Джозеф Файндер - Company Man

Scott stared, his left eye wincing madly. Finally he said, “The real question is, who do you think you’re working for? We both work for our stakeholders. It’s pretty simple. Your problem is that you’ve never really understood that. You talk about managing this company as if you own the place. But I’ve got news for you. You don’t own the place, and neither do I. You think you’re a better man than me because you got all teary-eyed when the layoffs came? You talk about the ‘Stratton Family,’ but guess what, Nick. It’s not a family. It’s a business. You’re a great face to parade in front of the Wall Street analysts. But just because you look good in tights doesn’t make you a superhero.”

“That’s enough, Scott.”

“Fairfield gave you the car keys, Nick. They didn’t give you the car.”

Nick took a deep breath. “There’s only one driver.”

The tic in Scott’s eye was coming more rapidly now. Nick could see a vein pulsing at his temple. “In case you haven’t figured it out,” Scott said, “things have changed around here. You can’t fire me.” He tried to reach around for the emergency stop button to get the elevator doors open. But Nick swiveled his body in one quick motion to block Scott’s hand.

“You’re right,” he said. “I can’t fire you. But let me be really clear: so long as I’m here, you are not to conduct any discussions regarding the sale of this company.”

A thin smile crept across Scott’s face as he kept staring. Several seconds ticked by. The only sound was the ring of the elevator alarm. “Fine,” he said freezingly. “You’re the boss.” But his tone called to mind Cassie’s interpretation of Scott’s refrain: those unspoken words for now .

He returned to his desk shaken and began to go through his e-mail. More Nigerians who sought to share their plundered millions. More offers to add inches, or borrow money, or acquire painkillers.

He called Henry Hutchens and made an appointment for coffee or an early lunch tomorrow. Then he tried Martin Lai in Hong Kong, at home, where it was around nine in the evening.

This time, Martin Lai answered. “Oh — Mr. Conover, yes, thank you, thank you,” he said, a cataract of nerves. “I’m very sorry I didn’t call you back — I was on a trip, sir.”

Nick knew that wasn’t true. Had Lai, surprised to get a call from the CEO, checked in with Scott, who told him not to reply? “Martin, I need your help with something important.”

“Yes, sir. Of course, sir.”

“What can you tell me about a ten-million-dollar transfer of funds out of Stratton Asia Ventures to a numbered account in Macau?”

“Sir, I don’t know anything about that,” Lai answered, too quickly.

“Meaning you don’t know why the transfer was made?”

“No, sir, this is the first I hear of it.”

He was covering up. Scott must have gotten to him.

“Martin, this financial irregularity has been called to my attention, and it’s something I’m quite concerned about. I thought I’d see if you know anything before the formal investigation is launched by Compliance.”

“No, sir,” Lai said. “I never heard of it before.”

As he stared at the computer screen, Marjorie’s voice came over the intercom, and at the same time an instant message popped up.

“Nick,” she said, “it’s the high school again.”

Nick groaned.

The message was from Stephanie Alstrom:

Nick — info for you — talk soon?

“Is it Sundquist again?” he said to Marjorie, as he typed:

come by my office now.

“I’m afraid it is,” Marjorie said. “And this time — well, it sounds awfully serious.”

“Oh, God,” he said. “Can you put me through?”

Stephanie Alstrom was getting out of the elevator just as Nick was about to get in. He gestured for her to stay in the cabin, and once the doors closed, he said, “I’m in a rush. Personal business. What do you have, Steph?”

“Pacific Rim Investors,” she said. “Apparently it’s a consortium whose silent partner — their anonymous sugar daddy — is an arm of the P.L.A. — the People’s Liberation Army of China.”

“Why the hell would the Chinese army want to buy Stratton?”

“Capitalism, pure and simple. They’ve bought up thousands of foreign corporations, usually through shell companies to avoid the political backlash. I wonder if Willard Osgood knows it. He’s somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun.”

“I wonder,” Nick said. “But no one’s a bigger archconservative than Dorothy Devries. And you can bet she has no idea.”

“Nick, I know you’re an extremely busy man,” Jerome Sundquist said, leading him past the framed photos of multicultural tennis champs, “but if anyone owes you an apology, it’s your son.” He spoke loudly so Lucas could hear.

Lucas sat in one of the camel-upholstered side chairs, looking small, shoulders hunched, furled into himself. He was wearing a gray T-shirt under a plaid shirt and track pants that were zippered above the knee so you could turn them into shorts, not that Lucas ever did.

He didn’t look up when Nick entered.

Nick stood there in his raincoat — this time he was prepared for the lousy weather, even brought an umbrella — and said, “You did it again, didn’t you?”

Lucas didn’t reply.

“Tell your father, Lucas,” Sundquist said as he took a seat behind his overly large desk. Nick wondered, fleetingly, why it was that people with the biggest desks and the biggest offices were often not all that powerful, in the scheme of things.

Then he reminded himself that Jerry Sundquist might only run a high school in a small town in Michigan, but right now he was as powerful in the lives of the Conovers as Willard Osgood.

Lucas cast the principal a bloodshot glare and looked back down at his feet. Had he been crying?

“Well, if he doesn’t have the courage to tell you, I will,” Sundquist said, leaning back in his chair. He actually seemed to be enjoying this moment, Nick thought. “I told you that the second time he was caught smoking he’d be expelled.”

“Understood,” Nick said.

“And I think I also told you that if we found drugs, we’d let the police prosecute.”

“Drugs?”

“The school board voted unanimously a few years ago that any student using, distributing, or even possessing marijuana on school property will be suspended, arrested, and face an expulsion hearing.”

“Arrested,” Nick said, suddenly feeling a chill, as if he’d just stepped into a meat locker. Lucas wasn’t crying. He was high.

“We notify the police and let them prosecute. And I have to tell you, Michigan tends to be tough on minors in possession of marijuana. The two-thousand-dollar fine is probably insignificant to you, Nick, but I’ve seen judges give minors anything from probation to forty-five days in prison, as much as a year.”

“Jerry—”

“Under Michigan law, we’re required to notify the local police, do you know that? MCL three-eighty, thirteen oh eight. We don’t have a choice about it.”

Nick nodded, put a hand on his forehead and began massaging away the headache. My God, he thought. Expulsion? There wasn’t another high school for forty miles. And what private school would take Lucas, given his record? How would Laura have handled this? She was so much better at difficult situations than he was. “Jerry, I’d like us to talk. You and me. Without Luke.”

Sundquist didn’t have to do anything more than raise his chin at Lucas, who quickly got up, as if shot from a cannon. “Wait in the faculty lounge,” he said to Lucas’s back.