I was experiencing the strangest feeling sitting in Saul’s office. It was like being in a haunted house—I could almost feel the souls of former associates that Saul had crushed lingering around me. I shivered as I picked up my pen. Taking notes of this call was the least I could do for the unfortunate associate who would have to replace me on this deal when I told Saul I was too busy with Highlander.
“I hear you. I hear you.” Saul leaned into the speaker phone, nodding impatiently. “I can assure you this place is like Area 51. Nothing ever leaks. Look, I gotta bounce. We’ll get started and circle back tomorrow night.” He slammed his finger down on the “end call” button as the other line rang, and scribbled something down on a yellow sticky note.
I looked down at my notes. “Buyout. Confidential. Motivated seller—sinking ship.” The details of the transaction must have been discussed before I arrived. These notes were not going to be a big help when I passed them on.
“I assume you got all that.” His tone was almost accusatory.
I cleared my throat. “Unfortunately, Saul, I don’t think I’m going to be able to help on this transaction. I’m working on the Highlander deal and Ben said that it would take up one hundred percent of my time.” I tried to keep my tone even, but I noticed a tiny shake in my voice.
Saul folded his arms across his chest, glaring at me. His expression was unreadable and I briefly wondered if he was sizing me up to see if he could take me. Then, as if I hadn’t even spoken, he said, “The relevant documents are on my secretary’s desk. Copy them and get up to speed. Get me a bid letter and document request list by tonight.” He returned his attention to his computer, signaling the end of our conversation.
Back in my office, I pressed the heels of my palms hard against my eyes. How was I possibly going to balance surviving a Saul deal with impressing Ben? And why weren’t there any other associates on the deal? A small deal usually had at least two corporate associates working on it. A large deal could have more than ten assigned. It was one thing to be on a deal with Saul—that was bad enough, but to be the ONLY one on the deal with him? That meant no buffer between me and Saul. I’d be the only one for him to abuse.
I picked up the phone and called the one person who could help. Jason might sympathize, but not being in the corporate department, he had no idea of the implications of being put on a deal with Saul. The partners in the Trusts department might as well have been Birkenstock wearing, tie-dye clad, dreadlocked, hacky sack–playing hippies sitting around holding hands around a campfire singing kumbaya compared to the partners in the corporate department.
“Nooooooo! Oh, man, you’re screwed—he’s going to eat you alive!” Alex wailed.
I sighed impatiently into the phone. “I’ve worked for Maxwell before, remember?” Maxwell was certainly no picnic. He believed associates should be treated like soldiers and routinely employed the tricks of psychological warfare he’d learned during his ten years in the Israeli army. Except instead of trying to gain information from a prisoner of war or get an enemy to surrender, he used these tactics to get his associates to work harder, stay later, and never EVER make a mistake.
“Please,” Alex scoffed. “Maxwell is a kitten compared to Saul.”
I suppressed a shudder. “Okay, then fill me in on what I need to know before working for him.”
“Let’s see. Well, he likes to drink the tears of sobbing associates.”
“Ha, ha. You know what I mean. Like, he’s best to deal with in the morning, he’ll freak out if you don’t print out his documents double-sided …” I tried to tap into my repertoire of partner idiosyncrasies. “Doesn’t want you to refer to him by his first name? Doesn’t want you to eat meat while working for him? You know, just one of those strange quirks that all partners seem to have … anything like that?”
He cleared his throat and lowered his voice. “Listen, and understand. Saul is out there. He can’t be bargained with, he can’t be reasoned with, he doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And he absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.”
Had Alex lost his mind? After a beat of silence I remembered. “Umm … is that a line from Terminator 2?”
“Yes, but it is surprisingly appropriate in this situation.”
“As helpful as your 90’s movie knowledge has been …” My tone was clipped.
“Okay, okay …” His voice softened. “Listen, Mac, the only advice I can really give you is to repeat the following in your head: ‘sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.’”
Not helpful. At all.
I flipped through the pile of documents that Saul had provided and tried to make some sense of them. No matter how many times I looked at them, though, they still looked like a random compilation of corporate documents from various companies. There was an organizational chart of the employees for an entity called Falcon Mobility Inc., a few directors’ resolutions, and the bylaws of various entities. Were they subsidiaries of Falcon Mobility Inc.? It was impossible to tell. There was nothing in the documents to indicate which company was making the bid, what they were bidding on, or what the proposed terms were intended to be. And I would need to know whether our client was purchasing the stock or the assets. That detail was crucial to drafting a document request list.
I felt like I’d been dropped in the middle of the Sahara without a compass. Saul knew I’d only been there for the end of the call, and his directions had been so sparse, I’d just assumed the background material would be in the documents he provided.
I called Anna, hoping that she’d inadvertently missed a few documents. I really, really didn’t want to go back to Saul with questions if there was any way I could track down the information myself. That would be like handing him a loaded gun and helping him point it at my own head. Anna confirmed she’d given me everything she had and I hung up the phone, knowing I’d hit a dead end. “Shit, I’m screwed! Day one of working with Saul and I’m already screwed,” I exclaimed aloud, burying my face in my hands.
Sadir leapt up from his seat. “He’s thrown something at you or threatened to fire you ALREADY?” he asked excitedly.
“No,” I responded softly, feeling a bit embarrassed about my theatrics. Saul hadn’t done anything to me yet. “He just … he’s put me on this deal which I have no time for and he hasn’t given me enough information to do what he wants. And by not enough information, I mean he’s given me like, NO information.” I dejectedly flipped through the documents again.
“So … ask the senior associate on the deal for more information,” Sadir replied, sitting back down, clearly disappointed that I didn’t have a Saul torture story for his collection.
“That’s the worst paaaart,” I whined. “There isn’t another associate—it’s just me!”
“Oh, man, you’ve got no buffer? You really ARE screwed. There’s no way to avoid failure in that situation.”
I slumped back in my chair, sulking. What did I do to deserve this? I wondered, filling with self-pity. It had to be karma. I must have been a terrible person in a previous life. Maybe Attila the Hun. Why else would I deserve my present fate?
“I’m going to go grab a sandwich.” Sadir stood up and grabbed his coat off the back of his chair. “There’s no use sulking about your situation, Mackenzie. It just … it is what it is.” He shrugged.
It is what it is. I had grown to hate that expression. That, and “it’s the nature of the beast.” Leave it to the legal profession to overuse two expressions which essentially amount to saying “you have no control over your life, so don’t try and do anything about it, just suck it up and take it.”
I’m building this up too much in my head, I thought as I typed out the email to Saul. I’ve dealt with difficult partners before.
I reviewed my email three times, proofing it for errors and ensuring I’d asked everything I needed to know in the most succinct way possible. Finally I hit send. Staring at my inbox, I exhaled a long breath. The only thing left to d
o was wait for a response.
Ten minutes later I heard someone thundering down the hallway. Is there some kind of emergency? I wondered, as I stood up to see what was going on. Then there he was. Saul. He gripped both sides of the door frame, his eyes blazing, breathing heavily.
Partners never visited associates’ offices. I stared at him, stunned.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing? This deal is under a STRICT Chinese Wall. A fucking CHINESE WALL.” Spit was flying from his mouth. “You put the name of the target company in the email, you stupid shit.”
I stood at my desk, in shock, the burn of mortification creeping up my neck. I swallowed hard. “I … ummm … you….” I sputtered as I reached down, fumbling to gather the documents his secretary had provided me.
He lurched forward a few steps, pointing his finger at me. “Are you an idiot? Are you an idiot? Are you a God-damned fucking IDIOT?” His voice rose higher with each repeated question until he was shrieking. “A Chinese Wall means you NEVER refer to the buyer or seller by anything other than their fucking codenames. I should FIRE you right here.” He waved his hands wildly. “And what the fuck would possess you to send ME that email instead of asking Sarah your questions,” he said through clenched teeth. “I’m running six MULTIBILLION dollar deals. I don’t have time to answer your God-damned questions.” He inhaled deeply through his nose and pointed his finger at me again. “NEVER … YOU … NEVER AGAIN!” And then he was gone.
Thirty seconds later, I heard him slam his office door so hard that the walls shook all the way down the hall. I had never witnessed that kind of unmitigated rage, and it was directed at ME. Thankful that I had the office to myself, I closed the door and held onto the handle to steady myself as I tried not to hyperventilate. Keep it together, Mackenzie. Keep it together, Mackenzie, I repeated to myself. I blinked back tears. Okay, what do I do now? I let out a long breath, sat back down, and picked up the phone. With my hands shaking, I dialed Sarah’s extension.
“Oh, Mackenzie—I was wondering when I’d hear from you. I couldn’t make the conference call with Saul earlier because I was at a meeting out of the office. I figured you’d just touch base with me after. What’d I miss?” she asked disinterestedly. I could hear her clicking away at her keys over the speakerphone.
I was stunned. There was a still, beating silence before I found my voice. “Uh, Sarah …” I cleared my throat. “I didn’t even know you were on the deal, so I didn’t know I was supposed to contact you.” I could feel my anger rising.
“Well, didn’t you ASK Saul who was on the deal team?” she asked condescendingly. “I mean, you’re not new here anymore. You should really know the proper questions to ask by now. You shouldn’t need your mentor to help you with that!” She gave a brief snort of laughter.
“Sarah.” I pressed my fingers into my brow bone. I’ve never considered myself a violent person, but what I wanted to say to her was, “the mere sound of your voice nearly sends me into a murderous rage and I am this close to coming down to your office, leaping across your desk, and poking your eyes out with your bobby pins.” No! Be above it, Mackenzie! You’re a bigger person than that! Taking a deep breath, I forged ahead. “I need some details of the proposed transaction to draft the documents that Saul requested. He just informed me I should be addressing my questions to you.” I tried to sound professional and calm as my heart rate returned to normal. I’d plot her death later. Right now, there was work to do.
“I just heard him seriously unloading on someone. That was you?” She was still enjoying toying with me. Then, in a sickeningly innocent tone, she added, “Didn’t you read the email I sent you earlier?”
I quickly scanned my inbox. Every email was opened and reviewed. There was no way I could have missed an email from Sarah. I balled up my fists, digging my nails into my palms in frustration. “I never received an email from you, Sarah,” I said tightly. “You didn’t send it.”
“Huh … I could have sworn I sent it to you. Strange. Anyway, our client Doberman Partners wants to buy Falcon Mobility Inc. and take it private. I just re-sent the email to you, so review what I sent and prepare the documents Saul requested. You should have enough information now. Let me know if you have any questions,” she added breezily. “Oh, and make sure you send them to me for review before they go to Saul. We don’t want another blow-up.”
Click.
My blood was boiling when I opened her email. There, below Sarah’s infuriating “see below,” was Saul’s email to Sarah instructing her to send me the documents and bring me up to speed. At bottom of the email, in bold, all caps Saul had written CLIENT WANTS CHINESE WALL STANDARDS IN PLACE. BUYER = ALPHA, SELLER = OMEGA, TRANSACTION = PROJECT MONTAUK ON ALL DOCUMENTS AND COMMUNICATION.
“You have got to be freaking kidding me.” I blew out a long breath.
And the fun was only just beginning.
7
THE DRIVER DEPOSITED ME outside of my building. I signed the voucher and made my way inside. It was midnight, the earliest I’d returned home since I’d been put on the Highlander deal.
The past week had passed in a round-the-clock haze of work and verbal abuse. Saul didn’t like a day to pass without releasing his aggression, sort of like how some people can’t get through the day without their morning coffee. Sometimes it was a seemingly rhetorical email like “ARE YOU STUPID?” “WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU THINK THAT?” “DID YOU EVEN GRADUATE FROM LAW SCHOOL?” (He wrote his emails in all caps, which had the effect of making you feel like he was yelling at you, even when he was nowhere near you.) Other times it was contradictory, rhetorical emails like “IS THERE A REASON YOU HAVEN’T SENT ME THE SUMMARY?” followed by “WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU SENDING ME THIS?” when I sent him the summary. Those were fun.
Then there were the phone calls. “This is not what I fucking asked for!” he’d screech so loudly I’d have to hold the receiver away from my ear until the line went dead. He clearly didn’t have the time to fill me in on what was wrong with the work I’d given him or explain what he had asked for. I was always at a loss as to how to handle those calls. Should I have called him back and politely said, “We must have got cut off, Saul. You were saying?” Or maybe spoken to him in his own language with something like, “Well, what did you fucking ask for?”
But Saul’s all caps email tirades and phone calls didn’t compare to witnessing his terror in person. Above all, I dreaded the “come to my office” email. That meant he wanted to personally witness your reaction to his torture. He wasn’t going to be satisfied with just hearing your voice crack over the phone or picturing your face drop as you read his offensive email. No, when he demanded to see you face to face you knew there would be yelling and humiliation. It would almost certainly be enough to ruin your entire day and keep you up all night. And today he’d been out for blood.
“You need to get your shit together,” Sarah had hissed at me as we both scurried out of Saul’s office, fleeing a particularly scathing fit over my misplaced comma. “You are making too many mistakes. Go home and go to sleep,” she’d commanded. From anyone else it would’ve sounded like thoughtful advice. From Sarah, it was a direct order. So I did as I was told.
“Evening.” Eddie gave me a nod when I entered the lobby of my apartment building. I’d come to know Eddie Esposito better than I knew any of the other doormen. He was your typical New Yorker—a Bronx native with a mess of gelled black hair who was quick to dispense advice on where to find the best coffee, or complain about the Yankees. He worked twelve hour shifts, 8 P.M. until 8 A.M., which meant he was the first person I said hello to in the morning and usually the last person I saw in the evening.
“Hi, Eddie.” I gave a wan smile.
“Another late night, Mackenzie?”
“Uh huh,” I sighed, readjusting my messenger bag on my shoulder. I was too tired to speak in full sentences, let alone actual words.
He blew out a large puff of air and shook his head in disbelief. “There’s gotta be a
n easier way. There’s just gotta be.”
“Goodnight, Eddie,” I called out without turning around, avoiding his stare and my own reflection in the mirrored lobby on my way to the elevator.
“’Night, Mackenzie. Get some rest,” I heard him say as I punched the button for the tenth floor.
I closed my eyes and leaned against the elevator wall. Even in my semi-awake state I could still recall with perfect clarity the first time I walked through the doors of the Death Star, dressed in the interview suit I’d borrowed from Kim. The sound of my heels click-clacking in the high ceilinged lobby had made me feel like I was one of the Wall Street power players, on my way up to a conference room to say things like “My client says ‘No deal!,’” slamming my fist down on the table for effect. Click clack, click clack. “Only the best are invited to interview here,” the intense looking woman from Human Resources informed me in the same tone actresses use when uttering the line, “It’s an honor just to be nominated.” She’d led me down a winding corridor, past walls of filing cabinets and the sound of whirring printers. “Your interview is with Phil Sirett, the head of the Litigation group,” she’d whispered, raising her brows with significance as I nodded, looking appropriately impressed. We stopped abruptly in front of a huge, stark office. “Here we are! Phil, this is Mackenzie, your four o’clock,” she’d sing-songed, before turning and giving me a final wave. Behind a spotless, clutter-free desk sat a grey-haired man, peering down at my resume through glasses perched on the tip of his nose. Without looking up, he gestured for me to sit down in the hard wooden chair across from his desk. It was at this point that I thought I might throw up. Instinctively, I knew this would be a doozy.
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