"I want to," said Fielding.

"What if we took a pay cut?" asked the union negotiator. "An across-the-board pay cut?"

"Hmmm," said Fielding and had the company's profit-and-loss statement brought to him. "Hmmm. Maybe," said Fielding after examining the printed sheet.

"Yes? Yes?" said the union negotiator.

"Maybe. Just maybe," said Fielding.

"Yes!" said the union negotiator.

"We could use the factory itself to inform the families we're closing. You can get them together in two hours, can't you? I know almost the entire membership is down at the union hall."

"I guess we could do that," said the negotiator, crushed.

"Maybe in two hours, I can work out something. Okay?"

"What?" said the negotiator, suddenly revived.

"I'm not sure yet," said Fielding. "Tell them it looks as if we're going to shut down but I may work out something by this evening."

"I've got to know what, Mr. Fielding. I can't raise their hopes without something concrete."

"Well, then, don't raise their hopes," said Fielding and left with his corporation counsel for dinner in a small El Paso restaurant he favored. They dined on clams oreganato, lobster fra diavolo, and a warm runny custard called zabaglione. Fielding showed his corporation counsel pictures he had taken of the famine in India as part of his famine study for the Denver chapter of Cause, a worldwide relief agency.

His meal ruined, the corporation counsel asked Fielding what he gave one of the children he saw, a child with protruding ribs, hollow eyes and starvation thick belly.

"A fiftieth at f/4.5 on Plus-X film," said Fielding, dunking the crisp golden crust of fresh-baked Italian bread into the spicy red tomato sauce of his lobster fra diavolo. "Aren't you going to eat your scungilli?"