The scariest part was that it had taken a total stranger to recognize the sadness in her. Sure, there had been condolences when her father died — the Take-as-much-time-as-you-need speech from the senior partners, and the Let-me-know-if-there’s-anything-I-can-dos from her colleagues. But it was all pro forma — the thing that one did, like mucking the stalls at day’s end. And here was this total stranger...
“My daddy died about a year ago,” she found herself confessing in her spontaneously returned Laramie accent. “My momma died when I was little, so it was just me and him forever.”
“Sorry doesn’t come close, does it? Listen, I’m gonna be in Teguze for about a week, and it’s a city I know pretty well. Why don’t you let me show it to you, or at least take you to dinner? I’d like to hear about your daddy, if you wouldn’t mind sharing.”
No “Dinner would be lovely,” Trisha heard herself say, “but I’ve got to go north for a day or two, and then—”
“I understand,” Pete saved her from the awkward explanation. “You’ve got that mysterious business to do.”
Trisha managed a smile. “Not so mysterious.”
Pete smiled back and took out a business card. He scrawled a number across the back. “You can reach me at this number anytime. This way there’s no pressure if you change your mind, and at least we had a pleasant flight together.”
Trisha looked at it. It wasn’t so much a business card as a calling card. There was his name, a Miami phone number, and a cryptic e-mail address on heavy beige stock. No company name, no snail-mail address, no title. Trisha studied it, hesitating, wondering if she should return the courtesy. He noticed her pause, and let her off the hook again.
“No card necessary. Remember, no pressure.”
After two more glasses of champagne, Pete Dutton drifted off into sleep. For her part, Trisha went back to her work, occasionally twirling Pete’s card in her fingers and smiling. Yes, he reminded her of her daddy, but there was something else about him, something sweet and comfortable, but also a little bit elusive. She liked it. The boys on the Street all fancied themselves masters of the universe, but disarmed of their Pings and their squash rackets they were a relatively impotent bunch. Impotent was the last word she would associate with Pete Dutton. When she put his card away on final approach to Toncontín International, Trisha noticed she was more than a little wet.
If anyone wanted to see where all those textile jobs from Georgia and North Carolina had gone, they’d just have to hop a plane from Tegucigalpa to San Pedro Sula in the northwest of Honduras. That’s where Trisha Tanglewood spent her first two days in-country, and where PriceStar, Inc. had its main textile plants, or maquilas, as the locals called them. But PriceStar was just one of many firms to set up shop in the free trade zones. Driving in from the airport, Trisha saw Oshkosh B’Gosh, Maidenform, Hanes, and Wrangler factories, and more than a few South Korean and Taiwanese plants. Mile after mile, the long, low structures slid across her car window, and by the time the driver pulled up to the largest of the PriceStar buildings, Trisha had begun to think of the whole country as one big free trade zone. But vast as these plants were, Trisha knew, and as fixed in the landscape as they seemed, they’d empty out tomorrow if it suddenly became cheaper to work in Thailand or Tibet. It was simply smart business.
If she didn’t know better, Trisha would have thought San Pedro Sula was the patron saint of inertia. There seemed to be shackles on the hands of the clocks as she ground through two days of meetings with her team and the PriceStar executives. She was struggling to pay attention, and found herself thinking that maybe her colleagues in New York had been right. You could pore over the same spreadsheets in Manhattan, and with a lot better air-conditioning. By 3 p.m. on her first day, Trisha was almost regretting making a show of her meticulousness.
As a matter of courtesy and protocol, she strolled the factory floor with the Honduran operations manager, a PriceStar exec, and a Paisley Shutter analyst named Ellis Quantrill. Although he was a member of her team, Trisha wasn’t terribly fond of Quantrill. Just thirty, WASP-ishly handsome, and bred for success, Ellis fancied himself quite the shark. He made no secret of his desire to go very far, very fast, and at any cost... any cost to others. She’d seen his type before, the eaglet hatched first who pushes its brother out of the nest. What Ellis hadn’t learned yet was that there is always a bigger eaglet. Always.
Their relationship was rocky from the start. At first, Ellis had tried to be the teacher’s pet — solicitous and deferential to the point of obsequious. Then he’d tried to make himself her indispensable ally and coconspirator — always ready to share a confidence, always fishing for one in return, and always the latest in rumors, speculation, and snarky political gossip from across the firm. When neither approach had gotten him far, he’d taken a different — riskier — tack: coming on to Trisha at the golf outing last May. He’d kissed her hard on the mouth behind the pro shop at the country club in Armonk, and Trisha laughed in his face. On reflection, she realized she’d have done better to slap him. That was the peculiar thing about Ellis’s type: They’d eat dogshit to get ahead, but not if anyone was watching. Personal embarrassment was intolerable. From that ill-fated kiss forward, Ellis Quantrill had put Trisha Tanglewood in his crosshairs. She knew it, and he knew she knew it.
The factory was clean and modern. Most of the machinery was new, and what wasn’t, was perfectly maintained. The workers sat in neat rows, and they moved quickly. Still, the production area was terribly noisy. There were a lot of hand gestures and head shakes, and very little speaking. Near the end of the tour, Ellis tapped Trisha on the shoulder and shepherded her into an empty break room. Christ, she thought, what now? Some new ploy to curry favor? Was he going to profess his love this time? That would be a novel approach. They took off their ear protection.
“Noisy, isn’t it?” he said.
“What do you want, Ellis?” Trisha enjoyed being curt with him.
“Just a quick word about tonight.”
“What about tonight?”
“We’ve set up a thing this evening—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa — the only thing I’m doing tonight is getting in my bed by 8.”
Ellis grimaced in mock pain. “It’s set already. No clients — just you and the team, for drinks, dinner, more drinks — very casual. You know the drill.”
“Christ, Ellis, why the hell didn’t you run it by me first? I can barely keep my eyes open as it is; no way I’m going to—”
“I know you’re beat, but it’s important to them. I don’t care one way or the other myself, but these guys have been down here for weeks now, working sixteen-hour days. A night out with the new skipper — a chance to let their hair down, maybe collect a few attaboys — it’ll mean a lot to these kids.” Trisha shook her head, but Ellis was undeterred. “And it won’t hurt you, either, to build some support amongst the rank and file — a little grassroots loyalty.” She kept shaking her head, but more slowly. Ellis gave her one his ironic frat-boy grins, and a tone to match. “Come on, chief — don’t pussy out on me. Have another coffee, and be a man.”
Fucking Ellis, Trisha thought, and forced a thin smile in return. “I’m back at the hotel by midnight, or it’s your ass.”
Trisha had only the lowest expectations when it came to enforced camaraderie, but — while she wasn’t about to suckle Ellis Quantrill to her bosom — she had to admit that the evening wasn’t horrible, at least not to start with. The Paisley Shutter team that had worked so hard on the Mega-Mart — PriceStar project assembled in an Asian restaurant that featured a mix of Thai, Korean, and Japanese foods. A bizarre setting in the midst of northwest Honduras, to be sure, but just one more blur to set atop all the other blurs that had become Trisha’s over-caffeinated day. Someone — Ellis probably — knew that she rode, and the team presented Trisha with a miniature saddle, smaller than her cell phone, as a souvenir. It was an exquisite piece of local craftsmanship, and it was even Western-style. Saki and champagne and local beer flowed freely, and Ellis made a point of keeping his distance. Trisha caught just glimpses of him, and only now and then. She appreciated his restraint.