standard photo of the family, a small soft-sculpture that rendered Martin and his wife and three kids in the mode of
Cabbage Patch Kids was perched on his credenza. Martin was behind the desk toward which all the room's furnishings subtly angle, a broad barely finished burl from the trunk of some thousand-year-old oak.
I saw where Martin was going long before Wash, who was in one of the Barcelona chairs that form a proscenium about Martin's desk. When Wash finally realized that Martin was detailing our suspicions about Bert, he made a vague move to object. But Wash clearly had no time to think it through and instead contained himself.
Martin removed his credenza key--he had it hidden in the rubber belly of a clock set in a hula dancer--and displayed the folder of documents I'd seen yesterday. He explained to Jake that we had found no paper trail authorizing these checks. As Jake began to sense that something had gone wrong, he started to fidget. But Martin, the man of principles and solid commitments, showed no wavering. It couldn't have been easy for him. G &G has been life to Martin since his days at Leotis Griswell's right hand, and he adores the hurly-burly, the business of bringing everyone together. That's his faith, that the team is greater than the sum of the parts. He's my Chinaman here, the man I admire, and he was being admirable now. Only yesterday the Committee had made its decision to wait before the client was informed. Yet Martin was manifesting his allegiance to something more significant than law firm Hoyle: Values. Duty. The lawyer's code. The client, unexpectedly, had asked a question which clearly invited the truth and Martin would not be party to withholding it.
By now Martin was explaining the Committee's plan, how I was searching for Bert in the hope he could be persuaded to relent. From Jake, Martin asked brief forbearance, a couple of weeks, with the promise that at the end I'd provide a full report. To sum up, he came and sat on the forward edge of his desk. "If we can tell Bert that you, that TN, is looking at this in an understanding way," he said to Jake, "I think there's a chance , a real chance, to get the money back. If we do, we can, perhaps, avoid the scandal. That truly strikes me as best for everyone." He stopped. Martin had made his appeal, all his formidable charm and powers turned on Jake. Now we waited. It was, on the whole, a moment of high daring. Gage & Griswell was probably about to join the lost city of Atlantis as a civilization that fell into the sea. I thought Wash might black out, and even my skin was crawling, anticipating Jake's reaction. Jake, for his part, looked worse than I'd ever seen him, the fatal gray of a man in shock.
"Unbelievable." That was the first thing Jake said. He got to his feet and walked a circle one way and then the other around his chair. "How am I ever going to handle this upstairs?" He asked this question mostly of himself, fingertips at his lips, and it was clear he did not know the answer. He stood there, visibly pained, not quite willing to discuss the repercussions, as if they were lexically beyond him, like a man who could not bear to utter dirty words.
"We're here to help you," Wash said.
"Oh, you've helped a lot," said Jake and winced at the thought. TN lately had been on hard times, if a company with gross earnings of four billion every year can be described that way. Almost everything they own--the hotels, the rent-a-car companies, the airlines--is sensitive to fluctuations in travel, of which there had been damn little since our warlette against So-damn Insane. No surprise either, since anybody with a college business course could have told you that covey of enterprises would move cyclically. To diversify, TN a decade ago bought a traveler's check business and from that made an entry into the world of Sunbelt banking, just in time to watch their loan portfolio go to hell. After the suicidal fare wars of last summer, the company lost
Cabbage Patch Kids was perched on his credenza. Martin was behind the desk toward which all the room's furnishings subtly angle, a broad barely finished burl from the trunk of some thousand-year-old oak.
I saw where Martin was going long before Wash, who was in one of the Barcelona chairs that form a proscenium about Martin's desk. When Wash finally realized that Martin was detailing our suspicions about Bert, he made a vague move to object. But Wash clearly had no time to think it through and instead contained himself.
Martin removed his credenza key--he had it hidden in the rubber belly of a clock set in a hula dancer--and displayed the folder of documents I'd seen yesterday. He explained to Jake that we had found no paper trail authorizing these checks. As Jake began to sense that something had gone wrong, he started to fidget. But Martin, the man of principles and solid commitments, showed no wavering. It couldn't have been easy for him. G &G has been life to Martin since his days at Leotis Griswell's right hand, and he adores the hurly-burly, the business of bringing everyone together. That's his faith, that the team is greater than the sum of the parts. He's my Chinaman here, the man I admire, and he was being admirable now. Only yesterday the Committee had made its decision to wait before the client was informed. Yet Martin was manifesting his allegiance to something more significant than law firm Hoyle: Values. Duty. The lawyer's code. The client, unexpectedly, had asked a question which clearly invited the truth and Martin would not be party to withholding it.
By now Martin was explaining the Committee's plan, how I was searching for Bert in the hope he could be persuaded to relent. From Jake, Martin asked brief forbearance, a couple of weeks, with the promise that at the end I'd provide a full report. To sum up, he came and sat on the forward edge of his desk. "If we can tell Bert that you, that TN, is looking at this in an understanding way," he said to Jake, "I think there's a chance , a real chance, to get the money back. If we do, we can, perhaps, avoid the scandal. That truly strikes me as best for everyone." He stopped. Martin had made his appeal, all his formidable charm and powers turned on Jake. Now we waited. It was, on the whole, a moment of high daring. Gage & Griswell was probably about to join the lost city of Atlantis as a civilization that fell into the sea. I thought Wash might black out, and even my skin was crawling, anticipating Jake's reaction. Jake, for his part, looked worse than I'd ever seen him, the fatal gray of a man in shock.
"Unbelievable." That was the first thing Jake said. He got to his feet and walked a circle one way and then the other around his chair. "How am I ever going to handle this upstairs?" He asked this question mostly of himself, fingertips at his lips, and it was clear he did not know the answer. He stood there, visibly pained, not quite willing to discuss the repercussions, as if they were lexically beyond him, like a man who could not bear to utter dirty words.
"We're here to help you," Wash said.
"Oh, you've helped a lot," said Jake and winced at the thought. TN lately had been on hard times, if a company with gross earnings of four billion every year can be described that way. Almost everything they own--the hotels, the rent-a-car companies, the airlines--is sensitive to fluctuations in travel, of which there had been damn little since our warlette against So-damn Insane. No surprise either, since anybody with a college business course could have told you that covey of enterprises would move cyclically. To diversify, TN a decade ago bought a traveler's check business and from that made an entry into the world of Sunbelt banking, just in time to watch their loan portfolio go to hell. After the suicidal fare wars of last summer, the company lost
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