The Consultant

by Little,Bentley

  Though exhausted, Craig explained what had happened, looking over her shoulder periodically to make sure Dylan was not up and listening, and she shook her head, growing more and more incredulous. “Austin Matthews?” she said. “He killed someone with an ax?”

  “Apparently.”

  “My God.”

  Craig took a deep breath. “I’m wondering if this is the end of it. Patoff was nowhere to be found, and I’m hoping he just…took off.”

  “That doesn’t seem likely,” she pointed out. “He runs a major consulting firm with a serious reputation and major clients. This might give him a black eye and some bad publicity, but there’s no way it’ll bring him down. Besides, didn’t you say you thought this was what he wanted, that it was probably intentional? He’s not going to be blamed for anything that happened tonight. He’s going to use it.”

  Craig sighed. “You’re right, you’re right.”

  She hugged him, pressed her cheek against his. “It’s late. You’re tired. Come to bed.”

  “Bed sounds good,” he admitted.

  “Come on.”

  The alarm woke him at six. It was still a work day, and though Angie told him that he hadn’t gotten enough sleep and that he didn’t have to go in because he was still supposed to be on the retreat, Craig got up anyway.

  Robards’ murder and Matthews’ arrest for it was the top story on the local morning newscasts. Craig flipped back and forth between NBC and ABC, CBS and Fox, astounded by how either BFG or CompWare’s own publicity department had kept everything but the bare bones outline of the story away from the press. What should have been a PR nightmare seemed like little more than a random tragedy, the kind that occurred daily in major metropolitan areas.

  At work, police had cordoned off the building and forensics experts were inside looking for…something. Employees were milling about the parking lot in groups that mirrored their work units. Craig walked over to where the programmers stood.

  “What’s going on?” Huell asked as he approached.

  Craig told them what had happened last night, but that news was common knowledge, and it turned out that the programmers were more up to date on what was happening than he was. He learned that Scott Cho and three others had been arrested on charges of assault and attempted rape, and two supervisors had been charged with indecent exposure and public lewdness.

  All of them had been on Phil’s list of targeted employees.

  “Scott arrested?” Rusty said. “My heart bleeds for him.”

  Several of the programmers laughed.

  No one was laughing in the gathering of Legal employees on the opposite side of the row. In fact, it had suddenly grown very quiet over there, and Craig walked across to see what was up. Tom Scheer, the head of the Legal department, was on the phone to someone, and the other lawyers, paralegals and secretaries were gathered around him in hushed silence. Craig tapped Fred Green on the shoulder. “What is it?” he asked.

  “Austin Matthews,” Fred said. “They found him dead in his cell. Suicide. Tom’s trying to get more details.”

  Craig was stunned.

  “He smashed his head against the wall.”

  The picture in his mind was far more vivid than he wanted it to be, and Craig hurried back to the men and women of his own division to tell them the news. As taken aback as everyone had been by the fact that Matthews had murdered Robards, they were even more stunned to learn that the CEO had committed suicide. Craig was, too. He kept seeing Matthews the way he’d looked when the bag had been torn off his head, his face grimacing in pain from being punched in the stomach, his eyes blank and…not there. Though he didn’t know how or why, he knew what had compelled the CEO to kill both the guide and himself.

  The Consultant.

  The news was spreading across the parking lot, groups of people growing quiet as they learned what happened, and gradually, everyone began pushing toward the front of the building. Moments later, Gordon Webster, vice president in charge of product development, and, apparently, the senior staff member on the lot, mounted the building’s steps, holding a cell phone to his ear. At the top, he faced the parking lot and called for attention. When the chatter died down, he provided a quick rundown of everything that had happened at the retreat last night and beyond, giving a brief description of what was known about Matthews’ death.

  “So everyone go home,” he said. “There’s nothing that can be done here today. You all have the day off. Come back tomorrow.”

  “Are you in charge here?” someone shouted out.

  “I am in charge.”

  “Of the entire company?”

  Webster hesitated slightly. “No.”

  “Then who is?” someone else wanted to know.

  Webster looked out at them, his face expressionless. “Regus Patoff,” he said. “BFG.”

  ****

  There was no keeping this out of the press. Not only was it on the nightly newscasts, but it was the top story on the front page of the Los Angeles Times the next morning. Craig had expected to hear from Phil, but his friend hadn’t called, nor had he answered the texts Craig had left him. It wasn’t until Craig saw his friend in the CompWare parking lot before work that the two of them had a chance to speak.

  “Where were you?” he demanded.

  “He called me last night at home,” Phil said quietly.

  “Patoff?”

  Phil nodded.

  “He’s done that to me, too. What’d he want you to do? Check your emails at one in the morning?”

  Phil shook his head.

  “What, then?”

  “He just wanted to talk.”

  Craig frowned. “That’s weird.”

  “We talked from midnight until three.”

  “Jesus! About what?”

  “I don’t know,” Phil admitted. “Nothing. Everything. It was more a soliloquy than a conversation. He did all the talking. I just listened. I can’t even remember what it was about, exactly, but it was amazing.”

  “Amazing? Is that really the word you want to use?”

  “He’s different than we thought. He’s…he’s different.”

  Craig was growing concerned. “He’s different, all right. Whoever he is. Whatever he is.”

  “He wants to meet with me this morning.”

  “Why?”

  Phil shrugged. “To talk, maybe. I don’t know.”

  Craig reached out and put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Something’s up. What aren’t you telling me?”

  Phil shook his head, but Craig knew there was something wrong. He looked into Phil’s eyes, saw an unnerving blankness. Had his friend been corrupted or co-opted? He would not have thought that possible, but the fiery defiance that had always been an essential part of Phil’s nature no longer seemed to be there, and in its place was an uncharacteristic equanimity. The man standing before him this morning was not the same person with whom he had gone through the maze.

  “What time are you supposed to meet with him?” Craig asked.

  “Now. Eight o’clock. First thing.”

  “I’m going with you.”

  Phil didn’t object, but he didn’t exactly agree, either. There was a disconcerting passivity to his manner, and Craig accompanied his friend inside the building, the two of them getting into a crowded elevator. Phil pushed the button for the seventh floor.

  Was that where the consultant had his office? It made sense. It was where he had conducted interviews and where the blood tests had been taken, and Craig wondered if BFG had commandeered the entire floor.

  The elevator stopped at each level. They were the only two employees left by the time it reached the seventh floor, and they exited into a dim hallway that stretched to the left and right seemingly farther than the length of the building. “His office is room seven hundred,” Phil said, looking in both directions. “I’m not sure where that is.”

  “Let’s try this w
ay,” Craig suggested, pointing to the left. “On the other floors, lower numbers are over here.”

  They saw no one. There was noise, but it wasn’t the sound of people talking or the usual background Muzak. It was more organic, as though they were passing through the body of an animal and could hear simultaneously the beating of the animal’s heart, the gurgles of its digestive system and the working of its lungs.

  A cat slunk by them, hugging the corner where the wall met the floor, only it wasn’t exactly a cat. It was long and thin, moving with a feline grace, but there was something unnatural and disturbing about the creature, and Craig could not look at it for more than a few seconds.

  Reaching the first door, they both stopped to look at the posted number. To Craig’s surprise, it was 700. Phil reached for the handle, turned it, pushed open the door, and the two of them walked into what looked like the waiting room of a doctor’s office. Chairs lined three of the walls, the corners taken up by triangular tables on top of which sat Highlights magazines and copies of People and Sports Illustrated. The fourth wall contained an open window next to a closed door. A somber-looking elderly woman seated behind the window frowned at them and asked in an unfriendly voice, “May I help you?”

  “I have a meeting with Mr. Patoff,” Phil told her.

  The door opened, and the consultant himself came out, hand extended, all smiles. “Indeed you do! Indeed you do!” He pumped Phil’s hand, then looked over at Craig. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

  “I came for moral support.”

  Patoff—

  Reg. U.S. Pat. Off.

  —smiled at him. “I’m afraid this is a private meeting.”

  “That’s okay. I’ll wait.”

  “Don’t you have work to do?”

  It was one of those trick have-you-stopped-beating-your-wife questions. “I’ll get it done,” he said simply.

  “I’m sure you will.” The consultant turned away from him and put an arm around Phil’s shoulder, leading him into the office. “Let’s step inside, shall we?”

  The door closed automatically behind them, and Craig sat down in one of the chairs. For a while, he watched the closed door, expecting it to re-open at any time, listening intently on the off chance that he could hear part of the conversation going on within. Fifteen minutes passed. Twenty. A half hour. Bored, he picked up an issue of People magazine, flipping through the pages. He hadn’t read one for years and, looking at the abundance of photos and paucity of text, thought that it had been dumbed down even further than it had been before—if that was possible.

  He ended up going through all of the magazines in the waiting room, even the Highlights (and was glad to see that Goofus and Gallant were still around). He’d read everything he’d wanted to read and even some things he hadn’t, and Phil still hadn’t come out. He waited several more minutes, then stood and walked over to the window. “How long do you think they’ll be in there?” he asked the woman.

  She smiled meanly. “Fuck off,” she said.

  He leaned forward, speaking quietly. “No, you fuck off, you ugly old bag.”

  He jumped back as she slid shut the window and it barely missed his face. Kicking the wall, he sat back down.

  And waited.

  Three hours later, Phil emerged from the meeting looking stunned.

  “Praise Ralph!” the consultant called out before the door to his office closed.

  Neither of them spoke until they were in the darkened corridor and walking back toward the elevator. “So,” Craig said finally, “what happened? What’d he say?”

  “He said a lot of things.”

  “Like what?”

  “He told me that the happiest day in history was February eleventh, nineteen seventy-seven. That was the only day where more people were happy than miserable, more good things happened than bad. There were more births than deaths, more promotions than demotions, more marriage proposals than divorce decrees. I asked him how he knew that, and he said he has access to a lot of statistics, a lot of information. He does, too.” There was a long pause. “February eleventh, nineteen seventy-seven was the happiest day on earth. It was the day Jethro Tull released their album Songs from the Wood.

  “And it’s the day I was born.”

  Craig frowned, feeling worried. “Phil?”

  His friend stared blankly at him.

  “He could be making this shit up. He probably is. You know that.”

  Phil shook his head. “He has a lot of information.”

  “Maybe so, but…”

  “There are patterns here, Craig. We don’t see them because we don’t have access to all the data, but Patoff does. These are the patterns that control our lives, that determine success or failure, that make us what we are. Do you know why he called this meeting with me today? He’s looking for a replacement for Matthews. Someone to run the company.”

  “Run the company? He doesn’t make that decision. The board does. And, no offense, but they’re not going to choose a division head from Sales to be CEO when there’s plenty of people above you in the hierarchy. In fact, they probably won’t even choose anyone from in-house. There’ll be a search committee—”

  “I’ve been chosen. He offered me the job.”

  “It’s not his to offer.”

  “I’m fated to do this.”

  “Luke. It is your destiny.”

  Phil didn’t even crack a smile. “I think it is my destiny. All roads have led to this. Patoff has shown me—”

  “That’s not even his name,” Craig said.

  “Your name is not who you are.”

  “So are you going to change your name? Are you going to call yourself General Mills and lead our army into the future?”

  “You do not understand.”

  “Understand what? Jesus, Phil—”

  “Not Jesus. Ralph.”

  “You’re not even making any sense!” Craig forced himself to stop and take a deep breath. “Look, if you were made the CEO of CompWare last week, that would have been amazing. It would have meant that we won. We’ve been fighting against these bastards the whole time, and right now you’d be in a position to dump the consultants and get things back on track. But from where I stand, it seems like you drank the Kool-Aid. Don’t you remember what happened to Jess? To Tyler? To Lupe, for God’s sake? Remember hunting the dog? Remember the other night? I mean, shit, look around at this floor. Does this look even remotely like any software company you’ve ever seen? This isn’t normal. This isn’t right.”

  Phil looked at him flatly. “Your attitude leaves a lot to be desired.”

  “Patoff’s a monster, Phil. You used to know that.”

  “I suggest you go home, take the rest of the day off and think about what you’re saying.”

  The elevator doors opened. Craig got in, pushing the button for the sixth floor. “No offense, Phil, but you’re not my boss.”

  “I am now.”

  “I’m not taking your word for that. Until I get official confirmation that you, Phil Allen, have somehow, for some reason, been promoted over everyone else to take over as CEO from Austin Matthews, who committed suicide after killing Dash Robards with an ax, I’m going to assume that you’re still in Sales and I’m in Programming.”

  The elevator stopped at the sixth floor, and Craig got off, ignoring Phil and heading straight down the corridor without looking back. He passed by Lupe’s empty desk and walked into his office, closing the door behind him, feeling more alone than he ever had in his life.

  THIRTY NINE

  Craig checked his messages immediately upon waking, though he had promised her he would stop doing that, and Angie could tell by the expression on his face that the news was not good. “What is it?” she asked.

  “Phil is the new CEO. It’s official.”

  “I assume the fact that he didn’t call to tell you is not a good sign.”

  Craig sighed. “I don’t know what’s happened to him.”

  “So what are you going t
o do?”

  “Play it by ear.”

  She put her hand on his arm. “I think you should quit.”

  He nodded. “It’s occurred to me,” he admitted.

  “People are dying.”

  “I know. I was there. But…”

  “But what?” she said, starting to get angry.

  “Phil’s in charge now, and maybe—”

  “Phil’s not Phil!” She gripped his wrist. “You have a family to think about.”

  Craig got out of bed, putting on his bathrobe, and Angie did the same. “You’re not going in today?” she said. From down the hall, she heard Dylan stirring in his room, already awake.

  “I have to.” He walked over to the closet, picking out clothes.

  “Craig,” she pleaded.

  Dylan jumped through the doorway. He was wearing Superman pajamas, which always made him act in a manner he thought heroic. “What are you guys arguing about?”

  “We’re not arguing,” Angie said.

  “I heard you.”

  “We’re not arguing,” Craig seconded.

  “Okay.” He didn’t really seem to care. “What am I having for breakfast? We have a math test today.”

  “How about an omelet?” Angie asked him. Craig headed toward the bathroom to take his shower.

  “And toast!”

  “And toast,” Angie agreed. She patted him on the back. “Now go get dressed, and I’ll start making your food.”

  Craig had squirmed his way out of that conversation, but she wasn’t about to drop the subject, and she wouldn’t give in without a fight. As soon as he finished his shower, she was going to guilt him into quitting his job—and if she had to use Dylan to do it, she would. Walking into the kitchen, she bypassed the light switch and opened the shades above the sink. The room faced the morning sun, and she preferred natural light. She moved over to the breakfast nook, pulled open the shades—

  And saw Regus Patoff standing next to the window, staring in at her.

  Angie managed not to scream, but she bumped her hip on the table and stumbled over the legs of one of the chairs in her effort to get out of the kitchen. She ran down the hall. “Stay in your room!” she ordered Dylan, closing his door.