Read Till the Butchers Cut Him Down for Free Online Page B

my time getting to the JetRanger, to punish him for continuing to use the hated nickname.
    * * *
    Our next stop was the roof of a downtown office building within blocks of Oakland’s convention center. The elevator that Suits
     and I took down, an ancient cage replete with an accordion grille that had to be yanked open by hand, creaked and wheezed
     and bounced ominously when it reached the fifth floor. Suits hauled at the lever on the grille, pushed open the door, and
     preceded me into a dingy green hallway with scarred wainscoting and doors with pebbled-glass windows and transoms. I felt
     as though I’d stepped back into the forties.
    “Guess GGL really
was
in trouble before they called on you,” I commented.
    Suits gave the elevator door a shove; it caught on a curled square of linoleum. He threw his hands up and started down the
     hall. “They damned well were in trouble. Had three floors of offices at One Kaiser Plaza. Rosewood and Oriental rugs up the
     wazoo.”
    “You moved them from Kaiser Plaza to
this?”
    He stopped before an unmarked door at the end of the corridor. “First tenet of turnaround: slash costs. Second tenet: scare
     ’em. I slashed costs by cutting office rent to a third. And I scared ’em by moving to a slummy building with no carpeting
     and exposed pipes on the ceiling.” He laughed, a whoop that echoed off the bare walls. “The dickhead contingent put up a fuss,
     of course. ‘But our image,’ they said. ‘What image?’ I said. ‘Everybody in town knows you’re up to your asses in unpaid invoices.’
     At that point a couple of the dickheads threw in the towel and went back to Ohio. Kirk Cameron stayed, but he’s taken to seriously
     working on his golf game. But most of the admin staff and operations people stuck by me.”
    He threw open the door and extended his hand toward the room beyond it. I stepped inside, saw two rows of steel desks topped
     by computer terminals and covered with papers and files. Most of the desks were occupied, and all the occupants were busy.
     Suits led me down the center aisle toward a cubicle at the rear, calling greetings to people as he passed. I watched their
     responses, trying to gauge how they felt about him; they ranged from cordiality to wariness.
    The cubicle was small, its walls topped with more pebbled glass. Suits motioned at its Spartan furnishings and said, “Not
     much of an office for the head honcho, huh?”
    “It’s worse than the closet under the stairs that I used to work in at All Souls.”
    “Third tenet of turnaround: don’t give yourself perks when you’re taking them away from everybody else. Besides, I do most
     of my work in the bird or at the condo.” He sprawled in the swivel chair, propping his feet on the desk, and pointed at the
     straight-back across from him. “Sit.”
    “I thought you had urgent business to attend to.”
    “It can wait a minute. First I want to introduce you to a couple of my people.”
    I glanced at my watch. Almost five. By now, I hoped, Mick would have put my offices in order. No doubt at this moment he was
     ensconced on the new sofa studying … what?
Methods of Disguise? Games Criminals Play?
When I’d seen those two titles in the gym bag he carried, the thought of how he might apply the knowledge had made me cringe.
    Suits saw me checking the time, but chose to ignore my concern. “One team member that I asked to stop in is … here right now.”
    A tall woman with closely clipped blond hair stopped on the threshold of the cubicle. Suits got up, indicating she should
     take his chair. She remained where she was, frowning in disapproval. “They’re waiting for you down in Legal.”
    “On my way. This is the investigator I told you about, Sharon McCone. Sharon, Carole Lattimer, my chief financial officer.”
    I rose and shook Lattimer’s hand, secretly amused that the “finance guy” from Chicago whom Suits had said he called upon was
     a woman.
    Suits squeezed past