“There’s the quick, and there’s the dead, Nick,” Todd said.
“Well, I don’t know about ‘creative destruction,’” Nick said, “but I know we’re all basically in sync. That’s why we sold the company to Fairfield. You guys are value investors with the long view-that’s the only reason I was able to convince Dorothy Devries to sell to you. I always remember what Willard said to Dorothy and me, in the parlor of her house on Michigan Avenue-‘We want to be your partner, your sounding board. We don’t want to run the business-we want you to run the business. We may have to go through some pain together, but we’re all in this for the long haul.’”
Todd smiled slyly. He got what Nick was doing, invoking the words of the ultimate boss like Holy Scripture. “That sounds just like Willard. But you gotta understand something-the old man’s been spending an awful lot of time fly-fishing in the Florida Keys these days. Guy loves fly-fishing-last year or so, he seems to think a lot more about tarpon and bonefish than P and Ls.”
“He’s retiring?”
“Not yet, but soon. All but. Which means he leaves the heavy lifting to us, the poor suckers who have to go to work every day and do the dirty work while he’s standing in the bow of his Hell’s Bay, casting his line. The world has changed, Nick. Used to be all the big institutional investors would write us a twenty-million-dollar check, maybe a hundred-million-dollar check, and let us do our job. At the end of six years, ten years, they cash out, everyone’s happy. Not anymore. Now they’re all looking over our shoulders, calling all the time. They don’t want to see one of our major investments turn sour. They want to see results yesterday.”
“They ought to go to your Web site,” Nick said. Fairfield Equity Partners actually had an animated Flash movie on its Web site, the Aesop’s fable of the tortoise and the hare, made to look like a storybook. It was beyond cornball. “Tell ’em to check out the tortoise-and-the-hare story. Remind ’em about the long view.”
“These days, the tortoise gets made into turtle soup, buddy,” Todd said.
Scott laughed a bit too loud.
“Don’t worry,” Nick said, “that’s not on the menu.”
Todd didn’t smile. “The kind of companies we like are healthy companies that are growing. We don’t believe in catching a falling knife.”
“We’re not a falling knife, Todd,” Nick said calmly. “We’re going through some adjustments, but we’re on the right path.”
“Nick, the quarterly board meeting is in a couple of days, and I want to make sure the board sees a comprehensive plan to turn things around. I’m talking plant consolidation, selling off real estate, whatever. Creative destruction. I don’t want the board losing confidence in you.”
“Are you implying what I think you’re implying?”
Todd cracked a victorious smile. “Hell no, Nick! Don’t take me the wrong way! When we bought Stratton, we weren’t just buying some outdated factories in East Bumfuck, Michigan, with equipment out of 1954. We were buying a team. That means you. We want you to hang in there. We just need you to start thinking different. A balls-out, warp-speed effort to come up with a way to change the trend line.”
Scott nodded sagely, chewing his lower lip, twirling a few strands of his hair behind his right ear. “I get what you’re saying, and I think I’ve got some interesting ideas.”
“What I like to hear. I mean, hell, there’s no reason for you to have all your components made in the U.S. when you can get ’em at half the price from China, you know?”
“Actually,” Nick said, “we’ve considered and rejected that, Todd, because-”
Scott broke in, “I think it’s worth taking up again.”
Nick gave him a black look.
“I knew I could count on you guys. Well, who’s up for dessert? Let me guess-the dessert trend that swept Manhattan in 1998 has finally made it to Fenwick: molten chocolate cake?”
After they said goodbye to Todd and watched him drive away in his rented Lincoln Town Car, Nick turned to Scott. “Whose side are you on, anyway?”
“What are you talking about? You’ve got to keep the boss happy.”
“I’m your boss, Scott. Not Todd Muldaur. Remember that.”
Scott hesitated, seemingly debating whether to argue. “Anyway, who says there’s sides? We’re all in this together, Nick.”
“There’s always sides,” Nick said quietly. “Inside or outside. Are you with me?”
“Of course, Nick. Jesus. Of course I’m on your side, what do you think?”
25
Leon was watching TV and drinking a beer. That was pretty much all he did these days, when he wasn’t sleeping. Audrey looked at her husband, slouched in the middle of the couch, wearing pajama bottoms and a white T-shirt that was too tight over his ever-expanding beer gut. The thirty or forty pounds he’d put on in the past year or so made him look ten years older. Once she would have said he was the hardest-working man she’d ever met, never missed a day of work on the line, never complaining. Now, with his work life taken away from him, he was lost. Without work, he retreated into a life of sloth; there was no in-between for him.
She went over to the couch and kissed him. He hadn’t shaved, hadn’t bathed either. He didn’t turn his head to kiss her; he received her kiss, his eyes not even moving from the screen. After a while, Audrey standing there, hands on her hips, smiling, he said, “Hey, Shorty,” in his whiskey-and-cigarettes voice. “Home late.”
Shorty: his term of endearment almost since they’d started going out. He was well over six feet, she was barely five, and they did look funny walking together.
“I called and left you a message,” she said. “You must have been in conference.” He knew she meant asleep. That was how she dealt with Leon’s newfound lifestyle. The idea of his sitting around watching TV and sleeping during the day, when they had a mortgage to pay-it was infuriating to her. She knew she wasn’t being entirely reasonable about it. The poor guy had been laid off from his job, and there wasn’t a company for hundreds of miles around that was looking to hire an electrostatic powder-coating technician. Still, half the town had been laid off, and plenty of people had managed to get jobs working for Home Depot or bagging groceries at the Foodtown. The pay was lousy, but it was better than nothing, and certainly better than sleeping on the couch all day.
He didn’t answer. Leon had deep-set eyes, a large head, a powerful build, and once, not that long ago, he would have been considered a fine-looking man. Now he looked beaten down, defeated.
“You…get my message about dinner?” Meaning, of course, that she wanted him to make dinner. Nothing complicated. There was frozen hamburger he could defrost in the microwave. A package of romaine hearts he could wash for salad. Whatever. But she smelled nothing, no food cooking, and she knew the answer before he spoke.
“I ate already.”
“Oh. Okay.” She’d left him a message around four, as soon as she knew she’d be staying late, way before he ever ate supper. She suppressed her annoyance, went into the kitchen. The small counter was stacked so high-dirty plates, glasses, coffee mugs, beer bottles-that you couldn’t even see the swirly rose Formica surface. How, she marveled, could one person create such a mess in a day? Why did he refuse to clean up after himself? Did he expect her to be breadwinner and wife and housekeeper all at the same time? In the plastic trash bucket was a discarded Hungry-Man box and plastic compartmented tray, crusted with tomato sauce goo. She reached down, felt it. It was still warm. He’d just eaten. Not hours ago. He’d been hungry and just made himself dinner, didn’t make anything for her even though she’d asked him to. Well, exactly because she’d asked him to, probably.
Returning to the living room, she stood there, waiting to get his attention, but he kept watching the baseball game. She cleared her throat. Nothing.