HOUSTON — The nightclub sparkled under a strobe light, as dancers gyrated to "Play That Funky Music" and Court TV's guest of honor, Sherron S. Watkins, sipped wine from a glow-in-the-dark glass. The music stopped so Watkins could accept the cable channel's Scales of Justice award.
It was not quite the Nobel Prize ceremony.
"Let's rock 'n' roll and have a few drinks!" exclaimed Court TV's chairman, Henry Schleiff, after handing Watkins a bronze statuette. The DJ obeyed and blasted "Shaft," as the 1970s-themed publicity party roared on.
For Watkins, the Enron vice president whose blunt-spoken warning about the company's accounting practices made her an instant celebrity, the Court TV party in New Orleans on Sunday was only one weird scene from her surreal new life. The day before, Sam Donaldson introduced her to President Bush at the White House Correspondents Association dinner in Washington.
And this week in Houston, she has continued to do what some consider the unlikeliest thing of all — work at Enron, whose improprieties she had sought to expose in the memo, now famous, she wrote to the former chairman, Kenneth L. Lay, months before the company filed for bankruptcy.
"Generally, people are surprised that she is still there," said Philip Hilder, Watkins' lawyer. "Some people think she has been fired. Some people thought that just on her own she had moved on."
For now, while she remains at Enron, the 42-year-old Watkins is also tip-toeing toward a public life. Her persona as an upscale Erin Brockovich has brought her book and movie deals. She is in demand on the lecture circuit, and next week she is scheduled to be the keynote speaker at a San Francisco conference sponsored by Steve Forbes.
And yet while she talks about Enron in her speeches, she is not granting interviews. This is partly because her lawyer is wary about her future role as a witness in pending Enron litigation, and partly because her publisher does not want to dilute the exclusivity of her story. She is sharing a reported $500,000 advance from Doubleday to be co-author of a book with Mimi Swartz, an executive editor at Texas Monthly.
Her future with Enron seems uncertain, at best. Friends say she met recently with Enron's chief executive, Stephen F. Cooper, to discuss her role, or lack of one, in the company. Hilder said she had felt frustrated and frozen out by top executives, but Thursday she was offered a position tied to Enron's bankruptcy reorganization. Enron officials declined to discuss Watkins' status, noting that the company does not comment on personnel issues.
Watkins' friends say she is intrigued by the possibility of a public life, partly because her private job may someday come to an end. Watkins has a 2-year-old daughter, and like many working mothers, needs her salary. (Vice presidents at Enron usually make at least $150,000 a year.) Her husband, Rick, is a vice president for Canadian Superior Energy Inc. and spends much of his time traveling.
"She's concerned about how she is going to make her livelihood," said Betsy Mercer, a close friend who talks to Watkins regularly. "If somehow all this attention is going to help her make a living, then that is a good thing."
The attention has been white-hot since Jan. 14, when congressional aides made public the memo she had written to Lay. Television crews camped on her front yard in the fashionable Southampton neighborhood while other reporters tracked her into the company garage at Enron. Diane Sawyer, Connie Chung and Barbara Walters all called or sent personal notes in hopes of landing the first television interview.
"Dan Rather tried to reach me from Afghanistan one day," Hilder recalled.
Her subsequent televised congressional testimony in February suddenly made her a recognizable figure.
Friends say people gawked at Watkins when she ate in restaurants. Once, friends say, patrons at a coffee shop burst into applause. By contrast, the Men's Ministry at her church, First Presbyterian, rescinded a speaking invitation after a fellow church member and Enron executive objected. Otherwise, the church has offered support, with Watkins' pastor accompanying her to Washington for the hearings.
On Watkins' first return trip from Washington, her husband recognized a man reading a newspaper in a private airport lounge. It was the House whip, Tom DeLay, the Republican from suburban Houston. Rick Watkins complimented the congressman for the diligence shown by his peers in the Enron investigation.
"Well," DeLay responded, according to Hilder, "the press sure loved her."
Watkins is often described as the "Enron whistle-blower," but she is not a whistle-blower by traditional definition, in that she never notified anyone outside the company of her concerns. Bruce Hiler, a lawyer for former Enron chief executive Jeffrey K. Skilling, testified during the congressional hearings that Watkins' own testimony was based on hearsay or rumor, rather than facts, and suggested she was an opportunist whose memo to Lay was more a document of damage control than whistle-blowing.
Hiler testified that the memo was prodding Lay "to participate in a plan for public relations spin control and scapegoating." He added, "She talked about assigning blame to my client, who conveniently was no longer with the company."
But friends and Enron colleagues have applauded Watkins' testimony and say her decision to write a memo to Lay was hardly born of self-interest. In July 2001, she had learned about the now-famous off-the-books partnerships like one named Raptor while working for Andrew S. Fastow, formerly the company's chief financial officer.
"It was like staring at a time bomb," Watkins said in recent speech at Rice University, according to a transcript. "When I discovered the problems with Raptor, my first reaction was to find another job and leave Enron. I could no longer take pride in working there."
Michele Nezi Marvin, an Enron colleague and friend, recalled that Watkins called her last August to discuss her memo and her concerns that she could be fired if she presented it to Lay. "She was very torn about it," Nezi Marvin said. "She felt very strongly that she was right, that Enron was in trouble and people needed to know about it. She felt like there was a cadre of people who had a vested interest in perpetuating what was going on."