Power Play

by Joseph Finder

  Rylance hoisted his tumbler of Scotch. "Just my left hand," he said.

  "Guess your right hand doesn't need the exercise, huh?" Bross said.

  They both laughed.

  "We gonna do Zermatt again this year, Kev?" Barlow said. "I want to see you wipe out doing the slalom again. That was a blast."

  "Cram it, Upton," Bross said jovially, "or I'll tell them what happened to you at the top of the Blauherd lift."

  Barlow tipped his glass and laughed. "Touchй. So, is the sauna coed this year?"

  "Clothing optional, I hope," Rylance said, and everyone cracked up.

  Just then I saw Hank Bodine-or, to be accurate, I heard him. He was standing in one of the alcoves on the other side of the room, hands on his hips, talking to someone.

  No, actually, he was yelling at someone.

  As soon as I realized that the person he was chewing out was Ali, I jumped up from my seat and, without thinking, bolted across the room.

  19

  Ali was sitting in a chair while Bodine stood right in front of her, obviously trying to intimidate. She'd changed into a white skirt and a peach-colored silk blouse, cut just low enough to emphasize the swell of her breasts, and she looked stunning.

  She also looked angry.

  I could hear Bodine saying, "You want me to take this up with Cheryl, that it?" He was clearly holding back a great deal of anger and was on the verge of letting loose.

  "Obviously I can't stop you from talking to Cheryl," she said. "You can do whatever you want. But not before the meeting starts. Sorry. She's busy."

  I stopped a ways off, not wanting to barge in. Ali had put on a fresh coat of lipstick and lined her lips, too. She had gold bangles on her wrists and a necklace of tiny gold beads interspersed with large teardrops of polished green turquoise. Matching gold-and-turquoise earrings.

  "This sure as hell isn't the offsite agenda I cleared," Bodine said.

  "The agenda changed," Ali said. "You're not the CEO. You don't get to clear the agenda."

  "Well, sweetheart, I never heard a single goddamned mention of anyone giving a speech here called 'Hammond and the Culture of Corruption.'"

  Ali shrugged. "I'm sorry…Hank." I could tell she was about to counter that "sweetheart" with something acerbic but thought better of it. "That was a last-minute addition."

  "You don't make last-minute additions without running them by me first. That's how it's always worked."

  "I guess things have changed, Hank." Ali folded her legs. I thought I saw a ghost of a smile flit across her face, as if she were enjoying facing him down.

  Bodine rocked back on his heels. He took his hands off his hips and folded them across his chest. "Correct me if I'm wrong, young lady, but isn't this your first year here? So I don't think you know the first thing about how things are supposed to work."

  "I know what Cheryl asked me to-"

  "Let me tell you something," Bodine said. "You are making a serious mistake. I'm going to do you a favor and pretend none of this ever happened. Because I am not going to have my team demoralized by unsubstantiated accusations and rumors about 'corruption' in this company. And if the board of directors gets wind of the fact that your goddamned boss is trying to throw mud and level charges that have no basis, heads are going to roll. And I don't just mean yours. You hear me?"

  Ali gave him a long, styptic look. "I hear your threats loud and clear, Hank. But the agenda stands."

  "That's it," Bodine said, raising his voice almost to a shout. "What room is she in?"

  "Cheryl's preparing her remarks," Ali said. "She really doesn't want to be disturbed."

  I could no longer hang back and watch Bodine talk to her that way. He was really starting to piss me off. I walked up to him, tapped him on the shoulder. "What's that your daddy always told you about how to talk to a lady?" I said lightly.

  Bodine looked at me with fury. I said, "I got you the information you wanted. About the E-336."

  "You," he said, jabbing his index finger into my chest. His voice rumbled, and his cheeks were flushed. "You might want to watch your ass." Then he strode away.

  As soon as he was gone, I leaned forward and extended my hand to Ali. "I'm Jake Landry," I said.

  20

  I guess he's just not that into you," I said.

  "What'd you do that for?" I could tell she was secretly pleased but didn't want to let on.

  "Because I don't like bullies."

  "I didn't need your help, you know."

  "Who says I was trying to help?"

  "You butted in. You shouldn't have."

  "I didn't like hearing him talk to you like that."

  "Thanks, but I can handle Hank Bodine. I don't need a protector."

  "That's obvious."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "It's called a compliment. You handled him great. Way better than I could have."

  She looked momentarily appeased. "Anyway, the idea was for you to get on his good side. Not alienate him."

  "I don't think he has a good side. Plus, alienating him is more fun."

  "He could get you fired."

  "Your boss can overrule him."

  "Not if she gets fired herself."

  She had a point. "I could always move back to upstate New York and get a job with the cable company again. Maybe the vent-pipe factory."

  "The factory's probably out of business by now. Just like every other company there."

  "True."

  She glanced at her watch. "I think Cheryl needs me. The reception's about to begin." She stood up. "Nice to meet you, Jake. It was really great."

  It was really great, the note read. I'm sorry.

  One of her cards-ALISON HILLMAN in engraved letters on thick cream stock-propped on the bathroom sink. Where she knew I'd see it when I got up.

  It was only a couple of days after she'd first brought the big suitcase over to my apartment. Her toothbrush was missing, her silk panties, her extra set of work clothes.

  When I finally reached her on her cell, later that morning, she sounded harried. She said she couldn't talk: She had someone about to come in for a meeting. She said she wasn't angry or anything, she just thought this was for the best. We wanted different things, that was all.

  Then I heard her speak to someone in the room, a different Ali voice: welcoming and warm. I could hear her big radiant smile. When she got back on the phone with me, she was all business.

  That night I called her again.

  "I don't know, Landry," she said. "Sometimes I think there's something frozen inside you. I don't know. But now I get it about the 'As Is' sign."

  I sent her a couple of long, heartfelt e-mails-I found it easier to express myself through the impersonal machinery of the keyboard and the computer monitor. Her answers were polite but brief.

  I figured that she'd seen something in me, something that didn't sit well with her. Over the years, since the nightmare of my teen years, I'd been building a tall privacy fence inside me, using the finest lumber, making sure the boards butted right up against each other so no one could see between the cracks.

  But maybe she could. Or maybe she just didn't like my carpentry.

  A month or so later I was at an Irish bar in downtown L.A. with some friends-the motto in the window, in pseudo-Gaelic lettering: "We pour, you score"-when I spotted Ali sitting by herself at a small table in the back. She was dressed in black, a tall glass of black liquid in front of her: Guinness stout. I sat down in the other chair.

  "Hey," I said.

  "Hey." A note of melancholy? Maybe I was imagining things.

  Then I noticed the second glass, the bottle of Rolling Rock. "Oh, sorry-someone's sitting here."

  "He's in the bathroom." She smiled. "He likes the mural."

  There was a legendary mural in the men's room of a buxom nude blonde, laughing and pointing down toward the urinal. "In case he's not sure where to aim, huh?" I said. The old joke. "How long have you been going out?"

 
She shrugged. "We're not, really. This is, like, our second date."

  "Huh." A long, awkward silence. "Band's not very good tonight, is it?"

  "Pretty bad," she agreed.

  Another beat of silence. I picked up her date's Rolling Rock bottle, turned it around. "Huh," I said.

  "What?"

  "It says, 'Latrobe Brewing Co., St. Louis, Missouri.'"

  "So?"

  "Used to say 'Latrobe Brewing Co., Latrobe, Pennsylvania.' But Budweiser makes it now. In Newark."

  "That's pretty sneaky."

  "Not really. Hell, if you're really interested, it's all there on the label, actually. Printed right on the glass. Everything you could ever want to know."

  "Except it says St. Louis, not Newark," she said, a mysterious glint in her eyes.

  The bar band launched into a postpunk rendition of "On the Street Where You Live." Or maybe it was Metallica's "Bleeding Me." It was kind of hard to tell with those guys.

  "But who cares where it comes from anyway?" I said. "If you like the beer, isn't that enough?"

  Ali gave me a funny look, tilted her head a few degrees. "You are talking about beer, right?"

  I smiled and was about to reply, but then a tall, good-looking, black-haired guy came up to the table.

  He cleared his throat. "Sorry, this seat's taken," he said.

  21

  The predinner cocktail reception was held in a smaller room off the great room. A big banner hung from the low ceiling that said WELCOME HAMMOND AEROSPACE.

  They were serving blender drinks and mojitos and flutes of champagne, and voices got steadily louder, the laughter more raucous, as the guys got increasingly soused. The exception seemed to be Hank Bodine, who was talking to Hugo Lummis, looking really pissed off. Ali had gone to Cheryl's suite to talk through the evening's schedule. I stood there holding a mojito and looking around when someone sidled up to me. One of the guys I'd seen whispering in the hall upstairs-caught whispering, I thought.

  "You're Jake Landry, right?"

  This was the blond one, which meant he was John Danziger, the corporate controller. The other one was Grogan.

  "And you're John Danziger," I said. We shook hands, and I went through what was by then my standard pitch about how I was Mike Zorn's stand-in. But instead of giving me the expected response, about how big the shoes were that I had to fill and all that, Danziger said, "I'm sorry if I was rude to you upstairs."

  "Rude?"

  "That was you in the hall upstairs, right? When Grogan and I were talking?" He had a pleasant, smooth baritone voice, like an NPR radio announcer.

  "Oh, was that you? Looked like an intense conversation." That meant he'd seen me coming out of Ali's room. If, that is, he knew it was Ali's room.

  "Just work-related stuff," he said. "But sort of sensitive, which is why Alan overreacted."

  "No worries." But it wasn't Alan Grogan who'd noticed me in the hall and suddenly broke off their conversation. It was Danziger. I couldn't figure out why he was making such a big deal out of something so trivial. Maybe he was afraid I'd overheard something. Whatever it was, he and Grogan had probably been too preoccupied to pay much attention to me or where I'd just come from. "So can I ask you something?"

  Danziger gave me a wary look. "Sure."

  "What does the corporate controller actually do, anyway?"

  He looked to either side, then came closer. "No one actually knows," he said conspiratorially.

  "Do you?"

  He shook his head. "Don't tell anyone."

  "Seriously," I said. "I have no idea what a controller does. Besides…controlling things."

  "I wish I could tell you."

  "You mean, if you told me, you'd have to kill me?"

  "If I told you, I'd put us both to sleep," Danziger said. "It's too boring."

  Someone tapped Danziger on the shoulder. It was Ronald Slattery, the Chief Financial Officer. He was a small, compact man, bald on top, with prominent ears, wearing heavy black-framed glasses. Slattery was wearing a blue blazer and a white shirt. This was the first time I'd ever seen Slattery not wearing a gray suit. He was the sort of guy you could imagine going to bed in a gray suit. Danziger excused himself, and the two men turned away to talk.

  "Hey, there, roomie." Geoff Latimer grabbed me by the elbow. "Having a good time?"

  "Sure," I said.

  He faltered for a few seconds, looked as if he was searching for something to say. Then: "Everyone already knows everyone else. It's kind of a tight circle in some ways. Would you like me to introduce you to some people?"

  I was about to tell him thanks but no thanks, when there was a tink-tink-tink of silverware against glass, and the room quieted down. Cheryl Tobin stood under the banner with a broad smile. She was wearing a navy blue jacket over a long ivory silk skirt and big jewel-studded earrings. Ali stood close behind her, studying a binder.

  "Ladies and gentlemen," Cheryl said. "Or maybe I should just say, gentlemen." Polite laughter.

  Clive Rylance said loudly, "That rules out most of us," and there was a burst of laughter. Kevin Bross, standing next to Rylance, leaned over and said something mildly obscene to him about Ali. He probably meant to whisper, but his voice carried. I wanted to slam the guy against the peeled-log wall and impale him on a set of antlers, but instead I let the anger surge with a prickly heat and subside. Bodine and Lummis and Barlow were all standing together. I could see Bodine whisper something to Lummis, who nodded in reply.

  "Well, you know me by now," Cheryl said smoothly. "I always expect the best. I'd like to welcome everyone to a Hammond tradition I'm proud to join. The annual leadership retreat at the remarkable King Chinook Lodge. It's great to be out of the L.A. smog, isn't it?"

  She smiled, paused for the laugh. When it didn't come, she went on, "Well, I for one can't wait. From the minute I arrived at Hammond Aerospace I've heard stories about this place." She paused. "Some of which I can't repeat."

  Some low chuckles.

  "What's that you guys say-'What happens at King Chinook stays in King Chinook'? I guess I'm about to find out what that's all about, huh"?

  "You know it," someone said.

  "It's not too late to escape," someone else said.

  "Not too late to escape, hmm?" she repeated. Her smile had grown thin. "Easier said than done. It's a long swim to the nearest airport."

  She was making a good show of pretending to enjoy the testosterone-rich rowdiness, but at the same time you could sense the steel. As if she were willing to be a good sport, but there was a point beyond which she wouldn't go. You really didn't want to push this woman too far. She also looked as if she wanted to get the hell out of there. Back to corporate headquarters, back to her big office where she could sit behind her big desk and receive important visitors and be the CEO instead of one of two sorority girls at a frat party.

  "And believe me, I've thought about it," she said. "Especially after hearing about the courses that Bo's about to take us through."

  She looked across the room toward a giant of a man with a shiny-bald head and a big black mustache. That had to be Bo Lampack, the team-building coordinator. He stood in the back corner with his arms folded across a great broad chest. His shoulders were the size of ham hocks. He looked like a cross between G. Gordon Liddy and Mr. Clean, only without the gold earring.

  Lampack gave a conspiratorial grin. "We haven't lost anyone." He paused for dramatic effect, then added, "Yet."

  A burst of raucous laughter, laced with cheers.

  "What about Gandle?" Kevin Bross shouted.

  "Come to think of it," Lampack said, "I don't see Gandle here this year."

  More loud laughter. Larry Gandle was the old CFO, whom Cheryl had replaced with Ron Slattery. He'd gotten some huge golden parachute early retirement package and moved to Florida.

  Cheryl held up her hands to quiet everyone down. "Well, we'll hear more from Bo at dinner. And tomorrow, you guys are all going to see that we women can keep up with men-not just in th
e office but on the ropes as well." She looked around, then held up an index finger. "I'm not just the first outsider to lead Hammond Aerospace, but I'm the first woman. And I know that makes some of you guys a little uncomfortable. I understand that. Change is always difficult. But that's one of the…challenges…I hope we'll get a chance to work through this weekend."

  The room had gone quiet but for a few pockets of restless stirring. Both Bodine and Barlow stood watching her in identical poses: their right arms folded across their bellies, supporting their left elbows. Their left hands clutched tumblers of bourbon. Like babies holding bottles of formula.

  "If not," she said, "I hope you're all strong swimmers." She looked around for several seconds. No one laughed. So she continued, "You know, they say a general without an army is nothing. I need each and every one of you in there pulling-not for me, but for this great company. Let me remind you that the symbol of the Hammond Aerospace Corporation is the lion. And with your help, together we're going to make that lion roar."

  Lummis elbowed Upton Barlow so hard that Barlow dropped his glass of bourbon. It crashed against the hard plank floor and shattered into a hundred shards.

  A few minutes later, as we all filed into the great room for dinner, Hank Bodine put a hand on my shoulder. Upton Barlow was at his side. "So you have some information for me," Bodine said. He'd cooled off some, though his tone was curt.

  "I'm pretty sure I've figured out why the E-336 crashed," I said.

  "Well, let's hear it." His hand came off my shoulder.

  Barlow's raisin eyes regarded me curiously.

  "Maybe we can talk in private, later on," I said.

  "Nonsense. We have no secrets. Let's hear it." To Barlow, Bodine said, "Jake here says he knows why that Eurospatiale plane wiped out at Le Bourget." There was something smug, almost defiant in his tone, as if he didn't believe me, or was daring me, or something.

  I paused. Cheryl and Ali were approaching from behind Bodine. "How about later?" I said.

  "How about now?" said Cheryl. "I'd like to hear all about it." She extended her hand. "I don't believe we've met, actually. I'm Cheryl Tobin. Will you sit next to me at dinner?"