Joseph Finder - Power Play

Jim Rawlings never expected the fund to go belly-up, of course. He never expected to put Latimer in the desperate position of having to come up with a hundred million dollars to pay off a margin call when the investment collapsed. Had he lived, Rawlings would have taken care of things.

Then again, he never anticipated an outside investigation whose unblinking, ceaseless scrutiny made it impossible for Latimer to dig up the money somewhere in the Hammond treasury.

"If Rawlings hadn't dropped dead playing golf at Pebble Beach, none of this would have happened," Upton Barlow told Cheryl later. "I never liked golf."

I almost didn't make the flight home.

I had the dubious honor of being interviewed personally by the head of the RCMP Major Crime Unit, a dour and weary-looking homicide investigator named Roland Broussard with a black mustache and a unibrow. Sergeant-Major Broussard was said to be their most skilled interrogator.

Midway through his interrogation, he got a copy of my juvenile arrest record-yeah, sure, they promise you that your records are "sealed," but they never really are-and from the way he started crunching his breath mints I could tell he was excited. He seemed to have decided that I was like an arithmetic problem that never added up the same way twice.

But finally he excused me, after everyone else had boarded the Hammond jet. They held the flight for me, though.

I limped up the metal steps and entered the main salon. As I walked in, my eyes getting used to the dim light, I looked around for a seat.

There were a number of empty ones.

I'd forgotten how ludicrously opulent the company plane was, all the wood paneling and the Oriental rugs and the marble tables and the leather recliners.

Someone clapped, and then a couple of people, and before long there was a smattering of applause, which sounded strange in the sound-deadened cabin. I smiled, shook my head modestly, plopped down in the nearest seat, which happened to be next to Hank Bodine.

He was talking on his cell phone, and as soon as he saw me, he rose and found another seat, off by himself. For the first half hour of the flight, he made call after call, and I could see him getting more and more frustrated.

Then Cheryl summoned me to her private cabin.

Ali let me in but immediately excused herself. She went to a fancy mahogany desk in the corner and tapped away at a laptop. Cheryl was sitting in one of the overstuffed off-white chairs, her feet up on an ottoman, and she, too, was talking on a cell phone.

I took a seat on a couch facing her, picked up a copy of the Wall Street Journal, skimmed the movie review, and pretended not to listen in on Cheryl's conversation.

"Jerry," she was saying, almost coquettishly, "you know I've been chasing you for years." She gave a lilting laugh. "Oh, you'll love Los Angeles. I'm sure of it. Don't you get tired of all the rain? I did. All right, then. Good to reconnect, and I'm glad we could come to terms. I'm thrilled."

She snapped her cell phone shut and looked up at me. She seemed to be in a giddy mood. "You-" she began, but then the door to the cabin flew open, and Hank Bodine stormed in.

"What the hell is going on?" he yelled.

"Pardon me, Hank?" said Cheryl.

"Every time I call my office, I get some damned recording saying I've reached a 'nonworking extension at Hammond Aerospace.' I can't even reach my own admin."

"Gloria Morales has been reassigned, Hank."

"What? You have no right to do that without my sign-off!"

Ali approached Cheryl, handed her a burgundy leather pad with a single sheet of paper on top of it. "Thank you, Alison," Cheryl said. She picked up a large black fountain pen from the marble end table, took her time uncapping the pen, then dashed off a bold signature at the bottom of the page. She held the paper up and blew on it to dry the ink. Then she gave it back to Ali, who wordlessly took it over to Bodine.

"What's this?" he said warily. He snatched the paper from Ali's hand and stared at it, his eyes steadily widening. "'Violation of fiduciary duty of loyalty'…What the hell do you think you're doing?" He shook his head. "Nice try, Cheryl, but you don't have the power to fire anyone."

"Really?" Cheryl inspected her fingernails. "You might want to ask Kevin Bross about that. I'm sure you've noticed he's not on board. Try him on his cell-he's still in Vancouver. I didn't think he merited a ride on the company plane."

Bodine emitted a single sharp bark of laughter. "You'll never get this past the board of directors. They specifically took away your power to hire and fire. You can write all the letters you want, but they don't mean a damned thing."

She sighed. "The executive committee of the board of directors met this morning in special session, Hank," she said patiently. "Once they had a chance to read the e-mails that Upton kindly provided, they realized they had no choice."

"Upton!" Bodine said.

"They quickly realized how far-reaching the legal consequences will be. And, of course, none of them wants to be hit with a lawsuit personally. They simply wanted me to clean up the mess you made. Which I was happy to do. As soon as they restored my power to do so. Quid…pro…quo."

Bodine's face had gone beet red.

"From their standpoint, of course, it was…" Cheryl paused, pursed her lips as if savoring a delectable chocolate, then smiled. "…a no-brainer."

As the metal steps rolled up to the plane, I looked out the window and saw a crowd of photographers and television cameramen and reporters.

When the plane door opened, a roar came up from the crowd, and the reporters closed in, shouting questions. Cheryl was the first to exit, then Ali, then me, and finally the rest of us.

It was a bright, sunny, perfect California day. Suddenly something streaked out of the crowd, fast as a rocket, tracing frenzied circles on the tarmac.

"Gerty," I yelled. "Come!"

She ran toward me, her leash flying behind her, and vaulted into the air. Her tongue swiped my face. Then she bounded away and knocked a photographer's very-expensive-looking camera out of his hands. The poor dog was crazed with joy and relief.

Zoл shouted an apology to the photographer, tried to nab the dog, then gave up.

Ali beckoned me over to Cheryl's limousine.

"Jake," Cheryl said. "Ride with us."

"Thanks, but I can't," I said. "My car's parked here."

"Well, we have a lot of work to do when we get back to the office. Quite a few senior positions to fill. There'll be a number of vacant offices on the thirty-third floor, and I'd like you to take one of them. As one of my special assistants."

"Thanks," I said. "I appreciate it. But I'm not really cut out for the thirty-third floor. I'll mix up the salad fork and the fish fork. I'll drink out of the finger bowl. You never know what I might blurt out. You know me by now, I think-it's just not my scene."

She looked at me for a few seconds, her eyes gray ice. Then her expression softened. "Actually, I could use some more straight talk on the thirty-third floor."

"Thing is, I can't let Mike Zorn down." I smiled sheepishly. "Gotta deal with the whole chicken-rivet thing."

After a few seconds, she said, "I understand, I guess. But I'm sorry."

"Anyway," I said, "I called a couple of engineers from the plane. They've got a possible solution they want to explore. I'll keep you posted."

As I headed toward the parking lot, Gerty straining at the leash, Ali called out to me.

I stopped, looked around.

"Did I just hear you turn Cheryl down?"

"It's nothing personal," I said.

Gerty was whining and scrambling and jumping all over Ali, and I tried to pull the dog back.

"Guess I shouldn't be surprised," she said. "It's that whole change thing, huh?"