Killer Instinct (21 page)

“That’s not right. That really sucks.”

“Yes, it does.”

“You’ve gotta do something about that, man.”

“There’s nothing to do. That’s the problem. We’re at least a month out—we have to get inventory from Tokyo.”

“Don’t sit back and take it, bro. Go after it.”

“How? What am I supposed to do, take out one of your replica handguns and put it up to Freddy Naseem’s forehead?”

“My point is, sometimes the quiet, behind-the-scenes approach is the best way. Like the time when we were in Stan and we found this air base near Kandahar, with a big old Russian chopper. One of our local informants told us some of the top Taliban commanders used the helicopter to head up to their secret headquarters in the mountains. I figured, well, we could just nuke the thing, or we could be clever. So we waited till four in the morning, when there was only one TB sentry on duty.”

“TB?”

“Taliban, sorry. I snuck up behind him, garroted him to kill him silently. Then we got inside the base and painted some LME on the tail section near the rear rotor, and the rotor blades. Totally invisible.”

“LME?”

“Liquid metal embrittlement agent. Remember that tube you were looking at in my war trophy collection?”

“I think so.”

“Very cool stuff. Classified technology. A mix of some liquid metal, like mercury, with some other metal. Copper powder or indium or whatever. Paint it on steel, and it forms a chemical reaction. Turns steel as brittle as a cracker.”

“Neat.”

“So the Taliban guys probably did the routine preflight check for bombs and shit, but they didn’t see anything, right? That night, there’s this big crash, and the helicopter just flew apart in the air. Six Taliban generals turned into corned beef hash. Better than just blowing up an empty helicopter, right?”

“What’s that got to do with Entronics?”

“My point is that sometimes it’s the covert stuff that’s the real force multiplier. That’s what wins the battle. Not the guns and bombs and mortar rounds.”

“I’d rather you didn’t garrote Freddy Naseem. Not good for the corporate image.”

“Forget Freddy Naseem. I’m just saying, there comes a time for behind-the-scenes action.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. I’d need to know more. But I’m here to help, whatever it is.”

I shook my head. “I don’t do underhanded stuff.”

“What about getting inside dope on Brian Borque at Lockwood Hotels? Or Jim Letasky?”

I hesitated. “I feel kind of funny about it, to be honest.”

“And you don’t think Panasonic was being…underhanded, as you put it, for snagging the Harry Belkin deal?”

“Yeah, they were. But I don’t believe in tit for tat. I don’t want to be a snake.”

“Let me ask you this. Kill a guy in an alley somewhere, it’s murder, right? But kill a guy in the middle of a battlefield, it’s heroism. What’s the difference.”

“Simple,” I said. “One’s war, the other’s not.”

“I thought business is war.” Kurt grinned. “It’s in all those books you gave me. I read ’em cover to cover.”

“It’s a figure of speech.”

“Funny,” he said. “I missed that part.”

That night we played EMC, a giant computer-storage company headquartered in Hopkinton, and once again we won. The guys from EMC must have gotten the word that we were a totally transformed team, so they came to play, as if they’d had a practice before showing up. We were short one player, unfortunately. Doug Forsythe never showed up, which wasn’t a good sign.

My own softball game had improved, for some reason. When I stepped up to the plate, I didn’t flinch at the pitch anymore. I swung harder and with greater confidence. I felt more relaxed at the plate, and I began hitting them deep. My fielding was better too.

But a couple of times, Trevor Allard deliberately threw the ball by me and around me, deliberately cutting me off, as if I couldn’t be trusted with the ball. The one time he threw the ball to me was when I wasn’t prepared—I was half turned away—and he almost took off my ear.

After the game, Kurt and I walked to the parking lot. Trevor was in his Porsche, blasting that Kanye West song, “Gold Digger,” as I passed by—
He got that ambition, baby, look in his eyes
—and it didn’t seem to be a coincidence.

I told Kurt I wanted to head right home if he didn’t mind giving me a lift.

“So you don’t want to go out with the guys?” Kurt said.

“Nah. Long day. Plus, I told Kate I’d be home. These days she doesn’t like me staying out as late.”

“Pregnant women need to feel protected,” Kurt said. “Primitive instinct. Listen to me—like I know. She’s a nice chick. Pretty, too.”

“And mine.”

“Things okay on the home front?”

“Not bad,” I said.

“It’s a tough gig, marriage.”

I nodded.

“Important to take care of the home front,” he said. “If the home front isn’t in good shape, everything else suffers.”

“Yeah.”

“Hey, so what happened to Doug Forsythe tonight?” Kurt said.

“I think we’re about to lose him to Sony.”

“Because of your hard-ass memo?”

“That may have been the last straw. Gordy’s obsessed with me trying to keep him. I twisted Doug’s arm, pleaded with him, but no go. There’s only so much I can do. The guy obviously wants to leave. And I can’t totally blame him. Gordy’s no fun to work for.”

“I’ll bet there’s a Gordy in every company.”

“I’d hate to believe that,” I said. “But what do I know. I’ve only worked for one company.”

“Listen,” Kurt said. “It’s none of my business, but you can’t let Trevor disrespect you.”

“It’s just a game.”

“Nothing’s just a game,” Kurt said. “If he thinks he can get away with that kind of disrespect on the ball field, it’s just going to carry over to the workplace.”

“It’s no big deal.”

“Yes, it is,” Kurt said. “It’s a big deal. And it’s unsat.”

26

It was seven-thirty in the morning, and Gordy was on his third giant mug of coffee. Gordy overcaffeinated was not a pretty sight. He was bouncing off the walls.

“Rank ’n’ yank time,” he said, like he was a camp counselor and it was time for the white-water rafting. “Gotta tell ya, your performance reviews of some of these guys were awful generous. Don’t forget, I know these guys pretty well.” He turned to face me slowly.

I said nothing. He was right. I’d been generous in my assessments. I’d also given a boost to some of the outliers, like Festino and Taylor. I didn’t want to give Gordy any ammunition he didn’t need.

“Time for Taylor and Festino to hit the road,” he said.

So what was the point of the “performance review” exercise he’d just put me through? Rank everyone one to five on all sorts of things, when only one number counted?

“Cal Taylor’s two years from retirement,” I said.

“He retired years ago. He just didn’t tell anyone.”

“Festino just needs some more hands-on guidance.”

“Festino’s a big boy. We’ve been floating him for years. Gave the guy extra tutoring after school. Held his hand.”

“What about moving him to Inside Sales?”

“Why, so he can botch that too? Taminek’s been handling Inside Sales just fine. Festino’s been on life support for too long. Shoulda finished law school. Now it’s time to yank the feeding tube. Topgrade him out of here.”

“Gordy,” I said, “the guy’s a family man with a mortgage and a kid in private school.”

“You don’t understand. I wasn’t asking your advice.”

“I can’t do this, Gordy.”

He stared at me. “Why does that not surprise me? Why do I get the feeling you’re not cut out for the G Team?”

I’d never fired anyone before, and I had to start with a sixty-three-year-old man.

Cal Taylor cried in my office.

I didn’t know how to deal with that. I pushed a box of Kleenex across the desk at him and assured him that this was nothing personal. Though in one sense it was entirely personal. It was all about his inability to crawl out of the Jack Daniel’s bottle long enough to get on the phone and deal with the constant rejection that all of us salespeople face every day.

I won’t say it was more painful to me than it was to him. But it was pretty bad. He sat there in front of me wearing his cheap gray summer-weight suit that he wore year-round and had probably bought in a burst of deluded optimism during the Lyndon Johnson administration. His shirt collar was frayed. His white hair was Brylcreemed back, his nicotine-yellowed mustache neatly trimmed. His smoker’s hack was worse than ever.

And he wept.

Entronics had a “termination script” you had to use whenever you fired anyone. No ad-libbing allowed. After me, he’d have to go to HR and then outplacement counseling. They’d tell him about his health benefits and how long he’d continue to get his salary. Then a Corporate Security officer would escort him out of the building. That was the final indignity. Forty years with the company, and they shooed you out like you were a shoplifter.

And when the deed was done, he stood up, and said, “What about you?”

“Me?”

He looked at me with injured eyes. “You happy? Being Gordy’s hatchet man? His chief executioner officer?”

That didn’t require an answer, so I didn’t give him one. I felt as if I’d been kicked in the balls. I could only imagine how he felt. I closed my office door and sank down in my desk chair and watched him walk, slope-shouldered, across the expanse of the cube farm to his cubicle.

Through the gaps in the venetian blinds, I could see him talking to Forsythe and Harnett. My phone rang, and I let Franny get it. She intercommed me and asked if I wanted to take a call from Barry Ulasewicz at Chicago Presbyterian Hospital, and I told her I was in a meeting. She knew I wasn’t on the phone or with anyone, and she said, “You okay?”

“I’ll be fine, thanks,” I said. “I just need a couple of minutes.”

Someone had brought Taylor a stack of white cardboard cartons and was setting them up for him. A few people gathered around his cubicle as he began putting his belongings in boxes. Trevor was shooting baleful glances in my direction.

It was like a pantomime of bereavement: I could see but not hear. The word had spread like ripples on the surface of a pond. People came up to him and said brief, consoling things, then walked rapidly away. Others were passing by and making broad gestures but not slowing their stride. It’s funny the way people act around someone who’s been fired. Getting terminated is sort of like having a serious communicable disease; for every one who stopped to share his sadness there were two who didn’t want to get too close and catch it. Or didn’t want to seem to be in league with poor Cal Taylor, conspiring with him. They wanted to demonstrate their neutrality.

As I picked up my phone to ask Festino to come in, there was a knock at the door.

It was Festino.

27

“Steadman,” Festino said. “Tell me you didn’t just shoot Cal Taylor.”

“Sit down, Ricky,” I said.

“I don’t
believe
this. Is it the body snatchers? The merger integration team? That who gave the orders?”

I wanted to say,
It wasn’t my idea,
but that was too weaselly. Though true. I said, “Have a seat, Ricky.”

He did. “How come Gordy didn’t do it, huh? I figured he’d want to do it himself. He enjoys that kind of thing.”

I didn’t reply.

“I gotta tell you, as your friend, that I don’t like what’s happening to you. You’ve gone over to the dark side.”

“Ricky,” I tried to interrupt.

But he was on a roll. “First there’s that ridiculous Queeg Memo. Now you’re Gordy’s executioner. This is not good. I’m telling you this as your buddy.”

“Ricky, stop talking for a second.”

“So Taylor’s the first to swim with the fishes, huh? The first guy voted off the island? Who’s next, me?”

I looked at him for a couple of seconds before looking away.

“You’re kidding, right? Don’t kid a kidder, Jason.”

“The lower thirty percent are being let go, Ricky,” I said softly.

I could see the blood drain from his face. He shook his head. “Who’s going to go over your contracts if I’m gone?” he said in a small voice.

“I’m really sorry.”

“Jason,” he said, a note of wheedling entering his voice, “I’ve got a family to feed.”

“I know. I really hate this.”

“No, you don’t know. Entronics covers my wife’s and kids’ health plans.”

“You won’t just be cut off, Ricky. Your benefits will be continued for up to eighteen months.”

“I’ve got school
tuition
to pay, Jason. You know what that school costs me? It’s like thirty thousand bucks a
year
.

“You can—”

“They don’t give financial aid. Not to guys like me, anyway.”

“The public schools are great where you live, Ricky.”

“Not for a kid with Down’s syndrome, Steadman.” His eyes were fierce, and they were moist.

I couldn’t talk for a couple of seconds. “I had no idea, Ricky.”

“Is this your decision, Jason?”

“Gordy’s,” I said at last, feeling like the coward I was.