'With an amazing-looking woman, I might add,' Adele said.
'I was.'
'You saw what they are, Trent was like the rest of them.'
'Which is?'
'Hyperthyroid frat boys out to prove they've got the biggest dick,' Adele said.
'By?' I said.
'By bringing in the most business, coming up with the best new scheme, getting the biggest bonus. Kinergy is a money machine if you're good, and willing to work eighteen-hour days, every day.'
'Every day?'
'Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays,' Adele said. 'Some of the losers take Christmas morning off.'
'Where do you fit in?' I said.
She grinned and drank some coffee.
'Hyperthyroid sorority girl,' she said. 'Intent on proving I've got everything the boys have.'
'How's that going?' I said.
'I'm doing fine,' she said and made an inclusive gesture at the rest of her office.
'What is it you do, exactly?'
'I'm senior vice president for development,' she said.
'Yeah?
'I fly around in the company jet and look for opportunities for us.'
'For Kinergy?'
'Sure.'
'And that includes what?'
'Mostly blowing the smoke and arranging the mirrors,' she said.
'Anything else?' I said. 'Anything more, ah, specific.' She smiled widely.
'An occasional BJ,' she said.
'An indispensable negotiating tool,' I said.
'Nice choice of words.'
I shrugged.
'And what did Trent do?'
'CFO,' she said.
'Was he good at it?'
'In some ways he was a wizard. He truly understood the manipulation of money. He was a genius at accounting. He understood banking. He had a ... an almost genetic sense of how Wall Street works.'
'That sounds like a wizard in all ways,' I said.
'It does,' she said. 'But . . . it wasn't what he knew and didn't know. It was ... hell, it was that he didn't want it badly enough.'
'Want what?'
'The whole enchilada,' Adele said. 'Money, power, country club, Porsche, Rolex, Montblanc pen.'
'What else is there?' I said.
'It's the way we keep score,' Adele said. 'And Trent played that game as hard as he could. But there was always ... I don't know ... he always seemed to be looking for something that Kinergy doesn't have.' She shrugged. 'Purpose, peace, love, some philosophical something. I mean Trent could be as big a prick as anyone. And he was a real player ... but there was that something lacking.'
'Or vice versa,' I said.
'What? Oh, yes. Maybe not. Maybe it was a good thing. But not here. You want to be here, you can't be good ... and survive.'
'He didn't,' I said.
'Yeah. That's kind of sad. But I didn't mean it that way.'
'You good?' I said.
'God, no. I'm talking to you because I can't think of any reason not to. But, no, I'd lie to you in a heartbeat. If it would get me something I wanted, I'd sleep with you.'
'Be a treat in itself,' I said.
She paused and looked at me as if she were considering a purchase.
'Probably would be,' she said. 'But it would waste a fuck.'
