The Dinosaur Club

by William Heffernan

  Bennett rode the elevator up. His lips held a small smile. He had just tipped the doorman five dollars, told him he wanted to surprise Ms. Moore, that he preferred not to be announced. The man knew him from past visits, noted the bottle of champagne crooked in his arm, and happily pocketed the money.

  Bennett rang Samantha’s bell, then stepped aside, out of range of the spy hole. He wanted to get the full impact of her surprise. The door opened and he stepped quickly into the opening, the bottle of champagne held out before him.

  “A peace offering,” he said. “To make up for all the pressure I’ve put you under these past weeks.”

  The reaction was not what he had expected. Samantha seemed momentarily flustered. She hesitated, shook her head slightly. It was almost as though she were embarrassed. He flashed his best smile. “We’ll just have one quick drink,” he said. “The renewal of a meaningful friendship.”

  He started past her, but she stepped in front of him. Behind her a short entry hall led to the living room. It was too narrow for him to move past. He stared at her, unable to keep his irritation hidden.

  “I don’t understand your attitude,” he said. “There was a time, not too long ago, when my little surprises pleased you.”

  “I’m tired, Carter. And I’m occupied.”

  The remark puzzled him, but he brushed it aside. The smile returned. “You can ignore your work for just an hour,” he teased. He started past her again, but she put a hand up, pressing it against his chest.

  “Carter! Please!”

  He was stunned. Then, behind her, a shadow filled the narrow hall. At first he couldn’t make the person out, and he felt a momentary rush of embarrassment. Then the figure became clear: Jack Fallon standing there in a T-shirt and pair of shorts.

  Bennett stared at him. Slowly the clothing registered. His eyes snapped back to Samantha. “What is this?” he demanded. Thoughts of betrayal flooded in: Fallon and Samantha; all the well-guarded secrets she held. Then weeks of subtle rejection returned—the way she had begged off each time he had suggested a drink, or dinner. She had been with him. It was all too apparent now. And there was no telling what she had told him. He wasn’t sure which infuriated him more—the threat of disclosure or her obvious preference for this aging fool.

  “Carter, I think you’re completely out of line,” Samantha said. She had kept her voice soft, and he considered her tone blatantly condescending. His anger flashed.

  “You do, do you?” He glared at her. “And what am I supposed to think about this?” He jerked his head toward Fallon. “When I come here and find my corporate counsel in this situation.”

  Bennett’s peripheral vision caught Fallon coming toward him. Samantha seemed to sense it as well, and she moved slightly, keeping herself between them.

  “Carter, I think you should go. Now.” Her voice was commanding, and that, too, shocked him. He had always enjoyed a hint of subservience from this woman, had always told himself that it came not only from his superior position in the company but from himself as well.

  “Don’t you dare speak to me like that,” he snapped. “I expect some answers, and I expect them now.” His eyes went past her and riveted on Fallon, only a few feet away. “You’re both on very dangerous ground.”

  Fallon grinned at him. It sent Bennett’s rage up another notch.

  “The lady asked you to leave, Carter,” Fallon said. “Be a good boy and do it now.”

  Bennett spun to face him again. “Don’t you ever tell me what to do, Fallon. You’re pathetic, an impotent laughingstock to everyone around you.

  Fallon stepped around Samantha so quickly Bennett had no time to react. When he did the bottle of champagne hampered him, and when he finally dropped it, it was too late. Fallon had spun him around, grabbed him by the seat of the pants and the collar of his shirt and yanked upward. The move drove Bennett’s trousers into his crotch, and forced him onto his toes. He felt himself propelled forward as Fallon threw him into the hall.

  He hit the far wall and immediately heard a mild rebuke from Samantha: “Jack. Please don’t.” She was concerned—afraid Fallon might hurt him. Him! Hurt him! He spun around and found Fallon filling the doorway. In the T-shirt and shorts he looked fitter than Bennett would have suspected. His bravado surged past doubt. He wasn’t sure exactly what he’d do if Fallon came after him again. At that moment he didn’t care. He jabbed a finger at the man’s face, intending it for Samantha as well.

  “You’re both finished,” he snapped. “Neither one of you will survive this. I promise you.”

  Fallon stared at him. He seemed infuriatingly amused. Bennett felt as though he might explode.

  “Kiss my ass, Carter.” Fallon spoke the words with contempt.

  Bennett stormed off toward the elevator. Fallon closed the door and picked up the abandoned bottle of champagne, held it up and inspected the label. He grinned at Samantha. “Not a terrific vintage,” he said. “But it is chilled. Let’s have a drink.”

  Samantha stared at him. “You’re feeling quite proud of yourself, aren’t you?”

  Fallon’s grin widened. “Actually, I haven’t felt this good in years,” he said.

  23

  SAMANTHA ENTERED BENNETT’S OFFICE AT EIGHT-thirty. She knew he always arrived early, well before his assistant—to set the tone, as he liked to say. She left the door to his office open and walked straight to his desk. Bennett stared up at her; a smirk seemed to be hiding behind a coldly indifferent countenance. He thinks you’re here to plead for your job, she thought.

  “I’d like to discuss last night,” she began. “Specifically, your behavior.” There was an edge to her voice that seemed to reignite his anger. She could see him struggle to keep it in check.

  Bennett turned back to the papers spread across his desk. “There’s nothing to discuss,” he said. “You’ll be gone by the end of business today. And your friend Fallon won’t be far behind.”

  “You told me that last night, Carter. I heard you, Jack Fallon heard you, and I’m certain several of my neighbors heard you. There’s an elderly woman across the hall who hears everything.” Samantha placed her hands on his desk and leaned forward. “So I doubt I’ll have any difficulty proving the suit I intend to file against this company on Monday.”

  Bennett sneered at her. “What suit? You don’t have a suit.”

  Samantha offered up a small, cold smile. “The suit will charge sexual harassment, and it will name you as the offending party.”

  Bennett laughed in her face. “Good luck,” he said. “You’re being terminated for gross insubordination and ethical misconduct—all of it involving your disclosure of privileged information. I don’t think the company will have much trouble proving it. I don’t think the bar association will either.”

  Samantha kept her smile in place. “That should be an intriguing defense, Carter. Let’s see. Your attorneys will argue that I was dismissed because I told one of this company’s executives that Waters Cable intends to violate federal law by initiating a plan that eliminates all its older employees.” She raised her eyebrows. “Well, confession is good for the soul, but no, I don’t think so, Carter. It certainly wouldn’t be my advice. In fact, I’d tell them to settle, and settle quickly. And if the plaintiff wouldn’t agree—which, of course, she won’t—I’d advise them to drop any downsizing plan they had, so they could deny its existence in court, and then to deal with the charges directly.” Samantha leaned closer and hit him with the smile again. “And those charges, Carter, will consist of you showing up at my apartment, champagne in hand. Of you bribing my doorman, so you could arrive unannounced. Of you then seeking sexual favors similar to those you had enjoyed in the past. And finally, of you finding another man there, and feeling rebuffed, making loud, verbal threats against my employment, which you subsequently carried out. Yes, I think the company’s defense will be interesting. Especially after I bring up your downsizing proposal as a way of showing the previous faith and confidence you had in my ab
ilities. And when I also point out that you fired the man you found in my apartment, well, I don’t think the outcome will be much in doubt.”

  Bennett’s hands began to tremble with rage, and he clenched his fists to hide it. She was right. The company would respond exactly as she predicted. He could see his downsizing plan sailing out the window. He could see Charlie Waters’s plans sailing along beside it. A lawsuit—especially this type of suit—would have the media salivating, and the public glare would be too bright to allow anything else to take place. Bennett clenched his jaw. And you haven’t even begun to assess its effect on your own career.

  Bennett drew a breath and eased back in his chair. “Well, Ms. Moore, you don’t paint a very pretty picture. It would seem I may have miscalculated.” He gave her another cold, sterile smile. “And you know how I hate it when that happens.” He pushed himself forward, and again began to study the papers on his desk. “So please forget any personal disagreements we may have had. They, of course, have no effect on your position within the company.” He rearranged some papers, tightened his hands into fists again. “And, also, please be advised that no further work will be required of you regarding the proposed downsizing of this company. I want to be sure the company is in full compliance with federal law, and I’m afraid your suggestions failed to provide that assurance.” He glanced up with a horrible attempt at a smile. “I’ll send you a memo to that effect later today. Is there anything else?”

  Samantha waved her hand in a gesture of dismissal. “No, Carter, that will do nicely.”

  Bennett watched her leave. He had unclenched his fists, and his hands had begun to tremble again. As the outer door to his office closed, he rose from his chair, grabbed a paperweight from his desk, and hurled it across the room. It hit the opposite wall and fell to the floor, leaving a deep gouge just below a photograph he had hung that morning. The photo showed Bennett, attired in camouflage, his paintball gun held in the air, as he accepted his trophy as the New England Regional Paintball Champion.

  Bennett fell back into his chair. His breath was coming in gasps. There was a light rapping on his door and his head snapped toward the sound.

  There was another light knock, then the door swung open and a man stepped tentatively into the office.

  “Mr. Bennett?”

  “Who are you?”

  The man swallowed, seemed to summon up his courage. “I’m Victor Nagy, Mr. Bennett. I’m from the testing lab at the Plattsburgh plant.” Nagy’s eyes drifted to the gouge in the wall, then the paperweight on the floor. He turned nervously back to Bennett. “I’m sorry if I came at a bad time, sir. But I’ve been trying to reach you for over a week. It’s truly important, Mr. Bennett. So important I decided to take the day off and try to see you personally.”

  Bennett glared at him. He spoke through gritted teeth. “My assistant told you I’d call when I could.”

  Nagy seemed to freeze in place, then again draw from some hidden reserve—perhaps courage, perhaps unabashed ambition. “Mr. Bennett, it’s about Mr. Robaire and Mr. Fallon, and some unauthorized tests they’re conducting.”

  Bennett’s eyes widened. “Tell me!” he hissed.

  Nagy fumbled a hand into his coat pocket and withdrew a micro recorder. “Mr. Bennett, if you’ll only listen to this tape, it will explain everything.”

  Wally stared across his desk, a cup of coffee growing cold before him. “So what the hell does it mean?” he asked.

  Fallon was seated in Wally’s office. He had just given him a rundown on the earlier tests conducted by Paul Palango, and the confirming results he had just received from Palango’s boss.

  “Damned if I know. But two separate scientists at M.I.T. are certain. And I keep telling myself that Charlie is too good an engineer for this kind of screwup. There’s no question Sprint received cable intended for the gyroscope research project. And there’s no question the production tolerances set by Waters were off. The error was infinitesimal, but enough to cause static-electrical breakdowns in the gyroscope system we’re developing. Christ, they weren’t even adequate for less demanding communications. And they sure as hell never would have sustained laser impulses over the distances set in the government’s gyroscope specs.”

  “So I guess we go to him and tell him what we found,” Wally said.

  “How do we do that without putting everybody’s head on the block?” Fallon asked. “Charlie’s directive was clear. No unauthorized tests. Period. If I’m right about this, I think he’ll bounce anybody who was even on the periphery of having those tests run.”

  “But, for chrissake, we’re bailing the company out of a bind. If it hadn’t been for this foul-up—if Sprint hadn’t got the wrong cable—we never would have known.” Fallon just stared at him, and the lightbulb went off over Wally’s head. “Jesus, Jack, you think it was intentional?”

  Fallon shrugged. “I think you have to consider the possibility. What if management is angling for some cost overruns. You know how the government operates. Technical problems come up, and the government bears the freight to resolve them. Look, the Defense Department wants us to have this contract. The last thing they want is to yank it. It’s ours, and the procurement guys want it to stay that way. Hell, the only viable competition is foreign, and they want to avoid that route. They don’t want critical parts for their missile systems dependent on foreign suppliers. They learned that lesson when they handed the Japanese a similar advantage on computer parts used in F-Sixteen fighters. Now, if the Japanese withhold those parts, our planes don’t fly. And nobody’s geared up to take their place. The boys in the Pentagon don’t want to find themselves in the same position with the Germans, or Koreans, or whoever.”

  Wally stared at him. “Hey, my friend, I understand all that, but you’re talking fraud here.”

  “Look at the record, Wally. Defense contractors have made defrauding the U.S. government an art form.”

  “But we’ve never pulled that shit.”

  “We’ve never had the opportunity. We’ve never been in that money pit before. We’ve always been subcontractors. We provided product to the companies who manufactured the end-user item—the aircraft, or tank, or missile, or whatever. This time we’re developing a new system based on our product alone.”

  Wally considered what he’d been told. “If this is true, Jack, then we’ve got a hammer. And we can use it to whack Charlie Waters right between the eyes.”

  “If we can prove it,” Fallon said. “Hell, my suspicions may be completely off the wall, and I’m not even sure I’ll be around long enough to get to the bottom of it, one way or the other.” He steepled his fingers and stared through them. The potential effects of last night’s debacle slowly settled in. “I had a little set-to with Bennett last night.” He explained the confrontation at Samantha’s apartment, then added, “So I just might find myself on the street by the end of this week.”

  “No, you won’t.”

  Both men turned to the sound of Samantha’s voice. She closed the door to Wally’s office, then took a chair next to Fallon. “Your assistant told me where to find you. I just left Carter’s office.”

  She quickly reviewed her meeting with Bennett.

  “Jesus,” Wally said. “Oh, to be a fly on the wall, a worm in the woodwork at that little séance.”

  Fallon laughed. “So we won’t be fired until after the buyout. Of course, if I insist on taking it, he won’t have to fire me at all.” He held Samantha’s eyes. “You, on the other hand, won’t be on his list. But you’ll follow us out the door in short order.”

  “I may insist on being part of it,” Samantha said. “If the company refuses, it might make another interesting lawsuit.”

  Wally Green let out a low, maniacal cackle. “Leapin’ lizards,” he intoned. “That’ll make you not only the youngest but definitely the best-looking dinosaur in the club.”

  “And certainly the meanest,” Fallon added. He reached out and took her hand. “When this is over, I’m going to fire
Arthur C. Grisham and hire you.”

  Wally leaned across his desk, part in camaraderie, part to get a better look at Samantha’s crossed legs. “Now that she’s a full-fledged dinosaur, tell her about the M.I.T. results.”

  Fallon watched her eyes widen as he explained.

  “Jack, that’s wonderful—providing we can prove it.”

  “Yeah, that’s definitely the rub. And I’m not quite sure how we do that.”

  Samantha’s face broke into a smile. “Maybe I can help.” She told them about her computer wizard, Stanley Kijewski, and what she had asked him to do.

  Fallon grinned at her. “Christ, you’re just full of delightful little surprises today,” he said.

  Samantha brushed the compliment aside. “The important thing is, if he knows what he’s looking for it makes it easier. He might overlook something technical about the product line, thinking it has nothing to do with the buyout. But if we tell him what we suspect…”

  “You’d better fill him in right away,” Fallon said.

  “I’ll call him now,” Samantha said. “Better still, I’ll go and see him. I wouldn’t put it past Carter to have my phone tapped.” She smiled at the idea. “Besides, I don’t have much work to do. Not after being relieved of duty as Carter’s favorite hatchet person.”

  A knock on Wally’s door ended the banter. Carol entered quickly, her face streaked with tears.

  Fallon got to his feet and went to her. His first thought was that one of the other assistants she had recruited to help them had just gotten the ax. Then the look on her face really hit, and he had a sudden foreboding that something far worse had happened. “Carol, what’s wrong?” He took hold of her arms. “Calm down. Tell me, please.”

  She began to sob. “Oh … Jack … It’s Jim … Jim Malloy … I … I … just … got … a call. He’s … he’s dead, Jack.”