Joseph Finder - Power Play

Then I heard her speak to someone in the room, a different Ali voice: welcoming and warm. I could hear her big radiant smile. When she got back on the phone with me, she was all business.

That night I called her again.

"I don't know, Landry," she said. "Sometimes I think there's something frozen inside you. I don't know. But now I get it about the 'As Is' sign."

I sent her a couple of long, heartfelt e-mails-I found it easier to express myself through the impersonal machinery of the keyboard and the computer monitor. Her answers were polite but brief.

I figured that she'd seen something in me, something that didn't sit well with her. Over the years, since the nightmare of my teen years, I'd been building a tall privacy fence inside me, using the finest lumber, making sure the boards butted right up against each other so no one could see between the cracks.

But maybe she could. Or maybe she just didn't like my carpentry.

A month or so later I was at an Irish bar in downtown L.A. with some friends-the motto in the window, in pseudo-Gaelic lettering: "We pour, you score"-when I spotted Ali sitting by herself at a small table in the back. She was dressed in black, a tall glass of black liquid in front of her: Guinness stout. I sat down in the other chair.

"Hey," I said.

"Hey." A note of melancholy? Maybe I was imagining things.

Then I noticed the second glass, the bottle of Rolling Rock. "Oh, sorry-someone's sitting here."

"He's in the bathroom." She smiled. "He likes the mural."

There was a legendary mural in the men's room of a buxom nude blonde, laughing and pointing down toward the urinal. "In case he's not sure where to aim, huh?" I said. The old joke. "How long have you been going out?"

She shrugged. "We're not, really. This is, like, our second date."

"Huh." A long, awkward silence. "Band's not very good tonight, is it?"

"Pretty bad," she agreed.

Another beat of silence. I picked up her date's Rolling Rock bottle, turned it around. "Huh," I said.

"What?"

"It says, 'Latrobe Brewing Co., St. Louis, Missouri.'"

"So?"

"Used to say 'Latrobe Brewing Co., Latrobe, Pennsylvania.' But Budweiser makes it now. In Newark."

"That's pretty sneaky."

"Not really. Hell, if you're really interested, it's all there on the label, actually. Printed right on the glass. Everything you could ever want to know."

"Except it says St. Louis, not Newark," she said, a mysterious glint in her eyes.

The bar band launched into a postpunk rendition of "On the Street Where You Live." Or maybe it was Metallica's "Bleeding Me." It was kind of hard to tell with those guys.

"But who cares where it comes from anyway?" I said. "If you like the beer, isn't that enough?"

Ali gave me a funny look, tilted her head a few degrees. "You are talking about beer, right?"

I smiled and was about to reply, but then a tall, good-looking, black-haired guy came up to the table.

He cleared his throat. "Sorry, this seat's taken," he said.

The predinner cocktail reception was held in a smaller room off the great room. A big banner hung from the low ceiling that said WELCOME HAMMOND AEROSPACE.

They were serving blender drinks and mojitos and flutes of champagne, and voices got steadily louder, the laughter more raucous, as the guys got increasingly soused. The exception seemed to be Hank Bodine, who was talking to Hugo Lummis, looking really pissed off. Ali had gone to Cheryl's suite to talk through the evening's schedule. I stood there holding a mojito and looking around when someone sidled up to me. One of the guys I'd seen whispering in the hall upstairs-caught whispering, I thought.

"You're Jake Landry, right?"

This was the blond one, which meant he was John Danziger, the corporate controller. The other one was Grogan.

"And you're John Danziger," I said. We shook hands, and I went through what was by then my standard pitch about how I was Mike Zorn's stand-in. But instead of giving me the expected response, about how big the shoes were that I had to fill and all that, Danziger said, "I'm sorry if I was rude to you upstairs."

"Rude?"

"That was you in the hall upstairs, right? When Grogan and I were talking?" He had a pleasant, smooth baritone voice, like an NPR radio announcer.

"Oh, was that you? Looked like an intense conversation." That meant he'd seen me coming out of Ali's room. If, that is, he knew it was Ali's room.

"Just work-related stuff," he said. "But sort of sensitive, which is why Alan overreacted."

"No worries." But it wasn't Alan Grogan who'd noticed me in the hall and suddenly broke off their conversation. It was Danziger. I couldn't figure out why he was making such a big deal out of something so trivial. Maybe he was afraid I'd overheard something. Whatever it was, he and Grogan had probably been too preoccupied to pay much attention to me or where I'd just come from. "So can I ask you something?"

Danziger gave me a wary look. "Sure."

"What does the corporate controller actually do, anyway?"

He looked to either side, then came closer. "No one actually knows," he said conspiratorially.

"Do you?"

He shook his head. "Don't tell anyone."

"Seriously," I said. "I have no idea what a controller does. Besides…controlling things."

"I wish I could tell you."

"You mean, if you told me, you'd have to kill me?"

"If I told you, I'd put us both to sleep," Danziger said. "It's too boring."

Someone tapped Danziger on the shoulder. It was Ronald Slattery, the Chief Financial Officer. He was a small, compact man, bald on top, with prominent ears, wearing heavy black-framed glasses. Slattery was wearing a blue blazer and a white shirt. This was the first time I'd ever seen Slattery not wearing a gray suit. He was the sort of guy you could imagine going to bed in a gray suit. Danziger excused himself, and the two men turned away to talk.

"Hey, there, roomie." Geoff Latimer grabbed me by the elbow. "Having a good time?"

"Sure," I said.

He faltered for a few seconds, looked as if he was searching for something to say. Then: "Everyone already knows everyone else. It's kind of a tight circle in some ways. Would you like me to introduce you to some people?"

I was about to tell him thanks but no thanks, when there was a tink-tink-tink of silverware against glass, and the room quieted down. Cheryl Tobin stood under the banner with a broad smile. She was wearing a navy blue jacket over a long ivory silk skirt and big jewel-studded earrings. Ali stood close behind her, studying a binder.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Cheryl said. "Or maybe I should just say, gentlemen." Polite laughter.

Clive Rylance said loudly, "That rules out most of us," and there was a burst of laughter. Kevin Bross, standing next to Rylance, leaned over and said something mildly obscene to him about Ali. He probably meant to whisper, but his voice carried. I wanted to slam the guy against the peeled-log wall and impale him on a set of antlers, but instead I let the anger surge with a prickly heat and subside. Bodine and Lummis and Barlow were all standing together. I could see Bodine whisper something to Lummis, who nodded in reply.

"Well, you know me by now," Cheryl said smoothly. "I always expect the best. I'd like to welcome everyone to a Hammond tradition I'm proud to join. The annual leadership retreat at the remarkable King Chinook Lodge. It's great to be out of the L.A. smog, isn't it?"

She smiled, paused for the laugh. When it didn't come, she went on, "Well, I for one can't wait. From the minute I arrived at Hammond Aerospace I've heard stories about this place." She paused. "Some of which I can't repeat."

Some low chuckles.

"What's that you guys say-'What happens at King Chinook stays in King Chinook'? I guess I'm about to find out what that's all about, huh"?