Disclosure: A Novel (9 page)

He was moving quickly, thinking about the meeting with Lewyn. He was especially bothered by one thing that Lewyn had said: that he was allowing himself to be pushed around by Garvin-that he was being too passive, too understanding.

But Sanders didn't see it that way. When Sanders had said it was Garvin's company, he meant it. Bob was the boss, and Bob could do what he wanted. Sanders was disappointed not to get the job, but no one had promised it to him. Ever. He and others in the Seattle divisions had come, over a period of weeks, to assume that Sanders would get the job.

But Garvin had never mentioned it. Nor had Phil Blackburn.

As a result, Sanders felt he had no reason to gripe. If he was disappointed, it was only because he had done it to himself. It was classic: counting your chickens before they hatched.

And as for being too passive what did Lewyn expect him to do? Make a fuss? Yell and scream? That wouldn't do any good. Because clearly Meredith Johnson had this job, whether Sanders liked it or not. Resign? That really wouldn't do any good. Because if he quit, he would lose the profits pending when the company went public. That would be a real disaster.

So on reflection, all he could do was accept Meredith Johnson in the new job, and get on with it. And he suspected that if the situation were reversed, Lewyn, for all his bluster, would do exactly the same thing: grin and bear it.

But the bigger problem, as he thought it over, was the Twinkle drive. Lewyn's team had torn up three drives that afternoon, and they still didn't have any idea why they were malfunctioning. They had found some non-spec components in the hinge, which Sanders could track down. He'd find out soon enough why they were getting non-spec materials.

But the real problemthe slowness of the drives-remained a mystery to which they had no clue, and that meant that he was going to

"Tom? You dropped your card."

"What?" He looked up absently. An area assistant was frowning, pointing back down the hall.

"You dropped your card."

"Oh." He saw the passcard lying there, white against the gray carpet. "Thanks."

He went back to retrieve it. Obviously, he must be more upset than he realized. You couldn't get anywhere in the DigiCom buildings without a passcard. Sanders bent over, picked it up, and slipped it in his pocket.

Then he felt the second card, already there. Frowning, he took both cards out and looked at them.

The card on the floor wasn't his card, it was someone else's. He paused for a moment, trying to decide which was his. By design, the passcards were featureless: just the blue DigiCom logo, a stamped serial number, and a magstripe on the back.

He ought to be able to remember his card number, but he couldn't. He hurried back to his office, to look it up on his computer. He glanced at his watch. It was four o'clock, two hours before his meeting with Meredith Johnson. He still had a lot to do to prepare for that meeting. He frowned as he walked along, staring at the carpet. He would have to get the production reports, and perhaps also the design detail specs. He wasn't sure she would understand them, but he should be prepared with them, anyway. And what else? He did not want to go into this first meeting having forgotten something.

Once again, his thoughts were disrupted by images from his past. An opened suitcase.

The bowl of popcorn. The stained-glass window.

"So?" said a familiar voice. "You don't say hello to your old friends anymore?"

Sanders looked up. He was outside the glass-walled conference room. Inside the room, he saw a solitary figure hunched over in a wheelchair, staring at the Seattle skyline, his back to Sanders.

"Hello, Max," Sanders said.

Max Dorfman continued to stare out the window. "Hello, Thomas."

"How did you know it was me?"

Dorfman snorted. "It must be magic. What do you think? Magic?" His voice was sarcastic. "Thomas: I can see you."

"How? You have eyes in the back of your head?"

"No, Thomas. I have a reflection in front of my head. I see you in the glass, of course.

Walking with your head down, like a defeated putz." Dorfman snorted again, and then wheeled his chair around. His eyes were bright, intense, mocking. "You were such a promising man. And now you are hanging your head?"

Sanders wasn't in the mood. "Let's just say this hasn't been one of my better days, Max."

"And you want everybody to know about it? You want sympathy?"

"No, Max." He remembered how Dorfman had ridiculed the idea of sympathy. Dorfman used to say that an executive who wanted sympathy was not an executive. He was a sponge, soaking up something useless.

Sanders said, "No, Max. I was thinking."

"Ah. Thinking. Oh, I like thinking. Thinking is good. And what were you thinking about, Thomas: the stained glass in your apartment?"

Despite himself, Sanders was startled: "How did you know that?"

"Maybe it's magic," Dorfman said, with a rasping laugh. "Or perhaps I can read minds.

You think I can read minds, Thomas? Are you stupid enough to believe that?"

"Max, I'm not in the mood."

"Oh well, then I must stop. If you're not in the mood, I must stop. We must at all costs preserve your mood." He slapped the arm of his wheelchair irritably. "You told me, Thomas. That's how I knew what you were thinking."

"I told you? When?"

"Nine or ten years ago, it must have been."

"What did I tell you?"

"Oh, you don't remember? No wonder you have problems. Better stare at the floor some more. It may do you good. Yes. I think so. Keep staring at the floor, Thomas."

"Max, for Christ's sake."

Dorfman grinned at him. "Do I irritate you?"

"You always irritate me."

"Ali. Well. Then perhaps there is hope. Not for you, of course for me. I am old, Thomas.

Hope has a different meaning, at my age. You wouldn't understand. These days, I cannot even get around by myself. I must have someone push me. Preferably a pretty woman, but as a rule they do not like to do such things. So here I am, with no pretty woman to push me. Unlike you."

Sanders sighed. "Max, do you suppose we can just have an ordinary conversation?"

"What a good idea," Dorfman said. "I would like that very much. What is an ordinary conversation?"

"I mean, can we just talk like normal people?"

"If it will not bore you, Thomas, yes. But I am worried. You know how old people are worried about being boring."

"Max. What did you mean about the stained glass?"

He shrugged. "I meant Meredith, of course. What else?"

"What about Meredith?"

"How am I to know?" Dorfman said irritably. "All I know of this is what you told me.

And all you told me is that you used to take trips, to Korea or Japan, and when you came back, Meredith would-"

"Tom, I'm sorry to interrupt," Cindy said, leaning in the door to the conference room.

"Oh, don't be sorry," Max said. "Who is this beautiful creature, Thomas?"

"I'm Cindy Wolfe, Professor Dorfman," she said. "I work for Tom."

"Oh, what a lucky man he is!"

Cindy turned to Sanders. "I'm really sorry, Tom, but one of the executives from Conley-White is in your office, and I thought you would want to"

"Yes, yes," Dorfman said immediately. "He must go. Conley-White, it sounds very important."

"In a minute," Sanders said. He turned to Cindy. "Max and I were in the middle of something."

"No, no, Thomas," Dorfman said. "We were just talking about old times. You better go."

"Max-"

"You want to talk more, you think it's important, you come visit me. I am at the Four Seasons. You know that hotel. It has a wonderful lobby, such high ceilings. Very grand, especially for an old man. So, you go right along, Thomas." His eyes narrowed. "And leave the beautiful Cindy with me."

Sanders hesitated. "Watch out for him," he said. "He's a dirty old man."

"As dirty as possible," Dorfman cackled.

Sanders headed down the hallway to his office. As he left, he heard Dorfman say, "Now beautiful Cindy, please take me to the lobby where I have a car waiting. And on the way, if you don't mind indulging an old man, I have a few little questions. So many interesting things are happening in this company. And the secretaries always know everything, don't they?"

Mr. Sanders."Jim Daly stood quickly, as Sanders came into the room. "I'm glad they found you."

They shook hands. Sanders gestured for Daly to sit down, and slid behind his own desk.

Sanders was not surprised; he had been expecting a visit from Daly or one of the other investment bankers for several days. Members of the Goldman, Sachs team had been speaking individually with people in various departments, going over aspects of the merger. Most of the time they wanted background information; although high technology was central to the acquisition, none of the bankers understood it very well. Sanders expected Daly to ask about progress on the Twinkle drive, and perhaps the Corridor.

"I appreciate your taking the time," Daly said, rubbing his bald head. He was a very tall, thin man, and he seemed even taller sitting down, all knees and elbows. "I wanted to ask you some things, ah, off the record."

"Sure," Sanders said.

"It's to do with Meredith Johnson," Daly said, in an apologetic voice. "If you, ah, don't mind, I'd prefer we just keep this conversation between us."

"All right," Sanders said.

"I understand that you have been closely involved with setting up the plants in Ireland and Malaysia. And that there has been a little controversy inside the company about how that was carried out."

"Well." Sanders shrugged. "Phil Blackburn and I haven't always seen eye to eye."

"Showing your good sense, in my view," Daly said dryly. "But I gather that in these disputes you represent technical expertise, and others in the company represent, ah, various other concerns. Would that be fair?"

"Yes, I'd say so." What was he getting at?

"Well, it's along those lines that I'd like to hear your thoughts. Bob Garvin has just appointed Ms. Johnson to a position of considerable authority, a step which many in Conley-White applaud. And certainly it would be unfair to prejudge how she will carry out her new duties within the company. But by the same token, it would be derelict of me not to inquire about her past duties. Do you get my drift?"

"Not exactly," Sanders said.

"I'm wondering," Daly said, "what you feel about Ms. Johnson's past performance with regard to the technical operations of the company. Specifically, her involvement in the foreign operations of DigiCom."

Sanders frowned, thinking back. "I'm not aware that she's had much involvement," he said. "We had a labor dispute two years ago in Cork. She was part of the team that went over to negotiate a settlement. She lobbied in Washington about flatpanel display tariffs.

And I know she headed the Ops Review Team in Cupertino, which approved the plans for the new plant at Kuala Lumpur."

"Yes, exactly."

"But I don't know that her involvement goes beyond that."

"Ali. Well. Perhaps I was given wrong information," Daly said, shifting in his chair.

"What did you hear?"

"Without going into specifics, let me say a question of judgment was raised."

"I see," Sanders said. Who would have said anything to Daly about Meredith? Certainly not Garvin or Blackburn. Kaplan? It was impossible to know for sure. But Daly would be talking only to highly placed officers.

"I was wondering," Daly said, "if you had any thoughts on her technical judgment.

Speaking privately, of course."

At that moment, Sanders's computer screen beeped three times. A message flashed: ONE MINUTE TO DIRECT VIDEO LINKUP: DC/M-DC/S

SEN: A. KAHN REC: T. SANDERS

Daly said, "Is something wrong?"

"No," Sanders said. "It looks like I have a video feed coming in from Malaysia."

"Then I'll be brief and leave you to it," Daly said. "Let me put it to you directly. Within your division, is there any concern whether Meredith Johnson is qualified for this post?"

Sanders shrugged. "She's the new boss. You know how organizations are. There's always concern with a new boss."

"You're very diplomatic. I mean to say, is there concern about her expertise? She's relatively young, after all. Geographic move, uprooting. New faces, new staffing, new problems. And up here, she won't be so directly under Bob Garvin's, ah, wing."

"I don't know what to say," Sanders said. "We'll all have to wait and see."

"And I gather that there was trouble in the past when a nontechnical person headed the division . . . a man named, ah, Screamer Freeling?"

"Yes. He didn't work out."

"And there are similar concerns about Johnson?"

Sanders said, "I've heard them expressed."

"And her fiscal measures? These cost-containment plans of hers? That's the crux, isn't it?"

Sanders thought: what cost-containment plans?

The screen beeped again.

30 SECONDS TO DIRECT VIDEO LINKUP: DC/M-DC/S

"There goes your machine again," Daly said, unfolding himself from the chair. "I'll let you go. Thank you for your time, Mr. Sanders."

"Not at all."

They shook hands. Daly turned and walked out of the room. Sanders's computer beeped three times in rapid succession:

15 SECONDS TO DIRECT VIDEO LINKUP: DC/M-DC/S

He sat down in front of the monitor and twisted his desk lamp so that the light shone on his face. The numbers on the computer were counting backward. Sanders looked at his watch. It was five o'clock-eight o'clock in Malaysia. Arthur would probably be calling from the plant.

A small rectangle appeared in the center of the screen and grew outward in progressive jumps. He saw Arthur's face, and behind him,

the brightly lit assembly line. Brand-new, it was the epitome of modern manufacturing: clean and quiet, the workers in street clothes, arranged on both sides of the green conveyor belt. At each workstation there was a bank of fluorescent lights, which flared a little in the camera.

Kahn coughed and rubbed his chin. "Hello, Tom. How are you?" When he spoke, his image blurred slightly. And his voice was out of sync, since the bounce to the satellite caused a slight delay in the video, but the voice was transmitted immediately. This unsynchronized quality was very distracting for the first few seconds; it gave the linkup a dreamy quality. It was a little like talking to someone under water. Then you got used to it.