Pratt gave him a quizzical look; he’d been expecting an argument. “I’m not complaining. I’m just saying, we can’t put it off that much longer.”
“I’m sure you know what you’re doing.”
“Because we couldn’t get the requisition approved,” Pratt said. “Your people said it wasn’t a good time right now. Something about putting major capital expenditures on hold.”
“What do you mean, ‘my people’?”
“We put the request through last month. Word came down from Hollander a couple of weeks ago.”
“There’s no freeze on major expenditures, okay? We’re in this for the long haul.” Nick shook his head. “Some people do tend to get a little overzealous. Excuse me.”
Two men in suits and safety glasses were walking through the “supermarket,” the area where parts were stored in aisles. They were walking quickly, and one of them-Scott-was waving a hand at something as they left the floor. Nick wondered what he was saying to the other man, whom he recognized from last night.
The attorney from Chicago who was supposedly advising Scott on structuring deals. The man whom Scott, who hadn’t been on the shop floor in more than a year, was showing around in such a low-profile, almost secretive way.
There was, of course, no reason in the world for a financial engineer to tour one of Stratton’s factories. Nick thought about trying to catch up with them, but he decided not to bother.
No need to be lied to again.
79
There wasn’t any e-mail from Cassie. Not that he expected any, but he was sort of hoping there’d be something. He realized he owed her an apology, so he typed:
Where’d my little porcupine go?
– N
Then he adjusted the angle on the flat-panel monitor, opened his browser and went to Google. He typed in Randall Enright’s name, and the name of his law firm, from the card Cassie had gotten from him last night.
Abbotsford Gruendig had offices in London, Chicago, Los Angeles, Tokyo, and Hong Kong, among other places. “With over two thousand lawyers in 25 offices around the world, Abbotsford Gruendig provides worldwide service to national and multinational corporations, institutions and governments,” the firm’s home page boasted.
He typed in Randall Enright’s name. It appeared, as part of a list of names, on a page headed with the rubric MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS and then more boilerplate:
Our corporate lawyers are leaders in M &A, focusing on multi-jurisdictional transactions. They can advise on licence requirements and regulatory compliance and provide local legal services in over twenty jurisdictions. Our clients include many larger corporations in the telecommunications, defence and manufacturing sectors.
Blah blah blah. More legal gobbledygook.
But it told him that Scott sure as hell wasn’t getting up to speed on new accounting regulations.
He was up to something completely different.
Stephanie Alstrom, Stratton’s corporate counsel, wore a navy blue suit with a white blouse and a big heavy gold chain necklace that was probably intended to make her look more authoritative. Instead, the necklace and matching earrings diminished her, made her look tiny. Her gray hair was close-cropped, her mouth heavily lined, the bags under her eyes pronounced. She was in her fifties but looked twenty years older. Maybe that was what decades of practicing corporate law could do to you.
“Sit down,” Nick said. “Thanks for dropping by.”
“Sure.” She looked worried, but then again, she always looked worried. “You wanted to know about Abbotsford Gruendig?”
Nick nodded.
“I’m not sure what you wanted to know, exactly, but it’s a big international law firm, offices all over the world. A merger of an old-line British firm and a German one.”
“And that guy Randall Enright?”
“M and A lawyer, speaks fluent Mandarin. A real hotshot. China law specialist, spent years in their Hong Kong office until his wife forced them to move back to the States. Mind if I ask why the sudden interest?”
“The name came up, that’s all. Now, what do you know about Stratton Asia Ventures?”
She wrinkled her brow. “Not much. A subsidiary corporation Scott set up. He never ran it by my office.”
“Is that unusual?”
“We review all sorts of contracts, but we don’t go after people and insist on it. I assumed he was using local counsel in Hong Kong.”
“Check this out, would you?” Nick handed her the e-mail from Scott to Martin Lai in Hong Kong, which Scott had tried to delete.
“Ten million dollars wired to an account in Macau,” Nick said as she looked it over. “What does that tell you?”
She looked at Nick, looked down quickly. “I don’t know what you’re asking me.”
“Can you think of a circumstance in which ten million dollars would be wired to a numbered account in Macau?”
She flushed. “I don’t want to be casting aspersions. I really don’t want to guess.”
“I’m asking you to, Steph.”
“Between you and me?”
“Please. Not to be repeated to anyone.”
After a moment’s hesitation, she said, “One of two things. Macau is one of those money-laundering havens. The banks there are used for hidden accounts by the Chinese leaders, same way deposed third-world dictators use the Caymans.”
“Interesting. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
She was clearly uncomfortable. “Embezzlement-or a bribe. But this is only speculation on my part, Nick.”
“I understand.”
“And not to be repeated.”
“You’re afraid of Scott, aren’t you?”
Stephanie looked down at the table, her eyes darting back and forth, and she said nothing.
“He works for me,” Nick said.
“On paper, I guess,” she said.
“Excuse me?” Her remark felt to Nick like a blow to his solar plexus. It felt like the wind had been knocked out of him.
“The org chart says he’s under you, Nick,” she said hastily. “That’s all I mean.”
80
“Got something for you,” Eddie said over the phone.
“I’ll meet you in the small conference room on my floor in ten minutes,” Nick said.
Eddie hesitated. “Actually, why don’t you come down to my office?”
“How come?”
“Maybe I’m tired of taking the elevator up there.”
The only thing worse than this kind of idiotic, petty game, Nick thought, was responding to it. “Fine,” he said curtly, and hung up.
“You know how much e-mail Scotty blasts out?” Eddie said, leaning back in his chair. It was a new chair, Nick noticed, one of a premium, super-limited run of Symbiosis chairs upholstered in butter-soft Gucci leather. “He’s like a one-man spam generator or something.”
“Sorry to put you out,” Nick said. He also noticed that Eddie had a new computer with the largest flat-panel monitor he’d ever seen.
“Guy’s a Levitra addict, first off. Gets it over the Internet. I guess he doesn’t want his doc to know-small town and all that.”
“I really don’t care.”
“He also buys sex tapes. Like How to Be a Better Lover. Enhance Your Performance. Sex for Life.”
“Goddammit,” Nick said, “that’s his business, and I don’t want to hear about it. I’m only interested in our business.”
“Our business,” Eddie said. He sat upright, reached over for a thick manila folder, and set it down in front of Nick with a thud. “Here’s something that’s very much our business. Do you even know the first fucking thing about Cassie Stadler?”
“We’re back to that?” Nick snapped. “You stay out of my goddamned e-mails, or-”
Eddie looked up suddenly, his eyes locked with Nick’s. “Or what?”
Nick shook his head, didn’t reply.
“That’s right. We’re joined at the hip now, big guy. I got job security, you understand?”