Like I want to go? I thought. "I'm getting that feeling."
"Cheryl's going to ask you all sorts of questions about the SkyCruiser. She seems determined to shake things up, so she's going to want to get involved in every little detail-the weight issue, the software glitches, the quality testing on the fuselage section, all that crap. And I just want to make sure you're going to give her the right answers."
I nodded. The right answers. What the hell did that mean?
"Look, I don't want any trouble from you this weekend. We clear?"
"Of course."
"Good," he said, putting his hand on my shoulder. "Just keep your head down and stay in your own lane, and everything should work out okay."
I wondered what he was talking about, what kind of "trouble" he was referring to.
Then again, I don't think Hank Bodine had any idea, either.
4
Right after leaving Hank Bodine's office, I drove the twenty miles to my apartment in El Segundo to grab some clothes. I don't travel much for work-unlike my bosses, who are constantly flying somewhere to meet with customers-but my dog, Gerty, understood at once what the black suitcase meant. She put her head down between her paws and watched me gather my clothes with a stricken, panicked look.
When I broke up with Ali a year or so ago, the first thing I did was get a dog. I guess I'd gotten used to having someone else around, and so I went to the animal shelter and adopted a golden retriever. For no good reason I named her Gertrude. Gerty for short.
Gerty was all skin and bones when she first moved in, but she was beautiful, and she took to me right away. To be honest, if her new owner was a serial killer and rapist, she'd have bonded with him instantly, too. She's a golden.
She was also sort of a head case: She followed me everywhere I went in the apartment, couldn't be more than two or three feet away at any time. She'd follow me into the bathroom if I didn't close the door; when I came out, she'd be right there, waiting. Gerty was needy, and extremely clingy, but no more so than some of the women I'd gone out with since Alison Hillman.
Sometimes I wondered whether her last owner had abandoned her because she was so clingy or whether she got that way because she'd been abandoned. Whatever the reason, her separation anxiety wasn't in the range of normal. She was like a Vietnam vet with post-traumatic stress syndrome who hears a lawn mower and thinks it's the last chopper out of Saigon taking off from the roof of the American embassy.
"Chill," I said.
Dogs are underrated as girlfriend-substitutes, I think. Gerty never complained when I came home late from work; if anything, she was even happier to see me. She didn't mind eating the same thing day after day. She never insisted on watching Desperate Housewives when I wanted to watch football, and she never asked me if I thought she looked fat.
At least, that's what I keep telling myself ever since I screwed up my relationship with Ali. Call it rationalization. Whatever works, right?
And whatever kept me from dwelling on the first time I saw her.
Jake Landry?"
I turned around in my cubicle, almost did a double take. A beautiful woman was standing there, looking angry.
"Yes?"
Did I mention she was beautiful? Big green eyes, auburn hair. Small and slender. Really cute. Her arms were folded across her chest.
"I'm Alison Hillman. From HR."
"Oh-right. I thought you wanted me to-"
"I had to be here anyway, and I thought I'd track you down."
I spun my chair around. Stood up, trying to be polite.
An Alison Hillman from HR had sent me an irate e-mail, told me to come see her in the headquarters building immediately. I hadn't expected her just to show up.
I also hadn't expected her to look like this. "You wanted to see me for something?"
She looked up at me, her head cocked to one side. The light caught her eyes. Golden flecks in her irises. Sunflowers, I thought. They look like sunflowers.
"Your name is on Ken Spivak's ERT form as the hiring manager." An accusation, not an observation.
I hesitated for a second. "Oh, right, the transfer form." I usually didn't do that kind of paperwork, was unfamiliar with the acronyms. "There a problem?"
"A problem?" She looked incredulous. "I don't know what you're trying to pull off, but a Cat C ERT has to be filed with the Hourly Workforce Administration as well as the QTTP and LTD administrators."
"Do you speak any English?"
She stared at me for a few seconds, shook her head. I wasn't sure, but it looked to me like she was trying to suppress a smile, a real one. "You put through a lateral transfer on this machinist, from the Palmdale plant to the El Segundo assembly plant, is that correct?"
"Yeah, so?"
"You can't do that. It doesn't work that way."
I tried to look innocent. "What doesn't work that way?"
"You're kidding, right? You don't have the power to just-just move an hourly employee from one division to another. You can't hire outside the candidate pool. There's a whole posting process that's mandated by the union collective bargaining agreement. There are extensive protocols that have to be followed. So, I'm sorry, but I have to cancel this transfer. He's going back to Palmdale."
"Moment of candor, please?"
She looked puzzled. "Yes?"
"You and I both know that we're about to sell the Palmdale division to some buyout firm, only the news hasn't been made public yet. Which means this guy's going to be laid off."
"Along with everyone else who works at the Palmdale plant," she said, folding her arms across her chest. "And most of those workers will find other jobs."
"Not him. He's too old. He's fifty-seven, he's been with Hammond for almost forty years, and he's a good man and a hard worker."
A half smile. "Moment of candor? We make it hard for a reason, Mr. Landry. It's about doing things the right way."
"Yeah, well, Ken Spivak has five kids, and his wife died last year, and he's all they've got. And it's Jake."
She seemed to be avoiding my eyes. "I-I appreciate what you're trying to do, but I really don't have a choice here. Do you realize what kind of legal nightmare we're going to face when the word gets out in Palmdale that one lucky guy got a transfer and everyone else gets laid off-including people with higher performance ratings? The union's going to be all over us."
I said quietly, "You know what kind of legal trouble you're going to be in if you revoke his job?"
She stared at me for a few seconds, didn't reply. She knew I was right.
I went on: "Don't transfer him back. Don't you do it."
"It's about doing things the right way," she repeated quietly. "I'm sorry."
"No," I said. "It's about doing the right thing."
She didn't say anything.
"You have lunch yet?" I asked.
I didn't know what to pack. "Outdoor gear," Hank Bodine had said, whatever that meant. I collected a couple of pairs of jeans, my old Carhartt hunting jacket, a pair of boots. Then I went online and looked up the resort, saw how high-end it was, and threw in a pair of khakis and a blazer and a fancy pair of shoes for dinner, just in case. I quickly changed into a blazer and tie to wear on the corporate jet.
Then there was the question of what to do with Gerty for the four days I'd be gone. Someone had to feed her and take her out two or three times a day. I called one of my neighbors in the apartment building, a widowed older woman. She had a black Lab and loved Gerty and had taken care of her a few times. Her phone rang and rang. Called a bunch of my friends, who all begged off.
They knew about Gerty.
This could be a major problem, I realized, because I really didn't want to board Gerty at a kennel, even assuming I could find one at this point. I glanced at my watch, realized I had about two hours before I had to be at the Van Nuys airport. Just enough time to race over to the office and download the latest files on the 880 and try to find out what caused the crash of that plane in Paris.