Makers Part 12

"Plus, I'll get to see my kids," he admitted.

"How much money is Westinghouse putting into the project?" she asked, replacing her notional notebook with a real one, pulled from her purse.

"I don't have numbers, but they've shut down the whole appliances division to clear the budget for it." She nodded -- she'd seen news of the layoffs on the wires. Ma.s.s demonstrations, people out of work after twenty years' service. "So it's a big budget."

"They must have been impressed with the quarterlies from Kodacell."

Tjan folded down the flaps on his box and drummed his fingers on it, squinting at her. "You're joking, right?"

"What do you mean?"

"Suzanne, they were impressed by *you*. Everyone knows that quarterly numbers are easy to cook -- anything less than two annual reports is as likely to be enronning as real fortune-making. But *your*

dispatches from here -- they're what sold them. It's what's convincing *everyone*. Kettlewell said that three quarters of his new recruits come on board after reading your descriptions of this place. That's how *I* ended up here."

She shook her head. "That's very flattering, Tjan, but --"

He waved her off and then, surprisingly, came around the desk and hugged her. "But nothing, Suzanne. Kettlewell, Lester, Perry -- they're all basically big kids. Full of enthusiasm and invention, but they've got the emotional maturity and sense of scale of hyperactive five year olds. You and me, we're grownups. People take us seriously. It's easy to get a kid excited, but when a grownup chimes in you know there's some there there."

Suzanne recovered herself after a second and put away her notepad. "I'm just the person who writes it all down. You people are making it happen."

"In ten years' time, they'll remember you and not us," Tjan said. "You should get Kettlewell to put you on the payroll."

Kettlewell himself turned up the next day. Suzanne had developed an intuitive sense of the flight-times from the west coast and so for a second she couldn't figure out how he could possibly be standing there -- nothing in the sky could get him from San Jose to Miami for a seven AM arrival.

"Private jet," he said, and had the grace to look slightly embarra.s.sed. "Kodak had eight of them and Duracell had five. We've been trying to sell them all off but no one wants a used jet these days, not even Saudi princes or Columbian drug-lords."

"So, basically, it was going to waste."

He smiled and looked eighteen -- she really did feel like the only grownup sometimes -- and said, "Zackly -- it's practically environmental. Where's Tjan?"

"Downstairs saying goodbye to the guys, I think."

"OK," he said. "Are you coming?"

She grabbed her notebook and a pen and beat him out the door of her rented condo.

"What's this all about," Tjan said, looking wary. The guys were hang-dog and curious looking, slightly in awe of Kettlewell, who did little to put them at their ease -- he was staring intensely at Tjan.

"Exit interview," he said. "Company policy."

Tjan rolled his eyes. "Come on," he said. "I've got a flight to catch in an hour."

"I could give you a lift," Kettlewell said.

"You want to do the exit interview between here and the airport?"

"I could give you a lift to JFK. I've got the jet warmed up and waiting."

Sometimes, Suzanne managed to forget that Kodacell was a multi-billion dollar operation and that Kettlewell was at its helm, but other times the point was very clear.

"Come on," he said, "we'll make a day of it. We can stop on the way and pick up some barbecue to eat on the plane. I'll even let you keep your seat in the reclining position during take-off and landing. h.e.l.l, you can turn your cell-phone on -- just don't tell the Transport Security Administration!"

Tjan looked cornered, then resigned. "Sounds good to me," he said and Kettlewell shouldered one of the two huge duffel-bags that were sitting by the door.

"Hi, Kettlewell," Perry said.

Kettlewell set down the duffel. "Sorry, sorry. Lester, Perry, it's really good to see you. I'll bring Suzanne back tonight and we'll all go out for dinner, OK?"

Suzanne blinked. "I'm coming along?"

"I sure hope so," Kettlewell said.

Perry and Lester accompanied them down in the elevator.

"Private jet, huh?" Perry said. "Never been in one of those."

Kettlewell told them about his adventures trying to sell off Kodacell's private air force.

"Send one of them our way, then," Lester said.

"Do you fly?" Kettlewell said.

"No," Perry said. "Lester wants to take it apart. Right, Les?"

Lester nodded. "Lots of cool junk in a private jet."

"These things are worth millions, guys," Kettlewell said.

"No, someone *paid* millions for them," Perry said. "They're *worth*

whatever you can sell them for."

Kettlewell laughed. "You've had an influence around here, Tjan," he said. Tjan managed a small, tight smile.

Kettlewell had a driver waiting outside of the building who loaded the duffels into the s.p.a.cious trunk of a spotless dark town-car whose doors chunked shut with an expensive sound.

"I want you to know that I'm really not angry at all, OK?" Kettlewell said.

Tjan nodded. He had the look of a man who was steeling himself for a turn in an interrogation chamber. He'd barely said a word since Kettlewell arrived. For his part, Kettlewell appeared oblivious to all of this, though Suzanne was pretty sure that he understood exactly how uncomfortable this was making Tjan.

"The thing is, six months ago, nearly everyone was convinced that I was a f.u.c.king moron, that I was about to p.i.s.s away ten billion dollars of other people's money on a stupid doomed idea. Now they're copying me and poaching my best people. So this is good news for me, though I'm going to have to find a new business manager for those two before they get picked up for turning planes into component pieces."

Suzanne's PDA vibrated whenever the number of online news stories mentioning her or Kodacell or Kettlewell increased or decreased sharply. She used to try to read everything, but it was impossible to keep up -- now all she wanted was to keep track of whether the interestingness-index was on the uptick or downtick.

It had started to buzz that morning and the pitch had increased steadily until it was actually uncomfortable in her pocket. Irritated, she yanked it out and was about to switch it off when the lead article caught her eye.

KODACELL LOSES TJAN TO WESTINGHOUSE

The by-line was Freddy. Feeling like a character in a horror movie who can't resist the compulsion to look under the bed, Suzanne thumbed the PDA's wheel and brought up the whole article.