Severance Package

by Duane Swierczynski

  Weekend rate: $26.50.

  Unbelievable.

  The Saturday-morning sun blazed off 1919 Market, a thirty-seven-story box of a building. You couldn’t call it a skyscraper, not with Liberty One and Two just two blocks down the street. This was where Stuart reported for work, Monday through Fridays. He had no reason to know the garage rates. He almost never drove. The regional rails carried him from his rented house in Bala Cynwyd to Suburban Station, no problem, all for just a few bucks. But this was a Saturday. Trains ran much slower. And without much traffic downtown, it was faster to drive. Apparently, it was more expensive, too.

  You’d think a cushy government job would come with free parking.

  Then again, you’d think that a cushy government job wouldn’t haul you in on a Saturday.

  Hah.

  But really, he had no idea why he was being dragged in on a weekend morning. Stuff he did—erasing bank accounts, leaving your average wannabe jihadist with a useless ATM card in one hand, his dick in the other—could be done anywhere, really. He could do it at friggin’ Starbucks. There was nothing more simple and yet nothing more satisfying. Maybe some guys got off on the idea of picking off towel-heads with a sniper rifle. Stuart loved doing it by tapping ENTER.

  Guess he’d find out what this was about soon enough.

  Stuart threw the Focus in reverse, gently lifted his foot off the brake. The car rolled back down the ramp. Another vehicle turned the corner sharply, ready to shoot up the ramp and, judging from its speed, over the Focus, if need be.

  Brakes screamed. The Focus jolted to a stop, pressing Stuart back into his seat.

  “Man,” he said.

  He slapped the steering wheel, then looked into the rearview.

  It was a Subaru Tribeca. With a woman behind the wheel.

  Stuart crouched down into his seat, checked the rearview again. Squinted.

  Oh.

  Molly Lewis.

  Stuart allowed the Focus to roll backwards. The Tribeca got the hint and reversed back down the foot of the ramp and backed onto Twentieth Street. Stuart steered the Focus until it was parallel with the Tribeca. Traffic was light this morning. It was only 8:45. Stuart rolled down his window. The Tribeca did the same, on the passenger side.

  “Change your mind about work?”

  “Hey, Molly. Yeah, I wish. I’m just not paying twenty-six fifty to park. I’ll find something on the street.”

  “Then you’ve got to feed the meter.”

  “Then I’ll feed the meter. I’m not paying twenty-six fifty.”

  “David told me we’d be here until at least two o’clock.”

  “What? I thought noon.”

  “He e-mailed me this morning.”

  “Man. What is this about anyway? I’ve got my laptop at home. I can do whatever he wants from my living room.”

  “Don’t shoot the messenger.”

  Stuart watched the Tribeca—fancy wheels for an assistant, he thought—shoot up the ramp. He continued up Twentieth, turned left on Arch, then Twenty-first, then Market down to Nineteenth. He drove past the green light at Chestnut, then hung a right on Sansom. There were no available spots on the 1900 block, or the next. Didn’t look like much farther down, either.

  He flipped open the ashtray. One quarter, a few nickels, many pennies.

  “Man.”

  But then, movement. The red taillights of a Lexus. Pulling back. McCrane pressed his brakes. Slowed to a stop. Watched the Lexus maneuver out of the space.

  Even better, it was a Monday-through-Friday loading space. Weekends, it was fair game.

  “Yes,” Stuart said.

  Her name was Molly Lewis …

  … and she eased the Tribeca into a spot on an empty level in the 1919 Market Street Building’s garage. The nearest car was at least ten spots away. She turned off the engine, then opened the suitcase on the passenger seat. Inside, on top of a yellow legal pad, was David’s package.

  Molly’s cell phone played the guitar riff from “Boys Don’t Cry.” She put in the earpiece and pressed ANSWER. A voice spoke to her.

  She said: “Yes, I remembered.”

  And a few seconds later: “I know. I followed the protocols.”

  The packages had arrived last night. Paul had asked what she’d ordered now—smiling as he said it—and Molly truthfully replied that it was something for David. She had carried them to the glassed-in patio and sat down on a white metal garden chair. Then she carefully clipped away the masking tape with a pair of blue-handled scissors and then opened the flaps of the first box.

  She had put the contents—David’s delivery—into her own briefcase, then gone back to order dinner from the gourmet Chinese place a few blocks away. Paul hated calling it in, and always complained until Molly did it.

  Then she went back out to the patio to open the second box. She was staring at the contents now:

  A Beretta .22 Neo.

  Ammo—a box of fifty, target practice, 29 gr.

  “I am,” she said now. “See you soon.”

  Molly opened a white cardboard box, dumped most of the doughnuts and cannoli out onto the concrete floor of the parking garage. Let the pigeons enjoy them. She quickly assembled and loaded the pistol, then nestled it between the two remaining doughnuts. Sugar jelly.

  Paul used to love sugar jelly.

  Her name was Roxanne Kurtwood …

  … and they were driving toward downtown Philadelphia.

  “We’re closing,” Roxanne said.

  She’d been waiting all morning to say that.

  “We’re not closing,” Nichole said. “Our kind of business doesn’t close. Not in this market.”

  “Then why a Saturday meeting?”

  “Whatever, but we’re not closing.”

  Nichole and Roxanne had become fast friends three months ago, ever since Roxanne was promoted from her internship. Before that Nichole hadn’t said much to Roxanne, other than to chastise her for forgetting to return the shared key to the ladies’ room. The day the promotion memo made the rounds, though, Nichole sidled up to Roxanne’s cubicle, asked her to go to Marathon for lunch. Since then they’d had lunch together every day.

  Roxanne appreciated the friendship, but it was also frustrating. Nichole was like most Philadelphians: cold and standoffish, right up until the moment they’re not.

  Even after their friendship suddenly and miraculously bloomed, the office was so secretive. How many times had she walked into Nichole’s office, only to find her quickly hit a key sequence that blanked her screen and brought up a fake spreadsheet? Like Roxanne wasn’t supposed to notice?

  “We’re not closing,” Nichole repeated, “but I saw the reports.”

  “And?” Rox asked.

  “Top line revenue is just awful. Even considering we budgeted under. It’s bad.”

  “That bad?”

  “Bad.”

  “How bad?”

  “Rox, you know I can’t tell you.”

  “Nondisclosure.”

  This was Nichole’s excuse for everything. I signed a nondisclosure. Sorry, Rox, it’s not you, it’s the nondisclosure. I’d tell you who I went home with last night after the Khyber, but you know … nondisclosure. And it wasn’t just Nichole. It was the whole office. The whole city, for that matter.

  Roxanne kept her focus on the road. Tried to keep her left wheels the exact same distance from the median marker. Tried not to lose it.

  “But I can tell you,” Nichole said. “Without getting into numbers.”

  “And?”

  “We’re at least 850,000 below projections.”

  Roxanne’s Chevy HHR glided down the Schuylkill Expressway. Couldn’t do that any other day of the week, save Sunday. She looked out on the hills of Manayunk, and it looked like the neighborhood was roasting alive in its own haze.

  Frustrated as she was, Roxanne was glad to be in one air-conditioned environment and headed to another. Her apartment in Bryn Mawr didn’t have air. After a night of drinking wi
th Amy, Nichole, and Ethan, she gladly took Nichole up on the offer of her couch. She showered and changed at Nichole’s, and was thankful for the AC. Roxanne had grown up in Vermont, where the humidity wasn’t often a factor.

  How did Philadelphians live like this all summer long? Maybe that was their problem.

  Her name was Nichole Wise …

  … and she hated lying to Roxanne, feeding her that crap about “top line revenue.” If Roxanne had paid closer attention to things around the office, she might have seen through it.

  But Nichole couldn’t let that bother her. If this morning went as expected, she could be looking at a promotion.

  Something big was going down.

  Murphy wouldn’t have called this Saturday-morning meeting otherwise.

  She wondered if she’d have the chance to deliver a verbal coup de grâce and relish the expression on his stupid face.

  You? he’d say, all shocked.

  Yeah, she’d say. Me.

  Maybe—just maybe—her long nightmare assignment would be over.

  And if that were to happen, she’d bring Roxanne back with her.

  The United States of America needed bright young women like Roxanne Kurtwood.

  Her name was Amy Felton …

  … and she wished she didn’t need this job so bad.

  But she did, and would continue to do so, especially if she kept making stupid moves like last night—grabbing the check at the Continental, saying it was no problem, she had it covered. Nice one, Felton. Another $119 on the AmEx that didn’t need to be there. Wasn’t even as if she drank very much. Two Cosmos, nursed over a four-hour stretch.

  But Nichole and Roxanne and Ethan … oh God, Ethan. He’d knocked back enough booze to curl a human liver.

  Damn it, why did she pick up the check? Was she that eager to please people she didn’t particularly like?

  Ethan not included.

  Thing was, Amy knew she was screwed, because this was part of her job.

  David had once told her: “You’ve got to be my public face. It’s not good for the boss to be palling around with his employees. But you can. You’re their upper management confidante. The one who has access to me, yet remains their friend. So keep them happy. Take them out for drinks.”

  Sure, take them out for drinks. Pick up the check while you’re at it.

  She wanted to ask: Why doesn’t the government pick up the check every now and again?

  And this stuff about Amy being the “upper management confidante” was just an easy out for David. He didn’t like socializing with anyone below his rank. Amy was his second in command, and she hardly had any face time with him. It didn’t help that he’d been gone for sixteen days straight and didn’t tell her where. Covert government stuff. Blah, blah, blah. What David didn’t realize was that his impromptu vacations dealt serious blows to office morale. He’d returned this week, but the wisecracks and bitterness hadn’t gone away. Nobody liked the boss being away that long.

  Especially in an office like this. Considering what they did.

  And now this morning’s “managers’ meeting.” People were going to freak. Especially the people who hadn’t been invited.

  David wouldn’t even tell her what it was about, other than it was a “new operation.”

  As if what they did on a daily basis wasn’t important enough?

  Just get through it, Felton.

  On weekends—on scorching summer weekends, it seemed—the Market–Frankford El only ran every fifteen minutes. She made it to the platform to watch the air-conditioned cars of the 8:21 train pull away from the station. The sun was like a photographer’s flashbulb set on “stun.” No breeze to cool her down. Not even up here. Philadelphia was in the clutches of still another heat wave—seven straight days of hundred-plus temperatures. Such temperature spikes used to be unusual in the mid-Atlantic, but for the past four years, they’d become the norm.

  At least she wasn’t hungover, which would have been intolerable in this heat.

  She’d been afraid to drink too much.

  Run the tab up too high.

  His name was Ethan Goins …

  … and his hangover wasn’t just a condition; it was a living creature, nestled within the meat of his brain, gnawing at the fat gray noodles, savoring them, and, as a cocktail, absorbing all available moisture from the rest of his body. The skin on his hands was so dry, you could fling him against a concrete wall, and—if Ethan’s palms happened to be facing out—he’d stick. His eyes needed to be plucked out of his sockets, dropped into a glass pitcher of ice water. Might hurt some, but he’d enjoy the soothing hissssss of hot versus cold.

  Oh, Ethan knew better. Knew he had to report to David Murphy’s Big Bad Saturday-Morning Managers’ Meeting.

  It was why he’d stayed up way too late last night, drinking those orange martinis with Amy.

  Rebel Ethan Goins.

  Stickin’ it to the Man, one French martini at a time.

  They’d tasted like Tang. That was the problem. Sweet as a child’s breakfast drink. Now, as Ethan stuffed his throbbing, desiccated, burning, aching body inside an aluminum coffin manufactured by Honda, he knew he had only one chance.

  McDonald’s drive-through.

  Large Coke, plenty of ice, red-and-yellow pin-striped straw plunged down into the cup.

  Egg McMuffin. With a slice of Canadian bacon wedged between the soft marble slab of egg and flour-flecked sides of a gently warmed English muffin.

  Hash browns.

  Three of them. In the little greasy paper bags. Spread across the passenger seat.

  Where Amy Felton sat whenever they met to talk, unwind, stare at each other awkwardly … before he drove her home. Which was like returning a nun to her convent.

  Sister Amy had been the architect of his misery this morning—Ms. “Oooh, let’s go out drinking after work.” Ethan never even heard of French martinis until Amy had pointed it out on the menu.

  Yeah, she could deal with a greasy butt next time she sat in the car.

  Come to think of it, maybe he’d buy four hash browns. Have one on hand, just in case. It was probably going to be a four–hash brown morning, all told.

  The infusion of meat and caffeine and carbohydrates and protein was the only prayer he had of making it through this morning alive.

  He just prayed that the morning meeting would be a brief one—a new assignment, a new bit of training. Whatever. His role at the office wasn’t central to their mission. He was just the protector. The dude who could be counted on to snap a neck if somebody tried to mess with the numbers geeks. So they could jabber on about whatever they wanted to this morning.

  Just so long as he could make his way back home as soon as possible, crank up the central air, pull down the shades, crawl under a blanket, and suffer through the rest of his death in peace.

  Ethan paid for his breakfast with a debit card, grabbed the bag, placed the Coke in the drink holder, fumbled with the paper around the straw, and drove away. By the next red light, the Egg McMuffin was unwrapped and headed to his mouth.

  The third hash brown was history even before he reached the on-ramp to the Schuylkill Expressway.

  By the time he reached the off-ramp to Vine Street, there was a rumbling in Ethan’s belly.

  By the time he hit Market Street, there was more than rumbling. There was an escape plan forming.

  By Twentieth Street, a full-on revolt was in the works.

  Ethan, of course, should have known better: The McDonald’s breakfast hangover cure is a fleeting one. A salve to the brain and stomach for only a short while. It is a remedy on loan. The havoc it wreaks on your intestinal tract can be nearly as painful as the hangover itself. It is like pressing your palms to the beaches of heaven shortly before catching the jitney to hell.

  Ethan needed a bathroom. Immediately.

  The office. It was his only chance.

  His name was David Murphy …

  … and he was the boss.

 
David had been in the office since the night before. Drove in under the cover of darkness, parked on a different garage level. Not that anyone would notice. David had rented a different car a few days ago, switched out the plates twice.

  Use misdirection, illusion, and deception.

  As usual, he was taking things straight out of the Moscow Rules. Like:

  Pick the time and the place for action.

  He was going to miss the Moscow Rules. Where some men had a moral compass, David had this loose set of guidelines, developed by CIA operatives at the Moscow station inside the U.S. Embassy during the Cold War. They were good for tradecraft. They were also good for life, in general:

  Never go against your gut.

  Establish a distinctive and dynamic profile and pattern.

  David wished he’d hired one last escort before he holed up here for the night. He could really use a blow job. It would help mellow him out.

  But his final assignment beckoned.

  Walking toward the parking garage elevator, David had carried two plastic bags, lined with sturdy brown paper bags, along with his black briefcase. That was all he needed.

  He should also have hit some drive-through. He was ravenous, and it was going to be a busy night.

  Maybe he could sneak out for something later.

  Maybe even a warm mouth. Some tasty little piece of Fish-town skank.

  As the Moscow Rules said:

  Keep your options open.

  Upstairs in his office, which was not quite as air-conditioned as he would have liked—the building cut back on the AC at night—David knelt in front of the mini-fridge. He unloaded the contents of his bags: three sixty-four-ounce containers of Tropicana Pure Premium Homestyle orange juice, four bottles of Veuve Clicquot. You always wanted more champagne to orange juice; nobody overloaded a mimosa with OJ.

  The cookies were already here. He’d purchased them at CVS the day before. He had the urge to open a bag and take a few, but he resisted. He needed them for tomorrow.