Barefoot in Babylon by Bob Spitz

Author:Bob Spitz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2014-10-02T04:00:00+00:00

6

“Goodrich has found us some food cats.” Michael Lang was his old jubilant self as he waited on the other end of the line for John Roberts’s reaction.

“Well, great. That’s really good news, Michael. Who are they?”

Lang said that he wasn’t sure, he didn’t know them personally. Goodrich, however, had assured him only yesterday that “they’re heavy.”

Heavy—oh shit, that was always a sure sign of trouble. Roberts prayed that they were not the three men he and Goodrich had spoken about some weeks back. During a moment of seemingly honest revelation (a moment that Roberts felt represented the only truthful exchange in their short relationship), Goodrich had told him, “I have these three guys that I know we can use in a pinch. I’d prefer not to do that if we don’t have to, but if we can’t get ahold of Restaurant Associates or Stevens or one of the others to come in with us, we can go with this group.”

“This is bullshit,” Roberts had remarked. “Here it is the end of June, and we have no food concessionaires. It’s just insane. I can’t risk waiting much longer. How are these guys?”

Goodrich was uncommonly candid. “They’re fine—I just can’t stand them personally.”

Roberts had defensively put that discussion out of his mind, so convinced was he that it was only a matter of time before vendors would be beating down their door in an attempt to land the account. Now, having experienced a dozen or more rejections from the major food concerns, he had a sneaking premonition that the worst had happened, that they had hit rock bottom and he was about to be introduced to Goodrich’s three stooges.

“The thing is,” Michael went on, “we gotta close the deal with them fast—like tomorrow. They need bread, and they’ve gotta get started.” He had taken the liberty of arranging a meeting at Paul Marshall’s office on the morning of July 10. Peter Goodrich would meet him there to make the proper introductions. As Joel was tied up with festival advertising and publicity, Roberts reluctantly agreed to attend alone.

At precisely 10:30 the next morning, Roberts found himself being squired into Marshall’s dark, mahogany office, a room so regally furnished that John thought it befitted a distinguished Supreme Court justice. Besides their newly appointed lawyer and Peter Goodrich (who looked apprehensive), four other men were settled into various armchairs positioned around the room. They were fleetingly introduced to him as Charles Baxter, Jeffrey Joerger, and Lee Howard—the partners of a new corporation called Food For Love—and Stephen Weingrad, their attorney.

Roberts’s head was still spinning from the swift and scrambled presentation of these men. The whole thing had happened so quickly that he had missed the imparting of their credentials. All he had left to go on were appearance, and he did not like what he saw. The three men looked no more like fast-food executives than Michael and Artie, and perhaps it was that resemblance that bothered him most of all. Baxter, tall and spare, bore a strong resemblance to Ichabod Crane.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.