"I'd like a whiskey sour," objected Commander Coonley. "I've got butterflies in my stomach after working with those hot-shots from Detroit last night."
"Okay," Willamer accepted the amendment. "One whiskey sour. Any other changes?"
There were none, so I signaled to Tammy and our order was filled.
"Tompkins," Willamer remarked. "You'll excuse this short notice but when I spotted your selling-orders in the market this morning I knew we had to move fast. First of all, I'd like to know why you are selling, when everybody else is buying."
"Mr. Willamer," I explained, "it's none of the S.E.C.'s goddamned business what or why I sell so long as I follow the regulations."
Willamer laughed. "Who said anything about the S.E.C.?" he demanded. "Oh, I get it. You thought this was an informal investigation by the Commission. Right? My fault. Should have told you that this has nothing to do with your firm's market-position or the S.E.C."
I took a reflective swallow of Scotch. "Then what the hell is this?" I asked.
Harry Willamer drew himself up, "We," he explained, "are the Inter-Alia Trading Corporation. Your selling orders suggest that you don't expect the war to last much longer."
"I don't," I told him.
"Neither do we," Willamer continued. "That's why we've been busy organizing Inter-Alia. It's a neat set-up. Sales here, on the War Production Board, is in a position to advise us of all cut-backs in war-contracts and keep in touch with the whole contract-termination program. Colonel Finogan is in the Quartermaster Corps and is the only man in the Army—"