No Way Back

by Matthew Klein

  I park at the base of a gravel driveway. There’s a post-mounted mailbox with a small placard that says: ‘Dr George Liago, PhD, MD’. A vigorous growth of purple clematis climbs up the post, and the flowery vines nearly hide the portion of the sign that says: ‘PhD, MD’. I think to myself that, if I had spent all that money on school, I’d be out front every morning with a pair of clippers.

  I trudge up the gravel. There’s a single Crown Victoria parked beside the house, presumably Dr Liago’s.

  I ring the bell. After a moment the door is opened by a man in a suit and tie. He’s tall, balding, with grey feathery hair and a neatly-trimmed white beard. His eyes are opened preternaturally wide, which gives him the look of someone who is quite surprised to see me.

  ‘Mr Thane?’ he says.

  ‘Dr Liago.’

  ‘Please, come in.’

  He leads me through the foyer, past a sitting room, into a study. There is no carpeting; our shoes stamp and echo on bare oak. Inside the study, the walls are lined with wooden bookcases containing leather-bound medical books and matching sets of classics. There’s a large oak desk, a calf-skin couch, and two comfortable-looking high-backed chairs facing each other. Dr Liago sweeps his hand across the quadrant of the room that contains the chairs and the couch. That means I should choose whichever makes me comfortable – chair or couch.

  I choose chair. I sink back into one. I’m surprised by how soft it is.

  Dr Liago sits down across from me.

  ‘So,’ he says, and smiles. ‘Welcome.’ He has a soothing voice. It’s the kind of quiet, breathy voice they teach you in medical school. I think they devote at least one semester to it. There is a tenured professor somewhere who has conducted extensive peer-reviewed research and concluded that the softer you speak – the closer to a whisper – the more carefully your words will be regarded, and the more money you can charge to speak them.

  Liago says, ‘Gordon Kramer filled me in about your background. But I think it’s best if you tell me, in your own words, why you’re here.’

  I look around the room. On the wall facing me hangs a diploma proclaiming in cursive, Latin writing that George Liago graduated from Cornell Medical School. In the corner furthest away is a gun-metal grey filing cabinet with a serious-looking lock. Nearby is a desk. There’s an electric clock on the desk with a sweeping seconds hand, and a face that glows a comforting orange. All shrinks have big clocks turned discreetly towards the patient, so that the patient knows when he has only a few minutes remaining in the session – just enough time, for example, to describe the soul-crushing emotion that comes from letting your son drown in a bathtub. Just for example.

  Liago’s office is dark. The effect is achieved with heavy wood shutters blocking all windows. The room is very quiet, very restful. You can’t help but feel protected and safe here.

  And yet.

  Yet there is something peculiar about it.

  It takes a moment to figure out.

  It’s too tidy. There are no papers on the doctor’s desk – not even a neat pile of folders. Other than the clock, the desk is bare. There are no photographs, no knick-knacks, no mementos anywhere in the room. Every doctor I’ve ever been to – internist, gastroenterologist, shrink – makes at least a minimal effort to decorate his workspace and make it his own, even if only to display a small keepsake – a trophy, a sea shell, a drawing by a child. But here, there’s nothing. What makes this fact even stranger is that this is apparently a home-office. The house seems provisional, unlived in. Like a movie set.

  ‘You live here?’ I ask.

  A simple question, but Dr Liago treats it gingerly. He does not immediately answer. He looks at me for a long moment. Finally, he says: ‘Why do you ask? Would it comfort you to know that I do live here?’

  I laugh. ‘No, Doc. Just making small talk.’

  ‘I do,’ he says. ‘I do live here.’ He tries to join my laughter and gives a weak smile.

  ‘Now then,’ he says.

  ‘Now then,’ I agree. ‘You want to know why I’m here. In my own words.’ I take a deep breath. I feel myself sink further into my chair. I might get lost in it. Suffocate. ‘The Reader’s Digest version?’

  ‘That’ll be fine.’

  ‘Here goes. I’m an addict. I’m sure Gordon told you that.’

  His voice is soft, like an angel: ‘He did.’ He lays a yellow legal pad on his lap, scribbles something.

  ‘My vices vary. I started with drinking and gambling. Amateur stuff. Eventually I turned pro – worked my way up to crystal meth and whores. You know what they say about practise, practise, practise.’

  My attempt at humour – if you can call it that – falls flat. Dr Liago stares at me, stone faced. He looks down and jots something on his pad. I try to peer at the scribbles, to see if he actually wrote the word ‘whores’, but my chair is too far, his writing too small.

  ‘Anyway,’ I say, ‘I’ve been sober for two years. Two years, nine months, and twenty-two days, to be exact. I started a new job yesterday. I’m the CEO of a software company.’

  ‘CEO,’ he says. ‘That sounds like an impressive job.’

  ‘It’s not. The company’s a piece of shit. That’s why I was hired. It’s called a “restart”. When a bunch of the investors get together and decide a company is failing. They bring in someone new to turn it around. That’s my speciality, restarts.’

  ‘That’s ironic.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘You’re a bit of a restart yourself. Aren’t you?’

  ‘I hope not. Most restarts don’t actually work. That’s the dirty little secret. They sound like good ideas, but usually they happen way too late. They’re like a Hail Mary pass at the end of a football game.’

  ‘I see.’ He nods significantly, as if I have just revealed something very significant about myself. His pen flies across his pad, scratching. God, I’d love to see that pad.

  ‘And so that’s why I came to see you,’ I conclude, lamely. ‘Gordon Kramer is my sponsor. He recommended you. Gordon is very – how do I say it? – he’s very persuasive. I’ve done hypnotherapy before, at Gordon’s insistence. It worked for him – for his recovery – and so he wanted me to try it for myself.’

  ‘Has it worked for you?’

  ‘You tell me. I’ve been sober for two years, nine months, twenty-two days... and twenty seconds.’

  ‘Are you married, Mr Thane?’

  ‘Almost ten years.’

  ‘And your wife came to Florida with you?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘But she’s not happy about it?’

  ‘How did you know that?’

  He doesn’t answer the question. Instead, he says: ‘So you have a lot of stress in your life, don’t you? A new job. A lot of people counting on you. Plus one unhappy wife.’

  ‘Hey, you’re right. I am stressed out. You have any scotch?’

  ‘I see you use humour to deflect your stress.’

  ‘I wasn’t aware that I did that.’

  ‘It’s a good strategy,’ he says, nodding. ‘Would you like to begin?’

  ‘Begin what?’

  ‘Our therapy.’

  ‘I thought we already did.’

  ‘The hypnotherapy part, Mr Thane.’

  ‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Sure.’

  ‘Good. Let’s begin.’

  Forty minutes later, I leave Dr Liago’s office. I feel calm, relaxed, in control. The session flew by. Hypnosis is not like what you see in the movies, where you go into a deep sleep and start clucking like a chicken. It’s more like a nap – one of those long afternoon naps you take on a weekend, when you have nowhere in particular to be, when you open a window and it’s autumn cool outside, and you lie under a warm blanket. You rest, you listen to your own breathing, you repeat statements about how you won’t drink or gamble. (Fill in your own devastating personal weakness here.)

  At the end of the session, Dr Liago – quietly, without pressure – asked if I would like t
o return next week. My own answer surprised me.

  Yes, I have a company to run. Yes, I have a busy schedule. But I can afford one hour each week, in the middle of the workday, to drive to Parkdale, Florida, and have my brain rejiggered. I’ll put up with a lot worse, if it means not going back to where I came from.

  CHAPTER 9

  When I return to the office, I find on my new desk a stack of impersonal junk mail addressed to ‘CEO, Tao Software’. Beside it is a Manila envelope with a Post-it that says: ‘Jim – The itemized transactions you requested – Joan.’

  I open Joan’s envelope, pull out a stack of laser-printed accounting reports. Yesterday, Joan revealed to me that Tao, desperately short of cash, burning its precious supply, is somehow – preposterously – spending $400,000 each month on ‘marketing’. How do you spend that much money marketing a product that isn’t even finished? It doesn’t take a highly-trained CEO to smell something fishy. So, even before I examine Joan’s report, my corporate-embezzlement antenna is twitching.

  It takes me exactly thirteen seconds to find the smoking gun. It’s right there on the first page: a list of the vendors that have been paid recently by Tao Software, and the amounts paid. Nothing unusual in the first few lines: $327 to Staples for ‘office supplies’, $267 to BetaGraphics for ‘copying and reproduction’, $847 to Federal Express for ‘postage and delivery’.

  But then, fourth item on the list, there it is, staring me in the face: ‘International Tradeshow Services – $48,000’.

  And that’s not all. Five days earlier, there was another payment to International Tradeshow Services, for $26,500. Two weeks before that, a payment for $52,756. All of the transactions are labelled ‘Marketing (Tradeshows & Exhibits)’.

  I pore over Joan’s report. In all, over three million dollars has been spent. And Joan’s report only goes back a year. Was even more spent on International Tradeshow Services before then?

  I toss the pile of paper onto my desk, pick up my phone. I dial David Paris’s extension.

  He must see my name on his Caller ID, for he answers with a delighted tone. ‘Hello, Jim!’ he says. He sounds like a pining teenage boy who is finally called by the girl he longs for. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘You can come to my office,’ I say, all trace of civility drained from my voice. ‘Now.’

  He appears at the entrance to my office mere seconds after I hang up the phone. He must have bounded over desks and cubicles, like some sort of office Superman, to reach me so quickly. I swivel in my seat and glare at him.

  ‘Yes, Jim?’ David says.

  ‘International Tradeshow Services,’ I say.

  He looks at me blankly.

  I drill him with my gaze, remaining silent.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ he says.

  I repeat: ‘International Tradeshow Services.’ I try to keep my voice flat, emotionless. But I can feel it: a rush of triumph. Could it really be this easy? Could Tao’s problems really boil down to one rogue VP of Marketing who is embezzling corporate funds?

  It’s called a sham vendor. I have found one in nearly every company I’ve ever been hired to turn around. Here’s how it works. A criminal rents a post office box, prints up a professional invoice from, say, ‘Acme Office Supplies’, and sends the bill to ‘Accounts Payable’ at some random company. Most small companies – those without full-time accounting staffs – simply pay any bill presented to them. Sally in Accounting always assumes that someone in the company, somewhere, has bought something. The bills are typically for small amounts – $100 here, $250 there. But carried over long enough periods of time, across hundreds of companies, a criminal can make a nice living at it.

  But the sham vendor scam I’ve just uncovered is more ambitious than that. This is an inside job. Someone at Tao is presenting invoices to the Accounting Department, pretending that they are for services rendered to the company. This criminal probably has an outside accomplice, someone who rents a post office box under the name International Tradeshow Services, and who answers the telephone if someone at Tao gets suspicious and decides to call the mysterious company.

  Now David Paris is staring at me, waiting for me to say more. When he decides I will say nothing further, he squints quizzically. ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand you, Jim.’

  ‘International Tradeshow Services,’ I say. ‘They’re a vendor. The marketing department – that’s your department, isn’t it? – is spending a lot of money on their services. Who are they? What do they do for us?’

  David looks puzzled. He glances down at his feet, wrinkles his brow. He has a look of quiet desperation, the look of a man who wants to please, but has no idea how. Finally, he admits softly: ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know the name.’

  ‘International Tradeshow Services,’ I repeat, for the fourth time. ‘Marketing has spent three million dollars on them over the past twelve months.’

  David’s face shows a glimmer of understanding. He realizes now – perhaps for the first time – that he is being accused of corporate larceny.

  ‘No!’ he shouts, too loudly. He’s standing at the entrance to my office, on the edge of the bullpen, and his voice carries. From my perspective, I can’t see many people in the office, but I sense the background noise grow mute. Conversations stop; people listen to the excitement emanating from the boss’s room. David must sense the change, too. He takes a step closer and lowers his voice. Softer now, but still insistent: ‘Jim, I have never heard of that company.’

  I hand him Joan’s report. He stares at the first page. He’s a marketing executive, and not very au fait with accounting statements. I watch his eyes flutter over the endless rows of numbers, as he tries to figure out exactly what I want him to look at. Finally, he navigates the page. His little elf-like eyebrows shoot upward and disappear under his hairline. ‘No,’ he mutters, mostly to himself. ‘No, no, no.’

  He looks up at me. ‘Jim,’ he says, softly but with great conviction, ‘I have no idea what these payments are for. I have never heard of this company before today. International Tradeshow Services.’ He repeats the company name slowly, spitting it out, as if it’s a filthy word.

  ‘You didn’t submit these expense reports?’

  ‘No,’ he says. His voice is quiet but firm. ‘Absolutely not.’

  ‘You didn’t authorize these payments?’

  ‘No, I did not.’

  ‘It’s three million dollars,’ I say. ‘Tao Software paid that company three million dollars. Where did it all go?’

  ‘How should I know?’

  ‘David,’ I say, lowering my voice. I adopt the tone of a father gently reprimanding a favourite son. ‘I want you to come clean with me. I can help you, but only if you tell me the truth. We can avoid taking this to the authorities. We can settle this quietly. I have no desire to make this into a criminal matter. Let’s just work this out, man to man.’

  He turns aggrieved. ‘Jim, I don’t know what you’re accusing me of. But I have nothing to do with this. Besides, I couldn’t get those expenses approved without sign-off. Ask Joan. There’d be paperwork.’

  Of course there would be. Even at a rinky-dink operation like Tao, no one signs a cheque for fifty grand without someone’s approval.

  I dismiss David with a wave of my hand. He leaves my office in a huff, muttering to himself. I dial Joan.

  I say, ‘Joan, I see a vendor here... ’

  ‘International Tradeshow Services?’ she asks.

  ‘Who are they?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Did David authorize those payments?’

  ‘There’s no paperwork. I already looked. Someone cut those cheques, but it wasn’t me.’

  ‘Who wrote the cheques?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Get me any information you have on the company. Phone number, address, anything—’

  ‘Last page of the packet,’ she says. ‘“Vendor Details”. All the way on the bottom... ’

  I flip to the last page. Again
, Joan is one step ahead of me. She has thoughtfully included the mailing address and phone number of International Tradeshow Services. It’s a 941 area code, and a Naples, Florida street address that looks suspiciously like a commercial post office box – ‘Suite 3524’ in a town without any thirty-five-storey buildings.

  ‘Thanks, Joan,’ I say. ‘Got it.’

  I tap down the receiver, hang up on Joan, and dial the number for International Tradeshow Services.

  A female voice answers. ‘ITS. How may I help you?’

  I come up with the most unlikely name I can think of. ‘Tanisha Rockefeller Margarita please.’

  ‘I’m sorry, she’s not available. Can I take a message?’

  This confirms my suspicion. I am speaking not to a real secretary, not to someone who knows the names of her fellow employees, but, rather, to an answering service. I ask: ‘Where are you located?’

  ‘Who’s calling please?’

  I hang up.

  I blow out a long breath. I’m astounded. In my days parachuting into troubled companies, I have seen a lot of incompetence, and a lot of petty thievery. But I have never seen anything so brazen. Usually a sham vendor asks for a few thousand dollars here, a few thousand there. The idea is to keep the amounts small enough so that they fly under the radar. But three million dollars? What the hell were they thinking? That I wouldn’t notice three million missing dollars?

  Well, I have a little surprise for the thieves. They probably don’t expect the CEO of Tao Software to show up on their doorstep. But this is exactly what I intend to do.

  First things first. I need their address – their real address, not the postal box that they rent in Naples.

  I take the Manila envelope that held Joan’s expense report. I stick a piece of unread junk mail inside, just to give it some realistic heft. Then, on the outside of the envelope, in bold pen strokes, I scrawl: ‘ITS’ and the postal box address Joan provided.