But Eric was too far gone to notice. His normally light blue eyes had turned almost black with anger, and his face flushed crimson red, the adrenaline pumping through his system almost as if for the first time. It was only when Nicole pulled away from Kevin’s grip and stumbled over to Eric’s shoulder, her bloodied hand reaching out to touch his face, that he even looked up. The look in his eyes made Nicole involuntarily take a step back just a bit, for she had never seen this side of Eric before, and it frightened her, immediately bringing back memories of her violent first marriage years ago. She recovered quickly and leaned in again. “Honey, please?” she whispered, her voice deep and low, dripping with the sugary-sweet accent she knew he found so appealing. Eric blinked once, looked down at his hands, realized what he was doing, and let go quickly, almost as if Olin’s neck was on fire. Grunting, Eric stood up, looking down at his prey that was coughing and gasping for air, the blue finally beginning to leave his face. Eric sucked in a ragged, deep breath and looked down at his hands in sort of dumbstruck awe as it dawned on him just how close they had come to killing Olin.
For a few brief seconds, all five of them stood where they were, each breathing heavily, all but Kevin bleeding lightly from their cuts, listening to Olin hack and gag as he lay curled up on the floor, his clothes disheveled and blood spatter dotting his white dress shirt. Carl finally broke the silence and walked over to Olin, holding his hand out to help him up. Olin ignored him and rolled onto his other side, right onto the pile of papers Carl had dropped earlier. Hearing the crinkle of paper, he looked down at them and instantly realized what they were. He drew in a heavy, haggard breath, scooped them up and pushed himself to his feet as if finding them gave him a sort of second wind. He stood there, still a bit unsteady, staring at their wretched faces and laughed a loud, raspy laugh. “Were you all trying to vote me out? Are you all really that ignorant? Do you not read the P&L each month? There isn’t enough liquidity in this firm to buy my contract out! But hey, by all means, vote me out and see where you are then, you bunch of stupid-ass, backwoods, inbred motherfuckers!”
In the midst of his raspy, rambling tirade, Lily, who had heard the commotion, the sound of the glass crashing to the floor, and Nicole’s yelling, burst through the door, her chocolate brown eyes questioning silently. With her office located on the other side of the conference room, she was accustomed to hearing the raised voices of the partners when they met and had always maintained her distance, but she had also raised two boys and knew the sounds of a fistfight when she heard one.
Her hand still on the doorknob, she stopped dead in her tracks, almost slipping and falling as her heels slid on the slick, hardwood floor when she saw the scene in front of her. Her eyes scanned the room quickly, glancing at each uncharacteristically disheveled partner, unable to maintain her normally cold and distant professional demeanor as she let out a loud gasp, her other hand flying up to her mouth. “What in the world…” was all she had a chance to say before Nicole turned her furious eyes to her and shouted, “Get the fuck out of here, Lily!”
Lily, too shocked to heed Nicole’s orders, just stood frozen, her left hand clasped daintily over her mouth, the right one still on the door knob. Carl stepped toward her and calmly said “Lily, everything is fine. We were just having an argument, and then the glasses were knocked over. No big deal…just an accident.” He took Lily by the elbow and started to guide her out the door and was just about to shut it when Audra rounded the corner. Her frail frame looked almost ethereal in her white jacket and slacks that matched the paleness of her translucent skin, her light blonde hair gently flowing behind her as she walked briskly, the click click of her spiked heels pounding the floor.
“No, Lily, stay. I think we are going to need Human Resources today,” Audra said, motioning for Carl to open the door to let them in.
“WHERE THE HELL HAVE you been?” Nicole snapped as Audra floated into the room, leaving a faint trail of her perfume wafting behind her. Nicole had never cared for Audra as she was jealous of her age, her slender figure, and the fact that she was the only other female partner—although she would never have admitted that to anyone—and attempted to belittle her at every turn for being too quiet and non-aggressive. “Out shopping for today’s haute couture ensemble?” Nicole said, letting the words slide snidely off her tongue as she carefully eyed the delicate white silk suit and heels that Audra was wearing.
Ignoring her, Audra gingerly made her way over to the other end of the table, sidestepping the broken glass pieces, and pushed the button on the wall that lowered the large video screen behind her, waiting until it was in place before she turned and faced the room of silent, staring faces, all still breathing heavily from the events of moments earlier.
“Well, I see that I missed what looks like an interesting discussion, to say the least. Nicole, shall we ask Lily to fetch a first-aid kit for your arm?” Audra said, her childlike voice strangely calm as she sat down in the tall leather chair at the head of the table which Olin normally conducted meetings from. She gently placed her elbows on the edge and clasped her hands in front of her, holding some sort of small object in them, slowly perusing the room with her sharp, inquisitive blue eyes.
“I’m fine,” Nicole responded quickly as she sat down with a slight grunt. Her black silk shirt and matching skirt were streaked with tinges of her blood. “We need to finish this meeting, alone,” Nicole said, looking directly at Lily as she used the paper towel Kevin gave her to wipe away more spatter. “We don’t need her here. This outfit is ruined anyway, so stopping the bleeding won’t make any difference now.”
Eric, who had finally sat down after his adrenaline rush from moments earlier, was holding an index finger to each temple, rubbing them forcefully as he sat next to Nicole with his eyes closed and head slightly down. “Agreed. Lily, please leave. This is between the partners and is not an HR matter.”
Lily, who had not moved from her spot inside the door, looked over at Olin, who was still standing at the other end of the room, his body rigid with anger, awaiting his response. Lily had always been sort of a right-hand goon to Olin, never siding with any other partner but him, never truly taking orders from others unless Olin had given his blessing to do so, and now was no different. He didn’t even look her way as his eyes were now focused upon Audra, and he said, “Get the fuck out of here Lily. Now.”
Audra smiled sweetly at Carl, who was still standing by the closed door and said, “Carl, please lock the door so we have no more intrusive visitors for the duration of this meeting, and those of us who are already here, remain.” Carl, who was still slightly stunned from the events of the last five minutes, absentmindedly reached over and locked the door, leaving Lily trapped in the midst of the fray.
“Just what in the hell are you doing, Audra? Since when do you give orders in our meetings? And look at you! Sitting in my big boy chair and acting like you have something to say, which for you is an odd occurrence, since you are usually the quiet little mouse in the room that no one sees, much less pays any attention to. And why are you late to my apparent beheading? I would think you, of all people, would enjoy watching the others attempt to overthrow me. Oh, and you missed Eric almost choking me to death, which I’m sure you would have relished witnessing, just as the rest of the snarling wolves here did,” Olin ranted, his voice still raspy from Eric’s hands.
“Please everyone, sit down and let’s discuss the issues at hand like civilized humans, rather than resorting to more jungle tactics,” Audra said, looking directly between Olin and Eric. She motioned her small, delicate hands to the seats around the table in one fluid motion. “We are never going to get anywhere acting like this. And yes, Olin,” she said, her voice taking on a cold undertone as she turned her icy gaze to him, her blue eyes wide and unblinking, “I do have something to say. Quite a bit, actually,” she said, the smile on her lips never reaching her eyes. “Shall we begin?”
Despite the high amount of energy reverberating throughout the r
oom, Audra’s calm yet demanding demeanor, delivered in her diminutive, little girl voice, seemed to bring a sense of normalcy into the room, descending upon everyone as they all sat down, their intrigue over having Audra take command of the room overriding their earlier anger. The only holdout, of course, was Olin, who refused to sit and leaned against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest in a show of defiance.
Audra began, her voice becoming lower and slightly deeper, almost vibrating with a sing-song quality. “As we all know, there are several issues at hand that will have dire effects on each of us, depending upon how we handle them today. Of course, the most pressing one is Reed’s issues with Sprigg and the SEC, and the adverse effects that will be the fallout from it. According to the news article that all of you obviously read this morning, the SEC will be coming to knock on our doors next, quite possibly with news cameras right behind them.”
“Well no shit, girl,” Nicole said, dismissing Audra’s words with a flamboyant twist of her hand, slightly flinging a small spatter of her blood on the wall behind her. “We have already discussed this! Had you actually been here on time, you would not be wasting our precious time now, regurgitating the same old shit!” Pitch rising, Nicole directed her focus to Olin, writing off Audra’s words with a quick snap of her head as she looked back at him. “Robert said there was no escape clause or loophole available for us to back out of aiding them with their merger with KRM. Why in the hell would you have the merger documents drawn up that way, especially when you knew about their books!?”
Nicole’s probing question and rising voice was all it took to throw the room into a deteriorated state once again, as all the partners started arguing, each getting louder and louder as they attempted to outdo the voice shouting next to them.
“What fucking difference does that make now?”
“Because I want to tell the judge my reason for pleading temporary insanity after killing you, you lying bastard!”
“Robert, why didn’t you tell one of us? How could you have just sat back and let this happen? This is your money too!”
“Why argue about this now? We need to find a solution to backing out, and fast, before all of us are out of a job!”
“We are fucked! We can’t back out, and we can’t oust Olin. Time to close the doors! We won’t last a month!”
“My retirement will be gone!”
“Well, so will mine! And most likely, lawsuits will take the remainder of the business if the SEC doesn’t shut us down first!”
Carl had heard enough. All the yelling was making his head split in agony. “Quiet!” he roared, rising to his full height from his chair, slamming his fist on the table so hard that the wood cracked beneath him, his eyes ablaze with anger. “Thirty seconds of civilized discussion is all we can muster before we regress back to snapping at each other like a pack of blood thirsty hyenas? This solves nothing!” His sudden outburst caught everyone’s attention for the briefest of seconds, and the room became silent again.
“I’ve given this much thought, and I believe I have the solution,” Audra said, rising gracefully up from the chair as she moved to the side of the video screen which had just flickered to life as she quietly turned it on with the remote she had been discreetly holding in her hand. Her briefcase, which no one had noticed her carrying in nor her placing it on the table during their screaming match, was now open and sitting in front of her, overflowing with piles of paper.
“You? A solution to a problem? That is, quite possibly, the funniest thing I have heard in years!” came Olin’s snide comment as he laughed voraciously, slapping his knee for show, quickly followed by a round of hacking coughs. “You haven’t had a cognizant thought in years! Oh, by all means, please enlighten us with your ponderings to our most arduous conundrum!”
“Olin, shut the fuck up! You are the last person in this room that we need to hear anything from. If it weren’t for you and your devious dealings in your endless pursuit to acquire more wealth no matter what the risk, we wouldn’t even be having this meeting,” Carl said, still standing up as he turned his attention back to Audra. “Audra, please continue with what you were saying.”
The moment those words left Carl’s mouth, the lights automatically dimmed and the screen beside Audra lit up as her presentation that she had waited years to give, began. The image on the screen was of the email stream between Olin and Reed from three weeks ago, along with the forward to Robert and his response. There it was, in black and white, undisputable proof from Olin’s own keyboard that not only was he fully aware of the alterations that would need to be done prior to commencing with the audit and merger, but so was Robert.
Almost in unison, Nicole, Eric, Carl, and Kevin gasped as Nicole turned to face Robert and screamed, “You knew too?!? Oh my God!” Even Lily, who had been trying to camouflage herself by pressing her back as tightly as she could against the wall, let out an ever so slight gasp.
“Now wait a minute,” Robert faltered, sweat beginning to form under his arms and make its way slowly down his sides, staining his shirt with patches of wetness, before he was interrupted by Olin.
“Just how the fuck did you get this, you crazy little bitch?” Olin said as he turned his attention to Audra and quickly began to make his way over to where she stood, his fists curled into balls, ready to strike.
Carl stopped him in his tracks when he said, his voice guttural, almost growling, “Take one more step, Olin, and I swear to God I will knock every one of your teeth out of your lying mouth.” All eyes in the room were focused on Olin, waiting to see if he would actually back down from Carl’s challenge as Audra just stood rock solid, her eyes never portraying any fear. “Audra,” Carl said, motioning for her to proceed as Olin walked back to where he had been, and this time, he sat down, the strain of the day beginning to show around the edges of his eyes.
“As you can see from this email exchange, not only did Olin and Robert know about the fraudulent books and that they eventually would have to sign off on audit reports that they knew to clearly be false from the very beginning, they intentionally kept it hidden from the rest of us, relying upon Reed to ‘handle it’ by keeping things hidden, which he obviously failed to do,” Audra said, her voice cold and formal. With the faintest movement of her hand, the screen changed again, this time displaying the report from the SEC’s findings into their investigation of the audited financials and Reed signing off on the audit report, formally charging them with fraud and stripping the three partners’ licenses, thereby shutting their Butte operations down. It was dated today and signed by Agent Roger Fitzgerald.
Nicole reacted first as she shouted. “They are shutting them down today? Oh my God, that means any minute now they will be here!” As she spoke, Nicole became more animated as the depth of what was on the screen sunk in, her panic rising rapidly and leaking into her voice. “Where in the hell did you get this, Audra?”
“But we didn’t know!” Carl said, trying his best to remain calm, although the knot in the pit of his stomach was not listening. “Maybe there will be some leeway with the SEC if we tell them that only Olin and Robert knew, and that the rest of us had been kept in the dark?” he said, hoping someone else would agree with him before he spewed his Starbucks all over the table.
Robert, who had been staring up at the screen, his light brown eyes unblinking at the words he had never wanted to see again, finally said, his voice unsteady and heavy with regret. “That isn’t going to make a difference. Olin is the managing partner, and he knew; therefore, under the law, we all knew.”
Olin, who was visibly shaken now, turned his rage at Robert, shouting, “Shut the fuck up, you ungrateful sonofabitch! You knew, just like I did, and you are just as guilty! You saw the potential dollar signs this deal was going to make us if we looked the other way and finally got KRM as a client! You willingly agreed to keep silent, so please don’t act now like you are any better than I am!”
“I did not willingly agree to remain silent, Olin, and yo
u know it,” Robert mumbled, no one paying any attention to him now.
“We are going to collapse. We don’t have the cash to keep the remaining Butte employees paid when they can’t even operate and generate money! The lawsuits I foresee coming from clients are going to drain us, and when this breaks locally, our clients are going to run for the hills, since obviously, we can’t be trusted to perform an objective audit. We are completely screwed!” Kevin said, finally finding his voice as he realized, as the rest of them did, that their professional careers, as well as their life savings, were on the verge of slipping through their fingertips.
“Well, there is one way,” Audra said, as the next document appeared on the screen.
It was Olin’s resignation.
“What the fuck is that!?” Olin yelled, standing up so fast that the chair he had been sitting in flew out from behind him, crashing into the wall, bringing down the ugly oil painting of flowers that had been hanging there with a loud thud.
“That is not an option! We don’t have the $10 million in cash to buy him out!” Nicole said to Audra, adding, “But again, you would have known that had you been here earlier. Why are you wasting our time with this?”
“No money will need to be paid to Olin if he resigns and relinquishes his duties and compensation voluntarily,” Audra said, her voice remaining eerily steady as the tension grew to greater heights in the room. “This Partner Withdrawal, in accordance with the Partnership Agreement, Section 2B, Subsection A, specifically states that he is voluntarily terminating his position as managing partner and any and all monies due to him, completely severing his ties with the firm.”
Eviscerating the Snake - The Complete Trilogy Page 10
