My next visitor was General Forbes-Dutton of the Army Service Forces.
"Remember me, Winnie?"
"Why sure!" I replied with great cordiality. "If it isn't—"
"That's right," the General interrupted. "Well, boy, after Pearl Harbor I got me—I was asked to go to Washington to help out, so the bank said it was my duty, that they'd hold my job for me, and I've been there ever since. I'm on Westervelt's staff, in charge of financial procurement policies. Neat, eh?"
"So you're still working for the bank?"
"Not for them, Winnie. With them. We're both working for the government. Financing war-contracts, you know. Now Westervelt's heard good things about you, Winnie. He was much impressed by the way you turned down that gang of chiselers who tried to horn in on the quinine deal. They're all out. He's got a big job in mind for you. How'd you like to be a Brigadier-General?"
"It's a little late for that," I told him. "The war's almost over."
He laughed very heartily. "It's a honey of a job, Winnie. Here's what gives. This war's almost over, as you say. Then the Army will have the job of selling off the stuff it doesn't need and boy! it has everything. We've just about cornered everything there is and the whole world's going to be crying for the stuff. We want a good trader in charge, who knows how to play ball with the boys, realistic that is. No star-gazer, eh? And that's where you come in. There's millions in it. Hell! there's billions. We got to go slow in selling it or we'd bust the market, wreck values and stall reconversion, so we had us a brain-storm when we heard how you cleaned up in the Funeral Market. How about it? Want to play ball and get next to the biggest break you ever heard of?"
I looked Forbes-Dutton squarely in the eye.
"Isn't it going to be a headache?" I asked. "I mean, won't there be a stink in Congress about it? I'm no fall-guy."