Hot Shot

by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

  She managed to postpone the board meeting for another week while she brought in her key security people to begin tracing Edward Fiella, the engineer Sam suspected of being responsible for the bad code. Stressing the need for secrecy until they made a public announcement about the failures, she also had checks run on every employee at both SysVal and Dayle-Wells who had had any contact with the faulty ROM chip.

  She spent the weekend preparing for the board meeting she had called for the following Monday. In hopes that bad news might be received better if it came in a brightly colored package, she dressed that morning in a hot pink suit draped at the neck with a boldly patterned Matisse scarf she had bought in the gift shop at San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art.

  Mitch met her as she was walking toward the boardroom and fell into step beside her. "I just talked to Yank. Sam gave him his proxy."

  Susannah didn't know what to say. Although she was glad that one of them had the proxy, she wished Sam had chosen Mitch. She would have trusted Yank with her life, but he was definitely a wild card when it came to a roll call. The men took their seats, and Susannah broke the news to them as calmly as possible. She might as well have detonated an atomic bomb in the middle of the conference table.

  Leland Hayward's complexion turned gray, and he jumped up from his chair. "This is outrageous! How could something like this happen?"

  "My investors are going to be wiped out," cried another board member as he fumbled in his suit pocket for a container of nitroglycerin pills. "What am I supposed to say to them?"

  Mitch tried to calm the outbursts that had erupted around the table. "We have several months. Susannah and I remain hopeful that we can find at least a partial solution to our difficulty."

  "Difficulty! This isn't a difficulty! It's a goddamn disaster."

  They raged on, and Susannah made no effort to quiet them. For many of these board members, their jobs rode on the wisdom of their investment decisions, and the dramatic failure of SysVal would mark the end of their careers. They subtly let it be known that the partners should have kept the news of the computer failures to themselves and let the sale to Databeck go through.

  "That's not what this company stands for," Susannah said. "You knew that about us from the beginning."

  "Sam was going to let the sale go through," Hayward said in an accusatory voice. "Why didn't you let him do it? The board couldn't have been held responsible because he hadn't informed us. And where is Sam? Why isn't he here?"

  She had dodged their previous questions about Sam's absence, but she could do it no longer, and she informed them of his resignation.

  The absolute silence that fell over the table was worse than the men's anger. The news seemed to extinguish any dim hope they might have cherished of finding a way out of their disaster. The men didn't like Sam, but they believed in him.

  The same emotion of despair had gripped her when she had seen Sam's letter of resignation lying on her desk, but something about their hangdog expressions sparked her anger. Sam wasn't superhuman. He didn't possess any special powers to save the company. There were other bright, inventive minds at SysVal, and one of those minds was her own.

  Without clearly thinking through what she had to say, she rose from her chair and faced the board members squarely. "From the beginning, all of you knew that the SysVal adventure was one of high risk. But you were eager to go on that adventure as long as you could delude yourself into believing that the four founding partners were keeping the path safe for you. You were making so much money that it served you well to delude yourself. And so you told yourselves lies about us."

  "What are you talking about?" Leland snapped. "What lies?"

  "The lies that kept you comfortable so you could enjoy the fortunes you were making," she said angrily. "The lies about who we were. For all the faith you have in Sam's mystical abilities to solve any crisis, he's always frightened you. You didn't like that fear, and so in your minds you tried to overcome it by mentally transforming Mitch and Yank and myself into safe, conservative business partners who could balance out Sam's unpredictability. You didn't look at the three of us individually, only as we related to Sam. His arrogance disturbed you, so you found solace in my respectability. His inexperience terrified you, so you concentrated on Mitch's experience. When his flair for theatrics embarrassed you, you took comfort in Yank's solid silences. Always, it was Sam you turned to, Sam you believed in, and Sam you feared. You ignored the stories that I had run away from my wedding on the back of a motorcycle. You passed over any doubts you might have had about the stability of a man with Mitch's background throwing it all away to take up with three kids working out of a garage. You ignored Yank's radical genius and convinced yourself he was merely eccentric. Sam was the wildcatter. Sam was the swashbuckler. From the very beginning, you never understood that all four of us were the same. You never admitted to yourself that all four of us were renegades."

  The board members were stunned by the passion of her words. Mitch leaned back in his chair and began to applaud, a lone set of hands clapping in the quiet room. Yank looked down at the notepad in front of him, a vague, satisfied smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

  "The adventure is not over, gentlemen," she said quietly. "We don't promise you that we can save this company. But we do promise you that no one-not Sam Gamble, not God Himself-has a better chance of saving SysVal than the three of us."

  The meeting adjourned in a somber mood. As the members filed out of the room, Mitch came over to her and squeezed her shoulder. "Nice going, Hot Shot. What do we do now?"

  "Now we get to work," she said.

  SysVal teemed with the upheaval. Sam Gamble had disappeared, the Blaze III assembly line was shut down while a new ROM chip was being produced, and-incredibly-all work on the Wildfire project had been suspended. Everyone knew that something calamitous had happened, but no one was certain exactly what. The loudspeaker system was ominously silent.

  Susannah and Mitch immediately went on the attack. To keep the public's confidence high in the Blaze HI so that customers would continue to buy new machines, they had to move boldly. They drafted a series of newspaper ads in which they openly admitted that they had a problem with the old machines and assured their customers that a recall would be handled in a timely fashion. Before they could run the ads, however, they had to be honest with their employees.

  Two days after the board meeting, Susannah appeared on SysVal's closed-circuit television system and told their employees exactly what had happened. Looking directly into the camera lens, she affirmed SysVal's intention to stand behind its product. Then came the most difficult part-announcing salary and hiring freezes and acknowledging that layoffs were inevitable. Speaking from the depths of her heart, she reminded them of SysVal's heritage and the absolute necessity of standing behind their product.

  "This is a company that has always thrived on turmoil," she concluded, addressing the single camera in the small, high-tech studio. "Turmoil brings pain, but it also brings growth. Instead of complaining about our fate, let us welcome this crisis as an opportunity to dazzle the world. If we face this test valiantly, we will have taken another giant step along the continuing path of the SysVal adventure."

  As soon as she had finished, the studio telephone rang. Her assistant announced that Mitch was on the line.

  "Good speech," he said when she took the receiver. "Life's strange, isn't it? You sound more like Sam all the time."

  She tightened her grip on the telephone receiver. "Sam is part of all of us. I just hope we got the best part of him."

  The expression on Sam's face when she had last seen him continued to haunt her. She had tried to call him several times, but there was never an answer and no one knew where he was. Angela had gone over to the house, but it was empty and she was clearly worried. That night, as Susannah was getting ready to pull out onto El Camino, she decided to investigate for herself. Her marriage was over, but she couldn't turn off six years of caring.

&nb
sp; The house smelled stale as she let herself inside. The bronze lamps shaped like Egyptian torches that sat in the foyer were dark, the living room cold and vaguely malevolent, with its sharply angled ceiling. Once again she realized how much she hated the harsh planes and unyielding materials of this building.

  The telephone let out a shrill ring and she jumped. It rang again and again, scraping at her nerves. She stood motionless until it stopped and the house was once again quiet, then she moved through the empty rooms.

  The heat pump clicked on. As she entered the vaulted hallway that led to the back of the house, she saw a wedge of weak gray light lying across the black granite floor. She walked closer and pushed on the partially opened door.

  Sam lay on top of the rumpled bedcovers. He was unshaven, his chest was bare, and his jeans were open in a vee at the waist. One elbow was crooked behind his head. His other arm lay listlessly at his side while he stared up at the ceiling with hollow eyes.

  On the side of the bed, a young woman sat in bra and panties filing a fingernail with an emery board. She was dark-haired and beautiful, with full breasts and long thin legs. She saw Susannah before Sam did. As she jumped up from the edge of the bed, her emery board hung in midair like a conductor's baton. Sam's gaze traveled from the ceiling to Susannah. He didn't show a flicker of expression.

  She breathed in the thick, stale scent of marijuana and sex. Her stomach curled. A layer of dust covered the black lacquered furniture. The blinds were shut tight against the outside world. On the floor around the bed abandoned food cartons were mixed with dirty dishes. The painting Sam had bought her leaned with its face against the wall, a hole the size of a fist punched through the canvas.

  "Get out of here," she said harshly to the woman.

  The woman opened her mouth to protest, but apparently decided Susannah was too formidable to oppose. She glanced hesitantly toward Sam. He paid no attention to her; his gaze remained fixed on Susannah.

  Susannah was dimly aware of the woman scrambling to get into her clothes and stumbling past her. Only when she heard the sound of the front door closing did she step farther into the room. "What are you doing to yourself?"

  He turned his head to the ceiling.

  She kicked away a damp bath towel. "Hiding is a coward's game. It won't solve anything."

  "Unless you want to fuck, get out of here."

  She didn't flinch from his vulgarity, even though the thought of going to bed with him repelled her. It wasn't just that he was sleeping with other women; she simply could no longer bear the idea of his touch. "Your mother is worried about you. We're all worried."

  "Sure you are."

  He sounded like a surly little boy. Whatever lingering elements of respect she had held for him crumbled away. His childishness, his infidelity, his self-pity had all diminished him.

  "Are you going to spend the rest of your life sulking because you didn't get your way?"

  For a moment he didn't move, but then he began to lever himself slowly out of bed. The dim light coming through the windows cast a blue-black shadow over his unshaven jaw. His hair was tousled, his arms hung at his sides. He began moving toward her, and she could feel his rage. She told herself not to underestimate him.

  "You're not anything without me," he sneered.

  "Do you have any idea how tired I am of dealing with your hostility?"

  His nostrils flared and his hard dark eyes glittered with anger. "You're nothing, you hear me? You were an uptight socialite when I met you, and that's still what you are. Except now you're an uptight socialite playing at being a working girl."

  The words hurt. She told herself they weren't true-she didn't believe them-but she was insecure enough that they still pricked.

  "Madam President," he scoffed. "You think you've made so many contributions to SysVal. What a fucking joke. SysVal was always mine! You were so goddamn laughable the other night, I could hardly believe it. Talking about 'mission' and 'adventure' like you invented the words. Jesus, I wanted to puke."

  She opened her mouth to defend herself, only to discover that she had no urge to do so. He was as pathetic as an overindulged child.

  "I came to see if you were all right," she said. "Now that I know it's just self-pity bothering you, I'm leaving."

  She turned to go, but he snatched her arm. "You got one more chance. I'm giving you one more chance to come with me."

  "On a new adventure?" she shot back scornfully.

  "Yeah. A new one. A better one. As soon as the word got out that I was leaving SysVal, every investor in this country wanted a piece of me. They're standing in line begging me to take their money. I'm the golden boy, babe. The goddamn dream child of capitalism."

  His words sounded like braggadocio, but she knew they were true. An investor had even tried calling her that morning in hopes of locating him. She shook off his grasp. "You don't have the vaguest idea what the real adventure is. It's not just starting something-that's for kids. The real adventure is seeing it through. You bailed out at the toughest part, Sam. In your marriage and in your job."

  For a moment she thought he was going to hit her, but she didn't flinch. Sam was a bully, and bullies had to be faced down.

  "Get out of here," he said contemptuously. "Get out of here and learn what life's all about. Maybe then I might take you back."

  She stared at him for one long moment. "I'm not coming back. Not ever."

  Turning away from him, she left the house. As she stepped out into the cool, eucalyptus-scented air, she felt a sense of release. Whatever bonds of love and need had been tying her to Sam were finally destroyed. She was done forever with loving little boys.

  Chapter 30

  Hal Lundeen, SysVal's head of security, was one of the company's few employees over the age of forty. A former Oakland city cop, he was a confirmed pessimist who believed that no matter how bad a situation was, it could only get worse. The hunt for SysVal's saboteur was proving his adage.

  It was December now, and he had been driving himself hard since October, when Susannah Faulconer had first called him into her office and told him about the sabotaged ROM chip. Every piece of evidence Lundeen had been able to gather pointed to Edward Fiella, He even thought he knew how the switch had been made. Fiella had apparently spilled a cup of coffee just as the messenger had arrived to pick up the ROM chip instructions that were to be delivered to Dayle-Wells. That's when the substitution had taken place. Unfortunately, finding Fiella had proved a lot more difficult than any of them had ever imagined.

  Lundeen looked uncomfortable as he took a seat and gazed at the woman behind the desk. She wasn't going to be at all happy with what he had to tell her. "I'm afraid I've got some bad news about Fiella."

  "Terrific," she muttered. "Did you lose him again?"

  "Not exactly. We finally traced him to Philadelphia. Unfortunately, we were about ten days too late."

  "He took off again?"

  "No. Uh… he's dead."

  "Dead!"

  "Yeah. He was killed in an auto accident ten days ago."

  "Oh, no." She rubbed her forehead with the tips of her fingers. "What happened?"

  "A couple of drunk teenagers ran a stop sign. He was dead when the cops pulled him out of his car. Just one of those things."

  "We can't seem to buy a piece of luck, can we? Did you find out anything else about him?"

  "Yeah. The car the cops pulled him out of was a Mercedes 380 SL convertible. He bought it new a few weeks after he left SysVal."

  "That's an expensive car. I didn't see any mention of it on his credit report."

  "Funny thing about that. He paid cash."

  She slid the pen between her fingers as she took in the implications of what he had said. "That pretty much eliminates the possibility that he was just a hacker sabotaging the chip for kicks, doesn't it?"

  "I'd say so, Miss Faulconer. I'd say it blows that theory right out of the water."

  Since only a founding partner could purchase another founding
partner's shares, she, Mitch, and Yank had been forced to buy Sam out. The Blaze HI recall had severely depressed the price of Sam's fifteen percent, but the buyout was still costing each of them millions.

  Susannah had been hit the hardest because she couldn't tap into any of the assets she and Sam owned jointly until her divorce was final. As a result, she was forced to deplete all of her financial reserves. She replaced her BMW with a Ford compact, and was staying in SysVal's town-house condominium on a semipermanent basis because she couldn't afford to buy anything else for a while. It was the way of the Valley, she joked ruefully to Mitch. A millionaire one day, a pauper the next.

  But it was no joke. Before all this had happened, her net worth-on paper, anyway-had been close to a hundred million dollars. But as the new year arrived and she continued to pour every dollar she could lay her hands on into their dying company, she was practically broke.

  The dreary, rainy months of winter slid into early spring. What had begun as a trickle of computer failures turned into a deluge. The company was hemorrhaging money. They sold off all nonessential assets-a conference center near Carmel, warehouses, land they had bought for expansion-but it was like trying to stop the flow of blood from a bullet wound with a wad of toilet tissue. By the end of June, Susannah felt as if each day they survived bankruptcy was a miracle.

  As she drove home late one June evening, she wondered if Mitch and Yank would be at the town house when she arrived. Her partners had gotten into the habit of dropping by several evenings a week. Ostensibly, they met there so they could talk without the interruptions that plagued them during the day. But Susannah knew the real reason they showed up so frequently on her doorstep was simply because they knew there was a good chance Paige would be there, and Paige helped all of them forget their troubles.

  She was their beautiful, blond-haired den mother. She pampered them and clucked over them, feeding their spirits as well as their bodies. When they felt too battered to go on, she restored them with her lively chatter. She was the major stockholder of their fiercest competitor, but they had stopped worrying about divulging company secrets in front of her. Paige had no interest in the business discussions that raged around her, merely in what everyone wanted to drink and eat.