CHAPTER eight
I had a terrible time getting motivated for the rest of the morning. I couldn’t concentrate on my work and every time I started something, my mind would wander and I’d start thinking about Ev. I could hardly breathe in my office from all the cigarette smoke and my stomach was growling for some sustenance so I put on my jacket to head out in search of some lunch. I left my office door open to clear the air while I was out.
I dined out at one of Toronto’s finer establishments and treated myself to one of life’s delicacies. A Big Mac. With large fries and a Coke. Diet, of course, because one has to watch the waistline.
On my walk back to the office I swung my arms a little higher than normal and considered that my afternoon exercise.
I wasn’t surprised to find that my office door was closed. People are so stuck up these days about second-hand smoke.
Jay was waiting inside my office. He didn’t give me time to sit down before he asked, "Kate, do you have a copy of the list of options granted and approved at the last board meeting?"
"Yeah. But you should have a copy. Rick’s group produced it and the final copy you gave us was the one put in front of the board for approval."
I dug in the filing cabinet for the material from the last board meeting. I heaved it out on to my desk and started thumbing through it. It was about four inches thick and nothing was in order. Every draft of every document was in the file, along with Didrickson’s notes and piles of other crap. I’m not known for my filing abilities.
I finally found the copy that Jay was looking for. "Here," I passed it to him. I shoved all the papers back in the folder and piled it on the side of my desk. I sat down and lit a cigarette. Jay was comparing the list I gave him to another piece of paper he had in his hand and I leaned forward to nonchalantly look at the other piece of paper. Reading upside down was a skill I learned early on in my secretarial career and it’s a skill that’s paid off many times over the years.
The two pieces of paper looked the same to me from my vantage point, so I leaned back in my chair and blew smoke up towards the ceiling. I was being considerate, not blowing it directly at Jay.
"Here, you look." Jay shoved the two papers at me. "You tell me what the differences are."
Each sheet of paper looked identical and contained a list of about fifty names. The five columns across the page were headed: Name, Number of Options Granted, Exercise Price, Exercise Date and Expiry Date. I had to squint because the typeface was quite small.
"Do you want to tell me what I’m looking for?"
Jay sighed. "Come on Kate. Help me out here. Just look at it."
I hate comparing documents to look for differences so I used one of my lazy tricks. I put the two pieces of paper together and held them up to the light and carefully aligned the column headings and started reading down the first column. The names on each piece were the same. The second column had some differences because the numbers appeared jumbled. I quickly glanced at the other three columns and nothing appeared out of order.
"The differences are in the second column, number of options granted." I tried to hand the papers back to him.
"Okay, give the girl a kewpie doll. Where are the differences?"
I held the papers back up to the light and read off, "Richard Cox, Mary Dawson, Jay Harmon and Bill Heatherington." I put the papers down side by side and ran my finger down the list of names on the first page to Richard Cox’s name. The column beside Rick’s name had a number of 50,000. I found his name on the other list and checked the column beside it. The number there was 30,000. I found Jay’s name on the first sheet and compared it to the other. The first sheet had a figure of 10,000 beside Jay’s name and the second one had the number 1,000. Mary Dawson and Bill Heatherington’s options had been changed by 9,000 options as well. I quickly glanced at the bottom of both pages to compare the totals They were different too. A difference of 47,000. I’m quite a mathematician when the need arises.
I handed the papers back to Jay.
"Which page did I just give you? In other words, which list did the directors’ approve?" I asked.
"It doesn’t really matter. What matters is which one did I print off directly from the stock option system?"
"The point being?" I asked. I can be incredibly slow sometimes. Jay stared at me waiting for my answer. "The list you printed off from the system is the one that’s up by 47,000. Hey Jay, who’s your fairy godmother?" I joked.
"Shut up Kate. The board approved 1,000 options for me, Mary and Bill and 30,000 for Cox. The list I printed off the stock option system shows 10,000 for us and 50,000 for Cox. It’s impossible that Ev could have made the same mistake three times and added a zero and there’s no explanation for the change to Cox’s. Besides," he continued, "Ev would have noticed that the totals didn’t balance. I knew I was getting a thousand options, because Cox told me. I would have put a down-payment on a house if he had promised me 10,000."
"Ev and I were the only two people besides Rick Cox with access to the system," he continued. "And I certainly don’t input numbers. I just run reports. But if she and I are the only two with access to the system, who made the change?"
I did a quick calculation. "If the shares ever get up to $15.00, which we all admit is a pipe dream, and the exercise price is $10.00, Cox could make $250,000 before taxes. Not a small amount in my mind, but certainly peanuts to someone like Rick. You, on the other hand, could certainly make a dent in those student loans with a cool fifty grand. Mary and Bill could use the fifty grand but they’re not still paying off loans," I teased. Mary and Bill were both financial analysts who worked in the finance department and like Jay, reported directly to Rick Cox.
"Get serious Kate. Work with me here. Are you sure you gave me the list the directors approved?"
"The finger points directly at you. You’d profit a lot more on a relative basis than Rick would. Rick spends a hundred K at lunch and doesn’t think twice about it," I joked.
Jay stood up so fast he knocked over the chair. He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. He scared me when he spoke. "Thank you F. Lee Bailey." He turned around and pulled on the door handle so hard I thought it would break off.
I stood up too. "Jay, hey. Calm down." He was gone. Those young guys can move fast. I started to run around my desk to catch up to him and thought better of it. Don’t want to strain my heart, I thought.
I tucked in my blouse, straightened my skirt, dusted the cigarette ashes off my jacket and very primly walked out of my office. Who did I think I was kidding?
Jay was going into the kitchenette so I followed him in and closed the door behind me. He was facing the coffee machine and had his back to me.
"Hey," I kidded, "if you can’t take a joke, you shouldn’t have joined up."
He turned around and I could see he was still pissed off. As he brushed past me to reach for the door handle, he said, "Another one of your stupid sayings that I’m sick of Kate. Your sense of humour is sick. You make me sick."
I moved aside to let him pass. "Want to come over tonight and we’ll do our nails?" I asked. He was gone. Again.
I waited a few moments and followed Jay to his office. He ignored me when I came in. I closed the door quietly and asked if I could sit down. He continued to ignore me so I sat anyway.
"Look Jay. I apologize. I know I can be too mouthy for my own good. You know I didn’t mean anything by what I said. I was just joking." I thought that came out well but he still wasn’t responding so I tried again.
"Stop being an asshole about this. I said I was sorry. I was just teasing. This is no big deal. I’m pretty sure I gave you the right sheet. If you notice in the bottom corner, Didrickson’s initialled it. That means it’s the list the board approved. You know how many times Cox fucks around with those lists before, during, and after a board meeting. Didrickson laid down the law and said the only lists I’m to use for stock
exchange approval, are the ones he initials. I’d give a copy to Ev because she was never sure if she had the most up-to-date one."
"Look," I continued. "I’ll get Harold to settle this. Give me those two lists. I’ll ask him. The Great One has been known to screw up occasionally too. I’m gonna go see if he’s in. Cox still breathing down your neck for the report?"
"Yeah, and it’s not going to be a pretty sight if I don’t produce it soon. This change of 47,000 throws the totals off whack. They’re scraping the barrel looking for more room on the 10% limit to give out more options."
I took the papers off Jay’s desk. I leaned over and almost touched my nose to his. "I was only teasing, okay?"