Once on the road, Nate said, "If Aldridge doesn't see it the way you do" "He'll see it." "You're sure?" "I'm sure of the numbers." She said. "I'm sure of what they say.
What Aldridge does with it is his decision. But yes, I'm sure." He nodded and didn't raise it again. Henry Aldridge was a man of perhaps 60, gray-haired, with the careful eyes of someone who had spent decades reading people across a desk and had grown very accurate at it. He received them in his office with a courtesy that was genuine but reserved.
He looked at Clara when Nate introduced her, a measuring look, and she met it directly, and he shifted his assessment slightly, and that was the end of that. Nate set the papers on his desk. "I'd like your opinion on something," he said. Aldridge looked at the papers. He reached for them with the automatic authority of a man in his own office, began reading, and within 30 seconds his expression had changed from polite attention to something more focused.
Clara watched him read. He went through everything, the ledger comparisons, the invoice cross-references, her summary column, the total figure at the bottom. He went through it twice. He turned back to the beginning and looked at one particular section again. Then he set the papers down and looked at Nate.
"How long have you had this?" He said. "Two days," Nate said. Aldridge looked at Clara. "He said."
"Yes," she said. "You're confident in the figures." "I checked them twice," she said. "The methodology is straightforward. Invoice number against ledger entry, date by date.
There's no interpretation involved. Either the numbers match or they don't." "They don't," Aldridge said. "No," she agreed, "they don't." He sat back in his chair and looked at the ceiling for a moment in the way of a man who is reorganizing what he knows about a situation.
"Hargrove called in a note," he said. It was not a question. "Yes," Nate said, "30 days." "He has the right to do it," Aldridge said. "He does," Nate said.
"But I'd argue the nature of our business relationship bears on what happens next. Aldridge looked at the papers again. Three years, he said. Yes, consistent overcharging. Yes, a long pause.