In the morning, after too many cups of coffee, Rick arrived at Pappas’s offices, on the forty-second floor of the Prudential Tower in the Back Bay. He was apprehensive for some reason, probably because he didn’t know what to expect. He had to keep reminding himself that he was ostensibly there to conduct an interview. A puff piece. That was the cover story, anyway.
On one side of the bank of elevators was a law firm. On the other side, behind glass doors, was the Pappas Group. The reception area was hushed and sterile. Dove-gray wall-to-wall carpet, low flat coffee tables perched in front of low white leather couches. A receptionist sat at a long mahogany desk. Rick gave his name and prepared to wait. Some interview subjects liked to keep their interviewers waiting, just to show them who’s boss. The more reluctant the subject, the longer the wait, Rick had always found. The receptionist, a dark-haired Asian beauty in her midtwenties, offered him coffee or water. Rick took a bottle of spring water and sat down on one of the sofas. He took out his iPhone, switched off the ringer, and pocketed it again.
Arrayed on the coffee table were the local newspapers, the Globe and the Herald, as well as TheNew York Times,TheWall Street Journal, and the salmon-colored Financial Times. Rick was reaching for the Journal just as someone said, “You must be Rick Hoffman.”
He looked up and saw a lean middle-aged man bounding across the reception area. The man had silver hair and thick horn-rimmed glasses and was dressed in a perfectly cut gray suit.
Rick rose. “Mr. Pappas,” he said, offering his hand.
“Alex. Please.” He had a pleasant baritone voice.
“Rick. Nice to meet you.”
Pappas had a sharp, prominent nose like a hawk’s beak, a deeply creased, tanned face, and a dazzling smile. His teeth were a shade of white not found in nature. He was a few inches shorter than Rick, a tightly coiled man, fit and trim and radiating energy. “Come,” Pappas said, placing a hand on Rick’s shoulder and guiding him across the reception area, down a hallway and into a big corner office. Here Pappas didn’t seem a recluse at all. The walls of his office were lined with photographs of himself with the rich and powerful and famous, governors and senators and businessmen and TV stars. He obviously wanted visitors to his office to admire his proximity to the famous, even if he didn’t like to talk about it to reporters.
They sat at a couple of chairs off to one side of his desk, a glass coffee table between them. The chairs were high-backed, overstuffed, comfortable. The whole office was arranged as carefully, as ceremonially, as the Oval Office. Rick placed his small black leather-bound reporter’s notebook on the table. He considered taking out his iPhone and switching it to Record mode but decided to hold off. A running tape recorder-actually, most journalists by now used their phones to record-was a quick way to get an interview subject to clam up. And he wanted Pappas to let down his guard, unlikely though that might be. But for now, that was Rick’s best hope. He’d prepared a set of questions for Pappas, all of them predictable, none probing or provocative. The sort of questions that would enable Pappas to spout boilerplate answers by the yard, the sort of questions that might get the man to lower his defenses. This wasn’t going to be an interrogation. The point was to lull him into complacency.
“I’m sorry Back Bay stopped publishing the print edition,” Pappas said. “It was a handsome magazine.”
“Me, too.”
“Well, that seems to be the future. Everything digital, everything online, no more paper.”
“Seems that way.”
“They laid off a lot of the staff. And yet here you are.”
“Thanks for seeing me. I know you don’t often talk to the media.”
“I talk to the media all the time.” He paused. “Just not about myself-and why should I? I’m boring! I may have some interesting clients, but that doesn’t make me interesting.”
“Well, you are Boston’s crisis management king.”
“Or so the Globe once called me.” He smiled, relenting a bit. “Rick, I want to get a sense first of what you have in mind. I think it’ll work best if we’re both clear about where we’re coming from and where we hope to be going.”
So this wasn’t an interview at all, Rick thought. It was a pre-interview.
“Sure,” Rick said. “Well, I’m interested in the world of crisis management and reputation management. You’ve been at the center of some significant events in the last several years, yet you seem to be happiest staying out of the spotlight.”
Pappas was silent. He pursed his lips.
Rick went on: “It’s basically a character study. What kind of person has these skills and abilities?”
“I see,” Pappas said. “You’re onto something. I’m not the guy who uses up all the oxygen in the room. Which is why this little story of yours may turn out to be a nonstarter. It may be what neither of us needs. Let’s talk about you, shall we?”
“Me?” Rick attempted a smile.
“You’re no longer the guy who was writing stories about pension abuse or illegal chemical dumping in Western Mass, are you? Though your byline on that series was shortlisted for a Pulitzer; am I remembering correctly?”
Pappas was clearly remembering from five minutes ago when he read through some information file, probably in a folder on his desk right now.
“Very good,” Rick said. “That’s right.”
“You gave up a high-powered career in journalism, and now you’re in the soft-soap business,” Pappas said. “What is it that you really want?”
“What I want…?”
“You. I ask because I’ve hired people in the past from your line of work, often very successfully.”
“What are you turning this into, a job interview?”
“Would that bother you?”
“That’s not why I’m here.”
Pappas leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling. The lenses of his glasses were thick, distorting his eyes. “Here’s the thing, Rick. I don’t really want this piece to be written about me. And I don’t think you actually want to write it. Let’s talk about the real reason you made this appointment with me.”
“Okay. What I really want to ask about is my father. You knew him, didn’t you?”
“I sure did,” Pappas said at once. “Leonard Hoffman was a wonderful man.”
“Actually, he’s still alive.”
Pappas’s BlackBerry vibrated on the coffee table. He picked it up, glanced at it. “I understand. He had a stroke. A very unfortunate thing.”
“Going over his papers, I noticed a lot of phone calls between you two. Were you a client of his?” That was an out-and-out bluff, about the calls. Rick hadn’t seen any records of phone calls. He was hazarding a guess. If the two of them met, Pappas was the kind of man who’d have put in a call, or several calls first. Or had his office place some calls.
“Did I call your father? Of course. I called when I needed his help.” Guess confirmed.
“In fact, you were scheduled to meet for lunch on the day of his stroke.”
“Is that so? It’s been years.” His tone flattened. “What can I help you with, Rick?”
“I’m curious what sort of work he did for you.”
“Various legal errands. I can’t say as I recall the details.”
“But why him? You have access to any white-shoe law firm in the city. To be honest, I was surprised to discover you two knew each other. You move in… well, in very different circles.”