The Job (3 page)

“Rule Number One of sales, Debbie: Don’t shortchange yourself. How’s your mom?”

“Up and down. The angina’s been really bad for the last week. Still, if she can keep from having to go to the hospital until January fifth

.. .”

January 5 was Debbie’s first anniversary with CompuWorld-and also the day that, according to the rules of the company insurance policy, she could (in addition to any children and a spouse) add one more dependent family member to her health plan. I knew that she was ticking off the days until her uninsured mom (who’d been sick, off and on, for the past year) was finally protected by the company safety net.

“She still baby-sitting Raul after school?”

“We’ve got no choice,” Debbie said.

“I’m not going to be paying a nanny on my salary… and, at six, he’s too old for day care. Y’know he’s been accepted for the first grade at Faber Academy?” she said, mentioning one of the best private day schools in the city (and just a three-block walk from her apartment in Stuyvesant Town).

“Yeah, I’d heard. That’s fantastic news. He must be a gifted kid.”

“He’s the best. They’re even gonna let him enter this January instead of making him wait until September. Which is okay by me, ‘cause that kindergarten he’s in right now is guano.

“Course, first grade at Faber is nine thousand a year-and they haven’t been able to get him a scholarship. So that bonus check’s real necessary.”

“You should have more than nine grand coming to you, shouldn’t you?”

“Thirteen thousand, four hundred dollars,” she said.

“I worked it out the other day.”

“No kidding?” We both laughed.

“They really gonna pay us the bonus next Friday?” she asked.

“Debbie, that’s the third time you’ve asked me that.”

“Sorry.”

“No need to be. Just try to stop worrying about it. As I told you before, this is no nickel-and-dime operation, and Yokimura really does honor its commitments. Especially to its employees. They’re Japanese, for Christ’s sake. They’d rather disembowel themselves than fail to pay you your bonus. Trust me here.”

“I do, Mr. Allen. It’s just, like, it’s my first year here, and that bonus, it’s gonna make the difference …”

“Tell you what. When I see Chuck Zanussi for breakfast tomorrow, I’ll ask him to verify that-what was the figure you mentioned again.”

“Thirteen-four.”

“Right-that thirteen-four is the exact amount you’ll be receiving on the twelfth. He usually has all the bonus figures for the sales divisions around now.”

“You’re having breakfast with Mr. Zanussi? I thought he was still in Seattle, clearing up that problem with Mr. Roland.”

She really did deserve a job in the CIA. Word had been filtering back to Chuck that Bill Roland, regional sales director for the Pacific Northwest, had become excessivelv acquainted with a certain

Mr. Jack Daniel’s. And there was an unsubstantiated rumor going around that, having finally secured a lunch meeting with the marketing director of Microcom, he drank himself into incoherence before dessert. Not a good sales strategy, especially in such a crucial market as Seattle-which is why Chuck had flown out there, though of course Chuck told everyone around the office that he was simply paying the Seattle office his usual quarterly visit. That was a typical bit of Chuck strategy: Act as if nothing is wrong, then deal with the “problem” before anyone finds out there was a real problem.

“You hear how things went in Seattle?” I asked.

Debbie regarded her nails, currently painted a shade that was probably called Drag Queen Pink.

“Bill Roland’s history,” she said.

I emitted a low whistle.

“When did this happen?”

“Yesterday morning.”

“He go quietly?”

“I think he was actually real relieved. Especially since Mr. Zanussi offered him six months’ salary and eight weeks in some rehab place if he resigned on the spot. Which he did. Kind of real decent of Mr. Zanussi, don’t you think? I mean, this drinking thing… seems it had been going on for months. Mr. Roland’s marriage’s supposed to have gone real bad, his daughter-think she’s around sixteen-just ran off with this biker creep, and, y’know, the pressure’s always on at the Seattle office…. So Mr. Roland started hitting the whiskey first thing in the morning, sneaking it into his coffee…”

I looked at her with amazement.

“How the hell do you know all this stuff?”

“I’ve got my sources.”

“You wouldn’t happen to have a mole in our Chicago office, would you?”

Another glance at those electric-pink nails.

“I might,” she said.

“Then how about giving them a ring now and finding out why Chuck Zanussi was called to a meeting there today.”

Now it was Debbie’s turn to look shocked.

“He was sent to Chicago?”

“XT-r* Yen.

“But I thought he was flying straight back from Seattle …”

“So did I. But he called me midair between O’Hare and La Guardia, saying that he’d been asked to stop by the Chicago office for the afternoon. Wouldn’t say why. Wouldn’t say who called the meeting-but you can bet it’s someone pretty upper echelon in Getz-Braun or Yokimura.”

“Mr. Zanussi didn’t say anything about what happened in the meeting?”

“Just that it was interesting.”

“Mierda.”

Debbie also understood that, in corporate life, interesting was a highly charged word-and one that never boded well for the future. Putting her headset back on, she nervously punched in a ten-digit number.

“Lemme talk to Maria Szabo, please,” she said. While waiting to be transferred, Debbie chewed on the headset wire.

“Maria… Debbie in New York. How ya doin”? Yeah, yeah, yeah … business as usual. But listen, you see our publisher, Mr. Zanussi, around your office today? He was? .. . Who else was there? .. . You’re kidding me, right? All of ‘em? Shit… You’re telling me, something’s up … but nobody spilled nothing, huh? Not even his secretary? Okay, okay. But listen, you hear anything else you call me pronto. Ditto if I get some news here. Got me? Thanks, hon …”

She pulled off the headset and gave me one of her anxious looks.

“That was my friend Maria, Telesales Chicago. Mr. Zanussi arrived at their office around lunchtime today, went straight into a meeting with Mr. Hertzberg, Mr. Getz, Mr. Watanabe…”

“Jesus,” I said.

“Jesus Christ.” Moss Hertzberg was Getz-Braun’s CEO. Bob Getz was the chairman of the board. And Hideo Watanabe was head samurai at our parent company, Yokimura. You couldn’t ask for a more formidable collection of corporate heavy hitters.

“Did your friend Maria mention if anyone else was there?”

“Yeah. Some Euro guy with two flunkies.”

“What did she mean, ‘a Euro guy’?”

“I dunno. Said he looked like, well, uh, Euro.”

“You mean, not American.”

“Guess so.”

“Did Maria say if he spoke English?”

“Yeah… but with this kind of accent.”

“A European accent?”

“Think so.”

“And the two flunkies with him? Were they bodyguards?”

“She said they were carrying briefcases.”

“Lawyers,” I said.

“What’s going on, Mr. Allen?”

I had a good idea, but I knew if I told her she might not sleep tonight. So instead I flashed her my best salesman’s smile, that “don’t-worry-you’re-safe-with-me” smile that hopefully engenders trust yet masks the fact that, like everybody else you pass on the street these days, you really don’t know if the ground beneath you is solid anymore.

“Put it this way, Debbie,” I said.

“It is going to be interesting.”

By the time I left the office it was 7:30, an hour in New York when the sight of an available taxicab is about as commonplace as that of a stray moose on Third Avenue, when frantically late theatergoers and exhausted executives throw themselves in the path of any oncoming yellow car, begging all those off-duty drivers to make one final detour for them.

A light snow was falling, which meant that the prospect of finding a cab had been reduced from no chance to less than no chance. So, turning up the collar of my overcoat, I headed north on Third for nine blocks, then swung west on Fifty-fifth Street. On my way I managed to chase down Dave Maduro (outside sales-Massachusetts) on my cellular. He was somewhere on 1-290 south of Worcester.

“My master calls,” Maduro said when he heard my voice.

“Only because you didn’t call me, Dave,” I responded calmly.

“You knew I was in with Jack Drabble at InfoCom all afternoon.”

“And?”

A long sigh.

“We’re not there yet.”

“The problem?”

“He still won’t commit to that multipage insert for June.”

I immediately understood why Dave sounded so touchy. A multipage insert is a special six-page advertising section that we try to feature in every issue. As it was worth (at top whack) 210 thousand in advertising revenue, it was considered the ultimate score by our sales team-and Dave had been stalking InfoCom for months.

“What’s making him balk?” I asked.

“He won’t go above one-eighty…”

“We can live with that.”

“.. . and he’s also demanding a four-color bleed on all pages.”

“Thief. You want some help here?”

“I was so certain I was going to close the sonofabitch today. And then, he pulls this four-color-bleed shit…”

“Dave-DO YOU WANT SOME HELP HERE?”

A long, reluctant pause.

“Yeah,” Dave finally said.

“Give me his direct line,” I said. After telling Dave I’d get back to him tomorrow, I immediately punched in Jack Drabble’s number. Poor Dave-he always hated asking me for a favor, just as he also can’t stand the fact that, at thirty-two, I was six years younger than him… and I was his boss. And, like any salesman, he oozed despair when he couldn’t close.

The phone rang four times. I didn’t want to speak directly to Jack Drabble right then-and I was gambling on the fact that he’d already gone home. I gambled right-I was connected to his voice mail.

“Jack, Ned Allen from CompuWorld here. Haven’t seen you since the Am Com convention in October, but I hear great things. Listen, about this multipage insertI’ve got GreenAp Computers vying for this spot…. You can check with your counterpart at GreenAp if you like … but I really, truly want to give it to you. Now, one-eighty is fine-and you know you’re saving thirty off our rack rate. But a four-color bleed on every page? No can do. The math just doesn’t work. But-and this is more than we were offering the GreenAp boys-we will do the bleed on the first and back pages of your insert. And, of course, you’ll be getting the space that GreenAp wants. Then there’s that little matter of our annual winter sales event. It’s Vail this year, Jack. February thirteenth through sixteenth. We pay, you ski, and the wife comes, too. But I need an answer by nine A.M. tomorrow. See you on the slopes, Jack.”

Pocketing the phone, I felt that narcotic buzz that always hits me after making a good pitch. See you on the slopes, Jack.

“Struc

22 DODGIAS KENNED!

ture every pitch like a movie script,” Chuck Zanussi once advised me.

“Hit them with some fast exposition, hook their interest, give them cause to worry about where things are heading, then nail ‘em with a surprise ending. Remember: Like writing, it’s a craft. Maybe even an art.”

The snow was falling heavily as I reached Park Avenue. Having spent a good part of my adolescence in northern New England, I am happy trudging through the snow. I like the silence it imposes on Manhattan’s usual snarl; the way it magically empties the streets of people and makes you feel as solitary as someone tramping through the Maine woods.

Don’t get me wrong-I’m not nostalgic for those deep “down east” winters. I don’t long for flannel shirts and L.L. Bean boots and a deerstalker hat with flaps. By the time I was sixteen, all I could think about was that road marked “South” out of Maine. It took another six years before I finally made it down that road. That was almost a decade ago-and never once since leaving have I felt an urge to return and heed some “Call of the Wild.” I’m a city boy now-and after ten years in New York I still find myself addicted to its manic rhythms-its power, its arrogance, its air of lofty indifference.

Crossing Park Avenue, I stood in the middle of one of its little traffic islands and stared south at that epic canyon of office buildings-the Christmas cross in the Helmsley Building offering a silent benediction to all those who compete in this playpen of ambition. It was my favorite New York vista, this view down Park. Because it underscored the fact: I was finally where I wanted to be.

I continued west on Fifty-fifth, then ducked into the St. Regis Hotel and headed across a plushly carpeted lobby. At the cloakroom I handed over my overcoat and proceeded to the men’s room, where an elderly attendant with hunched shoulders turned on the sink taps while I emptied my bladder. After I finished rinsing my hands, he ceremoniously handed me a towel. There was a tray of aftershaves and colognes between two sinks. I splashed on some Armani Pour Homme. I read somewhere once (probably GQ) that this aftershave “exudes an aura of sophisticated power.” I know, I know-it’s a real smarmy kind of sales Ditch. But Ditches like that move product. Especially if you’re aiming at the aspiring-young-executive end of the marketin other words, guys like me.

The elderly attendant, an Italian immigrant with permanently rheumy eyes and a tiny turtlelike head tucked down between his shoulders, handed me a comb and a brush. I ran the comb through my hair (still damp from the melting snow), then turned around and craned my head in an attempt to inspect a tiny patch of thinning hair at the top of my skull. When I say tiny, I mean tiny-the bald patch is no bigger than a dime. Still, it serves as a reminder that I am beginning that ever-rapid descent toward middle age. Everybody tells me that I still look like a kid in his mid-twenties- possibly because I’m built like a reasonably healthy scarecrow (six foot two, 166 pounds, a thirty-four-inch waist). So far, I’ve displayed no visible signs of aging (except that minuscule patch of thinning hair). Compared to just about every other guy I know in sales, I’m a walking advertisement for clean living. Anytime the national CompuWorld sales team gets together for its biannual conference-or I attend one of the big international computer exhibitions that the Getz-Braun group stages-I am amazed at just how toxic and hyper-tense everyone else looks. The outside sales rep guys are inevitably thirty pounds overweight (from an on-the-road diet of fast food… and the discovery that a double-dip milkshake or a half dozen beers can provide temporary high-carbohydrate relief whenever you fail to make a deal). The Telesales women, on the other hand, appear to be dabbling in anorexia, or are the sort of fanatical keep-fit junkies who work off all their stress and disappointment in the health club-they sport biceps that would shame G.I. Joe. And the regional sales managers are either dedicated nicotine fiends, or compulsive pencil chewers, or PWNs (People Without Nails).