Chapter 48: The True Enemy

May 16, 1994, Chicago, Illinois

“Are you ready to meet the Chicago consulting candidate?” Charlie asked with a smile after lunch on Monday.

“Sure. Bring him in, please.”

She was back a minute later with Bert Townsend.

“Hi, Bert! Long time no see!” I said shaking his hand.

“Eight years, I guess,” he said. “Hi, Penny!”

“Hi, Bert.”

“How are you doing?” he asked.

“Still tolerating the big dope next to me!” she smirked.

I leaned over and kissed her cheek, then got up from my desk and moved to the couch. Bert sat in one of the chairs across the low table from me. Kimmy, as usual, came to the door to ask about drinks. We asked for tea which she left to prepare.

“How is Boston?”

“I like it, but when I heard through the grapevine you were hiring, I decided to call Charlie and talk to her about the position.”

“And you’d be cool with coming back to Chicago?”

“Absolutely!” he answered. “I hear you have a bunch of kids now?”

“I do. Seven to be exact. You?”

“Seven? Damn! I married a girl in Boston and we have a daughter.”

“She’ll be OK moving here?”

“She’s originally from Cairo,” he said. “She went to nursing school in Boston. I was wondering if you had any connections to help her find a position here.”

I chuckled, “I think I can talk to a few people for you.”

“Cool. Did you ever hear anything more from Callie or her lawyer?”

“Callie, no. Her lawyer, well, he’s the proverbial thorn in my side. Why do you ask?”

“She tried to contact me about three, maybe four, years ago; I’m not exactly sure now. She called me at work and left a message. I never returned the call because I couldn’t imagine what I’d say to her.”

“You and me both. She’s never tried to get in touch with me or Charlie, at least as far as I’m aware.”

“Charlie said the same thing. Her lawyer is still bothering you?”

‘Her lawyer’? I wondered if Callie somehow could be behind this. But that didn’t make sense. I pushed the thought out of my mind and simply downplayed the issue.

“Yeah, but it’s not a big deal.”

“I ran into a guy who used to work for you, Jefferson. He sang your praises.”

As he damned well should, because had I been vindictive, I’d have done everything in my power to screw him.

“He’s a good guy who made a bad decision and then complicated it by doing something dumb. How’d you run into him?”

“He’s doing contract programming and we hire bodies when we need them. He’s a decent programmer and seems like a nice enough guy.”

“He got his second chance,” I said. “You know we bought out BLS and integrated their customer base into ours.”

“That’s what Charlie said. Are you still doing stuff at IIT?”

“Dave took over last semester because I managed to fracture my skull and get a concussion.”

“Wow! What happened?”

“The short version is I’ve had these weird fainting spells at times of severe stress. I had one when I realized Jorge had died in a car accident when he was riding with Jessica.”

“Wait! What?! Jorge is dead?”

I nodded, “Very early in the morning on November 9th. A drunk hit them.”

“Damn,” he sighed. “He was such a nice guy, too. I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Thanks,” I said. “You’re sure about wanting to move back to Chicago?”

“Yes. My wife’s family still lives downstate and I always liked it here.”

“Did you have any questions for me?” I asked.

“When do I start?” he grinned.

“That’s not up to me. Charlie is a full director and she’ll make her decision and arrange the terms.”

“But you have to sign off, right? You’re the CEO.”

“And I’ve delegated that authority to Charlie. I do have a veto if I choose to exercise it.”

“And?” he asked.

“And Charlie will tell you,” I said firmly. “I’ll get you back to her so you can finish your interviews.”

“Thanks,” he said.

We shook hands, and I walked him downstairs to Charlie’s office.

“Who’s left?” Penny asked when I came back upstairs. “Wen? I think you pretty much got everyone else from when you were at IIT. Well, the ones who mattered.”

I nodded, “Wen is happy with her job, married, and has a son. I talk to her every once in a while. If she were to call, I’d hire her, but she likes what she’s doing.”

“What about your Russian friend? That hot little number who wanted to steal you away from Tatyana?”

“She’s working for Sun Microsystems on some super-secret project. She’s hinted that it’s some kind of new programming language, but she really isn’t allowed to talk about it. Scott isn’t talking, either.”

“Are we hiring Bert?”

“You heard me tell him it’s up to Charlie. Usually I only see her top candidate, but it made sense for me to see him when she flew him in for the interviews.”

“Relocation is a big expense.”

“Sure, but Charlie hasn’t found anyone in Chicago that she likes. She’s done a dozen face-to-face interviews and countless phone interviews. If she and Julia and the other team members think he can do the job, it’s worth it. He was a good student back in the day; he just picked the wrong friend.”

“No shit! Any idea why she’d try to contact him?”

I shook my head, “No. I mean, seriously, she accused him of attempting to rape her, so I have no clue. It did get me to thinking, though, about how Carla found Brandon Littleton.”

“Why?”

“I’m not sure. It’s just something that came to me. Maybe I’m thinking about this in the wrong way.”

“How so?”

“Maybe, just maybe, it’s not Littleton who is the true enemy.”

May 17, 1994, Chicago, Illinois

On Tuesday morning, after having talked things through with Jamie the night before, I went to the ‘Hull’ room and called Carla. Her machine answered, and I left a message. She called back about an hour later. After the usual pleasantries, I asked the burning question.

“How did you find Brandon Littleton?”

“My uncle Pete recommended him. Why?”

“I’m trying to figure out why he’s dogging me. Yes, it could be coincidence, but I have this feeling that there’s more to it. I hope you don’t mind me asking, but is your Uncle’s last name Rizzi?”

“No. It’s Scuderi. Why?”

There was something about that name; something from long ago. I couldn’t place it, but I knew who would be able to.

“I’m looking for some link, some common thing between all the cases - the cheating scandal at IIT, your paternity suit, the lawsuit from a competitor, and this last lawsuit from a client. Something links them together. I know the answer to this, but I’ll ask anyway. Do you know Callie Shepherd, Arthur Drake, or John Milton?”

“Never heard of any of them,” she replied.

“Well, it was a longshot,” I said. “Where does your uncle live?”

“Rosemont. Why?”

“Just curious. Oh, one more thing, you never paid Littleton anything at all, did you?”

“No. He even paid the filing fees for the paternity suit and for the DNA test. He said he’d recover it all from you.”

That was interesting. I’d paid for the second test and it hadn’t been cheap. Was me tweaking Littleton during the deposition and blowing his suit against IIT apart in court enough to cause him to want to spend money to get me? That didn’t make sense at all. The best he could have recovered was reasonable attorney’s fees, and if I’d simply acknowledged paternity, he’d have got next to nothing.

“OK. That’s all I needed. Thanks, Carla.”

“You’re welcome.”

We hung up and I dialed the number of my oldest, dearest, Italian friend. We chatted briefly about the kids, then I asked the question.

“Do you know anyone named Scuderi?” I asked.

She laughed, “Sure. And you do, too. Don Carlo.”

“Does he have a son who lives in Chicago?”

“In Rosemont. Why?”

“I’d rather not say at the moment,” I said.

“Come on, Steve. It’s me. Talk.”

“You know the lawyer who’s been vexing us, Littleton?”

“We agreed you wouldn’t do anything once the settlement was in place. Jamie and Kurt gave you very good advice.”

“Yes, I know. But someone I knew years ago mentioned the girl who was part of the cheating ring and Littleton, and it got me to thinking. Just how did Carla come across a high-priced attorney willing to take her paternity case completely on contingency, when the best he could hope for was reasonable legal fees, and he’d need a court order to get those because Illinois law doesn’t allow him a percentage of any child support he’d secure for her?”

“Maybe they were hoping for a cash settlement?”

“Why? To keep it out of the news? I had a bunch of kids by different women by that point. And it was easy enough for me to stay in the shadows. It makes no sense.”

“So why ask about Don Carlo?”

“Let me ask you a question first, if that’s OK? What’s Don Carlo’s son’s name?”

“Pete. Peter Scuderi.”

“Bingo!” I said. “That’s Carla’s uncle.”

“No way!”

“Yeah, and you know what that means. I know who’s behind this. And so do you.”

“Anthony?”

“Anthony. But I don’t have proof. Yet.”

“Let sleeping dogs lie, Steve. You and Anthony have a truce.”

“Bullshit,” I said. “I think ever since Alfonso and I visited Anthony, Anthony has been looking for a way to get payback without me knowing it was him. Is Scuderi connected? Made?”

“I haven’t seen him since I was six or seven when he moved to Chicago. What are you going to do?”

“Research. Just research.”

“Don’t stir up trouble. Things have been so quiet.”

“And when Littleton comes back for the next bite of the apple? Remember what Jamie said - all Littleton has to do is get lucky once and it could ruin us.”

“Be careful, Steve. I mean that.”

“I hear you. I’m just going to make some phone calls. And I’m not talking about Anthony or Connie.”

“I don’t like this.”

“Me neither, but there’s no other way.”

We said our goodbyes and I hung up. The next thing to do was to see if I could find a link with BLS. I walked to Elyse’s office and shut the door behind me.

“Do you have the ‘Due Diligence’ files from the BLS merger here? And the file from the depositions for the lawsuit? And discovery?”

“No. They’re in long-term storage. I can get them back from Iron Mountain if you need them. Why?”

“A hunch. I don’t want to say anything now. How soon can you have the records here?”

“Today, if we pay to rush them, otherwise tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow is fine,” I said. “Make the call, please.”

“You’ll tell me what you’re looking for?”

“If and when I find it, yes.”

Elyse gave me a hard look, but dialed the number of the records storage company and asked for the two cartons of records to be returned.

“By noon tomorrow,” she said when she hung up the phone. “What’s going on?”

“Not yet,” I said. “Give me a couple of days once the records are back.”

I could tell Elyse wasn’t happy, but I didn’t want to stir up a hornet’s nest if there was just some odd coincidence in Carla’s case, but the more I thought about it, the more I wondered. If I found some kind of link in the records from BLS, then that left only Milton & Lomax, but it was likely that Littleton had sought them out himself because of his relationship with Milton.

I didn’t have more time to think about it, as I had work to get done before my lunch with Mitsuko. The first thing I needed to do was call a client in San Diego we’d signed not long after we’d signed Ford, Jackson, and Finch. They were pushing Cynthia and Cindi very hard for discounted support, something we simply never did. We charged enough to cover our costs plus a reasonable margin. We couldn’t discount our service without directly impacting our operations. Revenue to pay for staff and infrastructure had to come from somewhere.

“Steve Adams calling for Charles Long,” I said to his secretary after the receptionist put me through to his office. “He should be expecting my call.”

“He is, Mr. Adams,” the secretary said. “Will you hold for one or two minutes? He’s just finishing another call.”

“Yes, of course.”

It was actually about three minutes, but I scanned the plans for my trip to Europe and Sam’s trip to Asia while I waited. It looked as if everything was coming together nicely. I really wanted to make the trip to Asia, which now included Sydney, Singapore, and Tokyo. I really wanted to go on that trip, but there was no question that Sam deserved it and I wasn’t going to pull rank. I’d just have to make do with a trip to Europe.

“Mr. Adams? This is Charles Long.”

“Thank you for taking my call, Mr. Long. I understand you’ve had some conversations with my team and expressed some concerns about our support pricing.”

“I’m curious why you don’t give your Regional Director or, more importantly, your Vice President of Sales and Support the authority to negotiate discounts.”

“Nobody has the authority to negotiate discounts because NIKA doesn’t offer discounts beyond the published pricing schedules.”

“Look, I understand hardball tactics. I use them all the time. But let’s cut to the chase here. We both know everything is negotiable.”

“In the general case, I’d say that’s true, but as with all general rules, there are exceptions. We set our prices based on our costs, needs for future development, and a reasonable margin. We’ve done that since we started the company in 1985. We decided, from the outset, to price our software and services based on the value we deliver, and not to fix our prices high and then negotiate discounts in an attempt to squeeze a few extra points of margin out of the overall customer base.”

“Let me get this straight, none of your customers have negotiated discounts? Ever?”

“That’s correct. Our price sheet sets forth the cost per seat, both in terms of initial license fees and ongoing support and licensing.”

“Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m not sure I can believe that.”

“Let me ask you this, Mr. Long - did we ask you to sign an NDA or otherwise try to conceal our pricing?”

“Come to think of it, no, you didn’t.”

“That’s because we don’t NEED to ask you to keep what you paid from other clients. If you like, please talk to Ben Jackson or the Vice President of the User Group, Ned Jenkins in Pittsburgh. Or any other client. You’ll find that your charges match the price sheet just as theirs do. And, I will point out that we eliminated the California surcharge three years ago without an equivalent increase in price.”

“I’m just not sure we’re getting the value for what we’re paying you.”