Till the Butchers Cut Him Down Read Online Free

tourists, no pseudo-nautical frills, just a lunch counter with a grill and coffee urns behind
     it and yellow leatherette booths beneath the windows. I slipped into the one Suits indicated, and he asked, “What’ll you have?”
    “Coffee, please. Black.”
    “Nothing to eat?”
    “No, thanks, just coffee.”
    He shrugged and went over to the counter. The cook, a heavyset bald man in a stained white apron, apparently knew him, because
     he nodded in brusque friendliness and called him T.J. Suits gave his order and sat down on a stool to wait for it.
    I looked away, out the grimy salt-caked window. It afforded a view all the way from the Bay Bridge and Yerba Buena Island
     to the drawbridge at China Basin. A gray view today, typical weather for August, although unusually dour for this area, which
     enjoyed one of the better climates in a city of many climate zones. I watched a flock of gulls plane north above the water,
     then pinwheel off in various directions. Farther out, a container ship moved slowly toward the Port of Oakland.
    Suits returned in a few minutes carrying two mugs of coffee, then went back for a plate containing half a dozen little hamburgers.
     Before I finished stirring my coffee to cool it, he’d wolfed down three of them. I’d forgotten that for a skinny guy, Suits
     could consume enormous quantities of food.
    “All right,” I said after taking a sip of what turned out to be a particularly nasty brew, “now are you ready to tell me what
     this is about?”
    He swabbed his mouth with a paper napkin. “Do you know what a turnaround man is?”
    “One of those people who bring corporations back from the edge of bankruptcy?”
    “That’s it. And that’s me. When they get down and desperate, I rescue ’em.”
    While he ate the rest of his burgers I remained silent, recalling an article I’d noticed in an old copy of
Fortune
that had been the only thing to read in my dentist’s waiting room a few months back. It was titled “Turnaround Pros Sweep
     the Compensation Ratings,” and the lead paragraphs—which were all I’d gotten through before being summoned to the drill—described
     the turnaround men as a breed apart, white knights riding into battle in private jets and limousines. The image did not fit
     the Suitcase Gordon I’d known, and the requisite skills were none he’d ever demonstrated.
    “How’d you get into that line of work?” I asked.
    He shook his head—an abrupt reflexive dismissal of my question. It reminded me of the way the savings-and-loan boys told reporters
     “No comment” when the indictments came down. “Just fell into it by accident,” he finally said.
    I hesitated, wondering if I should press for a better explanation. No, I decided, the set of his mouth indicated I wouldn’t
     get one. Come to think of it, in all the time I’d known him, Suits had imparted very little personal information. He was a
     tireless talker, but his conversational repertoire consisted of inconsequential chatter, aimless bullshit, and largely apocryphal
     stories. I had not the slightest idea of where he’d been born, grown up, or attended school; I knew his full name only because
     I’d once glimpsed his Massachusetts driver’s license when he wrote a check—which later bounced—at Berkeley’s Co-op Market.
    I said, “Tell me more about what you do.”
    Suits balled up his napkin, tossed it onto the plate, and belched discreetly. “Okay, here’s how it works. Say you’ve got a
     company that’s about to go down the tubes. They owe millions, their creditors’re hounding them. The atmosphere’s bad: employees’re
     stampeding out the door, management’s pissed off at the board, the board’s lost all confidence in management. Chapter Eleven’s
     looming on the horizon, and the stockholders’re dumping their shares. What does the board do?”
    I raised my eyebrows inquiringly.
    “They make a last-ditch stand, send for a troubleshooter. A man who can turn things