American Made - Excerpt

Two days after Henry's son was born, he got word that the job he had covered, had come in fact to count on, had been given to someone else. This news arrived, as it tends to in government agencies, by way of rumor, and Henry, as angry as he ever remembers himself, went to see his boss to check it out. "Don," Henry said, "I've heard some disturbing news." Don took his glasses off to listen, lit a cigarette, though he had given up smoking a week ago this day. "Well, what have you heard?" he asked. (His tone suggested, Henry reported, that there wasn't any rumor around he wasn't prepared to deny.) "I had heard," said Henry, "that you had made a decision on Calvin's replacement." "Oh that, said Don. "You said you would let me know as soon as you came to a decision," said Henry. "Did I say that?" said Don. "Frankly, I don't remember making any such promise. The feeling was, and as you know I queried opinions from all directions, that you could have done the job adequately - no one had anything negative to say about your capabilities - but that…" Henry had no recollection of how the sentence was completed.