Nick pointed to an empty chair, but the bearded man refused to sit. “What’s your name?” Nick said, softening his voice a bit.
“Old Man Devries woulda never had to ask,” the man retorted. “He knew everyone’s name.”
Nick shrugged. That was the myth, anyway. Folksy, paternal Milton Devries-Nick’s predecessor-had been CEO of Stratton for almost four decades. The old man had been beloved, but there was no way he knew ten thousand names.
“I’m not as good with names as the old man was,” Nick said. “So help me out here.”
“Louis Goss.”
Nick extended his hand to shake, but Goss didn’t take it. Instead, Goss pointed a stubby forefinger at him. “When you sat down at your fancy computer at your fancy desk and made the decision to fire half the guys in the chair factory, did you even fucking think about who these people are?”
“More than you know,” Nick said. “Listen, I’m sorry you lost your job-”
“I’m not here because I lost my job-see, I got seniority. I’m here to tell you that you deserve to lose yours. You think just because you waltz through this plant once a month that you know anything about these guys? These are human beings, buddy. Four hundred and fifty men and women who get up at four in the morning to do the early shift so they can feed their families and pay their rent or their mortgages and take care of their sick kids or their dying parents, okay? Do you realize that because of you some of these guys are going to lose their houses?”
Nick closed his eyes briefly. “Louis, are you just going to talk at me, or do you want to hear me out?”
“I’m here to give you a little free advice, Nick.”
“I find you get what you pay for.”
The man ignored him. “You better think seriously about whether you really want to go through with these layoffs. Because if you don’t call them off by tomorrow morning, this place is going to grind to a halt.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“I got half, maybe three-quarters of the factory floor with me on this. More, once we start. We’re all sicking out tomorrow, Nick. And we’re staying sick until my buddies get their jobs back.” Goss was smiling with tobacco-darkened teeth, enjoying his moment. “You do the right thing, we do the right thing. Everyone’s happy.”
Nick stared at Goss. How much of this was bluster, how much on the level? A wildcat strike could paralyze the company, especially if it spread to the other plants.
“Why don’t you think this over when you’re driving home tonight in your Mercedes to your gated community?” Goss went on. “Ask yourself if you feel like taking your company down with you.”
It’s a Chevy Suburban, not a Mercedes, Nick wanted to say, but then he was struck by that phrase, “gated community.” How did Goss know where he lived? There’d been nothing in the newspaper about that, though of course people talked…Was this a veiled threat?
Goss smiled, a mirthless, leering grin, saw the reaction on Nick’s face. “Yeah, that’s right. I know where you live.”
Nick felt his rage flare up like a lit match tossed into a pool of gasoline. He sprang out of his seat, lunged forward, his face a few inches from Louis Goss’s face. “What the hell are you trying to say?” It took all his self-restraint to keep from grabbing the collar of the guy’s flannel shirt and twisting it tight around his fat neck. Up close he realized that Goss’s bulk was all flab, not muscle.
Goss flinched, seemed to shrink back a bit, intimidated.
“You think everyone doesn’t know you live in a fucking huge mansion in a gated community?” Goss said. “You think anyone else in this company can afford to live like that?”
Nick’s anger subsided as quickly as it had surged. He felt a damp sort of relief; he’d misunderstood. The threat that Louis had actually made seemed suddenly tame by comparison. He leaned even closer, poked a finger against Goss’s chest, jabbing the little white hyphen between “Harley” and “Davidson.”
“Let me ask you something, Louis. Do you remember the ‘town meeting’ at the chair plant two years ago? When I told you guys the company was in a shitload of trouble and layoffs seemed likely but I wanted to avoid them if possible? You weren’t sick that day, were you?”
“I was there,” Goss muttered.
“Remember I asked if you’d all be willing to cut your hours back so everyone could stay on the job? Remember what everyone said?”
Goss was silent, looking off to one side, avoiding Nick’s direct stare.
“You all said no, you couldn’t do that. A pay cut was out of the question.”
“Easy for you to-”
“And I asked whether you’d all be willing to cut back on your health plan, with your daycare and your health-club memberships. Now, how many people raised their hands to say yeah, okay, we’ll cut back? Any recollection?”
Goss shook his head slowly, resentfully.
“Zero. Not a single goddamned hand went up. Nobody wanted to lose a goddamned hour of work; nobody wanted to lose a single perk.” He could hear the blood rushing through his ears, felt a flush of indignation. “You think I slashed five thousand jobs, buddy? Well, the reality is, I saved five thousand jobs. Because the boys in Boston who own this company now don’t fuck around. They’re looking at our biggest competitor and seeing that the other guys aren’t bending metal, they’re not making their furniture in Michigan anymore. Everything’s made in China now, Louis. That’s why they can undercut us on price. You think the boys in Boston don’t remind me of that every single goddamned chance they get?”
“I got no idea,” Louis Goss muttered, shuffling his feet. It was all he could muster.
“So go right ahead, Louis. Have your strike. And they’ll bring in a new CEO who’ll make me look like Mister Rogers. Someone who’ll shut down all of our plants the second he walks in this building. Then you wanna keep your job, Louis? I suggest you learn fucking Mandarin.”
Louis was silent for a few seconds, and when he spoke, it was in a small, sullen voice. “You’re going to fire me, aren’t you?”
“You?” Nick snorted. “You’re not worth the severance package. Now, get the fuck back on the line and get the hell out of my…work space.”
A few seconds after Louis Goss had lumbered away, Marge appeared again. “You need to go home, Nick,” she said. “Now.”
“Home?”
“It’s the police. There’s a problem.”
2
Nick backed his Chevy Suburban out of his space too fast, not bothering to check whether anyone was behind him, and careened through the parking lot that encircled the headquarters building. Even at the height of the workday, it stood half-empty as it had for the last two years, since the layoffs began. Gallows humor abounded among the employees these days, Nick knew. The upside of losing half the workforce was, you could always find a parking space.
His nerves felt stretched taught. Acres of empty black asphalt, surrounded by a great black field of charred buffalo grass, the remains of a prescribed fire. Buffalo grass never needed mowing, but every few years it had to be burned to the ground. The air smelled like a Weber grill.
Black against black against the black of the road, a desolate landscape. He wondered whether driving by the vast swath of scorched earth every day, staring at the charred field through the office windows, left a dark carbon smudge on your psyche.
You need to go home. Now.
When you have kids, they’re the first thing you think of. Even a guy like Nick, hardly a worrywart, you get a call from the cops and your imagination takes flight in a bad direction.
But both kids were all right, the cops had assured Marjorie. Julia was on her way back from school, and Lucas-well, Lucas had been in classes today and was doing whatever the hell he did after school these days, which was another issue entirely.