Far more people than necessary were sat around the big oval desk in the top-floor conference room of the office. Curtis would really have preferred it if only he and Wayne had been there, but he’d brought along Gerard too, who was the details guy on many aspects, but Gerard had then suggested Jenna, Harry and Matt all join as well, just in case. On the other side of the table Wayne had brought a whole crew. Six of them in total, three of whom Curtis had never even met before, and he couldn’t remember any of their names.
‘So, the upshot is that we’re still not ready,’ Wayne said, when the initial chit-chat had finally died down and Curtis delivered the bad news. As pleasant and animated as always during the initial greetings, Wayne’s face had turned in an instant. From friendly to hard-edged, no nonsense. A face that showed who was in charge. And he did have an authoritative presence about him, like many leading business figures did. It wasn’t all competence and intellect that got people to the top in the business world; quite often it was simple bullishness, arrogance and bravado and just being able to talk a good talk. At least, that’s how Curtis saw it.
Which all explained why Wayne, a forty-something who’d scraped through high school, had worked his way through the corporate sea from shelf-stacker in a warehouse to CEO of a leading clothes retailer that was worth billions. And he liked to remind everyone of his humble roots, in his words and actions and appearance – which partly explained the mop of messy hair that made him look like a teenage skateboarder, and his attire which consisted of jeans and an open-necked short-sleeve shirt that further cemented the youngster look.
‘I’m sorry we weren’t able to let you know sooner,’ Curtis said.
‘Because you were unwell.’
‘I’ve been out of the office most of the week, unfortunately.’
‘But from what I understand, you’re more than just three or four days behind here.’
Understand from who?
Curtis turned to Gerard, but he just gave a slight shrug.
‘We hit some roadblocks in Indonesia,’ Curtis said. ‘We’ll probably need two or three weeks more.’
‘Two or three? Which one?’
‘Two,’ Gerard piped up. ‘I’m sure we can be done in two.’
Wayne looked at him and shook his head, disappointed.
‘And these problems?’ he asked.
‘You can understand how complex this is, can’t you?’ Curtis said. ‘You’re not just moving manufacturing out to the Far East, you’re asking us to implement an entire revamp of your corporate structure to facilitate the move.’
‘Which is exactly what we’ve been paying for over the last five months, isn’t it?’
‘Of course, but—’
‘Two weeks I can deal with,’ Wayne said. ‘But any more than that and I’ll have to let our key investors know. At least tell me we’re still on budget.’
‘Well, about that…’
Curtis had no choice but to go right in. Five million? More like eight million to deliver everything Wayne had asked for. They’d already spent five and a half, and trying to clear the Indonesian issues and get everything tidied up and in place in such a short time would not come cheap. They’d already had to outsource some of the work to a different, larger consulting firm in Jakarta to try and get things moving more quickly, and had palmed off a whole extra chunk to consultants in the US too. Really, those consultants were performing a large part of the day-to-day activities for the project, but Wayne had wanted the whole operation wrapped up as a ‘legal’ cost – a benefit to him for tax purposes, accounting, and confidentiality – hence why Curtis’s firm were at the forefront of the project.
By the time Curtis had finished his excuses, Wayne had sunken in his seat; his cheeks had flushed, his eyes were beady and he looked about ready to explode.
‘You’re dumping this on me only now,’ he said.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘This is the biggest shower of shit I’ve ever seen. I’ve been working with your firm for fifteen years—’
‘I can only apologize. We’re doing everything we can.’
‘Does Gerry know?’ Wayne asked.
Inevitable, really, that he’d pull out the name of the big boss. The senior managing partner – Curtis’s boss – was a close friend of Wayne’s. Not just someone who wined and dined him, like Curtis did, but a close confidante. Someone who’d actually worked alongside Wayne in the past, rather than as client-service provider.
‘No,’ Curtis said.
Wayne threw his hands in the air in exasperation. ‘This is ridiculous. Should we call him now? Get him in here to see what he thinks about this.’
‘I can assure you—’
‘But you can’t, can you? You can’t assure me of anything, really. I’m paying you for assurance, and look where it’s got me.’
Silence. Curtis decided not to dig any further. Wayne was pissed off – perhaps rightly so – and wouldn’t back down.
‘How much is this going to cost?’ he asked. ‘And just give me a realistic number, please.’
‘We think it’ll be a little over seven million to deliver the original scope,’ Gerard said.
Wayne pursed his lips and shook his head.
‘Seven million. And that’s just for professional fees. Do you know how much it’s costing for everything else? Construction, logistics.’
Curtis actually did have a pretty good idea as the consultants they were using would eventually be in charge of overseeing that side of things too. Nearly a hundred million total was the latest forecast.
The screen of his phone lit up on the table. Curtis’s gaze diverted there. A news alert. Three different headlines. All about the hero, of course, given Curtis had set his notifications for such articles.
The search continues – who is the hero?
Analysis: Could we have it all wrong? Hero or villain.
Elliott Charlton – is he the real hero?
‘Do you?’ Wayne said. ‘Do you have any fucking idea how big this is?’
‘Yeah, I fucking do,’ Curtis said, finally unable to hold his irritation. ‘It’s big. And it’s going to cost an absolute fortune. But it’s not your money that’s being spent, is it? It’s the company’s. So why do you give such a crap, anyway? And I’m not screwing you here. I don’t get rich off this. I’m only delivering what you wanted.’
Gasps came in stereo. Gerard’s mouth was wide open.
Wayne looked ready to explode. ‘I don’t think—’
‘I mean, you could have just carried on making clothes in this country,’ Curtis said, cutting his client off, ‘rather than paying us to create this elaborate, bogus shell company structure to try and hide the fact you’re planning to use some decrepit pennies-an-hour sweatshop a few thousand miles away so the company can pocket more of your customers’ hard earned cash to keep your already mega-rich investors eating caviar and sipping champagne on their yachts.’
There was silence as Curtis took a deep breath to recover from his rant. Everyone stared in shock as they looked from him to Wayne, who it seemed had no comeback. Curtis was a little surprised; he’d half expected Wayne to launch himself across the table.
And Curtis had gone way past the line. Except he’d not spoken anything but the truth, as he saw it. Wayne operated a perfectly profitable company already. They’d grown to where they were largely on the basis of being a wholly American company. But greed knows no bounds. A hundred million could have been spent improving, expanding in the US, creating even more jobs. Instead, the money was being used to shift production elsewhere so they could milk even more profit by using mind-blowingly cheap overseas labor. And not just using it, but trying to hide that fact because of the bad publicity Wayne knew it’d bring. Hence all the elaborate legal shenanigans.
Curtis had signed up for that. He’d never agreed with the principles behind it, but who was he to change the ways of the modern business world?
Except… Maybe this time was one step too far. For him. This isn’t what he’d wanted to study law for.
‘I’m sure—’ Gerard started to say, but Curtis held a hand up to stop whatever ass-licking his colleague had his heart set on.
‘I’m just saying it how it is,’ Curtis said, holding Wayne’s angry glare. ‘We can deliver this project for you, how you wanted it, but we’re not some tinpot, backstreet operation. You want this work done properly, then—’
Wayne rose to his feet and all eyes turned to him.
‘You know what?’ he said. ‘Just finish the damn thing. You have two weeks.’
He stormed out without another word.