The Lights of Tenth Street (47 page)

Doug gestured at the page in the COO’s hand, and Jordan snatched it away.

“What is this?”

“He wanted it to look like we don’t own a piece of a company that is in fact a partial subsidiary. Wanted me to file it with the government. And that would instantly become securities fraud.”

Jordan stared at the paper in his hand, then ripped it in two. He pointed to the door, speaking to his COO without looking at him.

“I need to finish my meeting, but I want to see you in my office in thirty minutes. Understood?”

“That’s
it?
” Doug stepped forward. “He wants to commit securities fraud, and you’re going to let him off with just a scolding?”

“Listen, I need to get to the bottom of this,” Jordan said. “I don’t know who to believe at this point. You’d better chill, too. But know that we will do whatever it takes to get to the bottom of this and we will take action, if necessary.”

He looked at his watch and his lips pressed together in a taut line. “Mean while, we might be losing a very prominent client. And if we do, you both are in for it. Now if you’ll excuse me …” He swept out the door without a backward glance.

The COO also turned and left without a word.

Doug shut the door behind them, then felt his legs go weak. He sat in his comfortable leather chair and picked up the phone.

“Come in.”

Jordan held open the door to the office, gesturing his COO inside, his expression severe. He noticed Doug standing at the other end of the executive hallway, watching the transaction.

He shut the door behind him and faced his COO. The man took one look at him, and broke down laughing.

“Oh, Jordan, you are
good
, man. I don’t know how you kept a straight face.”

Jordan motioned for him to keep it down and took a seat behind his desk. “I thought you were going to punch me there for a second.” He began to pull out a cigar, then reconsidered.

“So what’re you going to tell our boy scout down there?” the COO asked. “We can’t let him leave the company. He knows too much. He’d be an easy target for any Feds snooping around the money trail.”

Jordan tried not to roll his eyes. Little did his COO know; it wasn’t the money trail that Jordan was worried about. He settled back into his chair.

“Our tracks are well hidden; don’t you worry.”

“You always say that, chief, but you never say how.” He held up a hand, forestalling Jordan’s usual comeback. “Don’t worry, I trust you. But I just want to be sure I’m going to be able to provide for me and my family in the style we’ve become accustomed to.”

“I would’ve thought that you’d be amply reassured of that by now. Didn’t you get another payment just … what … two days ago?”

“Three, boss, three. And it’s already spent.”

“What this time? A new boat? The summer house in Cancún?”

“Nope. A ski chalet in Banff. To go with all our new ski gear.”

“Amazing. I’ve never seen anyone able to spend money as fast as you.”

“It’s a gift.”

Enjoy it while you can, buddy
.

Jordan sat forward. “So we need to figure out what to tell Doug. First, and I mean this seriously—scrap the tape. It appears to have served its purpose and any inadvertent use would backfire at this point.”

“Too bad. It was a work of art.”

“Second, I tell our man that I can’t fire you because you’re too crucial at this point in the big Speed Shoes deal, etcetera, etcetera. Also, I’ll say that you claim the tape was made half on a lark, and you were never really serious about using it.”

“Whooo, that’ll burn his buns!”

“Probably.” This upstart man was going to get on his nerves pretty soon, but he needed him. For now. “I’ll tell Doug that I’ve been considering firing you anyway, but that I really can’t consider it until after the Speed Shoes deal is done.”

“Which could take months.”

“Which could take months. But he doesn’t need to know that. I’ll tell him I’ll see if you’re being a good boy by then, and we’ll go from there.” He hesitated, and a ghost of a smile crossed his lips. “Plus, I’ll tell him that you’ve agreed to apologize.”

“What? Give me a break!”

“It’s the only way to even
remotely
persuade him that you’ve had a change of heart. That’s the only thing I can think of that would help ensure he stays on board. That, and the fact that I’ll give him a big raise for his trouble and loyalty.”

“Fine.” There was some grumbling, but he subsided. “So I really have to apologize?”

“You really have to apologize. Make it sincere. And give him a copy of the CD and let him break it in two.”

“I could have a copy.”

“You could. But you’d better not.” Jordan leveled a warning glance at his COO,
and the room grew very still for a moment. “You understand me?”

“Yes, yes. Okay, I’ll get rid of the copies, too.”

Jordan held his gaze, waiting until the man shifted and looked away, uncomfortable.

He couldn’t afford any wild cards. He needed Doug to trust him, needed him to stay. It was true that he couldn’t afford to have him wandering loose, with all he knew. But it was more than that. The blasted board liked him and would ask all sorts of impossible questions if he left in a huff. There were still far too many original board members from his brother’s tenure at the company, directors who were truly independent and could not be replaced without arousing suspicion. This would indeed be a bad time for Doug to leave; he couldn’t let that happen.

He shook himself out of that train of thought and stood, tacitly dismissing his COO, his mind already turning to means and methods.

He buzzed his secretary, who came in as the COO was leaving.

“Yes, boss?”

“Please arrange a lunch meeting with Doug today. By twelve-thirty if possible. I need to be back for that two o’clock meeting.”

“Sure thing. Anything else?”

“Make reservations at 103 West. Give the maître d’ my name.”

The secretary’s eyes rose skyward at the mention of the exclusive restaurant, but she left the room without a word, closing the door behind her.

Jordan stretched, a catty smile crossing his face. It would work, and this chapter would be wrapped up. One way or another.

Doug stirred sugar into his coffee to stall for time. Jordan was sitting back in his chair, his little presentation over, watching him with worried eyes.

“I’ll tell you what,” Doug said. “You keep him away from me, and I’ll go home and discuss the whole thing with my wife. I’m sure she’ll be thrilled about the raise and the vacation, but that’s not the only thing at stake here. We want to be sure that this company is operating in an ethical manner, and that I’m not inadvertently digging myself into a hole. Not to mention that I don’t think I can ever work with him again.”

“We can take care of that,” Jordan said. “We’ll just tap one of his subordinates to liaise with you whenever necessary. No problem.” He lowered his voice in a conspiratorial manner. “It’ll be good for his ego to be taken down a peg or two.

“Then, depending on how he seems after the Speed Shoes deal is wrapped up, we’ll revisit the whole thing and see if he still needs to go. And I’ve told him that
if he tries anything funny again—with you or with anything fraudulent—I’ll fire him on the spot. As I told you, I’d been considering making a change anyway, as I wasn’t 100 percent happy with his performance before. But it would be devastating to operate without him during one of our biggest deals of the year. Especially since, as you know, I’m pretty lousy at operational details.”

Doug let his guard down enough to chuckle at that one, then tried one more tactic. “Jordan, don’t you think the board needs to know about this?”

His boss gave a nervous laugh. “No, no! They’re not operational folks either; they wouldn’t realize how critical it is to have a long-term COO at this point in the game. This isn’t the right time to bring this to their attention. I’ll put it on the agenda at the next board meeting.”

Jordan shook his head, his smile rueful. “You just keep being so gosh-darned honest, and we’ll do fine. I apologize again that you were placed in such a rough spot for so long. Unfortunately, we can’t reverse any of the deals you’ve approved—we’re in them too deep now—but you come straight to me if you’re being pressured to do anything against your better judgment again.”

The two men sat in silence for a minute, sipping their coffees.

“All I can say, Jordan, is that I’m going to have to go home and talk to Sherry about it. And pray about it.”

“Sure. But please let me know by tomorrow, if you can. Because if you are leaving, that’ll require us to do some serious scrambling. And I don’t even want to think about that unless I have to.”

The two men stood, the conversation over by mutual consent, and headed out of the restaurant.

Back in the office, Doug walked down the executive hallway and noticed the COO in his office, waiting for him, a contrite look on his face. He braced himself to see what would happen during this “apology,” and pushed open the door.

Doug stood beside Sherry, rinsing dishes, giving her the postmortem on the day. Sherry stopped rinsing as he repeated what the former blackmailer had said, and looked at him, incredulous, her voice rising.

“And you
believe
him? You think that jerk was sincere?”

“I didn’t say that. I’m merely repeating the conversation.”

She looked at his face, then put a sudsy hand to her cheek. “I did it again, didn’t I? Darn it, why can’t I ever learn?” She leaned forward and kissed him, trying awkwardly to hug him without getting soap on his clothes. “I’m sorry. Forgive me. I’m listening, really I am.”

Doug smiled down at her. “I know you are. Thank you for being aware of how that sounded.”

“It would be better for me to catch it
before
it left my mouth, but I’m learning.”

He returned her hug, glad to feel her arms around him.

“Go on.” She stepped back and playfully tapped his nose, leaving sudsy bubbles on the tip. “You were saying?”

“Thank you
very
much.” Doug wiped the soap off, smiling. “I was saying that he seemed embarrassed the whole time—like Brandon does when we catch him at something he knows is wrong. It was weird. I honestly don’t know what to believe. I guess there’s at least a possibility that he was being honest—that once he was caught, he realized how stupid his actions were and felt bad about it.” He shook his head. “I just don’t know.”

“Well, what do you want to do?”

“I don’t know. For some reason, I don’t feel like God is telling me to leave. But that could just be because my eyes have been blinded by this huge raise Jordan’s giving me!”

“Yeah, me, too. Let’s pray about this after we put the kids to bed. Okay?”

“Deal.” He stood behind her and gave her another hug, pressing her into his body. He rested his cheek against her hair, grateful to feel her pliant against him. “Thank you for standing with me in this.”

She turned her head, and he could see a smile on her face. “No matter what, babe.”

“No matter what.”

Doug Turner looked around him as the auditorium resounded with singing, a thousand voices lifted in praise. The words to the great old hymn were displayed on the large screen above the altar, every eye upturned, every voice lifting with a new-felt joy, a new vibrancy.

Doug closed his eyes and let the music wash over him, almost unable to sing from the fullness in his heart. He had no final answers at work—nothing but a sense to hang in there, to see it through. He had no final answers yet at home—although with every day that passed he knew God’s healing. But here, he had the only Answer that mattered. The reality of God’s redeeming love.

The music swelled into the last verse, the words meaning more now to this congregation, this body, than ever before. He felt the unabashed tears on his cheeks, and saw Sherry’s lips trembling as she sang. Others around him were wiping their eyes. He pulled Sherry close, and husband and wife approached the Throne of Grace together.

The music died away and the congregation remained standing, intent, as Pastor Steven came forward to close the service.

“… and if anyone would like someone to pray with you, we have a prayer team down front after the service.”

Pastor Steven lifted his hands in benediction. “And now may the Lord bless you
and keep you. May the Lord make His face to shine upon you and give you peace. Amen. Go in peace.”

The congregation broke up as soft music began to play, a dozen people quietly making their way down the crowded aisle to the front.

Doug kept his arm around Sherry, his gaze thoughtful, remembering the recent times they had gone forward to receive prayer. The first time had been after Pastor Steven’s courageous sermon months before—the first time that personal prayer was even offered after the service. That Sunday, the church staff hastily assembled a prayer team from people who already were skilled at praying for the needs of others and could keep a confidence—and they had been besieged. The congregation’s emotions and needs had been blown wide open. Since then, dozens of laypeople had been recruited, trained in personal ministry and prayer.

Doug glanced at the front of the church where the nearest prayer team member was hugging a sobbing woman. One of these days, he thought, one day soon, he would be up there, healed and whole, ministering to others.

Lord, let it be so
 …

His thoughts were interrupted by a hearty slap on his back. Eric stood there, his eyes showing the faintest trace of red. “Hey, brother, what’s up?”