Paranoia (35 page)

I felt a little uncomfortable about Goddard’s affection, but I smiled, ducked my head. “It seemed like the right thing to do,” I said.

“‘They that have power to hurt and will do none,’” Goddard said, “‘They rightly do inherit heaven’s graces.’ Shakespeare. In modern English: When you have the power to screw people over and you don’t—well, that’s when you get to show who you really are.”

“I suppose.”

“And who’s that older fellow whose job you saved?”

“Just a guy in marketing.”

“Buddy of yours?”

“No. I don’t think he particularly likes me either. I just think he’s a loyal employee.”

“Good for you.” Goddard squeezed my shoulder, hard. He led me to his office, stopped for a moment before Flo’s desk. “Morning, sweetheart,” he said. “I want to see the confirmation dress.”

Flo beamed, opened the Saks bag, pulled out a small white silk girl’s dress, and held it up proudly.

“Marvelous,” he said. “Just marvelous.”

Then we went into his office and he closed the door.

“I haven’t said a word to Paul yet,” Goddard said, settling behind his desk, “and I haven’t decided whether I will. You haven’t told anyone else, right? About the
Journal
business?”

“Right.”

“Keep it that way. Look, Paul and I have some differences of opinion, and maybe this was his way of lighting a fire under me. Maybe he thought he was helping the company. I just don’t know.” A long sigh. “If I do raise it with him—well, I don’t want word of it getting around. I don’t want any unpleasantness. We have far, far more important things going on these days.”

“Okay.”

He gave me a sidelong glance. “I’ve never been out to the Auberge, but I hear it’s terrific. What’d you think?”

I felt a lurch in my gut. My face grew hot. That
had
been Camilletti there last night, of all the lousy luck.

“I just—I only had a glass of wine, actually.”

“You’ll never guess who happened to be having dinner there the same night,” Goddard said. His expression was unreadable. “Nicholas Wyatt.”

Camilletti had obviously done some asking around. To even try to deny that I was with Wyatt would be suicide. “Oh, that,” I said, trying to sound weary. “Ever since I took the job at Trion, Wyatt’s been after me for—”

“Oh, is that right?” Goddard interrupted. “So of course you had no choice but to accept his invitation to dinner, hmm?”

“No, sir, it’s not like that,” I said, swallowing hard.

“Just because you change jobs doesn’t mean you give up your old friends, I suppose,” he said.

I shook my head, frowned. My face felt like it was getting as red as Nora’s. “It’s not a matter of friendship, actually—”

“Oh, I know how it goes,” Goddard said. “The other guy guilts you into taking a meeting with him, just for old times’ sake, and you don’t want to be rude to him, and then he lays it on nice and thick. . . .”

“You know I had no intention of—”

“Of course not, of course not,” Goddard muttered. “You’re not that kind of person. Please. I
know
people. Like to think that’s one of my strengths.”

When I got back to my office, I sat down at my desk, shaken.

The fact that Camilletti had reported to Goddard that he’d seen me at the Auberge at the same time as Wyatt meant that Camilletti, at least, was suspicious of my motives. He must have thought that I was, at the very least, allowing myself to be wooed, courted, by my old boss. But being Camilletti, he probably had darker thoughts than that.

This was a fucking disaster. I wondered, too, whether Goddard really did think the whole thing was innocent. “I
know
people,” he’d said. Was he that naïve? I didn’t know what to think. But it was clear that I was going to have to watch my ass very carefully from now on.

I took a deep breath, pressed my fingertips hard against my closed eyes. No matter what, I still had to keep plugging away.

After a few minutes, I did a quick search on the Trion Web site and found the name of the guy in charge of the Trion Legal Department’s Intellectual Property Division. He was Bob Frankenheimer, fifty-four, been with Trion for eight years. Before that he’d been general counsel at Oracle, and before that he was at Wilson, Sonsini, a big Silicon Valley law firm. From his photo he looked seriously overweight, with dark curly hair, a five o’clock shadow, thick glasses. Looked like your quintessential nerd.

I called him from my desk, because I wanted him to see my caller ID, see I was calling from the office of the CEO. He answered his own phone, with a surprisingly mellow voice, like a late-night radio DJ on a soft rock station.

“Mr. Frankenheimer, this is Adam Cassidy in the CEO’s office.”

“What can I do for you?” he said, sounding genuinely cooperative.

“We’d like to review all the patent applications for department three twenty-two.”

It was bold, and definitely risky. What if he happened to mention it to Goddard? That would be just about impossible to explain.

A long pause. “The AURORA project.”

“Right,” I said casually. “I know we’re supposed to have all the copies on file here, but I’ve just spent the last two hours looking all over the place, and I just can’t find them, and Jock’s really in a snit about this.” I lowered my voice. “I’m new here—I just started—and I don’t want to fuck this up.”

Another pause. Frankenheimer’s voice suddenly seemed cooler, less cooperative, like I’d pressed the wrong button. “Why are you calling me?”

I didn’t know what he meant, but it was clear I’d just stepped in it. “Because I figure you’re the one guy who can save my job,” I said with a little mordant chuckle.

“You think I have copies here?” he said tightly.

“Well, do you know where the copies of the filings are, then?”

“Mr. Cassidy, I’ve got a team of six top-notch intellectual-property attorneys here in house who can handle just about anything that’s thrown at them. But the AURORA filings? Oh, no. Those have to be handled by outside counsel. Why? Allegedly for reasons of ‘corporate security.’” His voice got steadily louder, and he sounded really pissed off. “‘Corporate security.’ Because presumably outside counsel practice better security than Trion’s own people. So I ask you: What kind of message is that supposed to send?” He wasn’t sounding so mellow anymore.

“That’s not right,” I said. “So who
is
handling the filings?”

Frankenheimer exhaled. He was a bitter, angry man, a prime heart-attack candidate. “I wish I could tell you. But obviously we can’t be trusted with that information either. What’s that our culture badges say, ‘Open Communication’? I love that. I think I’m going to have that printed on our T-shirts for the Corporate Games.”

When I hung up, I passed by Camilletti’s office on the way to the men’s room, and then I did a double take.

Sitting in Paul Camilletti’s office, a grave look on his face, was my old buddy.

Chad Pierson.

I quickened my stride, not wanting to be seen by either of them through the glass walls of Camilletti’s office. Though
why
I didn’t want to be seen, I had no idea. I was running on instinct by now.

Jesus, did Chad even
know
Camilletti? He’d never said he did, and given Chad’s modest and unassuming demeanor, it seemed just the sort of thing he’d have gloated about to me. I couldn’t think of any legitimate—or at least innocent—reason why the two of them might be talking. And it sure as hell wasn’t social: Camilletti wouldn’t waste his time on a worm like Chad.

The only plausible explanation was the one I most dreaded: that Chad had taken his suspicions about me right to the top, or as close to the top as he could get. But why Camilletti?

No doubt Chad had it in for me, and once he’d heard about a new hire from Wyatt Telecom, he’d probably flushed Kevin Griffin out in an effort to gather dirt on me. And he’d got lucky.

But had he really?

I mean, how much did Kevin Griffin really know about me? He knew rumors, gossip; he might claim to know something about my past history at Wyatt. Yet here was a guy whose own reputation was in question. whatever Wyatt Security had told Trion, clearly the folks at Trion believed it—or they wouldn’t have gotten rid of him so fast.

So would Camilletti really believe secondhand accusations coming from a questionable source, a possible sleazebag, like Kevin Griffin?

On the other hand . . . now that he’d seen me out at dinner with Wyatt, in a secluded restaurant, maybe he would.

My stomach was starting to ache. I wondered if I was getting an ulcer.

Even if I was, that would be the least of my problems.

65

The next day, Saturday, was Goddard’s barbecue. It took me an hour and a half to get to Goddard’s lake house, a lot of it on narrow back roads. On the way I called Dad from my cell, which was a mistake. I talked a little to Antwoine, and then Dad got on, huffing and puffing, his usual charming self, and demanded I come over now.

“Can’t, Dad,” I said. “I’ve got a business thing I have to do.” I didn’t want to say I had to go to a barbecue at the CEO’s country house. My mind spun through Dad’s possible responses and hit overload. There was his corrupt-CEO rant, the Adam-as-pathetic-brownnoser rant, the you-don’t-know-who-you-are rant, the rich-people-rub-your-face-in-their-wealth rant, the whassa-matter-you-don’t-want-to-spend-time-with-your-dying-father rant. . . .

“You need something?” I added, knowing he’d never admit he needed anything.

“I don’t need anything,” he said testily. “Not if you’re too busy.”

“Let me come by tomorrow morning, okay?”

Dad was silent, letting me know I’d pissed him off, and then put Antwoine on the phone. The old man was back to being his usual asshole self.

I ended the call when I reached the house. The place was marked with a simple wooden sign on a post, just
GODDARD
and a number. Then a long, rutted dirt path through dense woods that suddenly broadened out into a big circular drive crunchy with crushed clamshells. A kid in a green shirt was serving temporary valet duty. Reluctantly I handed him the keys to the Porsche.

The house was a sprawling, gray-shingled, comfortable-looking place that looked like it had been built in the late nineteenth century or so. It was set on a bluff overlooking the lake, with four fat stone chimneys and ivy climbing on the shingles. In front was a huge, rolling lawn that smelled like it had just been mowed and, here and there, massive old oak trees and gnarled pines.

Twenty or thirty people were standing around on the lawn in shorts and T-shirts, holding drinks. A bunch of kids were running back and forth, shouting and tossing balls, playing games. A pretty blond girl was sitting at a card table in front of the veranda. She smiled and found my name tag and handed it to me.

The main action seemed to be on the other side of the house, the back lawn that sloped gently down to a wooden dock on the water. There the crowd was thicker. I looked around for a familiar face, didn’t see anyone. A stout woman of about sixty in a burgundy caftan, with a very wrinkled face and snow-white hair, came up to me.

“You look lost,” she said kindly. Her voice was deep and hoarse, and her face was as weathered and picturesque as the house.

I knew right away she had to be Goddard’s wife. She was every bit as homely as advertised. Mordden was right: she really did look kind of like a shar-pei puppy.

“I’m Margaret Goddard. And you must be Adam.”

I extended my hand, flattered that she’d somehow recognized me until I remembered that my name was on the front of my shirt. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Goddard,” I said.

She didn’t correct me, tell me to call her Margaret. “Jock’s told me quite a bit about you.” She held on to my hand for a long time and nodded, her small brown eyes widening. She looked impressed, unless I was imagining it. She drew closer. “My husband’s a cynical old codger, and he’s not easily impressed. So you
must
be good.”

A screened-in porch wrapped around the back of the house. I passed a couple of large black Cajun grills with plumes of smoke rising from the glowing charcoal. A couple of girls in white uniforms were tending sizzling burgers and steaks and chicken. A long bar had been set up nearby, covered in a white linen tablecloth, where a couple of college-age guys were pouring mixed drinks and soft drinks and beers into clear plastic cups. At another table a guy was opening oysters and laying them out on a bed of ice.

As I approached the veranda, I began to recognize people, most of them fairly high-ranking Trion executives and spouses and kids. Nancy Schwartz, senior vice president of the Business Solutions Unit, a small, dark-haired, worried-looking woman wearing a Day-Glo orange Trion T-shirt from last year’s Corporate Games, was playing a game of croquet with Rick Durant, the chief marketing officer, tall and slim and tanned with blow-dried black hair. They both looked gloomy. Goddard’s admin, Flo, in a silk Hawaiian muumuu, floral and dramatic, was swanning around as if she were the real hostess.

Then I caught sight of Alana, long legs tan against white shorts. She saw me at the same instant, and her eyes seemed to light up. She looked surprised. She gave me a quick furtive wave and a smile, and she turned away. I had no idea what that was supposed to mean, if anything. Maybe she wanted to be discreet about our relationship, the old don’t-fish-off-the-company-pier thing.

I passed my old boss, Tom Lundgren, who was dressed in one of those hideous golf shirts with gray and bright pink stripes. He was clutching a bottle of water and nervously stripping off the label in a long perfect ribbon as he listened with a fixed grin to an attractive black woman who was probably Audrey Bethune, a vice president and the head of the Guru team. Standing slightly behind him was a woman I took to be Lundgren’s wife, dressed in an identical golfing outfit, her face almost as red and chafed as his. A gangly little boy was grabbing at her elbow and pleading about something in a squeaky voice.

Fifty feet away or so, Goddard was laughing with a small knot of guys who looked familiar. He was drinking from a bottle of beer and wearing a blue button-down shirt rolled up at the sleeves, a pair of neatly creased, cuffed khakis, a navy-blue cloth belt with whales on it, and battered brown moccasins. The ultimate prepster country baron. A little girl ran up to him, and he leaned over and magically extracted a coin from her ear. She squealed in surprise. He handed her the coin, and she ran off, shrieking with excitement.