by Lee, Frazer
Mathers turned his back on Tom, peering out through his smoked glass window at the atrium.
“Sir?” Tom cleared his throat, “May I ask what this is all about?”
Mathers turned from the window, frowning at Tom.
“The assignment, I mean,” Tom continued.
A look of apprehension crept into Mathers’ features. His eyes twinkled, then he let out a great bellow of a laugh.
“Oh! The assignment! McCrae, you must think me quite insane!”
Tom just smiled, preferring not to answer the question out loud.
“Biofuels. How are you on biofuels—up to speed?”
“I…um…my division helped out with the Amazonian deals, sir. I understand there are some plans to expand, but…”
“But?”
“Environment agencies in several territories have nixed expansion operations at the R&D stages.”
“Indeed they have. I can see your finger is on the pulse, very good. But the tide is changing, and that’s what I want you to help me with.” Mathers paused for breath. “We are expanding into Europe and our priority as of right now is the United Kingdom. Scotland to be more precise.”
“Scotland? I thought their forestry laws prevented us from…”
Tom faltered, aware that Mathers was the kind of man who liked to do the talking while others listened.
“Go on.”
“Well, from expanding at all in that region of Europe. It’s all too well protected—too much red tape, I thought?”
“You thought right.” Mathers grinned. “Until now. The new right-wing government in London is keen, very keen in fact, to make some money in these austere times. Those plucky Brits are rushing a bill through Parliament. Vast swathes of forest available to the highest bidder. Scotland is prime real estate for our biofuels division, Tom, and we are all set to play house there if we make the right noises.”
“Wow. Okay, that certainly puts a new spin on things,” Tom said.
Mathers smiled and nodded, looking like the cat that could smell the cream.
“It sure does, McCrae. You have a meeting scheduled with Monroe from Legal for this afternoon.”
“I do?”
“You do. Eve has the details, see her on your way out. Monroe’s flight back from Scotland landed this morning. He’ll fill you in on the story so far regarding contracts and so forth. Here’s a copy of his preliminary report, we’ll send you a PDF too; get you up to speed before you fly out.”
Mathers handed Tom a spiral-bound wad of paper. Tom leafed through it and saw reams of text, charts and photographs of forests and the Highlands. The document’s front page bore the author’s name—Monroe. Tom recalled how sickly Monroe had looked in the elevator earlier that morning.
Jet lag would explain it for sure, thought Tom. Only at The Consortium could one be expected to commute directly into work after a long-haul flight. Poor bastard.
Tom’s mind reeled; Mathers’ directive was all so sudden and unexpected. The Chairman scrutinized Tom’s face, seeming to take Tom’s hesitation as uncertainty; which he remedied with a hearty slap on the shoulder packed with enough kinetic force to knock a smaller man to the floor.
“Time is of the essence, McCrae. Others will be sniffing around so we have to move fast. That’s why I want you on the plane tomorrow. Meet with the local landowners, smooth things out with them vis-a-vis the contracts. There’s bound to be a little resistance, but you have the full weight of The Consortium Inc. behind you. Get the lay of the land, Tom, sniff out the risks and market the advantages. This is what you do, what you’re built for. You’re our secret weapon, Tom. Clear the area for us. I’m sure you’ll do an excellent job. And your name won’t do any harm either—you’re practically Scottish already. Look into that though, Tom, look into it right away. It’s a five-hour drive to Douglass from there. As you appear to be the only man in Christendom who doesn’t drive, we’ll send someone along with you. Any questions?”
Tom wanted to ask so many questions, like what his name had anything to do with administrating such a huge contract. Surely Mathers couldn’t have selected him on the basis that he had a vaguely Scottish-sounding name? Tom felt the Chairman’s beady eyes on him. He could only think of one question, and blurted it out before the thought was fully formed in his brain.
“Um, who is Douglas?”
Mathers’ jaw dropped open, giving him the appearance of a dummy without its ventriloquist. Then he sucked in a huge lungful of air, threw back his head and roared with laughter.
“Who’s Douglas?! Who’s Douglas?!”
His entire frame rocked with laughter as he circled the desk and slapped Tom on the shoulder with his massive hand.
“D-o-u-g-l-a-double-s,” he spelled aloud, “As in Douglass Firs, McCrae! Beautiful trees, they named the whole goddamned area after them! Who’s Douglas… Ha-ha! Indeed!”
Mathers’ barking laughter stayed with Tom all the way to the door as he showed him out, the sound still ringing in his ears as he wandered past Eve’s desk towards the elevator. Her eyes were fenced off from the outside world behind the cold lenses of her spectacles. The clack-clack-clack of the secretary’s fingernails tapping her workstation keyboard beat out a quick-march tattoo that accompanied Tom to the elevator door. He reached out and pushed the call button, little red arrow pointing down. After a couple of minutes waiting for the car, Tom remembered Mathers’ instructions to check with his secretary about the meeting with Monroe. He turned and headed back towards Eve’s desk but saw that she had gone.
Great time to take a bathroom break, Eve, I’m on a clock here, he thought.
Then he heard an almighty crash, like glass exploding. It was followed by a further, more disturbing sound; shrill female screams ringing out from below the mezzanine.
Tom stepped away from Eve’s desk, following the sound around the balcony leading to the stairwell to the side of Mather’s office entrance. Overlooking the atrium, Tom could see several suited figures standing stock still, gawping at something on the floor below.
Gripping the handrail, Tom peered over the edge of the balcony and saw a man lying on the floor surrounded by fragments of broken glass. Further screams of horror cut through the paralysis that had gripped Tom’s body in the same way his night terrors did. Without thinking why he was doing it, Tom bolted for the stairs and began his descent, taking two steps at a time to speed up his progress.
Rushing out onto the mezzanine floor, Tom broke through the line of shocked bodies gathered a few feet from the fallen man. His steps slowing, Tom already knew who he was looking at. Monroe, who he’d seen in the elevator only that morning, was flat on his back with his lifeblood pooling around his head like a sickly red question mark.
Tom knelt down next to Monroe then glanced upwards over his shoulder. More workers were peering out from a shattered fourth floor window, hands to mouths as they looked down on their fallen comrade. Monroe had almost certainly jumped, but why? The question began to form on Tom’s lips, when Monroe’s tortured breathing gave way to an agonized hacking cough that spattered dark blood across his chin, onto his silk tie and crisp white shirt. He gagged and choked, his legs twitching like those of a dying fly as his body made every effort to enable him to speak again. Monroe’s eyes bulged, his face blotchy and red. As though he were seeing Tom for the first time, he spoke.
“He’s…”
His voice had become no more than a death rattle and Tom couldn’t quite make out what Monroe was saying. The lawyer was struggling to speak so hard it left Tom with no choice but to lift the man’s head from the floor, cradling it in one hand while clasping Monroe’s hand with the other. Leaning closer, Tom positioned his ear near to Monroe’s bleeding mouth and tried to blot out the background shrieks and murmurs of his coworkers so he could hear what the dying man was trying so desperately to say.
“He’s in the trees…he’s…” Monroe said.
His eyes were fixed open, gazing glassily into the distance over T
om’s shoulder.
“Waiting…” he murmured; then breathed his last.
On instinct, Tom glanced back in the direction of the dead lawyer’s gaze. He glimpsed a few suited figures, retreating from the jagged glass of the broken window.
Back to work, show’s over, folks.
A grim silence fell over the office floor and Tom stood up, almost slipping in the crimson spiral emanating from Monroe’s shattered cranium. As the paramedics arrived, quietly and efficiently clearing the area, Tom retreated through the crowd and back to the stairwell like a man in a dream.
He was almost at his desk when he realized he had Monroe’s blood on his hands.
Chapter Three
“Good day at the office, dear?”
That used to be Julia’s little joke greeting every time she got home before him.
She didn’t make jokes anymore. Or even greet him, for that matter. For a while, Tom had tried to bring jokes of his own home with him, but found he had neither the wit nor the spirit necessary to alleviate Julia’s grief. So, instead of trying to conjure some humor in their home, Tom had become the joke. He took to wearing his tired day job zombie clothes like a jester’s costume as he struggled indoors under the influence of one too many happy hour chasers and the weight of grocery bags filled with convenience meals Julia would not want to eat anyway. That behavior had gone on for several months too long. Only when he’d realized he’d gained so many pounds his gut was spilling over his belt had he seen fit to try and break the cycle. He’d successfully abstained from the alcohol for the last few weeks at least, resulting in his belt tightening up by all of two notches, but his culinary expertise had not improved any.
Closing the door to the apartment behind him quietly, Tom shrugged off his coat and hung it on the rail in the hallway before calling out to Julia and asking if she wanted any pizza. The muffled chatter of a TV talk show was the only reply.
Same as it ever was, thought Tom as he moved through his own apartment like a ghost, pizza for one at the kitchen diner.
He hit the counter lights in the kitchen and turned the oven on to preheat. Fishing his laptop from his workbag, Tom set to work at the kitchen table, reading through the complex legal background on the Douglass takeover deal in Monroe’s PDF document. Tom paused on a page detailing the huge acreage of fir trees in the area. Monroe had included in the document a bunch snapshot photos from his preliminary visit to Douglass, and one of them caught Tom’s eye. It depicted the dark, looming shapes of tree trunks stretching as far as the eye could see—each one surrounded by swirling mist. Two trees in the foreground appeared massive; each must have been growing for a couple of centuries at least. Just looking at the scene made Tom feel chilly and unsettled somehow. He hurriedly clicked the track pad button on his laptop to navigate to the next page. There were still hundreds of stodgy pages to get through and the flight would take a good ten hours, so he felt okay about leaving the bulk of the reading until then. When the oven beeped that it was ready to incinerate his dinner, Tom put the laptop to sleep, threw his pizza into the oven and went to check on Julia.
She was in her usual position, lying sideways on the couch with the TV just a little too loud. Her old blanket lay on the floor next to her; she must have kicked it off. Tom walked over to the couch, crouched down and picked up the blanket. He enjoyed the sensation of its familiar texture and weight in his hand. The blanket had accompanied them on many a road trip during happier times long gone.
“You are such an old…risk assessor!” Julia had laughed the first time he’d packed it in the trunk with the rest of their weekend luggage. “Packing a blanket in case we break down!”
Tom frowned at the blanket, then at Julia. Things had been so simple then. They could take off anytime they wanted. They’d had each other; whatever befell them along the road. Not now. They had broken down, after all. Tom placed the blanket over his comatose wife and headed back to the kitchen to try and eat something, alone.
Tom awoke with a start, feeling the warm betrayal of sticky moisture around his groin. Lying on his side, facing away from Julia’s sleeping form, he reached down beneath the sheets and explored his nether regions with furtive fingertips. Dismay welled up inside him on feeling the sodden sheets and mattress. He glanced at the electronic clock face bedside the bed, its LED lights flashing red fury at him. Four in the a.m. He didn’t need to leave for the airport for three hours, but this setback was convincing him otherwise. Tom resigned himself to sneaking out of bed to go boil a kettle of hot water so he could dry out the damage with a hot water bottle. Julia wouldn’t wake anyhow, she never did, and Tom was becoming a bit of a hand at clandestine middle-of-the-night mop-up operations. He pictured himself as a crime scene cleaner swathed head to toe in a yellow HAZMAT suit, breathing loud through his respirator as he mopped up the shame of his own piss.
We know who did it, Chief, he left DNA at the scene again, it’s just a matter of time ’til we get the bastard, then he’ll pay for his filth, the scum.
Tom almost laughed at his bitter little inward joke, but any such mirth was dispelled by the unexpected sensation of a hand in his crotch. The hand was small, warm, and unmistakably Julia’s. Tom’s breath lingered in the back of his throat as he felt Julia gently cupping his still-damp penis.
Must be stoned, thought Tom, yeah that’s it, she’s doing this in her sleep, God only knows how many sedatives she swallowed tonight, must be doped like crazy…
“Poor baby,” Julia whispered.
Her breath was warm and tickly on his back, breezing through the hairs on his shoulder line like a sirocco through pampas grass. She was awake—well, awake by Julia’s standards.
She can’t be, thought Tom.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Julia awake before he left for the office. He certainly couldn’t recall the last time they’d been intimate. Her fingers closed around his penis, smoothing over its surface, tugging him gently. Tom’s pulse quickened as his member stiffened almost in spite of itself.
“Poor baby.”
Julia’s purr sounded pitying and mocking. The strangely laconic sound made Tom’s body feel somehow angry and he tore the duvet away. Turning over, away from the urine stain at the edge of the bed, he faced Julia. He could barely see her, the red glow from the digital clock making vague lava forms of her flesh. His fingers fumbled with Julia’s nightdress, lifting it to expose her. He wrenched himself free from her hand and thrust himself between her legs. She was already wet for him there. He pushed against her and she arched her back, soughing in approval. They fucked for only a few moments before Tom felt the huge shuddering dismay of orgasm surge through every fiber of his being. Clenching his eyes shut tight, he could see a pinprick of hot red light in his mind’s eye, like a hot coal. It was the color of hate and shame and self-disgust. His eyes leaked tears as they swallowed the hateful burning light, then his loins poured all of it into Julia. Lukewarm sperm dribbled out of him like spittle. Cold sweat covered the both of them like a sickly film. Tom’s frantic, gasping breaths descended into sobs and he separated from her. Cold air crept between them and turned the clammy sweat into gooseflesh, as though Tom’s very skin was alarmed by what had just happened.
“Poor…baby…”
Her ghost whisper of a voice trailed off as she turned her back on him.
Tom buried his face into his pillow. As the silent howl within him subsided, his aching body gave way to a dreadful, funereal sleep.
Chapter Four
There was nothing Tom hated more than flying overseas. The prospect of being hermetically sealed inside a metal tube at thirty thousand feet, breathing other people’s recycled ablutions for ten hours was already giving him a headache.
He trudged across the polished surface of the Departures Hall, dragging his suitcase on wheels behind him, feeling that old familiar blend of dread and excruciating boredom filling his soul like a black void. Everywhere he looked he saw holidaymakers as they strolled this way and t
hat, gazing at racks of products they didn’t need. Each corner he turned offered a new and unnecessary retail opportunity, and a lengthier line of portly shopaholics to navigate his way around on the deathly inevitable trudge to the check-in desk. He became distracted by the excited chatter of a Japanese contingent, apparently overjoyed by their discovery of a concession selling Christmas cards and gifts.
In October. Not even Halloween yet. Jesus Christ, how I hate Christmas.
Lost in his vitriol, Tom almost plummeted over a hurdle-like procession of overstuffed suitcases being pulled along by their rather overstuffed owners. Tom regained his balance, apologizing aloud to no one in particular, before taking a deep breath and ploughing on through the teeming throng to find his check-in desk.
His morning had not started well. Needing someone to keep an eye on Julia while he was away, her sister Ellie had seemed the natural choice. Wishing to avoid contact with her for as long as possible, he’d left it until 6 a.m. to call her. Then, lacking the courage necessary to go head-to-head with big sis, he had chickened out and sent a text asking Ellie to drop by and look in on her younger sister. She had called thirty minutes later, berating him for the short notice. When he’d tried the “urgent business meeting—nothing I can do” card, Ellie had all but exploded on the other end of the line.
“How dare you assume I don’t have anything better to do than pick up the pieces while you go gallivanting off on some corporate jaunt,” she had shouted—so loudly that he’d had to move the phone a few inches from his ear to prevent any damage.
Truth was she didn’t have anything better to do after being let go from her teaching job a few weeks prior. She knew it, and she knew Tom knew it too—a fact that no doubt added to her ire. Her tirade had continued until his train had disappeared into a tunnel and he had lost his cell phone signal.
Good for nothing… Leaving her to fend for herself… Those awful meds… Your fault… had been the words ringing in his ears for the rest of his Caltrain journey.
