After she cleared the checkpoint at the twelfth-floor elevators, she spotted Mori-san, right there in the midst of the action. This woman wastes no time, she told herself. Mori, an incongruous peacock of designer elegance in the midst of the bustling, short-haired staff, was poring over a stack of printouts assembled on a desk in the center of the floor. Meanwhile, the office was going full tilt: the green print of CRT screens glowed; printers hummed all around; data bleeped between terminals; and staffers were hurrying over selected documents for Mori to review. Also, since heavy buys were underway, the latest SEC filings (required when one entity acquires more than five percent of the stock of a given company) were being readied.
As it happens, I was already on hand too, over in Noda's office where we were going over some paperwork. The day's news as far as I was concerned also was Mori-san. She'd appeared bright and early, held a closed-door confab with Noda, proceeded to do some photocopying, then commandeered an office.
By purest coincidence I was doing some copying of my own round about then and ended up on the copy line right behind her, inhaling her perfume. Next an odd thing happened. As we all sometimes do when rushed, she'd snatched up her copies while the last original was still on the machine. Then she asked me if I wanted regular size or legal. Legal, I said, and she reached to flip the switch. As she did, though, she accidentally clicked the "print" button with those long fingernails, whereupon she stalked off, rummaging through her copies and forgetting the original.
Not for long. Two seconds later she was back to claim it, but by that time an unauthorized copy was lying in the output bin. I didn't even see it. However, when I scooped up my own pages a minute later, mixed in with them was a sheet listing some names and numbers with REVISIONS lettered across the top. I started to toss it, then paused to glance over the names for a moment.
Hang on, everybody, this is very out of line. That's when I decided to slip it into my briefcase.
When Mori saw Tam come in, she quickly stacked the printouts she was reviewing into a neat pile, then beckoned her toward the far corner of the floor. Tam noticed that Mori's new office was at the opposite end of the building from Noda's.
"I understand Noda-san has appointed you director of this division." Mori was ushering Tam into the office, all the while running her fingers nervously through her sculptured black hair. "Congratulations."
Not exactly a great opener. It sounded even harsher in Japanese, since it was so at odds with the usual polite greetings.
"I've been hired to do a job, Mori-san, and I intend to do
it."