"The only thing that really bothers me," Eddie said, "is they got another seven more coming in this afternoon. Because they're also doing a complete inventory of the plant. Everything from the furniture in the offices to the air handlers and the heat stampers out on the line. We got a guy there now, making his way down the line, stopping at each work station. Says, `What's this thing called? How do you spell it? Who makes it? What's the model number? How old is it? Where's the serial number?' You ask me, we might as well shut the line down for the rest of the day."
Sanders frowned. "They're doing an inventory?"
"Well, that's what they call it. But it's beyond any damn inventory I ever heard of. These guys have worked over at Texas Instruments or someplace, and I'll give 'em one thing: they know what they're talking about. This morning, one of the Jenkins guys came up and asked me what kind of glass we got in the ceiling skylights. I said, `What kind of glass?' I thought he was shitting me. He says, `Yeah, is it Corning two forty-seven, or two-forty-seven slash nine.' Or some damned thing like that. They're different kinds of UV glass, because UV can affect chips on the production line. I never even heard that UV can affect chips. `Oh yeah,' this guy says. `Real problem if your ASDs get over two-twenty.' That's annual sunny days. Have you heard of that?"
Sanders wasn't really listening. He was thinking about what it meant that somebody either Garvin, or the Conley-White people would ask for an inventory of the plant. Ordinarily, you called for an inventory only if you were planning to sell a facility. Then you had to do it, to figure your writedowns at the time of transfer of assets, and-
"Tom, you there?"
"I'm here."
"So I say to this guy, I never heard that. About the UV and the chips. And we been putting chips in the phones for years, never any trouble. And then the guy says, `Oh, not for installing chips. UV affects it if you're manufacturing chips.' And I say, we don't do that here. And he says, `I know.' So, I'm wondering: what the hell does he care what kind of glass we have? Tommy boy? You with me? What's the story?" Larson said. "We're going to have fifteen guys crawling all over us by the end of the day. Now don't tell me this is routine."
"It doesn't sound like it's routine, no."
"It sounds like they're going to sell the plant to somebody who makes chips, is what it sounds like. And that ain't us."
"I agree. That's what it sounds like."
"Fucking A," Eddie said. "I thought you told me this wasn't going to happen. Tom: people here are getting upset. And I'm one of 'em."
"I understand."
"I mean, I got people asking me. They just bought a house, their wife's pregnant, they got a baby coming, and they want to know. What do I tell 'em?"
"Eddie, I don't have any information."
Chapter 8
`Jesus, Tom, you're the division head."
"I know. Let me check with Cork, see what the accountants did there. They were out there last week."
"I already talked to Colin an hour ago. Operations sent two people out there. For one day. Very polite. Not like this at all."
"No inventory?"
"No inventory."
"Okay," Sanders said. He sighed. "Let me get into it."
"Tommy boy," Eddie said. "I got to tell you right out. I'm concerned you don't already know."
"Me, too," Sanders said. "Me, too."
He hung up the phone. Sanders pushed K-A-P for Stephanie Kaplan. She would know what was going on in Austin, and he thought she would tell him. But her assistant said Kaplan was out of the office for the rest of the morning. He called Mary Anne, but she was gore, too. Then he dialed the Four Seasons Hotel, and asked for Max Dorfman. The operator said Mr. Dorfman's lines were busy. He made a mental note to see Max later in the day. Because if Eddie was right, then Sanders was out of the loop. And that wasn't good.
In the meantime, he could bring up the plant closing with Meredith at the conclusion of the morning meeting with Conley-White. That was the best he could do, for the moment. The prospect of talking to her made him uneasy. But he'd get through it somehow. He didn't really have a choice.
When he got to the fourth-floor conference room, nobody was there. At the far end, a wall board showed a cutaway of the Twinkle drive and a schematic for the Malaysia assembly line. There were notes scribbled on some of the pads, open briefcases beside some of the chairs. The meeting was already under way. Sanders had a sense of panic. He started to sweat. At the far end of the room, an assistant came in, and began moving around the table, setting out glasses and water. "Where is everybody?" he asked. "Oh, they left about fifteen minutes ago," she said. "Fifteen minutes ago? When did they start?" "The meeting started at eight." "Eight?" Sanders said. "I thought it was supposed to be eight-thirty." "No, the meeting started at eight." Damn. "Where are they now?" "Meredith took everybody down to VIE, to demo the Corridor."
Entering VIE, the first thing Sanders heard was laughter. When he walked into the equipment room, he saw that Don Cherry's team had two of the Conley-White executives up on the system. John Conley, the young lawyer, and Jim Daly, the investment banker, were both wearing headsets while they walked on the rolling walker pads. The two men were grinning wildly. Everyone else in the room was laughing too, including the normally sour-faced CFO of Conley-White, Ed Nichols, who was standing beside a monitor which showed an image of the virtual corridor that the users were seeing. Nichols had red marks on his forehead from wearing the headset.