“I’ve just been waiting for something to come along, see? Biding my time. It was all a fantasy before the club, something I knew would never happen because neither of us could survive without the other paycheck. God, this is getting personal,” she said suddenly, laughing at herself. “I’m sorry, Ted.”
“It’s fine,” he assured her. “I don’t mind. Everyone needs a friendly ear now and then, right?”
She looked at him. Her eyes were kind, but weary at the same time. “Anyway, I suppose we’ll see what happens if this club of yours ever amounts to anything. Until then, it’s nothing but pipe dreams anyway.”
She stood up in a hurry, smoothing out her skirt. Ted rose respectfully to meet her gaze. “I’ll finish up with this in a bit,” she said, “I’ve got a few things to take care of in the meantime.”
He nodded, realizing that she’d probably said too much. He heard her sniff on her way out the door. Cold season, he told himself, cutting off any potential guilt.
~ 15 ~
Critics
The headline ‘Have Consumers Lost their Minds?’ led into a hit-piece of titanic proportions. And from The New York Reader no less; a powerful source, respected by publishers and authors alike.
In instances too numerous to mention, we see shoddy craftsmanship and poor skills being rewarded. Writers who fail to provide decent plot direction, in-depth character development, or even proper structure to their novels. Singers who find the basic tools of musicianship too much to bother with. Artists who would do well to return to crayon-menu art for a good long while in order to hone their craft.
This is what passes for quality in the art world these days, the virtual one in particular. Even more amazing is the fact that these products are selling like hotcakes. Burning up the charts, as it were. Why? One can only conclude that the purchasing public has lost not only their sense of good taste, but their collective minds.
An attack of this magnitude was never arbitrary. The Reader had a purpose in mind, a target in their crosshairs. The piece went on like so, a litany of vitriol heaped on the offenders; more to the point, vitriol heaped on the Gold Club and their clients, though they never delved into specifics. Even so, this posed a dilemma of how best to respond.
A solution presented itself on the day the attack article went to press, in the form of a letter of inquiry from an online critic.
* * *
Walking at a dangerous clip for one paying so little attention, Ella Jones was engrossed in a one-sided telephone conversation as she breezed back to her skylight-capped loft. “Oh, and one more thing...I just got off the phone with the most annoying agent, and if they don’t re-book me I swear I’m going to tell them to take that platinum super-member account and shove it. I can always take my business to Delta, you know? Their premium membership is better anyway, and I’ve got plenty enough loyalty in the bank with them. I don’t need anyone that doesn’t appreciate my business.”
Whether or not the person on the receiving end had anything to say was beside the point. Jones just liked hearing her own voice, and had to make sure there was someone there to hear it. She continued past the doorman and into the elevator, talking nonstop until she got to her door. She broke herself off mid-story, saying “I’ve got to run now, deadlines can’t wait!” This was followed by a quick dismissal, “Chao love, we’ll talk soon!” and then she cut the line without waiting for a reply.
A confident woman, bordering on self-involved, Ella firmly believed she had accomplished enough in life to have earned the attitude. Her surroundings and lifestyle reflected success, highlighting her commitment to excellence. An award winning journalist, a contributor to numerous magazines and print journals, she was on the cusp of a media presence rare for one so young and unconnected. The bedrock of her good fortune sprang from early achievements online, where she’d already been well known before the rest of the world had learned her name. Ranked among the top five notable reviewers on the Sahara.com website, her highest ranking thus far had been three, although she bounced around the four and five spot more often. The top two contenders were difficult to catch, notorious and verbose, but she had her eye on them and would pounce when she was ready. For now, she was content to maintain her rank and status until the time was right for a bigger move.
She’d just polished off a handful of reviews, keeping pace for the week without overdoing it. Her overachieving nature was usually for the best, but she was trying to break her habit of verbosity. Publishing so much her readers tired of seeing her name wasn’t good for business.
She spoke positively on a couple of her write-ups, though her instinct was to trash the lot of them—her readers hated an entirely negative personality, though they adored snark and negativity in moderation. And Ella gave the people, her people, what they wanted. That’s why she was so popular.
Those on the receiving end of her diatribes, on the other hand, actively despised her and wished she’d never been born. But they were powerless to do anything about it. Any retort was considered bad form. It would serve no purpose other than to blacklist the vartist in question, and none of them wanted that. So they bit their tongues and she laughed at them from afar, ready to attack whichever turned out to be the next wounded animal she could cut off from the herd.
But today, something was different. Today she happened to glance at one of her more recent diatribes, written just a few days ago. She wasn’t in the habit of looking backward, but now and then she liked to admire her handiwork. Smiling, she re-read her scathing commentary, satisfaction washing over as she tore this offering apart one more time from a distance. Pleased with herself, she was about to close the window when she noticed something odd. A splash of green drew the eye to flashing numbers, and beside them a bold arrow pointing up.
This book was climbing the charts. And at a decent clip, too.
That’s not supposed to happen, she thought, a sick feeling working its way up from her stomach. She was intimately aware of her clout scores, they were formidable, and hadn’t changed a bit in over a year. When she trashed a product, it was done for. No readers in significant numbers would go against her recommendation, it didn’t make sense. It must be a glitch, she told herself. Either that, or this particular vartist had a large family who’d taken pity on their loved one and bought the thing en masse, and had ordered their friends and family to do the same, and that was playing havoc with the scoreboard. Could that be the answer? she wondered. Yes, that had to be it.
She started looking deeper into the site, and pulled up another of her negative reviews from weeks before, and one more from a long while back. Horrified, she saw that both of them, too, were climbing the wall despite her outright hostile opinion. She remembered them clearly; they were garbage, even more than the first one. Not worthy of a single sale, let alone momentum of this sort.
How is this possible? She felt like she was going to be sick.
She clicked around in distracted fashion a few minutes more, then with a sharp intake of breath she couldn’t take it anymore. She slammed down the mouse, smashing it to pieces, and with an angry grunt she reached behind her monitor and shut it off.
She needed to think things over, leave the reviews behind for a while and go out for a spa treatment perhaps. She had plenty of complimentary coupons at the ready for just such an occasion, and it had been a while since she had pampered herself properly. The work could wait until she’d had time to decide what to do about this travesty. Her gut feeling was to abandon Sahara and switch companies—if they didn’t value her input, somebody else would.
* * *
In order to bring the entire group up to speed, Marge began conducting impromptu meetings on the warehouse floor shortly after her return. The pickers down there had little enough time to come up for air, never mind pay any attention to the people around them. This was in marked contrast to the office environment above. The floor was also noisy enough to mask their words even if anyone were listening. And there was always a ready excuse to
be there; customers and vendors were constantly demanding obscure merchandise specs that couldn’t be found elsewhere.
The floor was always hectic, which meant ducking out of a forklift’s path, or colliding with a frantic picker, or getting ensnared in a newbie tour. The tour leads were always on the lookout for strays, zeroing in on any infraction they could use as a cautionary tale.
“Ladies, hardhats in the safety zones please!” came a shrill admonishment. A petite redhead, herding her flock across the floor, was pointing at them. “See, folks, that’s one of the sort of infractions that will get you a written warning! We want to avoid those, now don’t we? So if you don’t mind...”
The woman stopped walking and stared them down. Realizing that there was no way to get rid of them short of compliance, Marge reached over to the nearest equipment bin and grabbed a handful of the ugly yellow hats, handing them out. Even that wasn’t sufficient, so they all reluctantly stuck them on their heads. The human resources guide gave them a final once-over, then with a squeaky humph noise she turned to continue her tour.
“Onward! Above your heads in a criss-cross pattern we can see the belt system many of you will be using. Aside from the executive winds and security center you can see along the far wall, the only way to get a proper look at the entire system is way up top of that ladder. That there’s known as ‘the perch’. Would ya’ll like to get up there and have a look? Great! Let’s head over there.”
Marge waited until all the new people were well out of earshot. Unlike the regulars, new hire groups were bored, apt to pay attention to anything around them rather than their tedious guide. When the first of them began climbing the perch, she knew it was safe to continue.
~ 16 ~
Ideas
The TV interview consisted mostly of softball questions lobbed by a disinterested reporter. Dennis Hamm sat in his usual kicked back style; sunk back in his leather chair, his legs crossed absently, his arms folded in what wasn’t so much a defensive posture as a supremely confident one. The entire statement he made was ‘I can handle anything’, and that extended not only to his body language but to the entire background as well. The imposing desk and chair took up most of the space, leaving little room for the journalist and making her look tiny in comparison. Awards and commendations peppered the back wall, fishing and hunting trophies littered the sides. In the corner closest to the camera, an oak-finished, gold embossed desk placard read Dennis Hamm in oversized script, with Chief Executive Officer lined up perfectly underneath, lending equal measure to both descriptions.
“And what sort of a leader are you, Mr. Hamm?”
“I like to keep busy, you see, but my function is to be a delegator, not a micro-manager. I expect my executive team to come up with solutions, and I allow them room to execute those solutions without much oversight on my part. Excuse me...”
Hamm waved someone in from off-camera. A leggy young secretary entered the frame and gave him a document which he ‘examined’, then signed with a flourish, handing it back to her without making eye contact. Til scoffed at the clearly staged display, but Ted raised an eyebrow and turned up the sound.”
“ Where was I. Ah, yes, as far as my own agenda is concerned, I have an excellent personal staff, as you just saw there. They take care of day to day matters so that I can be freed up to focus on the big picture.” The executive smiled, looking pleased with his self-aggrandizing reply to what was really a simple question.
“Oh God, do we really have to?” Til acted exasperated, but her sly smile promised something beyond the feigned boredom. “Can’t we just turn it off?”
Ted shushed her, paying close attention not only to the words of his boss, but his demeanor as well. “Just a second, please. I want to finish this...”
Til rolled her eyes and left the room. So much for intimacy, though she was likely to try again later. That was fine with Ted, but for now he felt the strong need to understand this face behind the company. The pre-selected questions and answers didn’t tell him much, but Ted felt strongly that if he could dig a little deeper, he would find something there. He felt an adversarial relationship brewing, though the reverse couldn’t possibly be true. He wouldn’t remember my face if he tripped over it. That was more to the point. Still, sitting here watching this man of power, knowing that all his secrets were open to him, lowly Ted Ward, gave him a sense like a game was afoot, or at least that's what his ego told him.
The topic had turned to employee morale, and Ted sat up straighter. “Our family of Sahara staffers are foremost on my mind, and on the minds of all my executives. Their safety and well-being is paramount. I’ve implemented programs such as icy-headbands, for instance, our very own portable cooling technology system. These devices are made available to all Sahara distribution specialists during those hot summer months. Those babies are available on Sahara.com, by the way, featured in our lifestyle section this month.”—Ted turned the volume up as Til, having grown restless by now, was making all kinds of little noises—“Our healthcare packages for full-time employees are the finest available,” the CEO droned on, “legally and morally sound as our community demands...”
The CEO continued on for several minutes, but Ted had shifted focus. No longer paying attention to the words, he was instead examining the boss’ surroundings, trying to glean some small bit of insight about the man. The office was a showplace, not a work space, and Ted was familiar enough with it from the tour to know that all the decorative touches, including the busy looking desk covered with important looking books and binders, had been in-place and untouched since long before the cameras arrived.
He did notice a couple of minute changes since he’d seen the place with his own eyes. For one thing, there was a keychain hanging on a hook where a jacket would normally belong. Someone must have taken the jacket, since he always appeared on camera with sleeves rolled up, but the keys seemed to have been tossed there unintentionally. They certainly marred an otherwise picture-perfect shot, although perhaps there was some purpose for displaying them Ted just hadn’t thought of.
A wastebasket, barely visible in the far corner of the shot, also caught his eye. It seemed to be overly full of scraps for an otherwise carefully manicured space. What sort of notes might the boss be writing, in such volume no less, only to toss them aside? The idea was intriguing, as he couldn’t imagine Hamm doing any real work whatsoever. The rumor mill insisted that all he did was read mail and hold court with local officials, assuming he was even present at all and not camped out in his downtown hotel suite.
The interview over, it was now time for the late-night shows, so he switched off and went looking for Til. He hoped she would still be receptive after being brushed-off.
* * *
“You believe me, don’t you? That I’ll always be there for you?”
Til’s voice was low, the way he liked it. Normally it’d be driving him crazy by now. It was a clear sign of his limits that he wasn’t able to respond at all to her charms. He just sat there, unmoved by it all, though her sentiment was sweet.
“I want to believe it,” he said, “I really, really want to.”
“But?”
There’s always a ‘but’. “But if it’s true, you’ll be the first. That’s all. I’ve been burned before,” he admitted, surprising himself with the honesty.
“Join the club,” she said, stroking his cowlick absently.
“Damaged goods, the two of us. Burned and used and thrown out with the trash.”
“Not by me, though. I’d never do that to you.” She leaned in closer and kissed him, soft, no pressuring for reciprocation. He appreciated that, as he had none to give.
“I know,” he said, “it’s just—”
“You don’t believe me?”
“I...” He paused, sitting back so he could look at her. “I believe you believe it. So yeah, I believe you.”
“You better.” She smiled and sat back away from him, placing her hands on his knees. “And you’d never use
me and throw me out either, right?”
Ted managed a small smile. “I wouldn’t dare.”
* * *
Just hanging out on the couch was one of their favorite things; wrapped up in each other, her head in the crook of his arm, him stroking the back of her hand, getting to know each other and working each other up at the same time.
“So the state fair was your biggest audience so far?” he murmured, paying close attention to her physical reactions.
She was practically purring over the attention, and anxious to tell all. “Yeah. Wait...no. Yeah, it must have been. There was something like two thousand people there. You know, they came and went and all, it wasn’t a captive audience or anything.” She laughed to herself, enjoying the feel of his touch and the warmth of the moment. “I’ll play bigger soon, though.” He squeezed tighter, an unspoken promise of support. He leaned in and kissed the top of her head.
“What if we could find you a short cut?” he suggested, his voice still low and sexy.
She pulled back, looking away with a shy smile. “You teasing me now?”
“No,”—he pulled her back in close—“not at all. It’s just...”
“Just?” She sounded intrigued.
Time to bait the hook, Ted figured. He spoke slowly, drawing a lazy finger back and forth along her arm, feeling goosebumps rise up. “Well, I had this kind of an idea I was thinking over the other day.”
“Oh yeah?” Til asked. “What idea was that?”
He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. Still stroking her arm, he made it seem like he was reluctant to say.
“Come on, what is it?” she cooed, her arm twitching from overstimulation.
Ted removed his hand and took a breath. “What if I could help you along? Career-wise, I mean...”
This prompted her to pull away, for real this time, sitting back on the sofa and turning to look into his eyes, searching for sarcasm. Finding none, she got up and walked into the kitchen, briskly enough to make him wonder if she was pissed off.
The Gold Club: A White Collar Crime Thriller Page 10