He remembered a line he’d seen quoted somewhere: Maybe this world is another planet’s hell. There had to be a bunch of corollaries to that. He had made someone else’s world a hell, and someone had made his world a hell. Supply-chain management for human suffering.
An instant-message from Marjorie popped up, even though she was sitting not ten feet away, on the other side of the panel. She didn’t want to break his concentration-she knew how fragile it tended to be.
The usual for lunch today, right?
Oh, right. Nick remembered: the regular weekly lunch with Scott. Which was just about the last thing he felt like doing.
He wanted to confront Scott, tell him to get the fuck out and go back home to McKinsey. But he couldn’t, not yet. Not until he got to the bottom of what exactly was going on. And the truth was, he no longer had the power to fire Scott if he wanted to. Which right now he very much did.
He typed:
OK, thanks.
He noticed that there was an e-mail in his in-box from Cassie; he could tell from the subject line.
He hadn’t given her his e-mail address, hadn’t gotten an e-mail from her before, and he hesitated before clicking on it:
From: ChakraGrrl@hotmail.com
To: Nconover@Strattoninc.com
Subject: From Cassie
Nick-Where’s my grocery delivery boy been? Free for lunch today? Come over between 12:30 and 1? I’ll supply the sandwiches.
C.
He felt his spirits lift at once, and he hit Reply:
I’m there.
“Marge,” he said into the intercom, “change in plans. Tell Scott I’m not going to be able to make lunch today, okay?”
“Okay. Want me to give a reason?”
Nick paused. “No.”
On the way to the elevator he passed Scott, who was coming out of the men’s room. “Got your message,” Scott said. “Everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine. Just got really hectic all of a sudden.”
“You’ll do anything to avoid talking numbers,” Scott said with a grin.
“You got me figured out,” Nick said, grinning right back as he headed for the elevator bank. A couple of women from Payroll got in on the floor below, smiled shyly at him. One of them said, “Hey, Mr. Conover.”
He said, “Hey, Wanda. Hey, Barb.” They both seemed surprised, and pleased, that he knew their names. But Nick made it a point to know as many Stratton employees by name as possible; he knew how good it was for morale. And there’s fewer and fewer of them all the time, he thought mordantly. Makes it easier.
When the elevator stopped at the third floor, Eddie got in, said, “It’s the big dog.”
Something awfully disrespectful about that, especially in front of other employees. “Eddie,” Nick said.
“Had a feeling you were headed out to, uh, ‘lunch,’” Eddie said. The way he dropped little quotation marks around the word “lunch” was unnerving. Does he know where I’m going? How could he? And then Nick remembered that he’d asked Eddie to start looking closely at Scott’s e-mail. He wondered whether Eddie had taken that as an opportunity to look at Nick’s e-mail too. If true, that would be outrageous-but how the hell could he prevent Eddie from doing it? He was the goddamned security director.
Nick just gave him a stony look, which would be missed by Wanda and Barb from Payroll.
“I’ll walk you to your car,” Eddie said. He was carrying an umbrella.
Nick nodded.
They walked together, silently, through the main lobby, past the waterfall that some feng shui expert had insisted they put there to repair a “blocked energy feeling” at the entrance. Nick had thought that was complete and utter bullshit, but he went along with it anyway, the way he’d always avoided stepping on cracks in the sidewalk so as not to break his mother’s back. Anyway, the waterfall looked good there, that was the main thing.
Nick could see through the big glass doors that it was raining. That explained the umbrella, but had Eddie planned to go out for lunch, or did he “happen” to run into Nick in the elevator-by design? Nick wondered but said nothing. He considered, too, asking Eddie about what Detective Rhimes had told him-that Eddie had left the Grand Rapids police force “under a cloud of suspicion.” But he didn’t know why she’d told him that. Was she trying to put a wedge between the two men? If so, that was a clever way to do it. If Eddie had lied to him about why he’d left police work, what else might he have lied about?
He’d ask Eddie. Not yet, though.
Outside, Eddie opened the big golf umbrella and held it up for Nick. When they’d walked a good distance away from the building, Eddie said, “Foxy Brown better watch her ass.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Come on, man. Cleopatra Jones. Sheba baby.”
“I’m in a hurry, Eddie. It’s been fun free-associating with you.”
Eddie gripped Nick’s shoulder. “Your black lady detective, man. The one who’s trying to roast our nuts over the fire.” The rain thrummed loudly on the umbrella. “The Negro lady who’s got it in for you because you fucking laid off her husband,” he said ferociously, drawing out the words.
“You’re kidding me.”
“Think I’d joke about something like that? About something that should get her fucking thrown off the case?”
“Who’s her husband?”
“Some fucking nobody, man, worked on the shop floor spraying paint or whatever. Point is, Stratton laid him off, and now his wife’s coming to collect your scalp.” He shook his head. “And I say that ain’t right.”
“She shouldn’t be investigating us,” Nick said. “That’s outrageous.”
“That’s what I say. Bitch gets disqualified.”
“How do we do that?”
“Leave it to me.” His smile was almost a leer. “Meanwhile, I got some interesting stuff on your man Scott.”
Nick looked at him questioningly.
“You asked me to poke into his e-mail and shit.”
“What’d you get?”
“You know what Scott’s been doing just about every weekend for the last two months?”
“Burning hamburgers,” Nick said. “I was just over there last Saturday.”
“Not last Saturday, but almost every other weekend. He’s been flying to Boston. Think he’s visiting his sick Aunt Gertrude?”
“He’s getting the corporate discount through the travel office,” Nick said.
Eddie nodded. “I guess he figures you don’t look at travel expenses-not your job.”
“I do have a company to run. Run into the ground, some would say.”
“Plus a shitload of phone calls back and forth between him and that guy Todd Muldaur at Fairfield Equity Partners. Kinda doubt it’s all social chitchat, right?”
“Any idea what they’re talking about?”
“Nah, that’s just phone records. Voice mails I can hack into, but Scotty-boy’s a good camper. Deletes all voice mails when he’s done listening to them. Him and Todd-O e-mail each other, but it’s all kinda generic stuff like you’d expect-you know, here’s the monthly numbers, or shit like that. Scotty must know e-mails aren’t safe. Maybe that’s why, when he’s got something he wants to keep quiet, he uses encryption.”
“Encryption?”
“You got it. My techs intercepted a couple dozen encrypted documents coming and going between Scotty and Todd-O.”
Nick couldn’t think of any possible reason why Scott would be sending or receiving encrypted documents. Then again, he couldn’t think of a reason why Scott would make a secret trip to China either.
“What are they about?”
“Don’t know yet, seeing as how they’re encrypted. But my guys are crackerjacks. They’ll get ’em open for me. Let you know the second they do.”