Here is an excerpt from Gary’s short story “The Freeze Devil”
Too bad this was Alexander Beaumont’s last few minutes of life as he looked rather commanding in a dark pinstripe suit that accented his athletic body. He imagined himself not unlike like Warren William as the playboy architect in Day-Time Wife. Mustachioed and over six feet, he was not much heavier than when he captained the rowing team at Yale more than two decades ago. Now, as president of Griffin Iron and Steel, Beaumont felt the same exhilaration he had after each rowing victory.
As you can see,” he said, his manicured finger indicating the growth chart on an easel, “that despite the continuing effects of the economic situation domestically, our foreign markets have propelled us into the black.”
The men seated about the board room nodded their heads and murmured assent. They knew that war clouds shadowed the lands of Europe and Asia. Following Beaumont’s presentation they posed the obligatory questions about risk exposure and projected profits. Beaumont handled their concerns adroitly.
As he talked, sweat ran along his temples. He dabbed at his face with his pocket silk. It wasn’t nerves that caused him to perspire. Manhattan was at the epicenter of an ongoing heat wave that baked the eastern seaboard. Everyone in the room perspired in the August heat. Griffin Iron and Steel was headquartered in an old building in midtown that hadn’t been refitted with those new-fangled air-conditioning units. Several windows were open in hopes of a breeze.
An ice cream truck’s bell tinkled below on the avenue. Portable ice chests strapped over their shoulders, the drivers would go from office to office selling their cold sweet treats to wilting customers. They were making a killing during the heat wave.
Beaumont watched approvingly as the colored waiter retained for this meeting dutifully refilled the pitchers of ice water on the sideboard. Oddly despite the heat, a sudden chill gripped him.
“I recommend we double our guards in the plant we co-own in Motherwell, Scotland,” Beaumont assured board chairman Harris Rogers, who was worried about the plant being sabotaged by axis operatives. Beaumont grimaced as cold spread through hands and arms.
The waiter frowned at him. “Are you feeling ill, Mistah Beaumont? You wants me to call a doctor?”
“No, I’m fine,” Beaumont snapped. The captain never showed weakness in front of his crew. “Just bring the sandwiches in, would you?”
“Yes, suh,” the waiter answered in a lazy voice but didn’t do so. Instead, he activated a hidden two-way radio behind his square belt buckle. “Chief, I think it’s happening again. You better get here, double quick.”
“What’s wrong with you?” Beaumont complained, shuddering.
“You’re at Griffin?” a disembodied graveyard voice asked.
“I am,” the waiter confirmed. “The board room.”
“I’m already on my way, Josh. I’ll also request an ambulance.”
“Tell them to bring all the heavy blankets they can,” the waiter replied. “I’m signing off.”
“What’s going on here?” Ernst Maxwell, one of the board members, said to the server.
“I’m freezing,” Alex Beaumont stuttered, wrapping his arms about himself. The sweat on his face had turned to frost. Everyone glared at him.
