The Millionaires - Brad Meltzer [133]
Scrolling down, there’re three buttons on the Disney Directory: Entertainment, Parks & Resorts, and one labeled Inside the Company.
Gillian’s about to open her mouth. Charlie pounds her with a “duh” glare, hits Inside the Company, and takes far too much joy in watching her shut up. I pinch him again.
Y’know, she saved our asses back at the house, I motion.
She’s also the one who dropped us there, he glares as he turns back to the monitor and clicks the button for Disney Online.
As the newest page fills in, there’s a box marked Search.And even though we came up short when we showed the photos to Duckworth’s Neowerks buddy, he was still able to pick out the first of the four.
“Put Stoughton in there,” I blurt, already out of my seat and regretting the typing concession.
Charlie hunts and pecks the words Arthur Stoughton into the Search box and hits Enter.
Seconds pass and all three of us glance around, making sure no one’s watching. Four computers down, there’s a teenage boy testing the limits of the library’s porn-screening software, but he hasn’t looked up once.
Results for ‘Arthur Stoughton’: 139 documents
1. Executive Bio for Arthur Stoughton
2. Executive Biographies for Disney.com
The list goes on. Charlie clicks on Executive Bio and the computer pulls up Stoughton’s overpadded résumé. Right next to it, though, is the thing that makes our eyes widen: the official corporate headshot—identical to the one on the photo strip. Arthur Stoughton. Salt-and-pepper hair, fancy suit, Disney smile.
“Executive vice president and managing director of Disney Online,” Charlie reads from the bio. “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah.” He goes straight for the photo.
“Press it,” I agree as he slides the cursor over Stoughton’s face. But as he clicks on the digital photo, nothing happens. He tries again. Still nothing.
“Are you sure you’re doing it right?” Gillian asks.
“You want to try it yourself?” he growls.
“Relax,” I warn.
He gives me his death stare. “Maybe I don’t want to relax, Ollie…”
The porn kid looks our way and all three of us fall silent. The first to recover, Gillian winks at the kid like she’s flirting. His eyes go back to his screen.
“Just let me try,” she tells Charlie as she attempts to grab control of the mouse. A week ago, Charlie was carefree enough to share with the world. But after these past few days—as his tongue flicks the beginnings of the scab on his lip—control is the last thing he’s got left. Especially when it comes to Gillian.
“I’ve. Got. It,” he tells her.
Knowing we need more faces, he clicks back one screen and hits the button for Executive Biographies for Disney.com. Once again, the computer pulls up the same photo of Arthur Stoughton. Damn.
“What do we do now?” he asks.
“Scroll down,” Gillian insists.
She taps her fingernail against the bottom of the screen, pointing at what looks like the top of another photo. Stoughton’s not alone. As Charlie anxiously scrolls down the screen, a pyramid of pictures rolls into place. It’s the full organizational chart for Disney.com, with Arthur Stoughton in the top spot and the rest spread out below. The pyramid expands to a total of about two dozen photos: vice presidents and other associates in Marketing, Entertainment, and Lifestyles Content Development, whatever that is.
“There’s photo number two,” I blurt, bringing it to a whisper for the last few syllables. “Banker guy.”
Sure enough, as I hand Duckworth’s photo strip to Charlie, he matches it up with the picture onscreen. There’s the second guy…
“Can you say pale, tired, middle-management pencil-gnawer?” Charlie asks.
“Jeez,” I agree. “If I ever get that sad and pasty, put a stake in my heart and kill me with some garlic.”
“There’s the third,” Gillian points out, pecking her fingernail against the company photo of the frizzy redhead. But as we look back through the Polaroid hierarchy, none of us see photo number four: the black man with the cleft chin.
“Are you sure that’s all there are?” Gillian asks.
Charlie scrolls to the bottom, but that’s it. All we have are the two dozen