Fem Dom (23 page)

“Well, I’ve been thinking. How can I top landing Rebakor? It’s like I won the Superbowl for my team. I threw the winning touch down. I’m the star quarterback and I got MVP. Maybe I need a new challenge. Quit while I’m ahead.”

“Are you fucking serious?” Ellerby chuckled, rather surprised. “Stay put and wait for Frank Bergenson to retire -- you’re sitting on a pot of gold. Why am I even telling you this? You know that.”

“No, I’m serious. And this town is so damn cold for six fucking months of the year. Tara says she’s had enough of it and I can’t blame her.”

“You want to quit your job because you’re cold?”

“It’s June and there’s still a huge pile of dirty snow down on Baker Road refusing to melt.”

“Fuck, Clem. I told you. It’s dead.”

“Come on, Dan. I’m talking to the most connected man in advertising,” Clem smiled. Dan’s expression remained solemn. “I’m worth a fucking fortune right now and you know it. Who wouldn’t want to hire me?”

“Lots of agencies
would
hire you, Clem. But they’re not paying what you think. All the perks have gone. Agencies have tightened their belts big time. If you’ve got a job, hold on to it for grim life.”

“Well, you didn’t drop by just to see
me
, Dan,” Clem smirked, suspicious that Ellerby was being economical with the truth. “I’m not buying your ‘stop-over’ line. There must be some deals going down here or you wouldn’t be visiting.”

“Sure, I’ve got some small things in the pipeline on the creative side. Nothing at your level. But if you’re not happy at Bergensons, I’m advising you to suck it up and stick it out until the economy starts to make a comeback. Couple of years maybe.” Ellerby looked over the menu.

“I never said I wasn’t happy here,“ clarified Clem, and being economical with the truth himself.

“How are the crab cakes?”

“Everything tastes good here.” Clem wasn’t remotely interested in eating. He tossed the menu back on the white tablecloth. “I wouldn’t move empty-handed. I could bring some clients with me, y’know.” Ellerby held the menu up to the light.

“Why is restaurant lighting so damn trendy these days? Screw the ambience, I can’t read any of these appetizers.” Ellerby took out his readers and squinted more closely at the menu. He closed it shut in frustration. “Do we even have a waiter to tell us the specials?”

“Doyle Dane, J. Walter, BBDO….I’d be interested in talking to any of those shops.” Clem wasn’t whetting his headhunter’s appetite for his business either. Ellerby looked around the quiet restaurant.

“Jesus, it’s even dead in this joint. Like I said….this fucking economy…..”

Clem spotted a server and beckoned him over. Ellerby took another sip of his cocktail.

“Clem, when you work day in day out at the same place, you lose touch with the outside world. Those agencies are like dinosaurs now. Big, fat corporate monsters. They know it, too. That’s why every one of them is scaling back. In a few years there’ll be much smaller versions of themselves and then they’ll start to cannibalize each other. Pretty soon they won’t exist at all – not in their present form anyway. The big old ad agency is going the same way the music industry, big box retail stores, bookstores – they’re all going away. The internet is forcing businesses to rethink and reinvent themselves. It even screwed the porn industry, now how fucking funny is that?”

“Fuck Zuckerberg.”

“Him, too. The web is the great destroyer because it’s leveling the playing field and we can’t all thrive like that. Ad agencies are next because they’re too big and slow to react to market forces. If you want to leave Bergensons, start your own boutique agency with those accounts you can steal from the place on your way out.”

“And spend the next three years working my balls off for peanuts?” Clem studied the olive swimming in his cocktail glass. “You’ve just been telling me how sucky the economy is. If those smaller accounts fail then I’m not only out of a job, I’m in serious debt with staff I’ve got to lay off and a lease on a building I can’t afford.”

Clem felt defeated and deflated. There was no way that was going to happen. He probably had a month at best once Fitz was crowned king. It was always a bit of a cat and mouse game with headhunters. Daniel Ellerby must know something, or may have heard it on the grapevine, and that’s why he’d contacted Clem. But the sharp shark was playing his cards close to his chest.

“So what’s the word on Bergensons? What’s the talk on the street?” Clem tried to sound ambivalent.

“Everyone’s jealous.”

“That’s it? Nothing juicier than that?” Clem sat back in his seat and took a slow sip of his cocktail.

“Nada,” said Ellerby, not coughing up a single insider tidbit that might be to Clem’s advantage. “But keep your eyes open because those other shops are going to try and nibble away little bits of your big fat pie so watch your back.”

Clem smirked at Ellerby’s choice of words. He didn’t know if Ellerby was playing straight or just fishing for more information. Maybe one of Ellerby’s informants had tipped him off. Good inside info could mean a little kickback for the informant and over the years Ellerby had quite an impressive little network of industrial spies. But trying to get anything out of the human trafficker was like trying to prize open an oyster with his bare hands. Of course, that didn’t mean Clem wouldn’t continue to try. Clem figured that Ellerby must’ve heard that all was not rosy up at Bergensons.

“How you getting along with Kurt Fitzgerald?” Ellerby asked casually. Now Clem’s suspicions were realized.

“We get along just great,” Clem smiled, lying through his teeth. “Strange question to ask,” he added.

Ellerby swirled his Martini, then gulped it down, chewing on the olive. “Talented guy, even if he can be an arrogant prick sometimes.”

Sometimes? Clem thought.
How about all the fucking time?

The waiter finally made an appearance at their table. “Good evening, gentlemen.”

“Get me the crab cakes to start then the Filet Mignon, medium rare, with a side of creamed spinach to follow. Another Martini too,” Ellerby snapped before the waiter had a chance to tell them the specials. Clem smiled up at him sympathetically.

“Cobb salad, thanks,” added Clem, more politely. He pointed to his drained cocktail glass. “I’ll take another, too.”

Clem wasn’t going to be drawn into the subject of Mr. Kurt Fitzgerald. If Ellerby had gotten word that there was infighting in upper management at Bergensons then maybe it was Fitz who’d made the call to Ellerby. That’s the kind of crap he’d pull if he felt it could further his career. Clem had always been a very ambitious man but Fitz was notorious in his striving for power. He didn’t want Fitz’s name to come up again. But then the penny finally dropped and Ellerby unloaded.

“Okay, I got one thing,” Ellerby said. “It’s not much but it’s all I got and I think it’s a real opportunity.”

“Oh, so now the veil has dropped. Shoot.”

“It’s a small shop down south. You might’ve heard of them -- agency called Wardle & Ward in Birmingham.”

“Alabama?”

“Two hours from Atlanta. Mid-sized agency, some good clients. They need someone to take the reins. Willy Wardle had a heart attack. Dropped dead on the golf course.”

“Ala-fucking-bama? Are you kidding me, Dan? That’d be career suicide. You know that.”

“There’s a twist. Tracey-Locke in Atlanta is going to buy them out within the next six months. You walk into Tracey-Locke with all the Wardle & Ward accounts in your hip pocket and with what you can snatch here. Come on, you’ll be running the whole show!”

”What’s the money like?” Clem asked, more out of curiosity than real interest.

“Nowhere near what you’re making now but you’d get great stock options and you’ll make out like a bandit with the buyout.”

“And what if the buyout doesn’t happen?”

“It’ll happen. The wheels are already in motion.”

“But it’s not a sure bet, Dan. A deal ain’t a deal until the deal is done. You know that.”

“Look, Clem. This is an opportunity. Birmingham’s a great little town these days. It’s a very progressive city. Got a totally happening arts scene.” Ellerby was dangling a carrot but Clem wasn’t biting.

“It’s still Alabama. That’s not even second division.”

“It’s all I’ve got. I know it’s not at your level but they want to move quickly,” Ellerby prompted. “They want the position filled in the next couple of weeks. Could start losing clients with no one steering the ship. Is it ideal? No, not for you. But it’s your fastest route out of town if you’re so terrified of Tara’s tits freezing over.”

Clem knew that moving down in the ad biz made it really hard to ever get back up on the higher tier. Birmingham, Alabama was not a serious ad town like the major cities. It was a big drop down on many levels. Clem wanted to stay in the first division. It would look obvious to the entire advertising industry that he was squeezed out at Bergensons. And he didn’t think the Wardle & Ward/Tracey-Locke buyout held much mustard. That looked dubious at best.

Driving home from his dinner meeting with Daniel Ellerby, Clem was feeling more downbeat than before he’d met his old headhunter buddy. That was a reality check. In the back of his mind, Clem always thought that he and Tara could relocate to either coast and find something at one of the big shops. That was looking very unrealistic now. But what was really niggling away at Clem was that he hadn’t told Tara the full extent of their dire financial situation. She had no idea that the hedge fund in which Clem had heavily invested their savings had tanked so badly. Clem was starting to think that perhaps Tara really should quit volunteering and find a job that paid her a salary.

Across town, Tara pulled up outside 1611 Calloway, parked her Lexus and got out. It was dark now and the recessed doorway was rather foreboding. This was not the most salubrious part of town by any stretch of the imagination but she was here now. She walked up to the darkened doorway. There were sixteen brass buzzers with nametags to match, some printed, some handwritten scrawls. Tara squinted, trying to read some of the names. She took out her cell phone and turned it on to shine its glow onto the nameplates. Tara scrolled down the list mumbling the names to herself. “Andresen, Lofthouse, Sungaard, Jakes…”

With no idea what Mistress Krystal’s real name was this was a pointless exercise. Clem could have been going to any one of these apartments for his little trysts. A flashing blue light lit up the doorway as a police cruiser slowed down on the street. Tara put her cell phone away and walked back to her SUV. It was definitely time to go home before she either got arrested for loitering or got mugged.

By the time Clem got home, Tara was in her favorite place to go other than Caribou Lake – relaxing in the bathtub with plenty of bubbles and Nora Jones playing. Clem might be having secret trysts with someone but she’d had several sessions with naked strangers in the past week, too. The only difference being that she had been dishing out the punishment rather than taking it. Truth be told, she was being as secretive as Clem. Their marriage was one big lie; two people sharing a house and little else. Maybe Lorraine was right and counseling really was the solution after all. She would ask Lorraine to lunch on Monday after her morning yoga class. Tara had been so caught up with Mistress Krystal that she’d dropped her friend like a hot brick. Maybe it was time to let her in on what she’d been up to, though she wasn’t sure whether Lorraine would laugh or chastise her. At this point she didn’t care. But she needed to talk to someone she could trust.

That night, Tara slept in the guest bedroom again, still not on speaking terms with Clem. That was fine by him. He had plenty on his mind to think about without getting into a confrontation with his moody wife.

CHAPTER 16

At breakfast next morning there was a different mood in the kitchen. Being Saturday, for Clem that meant getting up at seven and running around the lake before breakfast. Then granola, toast, orange juice and coffee with various vitamin pills before hitting the gym. It was the routine same every Saturday but not today.

By the time Tara woke up it was past eleven and her head was pounding. Sake and Champagne was proving the perfect cocktail for a stinking hangover. She pulled on some cotton sweat pants and an old t-shirt then splashed cold water on her face to try and bring herself to life. She figured Clem must be up and out somewhere as per usual as she ambled downstairs to the kitchen. She popped two Tylenol then plonked two bagel halves in the toaster.

“Hey,” Clem said softly, walking up behind her and sliding his arms around her waist. He kissed the back of her neck. Tara felt her body tighten up defensively.

“What’s that for?” Tara’s head felt like it’d been whacked hard with a wooden mallet and was annoyed at being touched.

“That’s for not paying you enough attention for too long,” said Clem, showing great humility for a change. The Tylenol hadn’t kicked in yet and Tara was suspicious of this sudden display of affection. This was guilt-driven. Clem looked like he’d been hit by a truck as he stood there wearing his sweat pants and old t-shirt with his usually perfect hair very disheveled.

“What’s gotten into you?” Tara asked, giving him a cursory glance while holding a hand against her throbbing forehead.

“You can talk,” Clem smiled as he looked at Tara, “You look like crap.”

“Yeah? Well I feel like crap.”

Clem opened the fridge and poured himself a glass of orange juice. Tara made herself an espresso.

“Out on the town last night?” Clem asked his grumpy wife.

“Yep. For a change.”

“You never mentioned you were going out.” Clem sat down at the breakfast table with his drink.

“You’re right, I didn’t.” Tara leaned against the sink and bit into her bagel, her head still pounding.

“Where did you go?”

“To a restaurant with a friend.” Tara was deliberately vague to invite more questioning from her curious husband. Then she would be ready to ask a few questions of her own.

“Have fun?”

“Yes.”

Clem drank the rest of his orange juice and stretched. It seemed that was the end of Clem’s interest in Tara’s social adventure.