Читать книгу The Story of Charlie Mullins: The Man in the Middle - Jim Wygand - Страница 9

IV

“Shit! I wasn’t ready for this” Charlie thought as he drove home “talk about nuts! The whole damned town betting on and talking about my life and I don’t have the slightest idea how to stop it!” That wasn’t the kind of power Charlie wanted. He didn’t want a whole town talking about him and whether he had a girlfriend or not. He imagined people talking about him at the Rotary Club, and Lion’s Club meetings and in beauty shops. This was a mess and Charlie Mullins was worried.

The next morning Charlie had a meeting at the auditing firm of Wexler and Santori in Camden. The firm had been the external auditors of the Shaw Corporation ever since the company had been founded. It grew with the Shaw Corporation as it mushroomed from a small equipment repair shop to its current status as a major multinational. A few times it had been suggested to Phillip Shaw II, the son of Shaw’s founder, that the company use a more prestigious auditing firm – one of the big ones. “Junior” as Phillip was called by the older employees at Shaw, said he had no objection to hiring one of the big auditing firms if someone could give him a good reason for doing so. He said he saw no reason for dropping Wexler and Santori simply because they were a local firm. Besides, they knew the company inside and out in a way that no new auditing firm possibly could and he saw no reason to pay higher fees just because the new auditors were “prestigious”. Since no one was ever able to offer a good reason to change, Wexler and Santori continued to audit Shaw’s books, file its tax returns, and provide support to Charlie’s department.

Charlie knew all of the auditors at Wexler and Santori on a first name basis. Many had been at the firm for as long as Charlie had been at Shaw.

Shaw Corporation was a closely held family-owned company. It was professionally managed and only one family member, Phillip II, worked for the company. There were no outside shareholders, the company had no debt and was flush with cash so preparing the audit report was more an internal affair than a public matter. The annual report was sent only to family members, the local banks, some local and a couple of national newspapers, and was, of course, available to the tax authorities should they wish to inspect. Shaw was the darling and the target of the banking community. Every bank in the country wanted to loan money to the cash-rich company. Every investment bank salivated at the prospect of underwriting a public stock issue by Shaw. Initial public offerings, IPOs, offered enormous opportunities for helping “friends” of the bankers. If you do it right, the regulatory authorities are none the wiser and everybody makes out. To the chagrin of the bankers, Phillip Shaw and the members of his family were not interested in going public – at least not at this time. Phillip was still young and while probably the last Shaw who would run the company, the family could wait until he retired before considering a public offering. That might be a good twenty years from now.

Charlie left home earlier than usual to allow himself time to evade any surveillance from what he now referred to as “The Crazy Ladies of Shoreville”. If necessary he would double back on his route to see if anyone was following him. He cursed under his breath at the inconvenience this was causing but he had to protect his privacy and “The Crazy Ladies of Shoreville” had made it necessary for him to be more vigilant. Charlie decided to take the New Jersey Turnpike to Camden. There were two service areas along the route where he could stop to see if he was being followed and anyone from Shoreville trying to pick him up en route would probably expect him to use Interstate 95 as he usually did.

The usual 30 minute ride to Camden took almost an hour as Charlie stopped along his route and then took a few evasive maneuvers when he got off at exit #4 and headed toward Camden. He was satisfied that he was not being followed. He pulled into Wexler & Santori’s lot and entered the building.

Phyllis Collins, the receptionist, was at her usual post. “Hello, Mr. Mullins, it’s good to see you. You’re here to see Mr. Cummins, right?”

“Yes, thanks Phyllis. How’s the family? Boys OK?”

“Oh yeah, Mr. Mullins. They’re doing just fine. Thanks. Just a second and I’ll buzz Mr. Cummins.”

Phyllis told Bill Cummins that Charlie had arrived and was on the way up to his office. Charlie walked to the elevator, “Thanks, Phyllis, see ya on the way out!”

Bill Cummins was a senior partner in the Wexler & Santori firm and was Charlie’s principal liaison. Charlie liked Bill – he was competent and steady. Cummins’ secretary was waiting and showed him into his office. “Charlie, good to see you. How was the traffic on the way up?”

“Same as usual, Bill, how are you doing?”

“Fine, thanks. Have a seat. I received the reports the other day. Fred Perkins sent them over.”

“He signed off on them?”

“Yeah, Charlie, I know it must kill him to not find any errors or things to question. He initialed everything, as usual. Sometimes I think he should just initial with a swastika – everybody would know it was him anyway.”

Charlie let a wry smile cross his face but he said nothing. He did not like to encourage comments about others in the company, even among friends.

“OK, Bill, let’s go through the documents and see if you have any questions or changes you think should be made.”

In spite of the fact that Perkins had signed off on all of the reports, Charlie liked to follow up to make sure nothing had been missed. Perkins would like nothing better than to let some error slip through that he could later blame on Charlie to make him look bad with senior management. He would give Charlie one of those “what-are-you-trying to-do-to me?” lectures. Charlie had seen those lectures with other employees. Fred would accuse the object of his wrath of trying to embarrass him with senior management by purposely overlooking an error in the report. He would rant that the employee was bucking for promotion at his expense and then go into his “who-do-you-think-you-are-anyway?” spiel, finishing with a scathing comment about how presumptuous and stupid the employee must be.

So, Charlie would make sure that once Fred Perkins had signed off, he would double check with Bill Cummins to make sure all was in order.

“Let’s go through the reports. You want some coffee?”

“Sure Bill, coffee’s fine.”

Cummins pushed the intercom button on his desk, “Myrna, would you be good enough to order some coffee for me and Mr. Mullins, please?”

“Yes sir, Mr. Cummins.” In a couple of minutes a white-jacketed kitchen employee entered the office with a hot pot of coffee and two porcelain china cups, matching sugar bowl and creamer with real cream. He served Charlie and Cummins and then departed as discreetly as he had entered. This was the service reserved for long-standing and well-regarded clients at Wexler & Santori. Those dealing with the junior auditors got their coffee from the Mr. Coffee coffeemakers that were scattered around the labyrinth of small offices on the second floor. They drank it in Styrofoam cups and used powdered creamer.

Cummins went to his large and expensive walnut desk and picked up a file folder marked “SHAW-2^nd QTR CURRENT YEAR”.

“Here we are, Charlie. Everything is in order. I did make a couple of adjustments on the taxes payable calculation because you had a carry-forward from last quarter. It was nothing major, but why give the government more than it deserves, right?”

“OK, Bill, let me see the adjustments.” Charlie went through the changes in the report making sure to initial the changes he saw. “It looks good, Bill. Go ahead and consolidate and send me the statements.”

“Done, Charlie, by the way, Phil Shaw was in here last week. Seems some more investment bankers were after him to go public. Any news in that area?”

“Nah. You know those guys, always looking for a deal. Phillip Shaw is not about to give up family control of this company until he is good and ready. He’s got no reason to. The company is flush with cash. Profits are good. If he went public now, some sharks would smell blood and try a takeover just to get their hands on that money. I’ll bet that before he does anything he will take a couple of poison pills first. He’ll pay out some dividends, take out some loans, and only then go public. He won’t want to see the company dismembered for its cash. Shaw is one of the few companies left that still has a reputation for being loyal to its employees and won’t see them put out of their jobs by some Wall Street sharks!”

“Yeah, it’s not like he needs the money either!” Cummins laughed.

“That’s for damned sure. Old man Shaw worked damned hard to build this company and he’s now got the assets to prove it!”

“Hey Charlie, did you ever think about getting up close to one of the available Shaw sisters? They’re not bad looking and Cecilia Shaw is divorced and they say she is looking around! You’re a good looking bachelor guy. Why not make a pitch?”

“You gotta be kidding, Bill! You know the saying; ‘When you marry for money you really earn it’? I can’t run with that crowd! Weekends in Bermuda, polo ponies, soirees in Washington and New York, private jets and all that. That’s way out of my league Bill. Besides, I suspect that the crowd she runs with would be more than just a bit boring for me. Not my type. I can handle a softball game in Shoreville, but I don’t think I could handle a polo match in the Hamptons!”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right Charlie. That is a fast crowd. Listen, you want to stay for lunch? I can have the kitchen fix something up if you want to stay around for a while.”

“No, thanks anyway Bill, I’ve got some stuff I have to do before I go back to the office. I’d better get going. Will you send me the copies of the changed reports for my files?”

“Sure, Charlie. They’ll go out in the afternoon pouch. You’ll have them by end-of-business today. Good to see you again. Drive carefully.”

Charlie took his leave and headed out to the parking lot. He looked around to see if any of “The Crazy Ladies of Shoreville” were parked nearby. When he was certain that he was not being watched or followed, he got into his car and left the Wexler & Santori parking lot and headed for the Ben Franklin bridge and into Philly. He would stop by Gina’s place before going to the office.