May Be the Case

by Rachel J. queen

  He was his best friend, or at least he liked to think it, and he was crossing a black period. As Gracie was born, when Jack's marriage was great and nobody would have expected a disaster, talking about Gracie was as natural as meeting Marron, his wife. From divorce, however, the subject had become taboo, and the slightest assertion on his private life brought Jack into a state of extreme desolation, touching the most embarrassing stages for a man. A mix of shyness and wounded dignity that could pierce you inside. Raising the sunglasses on his head, Logan sat in front of him, returning his greeting. The waiter got to them and turned to Logan, as Jack had already been served.

  "The usual, Mr. Lance?"

  "No, some tonic water tonight. Thank you."

  Left alone, Jack immediately faced the argument he was most interested in. He tapped the edge of a napkin and talked again: "As everyone knows, Glenn doesn't understand a thing of transactions and what he's doing is a tangible proof. He has no excuses. Maybe he was drunk too, what do you think... let's buy him a toy, so that next time he'll forget it."

  "Your tonic water, sir. Do you want to order right away, as always?"

  After having ordered, Jack got silent for a few moments.

  "You'll surprise if we'd vote for how many of us would want to get after him. So, if I have to give up the pleasure of a survey, I want to be sure it doesn't happen again. In short, he's using his lawyer to put sticks between the wheels of the company that nourishes him? What's the point, for god sake? I'm part of a team which plays as one. If he's thinking of improving his position, he chose the wrong way to shine. And trying to surprise when you're absent, it smells like conspiracy" he took his wine glass. "He often meets Sinn. That guy's a pain in my ass." He leaned forward, ferocious. "Lance Company is your gem, boy. Prestige originated from your sweat. If you want to include Glenn with his symbolic share, do it yourself, he's on our own boat, but keep in mind that his stance can have many non-negligible aspects: desire of fame, hold of power, and even overtaking you. I'll be more explicit, you are a kind of machine, in the office when others are missing, always available, because you don't enjoy holidays for years, you're the fulcrum around which operations are turn. What about us if you became human, and your drunk night were two, three, and so on?"

  "I exclude it. You know that all I want becomes mine."

  "Okay, I understand that you lose sleep for a big deal. I was referring to the lowering of guard, but I feel that you have misunderstood on purpose. So this is a matter of little account, a lack of a woman..." he said randomly. " I'm married."

  Jack gave him an obvious look, strong of his deduction. "If it looks like an excuse... Paris Wood is a sufficient reason for tabloids, but you're different. I don't see you married to her, although it's not pertinent with our speech. Getting back to that, I'm afraid you've a stall period that can favor Glenn manufacture where he should not. "

  Orders arrived. Logan stared at his deliciously elaborate dish, short of appetite. Perhaps he shouldn't have ignored those signals, he thought, perhaps he was really stumbling. After all, he was a man, and yes, he was surrendering to feelings. He was changing. He got drunk and smoked more, he only thought about sex, he suffered insomnia, lacked appetite. All he saw during the twenty-four hours could be classified in a series of relatively common sequences of common life. Everything he felt inside was Lidi. But what was the problem if he let go a bit, Jack was right to say that his brother wanted to make a mess?

  "If he wants my company, he has to do it with a game of prestige." Jack gratified him with an ironic look. He put the napkin on his lap. "It's good you see how dirty he is." "He'll get tired of it. That is how he's made. At the buffet he tastes everything to say that he did. He doesn't do anything neat since his bird grew."

  "I don't think it's exact, but I don't want to open my mouth anymore. I've received calls, all protests that, with common sense, should cease. I became spokesman of a general malaise. I'm running my risks." Logan looked at him gravely, "I could do it without you, we work together since I founded the company."

  "I believe it, but when it comes to business, feelings fall and everyone gets to the prey for the bone. Your brother, forgive the uncomfortable comparison, doesn't seem clean to me."

  "I don't see what more he could get. He has his millions."

  "You say good. He has his armchair. Not yours."

  Logan looked around. In the table next to them, a waiter gracefully poured champagne. A brunette woman turned to smile at him. He ignored her. "Not to offend him, but... to cover the office of the president..."

  "Even for me it's hard to bake cookies, and yet I do."

  "You have the obligations of being a father, Glenn has no ambitions."

  Jack pointed it. "And if he had obligations to third parties? If his account was red, and didn't flourish and he suddenly decided an alternative way without telling you?"

  "Jack..."

  His friend's tone worsened. "There are millions of pounds at stake and your brother sees the movements from within."

  "Jack, I can't get out of here and investigate Glenn as if he were a criminal. Does the word partner tell you nothing?"

  "Of course, yes, but I've exposed myself, I've come to speak on behalf of everyone. Hot heads protesting might turn their shoulders to me with ass tight for your kin. Mine could drop. Yet I'm here."

  "Shit. But are you serious?"

  " Sure. What alternative do we have? Involving authorities seems premature."

  "Even police? With what delation?"

  "A possible conspiracy."

  Logan opened his green eyes wide. "Finish it!"

  "And if I give you evidence? Give me twenty-four hours."

  "No!" in the next silence, Logan rearranged his ideas. "Throughout this time you have never betrayed my trust, Jack, but don't forget that you're talking about my brother!"

  Jack darkened. "If I don't have your support after what I'm going to tell you, I'll get it through legal ways. At the next council meeting I'll push a motion and we'll go to vows to see who would like to get rid of him from staff."

  "Let go motions and legal ways" he liquidated it. "I won't throw the spotlight on you to put you in bad shape, I'll be taking a day or two to make it clear."

  "Very well, if you insist. So here are some tips to think on: Saving Corporated purchase proposal is still on Glenn's desk despite being part of the already rejected competitive fringe and it seems that the head of Logistic D.C. has recently had contacts with Sinn."

  Logan learned the following notions with perplexity "I thought Saving was in free fall, given Sinn's bad leadership. He wouldn't be able to handle a kindergarten, he took Saving to ruin it."

  "In fact it's drifting, yet it's murmured that a top secret relationship has ended in Atom C. Hands, exceeding our largescale bid. They want to take it from us. We have no idea where the hell they got the money, but if that were the case, we would be overtaken by a marginal company and our image would fall apart."

  Logan pulled away the plate to light a cigarette. "Logistic D.C." he threw smoke up. "The likelihood that Sinn seeks moral consolation after the last bump on the Stock is zero. What the fuck he's doing, fantasizing about an unlikely recover?"

  "Indeed. He's a double-cheater. He could use Logistic, then manipulate somebody at Atom, conducting the game, I tell you, thinking about coalifying your company and Atom, to prevent the collapse of both."

  Logan shook his head, taking another breath. "Negotiations with Atom representatives are going well. They signed half the plan, we're at cash flow. Do you think we won't get the package?"

  "We still don't hold them from their balls yet" Jack said, attacking ham and melon. "Mess is in timing. Why agreeing on our plan, if Atoms are looking for business with Saving?"

  Logan thought of Glenn's suggestion at the last meeting. It was a bit too much in time in an environment where speed was everything. "They want to take time" he deduced. But it didn't make sense, they were near the closure of operations.

&
nbsp; "It seems like that, and it's not all" Jack went on. "Some Talbot has something to do with Sinn. Accusation for scams for damage to the state and a scourge of violations of criminal code. He's covered by a guy named Vaughan, a Virginia lawyer who practices in one of the most prestigious studios." Logan frowned. Bending on the friend's plate, he took a piece of melon. "Vaughan doesn't sound new to me. Why didn't I want him?"

  " Don't you remember?"

  He licked his fingers. "No."

  Jack chewed carefully. "You delegated Page to choose and he discard him. We have the most tough lawmen representing us, so we accepted Page's decision on many of Vaughan's relationships with women married to hot heads."

  Logan smiled, remembering, "Yeah, Casanova..!"

  "Right him. You were willing to take him ignoring his inevitable passion for women, but not the threats of death he had received from some hypothetical jealous husband."

  The clock ran. Logan drank a sip of water. He suddenly lost interest in Sinn's speech and opened a new one. "Since when do I know you, Jack...?"

  "Thirteen years." His lips bent over, he bit an olive. "You are in the mood of confidences, I understood it right away. What's the matter, why don't you say it clearly?"

  "No, nonsense."

  "Okay." Jack returned to eating, leaving him to his own thoughts. Logan called the waiter and ordered some wine, so he waited for him to leave and came straight to the point. "Would you consider a form of courtship getting a pledge from a family member?"

  Jack wiped his mouth with the napkin. "It depends, only the person concerned might see it as an attempt of soliciting, I suppose."

  Logan frowned. "To make it short, I would like to give you a gift without being misunderstood."

  "You can't give a gift to a woman without exposing."

  The man contracted slightly. "I didn't talk about a woman"

  Jack paused for a second. "Sorry, maybe I got it wrong. If you bought a tie to your father-in-law, he won't think you want to fuck."

  Logan took time. He wanted to try a kind of approach without being mistaken for a maniac. He removed a velvet box from his jacket pocket and put it on the table. Jack lifted a sardonic look from his plate, where the appetizer had disappeared. "It looks like an important object" he remarked.

  "It's because of the box."

  "Really? You go around with a gift that seems important? I bet... wait, don't say that " a mischievous break. "You got it from the day of the meeting."

  Logan drank a sip of water and betrayed his hilarity. "Fuck you."

  Jack burst out laughing. "Everything's OK. I'm sure you're grilling yourself from Tuesday. A cubic type like you can't bear an inappropriate thought. And you got drunk to take it off. But if you can't eat, maybe you didn't succeed..."

  Logan was dumbfounded. "Done. We have finished."

  "Why? Say it better, ok? Jack, I'm going crazy for a woman who's not my wife, I bought her a gift and I'm ashamed to give it to her."

  "You'd better think of an alternative version."

  His friend looked at him affectionately. "You're a man too. With human needs and everything else. At least for a week. Let me see it" he opened the rigid blue case, got surprised by the contents, a thin emerald bracelet inlaid with pure diamonds. He cautiously closed the box and put it back on the table, continuing to laugh. "You fucked out!"

  "Come on, don't exaggerate."

  "Exaggerate?" he said. "It's a ninety-carat diamond bracelet. You don't give a similar item to hear someone say thank you, it was nice. It's an important message!"

  "I'm not following you."

  "Because you're thinking with the wrong part of your body. I tell you, it's usually a statement, but if you don't kneel, you can't rule out that she thinks about marriage" he paused. "When will you make the proposal to Queen Elizabeth?"

  Logan tortured his lip, then stopped. "No. It's for my sister-inlaw."

  He choked on the wine he was drinking, Jack coughed.

  "Myra is married to Antonio!"

  "It's not for Myra."

  "Lalanny is married too..."

  "I'm also" he said.

  A genuine amazement was painted on Jack's face. "Do you mean these diamonds are for Lidi?"

  Caught on the point, Logan looked for another cigarette.

  "Yes."

  "Oh..!"

  Jack took the object back, examining it. "Why a gift like that?"

  "A few weeks ago it was my birthday, and she bought me a thing."

  "And since she gave you a present you would now like to marry her."

  "I don't want to marry her, I want her to put this on."

  "But she'll understand it very badly, if you give her this stuff!"

  "Stop talking, you don't even know the parties involved."

  "Oh yes, instead. I remember your sister-in-law since we found her battling on the couch in your living room with Billy" he threw salt into the wound. "One and sixty, red hair, blue eyes, thin body, beautiful tits..."

  Logan's lips tapered. "Have you achieved mental peace?"

  The waiter took Jack's plate, replacing it with a deliciously presented vegetable and meat composition. "I thought you were opposing her marriage because she's very young, how old is she, about twenty? I remember when she asked Shepard's permission to marry Pedro."

  "She's twenty-two."

  Something, in Logan's voice, induced Jack to stop joking. "Well, obviously, your reasons were deeper."

  Logan put the case back in his pocket. "They're not valid."

  "I'm afraid they're enough to scare you."

  "Thanks for the attention. At the next comment, don't push on my moral, I only tolerate my brother-in-law in small doses."

  "You would like to be in his place, right?"

  "And enjoy her bad temper every day? No thanks!"

  "Really?" Jack smiled, comprehensive. "The night you got drunk must have revealed something to you."

  Logan put his hand on his face, looking shaken. "I'm crazy about her, Jack."

  "Then things are like that..." They stared at each other. "God damn. I wouldn't want to be in your shoes."

  "Well, I've taken them off for a while."

  Jack laughed. "Did she put a spell on you? You didn't run behind girls at university" he shrugged, his eyes curious. "But... you understand, right... what happened? You fucked?"

  Logan was infected by his smile. "No" slowly, his smile faded and went out. He wondered if it was wise to resume those strength-bound moments, and show them to someone. Then he started to talk, with Jack's great pleasure, waiting for nothing else. For a few hours he forgot his illness, laughing like a kid.

  Tylor waited for the boss' return and recalled her report. When he returned, she followed him moving as a feline. "I did the job, as you requested. I hate to inform you that some aspects of Mr Sinn's life are wrapped in mystery."

  Logan sat at the desk, his head elsewhere. The talk with Jack had revived him. He couldn't wait to get rid of work and return home, but it was still early, there were so many commitments between its ticks. "Negligible details, I want to hope."

  "It depends on you, I suppose. Do you want a verbal record?"

  "No. We're a few minutes from the meeting." He looked at his wrist watch. "If you threw down something written..."

  "That's a pity. Now that I remember by heart the life of a useless man" the efficient secretary passed him a file packed with information. Marveled, Logan closed it. "What's missing in this tome, a 3d photography?"

  The girl leaned, and so the blouse clung to her breast. "Read it carefully, Mr Lance, and you'll realize that there are gaps."

  Logan's eyes brilliantly enjoyed it. "Don't worry, I'll find the answers. Good job. And thank you for bowing."

  Tylor winked, put a cup of hot coffee on the table and left. Logan laughed bringing it at his lips. He cooled himself down in the bathroom, then he studied the report in record time when he was interrupted by the phone.

  "Yes?"

  "Mr Zane on the tw
o, and the bellboy has just handed something for you."

  "What is it?"

  "I have no idea, boss. Sealed as a body of offense."

  "Okay. Pass me Zane. Within a minute, I'll take care of the heart mail." Logan waited for the secretary to get him in touch with the exinspector, Lex Zane, his old friend, summoned a few months ago to take part in the Atom investigation: Lex was a hound. He didn't miss anything. With his reports on the accounting data of the previous three years of Atom, he had quite embarrassed the meetings. Turning half a grimace to the other angular plant that Taylor had placed during the break, Logan adjusted his tie. Lex's cavernous voice peeked on the phone. "Hi Logan. I know you're full of work, I'll just steal you a few minutes" an important call, judging by the tone.

  "It's ok. What can I do for you?"

  "A nonsense. Some folders were turning down there, and I sent you some. The bellboy should have already arrived."

  "That's yours, then. What is that about?"

  Lex hung back. Frowning, Logan stared at the receiver, then pressed zero. "Taylor, did you skim the phone?"

  "No, sir."

  With discomfort, he took away the question. "All right, bring me the objects of crime."

  Sinn's report lacked importance. Why Lex sent mail without a sender? They spotted the envelope scratching the address quickly. He removed the ribbon of the seal and browsed the pages. Parcels arrived from an auditing firm that he had never heard of, and parcels of the financial department of Logistic D.C., other fiscal control services. Figures he knew. On the receipt, there were two accented letters. A.C.L.C. Then again:

  Damage share in favor of Kent Vaughan established by the court. Logan fumbled in the pockets of his shirt and found the cigarettes. He lit one reading the bunch of papers: Judge Calfort Quincy expelled from the bar with accusations of aggravated corruption.

  2

  It had been a long day, full of bad news. Logan stopped thinking about how to get Quincy's lawsuits. He couldn't publicly meet him without risking getting into a bad spotlight, he had to find another way to get the truth with the cards he owned. Dealing with the representatives of Atom C., his men were positively affected by the transparency of their actions. But this happened initially. After that, he had to suggest a more accurate investigation, and Mark Atom, grandson of the old owner, Thorne, flabbergasted, taking it on a personal level. Although the main arguments raised were about a thorough analysis of the wrong commercial strategies carried out by Atom, Mark argued that what Lance Company intent was to create another alter ego of itself, with a reform cycle, starting with administrative ones, which would have undermined the dominant characteristics of their company. A collapsed company, as present ones wanted to recall, Logan included, but they diplomatically abstained from recriminating on a subject from which another debate could explode. Although Mark's voice was an isolated one, it came from the pulpit, for Thorne was too old to embark on protests and too wise to speak: