“Other way around. Entronics is acquiring Meister U.S.”
“Interesting. We’ve been talking to them too, you know.”
I hadn’t known. Great, another player in this endless negotiation. It reminded me of this old movie I once saw in college called They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, about marathon dancers who dance until they drop.
“Well, that’ll mean one less competitor, I guess,” I said, keeping the tone light. “How was Martha’s birthday? You take her to Vienna, like she wanted?”
“Vienna, Virginia, more like. Hey, I’ve got to be in Boston next week-you feel like catching a Sox game?”
“Sure.”
“You guys still get those amazing seats?”
“I’ll do what I can.” I hesitated. “So, listen, Bri.”
He heard the change in my tone and cut me off. “I wish I had an answer for you, buddy, but I don’t. Believe me, I want to do the deal with you guys.”
“Thing is, Brian, I’m getting a lot of pressure from senior management on this thing. The deal’s been on the forecast-”
“Come on, man, I never said you could forecast the deal.”
“I know, I know. It’s Gordy. He’s really been pressuring me. He wants me to set up a meeting with your CEO.”
“Gordy,” Brian said in disgust. Kent Gordon was the Senior Vice President and General Manager of Sales for Entronics USA, a Six Sigma black belt, the most aggressive guy I’d ever met. He was ruthless and conniving and relentless-not that there’s anything wrong with that-and my entire career lay in his hands. Gordy was in fact leaning on me hard to do this deal, since he leaned on everybody hard to do every deal, and it was entirely plausible that he’d want me to set up a meeting between him and the CEO of Lockwood Hotels. But it wasn’t true. Gordy hadn’t asked for that. Maybe it was only a matter of time before he did, but he hadn’t yet. It was a bluff.
“I know,” I said, “but, you know, I can’t control what he does.”
“I don’t recommend you do that.”
“My bosses really want to do this deal, and it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, and…”
“Jason, when I was on your side of the desk I tried that old trick plenty of times,” Brian said, not unkindly.
“Huh?” I said, but I didn’t have the heart to carry the bluff all the way through. I touched my bruised rib cage. It was hardly painful anymore.
“Look, I wish I could tell you what’s going on with this deal, but I’m out of the loop. The bake-off went great, your price points are fine. I mean, I probably shouldn’t say it, but your price points are more than fine. Obviously there’s stuff going on upstairs that I’m not privy to.”
“Someone up there’s got a favorite or something?”
“Something like that, yeah. Jason, if I knew the whole story, I’d tell you. You’re a great guy, and I know you’ve worked your ass off on this deal, and if the product didn’t measure up, I’d be straight with you. Or if the numbers didn’t work. But it’s not that. I don’t know what it is.”
A beat of silence. “I appreciate your honesty, Brian,” I said. I found myself thinking about the egg-sorting machine again and wondering how they worked, exactly. “What day next week you coming up?”
My immediate boss was a woman, which, in this business, is unusual. Her name was Joan Tureck, and she was an area manager in charge of all of New England. I didn’t know much about her personal life. I’d heard she was gay and lived with a woman in Cambridge, but she never talked about her partner or brought her to company events. She was a little dull, but we liked each other, and she’d always supported me, in her low-key way.
She was on the phone when I came by. She was always on the phone. She wore a headset and was smiling. All the Entronics offices have narrow windows on either side of the doors so everyone can always see inside. There’s really no privacy.
Joan finally noticed me standing outside her office, and she held up a finger. I waited outside until she beckoned me in with a flick of her left hand.
“You talked to Lockwood Hotels this morning?” Joan said. She had short, curly, mouse brown hair with wisps of gray near the temple. She never wore any makeup.
I nodded as I sat.
“Nothing yet?”
“Nothing.”
“You think maybe it’s time to call in some reinforcements?”
“Maybe. I can’t seem to get to score with them.” I immediately regretted the sexual metaphor until I remembered that it was actually a sports term.
“We need that deal. If there’s anything I can do.” I noticed she looked unusually weary, almost beaten down. She had reddish brown circles under her eyes. She took a long sip of coffee from a cat mug. “Is that what you wanted to talk about?”
“No, something else,” I said. “You have a couple of minutes now?”
She glanced at her tiny wristwatch. “I’ve got a lunch any minute, but we could talk until my lunch date shows up.”
“Thanks. So, Crawford’s out of here,” I said.
She blinked, not helping me at all.
“And his whole posse,” I went on. “You’re probably moving up to the DVP job, right?”
She blinked, hesitated. “Bear in mind that, with the Meister acquisition, we’re going to be cutting back. Anyone who isn’t a top performer.”
As I thought, I bit my lower lip. “Should I start packing up my desk?”
“You don’t have to worry, Jason. You’ve made club four years in a row.” “Club,” or Club 101, was made up of those reps who’d outperformed, made 101 percent of their revenue numbers. “You’ve even been salesman of the year.”
“Not last year,” I pointed out. Last year the oily Trevor Allard got it and won a trip to Italy. He took his wife and then proceeded to cheat on her with some Italian chick he met at Harry’s Bar in Venice.
“You had a bad fourth quarter. Everyone misses a quarter now and then. Bottom line is, people buy from people they like, and everyone likes you. But that’s not what you came in to talk about.”
“Joan, do I have a chance at the area manager slot?”
She looked at me with surprise. “Really?”
“Yeah, really.”
“Trevor’s already put in for that, you know. And he’s lobbying pretty hard.”
Some of the guys called him Teflon Trevor, because he always got away with everything. He kind of reminded me of the unctuous Eddie Haskell in the old Leave It to Beaver TV show. I guess you can tell I waste a lot of time watching old reruns on TV Land.
“Trevor would be good. But so would I. Do I have your support?”
“I-I don’t take sides, Jason,” she said unhappily. “If you want me to put in a word for you with Gordy, I’m happy to do so; but I don’t know how much he listens to my recommendations.”
“That’s all I ask. Just put in a word for me. Tell him I want to be interviewed.”
“I will. But Trevor is-maybe more Gordy’s type.”
“More aggressive?”
“I guess he’s what Gordy calls a meat-eater.”
Some people called him other things that weren’t so nice. “I eat steak.”
“I’ll put in a word for you. But I’m not going to take sides. I’m staying completely neutral on this.”
There was a knock at her door. She made her little beckoning sign with her fingers.
The door opened, and a tall, handsome guy with tousled brown hair and sleepy brown eyes stood there and flashed her a perfect grin. Trevor Allard was long and lean and muscled and arrogant, and he still looked like the crew jock at St. Lawrence he’d been not too long ago. “Ready for lunch, Joan?” he said. “Oh, hey, Jason. I didn’t see you.”
5
Kate was already home from work when I got in. She was lying on Grammy Spencer’s rock-hard couch reading a collection of Alice Adams stories. She was reading it for her book group, nine women she’d gone to school and college with who got together once a month to discuss “literary” novels written by female authors only.