Джозеф Файндер - Company Man

“I don’t know what to think.”

“What my lieutenants really mean by that, of course, is that my day has passed. They like to think that, because it means their day has arrived.” Osgood leaned back in his chair, but of course the Stratton Symbiosis chair, being ergonomic, wouldn’t let him tip all the way back like the older chairs would. “Tell you a story, but don’t repeat it, okay?”

Nick nodded.

“Couple years ago I took Todd down to Islamorada, Florida, for the annual migration of the tarpon. ’Course, he showed up with his brand-new Sage rod and his Abel reel, and he’s got a leather belt on, with a bonefish on the buckle.” He gave a hearty guffaw. “He’s a confident fellow — told me he’d done a lot of fly-fishing at some fancy lodge in Alaska, kind of place with gourmet meals and a sauna and the guide does everything for you except wipe your ass. So I graciously allowed him the bow and watched him flail for hours. Poor guy missed shot after shot, got more and more frustrated, his line kept getting wrapped, the flies hitting him on the backside.” He blinked a few times. “Finally I decided I’d had enough fun. I stood up, stripped out ninety feet of line. Soon as I spotted a school of fish approaching, I delivered the fly. The fish ate, and six and a half feet of silver king went airborne. You with me? One school of fish — one shot — one cast — and one fish brought to the side of the boat.”

“Okay,” Nick said, enjoying the tale but wondering what the point was.

“See, I don’t think Todd realized that the secret isn’t how pricey your equipment or how nice your Ex Officio slacks are. All that counts is bow time — just doing it over and over and over again. Takes years of practice. No substitute for it.”

“How do you cook tarpon?”

“Oh, heavens, no, you don’t eat it. That’s the beauty part. You release it. It’s all about the fight.”

“Huh,” Nick said. “Doesn’t sound like my kind of sport.”

“From what I understand, hockey’s all about the fight too. And you don’t even get a fish to show for it.”

“I guess that’s one way of looking at it.”

“But anyway, you’re right. Todd’s made some mistakes. A couple of bold gambles.”

“I believe the phrase ‘sucking wind’ might be more accurate.”

Osgood wasn’t amused. “I’m well aware of what’s happening,” he said brittlely.

“Are you? I wonder.” Nick leaned over and removed a file folder from his briefcase, then slid the folder across the desk. Osgood opened it, tipped his glasses up onto his forehead, and examined the documents. Nick noticed that the horizontal creases on Osgood’s forehead were equally spaced and straight, almost as if drawn with a ruler.

Osgood looked up for a moment. “I wish he hadn’t done things this way.”

“What way?”

“Keeping you out of the loop. It’s not the way I prefer. I like to be a straight shooter. Now I see why you’ve come to talk to me. I understand why you’re upset.”

“Oh, no,” Nick said quickly. “I totally understand why he didn’t want me to know. Hell, he knew how opposed I was — am — to a sale like this. Even though I don’t have the power to stop it, he was probably afraid I’d kick up a fuss, maybe even take it public. Better to just do the deal without me knowing, he figured, so that by the time I figured it out, it would be a fait accompli. It would be too late.”

“Something like that. But as I say, that’s not my way.”

“Todd needed a quick infusion of cash to help bail out the firm, after all his bad bets on semiconductors. And an IPO takes forever. I get it.”

“I told Todd you’re a reasonable man, Nick. He should have just leveled with you.”

“Maybe he should have leveled with you . Like telling you who the fairy godmother behind ‘Pacific Rim Investors’ really is. Though he probably figured that you, with your political beliefs, wouldn’t want to hear where the money comes from.” Nick paused. “The P.L.A.”

Osgood blinked owlishly.

“That’s the People’s Liberation Army,” Nick explained. “The Communist Chinese army.”

“I know who they are,” Osgood said curtly. “Wouldn’t have gotten to where I am without doing my homework.”

“You knew this?” Nick said.

“Good Lord, of course I knew it. There’s nothing illegal about it, my friend.”

“The Communist Chinese,” Nick persisted, hoping the incantation might jangle the old right-winger.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, this is office furniture . Not Patriot missiles or nuclear weapons or something. Desks and chairs and file cabinets. I hardly call that selling our enemy the rope they’re going to hang us with.”

“But have you actually looked at the numbers on Stratton that Todd provided Pacific Rim Investors?”

Osgood pushed the folder away from him. “I don’t micromanage. I don’t look over my partners’ shoulders. Nick, we’re both busy men—”

“You might want to. See, the balance sheet Todd gave them is a fraud. Prepared by my CFO, Scott McNally, who knows a thing or two about how to put lipstick on a pig.”

Another flash of the porcelain Chiclets. “Nick, maybe you’ve been in the Midwest a bit too long, but that Jimmy Stewart, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington bit’s not going to play here.”

“I’m not talking morality, Willard. I’m talking illegality.”

Osgood waved Nick away with an impatient hand. “There’s all kinds of ways of doing the books. Anyway, we’ve got a no-litigate clause, even if they do get buyer’s remorse.”

“You know about that too,” Nick said dully.

Osgood’s stare seemed to drill right through him. “Conover, you’re wasting your time and mine, trying to backtrack over everything. Horse is out of the barn. Gripe session’s over. Now, this it? We done here?” Osgood rose, pressing a button on his intercom. “Rosemary, could you show Mr. Conover out, please?”

But Nick remained in his seat. “I’m not done yet,” he said.

The Information Technology Director at the Stratton Corporation didn’t look like the computer type, Audrey thought. She was a tall, matronly woman named Carly Lindgren, who wore her beautiful and very long auburn hair knotted on top of her head. She wore a navy suit over an olive silk shell, a braided gold necklace and matching earrings.

Audrey had gotten an appointment with Mrs. Lindgren with a single phone call, telling her only it was “police business.” But once Audrey had presented the search warrant, she could see Mrs. Lindgren rear up like a cornered tigress. She examined it as if searching for flaws, though very few people knew what to look for, and in any case the warrant had been written carefully. It was as broad as Audrey could get the prosecutor to sign off on, even though all she really wanted was any archived video images on the Stratton network that came from Nicholas Conover’s home security system.

Mrs. Lindgren kept Audrey and Kevin Lenehan waiting in an outer office while she placed a flurry of panicked calls all the way up her reporting chain — the Chief Information Officer and the Chief Technology Officer, and Audrey lost track of who all, but there really was nothing Mrs. Lindgren could do.

After twenty minutes or so, Kevin was given a chair and a computer in an empty office. Audrey had nothing to do but watch. She looked around, saw a blue poster with white letters that said something about “The Stratton Family,” sort of a mission statement. The chairs they sat in were particularly comfortable; she noticed they were Stratton chairs. Nothing like this in Major Cases. Kevin put a CD in the computer and installed a program. He explained to her that it was viewer software he’d downloaded from the Web site of the company that made the digital video recorder in Conover’s home. This would allow them to view, and capture, the video images.