Your Eyelids Are Growing Heavy Read Free

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    So what it came down to was that Megan Phillips had no woman friend at Glickman. She missed having a woman friend at work. Not that her job allowed all that much time for palling around—lunch, coffee breaks. But still, a little companionship would have been welcome.
    The men—well, they were just men. On the make, jockeying for position, obsessed with their status within the company and concerned only secondarily with the welfare of the company itself. Showing off for each other by loading their speech with sexual innuendo: doin’ the macho strut. No chance for companionship there. In fact, most men approached Megan either professionally or sexually; they simply didn’t know how to be just plain friends with women.
    Her reverie was interrupted, rudely. A computer printout slapped down on her desk and a voice said, “I’ve changed this shipment. I’ve told you a dozen times one large truck is easier to guard than two small ones.”
    A wave of nausea passed through Megan. It had actually come to that: all she had to do was hear Bogert’s voice and she got sick to her stomach. She looked up at the big man lounging arrogantly against her desk. Waiting to make sure the dumb broad understood what he was saying.
    She picked up the printout. “It’s a shipment of polio vaccine, Bogert. Who’s going to hijack polio vaccine?”
    â€œI’m in charge of security, not you. I checked with Bethel Park. There’s a big truck available you could have used. I ordered the switch.”
    Speak calmly . “I have asked you numerous times not to interfere with my shipping arrangements without checking with me first.”
    â€œI have the authority to override any arrangement you make if I think the shipment’s not secure. And I’ve told you that a dozen times too. Something wrong with your memory?”
    â€œYour authority is not the point. The point is that sometimes there are other factors you don’t know about—”
    â€œDon’t bullshit me, lady. You blew it again, and I corrected your mistake. ‘Largest vehicle available in lieu of two or more small ones for the same shipment,’ that’s what security guidelines say. You want me to show you the book again?”
    â€œYou wrote those guidelines yourself,” Megan snapped. “You can make them say anything you like.”
    Bogert gave her an insolent smile. “I’m glad you remembered that. Now if you can just remember what the guidelines say, you and I’ll get along just fine. And don’t try anything cute, like countermanding my order. I have to go out to Bethel Park this afternoon and I’m going to watch that stuff being loaded myself.” With that parting shot he sauntered out of her office, taking his time.
    Great. Just what she needed to start the week. Megan did not, as a matter of fact, remember why she’d ordered two small vehicles instead of one large one. And Bogert’s crack about her memory had made her uncomfortable in view of her recent blackout. But that was just coincidence; she knew the game Bogert was playing.
    A lot of Bogert’s security precautions were really paycheck precautions: a self-important man kicking up as big a fuss as he could to justify the check he received every other week. He made a lot of trouble for Megan, changing her arrangements and screwing up other shipments she was trying to move. It had gotten so bad that Megan had once gone to her boss, the vice president in charge of marketing and distribution, and asked that Bogert be ordered to check with her first. But the vice president was a don’t-stick-your-neck-out type; he’d given her a lot of clichés about industrial sabotage and the need for security and in the end had ignored the problem of Bogert’s interference.
    The ironic part was that Megan felt sure Bogert had nothing against her personally; it was simply that her job made her more