Cash Out (13 page)

Barbara is still squinting.

“So here's the deal.” The new guy straightens. “The deal is, the stink beetle innovates. At dawn, it ‘drinks' from the moist air simply by positioning its rear into the breeze and opening its anus.” His smile is gone. “Now that's innovation.”

He looks up at Barbara, an eyebrow emerging from behind the shades. “So the thing is, maybe it's time to open your own anus to the moisture that breezes over you every day.”

Barbara is frozen. Speechless.

Danzig says, “So it stinks or something?”

The new guy turns to him. “You fuck with the stink beetle, it'll stand on its head and expel some seriously nasty gas.”

Danzig mouths the words.

The new guy folds his arms. “Yeah, I seriously dig the stink beetle.”

And I'm realizing: I
do
need to ask Fitzroy about this guy.

S
tephen Fitzroy's office is at the end of what we call Executive Row. Anytime you visit, you must walk past a series of executive offices and admin stations. It's a long hallway, and it's always an awkward journey—like walking up the center aisle of church as everyone watches, nodding as you bring the sacraments to Fitzroy's altar.

Fitzroy's admin, Sharon, is at her station right outside his office. She's in her late fifties, with vibrant green eyes, a square chin, and short, salt-and-pepper hair in big curls. You wouldn't guess it by looking at her, so unassuming and gentle, but she puts all the other admins to shame with her world-class speed and grace.

When I approach, Sharon gives me the please-help-me look.

“What?”

She motions with her head, whispers. “She won't leave.”

I look in. It's Beth Gavin, Fitzroy's executive assistant, talking with the boss. I roll my eyes, mumble to Sharon, “What's new?”

Beth Gavin does everything she can to be attached to Fitzroy's hip. I've learned what a big deal it is for some folks, to be there constantly with the top dog.
Check me out, look at who I spend my day with
. As long as Beth is with Fitzroy, she has access to a wealth of information and power—she's
in the in
, as they say, and she has the opportunity to influence Fitzroy. One of her best-loved sports is giving the boss her color commentary on just about everyone—and it's usually not pretty. When you realize how avidly she feeds this bullshit to one of the most powerful people in the Valley—paralyzing careers along the way—you realize just how dangerous she can be.

Can you tell I don't like Beth Gavin?

I've watched her misrepresent people and their contributions. I've seen her blame her mistakes on them. I've watched her seize a quiet moment to drop in a comment to Fitzroy about someone else's screwup—always careful to make her tattling seem incidental.

And I've been there during concalls, when it's just the three of us in his office and some poor bastard in Sales is talking on the Polycom, and Beth mutes the speakerphone and says, “This guy's an idiot.”

Fitzroy looks at her. “Really?”

“Big time.”

Happens every day.

Sharon says, “Will you go in there and break them up? I need to get him in the sedan by one.”

“Of course. Where's he going?”

“San Diego for a quick meeting, then back up in time for dinner.”

Classic Fitzroy. The man uses the jet to achieve feats that otherwise would be impossible—day trips to locales as far out as Tennessee, thanks to one of the easiest, most luxurious ways to travel.

“Speaking of the jet,” I say, “do you think I could get on that flight tomorrow to Tampa?”

“Shouldn't be a problem. It's just him and Beth tomorrow.”

“I'd appreciate that.”

“No problem.” Her brows wrinkle as she thinks about it. “I thought you said he wouldn't need you on this one.”

“Yeah, but now I think I should join him. There's some new content in this one, and he's probably gonna have some questions.”

“No problem.” She jots a note on a piece of paper. “I'll add you to the manifest.”

“Thanks, Sharon.”

“You need a room at the Grand Hyatt?”

“That'd be great, Sharon. Thanks.”

“Wheels up at nine-thirty.”

“I'll be there at nine,” I say, and pause. “And, oh, one more thing. Do you know Janice?”

“Janice?” She seems surprised. “From Finance?”

“Exactly.”

“Oh yeah.” She rolls her eyes. “The tunnel-vision lady.”

“Yup,” I say. “So you know what I'm dealing with.”

“What's she doing?”

I lean in and whisper. “For some reason, she thinks I'm the one who's supposed to fill all these data points into all these reports—something about putting P6s into an FOD. I don't even know what the hell she's talking about.”

“Lord.”

“And she says—get this—that
Beth
told her I'm the guy for this.”

Sharon blows out a loud gust and types Janice's name into her computer. “Let me get her number.”

“Thanks, Sharon.”

“This kind of stuff needs to stop.”

“I know.”

“We need you focused on his speeches. You're working too much as it is.”

“I know.” I look down at my feet, wait a moment. “I'm sorry to even bug you about this.”

She looks up at me, eyes hard. “You need to stick up for yourself, Danny.”

“I'm going to. I'll bring it up on the flight tomorrow.”

She dials, waits, looks up at me. “Yes, this is Sharon in Stephen Fitzroy's office.”

I imagine Janice's eyes when she picks up the phone. Most people at FlowBid have
never
gotten a call from Fitzroy's office—have never even met the guy. I'll bet Janice's heartbeat just jumped from seventy-two to one-forty-four.

“I'm calling to let you know that Stephen needs Dan Jordan to join him on a trip tomorrow for a critical speech. . . . Yes, and so we need you to find someone else who can do those reports for you.”

She looks up at me, smiles. I bow to her in a silent
thank you
. I can almost hear Janice backpedaling through the phone.

“Yes, well, he's very busy supporting Stephen.”

She listens.

“Yes, well, maybe you and Beth had a misunderstanding. Dan is Stephen's speechwriter, and you're asking him to do data entry for Finance.” She glances up at me, purses her lips, listening. “Beth told you that? Well, nothing could be further from the truth. . . . No, no apology necessary. . . . Okay, thanks, Janice.”

Sharon hangs up, gives me a motherly look, nods into Fitzroy's office. “You need to find a way to call her off.”

I nod. I'm pissed, but I hate confrontations. There's something building at the base of my throat, and I can't tell if it's anger or anxiety or both.

Sharon says, “Not tomorrow on the jet. Right now. You need to stick up for yourself. For your own self-esteem. Don't let it go another hour.” She nods toward Fitzroy's office. “Now's your chance.”

“Okay.”

“And get her out of there so we can get him to the jet center.”

I square myself to his office door, trying to summon the spirit of Rod Stone, the Big Fighter. If Rod were here, he'd swat me over the head, finger-push me in the chest, ask,
What the fuck is wrong with you, Jordan? Putting up with assholes like this? Haven't you learned anything after all these years?
I can almost see him in front of me, his jaw jutting out, his temples throbbing.

Time to get out of the comfort zone.

Y
ou saw Beth Gavin on the street, your jaw would hit your chest. On paper, she's gorgeous. Enormous blue eyes, high cheekbones, full lips, long snow-white hair, silky skin, legs till next year.

And yet, midway through my first day with Beth Gavin, I was kind of turned off. Not sure why—I usually find strong, smart women sexy—but I'd say it has something to do with the fact that she seems so one-dimensional, as if there's nothing there beyond ambition. She's not passionate about Finance, like Janice; she's not passionate about finding a better way for people to connect, like the engineers; she's not passionate about making deals, like our sales teams. Beth is passionate about herself, and that's her problem.

Beth once told me she prefers job candidates who are “forward-looking,” as in, driven to get lots of promotions, to earn tons of money, and to lead larger and larger groups of people. These people are like her, she said: hungry, willing to bust their asses to do whatever it takes to get ahead.

Don't get me wrong. I like people who bust their asses, and I like people who want to succeed. But I prefer them to be busting their asses and succeeding because of their love of something other than their personal advancement—whether it's Rod's love for mixed martial arts, or Steve Martin's passion for humor, or Brad Mehldau's love of the piano, or even Janice's love for finance. Point is, what drives their success is their belief in something else—something other than themselves.

The way I see it, rabid ambition intoxicates your moral equilibrium. It fuels bad behavior, encourages you to screw your friends and colleagues, and justifies your lies and misrepresentations. These people want their promotions so bad they're capable of doing anything—like throwing you under the bus or smearing you—to advance themselves.

So I have a hard time trusting ambitious people.

There, I said it.

I take another deep breath and step in.

S
tephen Fitzroy's office is enormous—windows everywhere, looking out on a sweeping view of rolling hills. He's slouching in an armchair; Beth is on the couch, legs crossed at the knees. From the stack of papers on the coffee table, it looks like they're prepping for sales meetings he'll have in Tampa.

Beth is trying to soothe him. “You're the reason. Everyone knows it.”

Fitzroy tightens, looks away. “Which is why
Fortune
is doing another profile on another member of my staff?”

“No,” Beth says. “Everyone knows it's you, Stephen. Everyone knows you're the reason this place is white-hot. A
Fortune
story on one someone else won't change that.”

Fitzroy seems satisfied. He looks up, raises his eyebrows. “Danny Boy!”

Beth gives me the slightest of smirks, glances back at Fitzroy as if they're in on some joke.

“Hey,” I say, big smile, “your new guy's eating a rat in the break room.”

Fitzroy lights up. “Perfect. That's perfect.” He looks up at me, eyes hopeful. “Are people freaking out?”

“Oh yeah.”

“That's great. We need to knock folks out of their comfort zones, Danny.”

“Who is he?”

He waves away the thought. “I have a question for you.”

Beth looks away, tries to suppress a smile.

“Okay.”

Fitzroy snatches a sheet off the coffee table, stands up, and brings it in close, invading my space. It's hard to focus on the drawing on the sheet—some rudimentary scribbling of a tiered pyramid—when I'm getting this up-close view of those bloodshot eyes, those dark teeth, that lifeless skin, that pink scalp with its odd collection of stray hairs and plugs.

“What you see here, Danny, is a breakdown of the general population.”

“Okay.”

Fitzroy leans in, coffee breath hitting me hard. “Down here at the bottom of the pyramid are the morons. I've got it all labeled here so you can follow along.”

Beth releases a short laugh, nearly a snort.

“That's the majority of the population, actually.” He's saying it in an exaggerated, professorial tone. “And they're hopeless.”

He looks at me for a reaction, the sunken eyes bulging and twinkling as he gets near my ear, bringing the breath closer.
Lord, that's nasty.

“And then, above the morons, we find the schmucks.” He exaggerates a turn toward me, still in that instructor voice. “If you're a schmuck, at least you can say you're not a moron.”

Beth laughs again and looks away.

“So the glass is half full, you're saying.”

“Exactly. Very good, Danny.” He bats the sheet with his index finger. “Then, above the schmucks, are the idiots.”

“Nice.”

“People take offense to the word
idiot
. But the truth is, Danny, you're not doing that bad if you're an idiot. You could be much worse.”

I decide to say nothing.

Fitzroy studies my face, mocks concern with bewildered brows. “Are you okay, Danny?”

“Yeah, I'm fine. Don't forget, Sharon has the sedan waiting out front.”

“It can wait.” He studies my face. “You're not mad or anything, are you?”

I
am
getting mad. I mean, only Fitzroy would come up with a pyramid like this, and only Beth Gavin would find it hilarious. This is how they see the world, how they see me and the others here. But of course, I don't want to register any kind of reaction, because that's what they want—a reaction.

“You have a little cut there.” He's looking at it. “Above your right brow there.”

“Oh, yeah. Just Harry, getting a little aggressive with his light saber.” I think of the shovel coming at my face, feel my body tense for a moment.

“Looks like it's bruising.”

“Harry swings hard.”

Beth has turned to her notes. Any mention of children usually repels her.

“Okay,” he says, straightening up and shaking the paper in front of me. “So you have the idiots.”

“I see.”

“Which leaves us with the last group, at the top of the pyramid.”

I squint at the sheet. “That little dot at the top there?”

Beth laughs hard. Fitzroy shows his coffee teeth, giggling.