No Way Back

by Matthew Klein

  ‘Libby... ’

  ‘Four million dollars stolen from your company, Jimmy. Four million dollars in a garbage bag. Who do you think is behind it?’

  ‘Tad?’

  She smiles. Not a mean smile. It’s much worse than that. A smile of compassion. The smile that smart people make for dumb people, strong people for weak. A patronizing smile. When I see that smile on my wife’s face, I think I might cry.

  Maybe she realizes she has gone too far. She takes my hand. Her voice is soft and warm. ‘Jimmy, listen to me. We’re not going to get another chance. This is it.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘You were hired not to notice missing money. You were hired not to investigate. That is why Tad selected you. Because you owe him everything. Do you see now?’

  I nod.

  ‘Jimmy.’ Her voice is gentle, and I want to roll over and melt into her. How I love this woman. ‘Jimmy, you can do this. If you give Tad what he wants, he’ll reward you. I know he will. He wants you to keep things quiet. So keep them quiet. No bankruptcy, no lawyers, no accountants poring over the books. You see? When everything blows over, when it’s all quiet and no one’s looking, he’ll shut the company down. And then, he’ll owe you. He’ll owe you big time. He’ll find a way to thank you. Maybe he’ll give you a real company to run. Maybe back home. In California. You see?’

  I do. What was I thinking, exactly? It seems crazy now. Skulking around in attics, hiding behind shower curtains. My wife is right. Of course she’s right. Tad Billups knew I’d discover the missing four million dollars. How could I not? He didn’t hire me to find it. He hired me to ignore it.

  ‘You know the definition of insanity, Jimmy?’ Libby asks.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Doing the same thing, over and over. Doing it again and again, despite all the evidence in the world that it isn’t working.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘Not saying. Asking. Begging.’ She squeezes my hand. ‘I’m begging you, Jimmy. Don’t make the same mistake again. This is our chance. This is our way back.’

  CHAPTER 16

  The next morning, when I arrive in the office, Amanda is manning the reception desk, smiling beatifically, happy with everything in the world.

  ‘Good morning, Jim,’ she practically sings. ‘Your head looks healthy today.’

  ‘Only on the outside,’ I say, as I brush past. I want no further discussion about my head wound. I will put away all memories of yesterday – of dark attics filled with garbage bags of cash, of looking down Amanda’s shirt. My bedtime conversation with Libby has inspired me. I will be a good soldier, a good CEO. I will lead Tao quietly and efficiently, to the best of my ability. I will keep the company afloat for as long as I can. I will protect Tad Billups. No more rusty nails in my forehead. No more self-destruction.

  ‘You missed a phone call,’ Amanda says. She hands me a pink message slip. ‘Just a minute ago. He said it was urgent.’

  I glance at the note. ‘Sandy Golden,’ the paper says, and a phone number. I walk into the bullpen, studying the message. The Sandy Golden? From Old Dominion? What on earth could he want?

  ‘Good morning, Jim,’ someone says.

  David Paris’s head pops over a cube wall.

  ‘Morning, David.’

  ‘Jim... ’ he starts, and before I can walk away, he leaps from his cube like a thoroughbred from the starting gate. He’s off, bounding towards me, waving a white pad of paper, which I notice – even from this distance – is filled with copious notes and sketches, the jottings of a man locked in a mental institution. ‘I really want to show you this, if you have some time.’

  ‘Unfortunately I don’t have a lot of time, David.’ I keep moving towards my office.

  ‘But you don’t even know what it is,’ he whines. He sounds hurt.

  His analysis is true; I don’t know what is written in that tiny handwriting on his pad. But there is something I do know, which David does not – which is that, next Wednesday afternoon, he will be one of the forty people escorted from the office. So there’s no point in building bridges, or reaching out to him, or even feigning interest in his notes.

  ‘Some other time,’ I say.

  ‘When, Jim?’ He yammers like a relentless little terrier nipping at my ankles. ‘When? When exactly?’

  ‘Thursday,’ I say. ‘Next week, Thursday. Schedule a meeting with me in our online calendar.’

  ‘Very good, Jim,’ he says. He grins, a happy elf again.

  He retreats quickly, before I can change my mind, backing away towards his desk. I’m only halfway into my own office, one foot still in the bullpen, when I hear an electronic ding from my computer. I look to see a new meeting request on my computer screen: Will I accept a meeting with David Paris, the screen asks, ‘to discuss cost-effective marketing initiatives’? Coincidentally, I am about to implement my own cost-effective marketing initiative, which is to axe the entire Marketing Department. But what the hell. I go to my desk, slide the computer mouse, and click that I do indeed accept David’s meeting.

  ‘Thank you, Jim,’ David shouts across the bullpen, into my office. So much for electronic messaging.

  ‘No problem, David,’ I shout back.

  I put my briefcase down on the desk, beside the ornately-framed photograph of me and Libby and the red demon lurking behind us. I really do need to get rid of that picture.

  I dial the phone number on the message slip. I’m expecting to navigate a series of corporate gatekeepers – first the receptionist at Old Dominion, then Sandy Golden’s personal assistant – and then perhaps to wait on hold for Sandy to ‘be connected’ with me – which is corporate-speak for ‘please cool your heels while the other fellow picks his nose, or finishes taking a dump, or whatever else he needs to do to establish his telephone dominance over you’.

  But the voice that answers on the first ring is the same gravelly bass I remember from our disastrous meeting in downtown Tampa. ‘Sandy, here,’ the voice says. He’s talking through a cloud of static, which tells me that I’ve reached Sandy on his private cellphone – no receptionists, no assistants.

  ‘Sandy, it’s Jim Thane. I got your message.’

  A long pause. I think that Sandy’s cellphone has been disconnected. But then his voice returns. ‘Jim,’ he says finally. ‘I’m very happy to tell you that you’ve got the contract. We’ve discussed it internally here, and everyone agrees that your company’s technology is just what we need. So we’re in. In fact, we’re so excited, we’d like to up the ante. We want to invest an even one million dollars. Same pre-money valuation as we discussed. That sound all right to you, Jim?’

  I try to keep my voice flat, not to sound surprised. ‘That sounds all right.’

  ‘We can do it on a handshake. Save the legal. I’ll have a deal memo on your desk by the end of the day. Payment wired by Monday.’

  ‘That’s great,’ I say. ‘I’m delighted.’ But I try not to sound too delighted. It’s a negotiating tactic you learn over time: try not to laugh uproariously at the schmuck who actually accepts your offer.

  ‘So we’re square?’ Sandy asks. A strange question, asked in a strange tone of voice. For a man who claims to be ‘so excited’ about this deal, he doesn’t sound very enthusiastic. He sounds like a man settling a tab with a bookie.

  ‘Sure,’ I say. ‘We’re square.’

  ‘Good. Goodbye, then.’ And with that, he’s gone – no telephone niceties, no promise of ‘a mutually beneficial partnership’, or of ‘exciting things to come’ – none of the usual corporate crap that everyone blows into each other’s assholes at the end of every conversation, in order to keep the wheels of commerce lubricated. I’m left holding a dead phone.

  I replace the receiver softly. I’m still standing at my desk – haven’t sat down since arriving.

  I walk over to Dom Vanderbeek’s office. Since the day I came to Tao, when I embarrassed Dom in front of the rest of the employees, he has beat me into the build
ing every morning. His precious BMW 7 Series is always there when I arrive, parked in the space nearest the entry door, a shiny black middle finger pointing in my direction when I enter.

  Dom’s office is the biggest in the building. It didn’t surprise me when he claimed Charles Adams’s private office for himself, after I declined it. Not one for egalitarian symbolism, apparently. Now he’s sitting in a sleek grey chair, leaning backwards with his feet on his desk, listening to someone on the phone. He notices me in the doorway, waves me in with self-important nonchalance. He rolls his eyes and makes a chattering-mouth gesture with his hand, to indicate that his telephone partner won’t stop talking.

  ‘All right, buddy,’ Vanderbeek says, finally, into the phone. ‘We’re on for next Tuesday. I’ll see you at Derousher’s at noon. I’m buying.’ A few more pleasantries, some more silent listening by Vanderbeek, another roll of his eyes. ‘All right, then,’ Vanderbeek says again. ‘All right. Take care. Later.’

  Vanderbeek hangs up.

  ‘Guess who that was,’ he says to me.

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Guess.’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Hank Staller. Wells Fargo. He’s interested.’

  I wonder silently if he’s interested in buying Tao’s P-Scan technology, or if he’s interested in poaching Tao’s VP of Sales. Either would make me happy. ‘Excellent,’ I say.

  Vanderbeek waits, maybe for more compliments. So I add, ‘Really, excellent. I’m impressed.’

  Vanderbeek mulls this over, wondering whether I’m being sarcastic. Finally he points to the chair across from his desk, inviting me to sit. He removes his feet from my face, sits up straight. ‘So, what’s up?’ he says. He rubs the area around the black Rolex Submariner on his wrist, to indicate that his watch is so expensive and heavy, it tires his wrist.

  ‘I just got off the phone with Sandy Golden,’ I say.

  ‘He took your call?’

  ‘Actually, he called me. They’re going to do the deal. Old Dominion will pay us one million dollars, in exchange for rolling out P-Scan in the south-east branches.’

  Vanderbeek squints. ‘For real?’

  I shrug.

  ‘Well,’ he says. I see the gears spinning in his head. He’s trying to decide how to feel. He’s happy, obviously, because Old Dominion was his lead in the first place, and so he’ll net a piece of the sale – maybe as much as a quarter-million dollars. On the other hand, the meeting with Sandy Golden was instigated by me, and I ran the show. So some of the credit – not the cash – needs to be directed my way. Which obviously pains him. And then, finally, there’s some amount of bewilderment. He was at the same meeting I was: the meeting where our technology didn’t work. And that raises the question: What the hell is going on?

  ‘I just thought you’d like to know,’ I say.

  ‘Congratulations.’

  ‘To both of us,’ I try.

  He stares at me.

  Still, I play nice. ‘It’ll give us some runway, Dom,’ I say. ‘A million dollars means more breathing room, if we can get spending under control. An extra month, maybe, if we can—’

  The phone on Vanderbeek’s desk rings, cutting me short. He holds up a finger to silence me, and lifts the receiver. ‘Vanderbeek here,’ he says. He listens for a moment, then says into the phone, ‘Hang on a second.’ He cups the mouthpiece, looks at me. ‘I have to take this, Jim. You mind?’

  As I turn to leave he says, ‘Jim, do me a favour, will you? Close the door on your way out?’ Into the phone: ‘Hey, buddy, what’s up?’

  I shut the door and go.

  CHAPTER 17

  Given the way Vanderbeek studiously ignored the news of our amazing sales success at Old Dominion, I’m surprised when, late in the afternoon, I hear the sound of champagne bottles popping in the lunchroom.

  I’ve been poring over next Wednesday’s upcoming termination list all afternoon, trying to run the numbers and figure out who, given the additional cash from Old Dominion, can be struck from the list (the answer, I realize sadly, is no one; no one at all).

  The sound of champagne corks in the lunchroom makes me curious, though, and so I leave my office and slip between the foosball table and the Ms. Pac-Man machine, through a bullpen that is strangely empty. No one is at their desk.

  When I get to the lunchroom, the Mystery of the Empty Desks is solved: the room is crowded with Tao employees, virtually all of them, and belatedly I understand what’s happening: a celebration. Four magnums of cheap champagne are being passed around the crowd, the necks of the green bottles throttled like chickens, bubbly gurgling into tiny plastic cups and sloshing onto the linoleum floor.

  ‘Here he is,’ Vanderbeek calls out loudly, when he sees me in the doorway. ‘The man of the hour!’

  A smattering of applause.

  ‘What’s this—’ I start to say, but too late. Vanderbeek barrels on.

  ‘Let’s hear it for the man who single-handedly closed the Old Dominion deal!’ He shouts like a carnival barker. ‘Let’s hear it for the man who gave Tao one million dollars in the bank, and another month of breathing room. Isn’t that what you called it, Jim? “A month of breathing room”?’ Before I can answer, he shouts: ‘Let’s hear it for our new CEO, Jim Thane, the man who can close million-dollar deals with his eyes closed, before breakfast.’ And to ensure the proper response, Vanderbeek begins to chant, leading the crowd, pumping his fist: ‘Jim! Jim! Jim! Jim!’

  Maybe there hasn’t been much to celebrate lately at Tao, because people take up the chant with surprising alacrity. ‘Jim! Jim! Jim!’ they cheer.

  ‘Listen,’ I say. ‘It’s not exactly... ’ My voice trails off. I’m not sure how to extricate myself from this. Next Wednesday, I’m going to fire almost every person in this room. To gush publicly about an extra million dollars in the bank, when that million barely buys us another month of time... to celebrate a great personal triumph, to pop champagne corks and declare victory, when a few days from now these same forty people will be escorted into the front parking lot, carrying boxes filled with their belongings – would be an amazingly heartless and tactless gesture – a tone-deaf move of epic proportion.

  Which is certainly why Vanderbeek arranged this.

  ‘Jim! Jim! Jim! Jim!’ the crowd chants. Their smiles are good-natured, not cynical. They want to have good news. How strange it is, that – after two centuries of capitalism – with the evidence laid out starkly in front of us like a prosecutor’s summation – we Americans still believe in all the corporate bullshit; we still treat our companies like sports teams for which we’re important players, cheering our mutual successes, blissfully unaware that all of us – from the highest to the lowest – are just cogs in a vast, industrial, unthinking machine, grinding everything and everyone into a fine powder of unimportance.

  ‘Pass him a drink!’ Vanderbeek shouts, over the chant. He’s smiling, that wolf’s smile, and it occurs to me at this instant that he knows – of course he knows: the community of high-technology people is small, and Vanderbeek has friends in the Valley, people who know all about my colourful past – about my drunken outbursts, my downward spirals, my crash landings in rehab. He has talked to those people, shared stories. He knows all about me – knows that I’m an alcoholic and an addict.

  One of Vanderbeek’s henchmen – a sales guy whose name I almost but not quite recall as Rick or Dirk or Rich – something masculine and Waspy – grabs the champagne bottle from Rosita and careens across the room towards me. He sticks it in my face, smiling wide. ‘Drink up, boss!’ he shouts. ‘Drink.’

  Vanderbeek changes his cheer. ‘Drink! Drink! Drink! Drink!’

  And the rest of the employees do, too. ‘Drink! Drink! Drink!’ they shout.

  I glance across the room, and my eyes lock with Amanda’s. Her expression is more curious than happy – she’s studying me the way a scientist might, sincerely interested in my reaction to this latest probe. Almost the same instant that I realize Vanderbeek k
nows my secret, I sense that Amanda does too, and that my secret is her secret, also. I recall that tattoo, on her left breast, that intricate Cyrillic writing, and I know it tells a long, sad story, one that will not be unfamiliar when I finally hear it.

  I take the champagne from Rick or Dirk or Rich, put it to my lips, and drink.

  It’s not like in the movies, you know, where everything changes the moment you taste alcohol again. It’s not Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. You don’t start foaming at the lips, launching into a bender, groping girls’ asses right there in the lunchroom, out of control and maniacal.

  You just sip. One sip. And that is all.

  And then you hand the bottle back to Rick or Dirk or Rich, who is smiling broadly, as if he knows too. Could Vanderbeek have told him?

  Across the room, Vanderbeek is nodding at me, with a warm smile, as if I’ve passed his test, and I haven’t let him down.

  I look back to where Amanda was standing, but she’s gone. I just catch a glimpse of her, through the kitchen doorway, as she sashays back to her reception desk, to man the phones. It’s impossible to read her reaction, of course, because her back is towards me, and I can’t see her face, and you can’t determine someone’s emotions from the way they walk – can you?

  Yet she seems disappointed in me.

  She has the walk of the brokenhearted.

  CHAPTER 18

  I leave the celebration early, and let Vanderbeek run the show. Once I depart, though, his game is won, and he too soon retreats.

  With Vanderbeek gone, the room deflates. Employees scud away like ocean foam, drifting off in little clumps, away from the lunchroom, back to their desks and their make-work, pretending to be busy and productive.

  In my own office, my mind wanders, and I find myself looking at that silver-framed photograph, of me, Libby, and the horned satyr. I pick it up and stare. The frame is solid and heavy. I try to recall the night the photograph was taken – the party, the brick-walled loft, my drunken pass at the hostess. I can’t remember much about that night. Nothing at all, in fact, except that it happened.