“Maybe she just came to realize he wasn’t the man his father was,” she said glibly.
He looked as if he’d just been slapped. You could almost see the outline of a palm print on his cheek.
Why’d you say that?
She shrugged, not having really meant anything by it. But of course he was going to react. A therapist getting a rise out of a client by bringing up his parents was like a cook turning on a stove. If it didn’t occur to you, you were probably in the wrong business.
“So are you saying that if Michael could’ve learned to be strong like the Don, he wouldn’t have lost his family?” he said, again reading more into her words than she’d put in.
“Well, what do you think?”
In the course of just a few seconds, he seemed to have transformed from a truculent executive to a parochial school boy working up the nerve to raise his hand in class.
“Let me ask you something,” he said quietly. “And if you tell a soul I asked you this, I swear I’ll throw you out the window.”
“Okay.”
“If I hire you, can you teach me organization principles according to the Godfather?”
“Can I...?”
“Can you be a wartime consigliere? That’s what I’m asking.”
She weighed her answer as she looked around the room, calculating that there were at least six pieces of furniture present that would probably cover a year’s mortgage for their “classic six” co-op on the Upper West Side. The guy who took care of the plants in the office was probably making as much as she was. She tried to fight down her growing resentment, reminding herself that she was supposed to be here to help. Then she remembered a line from a spunky Meg Ryan comedy she’d loved a few years back, something Tom Hanks quoted from The Godfather
“I’m ready to go to the mattresses,” she said.
He grinned. “Bella.”
Two nights later, she lay sideways on the living room couch, watching Diane Keaton stand helplessly on the threshold as one of her husband’s henchmen closed the door in her face and the closing-credits theme swelled.
“Because he’s a beast,” she said.
“What?”
Her husband Mark, shaggy-haired, unemployed, and banished to the club chair at some point after the murders of Sollozzo and the police captain, looked up bleary-eyed.
“It’s because he’s a beast,” she explained. “That’s why she’ll end up leaving him. Plain and simple.”
“So you’re not going to take this job?”
“Of course I’m going to take this job. Are you kidding? Did you see what our mortgage rate went up to today? We need this job.”
He pulled a well-thumbed copy of Maximum PC out from under his buttocks, having just noticed he was sitting on it.
“I thought you couldn’t stand this guy, Scottso.”
“But now I get him.”
“I don’t know.” He yawned and scratched his stomach. “How can you help someone you don’t like?”
“Because unlike some people, I’m willing to do what it takes to...”
She stopped herself from saying more, sucking in her lip. No point in flaying him again for being out of work for two months. It wasn’t entirely his fault that his little software start-up collapsed so soon after she got pregnant. If she wanted to marry a master of the universe, an industry leader, a true tycoon, she could have gone for some Wall Street lifer or some Cro Mag alpha-male type, like Scottso, instead of settling for her college boyfriend.
“Well, just as long as it’s strictly business, I suppose it’ll be fine,” he said, holding the magazine in front of his face as if she hadn’t wounded him. “You’re a pro.”
Larry Longman, head of the TV division, was a nervous man who always needed to be doing something with his hands. If he wasn’t squeezing a ball or fingering a pen, he was shooting his cuffs and making a half-closed fist, like he was holding a pair of dice.
“I think I have a good relationship with Scott,” he said. “I only have good things to say about him.”
Nancy nodded, already hearing something in his voice the way a police officer would hear gunshots from two blocks away. “I understand, but I want to assure you that everything we say here in the evaluation process is anonymous. He’s not going to know where it came from.”
“Well, not that I would say anything negative, but how do I know that?”
He rearranged the pens and paperweights on his desk, touched his computer mouse, and tugged on the fat end of his tie.
“You can trust my discretion. I wouldn’t have much of a reputation in the consulting business if I couldn’t guarantee anonymity when I’m interviewing different people in a company to do a 360-degree evaluation of an executive.”
“True.” Larry rubbed his palms together. “True. But couldn’t he still guess who your source is when he reads your report? I mean, if somebody’s talking about how he treats people in the TV division, he’s going to know it’s me, isn’t he?”
“You have my word that I’ll protect you by disguising your comments.” She smiled. “I mean, we all have the same goal here, which is to improve overall performance for the company.”
“Right. Right.
He reshuffled his pens, fingered his cell phone, smoothed his tie, and shot his cuffs again. She made a note to herself, seeing how much of a disturbance Scottso could cause without even being present in a room.
“So why don’t you just start off by telling me a little about Scott’s management style?”
“Well... obviously, he’s very, very bright...” He made the half-fist again and began shaking it, as if he was getting ready to throw the dice. “And very, very energetic...”
But... “ She leaned forward, as if she was trying to see something smoking under the hood.
“But...” The fist tightened. “Some people sometimes feel a little shut out of the decision-making process...”
“He can be autocratic,” she ventured, making it a statement rather than a question.
Definitely.” He nodded, emboldened, beginning to trust her a little. “Some people might even call it arrogant. Rude. Bullying. Not that that’s always a bad thing...”
“It’s better to be feared than loved,” she said.
“That’s funny.” He fumbled for his rubber ball, looking startled. “Scott’s always saying the same thing.”
Michael Corleone was plotting again. On the screen, Al Pacino was playing it cool, all steady sunken eyes and coiled posture in a coat black as crow’s feathers, as he carefully explained to hot-headed Frank Five Angels what he wanted done to Hyman Roth for his treachery.
“There are many things my father taught me here in this room,” he was saying. “He taught me: Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.”
“Amazing,” said Nancy, sitting up on the couch.
“What?” Mark looked up from studying the tech column in the Wall Street Journal.
“The way he takes power, by using people and turning them against each other.”
“You know, I don’t think you’re supposed to admire him.” Mark folded the paper over. “He had his brother-in-law killed at the end of the last movie.”
“I know, but he’s so... controlled. The way he takes care of his family.”
“Sounds like you’re falling in love,” he said, watching the movie again. “Maybe you’re spending too much time on your client. He’s starting to rub off on you.”