believer in corporate frugality. Zero-based budgeting is gospel as far as I’m
concerned. Try to follow me here—every penny we spend has to justify itself. If
it doesn’t add value, it’s not happening. That’s one corporate secret I don’t
mind letting you in on.” Harnett leaned back, like a pasha waiting for a servant
to pour him tea. “But feel free to change my mind, OK? I’ve said my piece. Now
I’m happy to listen.”
Janson smiled wanly. He would have to apologize to Steven Burt—Janson doubted
whether anyone well disposed toward him had called him “Stevie” in his life—but
clearly wires had got crossed here. Janson accepted few of the offers he
received, and he certainly did not need this one. He would extricate himself as
swiftly as he could. “I really don’t know what to say, Mr. Harnett. It sounds
from your end like you’ve got everything under control.”
Harnett nodded without smiling, acknowledging an observation of the
self-evident. “I run a tight ship, Mr. Janson,” he said with smug condescension.
“Our worldwide operations are damn well protected, always have been, and we’ve
never had a problem. Never had a leak, a defection, not’ even any serious theft.
And I think I’m in the best position to know whereof I speak—can we agree on
that?”
“A CEO who doesn’t know what’s going on in his own company isn’t really running
the show, is he?” Janson replied equably.
“Exactly,” Harnett said. “Exactly.” His gaze settled on the intercom of his
telephone console. “Look, you come highly recommended—I mean, Stevie couldn’t
have spoken of you more highly, and I’m sure you’re quite good at what you do.
Appreciate that you came by to see us, and as I say, I’m only sorry we wasted
your time … ”
Janson noted his use of the inclusive “we” and its evident subtext: sorry that a
member of our senior management inconvenienced us both. No doubt Steven Burt
would be subjected to some withering corporate scorn later on. Janson decided to
allow himself a few parting words after all, if only for his friend’s sake.
“Not a bit,” he said, rising to his feet and shaking Harnett’s hand across the
desk. “Just glad to know everything’s shipshape.” He cocked his head and added,
almost incidentally: “Oh, listen, as to that ‘sealed bid’ you just submitted for
the Uruguay project?”
“What do you know about it?” Harnett’s eyes were suddenly watchful; a nerve had
been struck.
“Ninety-three million five hundred and forty thousand, was it?”
Harnett reddened. “Hold it. I approved that bid only yesterday morning. How the
hell did you—”
“If I were you, I’d be worrying about the fact that your French competitor, Suez
Lyonnaise, knows the figures, too. I think you’ll discover that their bid will
be precisely two percent lower.”
“What?” Harnett erupted with volcanic fury. “Did Steve Burt tell you this?”
“Steven Burt gave me no information whatsoever. Anyway, he’s in operations, not
accounting or business affairs—does he even know the specifics of the bid?”
Harnett blinked twice. “No,” he said after a pause. “There’s no way he could
know. Goddammit, there’s no way anyone could know. It was sent by encrypted
e-mail from our bean counters to the Uruguayan ministry.”
“And yet people do know these things. Because this won’t be the first time
you’ve been narrowly outbid this year, will it? In fact, you’ve been burned
almost a dozen times in the past nine months. Eleven of your fifteen bids were
rejected. Like you were saying, it’s a business with a lot of ups and downs.”
Harnett’s cheeks were aflame, but Janson proceeded to chat in a collegial tone.
“Now, in the case of Vancouver, there were other considerations. Heck, they had
reports from the municipal engineers that they found plasticizers in the
concrete used for the pilings. Made it easy to cast, but weakened its structural
integrity. Not your fault, of course—your specs were perfectly clear there. How
were you to know that the subcontractor bribed your site inspector to falsify
his report? An underling takes a measly five-thousand-dollar bribe, and now
you’re out in the cold on a hundred-million-dollar project. Pretty funny, huh?
On the other hand, you’ve had worse luck with some of your own under-the-table
payments. I mean, if you’re wondering what went wrong with the La Paz deal … ”
“Yes?” Harnett prompted urgently. He stood up with unnatural rigidity, as if
frozen.
“Let’s just say Raffy rides again. Your manager believed Rafael Nunez when he
told him that he’d make sure the bribe reached the minister of the interior. Of
course, it never did. You chose the wrong intermediary, simple as that. Raffy
Nunez took a lot of companies for a ride in the nineties. Most of your
competitors are wise to him now. They were laughing their asses off when they
saw your guy dining at the La Paz Cabana, tossing down tequilas with Raffy,
because they knew exactly what was going to happen. But what the hey—at least
you tried, right? So what if your operating margin is down thirty percent this
year. It’s only money, right? Isn’t that what your shareholders are always
saying?”
As Janson spoke, he noticed that Harnett’s face had gone from flushed to deathly
pale. “Oh, that’s right—they haven’t been saying that, have they?” Janson
continued. “In fact, a bunch of major stockholders are looking for another
company—Vivendi, Kendrick, maybe Bechtel—to orchestrate a hostile takeover. So
look on the bright side. If they have their way, none of this will be your
problem anymore.” He pretended to ignore Harnett’s sharp intake of breath. “But
I’m sure I’m only telling you what you already know.”
Harnett looked dazed, panicked; through the vast expanse of polarized glass,
muted rays of sun picked out the beads of cold sweat on his forehead. “Fuck a
duck,” he murmured. Now he was looking at Janson the way a drowning man looks at
a life raft. “Name your price,” he said.
“Come again?”
“Name your goddamn price,” Harnett said. “I need you.” He grinned, aiming to
disguise his desperation with a show of joviality. “Steve Burt told me you were
the best, and you sure as shit are, that’s obvious. You know I was just yanking
your chain before. Now, listen, big guy, you are not leaving this room before
you and I come to an agreement. We clear about this?” Perspiration had begun to
darken his shirt in the areas beneath his arms and around his collar. “Because
we are going to do a deal here.”
“I don’t think so,” Janson said genially. “It’s just that I’ve decided against
taking the job. That’s one luxury I have as a consultant working alone: I get to
decide which clients I take. But really—best of luck with everything. Nothing
like a good proxy fight to get the blood racing, right?”
Harnett let out a burst of fake-sounding laughter and clapped his hands
together. “I like your style,” he said. “Good negotiating tactics. OK, OK, you
win. Tell me what you want.”
Janson shook his head, smiling, as if Harnett had said something funny, and made
his way to the door. Just before he left the office, he stopped and turned. “One
tip, though—gratis,” he said. “Your wife knows.” It would have been indelicate
to say the name of Harnett’s Venezuelan mistress, so Janson simply added,
obliquely but unmistakably: “About Caracas, I mean.” Janson gave him a
meaningful look: no judgment implied; he was, speaking as one professional to
another, merely identifying a potential point of vulnerability.
Small red spots appeared on Harnett’s cheeks, and he seemed stricken with
nausea: it was the look of a man contemplating a ruinously expensive divorce on
top of a proxy fight he was likely to lose. “I’m willing to talk stock options,”
he called after Janson.
But the consultant was already making his way down the hall toward the elevator
bank. He had not minded seeing the blowhard squirm; by the time he reached the
lobby, though, he was filled with a sense of sourness, of time wasted, of a
larger futility.
A voice from so long ago—another life—echoed faintly in his head. And this is
what gives meaning to your life? Phan Nguyen asked that, in a thousand different
ways. It was his favorite question. Janson could see, even now, the small,
intelligent eyes; the broad, weathered face; the slender, childlike arms.
Everything about America seemed to engage his interrogator’s curiosity, with
equal parts fascination and revulsion. And this is what gives meaning to your
life? Janson shook his head: Doom on you, Nguyen.
As Janson stepped into his limousine, which had been idling on Dearborn just
outside the building’s lobby, he decided to go straight to O’Hare; there was an
earlier flight to Los Angeles he could catch. If only Nguyen’s questions could
be as easily left behind.
Two uniformed women were standing behind a counter as he entered the Platinum
Club lounge of Pacifica Airlines. The uniforms and the counter were both the