Peter left to the staccato sound of keystrokes and clicks, and went to his own office. Taking a folder from his desk, he lowered himself to his stylish couch, kicked off his dock shoes, stretched out comfortably, and began sifting through the collection of articles and clippings about Matthew Locke and International Foods, which had been mailed to both him and Hank earlier in the week by the headhunter they had retained for the search.
In a "Fortune" article entitled "Big Business Chairman Hopefuls," Matthew Locke was the first person mentioned, accompanied by a half-page picture of the young grinning Ivy League executive posed before a wall of soda bottles in a super market. The article predicted that Locke was being groomed to succeed International's long-time chairman and CEO, Rolland Worthy. It described Locke's career over the past fifteen years at IF, listing the numerous successful marketing programs he had developed, all of which Peter recognized: Holy Cow ice cream, Presto Microwave Popcorn, and one of the most popular beverages of all time, Orange Fresh carbonated juice. International Foods had formerly been separated into several divisions, the largest being food, beverage, subsidiary, and services. The article explained how Locke had consolidated the food and beverage divisions into one group, and had the services divisions rolled out as a subsidiary operating unit. That way, International Foods was able to concentrate primarily on developing and marketing its mainstream products; non-retail sales were managed as a separate business unit.
Pretty smart, Peter admitted. In his head, he tried to work the formula on Wallaby's separate product divisions, Mate, and the new Joey, but did not come to the same conclusion Locke had reached. Each of Wallaby's divisions was unique from a technological standpoint, and incompatible, unlike food and beverages which, as far as Peter was concerned, were all the same. This type of solution would not work in a company like Wallaby, Peter concluded, just as he had known it wouldn't when he started the Joey project a few years ago. To create Joey, he had taken a number of his top engineers from the Mate division and moved them into their own building. There were accusations of special privileges, and the accusations were true. Peter nursed, stroked, and dined his people in the Joey building. A giant refrigerator was stocked with exotic foods and beverages, portable Walkman CD players were free, and in-office massages were provided by professional masseuses and masseurs.
Dismissing Locke's consolidation concept as impossible at a place like Wallaby, and therefore an inappropriate measure of the man's abilities, Peter skimmed more articles. He read interviews with people who had worked for Locke over the past several years. Most of them reflected on his no-nonsense business attitude and keen marketing abilities. One marketing analyst who had worked with Locke on International's now highly successful line of diet beverages said that Locke often had several secret projects going at any given time, and as different market opportunities arose, he called upon the brewing projects to launch major new products. The analysts and business community, and the most important group of all, the consumers, perceived the new products as brilliant and timely. Most of them, however, had been waiting in the wings, in some instances, a few years, until the right moment arrived to move them out of the marketing group and into the supermarket. One spiteful IF manager revealed anonymously that Locke had never actually invented any of the products himself. The most outstanding example was the pull-tab, which back in the early 1970s banished the need for a can opener. While Peter took it for granted nowadays that all you had to do was pop the top on a can of soda to sip its contents, he could remember back to when he was a boy, when you had to use a can opener to get to what was inside. It was this fact, that Locke was the one to introduce the pull-tab, that appealed to Peter more than anything else. He compared the metaphor to the Mate and Joey. The Mate was the first all-in-one portable computer (though inside the company they referred to it as a "luggable," rather than a true portable) that you could easily move from room to room, place to place, but it was nonetheless difficult to use; you first had to understand the utility "tool" programs that controlled the machine and its programs before you could fully employ all of its features. Getting into the Joey, on the other hand, was easy, intuitive, like using a pop-top can; all you had to do was to look at it to understand how to use it, no special tools or knowledge were required. The built-in address book and calendar and phone dialer and e-mail program all looked like, and behaved like, their real world, paper-based counterparts. Plus, it was much smaller than the Mate and truly portable, able to run on its rechargeable battery for days at a time. The trackpad interface was so intuitive that in studies Wallaby conducted with brand new users, every attendee was naturally drawn to the small black square without so much as a clue from the study group guides, their fingers sliding across its surface without any thought at all about what they were doing. Just like the soda pull-tab.
So as for Locke's reported reputation of taking credit for what others had invented, Peter felt neither surprised or concerned. It was a non-issue. He was the primary inventor in the company and everyone, including the public, knew it. Locke was being considered because of his abilities to run the business side of things, and only the business side.
Which was just fine with Peter. But what about Matthew Locke?
Would he be content with a second-place role to Peter?
That question had just been answered in today's board meeting.
The tables had turned, and now Matthew was the star. He had used
Peter as a pawn in his own deceitful, unscrupulous game. How long
had he been planning this coup?
Peter mentally lashed himself for not having taken some sort of action when, about a year ago, Matthew had suggested that Wallaby's products should be engineered to be more compatible with those of ICP. An alarm had gone off in Peter's head, but he had quieted it, tolerating the fact that Matthew did not fathom his desire to uphold Wallaby's proprietary-technology direction. In the long run, that's what it all boiled down to. Matthew wanted to transform Wallaby into an ancillary concern, its computers acting as peripherals to ICP's machines, allowing ICP to remain as the number-one portable and desktop computer manufacturer.
He felt exhausted and lifeless, disembodied, his foot heavy on the gas pedal, drawn by gravity as he raced down the highway pushing seventy-five miles per hour. Even the car was a fucking prop, Peter thought miserably. When Matthew had gotten one for himself just like it, he had told Peter it was because he valued his artistic appreciation for the machine, that he respected his passion for beautifully designed products. How many other little games of pretend had there been, when all along Matthew had been treating him like a child, playing him along and pacifying him until he could drop the ax?
His throat felt packed with cotton balls when the reality of what had just happened started to sink in. His stomach turned and rolled in mini-heaves. All he wanted to do was to make smart portable computers that made everyone's life easier. Couldn't he be allowed that simple pleasure? With this question, the weird feeling in his heart stirred. It had been dormant all morning, and he had all but forgotten about it. But now it was awake, and this time it felt a little different. A little larger, a little livelier. A little more painful.