Джозеф Файндер - Company Man

“When? In my voluminous spare time?”

“I’ll owe you one.”

“No offense, but that doesn’t really work on me.”

“Then how about out of the goodness of your heart?”

“Not much there,” he said.

“Kevin.”

He blinked. “Let’s say, hypothetically now, that I had ten minutes for a coffee break that I decided to spend chasing the great white whale out of a personal obsession. What would I be looking for anyway?”

“I just tried Fairfield,” Marge said over the intercom, “but Todd’s assistant said he’s out of the office for the day, so I left a message.”

“Can you try his cell? You have the number, right?”

“Of course.”

Of course she did. She never lost a phone number, never misplaced an address, could pull up a name from her file in a matter of seconds without fail. God, she was the best.

There was a certain etiquette to making phone calls, which she appreciated. If she called Todd’s office and he was there, she’d put Nick on before Todd picked up. That was how it worked. Nick had always hated the telephone brinksmanship, where someone’s assistant would call Marge, be put through to Nick, and then the assistant would say, “I have Mr. Smith,” and Nick would say, “Okay, thanks,” and then Mr. Smith would get on, as if he were too busy even to suffer a few seconds of being on hold. It was demeaning. Nick had devised his own way around that. He’d instructed Marge to tell the assistant, “Put Mr. Smith on, please, and I’ll get Mr. Conover.” That usually worked. So when Marge placed calls for him, he didn’t like to play Mr. Smith’s game. Todd picked up his own cell phone, of course — who didn’t? — so Nick dialed the call himself.

Todd answered right away.

“Todd, it’s Nick Conover.”

“Oh, hey, man.” No background noise. Nick wondered whether Todd actually was in his office anyway.

“Todd, we’ve got some funny things going on around here, and we need to talk.”

“Hey, that’s what I’m here for.” Like he was a shrink or something.

“Two massive deals just fell through because they each, separately, heard that we’re planning to shift all manufacturing to China.”

“Yeah?”

“Any truth to it?”

“I can’t be responsible for gossip, Nick.”

“Of course. But I’m asking you now, flat out — man to man — if it’s true.” Man to toad, he thought. Man to weasel. “If you guys are even exploring the idea.”

“Well, you know how I feel about this, and I’ve let you know. I think we’re eroding our profit margins by continuing to operate these old factories in Michigan like it’s nineteen fifty-nine or something. The world’s changed. It’s a global economy.”

“Right,” Nick said. “We’ve been through all that, and I’ve made it clear that the day Stratton stops making its own stuff is the day we’re no longer Stratton. I’m not going to be the guy who shuts down our factories.”

“I hear you,” Todd said testily.

“I’ve already laid off half the company as you guys asked me to. It was the most painful thing I’ve ever done. But turning Stratton into some kind of virtual company, a little sales office with all the manufacturing done eight thousand miles away — that’s not going to happen on my watch.”

“I hear you,” Todd said again. “What are you calling for?”

“Let me repeat the question, because I don’t think I heard your answer. Is there any truth to these reports that you guys are negotiating to move our manufacturing offshore, Todd?”

“No,” he said quickly.

“Not even preliminary talks?”

“No.”

Nick didn’t know what else to say. Either he was telling the truth, or he was lying, and if he was willing to lie so baldly, well, what the hell could Nick do about it anyway? He thought about mentioning all the back-and-forth e-mail between Todd and Scott, the encrypted documents — but he didn’t want Todd to know he was having his security director keep a close watch. He didn’t want to shut one of the few windows he had into what was really going on.

“Then maybe you can explain to me why you’ve got Scott going to China on some secret mission, like Henry fucking Kissinger, without even telling me.”

A few seconds of silence. “News to me,” Todd finally said. “Ask him.”

“Scott said he went to China to explore the options. He didn’t do that for you? Because if he did, I want you to understand something. That’s not the way it works around here, Todd.”

“He doesn’t report to me, Nick.”

“Exactly. I don’t want to be undermined.”

“I don’t want that either.”

“The job’s tough enough without having to worry about whether my chief financial officer’s taking secret flights to the Orient on Cathay Pacific.”

Todd chuckled politely. “It’s a tough job, and it takes a lot out of you.” The timbre of his voice suddenly changed, as if he’d just thought of something. “You know, I understand your family’s been through some rough times, death of your wife, all that. If you need to spend more time with them, we’re here to help. You want to take a little sabbatical, a little break, might be a good thing. You could probably use a vacation. Be good for you.”

“I’m fine, Todd,” Nick said. Not so easy, Todd . “Going to work every day — that’s what keeps me going.”

“Good to hear it,” Todd said. “Good to hear it.”

Bugbee was gobbling Cheetos out of a small vending machine bag. His fingers — which Audrey had noticed were usually immaculate, the nails neatly clipped — were stained orange.

“Makes sense,” he said through a mouthful of Cheetos. “Rinaldi picked up a piece in Grand Rapids when he was working there.”

“Or here. Those guns travel.”

“Maybe. So where’d he toss it?”

“Any of a million possibilities.” She was hungry, and he wasn’t offering her any, the jerk.

“I forget who the poor slobs were searched the Dumpster, but nothing there.”

“There’s probably hundreds of Dumpsters in town,” Audrey pointed out. “And the dump. And sewer grates, and the lake and the ponds and the rivers. We’re never going to find the gun.”

“Sad but true,” Bugbee said. He crumpled up the empty bag, tossed the wad at the metal trash can against the wall, but the bag unballed in the air and landed on the floor. “Shit.”

“Did you have a chance to talk to the alarm company?”

He nodded. “Fenwick Alarm’s just an office downtown. I don’t know what the hell they do — they install, but not in this case. They don’t even do the monitoring themselves. That’s done by a joint called Central Michigan Monitoring, out of Lansing. They keep all the electronic records.”

“And?”

“Nada. Just confirms what we already know. That Wednesday morning one of the perimeter alarms at Conover’s house got triggered. Alert lasted eleven minutes. Big fucking deal. You got the hard drive — that ought to give up what the cameras recorded, right?”

She explained what she knew about Conover’s digital video recording system. “I’ve asked Lenehan to look again. But Noyce has him doing all kinds of other things ahead of us.”

“Why does that not surprise me?”

“Speaking of cameras, one of us should check out whatever they have at Fenwicke Estates security for that night.”

Bugbee shook his head. “Did already. They use a central station downtown. Nothing special — Stadler climbs a perimeter fence, that’s it.”

“Too bad.”

“I say we poly the guy. Both of those assholes.”

“That’s a tough one. It may be early. We may want to wait until we have more. I know that’s what Noyce would say.”