“Anderson gave me a blank check to go with the go-ahead I received from the board. You know that.”
“No need to be profligate,” she argued.
He shrugged. “A few individual bonuses won’t make a dent in the overall cost. I may want to make use of Larson and Kilcallen some day. It’s always a good idea to bind, men like that tight to you when you have the chance.”
“If that’s what you want, Benjy.” She made a mental note to inform payroll. Mental notes were the only kind that were necessary for Ruth Somerset to make. It was one of the things Huddy valued most about her. He disliked committing decisions to paper. Other people might read them someday.
Such a pretty head, too, he thought, though her coiffure hardly went with the sweatshirt and blue jeans. She’d forgotten to change that. He wouldn’t mention it. Ruth could be funny about having her mistakes pointed out to her.
Not for the first time he thought how fortunate he was. Already he was farther up the corporate ladder than most men half again his age and better connected than most. A beautiful, devious woman stood at his side to assist him. At a discreet distance from his side, of course. She was as intelligent and ambitious as he was. Yes, he was lucky.
He thought back one more time to the board meeting. Ridgeway had told them that New York had bounced the whole problem right back in their laps, and they’d damn well better come up with a solution fast. Hesitation among his colleagues, confusion as they filed out of the meeting room. His hasty call to Somerset to join him at his condo that night.
Then the working up of the plan. The myriad details to be attended to, the careful timing, the methods by which they would delay the county’s inspection: everything intricately plotted and graphed and then computer-printed and copied out.
Ridgeway’s expression the next morning when Huddy had confidently handed up the bound summary of the project. Waiting for word from New York. The official go-ahead with Ridgeway’s reluctant but nonetheless admiring blessing.
And now it was nearly finished. All the weeks of worrying and planning, the concern that a late summer rain would ruin everything, were behind them. Even the last-minute scramble to locate sufficient quantities of a certain chemical neutralizer when it was discovered that none was available in company warehouses hadn’t thrown them off schedule.
He chuckled at that memory. They’d been forced to purchase the neutralizer through a third and fourth party from one of CCM’s biggest competitors, who would have been delighted to withhold the stuff if they’d known it would have resulted in CCM’s public embarrassment.
Everything had gone as planned. Barring any last-second hitches the operation would be completed half an hour ahead of schedule.
He turned his attention from the valley where activity was beginning to diminish to the few lights from the small homes lining the far ridge. Streetlamps, mostly, he knew. It was too late for television and too early for coffee.
Greasers and wetbacks and bums, he thought dispassionately. He knew the names of every family that owned property bordering the dump. They’d been thoroughly and intensively researched. None seemed likely to make trouble about the dump. If any were so inclined they would have likely gone to the media long ago. None had.
A few of the houses had been here as long as the dumpsite. They were largely stucco over wood, with roofs of cracked red tile patched in places with corrugated steel. To Huddy’s early dismay he’d learned that a couple had small gardens facing the dump, which the poor owners cultivated assiduously. But he’d relaxed after seeing the photographs. The gardens were up high on the ridge line. Surely a few struggling heads of lettuce or celery stalks couldn’t send roots down far enough to encounter toxic wastes. Surely not.
No one had bothered to convey that information to the already frantic board. Huddy wasn’t about to enlighten them. Anyway, it was a false concern, as he’d already decided.
“I know for a fact there’ll be promotions out of this.” Somerset’s gaze was still on the magically changing landscape below. “If the bonus that comes with ’em is large enough I’d like for us to take off someplace.” She had the features of a movie star, he mused as she turned her face up to him. And behind it, the mind and morals of a piranha. “Let’s take a real vacation for a change. Tahiti. I’ve always wanted to see Tahiti.”
“You wouldn’t like it,” Huddy informed her. “Much too frenchified.”
“Well, someplace else, then.” She threw both arms around his neck, heedless of who might be watching, heedless of corporate propriety there on the hillside at sunrise. “Just the two of us on an island all to ourselves. The Bahamas, if you want to stay close to home. Jamaica. Barbados. I don’t care. As long as it’s got a warm beach and some privacy.”
He smiled down at her and put his arms around her back, pulling her close. “Alright, I surrender, sweetness. As soon as this is all wrapped up and put to bed and our promotions are finalized.”
“You know something yourself, then.”
“Enough,” he assured her. “It’s only logical. We’ve saved the corporate ass, and that’s always worth a step or two up the ladder.”
“Stennet’s job,” she murmured, her eyes glittering expectantly. “I’ve wanted that sucker’s job for more than a year. And when I’m head of all programming for Western Regional Operations and you’re Senior Vice-President–”
“Why stop there?” he interrupted her. “Ten years,” he said confidently, while admiring her aggressiveness, “give me ten years, and I’ll be Chairman. And not just of Western Operations.”
“What about me?” Her expression was full of mock-anxiety.
“You? You’ll be Assistant Chairman, of course.”
“How droll.” She tapped him lightly where she loved him. “What about Webster?”
“Forget about him. He’s a turkey, and no relatives in high places can change that. Not that he’s a dope, he’s not. But no guts. Hesitates to commit himself. New York would never name him to an important post because they know he’d vacillate over any deal he came in contact with.”
“Five years,” she decided, watching him. “You won’t need ten.”
“If we’re lucky. If CCM isn’t interested, there are other companies. When word of our success with this leaks out … and I’ll make sure it leaks all over the place … our competitors will fall all over themselves offering me switch bonuses and perks. But I’d rather stay with CCM. I know the operation. Of course, if Exxon gets really serious….”
She looked surprised at that. “You didn’t tell me you’ve been in touch with them.”
“Don’t get excited. Just a couple of friendly lunches is all. Shop talk. You know how I always like to cover my rear.”
“Not as much as you like to cover mine.” The glittering eyes again, only different this time.
He looked one last time across at the small homes across the valley. She followed his gaze, turned abruptly serious.
“There’s been no trouble with any of them?”
“What kind of trouble could they make, even if they knew enough and had the inclination? Niggers and trash. But no, not a peep out of any of ’em. When I came through here a week ago to make the final sweep I contacted those who aren’t getting welfare checks. I told them we were going to do some landscape work around here and that I’d appreciate it and so would my company if they’d make sure to keep their kids out of the way. Gave them fifty bucks a head. You should have seen them take off in their junkers. Straight for the nearest liquor store.” He made a gesture of disgust.
“Of course, there were one or two I couldn’t buy off, but we didn’t have any trouble shutting them up. I had some friends pay them visits. Been no trouble. No problems at your end?”
She shook her head. Blonde hair rippled in the fading moonlight. “Below board level no one even suspects what’s going on. All costs and equipment procurations are filed under ‘Baja Exploration and Development,’ along with our phosphate operations down there. It’d take a better programmer than the County retains to separate truth from fiction, and he’d have to know Spanish anyway. Es verdad, amore. Even if somebody tripped over the actual figures, the substance of the operation’s as well hidden as a real Gucci bag in a truck full of Hong Kong fakes.”
Huddy nodded and gently stepped away. A man was mounting toward them. He was a big, beefy individual a few years older than Huddy. It was hard to tell. Physical labor aged you faster than desk work and his beer belly made him look even older.
This was Larson, and he had four kids and a wife prone to illness, Huddy remembered. All four kids still lived at—and off—home. None of them had a dope problem. He smiled to himself. He liked to know all about his subordinates. It helped him to identify with their petty personal problems. It also provided him with the wherewithal to wield more than just corporate power over their lives.
