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He thuinal picture of Johnson He compared it to the later one There was no doubt about what she had done He read the rest of the first article:

As a new arrival to DigiCos her considerable business acu softball pitch She&039;s a iCo friends are never surprised to learn that Meredith was once a finalist in the Miss Teen Connecticut contest In her student days at Vassar, Meredith was a valuedsociety A y, with a minor in abnor that around here, Meredith! At Stanford, she obtained her MBA with honors, graduating near the top of her class Meredith told us, "I a career with this forward-looking company" We couldn&039;t have said it better, Ms Johnson!

"No shit," Sanders said He had known almost none of this From the start, Meredith had been based in Cupertino; Sanders never saw her The one time he had run into her was soon after her arrival, before she changed her hair Her hair and what else?

He looked carefully at the two pictures Soery? It was ied between the two portraits

He azine quickly now, convinced that he had learned what there was to kno he skimmed only the headlines:

GARVIN SENDS JOHNSON TO TEXAS

FOR AUSTIN PLANT OVERSIGHT

JOHNSON WILL HEAD NEW

OPERATIONS REVIEW UNIT

JOHNSON NAMED OPERATIONS VEEP

TO WORK DIRECTLY UNDER GARVIN

JOHNSON: TRIUMPH IN MALAYSIA

LABOR CONFLICT NOW RESOLVED

MEREDITH JOHNSON OUR RISING STAR

A SUPERB MANAGER; HER SKILL IN

TECHNICAL AREAS VERY STRONG

This final headline ran above a lengthy profile of Johnson, well placed on the second page of the o Seeing it now, Sanders realized that the article was intended for internal consu This article was a trial balloon that Cupertino had floated, to see if Meredith would be acceptable to run the technical divisions in Seattle The only trouble was, Sanders never saw it And nobody had ever mentioned it to him

The article stressed the technical savvy that Johnson had acquired during her years with the co in technical areas, back with Novell The technical fields have always been o back to it After all, strong technical innovation lies at the heart of a forward-looking coer here must be able to run the technical divisions"

There it was

He looked at the date: May 2 Published six weeks ago Which meant that the article had been written at least teeks before that

As Mark Lewyn had suspected, Meredith Johnson knew she was going to be the head of the Advanced Products Division at least two o Which meant, in turn, that Sanders had never been under consideration to become division head He had never had a chance

It was a done deal

Months ago

Sanders swore, took the articles over to the xerox machine and copied them, then put the stacks back on the shelf, and left the press office

He got on the elevator Mark Leas there Sanders said, "Hi, Mark" Lewyn didn&039;t answer Sanders pushed the button for the ground floor

The doors closed

"I just hope you knohat the fuck you&039;re doing," Lewyn said angrily

"I think I do"

"Because you could fuck this thing up for everybody You know that?"

"Fuck what up?"

"Just because you got your ass in the sling, it&039;s not our problem"

"Nobody said it was"

"I don&039;t knohat&039;s the matter with you," Lewyn said "You&039;re late for work, you don&039;t call me when you say you will What is it, trouble at ho to do with Susan"

"Yeah? I think it does You&039;ve been late two days running and even when you&039;re here, you walk around like you&039;re drea drea to Meredith&039;s office at night, anyway?"

"She asked me to co I shouldn&039;t have gone?"

Lewyn shook his head in disgust "This innocent act is a lot of crap Don&039;t you take any responsibility for anything?"

"What-"

"Look, Tom, everybody in the company knows that Meredith is a shark Meredith Manmuncher, they call her The Great White Everybody knows she&039;s protected by Garvin, that she can do what she wants And what she wants is to play grabass with cute guys who show up in her office at the end of the day She has a couple of glasses of wine, she gets a little flushed, and she wants service A delivery boy, a trainee, a young account guy Whatever And nobody can say a word because Garvin thinks she walks on water So, how come everybody else in the company knows it but you?"

Sanders was stunned He did not kno to answer He stared at Leho stood very close to him, his body hunched, hands in his pockets He could feel Lewyn&039;s breath on his face But he could hardly hear Lewyn&039;s words It was as if they careat distance

"Hey, Tom You walk the same halls, you breathe the sa what You goup there to her officeand you know da but announce to the world that she wants to suck your dick All day long, she&039;s touching your arful little looks and squeezes Oh, Toain And now you tellin that office? Fuck you, Tom You&039;re an asshole"

The elevator doors opened Before the dark in the fading light of the June evening A soft rain fell outside Lewyn started toward the exit, then turned back His voice echoed in the lobby

"You realize," he said, "that you&039;re acting like one of those woo, `Who, o, `Oh, it&039;s not ot drunk and kissed him and went to his room and lay down on his bed that he&039;d fuck me Oh dear me no&039; It&039;s bullshit, Tom Irresponsible bullshit And you better think about what I&039;, because there&039;s a lot of us who have worked every bit as hard as you have in this coer and this spin-off for the rest of us You want to pretend you can&039;t tell when a wo on to you, that&039;s fine You want to screw up your own life, it&039;s your decision But you screw upput you away"

Lewyn stalked off The elevator doors started to close Sanders stuck his hand out; the doors closed on his fingers He jerked his hand, and the doors opened again He hurried out into the lobby after Lewyn

He grabbed Lewyn on the shoulder "Mark, wait, listen-"

"I got nothing to say to you I got kids, I got responsibilities You&039;re an asshole"

Lewyn shrugged Sanders&039;s arm off, pushed open the door, and walked out He strode quickly away, down the street

As the glass doors closed, Sanders saw a flash of blond in the ht that was a little unfair," Meredith Johnson said She was standing about twenty feet behind hihts, and a sweatshirtand she carried a gy in her hand She looked beautiful, overtly sexual in a certain way Sanders felt tense: there was no one else in the lobby They were alone

"Yes," Sanders said "I thought it was unfair"

"Iover her shoulder, theher bare abdohts She shook her head and pushed her hair back froan to speak "I want to tell you I&039;m sorry about all this," she said SheHer voice was low "I never wanted any of this, To slowly, as if he were an anihtened away "I have only the wars for you" Still closer "Only the warmest" Closer "I can&039;t help it, To to offend you, I apologize" She was very close now, her body al his, her breasts inches from his arm "I&039;m truly sorry, Tom," she said softly She see, her eyes ive me? Please? You kno I feel about you"

He felt all the old sensations, the old stirrings He clenched his jaw "Meredith The past is past Cut it out, will you?"

She iestured to the street "Listen, I have a car here Can I drop you soht you ood idea"

"Only because it&039;s raining"

"This is Seattle," he said "It rains all the tied, walked to the door, and leaned her weight against it, thrusting out her hip Then she looked back at hihts around you It&039;s e: you h the door, and walked quickly to the waiting car, getting in the back She closed the door, looked back at him, and waved cheerfully The car drove off

Sanders unclenched his hands He took a deep breath and let it out slowly His whole body was tense He waited until the car was gone, then went outside He felt the rain on his face, the cool evening breeze

He hailed a taxi "The Four Seasons Hotel," he said to the driver

Riding in the taxi, Sanders stared out the , breathing deeply He felt as though he couldn&039;t get his breath He had been badly unnerved by theso close after his conversation with Lewyn

Sanders was distressed by what Lewyn had said, but you could never take Mark too seriously Leas an artistic hothead who handled his creative tensions by getting angry He was angry about sory Sanders had known hi time Personally, he had never understood how Adele, Mark&039;s wife, put up with it Adele was one of those wonderfully calmatic women who could talk on the phone while her two kids crawled all over her, tugging at her, asking her questions In a sie while she went on about her business In fact, everyone just let Lewyn rage, because everyone knew that, in the end, it didn&039;t

Yet, it was also true that Lewyn had a kind of instinct for public perceptions and trends That was the secret of his success as a designer Leould say, "Pastel colors," and everybody would groan and say that the new design colors looked like hell But two years later, when the products were co off the line, pastel colors would be just what everybody wanted So Sanders was forced to admit that what Lewyn had said about hi Lewyn had said the co up the chances for everybody else

Well, screw theht

As for Meredith-he had had the distinct feeling that she had been toying with hi with him He could not understand why she was so confident Sanders was ainst her Yet she behaved as if there was no threat at all She had a kind of imperviousness, an indifference, that made him deeply uneasy It could only

The taxi pulled into the turnaround of the hotel He saw Meredith&039;s car up ahead She was talking to the driver She looked back and saw hiet out and walk toward the entrance

"Are you following

"No"

"Sure?"

"Yes, Meredith I&039;m sure"

They went up the escalator from the street to the lobby He stood behind her on the escalator She looked back at him "I wish you were"

"Yeah Well, I&039;m not"

"It would have been nice," she said She sly

He didn&039;t knohat to say; he just shook his head They rode the rest of the way in silence until they cah ornate lobby She said, "I&039;m in room 423 Come and see me anytime" She headed toward the elevators

He waited until she was gone, then crossed the lobby and turned left to the dining roo at the entrance, he saw Dorf dinner with Garvin and Stephanie Kaplan Max was holding forth, gesturing sharply as he spoke Garvin and Kaplan both leaned forward, listening Sanders was reminded that Dorf to the stories, a very powerful director It was Dorfman who had persuaded Garvin to expand beyond modems into cellular telephony and wireless communications, back in the days when nobody could see any link between computers and telephones The link was obvious now but obscure in the early 1980s, when Dorfman had said, "Your business is not hardware Your business is communications Your business is access to information"

Dorfman had shaped company personnel as well Supposedly, Kaplan owed her position to his glowing endorsement Sanders had come to Seattle on Dorfman&039;s recommendation Mark Lewyn had been hired because of Dorfman And any number of vice presidents had vanished over the years because Dorf in vision or stamina He was a powerful ally or a lethal opponent

And his position at the tih Dorfned as a director years before, he still owned a good deal of DigiCom stock He still had Garvin&039;s ear And he still had the contacts and prestige within the business and financial coer like this er, his admirers at Goldman, Sachs and at First Boston would raise the money easily But if Dorfer of the two coht unravel Everyone knew it Everyone understood very well the power he wielded-especially Dorf back at the entrance to the restaurant, reluctant to colanced up and saw hi, he shook his head fractionally: no Then, as he continued to talk, hehis watch Sanders nodded, and went back into the lobby and sat down He had the stack of Coh theed her appearance

A few minutes later, Dorflad you are not bored with your life"

"What does thatroo else in there The only topic this evening is you and Meredith Everyone is so excited So worried"

"Including Bob?"

"Yes, of course Including Bob" He wheeled closer to Sanders "I cannot really speak to you now Was there soht to look at this," Sanders said, handing Dorf that Dorfman could take these pictures to Garvin Dorf on

Dorfman examined them in silence a moment "Such a lovely woman," he said "So beautiful"