The Corporation

PROLOGUE

FROM the New York Times

January 17, 1937

By Carl Jensen,

Times Business Staff Writer

It was announced today in a press conference that Hubert Marstein, the former President of Alexander Steel Corporation, is forming a private firm with businessmen Robert A. Mueller and Lance Erickson. The firm, Corporate Financial Consultancy Group, will be run out of an office on 202 Madison Avenue, and will primarily be a financial consultancy firm.

Mr. Marstein is credited with building Pittsburg head-quartered Alexander Steel to a level unprecedented in the industry. Their overall status in the industry rivals that of U.S. Steel. Alexander suffered only minimal losses in the stock market crash of 1929. Union officials say their stock has held steady for eight years due to strong-armed tactics that ex-employees of the company described as enforced slavery. Union official Jack Bryant was quoted as saying (continued page 43).

FROM FINANCIAL TIMES, April 1948

…in an unprecedented move, Rikon, the premier manufacturer of home radio equipment, announced today that they have retained Corporate Financial Consultancy Group of New York to manage the company’s finances and help move them to a more stable position after nearly declaring bankruptcy last June.

Corporate Financial Consultancy Group is one of the top Financial Services companies in New York and have assisted such firms as Sears Roebuck, Ford Motor Company, and Edison in various business dealings. Formed by the former president of Alexander Steel Corporation, Hubert Marstein, the firm’s top consultants will be on hand at Rikon’s Headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee to help oversee a revamped business plan that will attract (continued page 45).

EXCERPT FROM PRESIDENT’S message from the Employees Newsletter for the Automobile Club of Southern California

September, 1959

“…I’d like to extend a warm thank you to Arthur Adkins and Jerry Sprecher of Corporate Financial Consultancy Group, who were instrumental in assisting in the development of the Club’s long-term business plan. As we approach the close of this decade we are working at putting all we have planned into action to ensure the next ten years are more successful, which will ensure increased profits, better service to our members, and richer rewards for our loyal employees.”

LIST OF INDIVIDUALS and companies targeted by Weather Report, a radical anti-war group whose members were arrested at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago and had been under investigation for over a year. It was later proved by the FBI that the group was planning to plant explosives in their buildings or outright assassinate key figures.

NBC News

General Motors

Former U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson

Senator Barry Goldwater, Republican (Arizona)

The John Birch Society

Chevron

Amoco

General Electric

Kraft Foods

Senator John Glenn, Democrat, Ohio

Congressman Alfred A. Wellman, Republican, Florida

Reverend Billy Graham

Elvis Presley

Aetna

Prudential Life Insurance

Firestone

United Airlines

John Wayne

Merle Haggard

Corporate Financial Consultancy Group

The Walt Disney Corporation

JUNE 5, 1974 — Mt. St. Helena, CA.

The naked man knelt before the altar.

The altar was comprised of heavy stone, imported from Wales. Hanging above the altar, fastened securely to the wall, was a gold crucifix, displayed upside down.

Directly behind the man, scrawled on the floor in blue chalk, was a large pentagram.

Black candles were placed strategically along the five points of the star and were lit.

The naked man was prostrate before the cross, eyes closed, arms raised in supplication. His lips moved, the Latin coming to him effortlessly, by memory.

In time, he rose to his feet and stepped back into the confines of the pentagram. Then, he sat down cross-legged and waited.

Outside, the sun slipped behind the peaks of the mountains, casting brilliant shafts of sunlight through the large plate glass windows that lined the west side of the house. The man had the house custom built six years ago and rarely had guests. Occasionally he brought a lover up to his lofty abode but he never let anybody set foot in this room. His ritual chamber.

The smoke from the candles rose, their scent intoxicating. The man remained sitting on the floor cross-legged, eyes closed, waiting.

And after a moment, it came.

NOVEMBER 4, 1989

Atlanta, GA

It was one of those days when Lori Masterton had to drag herself out of bed in order to hit the highway to be at work on time for her job at Corporate Financial in downtown Atlanta.

When she arrived at the office and was informed by her boss, Oliver Hyman, that her department was going to accompany him and his entire team of consultants to a meeting across town with their latest client, Automated Technical Corporation, Lori put on her best false face and gathered her things. Whatever. She had shit to do today and if her numbfuck of a boss wanted to waste it by having her sit in on a meeting she wasn’t going to get anything out of, that was his business. She was still getting paid.

Lori drove to the client company’s building with her co-worker Ken Miller. Their third cohort, Linda Alvarez, had called in sick. “Wonder what this is about?” Ken yawned over his cup of Starbucks.

“Who knows?” Lori said. All she cared about was running the graphics pit for the company; it was what she was hired to do, and she liked it. It kept her out of the bullshit Oliver’s consultants did, which was consult and advise their clients on how to run their businesses and save money.

When they arrived at the building and were ushered into the conference room, Lori grabbed some coffee. Oliver was already there with his staff—the best and brightest MBAs he could bribe fresh out of business school. They were all dressed impeccably and conferred with each other, occasionally talking and laughing. The people Lori didn’t recognize were obviously the financial echelons of Automated Technical who requested this session. Lori opened her spiral pad notebook, sat back, and waited to be bored out of her skull as Oliver rose to his feet and set the meeting to order.

She was bored quickly. She sipped coffee, doodled in her note-pad, and ignored the rest of her Corporate Financial co-workers who also feigned interest. Oliver went on his spiel about how they—Corporate Financial—were going to save Automated Technical a ton of money. He droned on in his Wall Street spiel about P&E this, earnings ratio that, and after awhile his voice became a low drone in Lori’s consciousness. She looked around the room. It looked like even some of Oliver’s MBA stars were glazing over, and then she was shaken to rude awakeness when she heard Oliver say, “…recommend you stop insuring the last year of life.”

The numbness was gone. The boredom was gone. Lori looked around the room, wondering if she’d heard that correctly. One of the things Automated Technical wanted advice on was their self-insured medical plan for their employees. She looked down at her notepad, which contained no notes. She caught the gaze of Naomi Walker, one of the newer MBA consultants, who was fresh out of the University of Chicago. She looked just as confused as Lori felt.

Oliver stopped mid-spiel. “Is there something I missed?”

Lori didn’t know what to say, and judging by the stunned looks on everybody’s faces, it appeared everybody was showing the same collective disbelief at what Oliver had said a moment ago.

“Let me clarify what I said,” Oliver said. He had been pacing in front of the white board and Lori saw he’d written recommendations in red marker. “Corporate Financial’s recommendation on saving money on your self-insured Health Care Insurance for your employees is that you stop insuring people during the last year of their life.”

There were several gasps in the room. Lori’s was one of them.

Wide eyes directed their stunned attention at Oliver.

“Well, as you know, most medical expenses are incurred during the last year of life,” Oliver explained. “They’re also the most expensive.” He said this as if it was the most normal and logical thing to say and that they were being obtuse for needing it explained further.

Lori could only think, I can’t believe I’m hearing this. The company that I and everyone else around me works for has just recommended to their client, who has a self-insured plan for their employees health insurance, to stop insuring people during the last year of their lives because that’s when they need the most care, and if they want to save some money well, they should just stop it right now!

Did I just hear that right?

Lori could tell she wasn’t the only Corporate Financial employee thinking this. The vibe she got from Ken, from Naomi, from Jack Snow and Herb Willis and Candace Baker appeared to mirror her own.

Oliver took a step or two back. He blinked; he looked totally confused by the reaction.

“What if the insured is an infant?” This from Naomi Miller, her voice puzzled. “A baby, under one year of age? I don’t understand.”

“That would be the last year of its life then,” Oliver said.

Luke Farris, the VP of Automated Technical, who invited Corporate Financial to help brainstorm methods on how the consultant group might be able to help save his company, appeared shaken. “That’s very interesting. What other methods would you recommend?”

And with that the subject was changed and Oliver continued his spiel, but by now Lori had had it with her boss. Judging by the climate among her co-workers—most of them, at least—they’d had it with him, too. She didn’t even attempt to take notes at the meeting, and when she and Ken drove back to the office she vented her fury. “What kind of fuckwad would recommend such shit? I can’t believe it!”

As for Naomi Miller, the consultant who’d questioned Oliver at the meeting, that was the last time Lori saw her. She later heard Oliver fired Naomi that afternoon.

Lori herself was fired two weeks later. Her dismissal came as a relief. She had been wanting to quit ever since that meeting with Automated Technical. Prior to that meeting, which she was sure she’d remember for the rest of her life, things had been okay at Corporate Financial. It had its good side and its bad side, and Oliver could be a real corporate pain in the ass, but for the most part it was okay.

Not anymore.

Things started changing after the meeting. In fact, it probably happened prior to the meeting, with Oliver, because shortly after the meeting one of the other consultants, Jack Snow, started behaving differently. Lori could never put her finger on what it was that made the vibe at work so different now, and she was glad to be rid of it when Oliver let her go.

Good riddance.

JUNE 2, 1995

Calistoga, California

Of all the companies Kyle Bauer visited on his daily UPS runs, the National Headquarters of Corporate Financial was the most impressive.

It also gave him the creeps.

It was a warm, sunny day when Kyle pulled his brown paneled van up to the front entrance. Ninety percent of his deliveries were made at the rear of the building, near the company warehouse. Kyle had never paid much attention to the building or the people until recently, when his boss told him that the executives of the firm made a recent request that certain packages addressed to them were to be delivered to security in the front lobby. The executives in question received packages every few days, and when Kyle walked through the thick double glass doors of the lobby to security he immediately got a whiff of the ambience of the place. It was corporate, sterile, very polished, just like all the other corporate lobbies of the other companies he made his UPS deliveries too. The people who worked in the offices looked similar, too; they looked dressed for the part in business suits and skirts, hair neatly groomed. Corporate American worker bees were indistinguishable everywhere.

But this place was different.

Kyle gathered three packages, one of them for Frank Marstein, CEO of Corporate Financial. Mr. Marstein had been getting a lot of these flat packages lately. Probably some kind of weekly financial reports. Kyle gathered the packages and his clipboard and walked to the lobby.

He ignored the feeling he got as he made his way across the lobby and headed to security. A guy in a blue three piece suit glanced at him briefly as he walked in, momentarily torn away from The Wall Street Journal, and then resumed his reading. Kyle set the packages on the security desk and waited for the guard to approach.

The security guard was a balding guy in his forties dressed in a navy blue suit. His ramrod posture suggested former military. He looked at Kyle, his features bland. “Can I help you?”

Kyle felt a trickle of unease. This security guard asked him the same thing every time he came in for a delivery. Either he was incredibly stupid or he had no short-term memory. Kyle said, “UPS delivery.”

The guard looked at each package, noted the addressee, nodded and looked at Kyle. “Very good,” he said. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“Can you sign in, please?” The guard indicated a sign-in log at the desk for business visitors.

They went through this every time Kyle was here. Usually Kyle just signed the damn log book, but this time he hesitated. “Don’t you think it’s a waste? I mean, I’m here less than a minute. I sign my name, and the arrival and departure time I put in are the same. Besides, I’m leaving now. Why—”

“Company policy,” The guard said. His features remained bland. He looked at Kyle, no change in his expression. No sign of annoyance, or displeasure, or anger or even humor at the absurdity of the policy. Just blank indifference.

Kyle sighed and signed the log book quickly, scrawling the times, then set the pen down. “Have a good day,” he said as he walked away.

The security guard nodded and remained at his post, watching while Kyle Bauer walked through the lobby toward the exit.

And as he left he couldn’t help but think that everybody he passed—the businessman reading The Wall Street Journal, the businessmen talking in a little group at the exit, the smartly dressed businesswoman passing him as she entered the building, the groups of people gathered outside talking, were secretly watching him. This wasn’t the first time he’d felt this way. He got this feeling every time he set foot in the Corporate area of Corporate Financial. It was very slick, very… corporate. No, that was the wrong word. He’d made deliveries at corporate offices before, some just as high-level and polished and slick as this place. The atmosphere at this place was different. It was hard to describe, but it felt…

Well, creepy.

Kyle Bauer exited the lobby and made his way to his van, trying not to give the impression he was fleeing, but he couldn’t help it. It felt like the people he passed were watching him secretively, that the people working in the offices were watching him, that the people who had work stations by the windows that looked out over the parking lot were watching him, but he knew that was insane. He’d looked up at the building numerous times on his way in and out of the building and everything looked normal. People hadn’t been looking at him, peering at him as he left the building. Still, he got the feeling every time he left the lobby and he also felt something else, something that was of a greater magnitude.

He felt there was a greater presence somewhere in the building watching his every move.

Kyle slid behind the wheel of the van and started the engine. He pulled away from the curb, trying to stay calm as he headed out of the parking lot. The feeling that he was being watched persisted the entire time he was on Corporate Financial Consultancy property and it didn’t diminish until he was heading to his next stop. In fact, the minute he made a right turn onto the main road into town, the feeling stopped, as if a door had been suddenly slammed shut behind him. Kyle felt it instantly in his gut, knew that he was somehow safe, and as he headed to his next stop he told himself that when he got back to the distribution center he was going to put in a request for a route change.