Disclosure_ A Novel - Michael Crichton [130]
“Jesus, Max,” Sanders said.
“You deny your part in this. You pretend to forget. You pretend to be unaware. And now you pretend to be confused.”
“Max—”
“Oh! I don’t know why I bother with you. How many hours do you have until this meeting? Twelve hours? Ten? Yet you waste your time talking to a crazy old man.” He spun in his wheelchair. “If I were you, I would get to work.”
“Meaning what?”
“Well, we know what your intentions are, Thomas. But what are her intentions, hmmm? She is solving a problem, too. She has a purpose here. So: what is the problem she is solving?”
“I don’t know,” Sanders said.
“Clearly. But how will you find out?”
Lost in thought, he walked the five blocks to Il Ter razzo. Fernandez was waiting for him outside. They went in together.
“Oh Christ,” Sanders said, as he looked around.
“All the usual suspects,” Fernandez said.
In the far section straight ahead, Meredith Johnson was having dinner with Bob Garvin. Two tables away, Phil Blackburn was eating with his wife, Doris, a thin bespectacled woman who looked like an accountant. Near them, Stephanie Kaplan was having dinner with a young man in his twenties—probably her son at the university, Sanders thought. And over to the right, by the window, the Conley-White people were in the midst of a working dinner, their briefcases open at their feet, papers scattered all over the table. Ed Nichols sat with John Conley to his right, and Jim Daly to his left. Daly was speaking into a tiny dictating machine.
“Maybe we should go somewhere else,” Sanders said.
“No,” Fernandez said. “They’ve already seen us. We can sit in the corner over there.”
Carmine came over. “Mr. Sanders,” he said with a formal nod.
“We’d like a table in the corner, Carmine.”
“Yes of course, Mr. Sanders.”
They sat to one side. Fernandez was staring at Meredith and Garvin. “She could be his daughter,” she said.
“Everybody says so.”
“It’s quite striking.”
The waiter brought menus. Nothing on it appealed to Sanders, but they ordered anyway. Fernandez was looking steadily at Garvin. “He’s a fighter, isn’t he.”
“Bob? Famous fighter. Famous tough guy.”
“She knows how to play him.” Fernandez turned away and pulled papers out of her briefcase. “This is the contract that Blackburn sent back. It is all in order, except for two clauses. First, they claim the right to terminate you if you are shown to have committed a felony on the job.”
“Uh-huh.” He wondered what they might mean.
“And this second clause claims the right to terminate you if you have ‘failed to demonstrate satisfactory performance in the job as measured by industry standards.’ What does that mean?”
He shook his head. “They must have something in mind.” He told her about the conversation he had overheard in the conference room.
As usual, Fernandez showed no reaction. “Possible,” she said.
“Possible? They’re going to do it.”
“I meant legally. It’s possible that they intend something of this sort. And it would work.”
“Why?”
“A harassment claim brings up the entire performance of an employee. If there is dereliction, even a very old or minor dereliction, it may be used to dismiss the claim. I had one client who worked for a company for ten years. But the company was able to demonstrate that the employee had lied on the original application form, and the case was dismissed. The employee was fired.”
“So this comes down to my performance.”
“It may. Yes.”
He frowned. What did they have on him?
She is solving a problem, too. So: what is the problem she is solving?
Beside him, Fernandez pulled the tape recorder out of her pocket. “There’s a couple of other things I want to go over,” she said. “There’s something that happens early on in the tape.”
“Okay.”
“I want you to listen.”
She gave the player to him. He held it close to his ear.
He heard his own voice saying clearly, “. . . we’ll face that later. I’ve given her your thoughts, and she’s talking to Bob now, so presumably