The Key

“I don’t care how much money he brings in. He shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this sort of thing.”

“I’ll just deal with it, and once I make partner, I’ll never have to deal with it again.”

“Well, let me know if you change your mind….”

“Thanks, Jake. I appreciate it.”

“No problem. See you at ten?”

“At ten,” I confirmed and hung up the phone. “Pretty little head, my foot,” I muttered, washing the words down with a swig of soda.

I turned to where I’d left my briefcase on top of the credenza, unlatching it and drawing a battered spiral-bound notebook from an inside pocket.

The notebook contained a hundred sheets of ruled paper, but it was already more than half-filled, which wasn’t surprising given that I’d been making regular entries for years. I opened to a fresh page and printed the date at the top. Then I quickly summarized my interaction with Gallagher, “pretty little head” and all. I tried to describe it objectively, which was challenging given the rage still coursing through my veins. I wrote steadily for several minutes before pausing to look over my account. Satisfied that I’d captured everything important, I flipped through the preceding pages.

The previous entry was from Saturday afternoon and described the first incident with Gallagher. The page before that held a description of my most recent meeting with the partner assigned to be my “mentor.” He’d insisted on conducting my last performance review over drinks and had swilled down three Glenlivets while I nursed a seltzer and fought off his attempts to steer the conversation toward my love life, rather than my professional development.

The notebook was my version of an insurance policy, started at the urging of my friend Luisa, a lawyer. I wanted to succeed on my merits, but it hadn’t taken long to realize that there was a lot more than merit to succeeding on Wall Street, especially as a woman. If I ever found myself getting the shaft for reasons that I suspected had more to do with my gender than anything else, I had a detailed record of all I’d put up with over the years. None of my experiences met the legal definition of sexual harassment, but as a whole the handwritten pages told a compelling story.

I’d returned the notebook to my briefcase and was cranking through the e-mails overflowing my in-box when the intercom buzzed. “Peter’s on line one,” Jessica told me.

“Thanks, I’ll take it,” I said and picked up the phone, still typing with my free hand. “Hi.”

“Good morning.”

“Not so far.”

“That’s the attitude, Sparky.”

“What’s up?”

“I wanted to check in and see if maybe you could sneak out for a nice romantic lunch today.”

I hadn’t told Peter about Gallagher’s far less welcome invitation—it would only upset him, and he was already concerned about how hard I’d been working—so he couldn’t have known the unfortunate associations lunch invitations held for me just then. Nor was there any way I was going to be able to sneak out for a nice romantic anything. In fact, sneaking out for a decent night’s sleep was probably going to be a problem, and I told Peter as much.

“That bad, huh?” Peter ran a tech start-up, and while he worked hard, he was his own boss and set his own hours. It wasn’t always easy for him to understand how little control I had over my own schedule.

“Just business as usual. Listen, I’ll call you when I know how things are shaping up. Maybe we can try to grab a late dinner?”

“That would be great. I feel like I see less of you than I did before we lived together.”

“I’m sorry,” I said lamely. “But this deal can’t last forever.” At least, I certainly hoped it couldn’t. “I’ll talk to you later?”

“All right,” he agreed.

My other line was ringing, and I checked the caller ID. “That’s Jake. I’ve got to run.”

I’d hung up before I realized Peter was still talking. “Love you—” he was saying.

I felt guilty, but only partly because I’d had so little time for Peter of late.

The other part was because I was annoyed that I felt guilty. A nasty little voice in my head was saying that Peter should know well enough by now what my job was like, that he couldn’t expect me to drop everything whenever he called. Just because he had a key to my apartment didn’t mean that he had a key to my entire life.

And the very existence of that nasty little voice made me feel all the more guilty.

chapter four

J ake, Mark and I took the single flight of stairs up to the designated conference room a few minutes before ten. “Where should I sit?” asked Mark nervously, setting the stack of bound presentations on the table. Client meetings were still pretty new to him—he’d joined the firm only a few months ago after graduating early from an undergraduate finance program, opting to start work immediately rather than use the extra time to travel or take a few electives.

“I wouldn’t just yet,” I advised. “I’m sure Gallagher has some master plan about how he wants to position us.” Like kneeling at his feet, awaiting his next command. Jake smiled as if he knew what I was thinking, and he probably did.

Gallagher arrived a moment later, deep in chummy conversation with his companion—Nicholas Perry, presumably. Next to Perry, Gallagher looked especially mousy, as Perry was well over six feet and bore a striking resemblance to George Hamilton, albeit dressed in a pin-striped suit rather than a Zorro costume.

Jake stepped forward and introduced himself, shaking Perry’s hand.

“Hello, Jake,” Perry said.

“And this is Rachel Benjamin and Mark Anders.” I had the feeling that Jake didn’t trust Gallagher to get the names of his minions right and had preempted the introductions accordingly.

“Nice to meet you.” He turned to Gallagher. “This is quite a group you’ve assembled here, Glenn.” There was something oily about his tone, or maybe it just seemed that way because he looked so slick, from his shining tasseled loafers up to his sleekly barbered hair.

Gallagher shrugged—he saved his chumminess for old college pals—and glanced at his Rolex. “Ready to get started?”

“Let’s do it,” agreed Perry with a glance at his own Rolex.

Sure enough, Gallagher did have strong ideas about seating. In my case, it was at the end of the table farthest from Perry. For once I was happy to be marginalized.

“We’ve run the numbers,” he told Perry as we took our places. “And the bond department is raring to go—we should be able to get this done in a couple of weeks.”

“The faster the better,” said Perry.

Gallagher began walking him through the materials we’d put together, with Jake, Mark, and I adding the occasional clarifying detail when called upon. The mechanics of the proposed buyout were fairly straightforward. Perry would purchase all of Thunderbolt’s shares, financing a small part of the acquisition with fifty million dollars put up by his investor group. The remainder would be financed by bonds that Winslow, Brown would issue and sell. The bonds, in turn, would be backed by Thunderbolt’s future earnings. Perry’s investor group would then own a company worth five hundred million dollars after putting up only ten percent of its value.

It was risky but perfectly legal. And Winslow, Brown would net a cool three or four million dollars in fees for a few weeks’ work, a healthy chunk of which would be deposited directly into Gallagher’s pocket. It was good to be a partner, and especially good to be a senior partner.

“The only thing standing in the way is getting the new union contract signed. Did you wrap up the negotiations?” Gallagher asked Perry.

“We finalized everything over the weekend. Kryzluk, the chapter president, is a bit bull-headed, but the last thing he wanted was layoffs—he had to cave on benefits.” He said this as if the decline in Thunderbolt’s business was a plus, because it meant that the union had to yield on its demands to ensure that employees kept their jobs.

“Good,” said Gallagher, who probably didn’t spend much time pondering the fate of industrial laborers in a rust-belt town. Concern about that sort of thing would be a liability in his line of work.

As I listened, however, my unease only increased.

The whole deal smelled. As I’d tried to point out earlier, Thunderbolt was in bad shape. I didn’t understand what Perry or his anonymous co-investors were thinking—sure, the buyout would leave them in control, but with massive interest payments that the business couldn’t support with its declining revenues.

When Gallagher paused to draw a breath, I spoke without thinking. “Are there any new contracts in the pipeline?” There must be a reason that Perry was so interested in owning the company—the man may have been slick, but I doubted he was stupid.

My question met with an awkward moment of silence. Then Perry turned to me, peering down the length of the polished mahogany table as if noting my presence for the first time.