Out Of Love Part 28

"Hi, Russ. How is he?"

"He's better. I don't understand why he got so upset yesterday. Stacey said he didn't eat all day, and he refused to go to work this morning."

Judith felt awful. It wasn't unusual for Victor to get a little agitated when his routine was disrupted, but it rarely lasted more than a few hours. "Did you call our mom?"

"Stacey did. She got Victor to come to the phone and listen, but it didn't do any good. He kept going to the door and looking out."

"Poor guy." She wished now she had caught a morning plane back from Chicago. She would do that next time. Carmen would 194 understand. No matter how much fun they had in the extra hours, it wasn't worth the anxiety it caused her brother.

She signed in and started down the hall to Victor's room. The moment he saw her in the doorway, his face lit up and he blushed.

"Hi, Vic. Did you miss me?"

Stacey joined them, scooting past her in the doorway and carrying a small stack of Victor's laundry. "He sure did. But I bet he's okay now. Aren't you, handsome?"

"You want to go get some ice cream?"

"Sure he does. He likes ice cream." Stacey pulled his jacket from the closet and handed it to him. "Put this on."

When they stepped out into the cool air, Judith hooked her arm through her brother's. "I'm sorry I didn't come yesterday. I was in Chicago with that pretty lady I told you about." If there was one good thing about Victor's emotional immaturity, it was that he never held a grudge. The instant his needs were met, he was appeased. "You're not going to believe this, but I'm already in love with her."

They crossed the street and walked up to the ice cream store.

Judith led the way inside and ordered a cone for each of them.

Grabbing several napkins, she guided him to a small table near the wall.

"We need to get Mom over here to see you, Vic. She'd like your room. And you could show her your pictures and where you keep things. Would you like that?"

What Victor liked was vanilla ice cream. His cone was already half gone, while Judith had eaten only a few licks of hers.

"One of these days, I'm going to bring my girlfriend to see you. You'll color something for her, won't you?"

She grinned as he looked at her, his chin covered with melt-ing ice cream. It was one of those moments she almost expected him to answer.

"She's going to like you."

195.

Victor finished his cone and Judith handed him the rest of hers. Nothing made her feel better than to see him happy.

Carmen pressed the b.u.t.ton on her phone to beep Cathy at her desk. "Can you help me in here?"

Moments later, her a.s.sistant darkened her door.

"I've got the Franklin files, but I need the Southwest data,"

Carmen said.

"That report isn't due until the end of next week."

"I'll be in Tokyo at the end of next week. I want to work on it on Friday." She had decided to keep the Philadelphia meeting on Thursday and work from Judith's apartment the next day.

"You have a conference call with Berger and Gould on Friday at eleven. That's noon for you."

"I know, but it's not going to take all day. I want to get ahead as much as I can."

"Aren't you spending the day with Judith?"

"She has to work. I thought if I took the Southwest data, I could get that report written at her place."

Cathy nodded. "Okay, I'll see if Kristy has it. You want it on your laptop?"

"Yeah, but I need printouts too . . . the crosstabs."

"You're going to carry all that?"

Cathy was right. The last thing she wanted was to lug those notebooks on the plane and then on the train. "Can you overnight them?"

"To Judith?"

"Yeah." Carmen retrieved Judith's business card from her desk. "I'll let her know they're coming."

The intercom beeped. "Carmen?"

"Yes?"

"Art Conover's on line two."

Carmen rolled her eyes and flipped her middle finger at the 196 phone.

"Should I take a message?"

"No, I'll talk to him." She sat down at her desk and looked back at Cathy. "I'll come find you when I'm done."

She burned a few seconds before answering, hoping Art would grow impatient and hang up. Finally, she pressed the b.u.t.ton on her speakerphone. "Art?"

"Carmen. Good to talk to you. How are things in Chicago?

You folks getting any spring weather?"

"Eh, springtime's overrated. What's up?"

"I just wanted to follow up on what we talked about in New York . . . see if you'd had a change of heart about joining forces."

"I can honestly say I haven't thought about it at all, Art. We're just not providing the same service."

"That might be true now, but it's going to change soon."

"f.u.c.k you." Carmen mouthed the words silently, snarling at the phone.

"My board met this week and we've decided to make the investment in our expansion of the travel sector, including the implementation of the customer surveys. That means we're going to go after your clients, Carmen. It may take us a couple of years to get there, but we will. And our operation won't include all the seminars and consultations, which means we can offer the same data for less money."

"Art, you know we can run circles around you on customer service and usability. Why do you terrorize me like this?"

Despite her bravado, Carmen had a sudden sinking feeling in her gut. It was true her product was better now, but Art would be a serious threat if CDS redesigned its methodology to yield the same data.

"Because I want to give you one last chance to come on board. Your people are smart. They can save us two years of prep, and that's worth a lot of money to us."

"We like who we are."

197.

"But you won't like who you're going to be. If we come out in two years with a data service for less money, your company's value is going to drop like a rock. You won't be able to compete with us."

"Art!" She jabbed at the phone with both middle fingers.

"We're not selling out to you."

"Your people will end up working for Conover Data Services for half the money they make now. I'm telling you, we can make a very sweet deal, and I can have a team of auditors there tomorrow to go over your books."

"I can't talk about this anymore. You've got something in your ear that keeps you from hearing me."

"Just think on it some more, Carmen. Think seriously."

"I used to think you were such a nice guy."

"I'm still a nice guy. I'm trying to make us both rich."

Carmen groaned. "Good-bye, Art."

"Good-bye, Carmen."

She disconnected the line and let out an exasperated scream.

Within seconds, Cathy and Lenore were in the doorway.

"Get in here and shut the door!" she barked. "Art Conover has just graduated from pest to threat." She related the details of his call.

"How much truth is there in what he's saying?" Lenore asked.

Carmen sighed heavily. "If he delivers all the data we do without the client service? He'll eat our lunch-and our breakfast and dinner, as well. a.n.a.lysts will make a cottage industry out of providing data consultations for anyone who wants it, and we'll be out in the cold."

"But we're the experts. We've been showing our clients the way for years. Why would they dump us for Art?"

"Because if they had a choice, most of them would buy just the reports, and not the seminars and consultations. The little guys would save thirty thousand a year, and the big guys would save three times that."

198.

"Still," Lenore argued, "Art isn't as smart as we are. Why would they trust his data?"

"Because he plans to pretty much duplicate what we're doing.

We're smart, but who's going to want to pay that much more for it?"

"How can he afford to deliver it for so much less?"

"He plans to replicate this across all of his consumer industries-real estate, electronics, automobiles, everything. He'll be printing money."

Cathy shrugged. "So what are we going to do?"

"I'm thinking of putting out a hit on Art Conover. You got any relatives in the business?"

"Not that I know of, but I can ask around."

Lenore's serious expression hadn't changed since she came into the room. "What do you want to do about it, Carmen?"

"I don't know. We'll brainstorm on the way to Philadelphia.

Are you all packed?"

"I'm ready."

Carmen stood, her signal that this impromptu meeting was over. "I have one more thing to finish before I leave."

"Two," Cathy said. "Brooke called and wanted you to call her back."

No, Carmen definitely didn't want to deal with Brooke right now. "Tell her I'm . . . s.h.i.t." It wasn't fair to ask Cathy to cover for her. This whole business about ducking Brooke had started when she met Judith. It was silly on her part, and it wasn't fair to Brooke. "Would you mind calling her back and telling her I'll call her from the airport?"

"Not a problem. What else do you have to do?"

"I have to finish this checklist for Richard. I want to meet with him in the conference room on Monday afternoon on the stuff I have to take to Tokyo."

"Do you want to dictate it to me from the car?"

"What would I ever do without you?"

199.

Judith pressed the phone to her ear to m.u.f.fle the sound of the pa.s.sing truck. "Mom, I told you. It was hard on him, and I think one of us has to see him every Sunday, no matter what . . . No, I'm not going to be out of town every weekend, but sometimes I have something else I need to do. I can always see him during the week, but you could see him on Sundays if I'm not there."

She always dreaded this conversation, but the problem wasn't going away. Her mother had to get over herself and go see Victor at Wyckoff.

"You don't have to spend any time there. They can have him ready to walk out the door." She crossed the street and turned toward her agency. "We can go together. I'll come by on Sunday at noon and we can both ride down and get him."

As usual, her mother staunchly refused.

"Mom, all I'm asking is for you to consider picking him up at the center. I don't think having you spend five minutes at Wyckoff is too much to ask for Victor's sake." That's the argument she wanted to leave with her mother. "I'm at my office now. I have to go. See you Sunday."