"Why?" she said. "Because it's a good job," he said. Because Pacific Ridge comes off the list today. And because if Fitch has people inside the company, you need someone who already knows what his plays look like and what to write down when he makes them. Something moved across Dian's face, not pity.
Nothing close to it, but something that was deciding whether to be surprised. She'd been expecting resistance or withdrawal or at minimum a negotiation. He hadn't given her any of those, and she was recalibrating. "Okay," she said. They worked for 3 hours.
Marcus pulled up the vendor qualification requirements on his laptop, went through Pacific Ridg's submitted documentation line by line, and found four separate technical grounds for disqualification that had nothing to do with Phoenix, an insurance certificate that had lapsed and been renewed with a GAP, a contractor's license that had a disciplinary flag in the Nevada database, a failed mechanical project in Sacramento that was part of the public record, and a bid bond that was undersized relative to the project's declared value. Any one of them was enough. All four together was a door that closed and locked. He wrote it up in the format Diane's general counsel would need. She was on a call for 40 minutes.
While he did it, he could hear her through the half glass partition, measured and controlled, the voice she used when she was managing someone she didn't trust. When she came back, she picked up his write up and read it standing. "This is good," she said. "I've done contractor documentation before," he said. "I know." She kept reading.
I read the Phoenix file twice before I offered you this role. The original report you submitted, not the summary the company published. He looked up. How'd you get the original? Bitch's civil suit went to Discovery before it settled.
Discovery documents are public after the case closes. She set the pages down. You flagged 11 discrepancies before you had hard evidence on any of them. You built documentation over 4 months while still running the project at full capacity. You went to the ethics line directly, not your supervisor, which was the correct call.
A pause. You didn't know at the time that your supervisor was also a limited partner in the contractor group. He had found that out 18 months after the fact from a journalist who'd been covering construction fraud and had called him on a Thursday looking for comment on a story that had already been written. The company's lawyers told you it was an oversight on your part. Diane said they did.
He said they knew it wasn't. She said it was cheaper to tell you it was than to open the question of how many insiders the contractor group had. Marcus was quiet. I know what a setup looks like. She said the Phoenix file looked like a setup.
You were put in a position that was designed to produce a fall guy and you refused to be one and it cost you anyway. She looked at him with a directness that was just her default mode. The thing he'd spent 6 months cataloging and trying to treat as purely professional. That's not a small thing. He didn't know what to say to that.
So he said, "It's a good job. I'm keeping it." Something shifted at the corner of her mouth. "The beach event," she said. "That's also part of why I hired you. I need you to know that he waited.
You managed four separate crises without making a single person feel managed." She said, "The canopy, the kayak, the cooler situation Gail created and then refused to solve the volleyball net. You did all of it and you went and sat back down in your chair like none of it had happened. You didn't need the credit for it. She was still holding his ride up, not looking at it. And when you saw I was going to burn between my shoulders, you walked over.
That was You didn't have to. She said, "Half the people on that beach knew and didn't move. You walked over. You were efficient about it. And then you went back to your chair and didn't make it a thing." A pause.
People who can do that, who can see what's needed and do it without turning it into a performance. They're not common. Marcus had the experience of a conversation that was technically about something else turning into something that required more care than he budgeted for. He responded to both layers. I've got a 7-year-old.
He said, "You build habits. I know." She said, "You've mentioned her." She looked slightly away, which was not her typical mode. Lily, the fractions test. He'd mentioned the name once months ago casually. The way you mentioned things when you thought no one was cataloging.
Yeah, he said. She set the ride up down. I should have told you about Fitch before I offered you the role. I made a decision that affected your risk without giving you the information to assess that risk. That was wrong.
It cost her something to say it. He could hear it in the flatness she used to keep the cost from showing. Yeah. He said it was. I'm sorry.
I know. He picked up his coffee, which had gone cold. It's still a good job. The general council moved on the Pacific Ridge documentation the same afternoon. By Thursday, the vendor was off the Cambria bid list on four defensible technical grounds.
No mention of Phoenix. Nothing that could be picked up and thrown back. Clean, documented, done. On Friday at 217, Marcus' cell rang from a blocked number. He was in the side office in Cambria.
He picked up on the third ring, set his second phone to record, and said, "Web, you think you're smart." Fitch's voice. Marcus had heard it in meetings twice years ago. It was a voice that was used to being the most assured one in the room. Right now, it had an edge in it that the room assurance was struggling to cover. Pacific Ridge was one move.
You got a name off a list. You think that's the game? I think it's part of one, Marcus said. I've got 12 years of relationships in this industry, Fitch said. I've got people who owe me more than you cost me, and I've got patience.
You should have stayed in Phoenix, web. You were nobody there. At least there nobody was watching. That's probably true. Marcus said a pause.