Good People Read Online Free

people’s car for the coming decade.
    Thomas stood in his office—he preferred to spend most of his working hours on his feet, a position that filled him with a sense of vitality and strength—and called for his two secretaries. A week earlier he had announced to all the staff that today they would be required to stay in the office until evening. A clear message had to be conveyed to the Daimler-Benz people: Milton will be at your service day or night. He started dictating letters to the company’s various European directors, inviting them to the traditional New Year party in Berlin. Each letter was seasoned with a more or less personal tone, depending on the branch’s achievements. Then he called in an underling, who was preparing their presentation to a smallish client, gave him ten minutes to run through the outline, made his comments and asked for a finished document by the end of the week. While the employee was gathering up his papers, Thomas spoke on the telephone with his friend Schumacher from the Ministry of Economics, listing several ideas and the names of companies to which Milton might offer its excellent service. After taking care of a few other bits and pieces, he stood in front of the mirror, straightened his hair, smoothed some creases in his jacket and headed for the boardroom.
    Frau Tschammer was in the hall in front of the directors’ offices, between framed letters of appreciation from Piaggio and the Wedelchocolate factory in Warsaw, hiding behind a newspaper. The letters had of course come from clients of the branch offices Thomas had established. Her face, pink and heavily made up, emerged. She approached him, fiddling with the front of her light blue dress.
    ‘Frau Tschammer, you’re prettier than ever tonight,’ he called and kept on towards the boardroom. ‘It’s time to finish with all the petty details of work and celebrate with one of your many admirers.’
    ‘But you asked us to stay late today,’ she complained.
    ‘Of course, but it’s clear that we didn’t mean you, Frau Tschammer. You’re in a class of your own.’
    ‘Did you hear?’ She blocked his way.
    ‘Of course I heard,’ he hissed. Frau Tschammer was an expert at wasting other people’s time with trivial matters.
    ‘Vom Rath is dead.’
    ‘So tell Elisabeth to order a wreath and draft a letter. I’m rushing to the meeting.’
    ‘What kind of letter?’ Frau Tschammer asked in surprise.
    ‘Frau Tschammer, what kind of question is that? We don’t turn our back on our clients even when they die. We’ll be working with the Richard Lenz Company for many years.’
    ‘Thomas, that’s not funny. Vom Rath didn’t work with us. He was the Third Secretary of the German Embassy in Paris.’
    ‘I’m quite familiar with the matter, Frau Tschammer,’ he interrupted. ‘For two days now, people have been talking about nothing else. Maybe you don’t remember, even though it’s your job to remember, but Richard Lenz has a manager named von Kraft, a not dissimilar name.’
    Her astonishment amused him. Once again she had failed to understand how he dared to undermine her with some ridiculous remark dressed up as an unassailable truth. Frau Tschammer, like his ex-wife Elsa, insisted on speaking to him like a schoolmarm, despite his own flippant approach to things: The world is a game; it’s pointless to search for truth or lies, so don’t complain, play! He had already heard that she secretly scorned this teasing behaviour as ‘Heiselbergian Ethics’.
    ‘By the way, I have a lot of respect for companies and people who have finite dreams, like Richard Lenz,’ he added. ‘Not everyone is destined to conquer the world, Frau Tschammer, as you well know.’
    He hoped that the Vom Rath affair wouldn’t ruin the meeting. The streets were teeming, feverish, as if yet another rowdy march was about to invade the city and keep people from working. Earlier, when he had driven by Kurfürstendamm, he had seen some hopeless