The Company Man

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

“I wouldn’t say I’m angry,” Brightly said coldly. “Would you agree to that?”

“I’m sure I can’t say, sir,” Samantha said.

“No,” said Brightly. “I would say I’m disappointed. You understand my position, yes?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. I hope so.” He leaned back in the chair at Evans’s desk. “Rarely have I seen someone with so much promise, and rarely have I ever seen it squandered so quickly. I mean, what were you thinking? What could have possibly possessed you to put yourself and the company in such danger?”

Samantha considered how to respond. She was not prepared, nor had she expected or wanted to come here at all. She had returned briefly to her apartments to fetch some things, thinking it would be safe, but had found Brightly’s security team waiting for her, large men with passive faces and their hands calmly clasped behind their back like servants. They had brought her there to Evans’s office, where Brightly fumed and paced, waiting to turn his fury on her.

“Mr. Hayes was there,” she said, “he surprised me, sir, I couldn’t-”

“Mr. Hayes?” he echoed. “He surprised you, did he?”

“Yes.”

“Hayes was the one you were sent here to control. It was your job to say no to him when he needed it. And I already knew he had been present during the whole debacle, thank you very much, I’m no idiot. If you and that damn detective are in some union hole at two in the morning then I can figure out what the magic link is.” He took a breath. “No, Miss Fairbanks, my problem is why. Why you allowed this. Why you were willing to let things get so far out of control.” He held a fist to his lips and thought. Then he dropped it and said, “You approached the union. Directly.”

“Sir, I thought I could-”

“I don’t care about what you think. I don’t care what you think or what you did. I care about what I said. I said in-house,” he said. “In-house. In-house. What was it I said?”

Samantha hesitated, then said, “In-house.”

“Yes, in-house,” he said. He stood up, fists at his sides. “Do you have any idea what you did? Do you have any idea what you endangered? My God, woman, I can’t even put words to it. You have endangered this company at its home, at its heart. You, personally. The cop was willing to stay silent and keep his story to himself, but you, you personally went out and put us all right in the middle of it. This, after the murders and the Red Star. Do you know how many goddamn disruptions we’ve had since the shooting? How you’ve endangered the situation abroad? How many shareholders have cut loose? How much money you’ve cost us? You may have ended several careers, ruined lives, just by writing some damned letters!”

He sat back down and took a breath and swallowed, collecting himself. She got the impression of some giant sea creature, gathering its strength to spring up through the deeps at its prey. Once he was ready he calmly said, “It’s at times like this that I must look back on the path that has brought us here and see exactly when it forked. When it could have gone well, but did not, and instead went bad. There were many options along the way. Perhaps when you touched your pen to those letters and mailed them, maybe that was the moment. Maybe when I read your profile and looked favorably on it, maybe that was when this disaster began. Or perhaps it was before that. When I first thought Evans could make a capable administrator, it may have been there. I can’t say. I can only say that it won’t happen again.”

Brightly took out a file and dropped it on his desk, then pushed it toward her.

“What’s that, sir?” she asked softly.

“Your dismissal papers. I suggest you go through them very carefully. Are you surprised?”

“N-no. No, sir.”

“Good,” he said. “You have no reason to be. What you did cost this company enormously. You can hardly expect me to tolerate someone who is so evidently willing to bring harm to us. Do you have anything to say?”

She shook her head.

“An explanation? An excuse? Something?”

“He was going to force himself on me,” she said softly.

Brightly was quiet for a moment. He tapped his pen against his knuckles. Then he leaned forward and said, “A mouse who wanders among adders can hardly be surprised when it is bitten. It was remarkably stupid of you to go to such a dangerous place.”

“I know that. But Donald stopped him. He saved us both. I had to help him.”

“He,” said Brightly, and he pointed out toward the city, “is a policeman. He belongs to the police department. You,” he said, now pointing at her, “were company. You were McNaughton. They have their interests, we have ours, and when it comes to the line, you go with the company. We’ll back you. We have the power to help you. We have your future in mind, because you’re one of ours. But you obviously don’t care for our interests all that much, which leads me to the decision that you’re not actually company after all. You’re not, and Hayes isn’t, and Evans isn’t either.”

She blinked. “Evans?”

“Yes. Evans.”

“Evans is…”

“I’m dissolving this entire section of Securities,” Brightly said. “It was not doing its job. Evans was your controller, you were Hayes’s, and the fault starts at the top and goes to the bottom. You’re all out. All of you. I already spoke to Evans. I’m assuming his office here, it’s the first time I’ve had a stable office for some time.”

“But-”

“Yes, a pity,” Brightly said, leaning back. “He was just about to retire. That’s another one Hayes has left floating in his wake. You can tell Hayes we don’t need him to come in anymore, if you can find him. I expect he’ll be relieved. It’s what he always wanted, deep down. To be free from us.”

Samantha sat there, the dismissal papers in her lap, hands limply holding the pages. Brightly glanced at her.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” he said. “I’m not going to let you sit there and read the entire thing. Get out. Go chum up with your policeman and discuss it with him.”

Samantha stood and walked out to the hall. There were already men waiting on Brightly, legs crossed and calmly reading. The secretary scribbled away as she always did. Samantha walked to the elevator and the operator was there, still tiny and shriveled and smiling. He took her down to the lobby and she walked out to the street.

The sun was out and the air was warm. It seemed an unfair thing to grant the city such a blessing when she felt so lost. She wiped her eyes but found the tears were few. Then as she walked to the corner to hail a cab she saw the limousine parked by the curb, Wilford the driver dutifully polishing the hood.

She called out and rushed over to the car. She could see someone sitting in the back, hands in their lap. She got to the window and knocked against it and stooped to speak to Evans inside, but instead of Evans it was a tall, bearded gentleman in a bowler. He stared at her, astonished.

“I’m sorry,” she said weakly. She stood and stepped away.

“What’s the matter, Miss Fairbanks?” asked Wilford.

“What happened to Mr. Evans?” she asked him.

“Mr. Evans?”

“Yes, Willie. You’ve seen him, haven’t you?”

“Well, yes, a day or two ago. Can’t say what happened to him, ma’am,” he said. “Drove him down to the central cradle two days ago, on his orders.”

“To board a ship?” she asked.

“He didn’t say, ma’am.”

“What did he say?”

“Not much,” he said. “Nothing at all. Just sat there. Looking out the window. He might have caught a ship, I suppose.” Then Wilford frowned and said, “He shook my hand.”

“He what?”

“He shook my hand. He’d never done that before. Said I was a good driver, which was odd, too. He never does such things.”

Samantha nodded and said softly, “What you love doesn’t love you.”

“Pardon, ma’am?”

“Nothing,” she said. “Goodbye, Willie. Have a nice day.”

“Won’t be hard,” he said, returning to polishing. “Sun’s out. Seems like the first time in years.”

“Yes,” she said, and walked away.