A suspicious character arrives. Joe doesn’t like him, and Al instinctively distrusts him. The agency is now trying to do business, and they don’t need dubious tourists.
Fazzina was put on the backburner with some relief after the police indicated that it was now their problem, although why it was their problem they weren’t too informative about. Al didn’t have the time for it anyway, although all the references to Interpol had him crawling with curiosity and disbelief. Clients had started to roll in as a result of his patient searching of smaller local business and cutthroat rates. He’d managed to get his files sent over from the US by now and was specifically targeting clients in the same fields. This was for the remarkably straightforward reason that no new material had to be created. It was a cut-and-paste exercise. Even copyright wasn’t an issue; he used his own material, particularly the Parkers stuff, which he’d made sure he owned, and there was no chance of a dispute. Just change the client’s names. Net production cost to the agency, nil. Therefore irresistible rates.
Smaller advertising budgets tend to be more ready to move, as well as more able. Big contracts stick. You’re more likely to shop around with a few thousand than with a few million. Dave Flinger had turned out to be as good a client as he’d seemed, and was now a major contract, and a great contact. Al wanted more of those, and evidently some word of mouth had happened because he seemed to be getting a lot of retailers. The result was a healthy stream of new clients, about six a day on average.
New jobs came in like grocery deliveries. They ranged from ads in the local paper to letter drops to in-store promotions, a few radio ads, and to Joe’s joy, lots of graphics work, where his talent truly shone. (Actually, he stunned Al, Bill and even Carla, who finally admitted he might not be as much of a loss to entomology as she first thought). Ian rang and asked if Al was sure that this unbearably happy person was really his son. He said he’d decided not to sue… He then offered to let Joe buy him out of the partnership on a dollar for five basis. That was slightly generous, because the one and a half million was now worth about two, but Ian said it was Joe’s insistence on being his own man that had earned the discount; Ian admitted that Joe had made his point.
Sally and Dorothy both had major sales successes with their campaigns, and some US interest thanks to Al’s armies of lifetime contacts, and Hard Women started to get a lot of business through Al’s carefully blunt sub-plugging of their agency in Sally’s and other ads with credits. They in turn agreed to keep their rates steady in return, so an indirect profit was created, as well as a trustworthy modeling agency on call when required.
It wasn’t work any more, it was fun. Al came home at all hours feeling as though he’d just had a nice day with friends. In to this somewhat over-idyllic situation came Fantastic Finance Advisers. A specimen arrived, one of the immaculately groomed, utterly useless people that some companies insist on having as a corporate image. The expression of distaste on Bill’s face, as he introduced Mr. Featherman, the CEO of this organization, was so pronounced and so unusual that Al had to physically crush the stunned expression he felt coming onto his face. Featherman seemed oblivious. Bill wasn’t actually wearing rubber gloves…….
“Delighted to meet you, Mr. Hickey. I’ve heard so much about you.”
Anglo American accent? Too many warning signals went off in his head, and Al underplayed stringently.
“Nice to hear we’re getting a reputation. I’m afraid I don’t know much about your firm, though.”
“We aren’t all that well known. Quite a new company, actually. Yes, I was over in the States last week. I bumped into a former colleague of yours, Harvey White. Apparently your coup in taking over this agency is quite a conversation piece.”
“Harvey White and I aren’t exactly on the best of terms, Mr. Featherman.”
He wrote a brief note as he said this, asked the hovering Carla – he wasn’t sure how she’d known to hover- to attend to it, ASAP, please, and invited Featherman to have a seat. Bill was now looking relieved, if saying nothing. That helped.
“So I gathered from him. However, the topic came up because we were looking to do business in the States and were looking for an agency over there. We tried Stone Gold and White. Of course, we soon found ourselves out of our depth and our budget. I mentioned this and Mr. White, rather dismissively, I thought, said we could always try you, here. I hadn’t heard of you, and was given a somewhat critical if brief history. However…the point is, we still need to pitch to the American market, we need contacts, and we can’t afford US rates. We were wondering if you’d care to act as a consultant? Show us how to work there, within our means?”
Al had been doing a threat assessment during this monologue, and had come to the conclusion that this was either a remarkably lazy and clumsy plant, courtesy White, or a plausible bit of scouting, disguised as a waste of time. If so, though, why do it this way? Bill seemed to be staring through a building on the other side of the street. He’d heard all this before letting Featherman see Al, so he really didn’t like it. That was actually quite good enough for Al.
“I’m afraid we can’t do that. It’s really a more than a bit beyond our resources. We just do basic advertising, usually for retailers. I must also admit my contacts are slightly stale over there these days; I more or less emigrated professionally as well as personally.”
The smile, if it was one, was unfathomably annoying. Bill had returned to staring through nearby buildings.
“Oh well, sorry to use up your time like this, I suppose we’ll have to leave it at that.”
Featherman was ushered out in an urbane exit of epic proportions, like a visiting statue being sent back to its museum. If there was a person Al had ever hated on sight, other than Harvey, that was him. Carla sprinted into his office, there was no other word for it. She dodged most of the furniture. Al’s note had asked her to email David, asking about Featherman, and David had apparently been awake and replied instantly. That of itself was enough to worry.
The message was:
Featherman is a stooge for White. Finance business is doubtful in extreme. Avoid this guy.
David
Bill returned, looking like an offended earthquake.
“Spit it out, Bill.”
“Do you know who that bastard is?”
Al handed him the email. Bill… snarled… you couldn’t call it a sneer.
“Doesn’t surprise me at all. Featherman is what’s lamentably called a “businessman” in Australia, which means an unspecified scumbag into anything and everyone for whatever he can get. He didn’t remember me, apparently, we’ve only met once before, but I remember him. He was one of the firm of “consultants”, ironically enough, who destroyed my old job and made himself a small fortune in the process.”
After a slight monosyllabic but highly scatological snorting session, Bill continued,
“Did you ever have a period over there when large numbers of very talkative, highly paid people invaded businesses and promoted workshops and chummy get-togethers over weekends of expensive bullshit? The Management Mystique?”
“Oh yeah. Fortunately for us Saul and Keith thought it was a load of crap and refused to pay a cent for any of it, but I heard a lot about it.”
“My manager fell for it. We had seminars for improved sycophancy, how to make yourself look dynamic, which apparently meant using the word “dynamic” every sentence, and reams of drivel disguised as best practice. Sickening. We spent…stop laughing……two million dollars restructuring a business from a profitable concern to a hopeless bureaucracy. Featherman definitely got a good piece of that.”
“So here he is now as a finance adviser? Aren’t there laws about needing to be licensed, fiduciary responsibilities, that stuff?”
“There are a lot of laws, largely because in the eighties everything on two, four or six legs with a phone was setting itself up as a financial adviser. That did a lot of damage while it was happening. However, you can imagine the possibilities of a crooked finance adviser, and I wouldn’t think Featherman could recognize a straight line if you gave him a map of it.”
“So he drops in on us. How nice. I’m wondering if he wasn’t just sent to have a look around.”
“He probably makes about ten thousand a day. I think he could fit in a bit of paid tourism.”
Al and Bill happened to be looking out the window when he noticed Featherman driving by; actually, being driven, in a very expensive car, by none other than Good Old Nigel. Bill rang Alan and asked if he’d like some more private detective work. Carla and Joe were briefed on the new version of the situation. Al had to ask,
“Joe; you were looking at the guy like you’d just seen something socially inadequate in a sewer; why?”
“I remember him from Dad’s office. He apparently didn’t recognize me, but he was one of a group of grovellers trying to buy into a consultancy agreement with Dad. This was a few years ago. Fortunately Dad loathed him on sight. He said Featherman was one of the reasons he’d never hold it against me if I decided people like that were a reason not to get into the business. Dad despises crawlers. He says they crawl because they lack the talent to do anything else.”
Al realized that he had more in common with Ian than he’d thought. There was no shortage of useless semi-criminal jerks disguised as businessmen in America, either. Parasites, basically. White and Featherman would make a charming couple. They went back to work.