“You’re welcome.”
“How did you know where I lived?”
“I guessed,” Gabe said sarcastically, pouring himself some coffee from the kettle. At Lou’s look, he added, “Your house was the only one on the street with gates. Bad tasting gates, at that. They had a bird on top. A bird?”
“It’s an eagle,” Lou said defensively, and then finally came out with it. “Why did you want me to be late for work this morning?”
Gabe fixed those blue eyes on him, and despite the fact Lou had a six-figure salary and a multimillion-euro house in one of the most affluent areas in Dublin, and all Gabe had was this, Lou once again felt like the underdog, like he was being judged.
“Figured you needed the rest,” Gabe responded.
“Who are you to decide that?”
Gabe simply smiled.
“What’s so funny?”
“You don’t like me, do you, Lou?”
Well, it was direct. It was to the point, no beating around the bush, and Lou appreciated that. But before Lou had the opportunity to answer, Gabe continued.
“You’re worried about my presence in this building,” he said simply.
“Worried? No. You can sleep where you like. This doesn’t bother me.”
“That’s not what I mean. Do I threaten you, Lou?”
Lou threw his head back and laughed. It was exaggerated and he knew it, but he didn’t care. It had the desired effect. His laugh filled the room and echoed in the small concrete cell against the open ceiling of exposed wires. “Intimidated by you? Well, let’s see…” He held his hands out to indicate the room Gabe was living in. “Do I really need to say any more?” he said pompously.
“Oh, I get it.” Gabe smiled broadly, as though guessing the winning answer to a quiz. “I have fewer things than you. I forgot that meant something to you.” He laughed lightly and snapped his fingers, leaving Lou feeling stupid.
“Things aren’t important to me,” Lou defended himself weakly. “I’m involved in lots of charities. I give things away all the time.”
“Yes,” Gabe nodded solemnly, “even your word.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You don’t keep that, either.” He started rooting in a shoe box on the second shelf. “Your head still at you?”
Lou nodded and rubbed his eyes tiredly.
“Here.” Gabe retrieved a small container of pills. “You always wonder how I get from place to place? Take one of these.” He tossed them over to Lou.
Lou studied them. There was no label on the container.
“What are they?”
“They’re a little bit of magic,” Gabe said with a laugh. “When taken, everything becomes clear.”
“I don’t do drugs.” Lou handed them back, placing them on the end of Gabe’s sleeping bag.
“They’re not drugs.”
“Then what’s in them?”
“I’m not a pharmacist, just take them. All I know is that they work.”
“No, thanks.” Lou stood and prepared to leave.
“They’d help you a lot, you know, Lou.”
“Who says I need help?” Lou said. “You know what, Gabe? You asked me if I don’t like you. Overall, I don’t really mind you. I’m a busy man, I’m not much bothered by you. But this, this is what I don’t like about you, patronizing statements like that. I’m fine, thank you very much. My life is fine. All I have is a headache — and that’s it. Okay?”
Gabe simply nodded, and Lou turned around and made his way toward the door.
Gabe started again. “People like you — ”
“Like what, Gabe?” Lou turned around and snapped, his voice rising with each sentence. “People like me what? Work hard? Like to provide for their families? Don’t sit on their asses on the ground all day waiting for handouts? People like me who help people like you, who go out of their way to give you a job and make your life better…”
Had Lou waited to hear the end of Gabe’s sentence, he would have learned that Gabe was implying quite the opposite. Gabe was referring to people like Lou who were competitive. Ambitious people, with their eye on the prize instead of the task at hand. People who wanted to be the best for all the wrong reasons and who’d take almost any path to get there. Being the best was only slightly better than being in the middle, which was equal to being the worst. All were merely a state of being. It was how a person felt in that state and why that was the important thing.
Gabe wanted to explain to Lou that people like him were always looking at what the next person was doing, always looking to achieve more and greater things. Always wanting to be better. And the entire point of Gabe’s telling Lou Suffern about people like Lou Suffern was to warn him that people who constantly looked over their shoulders often bumped into things.
Paths are so much clearer when people stop looking at what everyone else is doing and instead concentrate on themselves. Lou couldn’t afford to bump into any more things at this point in the story. If he had, it would have surely ruined the ending, to which we’ve yet to arrive. Yes, Lou still had much to do.
But Lou didn’t stick around to hear any of that. He left the storeroom, shaking his head with disbelief at Gabe’s cheekiness as he walked back down the corridor with the dodgy fluorescent lighting. He found his way to the exit and ran up the stairs to the ground floor.
Once he reached the warmth above, Lou was back in his comfort zone. The security guard looked up as Lou emerged from the emergency exit.
“There’s something wrong with the elevators,” Lou called out to him as he approached the elevator bank, not enough time now for him to get to a pharmacy and back for the conference call. He’d have to go straight up, feeling like this, head hot and mushy, with Gabe’s ridiculous words ringing in his ears.
“That’s the first I’ve heard of it.” The security guard made his way over to Lou. He leaned over and pressed the call button, which lit up immediately. The elevator doors opened.
He looked at Lou oddly.
“Oh. Never mind. Thanks.” Lou got back in the elevator and made his way up to the fourteenth floor. He leaned his head against the mirror and closed his eyes, dreamed of being at home in bed with Ruth cozied up beside him, wrapping her arm and leg around him as she used to do while she slept.
When the elevator pinged on the fourteenth floor and the doors slid apart, Lou opened his eyes and screamed with fright.
Gabe stood directly before him, looking solemn, his nose almost touching the doors. He rattled the container of pills in Lou’s face.
“SHIT! GABE!”
“You forgot these.”
“I didn’t forget them.”
“They’ll get rid of that headache for you.”
Lou snatched the container of pills from Gabe’s hand and stuffed them deep into his trouser pocket.
“Enjoy.” Gabe smiled with satisfaction.
“I told you, I don’t do drugs.” Lou kept his voice low, even though he knew they were alone on the floor.
“And I told you they’re not drugs. Think of them as an herbal remedy.”
“A remedy for what, exactly?”
“For your problems, of which there are many. I believe I listed them for you already.”
“Says you, who’s sleeping on the floor of a bloody basement stockroom,” Lou hissed. “How’s about you take a pill and go about fixing your own life? Or is that what got you in this mess in the first place? You know, I’m getting tired of your judging me, Gabe, when I’m up here and you’re the one down there.”
Gabe’s expression looked curious in response, which made Lou feel guilty. “Sorry,” Lou sighed.
Gabe simply nodded.
Lou examined the pills as his head pounded, heavier now. “Why should I trust you?”
“Think of it as a gift.” Gabe repeated the words Lou had spoken only days before, bringing chills down Lou Suffern’s spine.
CHAPTER 16
Granted
ALONE IN HIS OFFI
CE, LOU took the pills from his pocket and placed them on his desk. He laid his head down and finally closed his eyes.
“Christ, you’re a mess,” he heard a voice say close to his ear, and he jumped up.
“Alfred,” he said, spotting his nemesis. He rubbed his eyes. “What time is it?”
“Seven twenty-five. Don’t worry, you haven’t missed your meeting. Thanks to me.” Alfred smirked, running his nicotine-stained fingers along Lou’s desk, his one touch enough to tarnish everything and annoy Lou. The term grubby little mitts applied here.
“Hey, what are these?” Alfred picked up the pills and popped open the lid.
“Give them to me.” Lou reached out for them, but Alfred pulled away. He emptied a few into his open, clammy palm.
“Alfred, give them to me,” Lou said sternly, trying to keep the desperation out of his voice as Alfred moved about the room waving the container in the air, teasing him with the same air as a school bully.
“Naughty, naughty, Lou, what are you up to?” Alfred asked in an accusing singsong that chilled Lou to the core.
Knowing that Alfred was already devising to use these against him, Lou thought fast.
“Looks like you’re concocting a story.” Alfred smiled. “I know when you’re bluffing; I’ve seen you in every meeting, remember? Don’t you trust me with the truth?”
Lou fought to keep his tone easy, almost joking, but he was deadly serious. “Honestly? Lately, no. I wouldn’t be surprised if you hatched a plan to use that little container against me.”
Alfred laughed. “Now, really. Is that any way to treat an old friend?”
Lou’s light tone faded. “I don’t know, Alfred, you tell me.”
They had a moment’s staring match. Then Alfred broke it.
“Something on your mind, Lou?”
“What do you think?”
“Look,” Alfred’s shoulders dropped, the bravado replaced by Alfred’s new humble act. “If this is about the meeting tonight, rest assured that I did not meddle with your appointments in any way. Talk to Melissa. With Tracey leaving and Alison taking over, a lot of stuff got lost in the mix.” He shrugged. “Though between you and me, Alison seems a little flaky.”
“Don’t blame it on Alison.” Lou folded his arms.
“Indeed,” Alfred smiled and nodded slowly to himself. “I forgot that you two have a thing.”
“We have no thing. For Christ’s sake, Alfred.”
“Right, sorry.” Alfred zipped his lips closed. “Ruth will never know, I promise.”
The very fact that he’d mentioned Ruth unnerved Lou. “What’s gotten into you?” Lou asked him, serious now. “Really, what’s up with you? Is it stress? Is it the crap you’re putting up your nose? What the hell is it? Are you worried about the changes — ”
“The changes.” Alfred snorted. “You make me sound like a menopausal woman.”
Lou stared at him.
“I’m fine, Lou,” he said slowly. “I’m the same as I’ve always been. It’s you who’s acting a little funny around here. Everyone’s talking about it, even Mr. Patterson. Maybe it’s these.” He shook the pills in Lou’s face, just as Gabe had done. “You’re acting irrationally, sweating in meetings, forgetting appointments. Not exactly a great replacement for Cliff, are you?”
“They’re headache pills.”
“I don’t see a label.”
“The kids scratched it off; now can you please stop mauling them and give them back?” Lou held an open hand out toward Alfred.
“Oh, headache pills. I see.” Alfred studied the container again. “Is that what they are? Because I thought I heard the homeless guy saying that they were herbal?”
Lou swallowed. “Were you spying on me, Alfred? Is that what you’re up to?”
“No.” Alfred laughed easily once again. “I wouldn’t do that. I’ll have some of these checked out for you, to make sure they’re nothing stronger than headache pills.” He took a pill, pocketed it, and handed back the container. “It’ll be nice to be able to find out a few things for myself since my friends are lying to me.”
“I know the feeling,” Lou agreed, glad to have the container back in his possession. “Like my finding out about the meeting you and Mr. Patterson had a few mornings ago and the lunch you had last Friday.”
Unusual for Alfred, he looked genuinely shocked.
“Oh,” Lou said softly, “you thought I didn’t know, didn’t you? Sorry about that. Well, you’d better get to dinner, or you’ll miss your appetizer. All work and no caviar makes Alfred a dull boy.” Then he led a suddenly silent Alfred to his door, opened it, and winked at him before closing it quietly in his face.
SEVEN THIRTY P.M. CAME AND went without Arthur Lynch appearing on the fifty-inch plasma TV in front of Lou at the boardroom table. Aware that at any moment he could be seen by whoever would be present at the meeting, Lou attempted to relax in his chair and tried not to sleep. At seven forty, Mr. Lynch’s secretary informed him that Mr. Lynch would be a few more minutes.
While waiting, the increasingly sleepy Lou pictured Alfred in the restaurant, brash as could be, the center of attention, loud and doing his best to entertain — stealing the glory, making or breaking a deal that Lou wouldn’t be associated with unless Alfred failed. In missing that — the most important meeting of the year — Lou was losing the biggest chance to prove himself to Mr. Patterson. Cliff’s job dangled before him day in and day out, like a carrot on a string. So did Cliff’s old office down the hall next to Mr. Patterson’s, its blinds open and vacant. It was a larger office with better light. It called to him. It had been six months since the memorable morning Cliff had had his breakdown — after weeks and weeks of unusual behavior. Lou had finally found Cliff crouched under his desk, his body trembling, his computer keyboard held tightly and close to his chest. Occasionally his fingers tapped away at the keys in a sort of panicked Morse code. They were coming to get him, he kept repeating, wide-eyed and terrified.
Who exactly they were, Lou had been unable to ascertain. He’d tried gently to coax Cliff out from under the desk, to make him put his shoes and socks back on, but Cliff had lashed out as Lou neared and hit him across the face with the computer mouse, swinging the wire around like a lasso. The force of the small plastic mouse hadn’t hurt Lou nearly as much as the sight of this young successful man falling apart. But the office had since lain empty for all these months, and as rumors of Cliff’s further demise drifted, Lou’s sympathy for him lessened while the competition for his job increased.
Lou’s frustration grew as he stared at the black plasma screen still yet to come alive. His head pounded, and he could barely think as his migraine spread from the base of his head to his eyes. Feeling desperate, he retrieved pills from his pocket and stared at them.
He thought of Gabe’s knowledge of the meeting between Mr. Patterson and Alfred and how he had correctly judged the shoe situation; he considered how Gabe had provided him with coffee the previous morning, had driven him home and somehow won Ruth over. Convincing himself that Gabe had never let him down, Lou shook the open container, and one small white glossy pill rolled out onto the palm of his sweaty hand. He played with it for a while, rolled it around in his fingers, licked it; when nothing drastic happened, he popped it into his mouth and quickly downed it with a glass of water.
Lou held on to the boardroom table with both hands, gripping it so hard that his sweaty prints were visible on the glass surface. He waited. Nothing happened. He lifted his hands from the table and studied them as though the effects would be seen on his palms. Still nothing out of the ordinary happened, no unusual trip, nothing life-threatening, apart from his head, which continued to pound.
At seven forty-five there was still no sign of Arthur Lynch. Lou tapped his pen against the table impatiently, no longer caring about how he’d appear to the people on the other side of the camera. Already paranoid beyond reason, Lou began to convince himself that there was no meeting at all, that Alfred had someh
ow orchestrated this so that he could conduct the dinner by himself and negotiate the deal. Lou wasn’t going to allow Alfred to sabotage any more of his hard work. He stood quickly, grabbed his overcoat, and charged for the door. He’d pulled it open and had one foot over the threshold when he heard a voice coming from the plasma behind him.
“I’m very sorry for keeping you waiting, Mr. Suffern.”
The voice stalled Lou in his march. He closed his eyes and sighed, kissing his dream of Cliff’s office with the three-hundred-sixty-degree view of Dublin good-bye. He quickly thought about what to do: run and make it in time for dinner, or turn around and face the music. Before he had time to make the decision, the sound of another voice in the office almost stopped his heart.
“No problem, Mr. Lynch, and please call me Lou. I understand how things can run overtime, so no apologies are needed. Let’s get down to business, shall we? We have a lot to discuss.”
“Certainly, Lou. And call me Arthur, please. We do have a lot to get through, but before I introduce you to these two gentlemen beside me, would you like to finish your business up there? I see you have company?”
“No, Arthur, it’s just me here in the office,” Lou heard himself say. “Everyone else has deserted me.”
“Oh, I thought I could see a man there by the door.”
Spotted, Lou slowly turned around and, quite impossibly, came face-to-face with himself. He was still seated at the boardroom table, in the same place where he had been waiting before making a run for the door. The face that greeted him was also a picture of shock. The ground swirled beneath Lou, and he clutched the door frame to stop himself from falling.
“Lou? Are you there?” Arthur asked, and both heads turned to face the plasma.
“Erm, yes, I’m here,” Lou at the table stammered. “I’m sorry, Arthur, that gentleman is a…colleague of mine. He’s just leaving, I believe he has an important dinner meeting to get to.” Lou turned around and threw his counterpart at the door a warning look. “Don’t you?”
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