The Dinosaur Club

by William Heffernan

  Fallon inclined his head, indicating agreement. “Somebody’s got to do it,” he said. “And it pays well. Besides, I thought all lawyers wanted to make big bucks.”

  Samantha laughed again. “They do. Well, almost all. I sure did. I grew up without any. Then a maiden aunt died and left me some. Enough for law school, and a bit left over. What you guys call fuck-you money. So, maybe, back in law school, I could just afford to be altruistic.”

  Fallon raised his glass to that. “To altruism,” he said. “And the ability to afford it.”

  Samantha felt mildly cheapened by the remark. It had sounded, to her, as though true altruism shouldn’t be based merely on the ability to do something without risk. But she didn’t think he had intended it that way—as an insult. Perhaps it was only her own sense of professional loss shining through.

  Still, she felt defensive. She stared at him for a moment. “Don’t get me wrong, Jack. I graduated from law school full of ambition. And it’s still very much there.”

  Fallon recognized he had somehow blundered. He raised his glass again. “To ambition,” he said. “An affliction we all suffer from.”

  Samantha felt only partly mollified. “So tell me how you came to the company,” she said, pushing past it.

  “Me? That’s a simple story. Charlie Waters talked me into it at a party we were both at. About a hundred years ago.”

  “Waters himself?” she said, raising an eyebrow. “Impressive.”

  Fallon smiled, as if the idea of being impressive was comical. “Not really. Not back then, anyway,” he said. “Certainly not to me. And, I’m sure, not to Charlie, either.” He leaned forward, still smiling at the memory of it. “Charlie was just starting out in those days; trying to peddle the concept for his new aeronautical cable, and he didn’t have the proverbial pot. He was really scratching, and he was looking for someone—anyone—to scratch with him. But he was a helluva salesman back then. It was 1974, and I’d just gotten my engineering degree and been offered a pretty good job with Eastman Kodak. Charlie couldn’t come close to the salary I’d been offered, but he promised me a small chunk of stock when the company went public and convinced me I’d be part of building something from the ground up; that I’d work at a level I wouldn’t reach for years with anyone else. That, together with Charlie’s unbridled enthusiasm, sold me on the idea of throwing in with him.”

  Fallon stared at his drink. “A few years back Kodak went through a brutal downsizing. It was a bloodbath, and I remember feeling lucky I had made that decision. Now, if the rumors I keep hearing are true, it looks like the downsizing mania is following me anyway.”

  Samantha twisted nervously in her chair, then forced a smile, as though what he had said had gone past her. “So you’ve been with him from the start. You’re friends.”

  “I’ve been there from the start,” Fallon said. “I wouldn’t say we’re friends.” He paused and considered it. “We were, I guess. Back then. There were a lot of evenings spent plotting company strategy over a few beers. A lot of time spent talking about our personal problems, our private hopes. But the company has grown so much, gone in so many different directions.” He offered a wistful smile. “And Charlie has gone with it. I don’t think we’ve spoken more than a dozen private, personal words in the last eight or nine years.”

  Samantha stared at him, tried to gauge his reaction to what he had just said. “You sound sad about that,” she said at length.

  Fallon thought about that, wondered if it was true. “I don’t know,” he said. “I guess I’m sad for him.”

  “Why?” she asked, surprised again. “I mean he’s certainly prospered.”

  “He sure as hell has. And he’s deserved to. He worked his tail off in those early years.”

  “Then why feel sad for him?”

  “I guess because he’s lost touch with things that used to matter. Especially the people who work here, and who really care about this company.” He considered what he was about to say. “I never put it in words before. But it’s very different now….” He hesitated, looked past her, as if trying to see his own thoughts. “Now it’s just about the money that’s there to be made, not at all about the people who make it happen.” He shook his head, as if dismissing what he had just said. “But I guess we did it—did what we started out to do, built a new company, and now the people are irrelevant and making money is the only thing that’s left. For Charlie, anyway.” He stared at her, all the smiles gone now. “But back when we started, it was fun, too. It was our company, not something that just belonged to the board and the stockholders and the people who managed it for them. Everyone mattered and everyone cared. When we succeeded we were excited and proud of ourselves, proud of our company. When we hit a rough spot it hurt us—as if something bad had happened to a member of our family.” He stared at her, hoping she could understand. “It’s what the company felt like to us, and we fought and scratched to overcome anything adverse that was thrown in its path.” He forced another small laugh. It was weak and ineffective this time, and directed more at himself, Samantha thought. “Now, I guess it’s not a real job anymore,” he said, using her own words. “Now it’s just something we all do to make a living.”

  “Perhaps the company’s just gotten too big to be what it was,” she offered.

  “Maybe. But I’ll tell you a secret. The people who work for it haven’t changed. They still want to feel the same way … if we’ll let them.”

  She was watching him. There seemed a touch of sadness in her eyes, and he felt a sudden need to explain himself further.

  “You see, it’s the company who’s telling them they’re not important, at least not as far as the future is concerned. Everyone is being told they’re only temporarily relevant, that they’re really only part of the short term. Now only money is part of the long term. As much money as the company can get its hands on.” He watched her watching him and smiled. “You think I’m naive, don’t you?”

  “Maybe a bit. It’s the way things are, Jack. It’s the nineties, and you can’t change it, and neither can anyone else.”

  He smiled at her. “You never know unless you try,” he said. He drew a long breath. He realized the thought he had just expressed was one his father had uttered many years ago. He’d been a teenager, thoughtlessly accepting the values of his peers. His father had urged him to set his own, and to set them higher than those of the herd, or he’d be doomed to be nothing more than a part of that herd. The idea had impressed him, perhaps more than even he knew. He also realized he liked the comparison of himself to his dad. Whether he was worthy of it was another question.

  “Anyway,” he continued. “I guess I’m sad Charlie hasn’t taken the chance and stuck to the values he started out with.” He smiled at himself again. “Except, maybe he has. Maybe money was what he was always about. I’m just not certain anymore.”

  Samantha continued to stare at him. “You’re a romantic, Jack Fallon.” But it’s a very old-fashioned romanticism, she thought. She covered the observation with a warm smile. She wondered if, deep down, she admired what he had said, or thought him a fool. She hoped not, but she wasn’t sure. She knew she found him attractive. She reached across the table, took his hand, and squeezed it lightly. “I’m glad we had a chance to talk,” she said.

  “Me, too,” Fallon said. He forced another smile, as if trying to dismiss all the melancholy he had dropped on her. “Who knows?” he said. “Maybe if you start practicing real law, I’ll hire you to handle my divorce.”

  “You’re on,” Samantha said.

  4

  FALLON TURNED INTO THE LONG, WIDE HALLWAY THAT held the executive offices. Here, and only here, the corporate headquarters of Waters Cable still retained the gracious splender the Chrysler Building had offered when it first opened its doors in 1930. He recalled his conversation with Samantha the previous evening; thought about the day he and Charlie Waters had first walked into this cathedral of American business where they had set up their offices;
how in awe they’d been with the art deco wall sconces, the thick carpeting, and spacious office suites; the step they were taking away from that first run-down plant in New Jersey; the feeling they both had that their company had finally arrived.

  Some of that graciousness had been lost, of course, if not on this floor, then on others. Fallon had just come from the floor below, where most of the sales force was located. There, as in most other parts of their offices, work areas had been chopped up with movable partitions that could be easily altered as the need arose. And over the past ten years those needs had arisen constantly as the company had grown. Now none of it, not even that sense of graciousness he and Charlie had been so taken with, seemed to remain. And not here, either, he told himself. This floor has changed, too. It’s just harder to see.

  Les Gavin entered Fallon’s office at nine-fifteen and dropped into one of the two leather chairs that sat in front of Fallon’s oversized mahogany desk. Fallon studied him, realized again how much he despised the comfortable attitude the man showed toward his office. Normally he liked to be informal with a member of his staff, but with Gavin it was always as though the man was sizing up his chair, deciding what color he’d like the office repainted. He found it a disturbing image, as he watched Gavin open a folder in his lap, shake his head, and begin.

  “I’m afraid the updated sales figures you asked for aren’t any better than the preliminaries you took home over the weekend.” Gavin’s tone was laced with regret, but Fallon thought he could detect an undertone of pleasure.

  Fallon remained seated, extended his hand, then waited as Gavin rose from the chair and handed the folder across the desk. He was tall and slight, thirty-three years old, and had been foisted on Fallon by more senior managers a year earlier. He had been brought in from another company to fill a previously nonexistent position; one created ostensibly to help ease Fallon’s workload. Fallon had disliked the man from the outset—from the top of his blond head right down to his very hip tasseled loafers. He knew Gavin had no loyalty to him as his boss, regularly went behind his back, and fully intended—perhaps with assurances from above—to fill Fallon’s chair in the not too distant future. So, making him stand to hand over the folder gave Fallon undiluted, if petty, pleasure.

  Fallon quickly studied the figures, inclined his head grudgingly, and stared across the desk. “You sure of these figures, Lester?” he asked. Gavin hated to be called Lester—his proper given name—preferring the more upbeat Les. Calling him Lester was another small satisfaction in which Fallon indulged himself.

  “They’re fresh out of the computer. It’s as accurate an update as we can get right now,” Gavin said. He rearranged his angular body in his chair—but Fallon wondered if it was a sign of discomfort, or if he was squirming with delight.

  “I think there are several scenarios we can play to explain it away,” Gavin continued. “I mean if we have to … if the boys down the hall get hard-assed about it.”

  This should be good, Fallon thought. Gavin’s ideas on how Fallon should explain the recent failures of his division. It was almost worth listening to, just for the pathetic comedy of it. He continued to stare across the desk. The thing he despised most about Gavin, Fallon decided, was his phony show of personal loyalty.

  “How about we just tell them the truth?” Fallon suggested. “That we’re getting our asses kicked in a market we’re not ready to go after?”

  Gavin seemed momentarily shocked, then recovered and shook his head. “Jesus, I’d love to, Jack. I’d love to personally deliver that message. But it would be like begging them to boot our butts right out the door, don’t you think?”

  “You afraid they’re going to fire you, Lester?” Fallon smiled across the desk, his face empty of any emotion. He, too, shook his head, in imitation of Gavin. “Don’t you think they’d just fire me?”

  “Well, I’d go with you, then,” Gavin said. “I’d have to.”

  Fallon grinned at him. Gavin’s demeanor was so serious, the words so sincere. He wanted to laugh in the man’s face, but there really wasn’t anything funny about it. “Don’t fall on your sword too quickly, Lester,” he said instead. “Hell, they might even ask you to replace me. You never know.”

  Gavin shook his head again, vehemently this time. Again, he seemed shocked, incapable of considering the notion that he could fill Fallon’s shoes. It was enough to make you puke, Fallon thought.

  “I could never do that, Jack.” Gavin paused, drawing himself up. “I mean, even if they offered it—which, of course, they wouldn’t. I mean, after all, Jack, I’ve backed all of your decisions.” He hesitated, just an instant. “Well, almost all of them, anyway.”

  “Which one didn’t you back, Lester?” Fallon suddenly decided he should enjoy this little game—deviousness played as comedy.

  Gavin twisted in his chair again. His thin features fought to mask momentary confusion, but recovered quickly. Fallon decided the man was good at what he was—a born, backstabbing little shit.

  Gavin rushed into an explanation. “It’s not that I didn’t back a decision, Jack.” He paused just a beat. “It’s just that maybe I didn’t always fully agree.” He tried to smile the words away. “But perhaps I just didn’t have enough information.” A small shrug. “But, Wally Green, for example. I didn’t fully agree when you had a chance to replace him last year, and chose not to. But, hell, I was the new kid on the block, and I decided you knew what you were doing and backed you completely. Once the decision was made, that is.”

  Fallon had been reading the updated sales reports as he listened to Lester’s little tap dance. He glanced up now. He wanted to catch the look of angelic sincerity he expected to find on the man’s smooth, preppy face. It was there. He smiled across the desk again and thought back to the little corporate game to which Lester alluded. Fallon had fought that plan, and Wally had remained in his job, had never even known about the demotion they had wanted to force down his throat. And the Gavin clone they had chosen to replace him as New York district sales manager had, instead, been shifted to a job in marketing. Unfortunately, Fallon hadn’t had the sense to resist having Gavin imposed on him. Now he had an assistant VP who undoubtedly carried tales back to his mentor, Carter Bennett, as they both patiently plotted his extinction.

  “Your support has always been a strength to me, Lester,” Fallon said. He watched Gavin blink, wondered if his sarcasm ever made it through the icy shell that surrounded the man. He went back to the sales reports convinced it never did. They must have a special course in obtuseness at Princeton, he decided. He tapped a finger against the reports. “I’ll go over these and get back to you if I need anything else,” he said. He heard Gavin rise and start for the door, listened to him mumble some acknowledgment that he really didn’t hear, and wondered how many minutes would pass before Gavin reported in to Carter Bennett’s office.

  Fallon leaned back in his chair and decided it really didn’t matter. He had more pleasurable things to contemplate. On the train, coming to work that morning, he had decided to ask Samantha Moore to have dinner with him. That he had the courage to even consider it amazed him. That she had accepted, when he had telephoned her office, amazed him even more. She had even seemed pleased—truly pleased that he had asked her. He shook his head. Amazing. A small, satisfied grin edged the corners of his mouth. The idea of it all made him feel ten years younger, and he decided he very much liked the feeling.

  The Dinosaur Club held its first meeting that afternoon in a private tatami room at a Japanese restaurant four blocks from the office.

  It wasn’t an authentic Japanese room—not like the ones Fallon had visited on R&R during his two tours in Vietnam. In those rooms diners had been seated on the floor, their legs folded beneath them. Here the floor had been elevated to create a well beneath the low table, a design that accommodated long Western legs ill-suited to the yogalike sitting posture of Japanese custom. Fallon was grateful for it. He doubted his fellow dinosaurs could handle extended contortion
s.

  Still, Wally Green groused. As the others were being seated, he pulled Fallon back, leaned in close, and hissed in his ear, “Hey, Jack, nice place. I guess nobody told you sushi is passé. Or is this part of the downsizing plan? We all die of terminal leg cramp and fish-borne parasites?”

  Fallon cupped a hand over Wally’s ear and whispered back. “Janice recommended the place. She told me all the Rolls-Royce guys hang out here.”

  Wally had contacted the other likely targets in their department, had arranged for them all to meet, then had left it to Fallon to choose the time and place. Fallon had selected this restaurant because it had a private room in which they could talk, and had chosen lunch to make it appear like an impromptu sales meeting. He also intended to pick up the check and then put it on his expense account. The idea of making the company pay for their plotting pleased him.

  Fallon glanced around the room, and thought of similar rooms he had visited after deadly weeks in the Vietnamese jungles. The army had used Japan as a rest and recuperation area, a place to bring people back; briefly restore some sanity to their lives. Then, of course, it sent them out for another dose of madness. This room offered the same simplicity as those others he had known, the same clean lines, the same sense of heart-easing quiet; even the decorative fans placed along the walls brought back memories. Now he wondered if he had somehow chosen the restaurant for that reason—and if he, too, was offering some temporary respite before sending everyone back to fears they couldn’t escape.