The Consultant

by Little,Bentley

  “I’m voiding that contract.”

  “Oh, no, you’re not.”

  “Oh, yes, I am.”

  The consultant straightened, said nothing, closed his eyes.

  A low hum vibrated through the room. With a sharp crash, a framed painting flew off the wall, glass shattering on the floor. The pens and pencils in a Lucite holder atop his desk floated into the air, hovering in a staggered pattern that made Matthews think of stars in a constellation. As though he had suddenly ascended in altitude, his ears plugged up, the pressure building, turning into a piercing headache that made him want to cry out in pain.

  What was going on?

  He stared at the consultant. What was he?

  “All right!” Matthews said. “All right!”

  The pens and pencils fell onto the desktop. The consultant opened his eyes. “We are here to do a job. The job you hired us to do. When we have completed that job, we will be gone. But, until that time, we require the freedom, access and resources that are stipulated in our contract in order to carry out our mission. Do I make myself clear?”

  Our mission

  Matthews nodded dumbly.

  Patoff smiled. “Good. Then let me sort out the Jenny Yee situation and you go back to doing—” He waved a dismissive hand toward Matthews’ desk. “—whatever it is you do.”

  The door opened on its own, and the consultant strode out. Diane instantly rushed into the office. “I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I tried to get him to stop, but he just walked right past me and—”

  “It’s all right,” Matthews assured her. He felt numb.

  The secretary was looking at the fallen painting and the shattered glass on the floor. “What happened in here?”

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “I’ll call a custodian and get this cleaned up.”

  He nodded as she hurried out. Opening his mouth wide as if to yawn, he got his ears to pop, and the thick wall of pressure that had been muffling his hearing abated. He took a deep breath and held his right hand level with his eyeline. It was shaking. He glanced at the empty Lucite holder, and the pens and pencils scattered about the top of the desk, and looked toward the doorway through which the consultant had left.

  The thought occurred to him once again: What was he?

  TWENTY TWO

  “Oh my god,” Angie said.

  Dylan, who’d been pushing the cereal around in his bowl, looked up. “What?”

  “Eat your breakfast.” She held the folded section of the newspaper she’d been reading out to Craig. “Do you know someone from CompWare named Jenny Yee?”

  “Not well, but I know her. Why?” Angie tapped a small article below the fold. “Read that.” The headline made him catch his breath: West Hollywood

  Woman Dies in Freak Accident. He read the article:

  Jenny Yee, 31, of West Hollywood, was killed late Tuesday evening when she was struck in the head by one of the original Maltese Falcon statuettes that was used as a prop in the 1941 Humphrey Bogart film of the same name.

  An accountant at the software company CompWare, Yee was on her way home from work at the time of the accident. In a series of unlikely coincidences, she had gotten out of her car on Wilshire Boulevard to inspect her two front tires, which had been flattened by a police nail strip that had been thrown onto the street as a prank by three juveniles who had stolen it after a high-speed chase in a nearby neighborhood. A honking horn reportedly caused Yee to jump onto the adjacent sidewalk, where she knocked over Damon Harrison, an employee of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. For reasons yet to be explained, Harrison was hand-carrying the falcon statuette, which was to be part of an exhibit at the Academy headquarters on the next block. In an attempt to protect the object, Harrison threw the falcon into the air as he fell, intending to catch it before it struck the ground. The statuette hit Yee on the head, knocking her out. She fell backward onto the sidewalk, slamming her head on the concrete.

  Yee was rushed by ambulance to Cedars-Sinai Hospital for emergency treatment but was pronounced dead on arrival.

  “Jesus,” Craig said.

  Unlikely coincidences.

  That was an understatement. The interlocking actions were like the game Mousetrap, or, more to the point, like one of those killings from the Final Destination movies, and reminded him of what had happened to Tyler. A chill passed through him, and he looked across the table at Angie, who met his gaze with an expression of disquiet that mirrored his own.

  “What happened?” Dylan asked.

  “Eat your cereal,” Craig told him.

  “Accident?” Angie said.

  He handed back the paper. “I’m sure it is,” he lied.

  His cell phone beeped twice, signaling an incoming message, and Craig quickly dug the device out of his pants pocket. Angie shot him a laser look. “I thought you were going to keep that thing off during meals.”

  “Yeah, Dad!” Dylan chimed in.

  “Well…” Craig trailed off, not answering the accusation. He looked down at his phone, reading the text message. “There’s an early meeting for all supervisory staff,” he announced. “I need to go.”

  Angie’s voice was hard. “I thought this was going to stop.”

  “I told you, not as long as the consultants are still there. Once they’re gone, everything’ll be back to normal. Better than normal,” he corrected himself.

  “You’re not going to be late tonight, are you?” Dylan asked worriedly. “I need to write that story.”

  “Mommy can help you.”

  “But you said you’d help me!”

  Angie gave him a warning look from across the table.

  “I’ll get off early,” Craig promised. “How’s that?”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  Dylan smiled, satisfied. “Okay.”

  He kissed the top of Dylan’s head. “See you later.”

  “Good-bye, Daddy!”

  He tried to give Angie a kiss, but she was having none of it. “Go,” she said.

  Lupe’s car was not even in the parking lot when he arrived, but senior staff was already gathering in the first floor conference room. Phil was seated on one of the aisle chairs, and he motioned Craig over.

  “Any idea what this is about?” Craig asked, sitting down.

  “None whatsoever.”

  Craig looked around, lowered his voice. “Did you hear about Jenny Yee from Accounting?”

  Phil frowned. “No. Why?”

  “She was killed last night. By the Maltese Falcon, of all things. One of the original props from the movie. It hit her in the head. It had nothing to do with CompWare, was just a freak accident…”

  “Right,” Phil said grimly.

  “That’s where I was heading.” The conference room was getting more crowded. A frowning Scott Cho passed in front of Craig, moving to the center of the aisle, obviously not wanting to sit near them, and Craig lowered his voice even more. “I wonder if that’s what the meeting’s about. Letting us know what happened. A veiled warning, maybe?”

  Phil’s voice was even lower, a whisper, and Craig leaned to the left to hear it. “I think we’d better not talk here,” he said. His eyes moved up, and Craig followed his friend’s gaze to see new cameras installed at the juncture of wall and roof.

  Craig nodded his acknowledgment, and they both sat silently, staring straight ahead as they waited for the meeting to begin.

  They didn’t have to wait long. Matthews was as punctual as ever, though he did not take charge of the meeting as usual but merely introduced Patoff and sat back down. The CEO looked tired, Craig thought, and there was something in his body language that suggested a man defeated.

  As confident as ever, Regus Patoff stepped forward. From where, Craig was not sure, since he had not noticed the man until that moment. The shadows, he thought, and that felt right. The consultant smiled out at the gathered staff. “I am here today to discuss an important issue that involves everyone in t
he CompWare family.”

  The CompWare family? Phil mouthed.

  Craig stifled a cynical laugh.

  “As you may or may not be aware, this is the one month anniversary of BFG’s association with CompWare. A lot has already been accomplished, and we have many new initiatives that are being undertaken, even as our comprehensive study is ongoing. One of the most important of these involves saving money on supplies, which is what I am here to discuss today. I have a short video I would like you to watch that helps illustrate my point.”

  The lights in the room darkened, and the consultant stepped aside as a screen lowered from the ceiling. On the large white square, an overweight woman Craig did not recognize was seated on a toilet, red-faced and grimacing.

  “What is this?” Elaine demanded from somewhere off to the right.

  “This is the part I want you to watch,” Patoff said. “Look.”

  The woman stood awkwardly, unspooled a length of toilet paper from the roll, wadded it up and wiped herself. She looked at the paper before dropping it into the toilet, then unspooled some more and wiped herself again. She did this two more times before flushing.

  Patoff froze the picture at a particularly unflattering moment as the lights went up. “This is but one example of how misuse of supplies costs this company money on a daily basis. Look how much toilet paper she’s using. That should be enough to supply three or four people. And she’s not the only offender. This, we have discovered, is the most common way in which CompWare materials are incorrectly used. “It is a complete…waste.” The consultant smiled “So to speak.”

  He walked across the stage. “There are several ways to address this issue. The first and most obvious, and the one we will be following, is to instruct all employees in proper wiping technique. To this end, we will be setting up a series of tutorials for all divisions within each department, using this video as part of a side-by-side contrast in order to illustrate what should and should not be done.”

  Phil spoke up. “This is illegal.”

  The consultant fixed him with an insincere smile. “How so, Mr. Allen?”

  Phil motioned toward the screen and the overweight woman frozen in the act of pulling up her pants. “I’m assuming you didn’t get her permission to show this to all of us, and if you didn’t, it’s an invasion of her privacy and probably punishable by law.”

  The smile remained. “First of all, your assumption would be incorrect. We did indeed get the young lady’s permission on a signed release to use this recording in any matter we deem fit. Secondly, even if we had not done so, as stipulated in our contract, there is no guarantee of privacy in this workplace for the length of time that we are conducting our study. We would be perfectly within our rights to show this to anyone and everyone.”

  Elaine was shaking with anger as she stood. “This is an invasion of privacy. You need permission to even do this, not just to show it.” She confronted the consultant. “Are there cameras like this in all of the women’s bathrooms or just that one?”

  “Oh, all of them,” he replied cheerfully. “The men’s, too.”

  “That means—”

  “Yes.” He smiled. “And if I may say so, you could use a little prudent trimming.” He wiggled his index finger at the lower half of her body. “Down there.”

  Elaine stalked out of the conference room, and the consultant faced the staff, completely unfazed. “Now be honest,” he said. “How many of you really know the most efficient way to wipe your ass?”

  It was Craig’s turn to stand up. “I think there are more important things going on and better ways to save money than monitoring people’s bathroom habits,” he said disgustedly. He glanced over at Matthews, who was remaining suspiciously silent. The CEO stared down at his shoes, not looking up. “You’re telling me that with all of the printed reports we churn out here, with all of the computers and lights that are left on all night, the best way to save money is to cut down on the use of toilet paper?”

  “Yes.”

  The answer was so simple, direct and unexpected that Craig did not have an immediate response.

  The consultant moved on. “Any more questions or comments? No?” Patoff clapped his hands. “All right. Time to wrap up here.” He made a show of looking at his watch. “I have another meeting in ten, and you all have work to get back to.” He winked. “At least I hope you do. We’ll be sending out a schedule for the toilet paper tutorials, men with men and women with women, for each division within each department. As other concerns arise throughout this process, additional meetings will be called to discuss the topics with those affected. Thank you for coming this morning and please share the information we went over with your staff.”

  Hesitant and confused, people stood, looked around and gradually made their way out of the conference room.

  “Who’s in charge of this place?” Craig wondered as he and Phil headed down the hallway. “Matthews or him?”

  “Keep that question between us,” Phil said in a low voice as the consultant hurried past them, greeting people by name on his way to the elevators.

  “Ken! Good to see you! Marcie! How’s the cold? Looking good, Hu!…”

  “I’m taking the stairs,” Craig said.

  He stopped by Lupe’s desk on his way into his office, ignoring Todd and Martin, who were both seated in their usual spots, typing away on their tablets. “There are cameras in the bathrooms,” he told Lupe. “We just watched a video where an employee used too much toilet paper.”

  She sucked in her breath, shocked.

  “I thought you should be aware of it.” He wanted to talk to her in more detail but not in front of the observers. He walked into his office, ignoring Martin, who stood and started to say something to him. Craig closed the door on the observer and sat down at his desk. He’d go out to lunch with Lupe today, tell her what had happened. Maybe she had some news for him as well.

  His mind kept coming back to how uninvolved and disassociated Matthews had looked up there on the stage. After the retreat, he’d had hopes that the CEO would fire BFG or at least get more involved in what was going on. But now…

  Craig turned on his computer.

  There were five hundred emails in his inbox, all from BFG.

  He started deleting.

  ****

  Dylan’s reading group—the good reading group—sat in a semi-circle at the front of the class while the other students worked on their history projects. Mrs. Higgins was having them each read a paragraph aloud while the others followed along silently in their own textbooks. Karen was reading now, and Dylan knew that he would be next, but he still looked up from the story to see what Mr. Patoff was doing.

  The man, seated awkwardly on a chair far too small for his frame, was staring at him.

  And smiling.

  He always seemed to be staring. Every time Dylan hazarded a glance in his direction, the man seemed to be watching him, and it made him feel very uncomfortable. He didn’t look at Dylan the way an adult usually looked at a kid, but stared at him in a creepy way, as though he could read Dylan’s thoughts and was thinking about them.

  Most of the kids in his class thought Mr. Patoff was pretty funny. Even though Mrs. Higgins said he was only supposed to be watching her teach, sometimes he participated, telling jokes or stories or helping out, although Dylan always thought he was faking, pretending to help out, pretending to like the students, and it made him mad that no one else seemed to realize it. “That smile’s fake,” he told Josh Kaplan. “No it’s not,” Josh said. “It’s funny.” And that seemed to be everyone’s attitude.

  For Art, they were supposed to use colored pencils and draw a humorous picture. After all the reading groups had met, Mrs. Higgins passed out paper, told them to get out their pencils, and asked them to draw something they could see here in the classroom but to make it funny. Mr. Patoff jumped up in a goofy way that made everyone laugh. “I’m a wiggly man!” he announced, waving his arms in a rubbery manner. “I’m a wiggly
, wiggly man!”

  Dylan froze.

  He had dreamed last night about a wiggly man, a terrifying nightmare in which he’d found himself at home, alone, his parents gone. It was night, but he’d been seated in front of the living room window, like the boy and his sister in The Cat in the Hat, looking outside. Only it wasn’t a humanoid cat he saw in the bluish moonlight. It was a wiggly man, a wild-haired figure with spindly legs and impossibly long arms that were undulating in time to a noise that sounded like a stretched rubber band being plucked. The wiggly man was approaching the house, his face in shadow because of the moon’s overhead light. Dylan did not want to see his face, did not want to see those rippling elastic arms and legs, so he shut the drapes and ran away from the window—

  —and heard that rubber band noise from down the hall.

  Turning in panic, he saw the wiggly man emerge from his parents’ bedroom, hands at the ends of those long supple arms flapping against the walls, feet moving forward in exceptionally long strides on bendy legs. The wiggly man was looking at the floor, and just before he reached Dylan, the man looked up. He had no eyes, no nose, only a huge hole of a mouth ringed with black rubber teeth.

  It was the scariest dream he could ever remember having—he was not usually one for nightmares—and Dylan knew instantly upon awakening that it was one he would never forget.

  Now Mr. Patoff was standing in front of the class, wiggling his rubbery arms.

  And staring at him.

  Many of the kids were already starting to draw, giggling as they did so, and even Mrs. Higgins was smiling. But Dylan didn’t find anything funny about the man with the fake smile imitating the monster from his nightmare, and he looked quickly away, down at his paper, picking up a random pencil from his pack—a red one— and drawing not Mr. Patoff but the class turtle in its terrarium, putting a “For Sale” sign on the back of its shell. Exchanging the red pencil for a brown one, he hazarded a quick glance at the front of the class. Mr. Patoff had once again sat down in his too-small chair, making a show of it, causing other students to laugh, but there was no humor in the eyes that were still looking in his direction.