Bitter Business Page 3

  Eugene pulled open a heavy sliding door at the other end. The smell was like a slap in the face, pungent and corrosive. In the uneven light from hanging strips of neon tubing and whatever feeble sunlight made its way through the grimy skylights were a series of rectangular tanks each about six feet wide, eight feet deep, and twenty feet long. They looked old. The outsides were scaled with corroded metal and the green traces of acid. Around the perimeter ran a rickety wooden platform under which fluid, an unhealthy shade of green, stood in brackish pools.

  “This is one of our four chrome plating lines. The unfinished goods are put on racks, which are moved from tank to tank by a hoist-and-crane system,” said Eugene, pointing toward the ceiling. “It’s basically a four-step process with a rinse in between each step. The first tank is a heavy-duty industrial cleaner that’s heated to one hundred and sixty degrees. Whatever is being plated goes from the polishing room into there first so that we can be sure that it’s free from any grease or dust that’ll interfere with the process. From there it goes into the second tank that’s filled with water and then into the etching tank— that’s this one here, which contains caustic soda that’s also heated. The idea is to take away the first layer of aluminum or steel—again, to make sure you have a very clean, smooth surface to plate. Once it’s been etched, it’s rinsed again and then it goes into that fifth tank over there, which is the tri-acid oxidizer. That’s the desmutting step. It gets rid of any smut or trace elements that are still on the metal surface. Then it’s rinsed again and goes into the chrome bath. Come up here and take a look.”

  I followed him up the pitted wooden steps onto the walkway, weakened over time by dripping acid, that ran along the side of the tanks. Overhead, rusted metal fans spat and clanked while the heat from the chemical tanks pushed up past my face like a fetid desert wind. Eugene stopped in front of the last tank and rested both hands casually on the edge. One of his sleeves was pushed back, exposing a tattoo of a snake. It circled his wrist and slithered up the inside of his arm. I looked down into the tank. It was filled with hot, bubbling liquid a brilliant shade of yellow—chrome yellow, in fact. It looked like the kind of thing you’d show pictures of to children in order to frighten them about hell.

  “What’s your safety record like?” I asked, stepping back from the edge.

  “We have guys from OSHA and EPA through here every day. In the last twenty-five years we’ve only had one serious accident, and there was no question of it being our fault.”

  “What happened?”

  “One of our workers forgot his paycheck at the plant one Friday a few years back. That night, after about a dozen beers, he decided he couldn’t wait until Monday to come get it. He and a couple of his buddies came by here, broke a window, and climbed in to retrieve it. Nobody knows exactly how it happened—they were all so drunk—but one of them tripped and fell into this very vat.”

  “Did he die?”

  “Dying was the easy part of what happened to him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Let’s just say,” said Eugene Cavanaugh, his face impassive, “that they decided not to have an open-casket funeral.”

  3

  Dagny Cavanaugh’s secretary came to tell me that her boss was ready to see me. She was a young woman, pretty under too much makeup, with a short black skirt pulled tight across hard haunches and the kind of hairdo that looked like it was the product of a small explosion. For some reason, the very sight of her seemed to send Eugene into a cold fury.

  “Cecilia! What are you doing down here?” he demanded sharply.

  “I’m doing my job,” she snapped, planting her hands firmly on her hips. “You got a problem with that?”

  “You know that you’re not supposed to come into the plant.”

  “Dagny told me to go to your office and get the new lawyer. Loretta said you were giving her the tour. What was I supposed to do?” She shot him a look like a sulky teenager.

  “You should have had me paged.”

  “It’s not my fault if Tammy at the switchboard was busy,” she sassed back.

  They glared each other to a stalemate. Neither of them seemed interested in ending their awkward little scene for my sake, so I decided to rescue myself. I thanked Eugene for showing me around and Eugene, looking murderous, managed a civil reply.

  “Come on,” said Cecilia, with a dramatic flip of her hair. “I’ll take you to Dagny.” After we’d gone a few yards but were still within earshot, she added, “Eugene is so uptight. I guess when you leave the marines they give you a rod up your ass as a going-away present.”

  There being absolutely no appropriate response to that kind of remark, I elected to follow her in silence. We went down the stairs and through a set of fire doors into a large work area where shiny cylinders were moving down a conveyor belt and then being carefully shrink-wrapped and packed into boxes.

  At the sight of Cecilia, all work on the line ground to a halt. The men stopped what they were doing and leered. As we passed I heard catcalls and the sound of lips being smacked. Cecilia made an elaborate show of ignoring them, but I noticed that she turned the swivel up in her hips and every couple of seconds she gave her hair a provocative toss.

  As we left the factory floor a wave of fervent gratitude washed over me. My hardworking and intelligent secretary made my life easier in a thousand ways every day, while I had no doubt that this one was nothing but trouble.

  Dagny Cavanaugh received me in a sparsely furnished meeting room where mismatched chairs ringed a conference table that was littered with computer printouts and half-filled Styrofoam cups—no doubt the detritus of her earlier meeting.

  “Thank you so much for coming,” she said, springing to her feet to greet me. “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting. I had my end-of-the-quarter session with our outside accountants, and today, for some reason, everything took longer than I expected.” She waved me into a seat. “My father told me that you’re going to be taking over for Daniel. How’s he doing?”

  “He still comes in to work every day. His secretary told me that he’s finished with chemotherapy and in remission, but no one knows how long it will last.”

  “I’ll have to call him and let him know he’s in our prayers.”

  Dagny was an attractive woman in her early forties who looked thirty and carried herself with a relaxed self-confidence that isn’t taught in any MBA program. More handsome than pretty, she wore a luxuriously simple navy-blue suit over a peach-colored silk blouse and somehow managed to make the combination seem both elegant and appropriate for a metal finishing plant. She had a fringe of shiny dark hair, intelligent eyes, and a wide smile. I liked her immediately. It was hard to imagine that anyone wouldn’t.

  “Daniel’s told me so many nice things about you,” she continued. “I know that we’ll enjoy working together. But I confess it’s going to take me a while to get used to not calling Daniel every time there’s a problem. I’ve known him my entire life. I know it sounds like a cliché, but I really do think of him more as a member of the family than as our lawyer.” She laughed. “I guess that’s an occupational hazard when everyone in the company is related. Business feels like family and family feels like business. Did Eugene show you around the place?”

  “We’d gotten as far as chrome plating when your secretary came to get me. I was sort of hoping to get a chance to see some of your specialty chemical operation—”

  “Cecilia went into the plant?” Dagny cut in, genuinely , horrified.

  “Eugene didn’t seem too pleased about it.”

  “Eugene hates her,” Dagny replied shortly. “My little f brother has very definite views about what is and isn’t appropriate behavior for women, and frankly Cecilia gets a kick out of goading him. But it isn’t Eugene I’m worried about, it’s the guys on the plant floor. When she goes down there they act like they’ve never seen a woman before. She’s going to cause an accident one of these days. You’ve seen that polishing equipment—you take your eyes
off of what you’re doing for one minute and you can lose your hand. Cecilia knows she has no business in the plant, but she always finds some excuse. I honestly think she has some sick need for attention.” Dagny sighed. “We have such a hard time finding and keeping good clerical help. They all want to work downtown in some fancy place like Callahan Ross.”

  “I don’t think Cecilia would have much luck at Callahan Ross,” I replied. “Not dressed the way she was today.”

  “I know it seems hard to believe, but Cecilia came to her job interview with no makeup, her hair in a bun, and wearing a flowered dress with a lace collar. For the first three months she came to work looking like she’d just left church. Then boom, as soon as her three-month probationary period was up, she let her hair down and switched over to her hooker wardrobe.”

  “Why don’t you say something to her about it?”

  “It’s obvious you’re not an employment attorney.

  Technically Cecilia should be able to walk from one end of the plant to the other stark naked without anyone raising their eyes from their work. From what I’ve been told, her attire is irrelevant unless it interferes with job performance—and she’s a surprisingly good secretary. If I mention her wardrobe to her, I’m afraid I’ll just be opening myself up to a lawsuit.”

  “You’re right. I hadn’t thought about it that way.”

  “Welcome to employee relations in the nineties. Dad can’t understand it at all. He tells stories about when he first took over the company from my grandfather—who knows if they’re true—but back then he says that if he caught one of his employees stealing, he’d grab him by the scruff of the neck, beat the living daylights out of him, and literally kick him out onto the street as a lesson to the other workers.”

  “I haven’t spent that much time with your father, but I can believe it.”

  “Dad called me this morning and said he had a meeting with you at the house. Did he tell you what he wants to do about Lydia and her shares?”

  “I think he wants to beat up her husband and kick him out onto the street as a lesson to the other family members,” I replied.

  “So he’s blaming Arthur? I should have guessed.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Whenever Lydia pulls a stunt like this, Dad always finds some reason why it’s all somebody else’s fault. And believe me, she’s been pulling stunts like this ever since she could talk.”

  “He really believes she could have no valid reason for wanting to sell her shares.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t. Maybe she’s trying to get attention, or express anger, or work through some unresolved crisis from a past life—you’d have to ask her therapist. I don’t know and I don’t care. All I know is we I have a golden opportunity to get rid of Lydia as a share- holder once and for all. I think we’ve got to grab it and] run with it.”

  “I take it you’re in favor of buying her out.”

  “Are you kidding? I’d buy her out in a minute and I’d| mortgage the company to the eyes to do it. Don’t get me wrong; Lydia is my sister and I love her, but that doesn’t ] make me blind to the fact that she has never been any- i thing but a drain on this company. While she’s sitting on Í her rear end getting in touch with her inner child and I thinking up ways to make trouble, the rest of us have a business to run. Have you ever read Karl Marx?”

  “In college,” I replied, surprised at the question.

  “Marx said that what a man doesn’t work for has no value to him. I’d say that pretty much sums up Lydia’s; relationship to Superior Plating. To her it’s just a dirty factory in a part of town she doesn’t like to visit. But this dirty factory is what pays for her trips to the shrink and that awful collection of modem art of hers. Besides, we have a responsibility to our employees—the people who put food on their tables and braces on their kids’ teeth with the money they earn at Superior Plating. She has no interest in what we do, no understanding of what goes into making the money in the check she so casually cashes every month. Every day is a struggle around here. We’re being squeezed by foreign competition, we have OSHA and the EPA breathing down our necks—” Suddenly Dagny broke off and burst out laughing. “Oh my God, I can’t believe it! 1 I’m starting to sound just like my father.”

  “Your father says that Lydia has no financial reason for wanting to sell—that if she needed money she knows she can always come to him.”

  “Sure, if she needed money—and a lecture—she could go to my dad. And no matter what Dad told you about Arthur, he’s no fool. I’m sure Arthur’s explained to Lydia how much money she will make if she sells her shares. There’s a difference between needing money and wanting financial freedom.”

  “Do you think your father’s right? Is this whole thing her husband Arthur’s idea?”

  “Lydia obviously got the idea from somewhere. She didn’t come up with this all by herself, but it doesn’t matter where it came from. I just think we should do everything in our power to make it as easy as possible for her to sell us her shares.”

  “I have to tell you that when I spoke to your father this morning he did not share your point of view. He says that if Lydia sells her shares, she’d be cheating her children out of their birthright.”

  Dagny leaned back in her chair.

  “Dad has this fantasy about all four of us working together and then passing the company on to our children. The trouble is, that’s all it is—-a fantasy. It’s hard enough for the four of us to get along day to day. Who knows what our children will be like? Believe me, a lot is going to happen between now and our children’s generation and not all of it is going to be pretty.”

  “How do your brothers feel about Lydia selling out? I didn’t have a chance to ask Eugene—”

  “I have no idea what Eugene thinks—if anything. He usually doesn’t get involved in issues like this.”

  “But he has a seat on the board,” I protested.

  “We all do. But Eugene prefers to deal with the day-to-day problems on the plant floor. Everything else he leaves to Dad. Though who knows? Recently he’s been showing signs of independence. Dad’s turning seventy next month and I think it’s making all of us think about the fact that he’s not going to be around forever.”

  “And Philip?”

  “As far as Philip is concerned, the sooner Lydia is out of the picture the better—and good riddance to her. The two of them have never gotten along, not even when they were kids. She just sticks in his craw and he sticks in her craw.... So I don’t blame him for wanting to get rid of her. Can you imagine anything worse than having the person who’s been driving you crazy since the third grade sitting on the board of directors of the company you’re trying to run?”

  “So you’re pretty sure that Philip would vote with you to buy her out at any price?”

  “I’m sure he wants to buy her out, but the price is where it’s bound to get sticky. Philip is an incredible skinflint. He’ll want to buy Lydia out all right, just as , soon as he’s sure that he’s not paying her one penny more than he has to.”

  “When I met with your father this morning I tried to convince him to let me bring in an investment banking group to do a valuation of the company. That way, if it turns out that Lydia really is serious about selling her shares, we’d at least have the information to make her a realistic offer. My guess is that Lydia’s already got her own investment bankers trying to work out what her shares are worth.”

  “She does. I got a letter from Mark Hoffenberg at First Chicago this morning asking for information about the company.”

  Inwardly I cursed Jack Cavanaugh for his stubbornness. He might think that his little girl couldn’t be serious about selling her shares, but once he crossed paths with Hoffenberg he’d know how medieval villagers must have felt when Viking ships appeared.

  “If Lydia’s using First Chicago, who would you recommend for us?” asked Dagny.

  “I’ve worked with them all,” I said. “Personally I liked Bob Halloran at Goodman Peab
ody, but I’ve got to be straight with you. I couldn’t even get your father to discuss the idea of a valuation. No matter how I approached the subject, he just stonewalled me. According to him, Lydia isn’t going to sell. Period. End of story. He’s chairman of the board, CEO, and the largest shareholder. Until he changes his mind, my hands are tied.”

  “Go ahead and call your friend at Goodman Peabody and see if you can set something up for Friday. Dad will have changed his mind by then.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “I’ve invited him and Peaches for dinner Wednesday night.”

  “You must be one hell of a cook.”

  “Now that you mention it, I am cooking his favorite dinner. I’m also planning on telling him that if he doesn’t agree to buy out Lydia, I’m resigning from the company.”

  “Do you really think it’ll work? Aren’t you afraid he’ll call your bluff?”

  “It’s not a bluff. I get job offers all the time. This last one’s a good one—I’d be heading the metal coatings division at Monarch Metals.”

  “I thought they were in Boston.”

  “They are,” she replied matter-of-factly. I remembered what Daniel had said about Dagny not taking shit from her father. Suddenly the situation with Superior Plating seemed less hopeless.

  Dagny glanced quickly at her watch. “I have a conference call in a few minutes with one of our vendors,” she apologized. “Why don’t we take a walk over to my office and I’ll get you a copy of the letter from Lydia’s investment bankers. They’ve asked for a ridiculous amount of information. You’re going to have to tell me how much of this stuff I really have to provide. If I give them everything they’re asking for, it’ll take weeks to get it together. I’ve also had Cecilia run off a copy of our most recent financials.” She stood up and stretched. “That feels so good. I think I’ve been in that chair since ten o’clock this morning.”

  I followed her through a series of narrow passageways that were all paneled in the same imitation woodgrained stuff that seemed to have been indiscriminately applied to every surface in the fifties. She led me into a small suite of offices. I have a terrible sense of direction, but I guessed we were adjacent to the reception area where I’d come in.