Monahan 02 Artificial Intentions (24 page)

“Are you
kidding
me, Mr. Tucker?” I demanded. “I spent the better part of the morning with Belinda. And Rick Williams.” He stared at me dumbly, and I took a deep breath before I blew up like Mount Vesuvius.

Rather than yell at him which he was probably expecting, I said in a very controlled tone, “Don’t play dumb with me Ben. Tell me why Global Devices have cancelled their contracts with us. And tell me why no one in this company had the good sense to let us know that Global was no longer a client of ours.”

The silence between us lasted a good thirty to forty seconds before Ben finally spoke. Thirty to forty seconds for him to formulate a good story.

“Nat Scott knew a couple of weeks ago. She was the one who had all the dealings on the contractual side with Global Devices. When they cancelled, they dealt directly with her. The people at Global who I worked with haven’t returned any of my calls, so I don’t know what happened.”

“That doesn’t explain why no one told Tommy, or me, or one of the other senior executives. Do you know what this means to the company? Do you understand our obligations as a public company? Do you have any sense at all?” I probably sounded like his school principal now, not just his sixth grade teacher. “Ben, you’re one of the senior people in that group. What the hell were you thinking?”

His eyes stared through me, and his lips were pursed the whole time I was launching into him. His face was blank, expressionless and pale. I watched him noticeably shake his head and refocus his eyes on me before he spoke.

“Natalie Scott told us what had happened. She didn’t tell us why. And she threatened each of us with our jobs if we said anything.”

“You know Ben, I find it hard to believe that Nat Scott had that much sway over all of the team leaders. So she threatened you with your job. Why didn’t one of you come forward? It makes no sense to me. I would have thought that Tom Connaught would have hired people with more common sense than what I’m seeing. This whole mess is about to become a self-fulfilling prophecy for you and your co-workers Mr. Tucker. Before the dust settles on this, each and every one of you will likely be out of a job. Now get out of my office.”

Ben turned his wheelchair sharply and left without another word.

I did
not
sign up for this shit, I thought angrily, as I stomped around my office. Hmpf, I snorted, reminding myself that not only did I not sign up for this shit, it had all been dumped in my lap by the gods of irony. This is what you get Kate, I told myself, for acting so high and mighty all these years, acting like you’re so special. So confident in yourself, making sarcastic remarks about everyone. The gods of irony finally had enough and said, here, you think you can do better? Think you can be a better manager? A better boss? Go ahead. Here’s a little company called Phoenix just for you. Now go and lead the employees.

The irony was not lost on me.

Dr. Bill Pritchard was a gentleman. He proved this when he agreed to see me when I showed-up, unannounced, at the offices of Global Devices. Determined to get to the bottom of what had happened, I impulsively had Lou drive me to their offices located on East 29th Street in the area of the NYU Medical Center and Bellevue Hospital. The receptionist called Dr. Pritchard’s office for me, even though I admitted that I didn’t have an appointment.

I paced nervously and watched the receptionist pack up her desk for the day. The reception area was windowless and was furnished like the waiting room of a doctor’s office. Sparsely and without too much thought of comfort. I was secretly glad to see that these folks didn’t spend good money on trying to look like they had money. Like big law firms and the head offices of banks. So much money spent on furnishings that looked good and screamed
look at how much money we make
.

Dr. Pritchard was a small man, with a head full of white hair. I put him in his late seventies. He carried himself erect and although he must have been extremely pissed with Phoenix and myself, he did hold his hand out for a gentlemanly shake.

“Thank you so much for seeing me,” I told him.

He stood in front of me with his hands clasped behind his back. I was hoping for an invitation into his office but we remained in the reception area.

“What can I do for you Miss Monahan? I do believe I told you that we here at Global Devices didn’t want anything to do with Phoenix Technologies. Ever. I don’t believe there’s anything you can do to change our mind on that.”

He sounded pretty adamant. For a small man, Dr. Pritchard had quite a presence and he made me feel uncertain. I stumbled over my words and suddenly felt out of my league.

“Well, Dr. Pritchard, I can’t say that I blame you, however, I’m not clear on the
why
. I don’t know why you terminated our contracts. I’m new to all of this, and I’m just trying to find my way.” And then I felt tears stinging the back of my eyes. Oh God. I took a deep breath and willed the water in my eyes to go away. Dr. Pritchard must have noticed.

“Come with me, Miss Monahan. Let’s go back to my office and have a talk.” He turned and I followed. Like a good little girl.

We sat across from each other at a small working table in his office. The top of the table was the only clear space in the office. Massive stacks of papers, magazines, books, newspapers, files and God knows what else were piled around the room. On the floor, on top of what I think was his desk, on top of bursting bookcases. I looked around the room and felt just a wee bit righteous, thinking about how I used to let my filing get away from me. It was never this bad though.

Dr. Pritchard watched me looking around his office and told me, “I can’t bear to get rid of anything. My wife calls it my sickness. And on top of that, she won’t let me bring papers home, so it’s all here. Over fifty years of medical records and research.”

“But what would you do if there was ever a fire, or something got spilled on something important? Do you have copies of everything?” I was sounding like a worried secretary.

“Oh, it’s not a problem,” he assured me. “I’ve had the best secretary for the last forty years and she has copies of everything.” He smiled and I realized he was a very nice gentleman. I was worried about the conversation we were about to have. I felt like a child about to tell my father something that I
knew
would disappoint him.

“Thank you again Dr. Pritchard for seeing me. After we talked this morning, I spoke with several of the staff at Phoenix. The cancellation of your contracts was news to me, and so far I haven’t received any satisfactory answers as to why Global pulled the plug. This is dreadful news for us and I have to get to the bottom of it.” I smiled weakly at him. “I’ve only been in this job for a few days, and I’m still feeling my way around. It’s quite a shock to the system to find yourself promoted to president of a company.”

Dr. Pritchard smiled at me. “I think I know what you’re talking about. I was a practicing physician for many, many years before I joined the corporate world. It was like moving to another country where the culture was totally different and they spoke another language. I think it took me several years to acclimatize.”

I nodded in agreement. Several years? Yikes. I was hoping that the culture shock would wear off in a couple of weeks.

“Where was your medical practice?” I was interested to hear how he had made the change from the medical to the corporate world.

“I was a surgeon at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston. It’s been called the Brigham and Women’s Hospital since 1980. In the early nineties, there was a push for the development of artificial organs, and I was recruited to head up Global Devices. There were some venture capitalists out there who had some money to invest and I made the jump at that time.” He held up his hands and wiggled his fingers. “These hands weren’t getting any younger. Plus there was a history of arthritis in my family. Hands are a surgeon’s life blood you know.”

“How long has Global Devices had a relationship with Phoenix Technologies?” I asked him.

“Probably six or seven years,” he told me. “We do business with many high tech companies. There’s lots of talent out there that complements the medical talent here at Global. We spread the work around. But,” he said
but
with a lot of emphasis, “we are ethical in all aspects of our work. Ethics are something we demand of our partners.”

I had a feeling I was about to find out why we had been fired.

“When it was revealed that Phoenix Technologies had falsified test results which were submitted to the FDA, I immediately terminated all contracts. This type of behaviour is simply reprehensible.” He was sitting up straight in his chair and I could feel his indignation across the table. “Falsifying test results for life saving medical devices is not quite the same as a small lie on your income tax return. Lives are at stake in this business, Miss, and we cannot, and will not, tolerate falsification of records. Do you have any idea how long it takes to get approvals from the Office of Device Evaluation? Years! And in the case of our artificial kidney, with Phoenix having falsified records, we have been set back at least two years in our research and our approvals.”

I felt extremely sick to my stomach and craved a cigarette. Dr. Pritchard had stopped talking at this point, and it was probably time for me to say something.

“Dr. Pritchard, this is the first I have heard of these accusations,” I started.

“Accusations?” he interrupted me. “These are not accusations. These are facts.”

“Sorry, Dr. Pritchard. Like I said, this is the first I have heard of these, um, facts.” My legal background screamed for me to at least say
allegations
, but I wasn’t taking a chance on getting a further reprimand from this man.

“Can you start at the beginning and fill me in, please?”

When he was finished, I wished I had never asked the question.

chapter thirty-four

Lou was standing beside the town car when I finally came out of the Global offices an hour later. Traffic was light and for once, Lou didn’t seem to be illegally parked.

“Message for you ma’am,” Lou said and he handed me a slip of paper. Although I had a company-issued cell phone in my purse, I rarely had it turned on and Carrie knew she could always get a message to me through Lou.

Lou’s handwritten note said that Cleve Johnston was arriving at La Guardia on an Air Canada flight from Toronto at 7:30 p.m. I checked my watch. It was 6:30.

“How long will it take us to get to the airport?” I asked Lou.

“At this time of day, anywhere from twenty minutes to an hour. We’ve got lots of time,” Lou said knowingly. He opened the back door of the car for me. Before he closed it though, he leaned down and told me that he had to make a quick call to his dispatcher, to cancel the other car that had been ordered by Carrie to pick up Cleve.

La Guardia Airport looks like every other godforsaken airport in North America. Steel and sterile. Airports are the loneliest places in the world in my view and my stomach cramped every time I got near one. Since the tragic events at the Twin Towers, airports are now the worst places on the earth. If you’re dropping off a passenger, you barely have time to stop the car and unload them before the traffic cops are on your ass. Inside the airports, it’s hell on earth thanks to Mr. Osama Bin Laden and his band of heartless murderers. So before we arrived at the airport, I told Lou that he could drop me at the arrivals area, and I would go in and meet Cleve. Lou could keep circling until we came back out.

Lou’s eyes met mine in the rearview mirror and I could tell he was not happy with this plan.

“Can’t we just circle and wait until he comes out? You can call him on his cell and tell him we’re out here,” he suggested.

“Lou, it’s okay. Seriously. I will not get into any trouble inside the airport. I’ll just go to the baggage area and wait for Mr. Johnston.” I wanted to tell him not to be so over-protective, but that’d be like telling Joan Rivers to stop visiting the plastic surgeon.

“Okay Miss. Here. Take another one of my cards. You call me on the car phone as soon as he arrives and I’ll pull up as quick as I can.”

Surprisingly, the Air Canada flight was on time and it wasn’t long before I saw Cleve in the surging crowd coming down the escalator to the baggage area. It wasn’t hard to miss all six and a half feet of him, towering over everyone. He spotted me standing by the baggage carousel and winked. My heart melted just a little. Do we
ever
get over our crushes?

He was by my side in about six strides once he stepped off the escalator. He put his briefcase down and engulfed me in a huge bear hug. I hugged him back, my arms around his waist. There was no way I could reach his shoulders without a step stool.

“Good to see you Kate,” he said. “It’s a nice surprise to see you here.”

“Well, I had nothing better to do,” I lied. Truth be told I was desperate to talk with him. “If you’re not too tired, I was hoping we could have dinner. I’m anxious to talk about all this crap.”

“Sure, that’s not a problem,” he agreed. “Any place in particular that you want to eat?”

In the end, we had dinner at a steakhouse around the corner from his hotel. Cleve was booked into the New York Palace, the same hotel I had been staying at before I moved into Tommy’s apartment.

The concierge at the hotel had assured me that we would have privacy at the restaurant when he made the reservation for us and I wasn’t disappointed when the maitre d’ led us to our table. The lighting was subdued and all of the settings were banquettes. The restaurant wasn’t overly busy.

We pushed ourselves into the banquette, both of us struggling with the seating because of our body types. Once our drink order had been given to the waiter, Cleve put his large hands in front of him on the table and said, “Okay Kate. Let’s have it. What in the heck is going on?”