Power Play - Страница 4

Доступ к книге ограничен фрагменом по требованию правообладателя.

"You're kidding, right? You don't have the power to just-just move an hourly employee from one division to another. You can't hire outside the candidate pool. There's a whole posting process that's mandated by the union collective bargaining agreement. There are extensive protocols that have to be followed. So, I'm sorry, but I have to cancel this transfer. He's going back to Palmdale."

"Moment of candor, please?"

She looked puzzled. "Yes?"

"You and I both know that we're about to sell the Palmdale division to some buyout firm, only the news hasn't been made public yet. Which means this guy's going to be laid off."

"Along with everyone else who works at the Palmdale plant," she said, folding her arms across her chest. "And most of those workers will find other jobs."

"Not him. He's too old. He's fifty-seven, he's been with Hammond for almost forty years, and he's a good man and a hard worker."

A half smile. "Moment of candor? We make it hard for a reason, Mr. Landry. It's about doing things the right way."

"Yeah, well, Ken Spivak has five kids, and his wife died last year, and he's all they've got. And it's Jake."

She seemed to be avoiding my eyes. "I-I appreciate what you're trying to do, but I really don't have a choice here. Do you realize what kind of legal nightmare we're going to face when the word gets out in Palmdale that one lucky guy got a transfer and everyone else gets laid off-including people with higher performance ratings? The union's going to be all over us."

I said quietly, "You know what kind of legal trouble you're going to be in if you revoke his job?"

She stared at me for a few seconds, didn't reply. She knew I was right.

I went on: "Don't transfer him back. Don't you do it."

"It's about doing things the right way," she repeated quietly. "I'm sorry."

"No," I said. "It's about doing the right thing."

She didn't say anything.

"You have lunch yet?" I asked.

I didn't know what to pack. "Outdoor gear," Hank Bodine had said, whatever that meant. I collected a couple of pairs of jeans, my old Carhartt hunting jacket, a pair of boots. Then I went online and looked up the resort, saw how high-end it was, and threw in a pair of khakis and a blazer and a fancy pair of shoes for dinner, just in case. I quickly changed into a blazer and tie to wear on the corporate jet.

Then there was the question of what to do with Gerty for the four days I'd be gone. Someone had to feed her and take her out two or three times a day. I called one of my neighbors in the apartment building, a widowed older woman. She had a black Lab and loved Gerty and had taken care of her a few times. Her phone rang and rang. Called a bunch of my friends, who all begged off.

They knew about Gerty.

This could be a major problem, I realized, because I really didn't want to board Gerty at a kennel, even assuming I could find one at this point. I glanced at my watch, realized I had about two hours before I had to be at the Van Nuys airport. Just enough time to race over to the office and download the latest files on the 880 and try to find out what caused the crash of that plane in Paris.

As long as I got Hank Bodine what he wanted, I figured, everything would go fine.

5

On the short drive over to the office, I kept thinking about that strange meeting with Hank Bodine and wondering the same thing that he'd asked me: Why had the CEO of the Hammond Aerospace Corporation, who didn't even know who I was, put me on the "guest list" for the offsite? And what was Bodine so concerned about-what trouble was he afraid I might cause? If he wanted to make sure I gave her the "right answers," then what were the wrong ones?

As soon as I got to my cubicle, I shifted into multitasking mode-plowed through my e-mail while copying files onto a flash drive. Most of my e-mail stack I could safely ignore. One was from the Office of the CEO, concerning the importance of ethics and a "culture of accountability" at Hammond. I saved that one to read later. Meaning: probably never.

Zoл was watching me. "So what'd Bodine want?"

"I thought you knew everything."

"Sometimes the admin gossip network is slow. Let's hear it."

"He told me I'm going to the offsite in Canada."

"Get out! For what, to carry their luggage?"

I gave her a look, then went back to copying files. "Cheryl Tobin specifically requested me," I said with a straight face. "To stand in for Mike."

"Uh-huh. Like she even knows who you are."

"Not by name, exactly," I admitted. "She wanted someone who could talk knowledgeably about the 880."

"And you're the best they could come up with?"

This was why Zoл and I got along so well. Since she worked for Mike, not for me, she could pretty much say whatever she wanted to me without fear of getting fired.

"Don't you have work to do?" I said.

"So you actually agreed to do it."

I gave her another look. "Think I had a choice? It wasn't a request. It was an order."

She shrugged. "Like that ever made a difference to you. 'Kick up, kiss down'-that's your MO, right? Piss off as many people above you as you can."

"I still have a job, don't I?"

"Yeah. For now. Shouldn't you be at Van Nuys already?"

"The jet leaves in about an hour and a half," I said. "I gotta ask you a huge favor."

She looked at me warily.

"Would you mind taking my dog?" I said.

"Gerty? I'd love to. It's like rent-a-dog. I get a dog for a couple of days, then return it when it stops being fun."

"You're the best." I handed her the keys to my apartment. "Don't let her hump you," I said.

"What?"

"She likes to hump people's legs."

"Isn't she a female?"

"It's a dominance thing. Don't let her do it."

"No one dominates me," she said.

"It's the same way wolves establish the hierarchy in their pack."

"Wolves? Are we still talking about Gerty the Emo Dog?"

"Dogs and wolves are genetically the same species, you know."

"What do you know about wolves, Landry?"

More than you know. "Don't you watch the Dog Shrink on TV?"

"Don't need to. I do my own field research. All men are dogs-even the ones who act like wolves."

"Forget it," I said. "One more favor?"

Her look was even more suspicious. She had this great cold stare that she must have perfected at the clubs when she wanted guys to stop hitting on her.

"Bodine wants to know how the Eurospatiale crash happened."

"The wing fell off or something."

"A little piece of the wing, Zoл, called the inboard flap. The question is why. It's a brand-new plane."

"You want me to find out?"

"E-mail some of the journalists on the good aviation websites-ask them if they've heard anything. Rumors, whatever-stuff they might not have reported. And try to grab some photos."

"Of the plane?"

"If you can. Pictures of the inboard flap would be even better. Gotta be a couple somewhere-there were a bunch of photographers in the crowd taking pictures of the aerial demo. I'll bet you when that piece hit the tarmac, someone shot some close-ups. I'd love to get some high-res photos if you can find any."

"Why does Bodine care?"

"He says he wants Mike to have all the dirt on Eurospatiale he can get."

"It's not enough that their freakin' plane crashed?"

I shrugged.

"When do you need it? By the time you get back from Canada?"

"Actually, Bodine wants the info before we get there."

"That doesn't give me much time, Landry. Mike needs me to do a spreadsheet for him, and theoretically I do work for him, you know. I could get to it in a couple of hours."

"That should work if there's Internet access on the company plane."

"There is. Wireless, too. Just make sure you do it before you get to the lodge."

"Why?"

"The place is off the grid. No cell phones, no BlackBerrys, no e-mail, nothing."

"You're kidding."

"Uh-uh. Mike was dreading it. You know how addicted he is to his e-mail."

"I thought this was real high-end. You're making it sound like some kind of shack with no indoor plumbing."

"It's totally high-end. But it's so remote they don't have landline phones. This year, Cheryl's not letting anyone use the Internet or the manager's satellite phone. She wants everyone to be off-line."

"Sounds great to me. But those guys are all going to go apeshit."

"And you're actually going to have to talk to them."

"Not if I can help it."

"You don't get it, do you? That's the whole point of these stupid offsites. Team-building exercises and morale-building and all that? A lot of outdoor sports? Even ropes courses, I hear."

I groaned. "Not ropes courses."

"Well, maybe fancier than that. I don't know. But it's all about breaking down barriers and getting people who don't like each other to become friends."

Going kayaking together was supposed to make all those EVPs into friends? All those supercompetitive Type A personalities? They were far more likely to garrote each other.

"Somehow I don't think it's going to make Bodine like Cheryl Tobin any better."

Zoл gave me a long, cryptic look, then moved closer. "Listen, Jake. Not to be repeated, okay?"

I looked up. "Okay."

"So, there's this chick, Sophie, works at headquarters in Corporate Security?"

"Yeah?"

"I ran into her at the Darkroom on North Vine last night, and she told me she'd just finished doing this huge, totally top-secret job for the general counsel's office."