He gave his name to the receptionist, who instructed him to go on upstairs. He entered the elevator and punched the second-floor button.
He was surprised to have gotten an appointment to see Sanguine so easily. Before he left the office, he asked Maggie to call ahead and tell Sanguine he was coming. He expected to have a long wait. Perhaps Maggie saves all her charm for telephone conversations, he mused. Or did Sanguine have some reason for wanting to see Ben?
Tidwell met Ben as soon as he reached the second floor.
“Mr. Sanguine has penciled in some time for you starting in just a few minutes. You’re lucky to see him at all. Mr. Sanguine is a very busy man. I’ve already reported to Mr. Sanguine regarding the … uh, adoption hearing,” Tidwell added, clearing his throat.
“Tattletale,” Ben muttered.
“So if you’ve come to discuss that with him …”
“No,” Ben said firmly. “Haven’t you heard? I’m working on a new Sanguine matter now. Big lawsuit in Vancouver.”
Tidwell was visibly taken aback. He ran a hand across his balding scalp. “Vancouver?” he said. “I thought Bryce Chambers was handling that.”
“Nope. Seems Sanguine just can’t get enough of me.”
“Hmm.” Tidwell seemed lost in thought. “Say, you know why New Jersey has all the toxic waste dumps and Washington, D.C., has all the lawyers?”
“No. Nor do I care.”
Tidwell sniffed. “New Jersey got first choice.”
A loud buzzing noise sounded within Sanguine’s office. “Mr. Sanguine will see you now.”
Ben walked quickly to the door, cutting Tidwell off. Ben entered the office first and, without waiting to be invited, seated himself in the mahogany chair he had occupied on his prior visit.
“I have some papers that require your signature,” Tidwell said as he walked behind the huge desk and stood beside his mentor. Although he was speaking to Sanguine, Ben noticed that his eye never strayed far from Ben. “Final drafts of the shareholder prospectuses. I’ve already proofread them.”
Sanguine glanced at the papers for a nanosecond, signed each in two places, and handed the papers back to Tidwell.
“Also,” Tidwell added, “I believe I’ve found a suitable location for our prospective Fort Smith franchise.”
“We’ll talk about it later,” Sanguine said dismissively.
After Tidwell left, Ben and Sanguine stared at one another in silence for several moments.
“Mr. Sanguine,” Ben said at last, breaking the ice.
“Call me Joe.”
“Joe.” The first-name address was instinctively uncomfortable to Ben, but it would be even more uncomfortable to refuse after receiving such a gracious invitation. “There are a few matters regarding this Vancouver matter I wanted to discuss with you. You could take the offensive and sue DeAmato here in Tulsa. Based on the Burger King v. Rudzewicz precedent, the court will have personal jurisdiction over the parties. If we wait and he sues us first, he’ll almost certainly sue in Vancouver, and you’ll be stuck with the difficult choice of law questions, venue problems, and the necessity of hiring Canadian lawyers to act as local counsel. The whole operation will probably double in cost. Fighting a case out-of-state, much less out-of-the-country, is always more expensive.”
Sanguine leaned back in his chair and lifted his feet onto his desk. “I sense an on the other hand approaching.”
If nothing else, Sanguine understood lawyers. “On the other hand, all DeAmato probably really wants is out of her franchise license agreement. All this stuff about fraud and Sherman Act violations and punitive damages and so forth is just smoke. She just wants out.”
Ben opened his briefcase and removed a manila file folder. “Taking this thing to the trial stage would consume large amounts of money and time, and even if you won at trial, you wouldn’t get much in damages. I believe you should consider cutting your losses, saving the litigation costs, and giving the woman what she wants. Set her free. Cancel the franchise agreement and start a new operation with someone else. There must be jillions of would-be breakfast food entrepreneurs in Vancouver.”
Sanguine shifted his weight in his chair. “You must realize though, Ben, that with an operation like ours, costs aren’t everything. We have over six hundred franchises scattered across North America. Where would we be if all our franchisors suddenly decided to quit operating their franchise and start operating a competing business under a different name? We’d be up the proverbial creek without a paddle.”
Sanguine dropped his feet to the floor and leaned forward across the desk. “Sometimes you have to maintain discipline. Set an example. Tell them in unequivocal terms that if they walk out on Sanguine Enterprises, there’ll be hell to pay.” His eyes met Ben’s. “Nobody messes around with Sanguine. That’s my credo.”
Ben shuffled the papers in his hands and looked away. Propped on the edge of Sanguine’s desk was a flashlight, Ben’s flashlight, standing on end. The flashlight he and Christina had left in Adams’s office the night they broke in.
“Let me shed some light on that,” Sanguine said. He laughed at his own little joke. “I found that in Jonathan Adams’s office a few nights ago. The window was open. Evidently there was a break-in, but no one could find any sign of a forced entry. Or theft. We called the police, but …” He shrugged with an unconvincing lightness. “You don’t know what a prowler would be doing in poor Jonathan’s office, do you?” Sanguine was staring directly at Ben. “I remember you were very anxious to poke around in there.”
Ben squirmed uncomfortably. This was not the direction he wanted the conversation to take. “You were very close to Mr. Adams, weren’t you, sir?” Ben said. “His death must have come as a terrible shock.”
Sanguine cocked his head to one side. “You really want to know the truth? No, we weren’t close at all. I didn’t like him, and he didn’t like me. He didn’t belong here. He didn’t belong in this world. I encouraged him to quit when I bought the company, but he resisted. He wanted a job, he said, not a pension. He had a contract; it was part of the deal. Part of the take-over agreement. I couldn’t make him go. But I could sure make him pay the price of his own stubbornness.”
Ben tried not to react. He had hoped to uncover a motive, but he didn’t expect to have one served to him on a silver platter.
“That’s right,” Sanguine continued. “Look astonished. You’re young. What the hell. Someone dies and everyone’s supposed to act as if he were a saint. Well, Adams wasn’t a saint. Where I came from, we didn’t have time for that kind of hypocritical crap. Where did you grow up, Kincaid?” He quickly corrected himself. “Ben.”
“I grew up in the suburbs of Oklahoma City. Nichols Hills, to be exact.”
“Ah, such a trying childhood. Like something out of David Copperfield. You must have emotional scars through and through.” He leaned forward, pointing with his pencil. “Let me tell you where I grew up. On a Sioux Indian reservation in South Dakota.”
Ben scrutinized Sanguine’s face. His first impression was right. That would explain the kachina dolls and the other scattered Western relics in Sanguine’s office.
“Yes, I’m an Indian. Excuse me, we’re supposed to be called Native Americans now. I keep forgetting. And no, to answer your next question, Sanguine isn’t the name I was born with. It’s Bloodhawk. At least that’s the anglicization. Joseph Paitchee Bloodhawk. My mother was white.” He chortled quietly. “I guess she contributed the Joseph part.”
“I didn’t realize there were Indian reservations anymore.”