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Section Head. The engineers started coming—Lubell, Peretz, LoParino. A line began to form in front of the time clock. The 7:55 bell sounded just as the Three drove up in Potamos’s car. Potamos inched his way through the now crowded parking lot and pulled into a space about seventy yards from the building.
    â€œWe’re just in time,” said Cohen, getting out.
    â€œTerrible spot,” said Dorfman, following Cohen, but failing to slam the door so that Potamos had to lean way over to grab the handle and close it. The two engineers headed for the building.
    Ten minutes later, Steinberg pulled into the lot, selecting a space far from everyone else to avoid the danger of crashing into their cars when he parked. Spaces far from everyone else, of course, were exceedingly far from the building. Steinberg began to walk. The 8:05 bell sounded. He was late. Though salaried employees were not docked for lateness, they were penalized in other, subtler ways. The higher the employee’s position, the greater the subtlety. Steinberg walked as rapidly as he could. He vowed over and over to leave his apartment earlier. He reminded himself how often he worked late, and how foolish it was for the Microwave Section Head of fourteen years to worry over a few minutes in arrival time. His palms began to perspire despite the chill of the air. His stomach ached as he forced his legs to an ever faster pace. Just because Brundage and Pat arrived before him was no reason to promote them, he thought. There was more to the quality of a man’s work than on-time arrival. The building loomed up in front of him. His body was quivering, an exquisitely sensitive, pulsating jelly atop speeding legs. Perhaps, perhaps … sometimes, if he were late by only two or three minutes … He bounded up the steps and through the door. He whipped open his coat so Johnson could see his badge. He began walking, encouraged. Perhaps …
    Rupp emerged from behind a nearby staircase.
    â€œGood morning, Stanley,” he said cheerfully.
    Steinberg was crushed.
    Eight fifteen. The line in front of the time clock had long since vanished. Cars driven for miles had cooled. Engineers were lingering over a last drop of morning coffee. Technicians had begun making measurements. Lathes hummed in the shop. The sun shone brightly. Brank entered the parking lot.
    He parked in a space not far from Potamos’s and began to walk to the building. Auerbach Laboratories. A two-story, all-brick, rectangular structure, sixty thousand square feet of floor space on a fenced-in, guarded, seven-acre plot of Long Island land. With translucent windows for security. Lit up at night by spotlights. With a small but well-kept lawn on one side. Brank approached.
    The parking hierarchy spread before him, the reserved spaces with the wooden signs that started at the front of the building and bent around the side for those of less importance. A and Redberry right near the door, Rupp, Lingenfelter, Marchese, and Fish next, Ardway slightly farther, Lancelot and Van Lamm after him, and so on down the line. The hierarchy. Once, Brank had parked in Rupp’s space just to see what would happen. Within five minutes Security had called and asked him to move his car. Mistake, he’d explained. Lost my head for a second. Mr. Rupp is my idol, you see, and I was thinking about him and I …
    The hierarchy, Brank noticed now, seemed to extend to the make of car, too, A driving a Caddy, Redberry and Rupp Lincolns, the rest Oldsmobiles, Buicks, and so on. Brank wondered if perhaps this ordering didn’t permeate all aspects of life, if A ’s wife weren’t the best in bed, Rupp’s and Redberry’s next, Lingenfelter’s third; if A ’s neighborhood didn’t have the shortest lines in the bakery; if A ’s ears had the least accumulation of wax. It was possible. Some people might just be better than others in all respects. Bar none.
    The clouds in