Termination Man: a novel (53 page)

I decided that it was not. Let Shawn and Kurt wonder. Let them try to drag the truth out of me.

“Shawn has told me about the little scuffle the two of you had,” Kurt said.

I said nothing in response to this revelation. I now had to assume that Kurt already knew the worst about his son—and he had chosen to defend him anyway. I would gain nothing by making a straightforward argument.

“It’s also come to my attention,” Kurt continued. “That you were approached in the parking lot of UP&S by this same Tina Shields—that you in fact conferred with her for more than ten minutes. Would you care to explain that, Craig?”

Given Kurt’s accusation, I had to conclude that a security camera had indeed captured my exchange with Tina in the parking lot. I couldn’t deny that a brief meeting had taken place. But I could plausibly deny that I had communicated with her to any significant degree.

“One night a few weeks ago an unknown woman did approach me in the parking lot,” I said. “She did say that her name was Tina Shields. I refused to talk to her, though.”

“The security camera footage clearly shows you and Tina talking for about ten minutes, like I said,” Kurt countered. “She handed you a piece of paper, which you stood there and read.”

“That was a flyer from a women’s organization that she claimed to represent,” I fabricated. The security camera that had captured my exchange with Tina was mounted perhaps twenty feet above the parking lot. The footage would therefore show that Tina had handed me a piece of paper. But the camera’s resolution wouldn't have been sufficient to read it. Or so I hoped.

“She wasn’t making any sense,” I went on. “And I’ve never had much stomach for those activist types. So I humored her for a few minutes and then sent her away. I didn't know this woman, and I had no idea what she really wanted with me. Perhaps I should have mentioned the incident to Beth, but I didn't see a connection between this woman and any specific issue inside UP&S.”

“He’s fucking lying,” Shawn said.

I itched to rise from my seat and pummel Shawn Myers. But I held my temper in check. I wondered:
Did the UP&S security system also include sensitive microphones that allowed the
company
to record conversations in the parking lot?
Doubtful. Such technology existed, but it would have been incredibly expensive to implement over a wide, open area like the factory’s parking lot, where noise interference was constant and ubiquitous.

Kurt ignored Shawn’s outburst, as well as my assertions. When he spoke, I had the feeling that he did not believe me. But Kurt Myers was not his son; he was far too subtle to show his hand and call me a liar.

“Craig, I’ve done my best to be good to you, to level with you. I don’t mind telling you, right here in the presence of my own flesh and blood, that I’ve thought of you as a son at times.” Kurt paused for effect, turning to look at Shawn, and then at me. “In fact,” he continued. “My hope is that one day the two of you might even learn to see eye-to-eye. To be friends, even. I’ll be retiring within a few years; but Shawn is going to remain on the TP Automotive management team. The two of you are of the same generation. Even if you never learned to be friends, you might become strategic allies. You could help each other. Establish a bond of mutual trust and mutual benefit. That’s what sound business relationships are based upon.”

Kurt was speaking to me, so that he could not see the shifting expressions on his son’s face. When Kurt suggested a future friendship between the two of us, Shawn smirked and shook his head at me.

He knows
, I thought.
He knows that there’s more going on
here than wh
at
I admitted to. He knows that I’m trying to sink him—trying to sink them both.

“But if I can’t trust you,” Kurt said. “Then that changes everything. You seem to have struck up a friendship with this Donna Chalmers—the woman who is leveling all sorts of accusations against one of our managers. I remember the day I first asked you for information about her, and the second time, as well. Now I find out that you’ve got something personal going on with her. If I weren’t predisposed to think the best of you, Craig, I would regard that as a betrayal.”

So they also knew about my relationship with Donna Chalmers. While I hadn’t taken extreme measures to hide my contact with Donna, I had been discreet.
How closely were they watching me?
Was someone tailing my movements? Perhaps another freelance consultant?

“You want to cancel our contract?” I asked. “If you feel that there’s been a breach of trust, if you’re no longer comfortable working with me, then say the word, send me a check for prorated time and expenses, and I’ll be gone within the hour.”

Kurt didn’t call this particular bluff—as I had known that he wouldn’t. This little meeting was part of a game. He knew it and I knew it; and he knew that I knew. Kurt realized that I grasped more than I was letting on. He probably also sensed that I now had my own agenda. He therefore wanted to keep me onsite—where it would be easier for him to monitor my actions. He also likely believed that I would be easier to manipulate if I believed that my relationship with TP Automotive could still be salvaged. The classic carrot-and-stick strategy.

“You’re playing a dangerous game, Craig, and you’re playing it foolishly to boot. I don’t know exactly what’s going on between you and Donna Chalmers, but I can tell you this: No woman is worth wrecking your future. You need TP Automotive, Craig. And frankly, we need you at this juncture in our development.
I
need you.

“I don’t give advice lightly, Craig; and I’m going to give you a piece of advice right now: Find another girlfriend in New Hastings. You’re a good-looking guy. God knows you should have other options. Donna Chalmers will bring you nothing but trouble.”

I did not take Kurt Myers’s “advice.” If anything, over the next week I started spending even more time with Donna Chalmers. It was the beginning of what you might call a normal relationship; but recent events hung constantly over our time together. We talked of little else but TP Automotive, Tina Shields, and Kurt and Shawn Myers. There were many problems and questions, but very little in the way of solutions and answers.

If only we had
the police on our side. I kept turning the situation over in my mind, trying to come up with an angle. The problem, of course, was the troublesome burden of proof. Shawn’s attack on Alyssa had left no physical evidence. We had only Donna’s word against that of Shawn Myers.

In the wake of the unfortunate Tina Shields’s untimely death, I gave her tales of long-ago rape and murder more thought. Perhaps I had been hasty in dismissing her as either an unreliable flake or a manipulative liar. But there was no way to take back my refusal to trust, now that Tina Shields was dead.

And finally, I wondered—as Donna did—if Shawn Myers was somehow exerting influence over Alyssa. Alyssa’s stubborn silence was perhaps our most significant impediment of all. With Shawn’s latest female victim unwilling to speak on her own behalf, the county prosecutor had dropped the case. We could still approach the state police; but Alyssa dug in her heels when we raised the idea.

I asked Alyssa myself once, while we were both waiting for Donna to finish dressing for dinner. Alyssa and I were sitting alone in the living room. She was a shy girl; but she had opened up to me a little over the recent days.

Alyssa was studying the screen of her cell phone as if it were the conning display of a nuclear submarine—so typical of teenagers nowadays. I suspected, though, that some of her apparent absorption in the device was feigned. It was a ploy for avoiding conversation with an adult whom she did not know well. 

“Did Shawn Myers threaten you, Alyssa?” I asked. “If he did, you can tell me.”

After a brief, indecisive pause, she pursed her lips and shook her head. My years in the corporate world had taught me to recognize a lie when I saw one—and this was a definite lie. Amateur liars always wait a few beats before delivering their falsehoods. There was nothing I could do, though. I wasn’t Alyssa’s father—I barely knew the girl, really. And I was realistic enough about my own limitations to realize that I was also no child psychologist.

“Well, for what it’s worth,” I said. “I believe you, you know—about Shawn assaulting you, that is.”

“Thank you,” she said. Then she became, once again, intensely interested in the screen of her cell phone.

I had become gradually aware that TP Automotive was employing outside investigators. There were times when I saw unmistakable signs of surveillance. I would be in the checkout line of a grocery store or a gas station, and a man who had been going out of his way to appear anonymous would turn away from one of my random glances.
Gotcha
, I would think in one of these moments.

Men like Kurt Myers don’t give “advice.” All of their directives are orders, even if they are couched in the guise of friendly, fatherly counsel. By revealing his knowledge of my relationship with Donna, Kurt Myers had served me notice:
TP Automotive was watching me now.
They were keeping tabs on my affairs.

The day also came when I felt obligated to tell Donna the whole story—about who I was, about what I did for a living. About Kevin and Alan. About Lucy.

“My God,” she said when I had finished telling her the details. “That sounds horrible.”

“Sometimes it is,” I said. “Like with Lucy. But I’m not Attila the Hun. Most of the people whom I edge out of organizations are better off for it. And the companies they leave are better off for it, too. If things were different, my work wouldn’t even be necessary: People would leave organizations where they don’t fit anymore, and companies would be free to terminate employees who are no longer top contributors.”

“But who decides who is a ‘top contributor,’ Craig? Men like Shawn Myers and his father?”

“In the case of UP&S, yes. But most of them aren’t like that. Do you want me to tell you that I’m a saint, Donna? Well, I can’t do that. I’m not a devil, either, though. I do work that needs to be done. All of those people would be fired anyway, sooner or later. I simply make sure that they can be let go as painlessly as possible.”

“Painless for whom? For the employer who has decided to fire them? You’re talking about avoiding lawsuits and legal costs, aren’t you?”

“You’re only considering one side of this, Donna. Yes, part of my work involves positioning employers so that they will be less susceptible to legal action. But sometimes an employee really
does
need to go. There are some bad apples out there—people who poison organizations with their negative attitudes, dishonesty, or laziness. Not all of the poison personalities in organizations are top managers like Kurt and Shawn Myers. Some of the negative types are lathe operators and staff accountants, administrative assistants, and loading dock personnel. At UP&S, I discovered two men who were blatantly stealing from the company. Now tell me: If a problem employee like that has the power to hold an entire organization hostage to a frivolous lawsuit, who does that serve?”

“Apparently it doesn’t serve the people who hire you,” she said. “Listen, Craig. You've just laid all of this at my feet. You’ve told me that you aren’t the person who I thought you were. It’s going to take me some time to process all of this.”

“Wrong, Donna: I
am
the person who you thought I was. It’s only that my
job
isn’t what you thought it was. Did you think that Craig Parker—humble purchasing agent and UP&S employee—was a saint?”

She laughed. “You were never very convincing at the humble routine, just for the record.” Then she became serious. “But if this is true, then UP&S is only another gig for you, isn’t it? How much longer will you be in the area?”

“Not much longer,” I said. “The end of the month. January at the latest.”

As soon as I’d spoken, I knew that this had been the wrong thing to say.

“And when were you going to tell me, Craig? Were you planning to send me a text message while you drive to the airport?”

“I hope you don’t really believe that.”

“I’m in uncharted territory here, Craig. Quite frankly, I don’t know what to believe. One day I find out that a senior manager at one of the companies I work for has taken an inappropriate interest in my daughter. Then I find out that he’s more than willing to act on that interest—” 

“Donna—”

“Then I meet another man—one who seems so perfect in every way—but wait—he’s not exactly who he says he is—
what
he says he is. And I’m trying to navigate this thing so that I can simultaneously protect my daughter and keep from getting my heart broken along the way.”

I knew what she wanted me to promise her: That despite all of this double-dealing and subterfuge—I was ultimately a decent man who wouldn’t hurt her. And that was what I wanted to believe myself.

I knew, though, that any promises to this effect would come across as mere talk in light of the revelations that I had thrown at her just now. It is no small thing to inform a person that you have been keeping major secrets from them—that the greater part of what you have represented yourself to be was actually a lie.