"I was wondering—do we make this?"
The operator glanced briefly at the part, then back at Tredel.
"Not any more. Used to. We had a punch press in here before the rivet maker. That part's a dilly. Took five operations just in the punch press."
"Not any more, though?"
"No sir. Maybe. I'm not sure. They took the punch press over to Building 7. I think all the parts like that were finished three months ago. Had that one on my desk as a paper weight. Tossed it out this morning."
They were still making the parts in Building 7, on a lot basis. They made one thousand of them on the first working day of each month.
"We've got it down good, Mr. Tredel," the aproned punch press operator told him, "but still they keep coming up the first of every month. I'd like to go ahead and make them all up sometime. Then they could deliver to the contractor when he calls for them. Save a lot of set-up time." The operator hesitated, feeling as though he had talked of things that were not his to talk about. "Course, I know how it is: Contract cancellation comes along, and we'd be stuck with a bunch of them. Still, I get sick of them. First job every month.
Tredel nodded as though he'd been listening, headed back to his office, part in his pocket.
Even in his own organization it took him three days to discover what the part was, and who ordered it. He realized then, concretely, the difficulty he would have working in some other company trying to discover something.
Of course, he could have asked. Morton would have known right away. Tredel felt the time was still there to be cautious.
The way he had to find out made it slow. Show an interest in what the company was making for other people. Then get into the order and blueprint files without seeming overanxious.
He went three-quarters of the way through the files before he found what he wanted. At that, he almost missed it.
The order was in an envelope, with a glassine front, and the blueprint was tucked inside the envelope. From the description on the order he didn't recognize the part: End-Record Rack Size AB.
No, that couldn't be it. He went four envelopes further, then went back to the blueprint for the record rack end and pulled it out. That was it.
It was a detail print, but in the upper left-hand corner there was a small drawing of the assembly, showing the way the end fitted. Not the best design for the end, by a long shot, and it called for the use of a connecting detail that could have been eliminated, but logical enough.
Structurally the end was rather meaningless, but the peculiar curve
