Todd’s words kept coming back to him: You want to take a little sabbatical, a little break, might be a good thing.
What the hell were Todd Muldaur and Fairfield Equity Partners up to, really? Who, he wondered, might know?
The answer came to him so swiftly that he wondered why he hadn’t thought of it before. A “cousin” in the extended Fairfield family, that was who.
He opened his middle desk drawer and found a dog-eared business card that said KENDALL RESTAURANT GROUP, and underneath it, RONNIE KENDALL, CEO.
Ronnie Kendall was a sharp entrepreneur, a quick-witted bantam with an impenetrable Texan accent. He’d started the Kendall Restaurant Group with a little Tex-Mex place in Dallas and turned it into a thriving chain and eventually a prosperous restaurant holding company. It was mostly a chain of Tex-Mex restaurants popular in the Southwest, but his company also owned a cheesecake chain, a barbecued-chicken chain that wasn’t doing so well, a lousy Japanese-food chain where chefs dressed like samurai sliced and flipped your food right at your table, and a “good times” bar-and-grill chain known for its baby back ribs and gargantuan frozen margaritas. Ten years ago he’d sold to Willard Osgood.
Nick had met him at some business conference in Tokyo, and they’d hit it off. Ronnie Kendall turned out to be a big hockey fan and had followed Nick’s college career at Michigan State, amazingly. Nick had confessed he’d eaten at the Japanese restaurant chain that Kendall’s group owned and didn’t much like it, and Kendall had shot right back, “You kidding? Every time I set foot in there I get diarrhea. Never eat there, but people love it. Go figure.”
Nick was put on hold several times before Ronnie Kendall picked up, sounding exuberant as always, speaking a mile a minute. Nick made the mistake of asking how business was, and Ronnie launched into a manic monologue about how the barbecued-chicken chain was expanding in Georgia and South Carolina, and then he somehow shifted into a rant on the low-carb craze. “Man, am I glad that fad is over, huh? That was killing us! The low-carb cheesecake never went over, and the low-carb diet Margaritas-forget it! And then just when we signed up our new celebrity endorser”-he mentioned the name of a famous football player-“and we’d even taped a bunch of fifteen-and thirty-second spots, then out of the blue he gets hit with a rape charge!”
“Ronnie,” Nick finally broke in, “how well do you know Todd Muldaur?”
Ronnie cackled. “I hate the slick bastard and he loves me just the same. But I stay out of his way, and he stays out of mine. He and his MBA buddies were trying to muck around in my business, got so bad I called Willard himself and said, you put a choke collar on your little poodles or I’m gone. I quit. I’m too old and too rich, I don’t need it. Willard must have taken Todd to the woodshed, because he started backing off. ’Course, he had his hands full, what with the chip meltdown.”
“Chip meltdown?”
“Isn’t that what you call them things? Microchips or whatever? Semiconductors, right?”
“Yeah?”
“You read the Journal, right? The semiconductor industry bubble, the way all those private-equity guys overinvested in chips, then the bubble burst?” He cackled again. “Gotta love it, the way all those guys took a bath.”
“Hold on, Ronnie. Fairfield Equity Partners overinvested in microchips?”
“Not the whole of Fairfield, just the funds our boy Todd runs. He made a massive bet on the chip business. Put all his chips on chips, right?”
Nick didn’t join Ronnie’s laughter. “I thought there’s some kind of limit to how much they can invest in one particular sector.”
“Todd’s an arrogant guy, you know that, right? You can smell it on him. He figured when the semiconductor stocks started sinking, he’d pick up a bunch of companies cheap, turn a big fat profit. Well, he’s sure gettin’ his. His funds are sucking wind. Willard Osgood has got to be madder ’n a wet hen. If Todd’s funds collapse, the whole mother ship goes down.”
“Really?”
“I imagine Todd Muldaur should be makin’ nice to you these days. I know Stratton’s going through some hard times, but at least you’re solvent. Compared to some of his other investments, you’re a cash cow. He could take you guys public, make some real money. Of course, given how long that takes, it might be too late for him.”
“That would take a year at least.”
“At least. Why, they talking about spinning you guys off?”
“No. Nothing about that.”
“Well, Fairfield needs what they call a liquidity event, and real soon.”
“Meaning they need cash.”
“You got it.”
“Yeah, well, they’re up to something,” Nick said. “Really pushing hard to cut costs.”
“Forget that. You know what I always say, when your house is on fire, you don’t hold a garage sale.”
“Come again?”
“I mean, Todd’s so deep in the shit that he’s probably desperate to make a quick buck, sell Stratton quick-and-dirty just to save his ass. I were you, I’d watch Todd’s moves real close.”
The instant he hung up, another call came in, this one from Eddie.
“The small conference room on your floor,” Eddie said without preface. “Right now.”
73
Ever since they’d had it out at Eddie’s condo, there had been an acute chill in their already frosty relationship. Eddie no longer joked around as much. He avoided Nick’s eyes. He often seemed to be seething.
But when he entered the conference room, he looked as though he had a secret he couldn’t wait to share. It was a look Nick hadn’t seen in a while.
Eddie closed the conference room door and said, “The piece of shell casing?”
Nick’s voice caught in his throat. He was unable to speak.
“It’s bullshit,” Eddie said.
“What?”
“The cops never found any fragment of a shell casing on your lawn.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“What was it, then?”
“It was bullshit. A pressure tactic. There never was any metal scrap.”
“They lied about it?”
“I wouldn’t get on my high horse if I were you, Nick.”
“You’re certain? How do you know this for sure?”
“I told you. I got sources. It’s a fake-out, dude. Don’t you recognize a fake-out when you see one?”
Nick shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Come on, man. Remember when we were playing Hillsdale in the finals, our senior year, and you made that great deke to your backhand at the blue line before you fired a rocket behind Mallory, sent the game into overtime?”
“Yeah, I remember,” Nick said. “I also remember that we lost.”
74
Nick put his briefcase down in the front hall. Its antique, reclaimed pumpkin-pine flooring-the strip oak that had been there didn’t make the cut, as far as Laura was concerned-glowed in the amber light that spilled from soffits overhead. Without thinking about it, he expected to hear the click click click of Barney’s dog toenails on the wood, the jangle of his collar, and the absence of that happy sound saddened him.
It was almost eight o’clock. The marketing strategy committee meeting had run almost two hours late; he’d called home during a break and told Marta to make dinner for the kids. She’d said that Julia was over at her friend Jessica’s, so it would just be Lucas.
He heard voices from upstairs. Did Lucas have a friend over? Nick walked upstairs, and the murmur resolved into conversation.
It was Cassie’s voice, he realized with surprise. Cassie and Lucas. What was she doing here? The staircase was solidly mortised, no squeaks and creaks like the old house, or like the house he’d grown up in. They hadn’t heard him come up. He felt a prickling sensation as he paused at the top landing and listened. Lucas’s door was open for a change.