Company Man (47 page)

Todd immediately sprang to his feet, followed by Eilers and Finegold. Their faces were wreathed in anxious cordiality.

“Mind if I join you?” Osgood asked gruffly.

“Willard,” Todd said, “I had no idea you were coming.” He turned to Nick. “You see? The personal touch—some people never lose it.”

Osgood ignored him as he took the empty seat at the head of the board table.

“There isn't going to be any sale,” Nick said. “The sale is wrong for Stratton, and wrong for Fairfield. We too have looked at the numbers—and by ‘we,' I mean Willard and I—and that's our considered assessment.”

“May I speak?” Todd said.

“We're talking about an opportunity here,” Scott said. “Not something that's going to knock twice.”

“An opportunity?” Nick asked. “Or a danger?” He paused, and turned to Stephanie Alstrom. “Stephanie, a few words? I know I haven't given you enough time to prepare a PowerPoint presentation, but maybe you can do it the old-fashioned way.”

Stephanie Alstrom started sorting through the stapled sheaths in her file, making three separate stacks next to her. “Here's the principal tort and criminal case law governing the
salient issues, starting with federal statutes,” she began in her most juiceless tone. “There's the Bribery of Foreign Officials Act of 1999, part No. 43, and the International Anti-Bribery and Fair Competition Act of 1998, and—oh heavens—the antifraud provisions of the securities laws, Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5. And, though I haven't read through the case law properly yet, there's Section 13(b)(5) of the Exchange Act and Rule 13b2-1, to deal with.” She was sounding increasingly flustered. “And, of course, Sections 13(a) and 13(b)(2)(A) of the Exchange Act, and Rules 12b-20 and 13a too. But also there's—”

“I think we get the picture,” Nick said smoothly.

“Pretty much what Dino Panetta told me back in Boston,” Osgood rumbled.

“That is ridiculous,” Todd said. Blood was returning to his face. Too much blood. “These are completely unfounded allegations that I dispute—”

“Todd?” Osgood's craggy face formed a scowl. “It's one thing if
you
want to go fly-fishing with your private parts for bait, but you do
not
put the partnership at risk. Question I was asking myself last night was, Where did I go wrong? Then this morning, I had the answer. I didn't go wrong. You went wrong. You ignored company policy and made a huge bet on microchips, way more than you should have, and the entire firm almost went belly-up as a result. Then you figured you could save your ass, and ours, by doing a quick-and-dirty sale. A nice big pile of dough, and who cares how you got it. Well, not like this.” He struck the table, stressing each word. “Not. Like. This.” His eyes flashed behind his Coke-bottle glasses. “Because you've put Fairfield Equity Partners in a potentially ruinous legal situation. We could have brown-suited lawyers from the SEC camped out on Federal Street for the next five years, combing through our files with a jeweler's loupe. You wanted to land a big fish—and you didn't care if you rammed the boat through a goddamned barrier reef to do it.”

“I think you're blowing this out of proportion,” Todd said, wheedling. “Fairfield is in no danger.”

“Damned right,” Osgood replied. “Fairfield Equity Partners is completely in the clear.”

“Good,” Todd said uncertainly.

“That's right,” Osgood said. “Because the partnership did the responsible thing. Demonstrated it wasn't party to the misdeeds. As soon as the errant behavior came to our attention, we severed our relations with the principals—
former
principals, not to put too fine a point on it, and took all possible measures to separate ourselves from the malefactors. Including the commencement of legal action against Todd Erickson Muldaur. You violated the gross misconduct clause of your agreement with the Partnership, which means, as I'm sure you know, that your share reverts to the general equity fund.”

“You're joking,” Todd said, blinking as if there was a bit of grit lodged behind one of his blue contact lenses. “I've got all my money invested in Fairfield. You can't just declare—”

“You signed the same agreement we all did. Now we're activating the provision. Only way to show the feds we're serious. You can contest it—I'm sure you will. But I think you'll find most high-powered lawyers are going to want to see a hefty chunk of their fee up front. And we've already filed for a separate tort claim against you and your coconspirator, Mr. McNally, for a hundred and ten million dollars. We've requested that the judge place the funds we're trying to recover in escrow, pending legal resolution, and we've received indications that he intends to do so.”

Scott's face looked like a plaster death mask. He tugged robotically at a lock of hair at his temple. As Nick listened to Osgood, he found himself staring out the window at the charred buffalo grass. It no longer looked like a lifeless black carpet anymore, he noticed. The new grass had begun to grow back. Tiny green blades were now peeking through the black.

“That's insane!” Todd spoke with a squeaky groan, a
crowbar pulling out a long nail. “You can't do that. I will
not
be treated this way, Willard. I'm owed some basic respect. I am a full-fledged partner at Fairfield, of eight years' standing. I'm not some…some goddamn
catfish
you can play catch-and-release with.”

Osgood turned to Nick. “He's got a point. You wouldn't want to mix him up with a catfish. You see, one's a bottom-feeding, scum-sucking scavenger…”

“And the other's a fish,” Nick said. “Got it. And one more bit of business.” He looked around the table. “Now that Stratton's future is secure, I'm hereby submitting my resignation.”

Osgood turned to face him, stunned. “
What?
Oh, Christ.”

“I'm about to face a legal…situation…which I don't want to drag my company through.”

The men and women around the boardroom table seemed as astonished as Osgood was. Stephanie Alstrom began shaking her head.

But Nick stood up and shook Osgood's hand firmly. “Stratton's been through enough. When we make the announcement, we'll just say that Mr. Conover resigned ‘in order to spend more time with his family.'” He gave a little wink. “Which has the added virtue of being true. Now, if you'll excuse me.”

He got up and strode confidently out of the room, and for the first time in a long while he felt a palpable sense of relief.

 

Marjorie was crying as she watched him gather up his framed family pictures. Her phone was ringing nonstop, but she was ignoring it.

“I don't understand,” she said. “I think you owe me an explanation.”

“You're right. I do.” He reached down to the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out the rubber-banded stack of Post-it notes in Laura's handwriting. “But first, could you find me a box?”

She turned and, as she passed her desk, she picked up the phone. A few seconds later, Marge looked around the parti
tion, looking grim. “Nick, there's some kind of emergency at your house.”

“Eddie's handling it.”

“Well, the thing is—that was a woman named Cathy or Cassie, calling from your house. I didn't get the name—she was speaking fast, sounding panicked. She said you've got to get over there as fast as you can. I don't have a good feeling about this.”

Nick dropped the picture frames onto his desk and broke into a run.

On his way to the parking lot he called home, let it ring.

No answer, which was strange. Cassie had just called from there—and what the hell was she doing there anyway? Plus, both kids should have gotten home from school by now to do their last-minute packing, both of them excited about the trip. Even, in his grudging way, Lucas, or so Nick thought.

But the phone rang and rang and the voice mail kept coming on.

Okay, so Lucas often didn't answer the home phone, let the voice mail get it, but Julia always answered. She loved the phone. And Cassie—she'd just called. Weird.

No answer.

Lucas's cell? He didn't remember the number, too many numbers in his head and this one he didn't call all that often. He hit the green call button on his phone, which pulled up the last ten or whatever calls he'd dialed.

There it was,
LUCAS CELL
. Had Marjorie programmed that in? Probably. He hit
SEND
as he ran through the parking lot, a couple of employees waving hello, but he didn't have time for niceties.

Come on, damn it, answer the fucking phone. Told you if you don't answer the cell, I take it away, that's the deal
.

A couple of rings and then his son's recorded voice, adolescent-buzzy in timbre, curt and full of attitude in just a few words.

Hey, it's Luke, what up? Leave a message
.

A beep, then a female voice:
Please leave your message after the tone. Press One to send a numeric page—

Nick ended the call, heart drumming and not from the run. He fumbled for the Suburban's key-fob thing, pressed it to unlock just as he reached the car door.

Roaring out of the parking lot, he tried Eddie's cell.

No answer.

 

“She's not here,” Bugbee said. The cellular signal began to fade…“Patrol units, but no Cassie Stadler at her house.”

“She's at Conover's,” Audrey said. “Gas leak.”

“Huh?”

“I'm heading over there now. You too. Right away. Notify the fire department.”

“You know she's there?”

“She answered the phone when the alarm monitoring service called. Get over there, Roy. Right now.”

“Why?” Bugbee said.

“Just do it. And bring backup.” She ended the call so he didn't have a chance to argue.

Gas leak. The Stroups, her neighbors when she was twelve.

She lit a match on the way out
.

Her sorority house at Carnegie Mellon when she was a freshman.

Eighteen young women perished
.

The families she desperately wanted to be part of. Who all rejected her.

Then Audrey called Nicholas Conover's office at the Stratton Corporation, but she was told he wasn't there.

Tell him it's urgent, she said. It's a matter of safety. His house.

The secretary's voice lost its hard edge. “He's on his way over there, officer.”

The alarm company?

Nick didn't even remember the name.

A gas leak? He tried to imagine what that was all about—something goes wrong in the house, the kids smell gas, maybe they're smart about it and get the hell out of the house, that's why the house phone line went unanswered—but what about Lucas's cell?

Say he left it inside in the rush to get out. Sure, that was all.

But Eddie?

Guy lived with a cell phone planted to his ear. Why the hell would he not answer either?

Twelve minutes he could be at the gates of Fenwicke Estates. Assuming he caught the lights right. He gunned it, then slowed just a bit, keeping it no more then ten miles an hour over the speed limit. An overzealous cop could pull him over, slow things way down even if Nick told him it was an emergency. Ask for my license and registration, maybe decide to take his fucking time about it once he caught the name.

He drove the whole way in a mental tunnel of concentration, barely aware of the traffic around him, thinking only of getting to the house. Kept hitting
REDIAL
for Eddie's cell, but no answer.

A moment of relief as he pulled up to the gatehouse. No emergency vehicles here, no fire trucks or whatever, probably no big deal.

A gas leak is not the same thing as a fire, of course.

Could the kids and Eddie and Cassie all have been overcome by gas fumes, maybe that's why they couldn't answer? He had no idea if natural gas did that.

“Hi, Mr. Conover,” said Jorge, behind the bulletproof glass in the booth.

“Emergency, Jorge,” Nick called out.

“Your security director, Mr. Rinaldi, he came through here already.”

“How long ago?”

“Let me check the log—”

“Forget it. Open the gate, Jorge.”

“It's opening, Mr. Conover.”

And so it was, glacially slow. Inching open.

“Can you speed it up?” Nick said.

Jorge smiled apologetically, shrugged. “You know this gate, I'm sorry. Also your friend came by.”

“My friend?”

“Miss Stadler? She came by too. Hour ago, I think.”

Did the kids call Cassie to come over? he wondered. Why didn't they call me? They know how to reach me. More comfortable calling Cassie, that it?

“Goddammit,” Nick shouted in frustration. “Speed this fucking thing up.”

“I can't do that, Mr. Conover, I'm sorry.”

Nick floored it, the Suburban lurching forward, hitting the solid iron bars of the gate, a crunch of metal that he knew wasn't the gate. Even the goddamned Suburban is a fucking tin can, crumples like a wad of aluminum foil. Front-end work. Fuck it.

It didn't budge the gate, which continued its stately pace, oblivious, arrogant, taking its goddamned fucking time.

Jorge's eyes widened. Finally the gate was open just enough, Nick calculated, to get through. He gunned it again, the squeal of metal against metal as the car scraped against the gate but got through, just barely.

SPEED LIMIT
20, the sign said.

Fuck it.

 

No fire trucks on the street or along the driveway. No police cars either.

Maybe this was nothing. He was overreacting, no emergency at all, no gas leak at all, a false alarm.

No. A false alarm, there would have been an answer, one of the calls he'd made.

Gas leak for real. Eddie came by, got the kids out of there and Cassie too, saved them all, thank God for that traitorous bastard, a bastard but
my
bastard, maybe turned out to be a real friend after all, maybe I owe him an apology.

Eddie's GTO in the driveway, parked behind the van. Cassie's red VW convertible too. It didn't compute. Cassie came over, Eddie too, both of their cars here, the van here too. That meant no one drove the kids away, thus the kids are still here and Eddie and Cassie too, so what the hell, then?

He raced up the stone path to the house, noticed all the windows were closed, the house sealed tight as if they were already out of there, on vacation, and as he approached the front door he smelled rotten eggs.

The gas smell.

It was for real. It was strong too, if he could smell it out here. Very strong. That odorant they add to natural gas so you know if there's a leak.

Front door was locked, which was a little strange if everyone had just run out of there, but he didn't linger on that, totally single-minded. He grabbed his key ring, got the door open.

Dark in here.

He yelled out, “Hello? Anyone here?”

No answer.

The rotten-egg smell was overpowering. More like skunk, maybe. A wall of odor, sharp as a knife, nauseating.

“Hello?”

Faint noises now. Thumping? From upstairs? He couldn't tell, the house was so solid. He entered the kitchen, but no one there either.

Distant bumping sounds, but then footsteps nearby, and Cassie appeared, walking slowly, looking worn out, a wreck.

“Cass,” he said. “Thank God you're here. Where are the kids?”

She kept approaching, one hand behind her back, slowly, almost hesitant. Her eyes sleepy, not looking at him, her stare distant.

“Cass?”

“Yeah,” she said at last. “Thank God I'm here.” Flat, almost affectless.

He heard a high-pitched mechanical beeping coming from somewhere. What the hell was that?

“Where is everyone?”

“They're safe,” she said, but something in her tone seemed off, as if she wasn't sure.

“Where's Eddie?”

A beat. “He's…safe too.” She drew out the words.

He stepped toward her to give her a hug, but she stepped backward, shook her head.

“No,” she said.

“Cassie?”

He felt the twang of fear even before his brain could make sense of it.

“You've got to get out of here. We've got to open some windows, call the fire department. Jesus, this is incredibly dangerous, this stuff is unbelievably combustible. Where are Luke and Julia?”

The high beeping was getting faster, higher in pitch, and Nick realized the source was a device on the kitchen counter he'd seen before, a small yellow box with flexible metal tubing coming out of it. What was it, and what was it doing there?

“I'm glad you came home, Nick.” Her eyes were smudged, looking like black holes. They darted from side to side. “I knew you would, though. Daddy protects his family. You're a good daddy. Not like my daddy. He never protected me.”

“Cassie,” he said, “what
is
it? You look so frightened.”

She nodded. “I'm terrified.”

He felt his skin go cold and goosefleshy. He saw it in her eyes, that same absent look he'd seen before, as if she'd gone somewhere else where no one could reach her. “Cassie,” he said in a gentle and firm tone, hollow inside, “where are my children?”

“I'm terrified of
me,
Nick. And you should be too.”

With her left hand she reached into the pocket of her denim shirt and pulled out an object that he recognized as Lucas's Zippo lighter. The lighter decorated with a skull crawling with spiders and surrounded by spider webs, a real stoner lighter. She flipped the top off, one-handed, and her thumb touched the flint wheel.

“
No!
” Nick shouted. “What are you doing, are you
crazy
?”

“Come on, Nick, you
know
I am. Can't you read the writing on the wall?” She began singing softly, “Oh, I ran to the rock to hide my face, the rock cried out ‘No hiding place.'”

“Where
are
they, Cassie?”

The electronic beeping, rising all the while in pitch, had now become a steady high squeal, almost ear-piercing. He realized where he'd seen that yellow box before: in the basement, placed there by the gas company serviceman. A combustible gas detector. Supposed to warn you about gas leaks. Beeping got higher and faster as the concentration of gas in the air increased. A steady squeal meant dangerous amounts of gas. Combustible levels. Someone had taken the device upstairs from the basement, and he now knew who.

“I told you, they're safe,” she said in a flat voice, and her other hand, the one she'd been keeping behind her back, came around to the front now, gripping the huge carbon-steel Henckels carving knife from the kitchen knife rack.

Heart thumping a million miles a minute now. Oh sweet Jesus, she's out of her mind. Dear God, help me.

“Cassie,” he said, moving closer, his arms outspread to give her a hug, but she raised the knife and pointed it at him, and with her left hand she held up the lighter, thumb on the wheel, and said, “Not another step, Nick.”

 

The guard's face appeared behind the tempered glass of the security booth at the entrance to the Fenwicke Estates.

His voice squawked through the intercom. “Yes?”

She flashed her police badge. “Police emergency,” she said.

The guard looked at it through the glass and immediately activated the security gate.

 

“Jesus, Cassie, please
don't
—”

“Oh, I really don't like this part,” she said, and at that instant he noticed the red slick on the knife blade, still wet.