Джозеф Файндер - Company Man

He told her about his meeting with Dorothy Devries.

“Well, she’s not calling the shots anymore,” Cassie said. “You said Todd Muldaur is.”

“That’s the problem.”

“The question I always like to ask is: Who’s your daddy?”

“Yeah. You and Shaft.”

“So who’s Todd Muldaur’s daddy?”

A shrug. “Willard Osgood is the chairman of Fairfield Partners. But it sounds like he’s become an absentee father.”

“Willard Osgood — the guy with the thick glasses and all that folksy investment advice, right? I read that profile in Fortune you showed me. He’s the one you’ve got to go to.”

“For what? I don’t see the upside.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t Osgood really think of himself as a father figure? What you’re describing doesn’t sound like his style.”

“True,” Nick said. “But times change. The face of the future is probably Todd Muldaur.”

“See, that doesn’t add up to me. The way it’s all been kept under wraps — that’s not just about keeping the details away from you. Is it possible they’re trying to keep the details away from Daddy too?”

“Hmph. I hadn’t thought of that.”

“But it’s possible, right?”

“It’s possible, yes.”

“So maybe you should go right to Osgood.”

“And what if you’re wrong? What if he knows everything that’s going on?”

“Consider your options right now. The real question is, What if I’m right?”

Audrey’s e-mail icon was bouncing. It was a message from Kevin Lenehan. She opened it immediately, then practically ran to Forensic Services.

“Guess what?” he said.

“You got it. The video.”

“No fucking way. I told you, that’s so gone.”

“Then what?”

“This is cool. I noticed this code on here. It backs up to an FTP server on a preset schedule.”

“Can you explain that?”

“Sure. Certain archivable events, ranging from alarm inputs to motion-detector inputs, get automatically sent to an FTP server using the IP address that’s preprogrammed in here.”

“Kevin,” she said, mildly exasperated, “that really wasn’t much of an explanation, now, was it?”

“The eleven minutes of video you’re looking for? That we thought got totally erased? Well, it got erased on the box, here. But it also got sent over the Internet to Stratton’s LAN — sorry, the company’s computers. There’s a backup copy at Stratton. That clear enough?”

Audrey smiled. “Can you get into the Stratton computers from here — on the Internet or something?”

“If I was that good, do you think I’d have a job like this?”

She shrugged.

“But get me into Stratton and I’ll know where to look.”

It was an hour drive to the Gerald R. Ford International Airport, then a five-hour flight to Logan Airport, a bustling place that seemed as populous as all of Fenwick. Nick made his way past a Legal Sea Foods restaurant, a WH-Smith bookstore, and a Brookstone gadget center before he reached the escalator to Ground Transportation. Among a flock of livery drivers, he caught the eye of an olive-skinned man in a blue blazer and gray slacks who was holding a card that read NICHOLAS CONVER. Close enough.

Fairfield Partners was the anchor tenant of a vast glass-and granite-faced building on Federal Street, in the heart of downtown Boston. Willard Osgood’s offices were on the thirty-seventh and thirty-eighth floors. The reception area was all dove-gray velvet and tropical woods, and Nick expected he’d be given plenty of time to study its details, cooling his heels in preparation for his audience with the Great Man. To his surprise, though, the strawberry blond receptionist told him to go right in. Nick wondered whether he was late. His watch told him that he was a few minutes early if anything.

As he walked through the glass door, Nick was immediately met by another blond woman, this one with red plastic-framed glasses. “Mr. Conover,” she said. “Your flight okay?”

“It was,” Nick said.

“Can I get you anything? Water, a soda, coffee?”

“I’m fine,” Nick said, striding to keep up with her power walk.

“I’m sorry Todd’s on the road. I’m sure he would have loved to say hi if he knew you were coming in.”

I’m sure he would have, Nick thought. “Well, you might want to check with Mr. Osgood before you tell Todd or anyone else that I was here.”

“Yes, sir,” she said quickly. “Of course.”

The offices of Fairfield Equity Partners were soaring and glass-walled, two floors combined into one. Along the walls, he noticed framed magazine covers featuring Willard Osgood — holding a fishing reel on the cover of Field & Stream, wearing a blue suit and yellow tie on Forbes . Osgood’s square, bespectacled face and pleased-yet-concerned expression were always identical, as if the head had been Photoshopped onto different models.

Finally, she gestured toward a tan leather sofa in what looked like a vast waiting area, and said, “Have a seat. I’ll leave you here.”

Nick craned his head around, took in the large glass desk and various fishing trophies on the wall. It took a moment before he figured out he was in Willard Osgood’s own office. He looked out the windows on two sides and could see the Boston Harbor in the distance, then some scrubby little islands beyond that.

Moments later, Willard Osgood himself strode in: the square, weathered face, the Coke-bottle glasses — he could have been peeled off one of those magazine covers. Nick stood up and realized that Osgood probably had an inch or two on him.

“Nick Conover,” Osgood said in a booming voice, giving him a friendly bump on the shoulder. “I hope you noticed what kind of chair I’ve got at my desk.” He pointed to the Stratton Symbiosis chair.

Nick grinned. “You liked it so much you bought the company.”

Osgood raised a shaggy eyebrow. “Did I make the right decision?”

“Hope you still like the chair. It’s still a good company.”

“Then what the hell are you doing here in Beantown?”

“I’m here to ask your help solving a problem.”

Osgood’s expression vacillated between amusement and perplexity. “Let me put that Stratton chair into service,” he said after a moment, walking over to his desk. Nick took a chair in front of it. “I always think better on my butt.”

Nick started right in. “As I recall, when you came to Fenwick, you told us that your favorite holding period is forever.”

“Ah,” Osgood said, seeming to understand. He blinked a few times, folded his hands on the desk, and then cleared his throat. “Nick, I think I also told you that my rule number one is, never lose money.”

Osgood knew Todd was selling the company, Nick now realized. So maybe Cassie was wrong. Did he know everything, though? “Which is a lesson that Todd Muldaur seems to have forgotten, if he ever learned it,” Nick said.

“Todd’s had a rough year,” Osgood came right back, sounding a little annoyed. “There are some mighty good explanations for that, though.”

“Yeah, well, ‘Explanations aren’t excuses,’ as you also like to say.”

Osgood smiled, exposing a blinding row of porcelain veneers. “I see the gospel spreads.”

“But I can’t help but wonder whether one of the explanations is that no one’s watching the shop. That’s what Todd seems to indicate, anyway. He says you’ve taken to spending a lot of time away from the office. That maybe you’ve gotten more interested in fly-fishing than in profit margins.”

Osgood’s smile almost reached his eyes. “I hope you don’t believe that.”