He caught no special meaning from her statement, and he said lightly, “I hope so. It’ll be a pleasure.”
“Well,” she said, moving toward the door, “we probably won’t be seeing each other again.”
“I guess not.”
For a long moment she stood in the doorway, looking at him. Her eyes were intense, and it seemed she was trying to tell him something that she couldn’t put into words.
Then very slowly she turned and walked out of the room.
Kerrigan moved toward the leather sofa. He felt the weight of heavy fatigue and it had no connection with the battering he’d taken from Ruttman. Nor was it due to the fact that he’d had less than three hours’ sleep the night before. As he lowered himself to the sofa, he realized what an effort it had taken to control his anger and discuss matters calmly. It seemed to him that he’d never worked so hard in all his life...
For hour after hour he slept heavily, oblivious of the loud voices of the stevedores on the pier, the clanging of chains, the thudding of crates against the planks. At a few minutes past five he was awakened by a hand shaking his shoulder, and he looked up and saw the grinning face of Ruttman.
“The front office just called,” Ruttman said. “They’re putting you back on the job.”
Kerrigan sat up slowly, rubbing his eyes and dragging himself away from sleep.
Through a veil he heard Ruttman saying, “I’ll be damned if I can figure it out. That call came from the big boss himself.”