Джозеф Файндер - Company Man

“Come on, now, Todd,” said Davis Eilers. “We’re all dads here.” Noticing Dorothy, he said, “Or moms.” He ignored Stephanie Alstrom, who had no kids and wasn’t married and seemed to shrink into herself as she tapped away at her laptop.

Calm, Nick told himself, blinking away the tears. Stay calm . The room revolved slowly around him. “Scott means the final figures, Todd, but believe me, there’s no surprise here. I take heart from the fact that our profit margins are still positive.”

“No surprise?” Todd said. “No surprise? Let me tell you something, I don’t really care how the rest of the sector’s doing. We didn’t buy Stratton because you’re like everyone else, because you’re average . We bought you because you were marquee. Same reason we use Stratton chairs and work panels and all that in our own offices in Boston, when we could have bought anything. Because you were the best in your space. Not just good enough. As Willard’s so fond of saying, ‘ “Good enough” is not good enough.’”

“We’re still the best,” Nick said. “Bear in mind that we did our layoffs early — at your insistence, let me remind you. Everyone else waited. We got ahead of the curve.”

“Fine, but you’re still not delivering on your plan.”

“To be fair,” Scott pointed out, “Nick’s plan didn’t assume the economy was going to get worse.”

“Scott,” Todd said in a deadly quiet voice, “Nick’s the CEO. He should have anticipated turns in the economy. Look, Nick, we always like to give our CEOs a lot of rope.” He gave Nick a steady blue stare. What did that mean, anyway? Give a man enough rope and he’ll hang himself — was that it? “We don’t want to run your business — we want you to run your business,” Todd went on. “But not if you’re going to run it into the ground. At the end of the day, you work for us. That means that your job is to protect our investors’ capital.”

“And the way to protect your capital,” Nick said, straining to remain civil, “is to invest in the business now, during the downturn. Now’s the time to invest in new technology. That way, when the economy comes back, we kick butt.” He looked at Dorothy. “Sorry.” She didn’t respond, her icy blue eyes focused on the middle distance.

Todd, leafing through his board book, looked up. “Like spending thirty million dollars in the last three years in development costs for a new chair ?”

“A bargain,” Nick said. “Design and retooling costs, twenty-six patents, two separate design teams. And that’s actually less than Steelcase spent on their Leap chair, which turned out to be a great investment. Or Herman Miller spent on developing the Aeron chair. I mean, don’t forget, product design and development is a core value at Stratton.” Todd was silent for a moment. Score one for the defense . Before he could reply, Nick went on: “Now, if you want to continue this discussion, I’d like to move that we go into executive session.” The motion was seconded and approved by voice vote. This was the point when Scott, as an invited guest but not a board member, normally got up to leave. Nick caught his eye, but Scott’s expression was opaque, unreadable. He wasn’t gathering his things, wasn’t getting up.

“Listen, Nick, we’re going to ask Scott to stay,” Todd said.

“Really?” was all Nick could think to say. “That’s — that’s not the protocol.”

Now Davis Eilers, who’d barely said a word, spoke up. “Nick, we’ve decided that it’s time that Scott join the board formally. We really feel that Scott’s become an important enough part of the management team that we’d like his official participation on the board. We think he can add a lot of value.”

Nick, stunned, swallowed hard as he racked his brain for something to say. He tried to catch Scott’s eye again, but Scott was avoiding his glance. He nodded, thought. The Dan Finegold thing was outrageous. But now, adding Scott as a board member without even telling him in advance, let alone pretending to seek his opinion? He wanted to call them on it, bring it all out into the open, but all he said was, “Well, he can certainly add value.”

“Thanks for understanding,” Eilers said.

“Uh, Nick, we’re going to be making a few changes going forward,” Todd said.

As opposed to what? Nick thought. Going backward? He said, “Oh?”

“We think this board should be meeting every month instead of quarterly.”

Nick nodded. “That’s a lot of travel to Fenwick,” he said.

“Well, we can alternate between Boston and Fenwick,” Todd said. “And we’ll be looking to see the financials weekly instead of monthly.”

“I’m sure that can be arranged,” Nick said slowly. “As long as Scott doesn’t mind.” Scott was examining his board book closely and didn’t look up.

“Nick,” said Davis Eilers, “we’ve also been thinking that, if and when you decide to fire any of your direct reports — any of the executive managers — that’s going to require board approval.”

“Well, that’s not what my contract says.” He could feel his face start to prickle.

“No, but it’s an amendment we’d be in favor of. Sort of making sure we’re all on the same page, personnelwise. Like they say, the only constant is change.”

“You guys are hiring me to do the best job I can,” Nick said. “Enough rope, like you always say. And you just said you want me to run the company — you don’t want to run it yourself.”

“Of course,” Eilers said.

Todd said, “We just don’t want any surprises. You know, keep things running smoothly.” He’d adopted a reasonable tone, no longer combative. He knew he’d won. “We’ve got an almost-two-billion-dollar company to run. That’s a big job for anyone, even someone who’s paying full attention. Hey, it’s like football, you know? You may be the quarterback, but you’re not going to have a winning team without linesmen and receivers and running backs — and coaches. Think of us as your coaches, right?”

Nick gave a slow, faint smile. “Coaches,” he said. “Right.”

When the board meeting came to an end an hour and a half later, Nick was the first to leave the room. He needed to get the hell out of there before he lost it. That wouldn’t be good. I’m not going to quit, he told himself. Make them fire me. Quit and you get nothing. Get fired without cause, and the payoff was considerable. Five million bucks. That was in the contract he’d negotiated when he sold to Fairfield, when the idea of getting fired seemed like science fiction. He was a rock star then; they’d never dump him.

As he left, he noticed two people seated just outside the boardroom, a thuggy-looking blond man in a bad suit and a well-dressed, attractive black woman.

The woman Rinaldi had told him about.

The homicide detective.

The woman he’d seen at Stadler’s funeral.

“Mr. Conover,” she called out. “Could we talk to you for a few minutes?”

Nick took them into one of the conference rooms. Talking at his home base was out of the question, given the way anyone, including Marjorie, could listen in.

He took the lead. He sat at the head of the table. The moment the two homicide detectives sat, he began speaking. He adopted a calm, authoritative tone, brisk but cordial. He was the head of a major corporation with a million things going on, and these two cops were here without an appointment, without even giving him the courtesy of a heads-up call. Yet he didn’t want to diminish the importance of what they were doing. They were investigating the murder of a Stratton employee. He wanted them to feel that he took this seriously. It was a delicate balancing act.