“It was.” He smiled.
“Meet our new Corporate Security officer,” said Scanlon. He was a small, froglike man with no neck and a squat body.
“Really?” I said. “That’s great. Smart hire.”
“We’re all excited to have him join us,” Scanlon said. “Kurt’s already made some very shrewd suggestions for security improvements-he really knows the technology.”
Kurt shrugged modestly.
Scanlon excused himself, and Kurt and I stood there for a few seconds. “So that was fast work,” I said.
“I start Monday. There’s an orientation and a boatload of paperwork to fill out, all that crap. But hey, it’s a real job.”
“That’s really great,” I said.
“Listen, man, thank you.”
“For what?”
“I mean it. I owe you one. You don’t know me very well, but one thing you’ll learn is, I never forget a favor.”
I joined Kate in bed after checking my e-mail one last time for the night. She was wearing her usual bedtime attire-extra-large sweat-pants and extra-large T-shirt-and watching TV. During a commercial break, she said, “I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance last night to ask you about your interview with Gordy.”
“That’s all right. It went okay. As okay as an interview with Gordy could go. He basically taunted and threatened me and tried to pump me up and deflate me all at the same time.”
She rolled her eyes. “What a jerk. You think you’re going to get the job?”
“Who knows. Probably not. I told you, Trevor’s more the Gordy type-aggressive and ruthless. Gordy sees me as a wimp. A nice guy, but a wimp.”
A really annoying commercial came on, and she pressed the mute button. “If it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen. At least you tried.”
“That’s how I figure.”
“As long as you let him know you want it.”
“I did.”
“But do you really?”
“Want it? Yeah, I think I do. It’ll be more work and more stress, but I think if you keep your head down around there, you don’t go anywhere.”
“I think that’s right.”
“My dad always used to say that the nail that sticks up gets hammered down.”
“You’re not your dad.”
“No. He worked in a factory all day and hated it.” I was lost in thought for a moment, remembering my dad’s hunched shoulders at the supper table, the missing fingertips on his right hand. His long silences, the defeated look in his eyes. Like he was resigned to whatever crap life handed him. Sometimes he reminded me of a dog whose owner beat him every day and cowered whenever anyone came near and just wanted to be left alone. But he was a good guy, my dad. He didn’t let me get away with cutting school, and he made sure I did my homework, and he didn’t want me to live the same life as him, and only now was I beginning to realize how much I owed the old man.
“Jason? You know, you’re really good with Ethan. I love the way you are with him. I think you’re the only adult who pays him any attention. And I really appreciate it.”
“I like the poor kid. I really do. He’s kind of warped, I know, but deep down-I think he knows his parents are jerks.”
She nodded, gave a sad smile. “You identify with him, maybe?”
“Me? He’s the polar opposite of me when I was a kid. I was Mister Outgoing.”
“I mean, you were an only child with parents who weren’t around much.”
“My parents weren’t around much because they worked their asses off. Craig and Susie are too busy going to Majorca with Bobby De Niro. They don’t want to be around their son.”
“I know. It’s not fair.”
“Not fair?” I looked at her.
There were tears in her eyes. “We’d give anything to have a baby, and they’re lucky enough to have one and they ignore him or treat him like…” She shook her head. “Ironic, isn’t it?”
“Am I allowed to tell them what I think about the way they’re raising Ethan?”
“No. It’ll just piss them off, and they’ll say, what do you know, you don’t have a kid. And it won’t make a difference anyway. Besides, the way you connect with Ethan-that’s what’ll really make a difference in the kid’s life.”
“But it would still be fun to tell Craig off.”
She smiled but shook her head again.
“Hey,” I said, “I got Kurt a job at Entronics.”
“Kurt.”
“Kurt Semko. The Special Forces guy I met.”
“Right, Kurt. The tow truck driver. What kind of job?”
“Corporate security.”
“Security guard?”
“No, the security guards in the building are rent-a-cops, contracted out. This is to do the inside stuff-loss prevention, monitoring the comings and goings, whatever…”
“You don’t really know what they do, do you?”
“I have no idea. But the security director was thrilled to hire him.”
“Well, then, you did a good thing for everyone. It’s win-win, right?”
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s win-win.”
14
The next morning I unwrapped the CD box of Business Is War! and popped the first disk into the CD player in the Geo Metro. The narrator sounded like George C. Scott as Patton. He was barking out orders about “your battle plan” and “the chain of command” and saying, “highly trained and cohesive units with good leadership suffer the fewest casualties.”
I was so totally pumped from listening to Old Blood and Guts, the four-star general, as I imagined the narrator-though he was probably, in reality, a paunchy little dweeb with thick glasses who hadn’t been able to make it in AM radio-that I was ready to barge into Gordy’s office and just demand the promotion. I was ready to kick ass and take names.
But by the time I got to the office, I’d come to my senses. Besides, I had to drive to Revere to demo a thirty-six-inch screen for the Wonderland Greyhound Park-the dog track. Though I didn’t think the guys who go to the dog track would care about the difference between a regular old TV monitor and a plasma flat panel. I didn’t return from Revere until midafternoon, which was just as well. Gordy tends to be in a better mood after lunch.
I dragged Festino into my office and had him read over a couple of contracts I was hammering out. No one was better than Festino at deconstructing a contract. The problem was, he didn’t sign too many of them. He reminded me of how Ethan, when he was a couple of years old, had memorized this potty-training DVD his parents constantly played for him. Ethan had every word and song memorized. He became an expert in potty theory. But for years he refused to use the potty. Festino was like that. He was a genius at contracts but couldn’t land one.
“Uh, Houston, we have a problem,” Festino said. “Paperwork says ‘FOB destination,’ but they need it shipped to Florida, right? No way in hell the equipment’s going to get to their loading dock before close of business.”
“Crap. You’re right.”
“Plus, I don’t think we want responsibility for the equipment in transit.”
“No way. But they’re going to flip if I tell ’em to change the paperwork.”
“Not a problem. Call ’em, tell ’em to authorize an override, change it to ‘FOB origin.’ That way they get the equipment six weeks earlier-remind ’em that ‘FOB origin’ orders go out the door first.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Good work, man. You’re right.”
I was on my way to see Gordy when I noticed Trevor leaving Joan Tureck’s office. He looked uncharacteristically grim.
“How’s it going there, Trevor?” I said.
“Great,” he said in a flat voice. “Just great.”
Before I had a chance to express to him my deepest, most heartfelt condolences over his standing up the CEO of one of America’s largest movie-theater chains, he was gone, depriving me of the opportunity, and Joan was beckoning me into her office with a flick of her left hand.
I was immediately on alert. Trevor had looked like he’d been kicked in the family jewels. I suspected Joan had been the bearer of bad news and that I might be next in line.