make sure to keep in contact with your Iraqi students so that in case of more hostilities between them and Iran, they could serve as channels for technology and funding and (reading between the lines a little bit) intelligence. Hugh Reinckens, one of your former students, sent his regards. FYI, he isn’t doing so well careerwise.”
He pulled over at a rest stop, emptied his bladder, bought a Coke, and climbed back in for the final half-hour of the drive. “University liaison at USIA bitched at us—they are getting picky about some of the documentation on our current stable of Jordanian grad students. Someone in town is pressuring them to the effect that some of those students should have their papers rechecked or else lose their student visas. Probably fallout from the Habibi murder. Anyway, I asked for a half year, because most of the Jordanians will be gone by Christmas anyway. In a classic example of right hand not knowing what left hand is doing, the folks at the student visa office checked our three brand-new Jordanians right through.
“Went to the Jordanian Embassy to talk to the cultural attaché. He was very pleased to hear about the three new students. Didn’t want to talk much after that.
“The next day I celebrated our nation’s independence.
“On the fifth I made the rounds of National Academy of Sciences, Ag, AID offices in Rosslyn, NSF, and Food for the Future. Good reports across the board—everyone is pleased with the work we’re doing for them, eager to continue supporting that work. NSF wants to funnel some cross-discipline work your way—I’ll pass the papers along.”
After that Kevin had spent three days making the rounds of the embassies of countries in Africa, South America, and Asia where EIU had set up research stations. He glossed over these meetings in his report. There wasn’t much to say about them. Everyone was happy. They had no reason not to be—much of the money channeled through Larsen’s operation ended up in the private Swiss bank accounts of the officials concerned. Kevin barely remembered these meetings anyway, since many of these people had served him drinks. The mere memory of this made him powerfully thirsty—the dry, cold air blasting from the Camry’s air conditioner, combined with the hot sun coming in through the left-side window, had left him dehydrated. A big glass of iced tea, perhaps with a shot of whiskey in it, would go down well. He could think of little else as he blasted across the town line into Wapsipinicon and headed for his duplex north of the university. He punched the button on his garage-door opener, pulled inside, and entered the place through his kitchen door. The blast of the air conditioner almost knocked him down—he had forgotten to turn it off before he’d left. The electric bill would be a thing of excess. Dad would never have left any room or building without first turning off everything that was there to be turned off.
There were fifteen calls on the answering machine, most of them telephone sales—lots of no-load mutual funds. Apparently he had found his way onto some list of newly affluent suckers that was circulated among marketing companies.