“I’m afraid our drink is off,” Carter said. He was smiling again, and had placed a hand on Samantha’s arm. “Something’s come up that’s unavoidable. Perhaps we could meet later?”
Fallon, back at his bench now, glanced toward them. Bennett’s words had a touch of the proprietorial about them, and Fallon wondered if they were for his benefit.
Samantha stared at him and Fallon suspected that she resented Bennett’s proprietary tone. “I don’t think so, Carter,” she said. “It’s just as well. I have a full briefcase, and I’m tired.”
Bennett offered the same pursed lips; the same raised eyebrows. Then another smile. “Another time,” he said. He stepped to the weight rack, selected two forty-pound dumbbells, and began a set of the same exercise Fallon had just struggled through—only with weights fifteen pounds lighter. Screw him, Fallon thought. He instinctively noted the trim line of the man’s waist, the perfect definition of his arms and shoulders, and immediately despised him for each. But it was pointless. The man was also fifteen years younger, and fifteen years fitter. And, if he wants to, he’ll be running this company fifteen years from now. You’ll be lucky if you’re still here in fifteen months.
Fallon’s eyes went back to the woman, and he realized she had been watching him watch Bennett. She smiled at him, and he wondered if it was by way of apology for Bennett, or something else. He decided it didn’t matter, and he smiled back.
An hour later, Fallon was finishing off the evening’s exercise on the stationary bicycle, huffing and sweating and determined to complete five miles according to the machine’s calculator, which seemed to crawl along at a torturously slow pace. At three miles he saw Carter Bennett enter the men’s locker room, and he was momentarily pleased that he had outlasted him in the company’s gym. Whether he would outlast him in the company, he thought, was another matter.
At four and a half miles, Samantha Moore stopped beside him. There was a towel draped around her neck, and her face and arms glistened with sweat. He immediately thought about lying in bed with her on a hot summer’s night, that sweat—and his own—having come from a different type of exercise. He pushed the thought away. He was starting to feel like an oversexed, middle-aged fool.
“If you’re almost finished, I’d like to buy you a drink,” she said.
Fallon felt his throat constrict—the invitation momentarily stunned him. “I’d love to,” he said through labored breath. “But what about being tired, and having a full briefcase?”
A smile played across her mouth. “That was for Carter’s benefit,” she said. “I’ll wait for you in the lobby.”
With that she turned and walked briskly away, and Fallon found his eyes again following the pink and black sway of her walk. He glanced at the bicycle’s calculator. Another half mile, he told himself, as he increased his speed on the pedals.
They sat at a diminutive table—the type universally used in cocktail lounges to create a false sense of intimacy and to crowd as many customers as possible into expensive space. The table was in the bar area of the Pen and Pencil, a small, upscale restaurant on East Forty-fifth Street, only a few blocks from their offices in the Chrysler Building. The restaurant was dimly lighted, with an abundance of highly polished dark wood and a decidedly British air, and it seemed light-years away from the cold decor of the company gym they had just left. It was also only moderately crowded, as Fallon had expected, being too pricey for the after-work drinks crowd, serving instead a smattering of well turned-out couples scattered through the dining room. Samantha fit in perfectly, now dressed in a severely tailored business suit that offered only a hint of the sensuality that had awakened and excited him. She had reapplied makeup, but so lightly it was barely noticeable in the dim lighting, and Fallon decided she really didn’t need very much at all.
He felt strange, slightly ill at ease, and a bit guilty at even being there. He hadn’t been alone with another woman under these circumstances in a very long time. He wondered about that, wondered exactly what the circumstances were. Samantha’s barren ring finger made it clear she was available, whatever the hell that meant. And so was he, he supposed. Perhaps that was it—that he hadn’t thought of himself in that way for so many, many years.
Samantha took a sip of the white wine they had ordered and smiled across at him. Fallon decided it was a smile that could light up a room.
“Tell me about our sales operation,” she said. “I know next to nothing about it, outside the contracts I hammer together. I always feel trapped in the arcane minutiae, never the realities of the company’s business.”
Fallon felt a momentary rush of relief. They were just two business colleagues having a drink, talking about work. The relief was followed by momentary disappointment. He forced a smile. “Lately there hasn’t been a great deal to cheer about in our department,” he said.
“That bad?”
“We’re okay in some areas—like the modern aeronautical cable we pioneered.” He ran a finger along the rim of his glass. “Do you know much about the product line?” he asked.
She shook her head. “On the technical side very little.”
“Well, we’re basically talking about wire, the electrical wires that carry the impulses throughout an aircraft, activating the hydraulics, the radar, computers, everything that puts those birds up, keeps them there, then brings them down. A large bomber or commercial airliner has miles of it threaded through its fuselage, and years ago, Charlie Waters figured out a way to make it thinner and lighter without losing effectiveness.” He smiled, remembering the early years. “It was a tough sell at first. But once we got some backing from the military, things started to take off.” He raised both hands in a sweeping gesture. “And, suddenly, Shazam! Waters Cable went big time. And the growth has been extraordinary. Especially over the last ten years.”
“And now?”
“Now we’re diversifying, out of necessity, and it’s killing us. The new line of fiber optics is just doing us in.” He hesitated. “Actually it makes sense. On paper anyway. And we don’t really have a choice. Fiber optics are nothing but wire—exactly our field. But it involves woven glass fibers, instead of metal, and the changeover, the technical problems involved, are enormous.” He leaned forward, warming to the subject. “Basically fiber optics will do the same job as regular cable, only more of it, and a helluva lot faster. It involves the transmission of messages or information by light pulses along hair-thin glass fibers. They’re smaller and lighter than conventional cables that use copper wire or coaxial tubes, but they can carry a near limitless amount of information.
“It’s the coming thing; there’s no escaping it,” Fallon added. “Fiberoptic cable can transmit vast amounts of data between computers, or data-intensive television pictures, or thousands of simultaneous telephone conversations. And it’s immune to electromagnetic interference from lightning, nearby motors, or other computers. It also requires fewer repeaters over distance than copper wire to keep signals from deteriorating.”
He swirled the wine in his glass, recalling how hard it had been to play catch-up with this new technology—one that had been in its infancy when he had studied engineering.
“Eventually it’s going to replace everything, not only for communications but in automobiles, conventional aircraft, and every vehicle sent into space, and we have to get into it if we’re going to survive. That’s our market.”
“So why has it become a problem for us?” Samantha asked.
Fallon sipped his wine; shook his head and smiled. “We rushed into it. Too much, too soon. And without the technical expertise we needed.” He raised his eyebrows slightly; indicated there was little that could be done about that now. “It was a management decision,” he added. “Not sales management. Real management. We were just told, Here it is, sell it.” The wistful smile returned. “But it’s not quite that easy. It’s a rough market, with strong competition, especially from the Germans and the Japanese. We’re the premier company in the states as far
as aeronautical cable goes, but we’re the new kid on the block in fiber optics, and we jumped into it without the kind of preparation we needed.” He looked down at his glass. “Now we’re paying a price for it.”
He began toying with the drink again. “Right now we’ve got our first, direct government contract. Up until now we’ve been primarily subcontractors, working with aircraft manufacturers. But now we have a research and development contract for an inertial guidance system that will be used in rockets and spacecraft.” He smiled. “That means gyroscopes and accelerometers that calculate speed and direction using fiber optics.” The smile faded. “It’s been a disaster, and we could lose the actual production contract. Over the past couple of years we’ve hired several hundred computer wizards and engineers whose specialty is fiber optics.” He grinned at her. “They’re a strange breed, complete with the inevitable pocket protectors and nerdy haircuts, and they’re spread out in our four manufacturing plants. Hopefully, they’ll solve the problems and we’ll come out of our tailspin and, eventually, get a fair share of that market. But some people think we should dominate the market—just as we have with aeronautical cable—and that’s just not in the cards. At least not for some time. Perhaps never.”
“And the powers that be don’t like that,” she said.
Fallon laughed. “They never like being told they were wrong. It’s always easier to point the fickle finger of failure at someone else. And there’s no question our department hasn’t done the job they expected. Even though that failure had more than a little help from above.”
“So you’re taking the heat for it.”
“Indeed we are.” He shrugged, as though it didn’t matter. “Among others. The guys upstairs also haven’t been thrilled with some of the manufacturing disasters they’ve encountered.” He sipped his wine and grinned. “Our leaders want results, not excuses.” Again he smiled, accompanied it with an almost inaudible sigh. “And those results were supposed to come from my division, and they didn’t. Unfortunately, it’s a division that doesn’t have the internal power to fight off that criticism.”
“What do you mean? You’re top management.”
“There’s top, and then there’s the top.” He smiled at the simple truth he was about to impart. “What I mean is that the corporate culture has changed in recent years. Especially at the top. Years ago, sales was a controlling force. Primarily because we were a young company and we needed to carve out a share of the market. But we succeeded and other areas became more dominant. Manufacturing, research and development, and especially the financial side of the business. They made the decisions; set the policies, and we weren’t asked for input; we were just expected to carry them out. If we failed to meet expectations, it was never because the decisions and policies were wrong.” He grinned. “It was simply our failure.”
Samantha decided she liked his smile, liked the slightly self-deprecating way he spoke about himself. “It doesn’t sound like you had much of a chance,” she said. “At least in this instance.”
“That’s an excuse,” he said. “Maybe it’s a good one, but it’s still an excuse. And as your friend Carter will happily explain, guys like me are paid to carry the ball, not make excuses.”
Samantha could see Carter doing just that, defending a poorly conceived corporate decision—whether he believed in it or not—by insisting others had simply dropped the ball. And he would probably use exactly those words, she decided. Clichés involving ball games seemed to obsess men. Even men like Fallon. She had always thought it had something to do with a fixation on their genitals.
“So the entire sales division is under fire,” she said. She was probing now, trying to get information that might help her carry out her assignment for Bennett. It was why she had invited Fallon for a drink. She had her hatchet work to do, and stumbling across Fallon as she had had seemed almost serendipitous.
“Not the whole division,” Fallon corrected. “Just the older hands, the ones who have been around forever. The corporate wisdom seems to be that my guys are up to speed on aeronautical cable, but we can’t cut it with the newer technology.”
“And you don’t agree?”
Fallon thought about the question. He ran his finger around the glass again, forcing his mind back to his own sales team. “In a few cases that might be true. There are always some people who have trouble changing tack.”
“And what do you do in those instances?” she asked.
He grinned, a bit boyishly, she thought. “You boot them in the backsides, and get them on track.”
“And if you can’t?”
The grin faded. “Then you tell them to start looking for work elsewhere. It’s a part of the job nobody likes, but it happens,” he said.
Samantha wondered how the man would feel when he was handed Carter’s hit list. Presuming he wasn’t on it himself. Her interest, she thought, bordered on voyeurism, given her own involvement, and she began to feel like some kind of spy, or worse. But that was why she was here—to get to know someone who might be at the heart of Carter’s downsizing plan, to get a feel for the people it would affect. Now the idea made her somewhat uneasy, and she wondered why. Perhaps she was simply beginning to like the man, and that was something she couldn’t afford to do. She decided to drop the subject. But still, she knew that when the time came—when she finally got a copy of Carter’s hit list—she would look and see if his name was there. She also thought she might review his personnel records, just to satisfy her own curiosity. She was momentarily puzzled by what it meant—that she was taking such an interest in this one man. Or if it meant anything at all.
“You seem to be having more than your share of pressure,” she said. She paused, offered him a smile, used it to ease her way into the new probing she wanted to do. “Given all the headaches at work …” She paused again. “And the unpleasant news your wife handed you last week.”
“It was only this weekend, actually. I suppose I’m still numb.” He thought about that. “Or maybe I cared a lot less than I thought I did. The last few years haven’t been all wine and roses.” He wondered why he had told the woman that, wondered if he was trying to sound more available than he felt.
“How long have you been married?” she asked.
“Twenty-four years.” He thought about that. “Almost half my life.” He laughed softly, but the sound was hollow and mirthless. “When I think about the early years it seems as if they happened only yesterday. And the other stuff—the stuff that happened before we were together—that’s like something that happened in real time.” He offered up a somewhat pained smile. “Does that make sense? Or is it just part of getting older? I know I think about that a lot—the getting older part, I mean.”
“I don’t know, Jack. I’m thirty-five, and I sure think about getting older. But I’ve never had that kind of relationship. All mine—especially the more recent ones—started to feel old fast, even when they were new.” Samantha returned his smile, as if acknowledging her own bit of self-deprecation.
Fallon considered what she had said. He wondered if he was still clinging to his relationship with Trisha, even secretly hoping for some reconciliation. If he was, he was a bigger fool than even he suspected. But perhaps it was simply that no one had yet come along to replace Trisha in his thoughts—or his life. Suddenly he wanted to escape that whole area of conversation.
He rearranged himself in his chair. “Anyway, that’s all too maudlin to talk about. The status of my marriage, I mean.” He picked up his glass of wine, more to have something to do with his hands than because he wanted it. “You said you’ve been with the company for a little over a year. What brought you to us?”
“I think the company finally woke up and found itself in the nineties,” Samantha said. “It suddenly realized its legal department was almost devoid of women—at least as far as lawyers went—and I was part of the remediation process.” She laughed at the absurdity of it. “Odd place to discriminate, isn’t it? Try to answer that one i
n court. Now there are three of us. I think our general counsel, Walter Morrisey, is still in shock. But what can you expect from a man who continues to smoke cigars in his office, even though the entire company is supposed to be smoke free? But at least he opens his window. Sometimes I think he wants to jump out that window whenever he has to deal with one of us.” She laughed again, then raised her glass in a self-congratulatory toast. “Anyway, here I am, one year and four months later.”
“Where’d you go to law school?” he asked; realized he was interested, not just making safe conversation.
“Columbia. It was my first time in New York. I always thought I’d hate it. I was raised outside Philadelphia near New Hope—just a little country bumpkin—and the idea of the city didn’t really appeal to me at all. But that’s where the law school I wanted was. So …”
“I’ve been to New Hope,” Fallon said. “It isn’t exactly East Jesus.”
“It isn’t Fifth Avenue, either.”
He inclined his head in surrender. “And did the country bumpkin like New York?”
She laughed. “I loved it. Right from the beginning, and still do. Now I’m big city through and through. You’d have to drag me kicking and screaming away from here.” She laughed again. “Although I don’t think I’d like to practice real law here. Have you ever seen the courts in this city?”
“No. Bad?”
“We used to go there as students, just to observe. They should move them all up to the Bronx Zoo.”
They were both laughing now, and Fallon realized he was truly enjoying himself.
“You just said that would be practicing real law, like what you do isn’t real law.”
“I know.” She smiled at him again, but this time there was a touch of impishness in it. “I shouldn’t say it, but it’s how I feel most of the time.” She brushed a strand of hair behind her ear, and Fallon thought the gesture made her look suddenly younger than she was. “In law school, the students who really cared about it all—and there weren’t many of us—most of them were there because they thought they could make big bucks, or use it as a stepping-stone into politics. Anyway, the real students—well, I think they envisioned themselves standing in court and fighting for some principle, maybe once in a while even defending someone who was actually innocent….” She stopped, as if her own words had shocked her. “Sometimes I’m not sure there is such a thing as an innocent person. But that’s just from living in New York. It’s not the mental picture I had back in law school, and I suppose, to some degree—way back in my head—that picture is still there. And that’s why I refer to it as real law, as opposed to what I’m doing, which most of the time seems like furthering executive fantasies, or covering up their blunders.”
The Dinosaur Club Page 7
