VELOCITY - DEE JACOB [156]
“No problem. Anything else?”
“That’s it. I’ve got to run. Thank you. We’ll do something fun this weekend, I promise.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that before,” he said – as in fact, he had.
When Winner’s sleek, ultrafast Cessna Citation X landed in New York, there was a silver Mercedes with a driver waiting for Amy. The driver was a fit young man wearing a jacket, white shirt, and tie – and he was not only polite, he was cheerful, making pleasantries with her on the drive into the city. The Mercedes used the private entrance; an ordinary-looking, heavy steel, garage-type of door rose as they approached from a side street, and the driver took them straight into the building. Riding the mahogany-paneled executive elevator to the fifty-ninth floor, Amy said to herself, I could get used to all this.
No, responded an inner voice, a deeper voice. It’s nice, but it’s really not me.
Amy had by then phoned Peter Winn’s office, and had been put directly through to him. In their brief conversation, his tone was gregarious, even gracious, but he would divulge absolutely nothing about the reasons for her summoning. So here she was.
Mr. Winn’s assistant presented confidentiality agreements for Amy to sign. Once Amy had done this, she was ushered into the chairman’s inner sanctum, where Peter Winn awaited and greeted her as she walked across that enormous oriental carpet. Peter was looking rakishly handsome as always, and yet Amy detected traces of fatigue in his face. His trimmed red blond hair was decidedly more gray than Amy remembered.
“How was your trip in? Everything enjoyable, pretty much, wasn’t it? You know, the X is my favorite of all the air fleet, really is. Others are bigger, and you know, plusher, roomier, but nothing is faster than the X. I should have had the pilot do a high-performance takeoff for you. Have you ever experienced a high-perf takeoff? Really something. You can feel yourself being just, you know, almost slammed into your seat – the power of those twin Rolls Royce engines just spooled up and released, you know. But times being what they are, you know, price of jet fuel and noise regulations and all that … well, another time.”
All the while they had been chatting – that is, he had been chatting, Amy essentially just saying, “Hello!” – Peter Winn had been leading the way through his office and into a smaller side room, more intimate and more casual than his stately main office. The decor in here was more like an upscale suburban living room, with comfortable loungelike furniture and a huge flat-screen plasma TV, and – Amy noticed, her son having educated her – all the serious video-game machines of the day: PlayStation, Xbox, Wii, and a Falcon Northwest Fragbox. This, she sensed, was where Peter Winn came when he just needed to shut it all out.
Yet there was someone else here. Rising to greet Amy was a mature, elegant woman, perhaps sixty years of age. She was tall, thin, wore a tweed, yet also rather formal, suit with a light salmon blouse beneath. With a sincere and great smile, she came toward Amy, extending a hand with long white fingers and perfect nails.
“Mrs. Diana Boule,” said Peter, introducing them, “this is Ms. Amy Cieolara.”
“Amy! So very good to meet you,” said Diana.
“Thank you, and very nice to meet you as well, Mrs. Boole,” said Amy.
“Wonderful, and please, by all means, call me Diana.”
Amy was connecting name and face as they spoke, and the memory flashed upon her of this woman being on the magazine cover of Fortune or Forbes or maybe both. But Amy could not recall immediately the reason for Diana Boole’s celebrity.
“Well!” said Peter, having introduced them. “I’ll just let you two get acquainted.”
And with that, Peter Winn departed back into his main office, closing a door behind him.
“Please, Amy, have a seat,” said Diana. “I am sure you are wondering what all the fuss is about.”
“Yes, well … Peter – Mr. Winn – has told me nothing.”
“Good. That’s as it should be. So let me fill you in,” said Diana. “I am the head of a private equity concern called Boole Group Partners. The