How horrible is it when your father dies in a plane crash, the firm you're working for immediately tries to pitch for the business AND there's a massive party outside on the exact same day.

I thought Pete was going to wig out.

What's really sooooo "Pete" is the fact that after he heard from his brother that the money was gone (dear ol dad was "insolvent") he decided to go ahead and get what he could out of the fact that the old man had died--and in an AA plane crash no less!--and try to gain something for himself (the AA account) so he showed up after all at the meeting with Duck and the AA guy! That's Pete in a nutshell. "What's in this for me?" is his middle name! Love/Hate that Pete!

However, as news of the calamity spread through the throngs of parade-goers, the disaster did not appear "to quell the enthusiasm of the public reception" for Glenn, the New York Times reported. "It seemed a distant event, perhaps half rumor, in the face of the immediate, tangible drama of the man who had been thrust into space."

It's as if the city cast aside the victims and the aluminum birds of the sky instead to applaud the hopes that one day they would all be traveling shoulder-to-shoulder with the hero who had touched the stars. How little their celebration would matter years, decades later as the space race faded away.

It's not that Pete says "What's in this for me?" It's rather than Duck paid him a compliment. Then for reasons totally unrelated to Pete, Don slammed him when he obviously went to him for advice on whether or not to join Duck at the meeting. People go to where they feel wanted.

At the meeting, Pete's trying to make it work, to get the account, one which, unknown to him, Duck's having a lot of trouble selling to his contact. The fact that his dad died in the crash is an angle which could make the sale and he knows it at the time.

His relationship with his dad was rocky to say the least. But if he thinks about it, he might realize why Daddy didn't help him with the downpayment on the apartment. He didn't have the money. Nahh....

Ritt, you may be right there about ol' Duck slathering on the flattery. I think he knows how approval hungry Pete is and plays on that. Yeah, I guess the old man didn'teven have the money when Pete went to him for the $$ for the apt.dp. even if he had wanted to help Pete. The dad must have not gone completely through it all yet when he did give money to Rob (?)---or whatever Pete's brother's name is---for whatever he came begging for. Pete had bad timing there, I guess.