That was on a Friday. A week later, with the pitch in Philadelphia just three days away, Osbourne had not been in touch. Anxiety in the office had given way to gallows humor as the eight staffers faced the prospect of traveling together to Philadelphia and standing helplessly before the Doucette search committee with absolutely nothing to say. Roman bought one of those old desktop wooden labyrinths, with a marble one maneuvered around a series of holes, at a vintage toy store and played with it at his desk all day long. At two o’clock he announced that he couldn’t take it anymore and went home for the weekend. So John was alone in their office when the phone rang.
“John!” The voice was so lively and forthcoming that he didn’t recognize it right away. “How have you been? It’s Mal Osbourne.”
John glanced through the open office door to the empty hallway. “Fine, thank you,” he said. “I … well, how are you, sir?”
Osbourne laughed. “I can really hear the South in your voice, on the phone,” he said. “Listen, I won’t keep you, here’s why I’m calling: I’m driving down to Philadelphia for the thing on Monday, and I wanted to know if you needed a ride down.”
John swallowed. “Well,” he said, “that’s extremely kind of you. But the others are going down together, on the Metroliner, including my partner, and I already made plans to meet them. I don’t …”
“Sorry?” Osbourne said.
“I don’t think it would look right, for me to cancel on them, and arrive with you. I mean thank you for the offer, I’m sure I would prefer it. But just in terms of … decorum.”
“Ah,” Osbourne said. He sounded embarrassed. “You’re probably right. I hadn’t even thought about it. You’re right. Very thoughtful of you, very …Well, I guess I’ll see you at the Nikko on Monday then.”
“Sir?” John blurted out.
“Sir?” Osbourne repeated, with gentle mockery. Perhaps he was one of those people who were most themselves on the telephone, like Glenn Gould. “Mal.”
“Mal, I just wanted to ask quickly, while I had you on the phone, if you, which of the approaches, the four approaches, you decided to go with for Doucette.”
“Oh, yes, of course,” Osbourne said. “Right. None of them.”
“None of them?”
“That’s right. Well, see you Monday then? Have a good weekend.”
Within a minute John realized that he had made a mistake by even asking: for, no matter what the answer had been, he would now have to ride with his seven colleagues on the train to Philadelphia knowing something they didn’t know. He couldn’t tell them what he had learned without explaining how he had come to learn it, and in the process estranging himself from their trust, through no real fault of his own.
They made the trip on the crowded Metroliner, sitting together in two adjacent double seats, empty-handed, plotting revenge for what they saw as their impending humiliation. Mick, a bald copywriter who had been at CLO longer than any of them — his work for Doucette had actually won a Clio three years ago — showed them a list he had made over the weekend of the most expensive restaurants in Philadelphia, where they might all go for an obscene blowout lunch on the company dime. The meeting was scheduled for 11 a.m., but since none of them had anything to say, they didn’t imagine that making a noon lunch reservation would present any problem.
A Daily Event Schedule in the lobby of the Nikko directed them to a tenth-floor conference room. It was ten-thirty when they pushed open the door and saw Osbourne standing in the center of the white, thickly carpeted room, at the head of a rectangular conference table. Behind him were arrayed four large easels, each covered by a black cloth. Osbourne wore black jeans above a shiny pair of cowboy boots, a blue silk shirt, and the same light floral tie he had worn that summer morning in Soho with John. He had shaved off his beard and mustache.
“Welcome, everybody!” he said brightly; and then, incredibly, “John! Good to see you again!”
“Mr Osbourne,” John said, horrified.
“Will you take care of the introductions?” Osbourne said.
Dry-mouthed, John introduced his seven colleagues to their boss, each of whom was staring at John in wary amazement.
“I’d like you all to sit over here, on either side of me,” Osbourne said, pointing to the side of the table opposite the windows. “We have a few minutes before the Doucette people arrive, so there’s coffee and bagels over in the corner if you like.” John wouldn’t have believed, from their only other encounter, that Osbourne had it in him to be so upbeat, so socially attentive. “Roman Gagliardi,” Osbourne said meditatively, and Roman, who was already seated with his head in his hands, looked up at him warily. “You’re the guy who did those excellent spots for Fiat, do I remember that right?”
“What the fuck is under those sheets?” Roman said.
Everyone turned to stare, but Osbourne either did not catch the impolitic hostility in Roman’s voice or was able to ignore it. “Not something that any of you have seen before,” he said genially. “Better it should be a surprise, I think.”
“But what if we’re asked questions about it?” Andrea said. “We’ll be asked to defend it, that’s the way these things work, isn’t it?”
“Often,” Osbourne said, “it is. But today I don’t want you to worry about that. It’s all taken care of. Your job today is simple: we all sit on the same side of the table and we project the unspoken impression that we’re all on the same team.”
Andrea frowned, but at the same time, John could see, she and some of the others were visibly relieved. If anyone was going to be put on the spot today, it wasn’t going to be them. Dale sat down in the swivel chair next to John and looked at him as if he had never seen him before.
“Oh, John!” Osbourne said suddenly. “I meant to tell you. I bought the shark!”
John smiled wanly.
At five of eleven a group of young men and women in unfashionable suits entered the conference room, and fanned out uncertainly by the door. The nine CLO representatives stood politely behind their chairs. This was the fourth of the five presentations the Doucette marketing executives would hear in this same conference room in a two-week period: John was unsure why they should seem so nervous. Behind them walked in two older men. The younger of the two, who was nearly bald and wore small, round, horn-rimmed glasses, went straight up to the table and extended one hand to Osbourne, holding back his necktie with the other.
“Mal, I presume?” he said. “We appreciate your coming down today. This of course is Mr Harold Doucette.”
John had trouble suppressing a smile at that sycophantic “of course”: but then he realized that to these junior executives at a family-owned company, and to their own employees, that stony, white-haired, large-featured, clear-eyed visage was probably as scarily omnipresent as a portrait of Mao.
Osbourne walked around the table to shake Mr Doucette’s hand. “We’re honored by your presence here today, sir,” he said.
Doucette nodded curtly. “I was surprised to hear your request,” he said, taking a seat. “If request is the word. This is the only one of the five presentations where my presence was considered necessary.”
Everyone was seated now except Osbourne, who continued talking as he made his way back around the table. None of the Doucette people had touched the food, or even poured a cup of coffee; no one wanted to be seen ingesting in the presence of the old man himself. John saw their surprised expressions and discreet nudges and could overhear some of their critical whisperings about the absence of any slide projectors, any TV and VCR, any sound system. Just the four black-draped easels, like a high school science fair. It was not uncommon for agency spending on a pitch for a major account like this to go well into five figures. In the last week or so, John knew, these same marketing people must have beheld some sweaty, script-holding ad execs wearing lots of Doucette clothing and otherwise making clowns of themselves in this very same conference room.