Heller

by JD Nixon

  But his good looks were shockingly marred by an old jagged scar that ripped his face in a semi-circle from the edge of his left eye down to his mouth. My eyes flicked involuntarily to the scar, before I forced myself to look back into his eyes. I wondered briefly what kind of accident could have caused such terrible damage. His eyes searched my face for my reaction to his disfigurement. Fortunately for me, I can on occasion muster a poker face that rivals the Sphinx. I smiled at him and he relaxed perceptibly.

  “I had no problem finding the building at all,” I replied in what I hoped was a suitably business-like tone. “Your instructions were very precise. And please, call me Tilly.”

  “Tilly? Short for . . .?”

  “Matilda,” I admitted ruefully. “But I never answer to that. It’s an old family name and before you even dare ask, no, I do not want to come a-waltzing with you.”

  He laughed and peered at me more closely. “Have we met before? You seem familiar.”

  “No,” I replied quickly, cursing that bran ad for the millionth time. I stupidly added, “I’d remember if I’d met you before.”

  “Oh. Of course you would,” he said, losing his smile, his fingers fleetingly rising to touch his scar. He spun away and I felt like a heel. I could not believe how thoughtless I was sometimes.

  Briskly, he instructed Niq to put some ice in a clean cloth. He led me over to twin plush black leather armchairs, arranged together near a small kitchenette that was situated along the wall adjoining Heller’s office. I sat down in the closest armchair and took the chance to look around while Daniel and Niq fussed with the icepack.

  I was sitting in a light-infused, open-plan office. It was furnished with three modern timber workstations, one near the kitchenette and the other two opposite Heller’s office, all with a computer sitting on top. A row of filing cabinets and cupboards filled the side wall. On the back wall was a very discreet brass sign with Heller’s Security & Surveillance etched out in black script writing, the stylised H underneath, identical to the monograms on the men’s shirt pockets. The office walls were plain redbrick, similar to the ground floor, but the room itself was marginally less austere with a generous number of tall white-trimmed sash windows. The floor was lushly carpeted in beige, now unfortunately stained over near the lift with my blood. There were no decorations that I could see in the office, but everything was neat and orderly. It was very quiet, the ticking of the wall clock audible over Daniel’s soft instructions to Niq.

  He handed me the icepack and I placed it gently on the bridge of my nose while continuing to hold the hankie to my nostrils. He sat in the other chair next to me and Niq hovered anxiously at my side.

  “Niq,” Daniel glared, noticing the little Goth standing around. “Don’t you have some schoolwork to do?” Niq pulled a face at him and slouched off to the workstation next to us.

  “I can’t apologise enough about your nose. Niq should never have taken you in the lift. It’s been malfunctioning for months and I’ve been trying to find someone with the expertise to fix it. Unfortunately I’ve not had any luck. It’s over a hundred years old.” I opened my mouth to protest again that it was my fault that we used the lift, when Daniel raised his hand. “Please Tilly. A fan of antique lifts? Come on!”

  I laughed self-consciously. “Sorry. It was the first thing I could think of at the time. Niq looked so forlorn at getting into trouble. I couldn’t stand by.” My reward for that tiny act of compassion was a beautiful lop-sided smile from Daniel, the terrible scar tissue on the left side of his face preventing him from smiling fully.

  The blood stopped flowing from my nose after a few minutes. I handed back the icepack and stood up to survey the wreckage. My precious (my only) suit was smeared with engine grease and blood, my stockings were shredded, my hair escaping wildly from its chignon and I didn’t want to put my shoes back on because of the blisters they’d given me.

  “I can’t do an interview dressed like this,” I sighed, shaking my head sadly. “I’m going home. Please apologise to Mr Heller for me.”

  “No! I don’t want you to go, Tilly. You deserve a chance after what you’ve been through.” Daniel thought for a moment. “Wait there,” he said and took off through the door to the stairs, returning a few minutes later with some clothes. “These are mine. They’ll be too big for you, of course, but probably not too bad. We’re about the same height. You can get changed in the bathroom. The door’s over there behind my desk.” He pointed to the desk closest to the lift, next to the desk directly opposite Heller’s office.

  Why not, I thought, optimism surging to the fore again. I had nothing to lose. I took the clothes from him, picked up my handbag and shoes as well and walked to the bathroom. I quickly changed out of my ruined outfit into what appeared to be the Heller’s work uniform – the black polo shirt and cargo pants. Daniel had thoughtfully provided me with a belt, which I needed to keep the cargo pants from falling down. I tucked the polo shirt into the pants neatly. I used the bathroom’s mirror to try to mend my makeup and fix my hair back into some kind of order, though there was no helping my poor nose. The bruising was starting to show already and I didn’t have any concealer with me. The clothes looked odd with my court shoes, but beggars can’t be choosers, I reminded myself. Then I told my reflection that a beggar was exactly what I would be soon if I didn’t nail this interview. I stepped back into the office.

  “Heller will see you now. Good luck, Tilly,” said Daniel, giving me an encouraging smile and waving me into the room. I glanced over at Niq tapping industriously on his computer’s keyboard. He looked up and gave me another shy smile. I smiled back, thinking how sweet he (she?) was and headed for Heller’s office.

  Chapter 4

  “Mr Heller?” I knocked softly on his door, aiming to restore some semblance of a confident, professional tenor as I entered his office.

  “Just Heller,” he instructed brusquely, staring in surprise at my new outfit. I squirmed under the relentless blue inquisition. He probably thought I was being very presumptuous, turning up wearing his business uniform before I’d even been interviewed.

  “Daniel lent me some clothes. My suit was ruined. Lift grease. And blood,” I babbled in explanation.

  “I will pay for your suit to be cleaned or replaced, of course,” he said coolly.

  It was wrong of me after such a generous offer, but my first thought was that I’d never find a suit that cheap again. It was half-price, for God’s sake! And even then I’d be too embarrassed to tell him that it was only reproduction designer or to confess how much it had cost me. By the look of his elegant, well-fitting suit – and he was a big man, not easy to fit – he had his suits hand-made, probably somewhere exotic like Italy. He would never believe how little I’d paid for my cheap suit and I suddenly felt hugely out of my depth in this office with a man like him. I should have left when I had the chance. I knew instinctively that this interview was going to be a disaster for me.

  He gestured for me to sit in a small meeting area he had positioned away from his desk and next to the large sash windows. His office was quite spartan, but the modest amount of furniture seemed to be of very good quality. It was probably modern Danish designer furniture, the type of which I’d only ever seen in magazines, but which I knew cost a bundle.

  He sat down across from me in a sleek black armchair, between us a folder resting on a small black coffee table. I perched nervously on the edge of the sumptuously soft black leather lounge, pinned like a faded postcard on a corkboard by that intense blueness. A glass of chilled water had considerately been placed on the coffee table near my knees and I eyed it longingly, wanting to gulp the entire contents as my throat was suddenly parched. I took a genteel sip instead.

  His eyes were like lasers, cutting right through my body, almost as though he could see past my skin and bones, past my veins and organs, deep into my individual cells themselves. My toes curled involuntarily in my tight shoes as I tried not to look away or blink obsessively. Good eye
contact is important in interviews, I told myself desperately as my eyes watered with concentration. He was giving me a thorough once-over.

  I clasped my hands together to prevent myself from fidgeting nervously. I clamped my knees together too, but only to stop myself from jumping up from the lounge and flinging myself on him in shameless abandon. He really was an extraordinarily stunning man. I offered up a quick prayer of thanks for his existence. I couldn’t wait to tell Dixie about him. Even if I didn’t get the job, I’d have enough material from this meeting alone to entertain myself on those many, many lonely nights between boyfriends.

  He glanced down at my CV, giving me a brief respite from the arctic blast of his eyes. I didn’t relax an iota though.

  “Let me tell you about my business,” he began in his attractively accented voice. “I offer a range of security and surveillance services. I’ve been in business for myself here about five years now. It wasn’t easy breaking into the market in this city. There are some big, well-established players who aren’t very keen on more competition, no matter how small. Things can be quite . . . challenging with them sometimes. But I’ve managed to build up a solid clientele, targeting mainly top-end business. I’m ready to expand now and I’d particularly like to attract more business from female clients. But I’ve had some, er, difficulties in the past with female clients.”

  I bet you have! I thought with a silent chuckle.

  “Let me explain the position I advertised,” he continued. “I need somebody who is skilled in managing relationships with very exclusive clients, particularly demanding ones. They must be exceptionally discreet. I’m looking for somebody who is calm, organised and efficient. Someone who can think on their feet, but who also has excellent interpersonal skills.” He paused. “I’m looking for someone who can handle all the, shall we say, ‘soft’ side of my business. Because I don’t do ‘soft’, Ms Chalmers.” Staring at me intently again.

  Oh God! My pulse quickened. Don’t think of him being hard! Not now! Not now! I thought frantically. God! He was giving me enough material here to last a year at least. I nodded repeatedly to indicate that I was listening, my eyes fixed on him, while those lewd thoughts swam around in my head. I hoped he wasn’t a mind reader.

  He sat back in his chair and rested one ankle on a knee, arms crossed. “Tell me about your experience.”

  I appreciated that, for whatever reason, he at least gave me the courtesy of taking my application seriously. He could have easily dismissed me as the lightweight that he surely had summed me up as by now. I took a deep breath and began to talk myself up, eking out my meagre experience in retail and office work.

  I described to him one of my previous positions. “I was responsible for managing all client relations directly at the point of sale, and –”

  He regarded me, unimpressed, and interrupted bluntly. “You were a cashier at a checkout.”

  “Um . . . yes . . . I guess that’s what you’d call it.”

  “No client management at all, then?”

  “Um . . . gee . . . well . . . not as such. But I did fulfil the customers’ preferences for how their groceries were packed into the plastic bags, and . . .” I petered out, unsettled by his icy blue eyes that were staring at me with unmoved stoniness.

  I hurried on to the next position. “I worked for a top-end store providing ambulation assistance and support to valued clients in moving costly possessions from one receptacle to another.”

  “You carried rich women’s packages from the store to their car,” he translated.

  This was proving harder than I had expected. I swallowed noisily, eyeing the glass of water again, before carrying on nervously. “I – I – I attended to the women’s every need –”

  “You placed the packages into the boot or the back seat as requested,” he carried on, interpreting my weasel words.

  “– and it was a personal joy to me when I gave excellent service.”

  “In other words, when you received a big tip.”

  I blinked at him in silence. I had hoped that he would be easy on me after my ordeal this morning, but I was wrong. He hadn’t been lying about not doing soft – he was a very hard man. Disconcerted, I rushed on to speak about the last period of work experience that I was now pinning all my hopes on.

  “I was a conduit for ensuring that client’s needs and requirements were managed in the most efficient and expedient manner.”

  “You worked as a casual in a call-centre for the local council,” he stated, mockery evident in his ghost of a smile.

  I didn’t respond, debating in my mind whether I should immediately stand up and leave without dignifying him with another word, or if I should dump the glass of water over his head first.

  He continued, not giving me the chance to do either, his head tilted to one side. “Your experience is very limited,” he noted. “I have interviewed other people for this position who have much more relevant and recent experience.”

  I sat immobile and silent and took a deep breath. Trouble was coming.

  “You’re not really interested in this kind of work, are you? Your real career is ‘acting’, isn’t it?” he scorned.

  I gritted my teeth. “I haven’t mentioned anything about acting in my CV,” I pointed out, determinedly polite. “What would make you think that?”

  He threw me a nasty half-smile as he rose, pacing across the office so that I had to twist my head back-and-forth to keep watching him.

  “Ms Chalmers, let me make something perfectly clear to you,” he stated coldly. “My business is security and surveillance. This building contains extremely sensitive information and also valuable and dangerous equipment. I have made it as close to a fortress as is humanly possible. Nobody comes into my building without my say-so and nobody comes to work for me without being completely scrutinised.”

  He stopped pacing for a moment and turned to hold me again with those eyes.

  “For example, I know you are the youngest of three children. Your father is a retired university lecturer and your mother a retired primary school teacher. You were an average student at school and dropped out of your undergraduate arts degree in the third year without graduating. You had a patchy work history and then decided to make ‘acting’ your career.” That emphasis again, as if he thought that acting ranked right up there next to being a hooker on the scale of dodgy career choices.

  “How did you find out all that? It’s a breach of my privacy!” I squeaked indignantly.

  He sat down again and pushed the folder that was lying on the coffee table towards me. “Do you want to read your dossier?” he asked, a taunting tone to his voice.

  I stared at the folder with mistrust. Unfortunately though, I’ve always been a very nosy person and didn’t have the seemliness or the presence of mind to ignore it. So I picked up that folder, rested it on my lap and opened it, though not without a sensible dose of dread.

  My mouth gaped wider with every page I read. It was a nightmare version of This is Your Life, starring me, Tilly Chalmers. The dossier recorded every detail of my life, down to the most mundane aspect. Every school I’d been to, every friend I’d ever had, every subject I’d studied, my university entrance score, my family’s occupations, every boyfriend I’d had, their ages, the cars they’d owned, every job I’d had back to my first career as a checkout chick when I was fifteen-years-old. All documented right in front of me in black and white, with a couple of coloured photos thrown in for variety. Everything about me except my bra size was in that dossier, although I’d probably find that too if I read it more closely. I was gobsmacked and glanced up at him, appalled and now more than a little wary. Who was this man anyway?

  He leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head. “I know more about you than you could possibly imagine. I know, for instance, that your last acting role was a small part in Summer Days over six months ago.” He added, unkindly casual, “Not great acting in my opinion.”

  The blood rushed to m
y face. Screw you, buddy!

  “And what about that execrable movie with the bikini women and the madman? Not to mention that advertisement.”

  Despite my increasing anger, I was impressed with his knowledge. He had certainly done his homework.

  “They paid the rent,” I said defensively. “I know it’s not great acting, but what I really want to do is . . .” I stopped suddenly and remembered that: one, I was at an interview; and two, I couldn’t finish the sentence anyway because I didn’t know what I really wanted to do. So instead, I smoothed back my hair and composed my features, gracing him with a beatific Mona Lisa smile. “What I really want to do is work for you, of course, Mr . . . um . . . Heller,” I said calmly, my eyes big with angelic sincerity.

  He gave a rude shout of laughter at that and my temper flared again. I threw the folder on the table and stood abruptly, clutching my handbag.

  “I can see clearly that I’m not the right person for this position or your business, so thank you for your time today. I’ll show myself out.” Arrogant jerk!

  What a complete waste of a day for me, not to even mention my sore nose, the ruinous loss of my only suit and the cost of the bus trips that I couldn’t afford and had virtually depleted the remainder of my precious twenty dollars. I stalked to the door of his office, head high. On a sudden impulse, I turned around to say one final thing to him.

  “And anyway, you’re wrong. You don’t know everything about me, after all.”

  He was taken aback by that. “I’m confident in my research.”

  “Summer Days wasn’t my last acting role. I’ve had another one since then.”

  He frowned. “What is this other job?”

  Suddenly I wished I hadn’t mentioned it. “It doesn’t matter,” I mumbled. “You’re just wrong.”