“No, thanks, I’m good.”
“Is it my imagination, or is your office a lot smaller than mine?”
“It’s the décor,” I said. “Same size.” Actually, my office was starting to look smaller all the time. The Entronics USA Visual Systems sales division took up the top floor of the Entronics building in Framingham, about twenty miles west of Boston. It’s by far the tallest structure in town, surrounded by low-rise office parks, and the locals fought it bitterly before it went up ten years ago or so. It’s a handsome building, but everyone in Framingham considers it an affront. Some wit had dubbed it the Framingham Phallus. Others called it the Entronics Erection.
He sank back in the visitor chair. “Let me tell you something about this Royal Meister deal. The Japanese always have a master plan. They never tell you what it is, but there’s always this long-range master plan. We’re just those little round game pieces-what’s that strategy game the Japanese play?”
“Go?”
“‘Go,’ right. ‘Go.’ Go take a leap. Go screw yourself.” I could see dark sweat stains under the arms of Ricky’s blue button-down shirt. The Entronics offices were kept at a steady sixty-eight degrees, summer or winter, and if anything they were too cold, but Ricky sweated a lot. He was a couple of years older than me and was going to seed. He was paunchy, a potbelly more advanced than mine hanging over his belt, a roll of neck fat spilling over the collar of his too-tight shirt. He’d started coloring his hair a couple of years ago, and the Just For Men shade he used was too black.
I sneaked a glance at the time on my computer screen. I’d told the guy at Lockwood Hotel and Resorts that I’d call him before noon, and it was 12:05. “Hey, uh, Rick…”
“See, you don’t get it. You’re too nice.” He said it with a nasty curl to his lips. “Entronics acquires Royal Meister’s U.S. operations, right? But why? You think their plasma screens are better than ours?”
“Nope,” I said, trying not to encourage him.
I’d tell the guy at Lockwood that I was closing a huge deal, that’s why I couldn’t call him earlier. I didn’t want to lie to the guy, but I’d hint around about a rival five-star luxury hotel chain I couldn’t name that was also putting plasma-screen TVs in all their guest rooms. If I hinted right, maybe I could make him think it was the Four Seasons or something. Maybe that would light a fire under him. Then again, maybe not.
“Exactly,” Ricky said. “It’s their sales force. They kick our ass. The boys in Tokyo are sitting on their tatami mats in the MegaTower rubbing their hands at the prospect of buying a sales force that’s more high-test than we are. So what does that mean? It means they get rid of all but the top ten percent, maybe, and move them to Dallas. Consolidate. Real estate in Dallas is a lot cheaper than Boston. They sell this building and throw the rest of us under a bus. It’s so totally obvious, Jason. Why do you think Crawford went to Sony, man?”
Festino was so proud of his Machiavellian genius that I didn’t want to let him know I’d already come up with the same theory. So I nodded and looked intrigued.
I noticed a slender Japanese man passing by my office, and I gave a casual wave. “Hey, Yoshi,” I said. Yoshi Tanaka, a personality-free guy with thick aviator-frame glasses, was a funin-sha, an expatriate Japanese, transferred to the U.S. to learn the ropes. But he was more than that. Officially, his title was Manager for Business Planning, but everyone knew he was actually an informer for the Entronics management in Tokyo who stayed at his office late into the night and reported back by phone and e-mail. He was Tokyo’s eyes and ears here. He spoke just about no English, though, which couldn’t have been good for his spying.
He scared the shit out of everyone, but I didn’t mind him. I felt bad for him. Being posted in a country where you didn’t speak the language, without family-at least, I assumed he had family back in Tokyo-couldn’t be easy. I couldn’t imagine working in Japan and not speaking Japanese. Always being a beat behind. Never getting it. He was isolated, ostracized by his colleagues, all of whom distrusted him. Not an easy gig. A hardship posting, in fact. I never joined the others in Yoshi-bashing.
Ricky turned, gave Yoshi a smile and a wave, and as soon as Yoshi was out of range, muttered, “Goddamned spy.”
“You think he heard you?” I said.
“Nah. Even if he did, he wouldn’t understand.”
“Listen, Rick, I’m late calling Lockwood.”
“The fun never stops. They still dicking you around?”
I nodded ruefully.
“It’s over, man. Forget it. Stop pursuing them.”
“A forty-million-dollar deal, and you’re telling me to forget it?”
“The guy just wants Super Bowl tickets. Any deal that takes this long is dead in the water.”
I sighed. Festino was an expert on deals that were dead in the water. “I gotta call him.”
“You’re like a hamster on a wheel, man. We’re all hamsters. Any second now the guy in the white lab coat’s gonna come and euthanize us, and you’re still running around the wheel. Forget it, man.”
I stood up to encourage him to do the same. “You playing tonight?”
He got up. “Yeah, sure. Carol’s already pissed at me for going out with clients last night. What’s one more night in the doghouse? Who’re we playing tonight, Charles River?”
I nodded.
“Gonna be another ignominious defeat for the Band of Brothers. We got no pitching. Trevor sucks.”
I smiled, remembering the tow truck driver from last night. “I got a pitcher.”
“You? You can’t pitch for shit either.”
“Not me. A guy who almost went pro.”
“What are you talking about?”
I filled him in quickly.
Rick’s eyes narrowed, and for the first time this morning, he smiled. “We tell the Charles River boys he’s the new stockboy or whatever?”
I nodded.
“A ringer,” Rick said.
“Exactly.”
He hesitated. “Pitching softball’s different from baseball.”
“Guy’s obviously an incredible athlete, Rick. I’m sure he can do fast-pitch softball.”
He cocked his head to one side, gave me an appraising look. “You know, Tigger, under that simpleton façade, you’ve got hidden reserves of craftiness. Never would have expected it. I’m impressed.”
4
The Lockwood Hotel and Resort Group was one of the largest chains of luxury hotels in the world. Their properties were a little mildewed, though, and in need of an overhaul. Part of management’s plan to compete with the Four Seasons and the Ritz-Carlton was to put Bose Wave Radios and forty-two-inch flat-panel plasma TVs in every room. I knew they were talking to NEC and Toshiba too.
I’d been the one who’d pushed for a bake-off, and I arranged to send one of our screens to Lockwood’s White Plains, New York, headquarters, for a head-to-head comparison with NEC and Toshiba. I knew our product performed at least as well as the other guys’, because we were still in the running. But the Vice President for Property Management at Lockwood, Brian Borque, couldn’t seem to make a decision.
I wondered whether Ricky Festino was right, that Borque was stringing me along just for the Super Bowl and World Series tickets and the dinners at Alain Ducasse in New York. I half wished he’d just put me out of my misery already.
“Hey, Brian,” I said into the headset.
“There he is,” Brian Borque said. He always sounded happy to hear from me.
“I should have called you earlier. My bad.” I almost gave him the lie about the other hotel chain, but I didn’t have the heart to go through with it. “Meeting ran long.”
“No worries, man. Hey, I read something about you guys in the Journal this morning. You getting acquired by Meister?”