She stood in the doorway. I gestured to one of the vinyl-covered chairs. After a minute’s hesitation she turned to a woman in the outer area behind us. “Can you take my calls, Effie?” She sat down.

“Mr. Argus brought him in here just out of sympathy at first. But after a few months everyone could see your cousin was really smart. So Mr. Angus was having Mr. Phillips train him. The idea was he would be able to take over one of the regional offices in another year or so—probably Toledo, where old Mr. Cagney is getting ready to retire.”

Secretaries always know what is going on in an office. “Did Phillips know Boom Boom was being groomed? How did he feel about it?”

She looked at me consideringly. “You don’t look much like your cousin, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

“No. Our fathers were brothers, but Boom Boom and I both took after our mothers in appearance.”

“But you’re very like him around the eyes … It’s hard to tell how Mr. Phillips feels about anything. But I’d say he was glad your cousin was going to be off his hands before long.”

“Did they fight?”

“Oh no. At least not so that anyone here would know about it. But your cousin was an impatient person in a lot of ways. Maybe playing hockey made him want to do everything faster than Mr. Phillips is used to—he’s more the deliberate type.” She hesitated and my stomach muscles tightened: she was about to say something important if she didn’t think it would be indiscreet. I tried to make my eyes look like Boom Boom’s.

“The thing is, Mr. Phillips didn’t want him so involved in the shipping contracts. Each regional vice-president sort of owns his own contracts, and Mr. Phillips seemed to think if Mr. Warshawski got too involved with the customers he might be able to shift some of them to Toledo with him.”

“So did they argue about the contracts? Or the customers?”

“Now if I tell you this, I don’t want you getting me in trouble with Mr. Phillips.”

I promised her her secret was safe.

“You see, Lois—Mr. Phillips’s secretary—doesn’t like anyone touching the contract files.” She looked over her shoulder, as though Lois might be standing there listening. “It’s silly, really, because all the sales reps have to use them. We all have to be in and out of them all day long. But she acts like they’re—they’re diamonds or something. So if you take them you’re supposed to write a note on her desk saying which ones you’ve taken and then let her know when you bring them back.”

The boss’s secretary has a lot of control in an office and often exercises it through petty tyrannies like these. I murmured something encouraging.