Bank statements, a brokerage account, bills, mortgage payment receipts – all were neatly organized in clearly marked folders. The sense of spying on Keith again swept over Jeffrey, and he almost closed the file cabinet before shaking the feeling off and plodding forward. He looked at the mortgage – three hundred and six thousand owed. Jeffrey scanned the room again with appreciation. Keith had been an astute property buyer. He would have estimated based on the building and the neighborhood that the place was worth at least half a mil, even in the worst economy since the Great Depression. So old Keith had some equity built in, no question – the only one being, how much. That would be a subject for a real estate agent.
He opened the brokerage statements and did a quick tally. Another almost two hundred thousand in holdings as of the last summary. Jeffrey wasn’t sure how much Keith earned per year, but it couldn’t have been enough to sock away that sort of nest egg. But he recalled his brother telling him that he was doing well in the market, mostly with options on commodities like gold and silver. He just hadn’t hinted at how well, obviously. That was ten times the money Jeffrey would have guessed he’d accumulated.
Jeffrey turned on the lights as dusk arrived and continued his investigation, Papa Chubby crooning the blues from the stereo as he moved from the office and into the master bedroom closet, where there was a safe bolted to the floor. He’d need to get that opened by a locksmith, but he didn’t have the heart right then, and decided to leave it for his return. Whatever was in it could wait. It wasn’t like he didn’t have all the time in the world.
When his stomach rumbled, he checked the time and was surprised to see that it was already nine o’clock. Hours had raced by, and he’d been completely oblivious to their passage. Jeffrey sped up his inventory, and after another ten minutes returned to the living room, ready to call it a night. He powered the stereo down and did one final slow turn around the room.
His eye caught the shape of the Fender guitar his brother had pawned, and he stepped over to it before looking behind the couch – the natural place for a case to be stashed. Sure enough, a battered old rectangular case was wedged behind it along with the others. He freed the Fender’s and popped it open, sliding the guitar home, nestled safely in the orange interior. He reached over and retrieved the paperwork he’d found and placed it inside next to the instrument then closed the latches as he felt in his pants pocket for the house keys.
Jeffrey toted the garbage and the case out into the hall, then flipped off the light and locked the door, his project completed, at least for the moment. His chest was tight with grief as he walked slowly to the garbage chute and dropped the bag into the abyss, a part of his brother going down the slide with it. He knew it made no sense, but the feeling was undeniable, and his vision blurred as he made his way to the elevator that would take him back to the lobby, away from the shadows that seemed redolent with Keith, his essence in every nook, every object. It seemed sacrilegious to have gone through his things, like raiding a cursed tomb, but Jeffrey understood the necessity. The world kept on turning, even if Keith was no longer a part of it.
The thought depressed him more than he could have described, and when he exited the building, carrying his brother’s final legacy, his shoulders were hunched and he looked beaten, his steps uncertain and heavy on the cold concrete sidewalk.
The watchers exchanged glances and then the passenger got out of the car, determined not to lose him this time. He leaned forward and whispered to the driver.
“What’s he got there?”
“Guitar. His brother had a bunch of them. Probably a keepsake. We’ve already been through everything with a fine-toothed comb. It’s all clean, so it doesn’t matter.”
“All right. He’s probably going to get another cab, so stay close. I’ll call for you when he does. My money’s on him returning to the hotel and getting wasted again.”
“I won’t take that bet,” the driver said, then the door closed and he was left to the muted drone of the engine as his partner walked unhurriedly behind Jeffrey, an innocuous figure out for an evening stroll.
TEN
Hit and Run
When Jeffrey arrived at the airport at ten the following morning, on the ticketing agent’s advice he paid extra to be in the first boarding group, preferring to carry the guitar onboard and stow it in the overhead bins rather than trusting it to the baggage handlers – if he was first on, he was guaranteed to have room for it.
Once on the plane, he naturally thought about his brother and the enigma he’d become. Becky’s misgivings aside, it did seem odd that he hadn’t told her he was taking an international trip, unless there was a good reason. And what about his unusual behavior those final days? Keith, skulking around, consumed with forty-year-old animal mutilations? What did that have to do with anything? He took Becky’s agitation with a grain of salt – she wasn’t necessarily firing on all cylinders with the stress, and perhaps she was seeing conspiracies where none existed.
No matter how hard he tried to make the fragments add up, though, he couldn’t; and as the plane took off and ascended through the scattered clouds, he decided that he might never know what his brother had been thinking or doing. Besides which, none of that would bring him back, so it was pointless to dwell on it. Now Jeffrey needed to figure out how to move forward, not try to recreate the last weeks of his brother’s existence.
When the stewardess came around, he decided to ignore his commitment to sobriety and ordered two mini-bottles of vodka, silently limiting himself to only those two, and possibly another in an hour. Just enough to stay comfortably numb and maybe doze – his night had been restless, disrupted by nightmares he couldn’t remember on waking but which left him feeling like a piano had fallen on him.
He began reading a book he’d bought at the airport, a treasure hunt theme of pure escapism, and found himself nodding off before he’d made it thirty pages. The next thing he knew the plane was descending on approach to SFO, twenty-five minutes out from the airport.
On the ground, he opted to take the BART train into the city, foregoing the taxi in favor of frugality, and after a half hour ride, he disembarked at the Embarcadero station and caught a cab to his apartment. Relieved to be home after the whirlwind of travel, he set his new guitar on a stand next to his Gibson Hummingbird acoustic and unpacked his clothes, briefly debating whether to dry clean his suit before he shrugged and hung it back up in the closet – with any luck at all, it would be decades before he’d need a funeral suit again, by which time hopefully the damned thing would have rotted into nothingness, taking with it the cursed memories that were an indelible part of its fabric.
It took him an hour to clear his email inbox and get organized for work the following day, and after responding to a few of the most urgent requests, he sat down with the financial file he’d brought and began making a list of action points he would need to pursue in order to handle his brother’s estate.
Becky had taken the day off from work. Cleaning her apartment more than occupied her time between long periods of staring off into space, Keith’s absence like a throbbing hole in her heart that would never heal. She hadn’t wanted to tell his brother, but part of what made Keith’s recent distance from her so disturbing was that they’d been just about ready to set a wedding date, the time for starting a family overdue. And then he’d shut down, slowly at first, and then abruptly just before his European trip two weeks earlier. At least he’d told her about that one; not like Rome, which had taken her completely by surprise.
She placed a photograph that had been torn from its silver frame back into the protective metal rectangle and set it on the bookcase, a happy memory of better days, taken at the Washington Monument on a weekend early in their courtship: Keith grinned infectiously at the camera and Becky leaned against him, beaming like a supernova. His eyes seemed to glitter in the photo, and Becky suddenly couldn’t draw breath. She looked away, crying softly, and chastised herself for her weakness. She cursed Keith: Da
mn you. Damn you for leaving me alone, never to hold you again.
The tears continued, Becky powerless to stop them, her stomach in knots as she shuddered with boundless grief. She collapsed onto the sofa and lay there, helpless, unable to do anything but mourn the loss of her soul mate – the best man she’d ever known. Why had he been on the plane? Why, God, why?
Eventually the emotional storm faded, replaced by a cold numbness, nothing more left in her. The reality of Keith’s death came and went, and sometimes, in the quiet moments like now, it overwhelmed her.
She struggled to her feet, gazing around as if surprised that she was still in her living room, and then blew her nose into a paper towel she’d been clutching to clean the photos. This was no good. She couldn’t do it. She just couldn’t. It was still too fresh.
Becky returned to her cleaning, and by late afternoon she was done, the glass shards all gone, the damage hidden. Her phone rang but she ignored it, staring dully at the handset as it screeched, its strident tone filling the apartment with sound. She didn’t want to talk to anyone. Not now. Maybe tomorrow, when she had to go back to work, assuming she could make it without breaking down. But not today.
Relieved to finally be finished, she went into the bathroom and twisted the shower handles on, then stripped and stood under the stream of water, letting it calm her, wash away the grit and dust, and maybe a little of the sorrow. She remained like that for half an hour, and then when her fingers resembled oblong prunes she shut it off and grabbed a thick towel from the nearby rack, taking her time drying herself before taking her measure in the vanity mirror.
She looked like shit. No surprises there. Haggard, miserable, none of the healthy glow that had been her norm as recently as a few days ago.
She opened the cabinet and retrieved her makeup, then applied a light base, evening out the discoloration beneath her eyes before dusting her cheeks with a hint of rouge. Studying the result, she shook her head. It was no use. But necessary if she was going to get something to eat – she hadn’t gone shopping in days, and there was nothing left in the refrigerator but some celery and yogurt.
From her dresser, she selected a long-sleeved sweater and a pair of jeans and then grabbed a down jacket with a hood from the hall closet on her way out. Outside the building, she debated taking her car but opted to walk the three blocks to the little corner market where she could get necessities, enough to tide her over for at least a few days. It was getting dark, but her neighborhood was one of the better, relatively speaking, in a city with a deservedly bad reputation. Until yesterday’s break-in, she’d never felt unsafe. How quickly everything could change.
The big delivery truck, its lights off, roared down the street and slammed into her as she crossed the intersection. Moving at over fifty miles per hour, its massive grill and heavy bumper were as deadly to a hapless pedestrian as a lethal injection. Becky was dead before her body hit the ground like a rag doll, bouncing twice and then rolling to a halt in a heap.
The truck continued on without slowing, then rounded the corner and disappeared. There would be no witnesses to come forth, no images from a conveniently located traffic camera – the one at the next intersection had gone dark earlier that day, leaving the area effectively blind.
Becky’s form lay motionless in a crimson puddle, her head crushed against the hard asphalt. By the time the EMT van arrived she was already cool to the touch, another regrettable victim of the hit and runs that plagued the city in even the most upscale neighborhoods.
ELEVEN
An Offer
Jeffrey’s first day back at the office was surreal, the everyday tedium punctuated by bouts of apathy that washed over him like emotional tsunamis. He found himself staring out his window for long stretches, doing nothing, as if transported elsewhere, and by the end of the work day he’d accomplished no more than fifty percent of what he’d set out to do.
As he was closing down his computer, an email from a headhunting firm hit his inbox, asking him to call one of their account executives as soon as possible about a unique opportunity. Jeffrey had never gotten one of those before, and his curiosity was piqued. He was relatively happy at his firm, but it never hurt to listen, and he found himself dialing the 800 number on his cell phone so it wouldn’t show up on the company bill.
A deep voice boomed from the phone when the call connected. “Roger Anton. Can I help you?”
“Yes, Roger. My name’s Jeffrey Rutherford. I got an email from your firm asking to contact you as soon as possible about an opportunity?”
“Jeffrey Rutherford. Hmm. Just a second. Let me check my files.” Roger rustled some papers on his end and then returned. “Ah, here it is. Yes, something’s come up, and you were identified as a perfect candidate for the position. Specialist in international asset strategies for corporations, some mergers and acquisition background, young, but suitably experienced…”
“If you don’t mind my asking, who’s the opening with?”
“I’m afraid that’s confidential at this juncture, Mr. Rutherford. We would need to have an interview with you in order to divulge the details beyond generalities.”
“Well, thanks for thinking of me, but I’m not interested in jumping through a bunch of hoops only to discover that it’s someone I wouldn’t want a job with,” Jeffrey said. “I’m very happy with my present employer, if it’s all the same to you.”
“Yes, well, I can see your point. Perhaps I can share a few details with you that would sway your decision making. First, it would require relocation to the East Coast. Second, it would require signing confidentiality agreements over and above attorney-client privilege. And third, it would boast a substantial increase in pay over whatever you’re making now.”
“I don’t really have any interest in relocation.”
“Perhaps you could be persuaded.” He named a figure that was more than double Jeffrey’s current salary. “Bonuses have been running twenty to fifty percent of salary with this firm.”
Jeffrey quickly did the math. He sat up, his attention now fully focused on the headhunter.
“And your fee?”
“Paid by the client.”
Jeffrey digested that. “What’s the mechanism for interviewing? I can’t miss work. I recently had a death in the family and I’m already running behind.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. We can do this two ways – I can fly out and meet with you tomorrow after work, or you can fly to my office the following day, on Saturday, and be back in time for cocktails Sunday.”
“That’s aggressive.”
“They want the position filled by next week. You’re on a short list we culled by surveying our contacts. The firm is prepared to make a decision by the end of the weekend, and would like the new hire to start as soon as possible. Which brings up a delicate question – how much notice would you need to give your present employer?”
Jeffrey considered the question, his heart rate increasing as the discussion became more serious. “Probably two weeks. But I could see about cutting it shorter. As long as I offered some sort of a transition plan where I could offer guidance to the team, they might let me go sooner.”
“We have considerable sway, Mr. Rutherford. If you’re selected as the candidate, I’ll make a phone call. I know your senior partners very well. That likely wouldn’t be a deal killer.”
Jeffrey hesitated. “I think it would make more sense for me to fly out on Friday night or Saturday morning, so that if this proceeded to consummation, we could knock it out over the weekend. If you fly out here, I’d still need to meet the group you represent before they hired me, correct?” Jeffrey asked.
“True. Very well, then. I’ll make travel arrangements for you and email them. Figure on a very early flight on Saturday, which would put you here by two, and meeting with me by three. If all goes well, we can do a dinner meeting Saturday evening, and have you back in San Francisco by mid-day Sunday.”
Jeffrey thought about the proposition. That was ins
ane money as a guaranteed salary, given his age and experience, and the bonus made it even better. His throat clenched as he imagined the increase – no more riding a bike to work and trying to nurse his ten-year-old Honda Accord along for a few more years. The car had been a gift from his mother and Keith when Jeffrey had passed the bar, but even then it had been three years old when they’d bought it, with forty thousand miles. Now, with a hundred and twenty, it was limping more than running.
He looked out at the skyline, the sun sinking below the tops of the neighboring buildings, and made a snap decision.
“Sounds like a plan. By the way, where’s the firm located?”
“I’m sorry. I thought I mentioned that. It’s in Washington, D.C.”
TWELVE
The Interview
Saturday morning, Jeffrey was at the private jet terminal at San Francisco International Airport, walking across the tarmac to a waiting Citation X, still trying to get over the surprise of being told he was going to be flown cross country in a private jet chartered by the law firm that was interested in him. It was 5:45 a.m., and the first hesitant glimmers of dawn streaked the sky with watercolor hues as he approached the stairs. A uniformed stewardess next to it, perky as if she’d been up for hours, greeted him with a warm smile and motioned to the stairway.
“Good morning, sir. We’re ready for takeoff. There’s hot coffee, juice, and a variety of breakfast items on board. My name’s Jennifer, and I’ll be your attendant for the flight. May I take that?” she asked, gesturing to his carry-on bag.
Upon A Pale Horse (Bio-Thriller) Page 7