6. Maxim
MAXIM
I wake to an empty bed.
The pillow adjacent to mine still bears the impression of her head.
The tie remains coiled on the nightstand where I left it.
A washcloth has dried into a stiff curl on the carpet near the sofa.
Concerning the woman herself, only a faint warmth on the distant sheets persists, which may be merely my imagination.
A single hairpin is placed on the bathroom counter, which I discover upon entering to shave.
I don’t take it personally. The terms were hers, clearly stated and agreed upon. One night, first names only, with nothing more shared once we parted. She upheld her part of the agreement better than most people I work with.
Still. I’d hoped to play with her once more before the morning claimed us.
I had thoughts about daylight, what it would show me that the lamps hadn’t.
A man can honor an agreement and regret its brevity in the same breath.
I shave, and I regret, and by the time the razor is rinsed I’ve put the regret where I put everything with no place in a working day.
Out of sight, out of mind.
Charcoal suit. White shirt. A navy tie that has never been anywhere as interesting as Thea’s wrists. I stand a moment at the window with the city going gold below, then call Lev.
He answers on the first ring. “Yes?”
“It’s time. Assemble them for nine.”
“All of them?”
“All of them. Have Danilov bring both copies of the paperwork. I want signatures before lunch.”
A pause on the line, brief and deliberate. Lev doesn’t waste his pauses. “And the boy?”
“Send the car for him at eight-thirty. Tell the driver to wait at the curb until he comes down, however long that takes. No warning beyond that.”
“He’ll come in hungover.”
“He’ll come in as he is. That’s rather the point.”
Lev grunts, which from him is a full memorandum of agreement, and the line goes quiet.
I finish my coffee standing. I take one last look at the room, the wrecked bed, the dried washcloth, the hairpin I’ve put in my breast pocket instead of the wastebasket where it belongs, and I go downstairs to take my company back.
The tower on Sixth Avenue bears my name in towering steel letters eleven feet high. Today, the new guard at the desk asks me to sign in as a visitor. He has no clue who I am. I sign, and in that act, there’s no better way to sum up the last four years.
The boardroom on forty-one features a table I selected personally, crafted from walnut, excessively long, acquired at auction from a bank that experienced insolvency due to debts incurred to more reputable individuals than its directors.
By ten minutes before nine, eleven of the twelve seats are occupied.
The directors arrive in a variety of states of surprise, having been interrupted from breakfasts, gyms, and in one instance, an airport lounge.
Each extends their hand in greeting with genuine warmth, as is customary among individuals who have been contemplating one another behind their backs for a year.
I accept the warmth. It costs them nothing and tells me plenty.
Danilov, our General Counsel, places two folders before the vacant chair at the head of the table and does not assume the seat. He’s aged a decade in four years. Part of this is attributable to time. The remainder has a name, and that name is not mine.
Klaus arrives late.
He comes through the door talking, sunglasses pushed into his hair, yesterday’s energy still on him along with perhaps three hours of sleep.
He’s mid-sentence about the traffic when he registers the room.
The full board. The folders. His father at the head of the table, in the chair he’s been calling his own for four years.
To his credit, he doesn’t stumble. He stops. He takes the sunglasses out of his hair and manufactures a smile. “Dad.”
“Sit down, Niklaus.”
He hears the full name. Everyone at the table hears it, and the room’s temperature adjusts. He takes the last empty seat, the one at the foot, and I watch him understand the geometry of that and keep the smile running anyway.
I don’t stand to speak. “Gentlemen. Elena.” A nod to Elena Roth, who runs audit and has been sending me blunter and blunter letters for eighteen months. “Thank you for assembling on short notice. I’ll be brief, because the situation doesn’t improve with length.”
Everyone in the room nods—well, except for Klaus.
“Four years ago, I went abroad to build our European and Pacific operations and left the Manhattan headquarters under interim leadership. That interim ends this morning. Effective immediately, I resume the office of chief executive.” I let them sit with it a beat.
“The paperwork is before you. Danilov will walk you through the mechanics later.”
Nobody speaks. Several of them look at Klaus.
He looks at me, and the smile is gone. His voice cracks when he declares, “You’re joking.”
“I’m not.”
“You can’t just walk in here—“ He catches the volume climbing, resets, tries the boardroom voice he’s heard other men use.
“With respect. The company’s been under my leadership for four years.
We’ve modernized the brand, we’ve expanded the events profile, our social presence is up four hundred percent—”
“Our operating margin has decreased by eleven points.” There’s no heat in the statement because he desires tension. That would turn this into a father-son confrontation and that’s not what it currently is.
I continue, “Three divisions have receivables aging beyond ninety days. We’ve lost two port contracts due to renegotiations and are losing a third.
Willem Aertsen traveled from Rotterdam to your gala last night and spent most of an hour alone at a dessert table.
Should I keep going, or do we agree that the brand is modern, but the business is in trouble? ”
Silence from eleven people who’ve known all this for two years, but were powerless to change it. Klaus’s jaw works. He looks down the table for an ally and finds eleven people studying folders.
“This is because of last night,” he says. “You were there. That’s—okay, fine, you saw a party, Dad. A successful party. I’m sorry the vibes offended you—”
“The party was excellent. I intend to learn who ran it, because that person can manage logistics and no one else in this building can.” I open the folder in front of me. “Which brings us to you. There’s a second document this morning.”
“The board is creating a special projects office, director-level, reporting to me. Corporate development, long-range initiatives. The announcement will label it a planned transition. The press release is already drafted, and it’s generous. You will lead that office.”
He stares at me. Nobody at the table moves. Lev stands by the door, arms folded, watching my son the way he watches everything, without appetite.
“Special projects,” Klaus repeats. “That’s a shelf. You’re putting me on a shelf.”
“I’m putting you on salary, with a title and a floor and a future that stays in your own hands, more than the audit would suggest. So, here’s the entirety of your decision this morning, Niklaus.
You may lead the special projects office, or you may quit.
There’s no third door. There’s no negotiation.
There’s no version of this meeting where you leave with the chair. ”
“Or I could fight you,” he says. “I have allies on this board.”
“Try me.” I open a hand toward the table. “Take your time.”
He counts his allies seat by seat, and I watch each director decline to meet his eyes, Elena Roth last. She, at least, has the decency to look sorry. The counting takes maybe fifteen seconds.
It ages him more than the four years did, and I make myself keep watching. This is the price of the rope I gave him, and we’re both paying it this morning in front of witnesses, and only one of us gets to show it.
“Special projects,” he says, at last, to the table.
“Congratulations, Director. Sign where Danilov indicates.”
The rest is mechanics. Signatures, minutes, a resolution read in Danilov’s funeral baritone, and unanimous votes—the only way this room operates.
Klaus signs last, quick, in his oversized scrawl. He leaves without handshakes. Only the hydraulic door keeps it from slamming. Directors file out, their warmth recalibrated, several aiming it elsewhere. Four minutes later, only Lev, I, and cold coffee remain at the walnut table.
Lev takes the chair to my right, which has been his chair in every room we’ve shared for thirty years, and turns his phone face-down on the walnut. The next part of the conversation never happened.
“It’s done, then,” he says. “The soft part.”
“The soft part.”
“Sokolov will hear about the change by lunch. His people watch our filings.” He rubs a thumb along an old scar on the back of his hand, a habit he has had since before I knew him. “You understand how he’ll read it. New leadership, family quarrel, the son demoted in public.”
“I don’t much care what he thinks.”
“To Alexei, that isn’t a company stabilizing. That’s a house divided. He’ll read it as weakness, Maxim, and he’s been circling this operation for two years.”
He isn’t wrong. Lev is my sovetnik, the man whose job is to be right out loud at inconvenient moments. Sokolov will read the filing over lunch at the restaurant he’s colonized on Mulberry Street. He’ll make a joke to whoever’s sitting with him. Then he’ll begin to lean.
Probes at the piers. Another visit to a crane operator. He’ll try. And he’ll fail.
“Let him read it however he likes. Alexei has no patience for what’s to come.”
“That lesson has a price.”
“Every lesson I’ve ever given had a price. I’ve never once failed to collect.” I close the folders and square them on the table. “I didn’t fly home to be liked, Lev. Not by Sokolov, not by that board, and not, God help us, by my own son. Alexei’s opinion means less than that.”
He sighs, because he thinks I don’t hear him. But he’s wrong.
“I flew home because I built something, and I don’t intend to stand at a dessert table watching it rot. Let Alexei poke and prod us. He’ll find us more than capable of poking back.”
Lev looks at me for a long moment, and then the corner of his mouth concedes a millimeter, which from Lev’s applause. “Welcome home, pakhan.”
I stand and button the charcoal jacket, and through the glass wall the forty-first floor spreads out before me. A hundred desks of people who’ve all read the announcement by now and none of whom have ever met me. The work begins.
I go out onto the floor to learn their names.