No Way Back

by Matthew Klein

  Tad says: ‘What do you mean: “Poke around”?’

  ‘I just mean—’

  Tad interrupts, ‘Remember what I told you, when I hired you?’

  ‘That you were going to make me rich?’

  ‘No, that part was a lie. Remember the other part?’ Tad’s voice fades in and out, and I distinctly hear the sound of wind sputtering against his microphone. I picture him driving in his BMW convertible, top down, in sunny, temperate Palo Alto, with his Bluetooth headset clipped to his ear.

  ‘What other part?’

  ‘I said: Protect my investment and protect me.’

  Now that he mentions it, I do remember that. Those words struck me as odd even then: Protect my investment and protect me. ‘What does that mean, exactly?’

  ‘Just what it sounds like. Your first priority is to save the company... if you can.’

  ‘And my second priority?’

  ‘Nothing. That’s it.’ After a pause, he adds: ‘Just make sure my generosity doesn’t come back to bite me in the ass.’

  ‘Meaning what, Tad?’

  ‘Meaning,’ he says, talking slowly now, as if I’m an idiot, ‘I hired you because you’re my friend. I’m taking a chance on you. Just make me proud. That’s all.’

  ‘I understand.’ Actually, I don’t. It’s hard to believe that Tad Billups is concerned about the fate of Tao Software LLC – a tiny third-rate start-up he convinced his partners to invest in nearly four years ago – and a company that’s only one of dozens in his portfolio. Tad’s reputation won’t be ruined if Tao fails. Ninety per cent of venture-capital-funded companies fail. That’s the nature of his business. A venture capitalist is considered a success if one out of ten companies is a home run. So what does Tad mean when he tells me to ‘protect him’? Protect him from what?

  But now suddenly, Tad’s ready to scram. ‘All right,’ he says. ‘Anything else to report, before I go?’

  ‘Listen, Tad,’ I say. I know the answer to my next question, even before I ask, but I do have to ask. ‘We need more money. At least another five or ten million. You didn’t tell me what a mess it was down here.’

  ‘Not going to happen, hotshot.’

  ‘Make it a down round. Dilute me. Otherwise, it’s not going to work—’

  ‘Make it work!’ he yells. I’m surprised by the harshness of his words. I’ve known Tad Billups a long time, and never once has he raised his voice to me. He’s the kind of man who doesn’t think twice about stabbing a guy in the back, but he’ll do it quietly, with a friendly smile. His voice grows soft again. ‘Really, Jimmy. Make it work.’ He’s so quiet, in fact, that I think I must have imagined his yell. Maybe it was a trick of his Bluetooth headset. Tad continues: ‘I don’t know what else to tell you. My partners won’t put another dime into that dog. Comprende?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Comprendo.’

  ‘Anything else I can do for you?’ Tad asks.

  ‘Anything else?’ I repeat, and laugh. ‘What have you done for me so far?’

  ‘Well, I gave you a great job, and I’m going to make you rich.’

  ‘You said that part was a lie.’

  ‘Did I? Ah well, you caught me. Anyway, do what you can.’

  ‘I’ll do my best.’

  ‘I know you will, buddy. That’s why I hired you. Ta ta.’

  He hangs up, leaving me holding a dead phone to my ear.

  CHAPTER 6

  When I wake from my nightmares, I never shout.

  I wake the same way, every morning, having dreamed the same dream. My son in a bathtub. His body floating just below the water’s surface. His face blue, his mouth open in a silent scream. That yellow hair, spread thin on the water, like gossamer, hair too long for a boy’s. And that stare – the way his dead eyes look into mine. The way they ask, ‘Why did you do this to me?’ Terrified eyes.

  I sit bolt upright in bed, the sheets bunched around me in a wet tangle, my pyjama top soaked with sweat, the scream still-born on my lips. I never shout. Not out loud. Not ever.

  I allow the dread to fade. The same way that other people wake, and allow circulation to return to an arm, after having slept on it. This is my morning ritual. I sit in bed, and breath slowly, and let terror fade.

  I look at the clock. Not quite seven o’clock. Libby is snoring beside me.

  I climb from the bed, quietly. I take a cold shower, and dress.

  Today I leave my wool suit on a hanger in the closet, and instead put on chinos and a short-sleeved polo. I walk to Libby’s side of the bed, lean over. Still asleep.

  ‘Libby?’

  She grunts, pulls the blanket over her shoulder, turns away from me.

  ‘Libby, baby, I’m leaving now, OK?’

  ‘Mmm,’ she says.

  ‘So we’ll talk when I get back. You know, about last night. OK?’ About you sobbing hysterically after we made love.

  Libby says, ‘Mmm.’

  I was hoping for more of a response. Any response.

  ‘OK?’ I ask again.

  She sighs. She turns to face me. Her eyes open wide. ‘OK,’ she says.

  ‘Things will get better,’ I say, because I think she needs to hear it. I realize, after I say it, that maybe it’s me that needs to hear it. ‘They will. You’ll see.’

  She pulls the blanket to her chin, and nods.

  I take my briefcase. On the way out of the room, I stop at the bureau. I lift the photograph of Libby and me sitting on the couch that New Year’s Eve long ago, when the red-skinned, horned satyr loomed behind us. Even in the half-light of the room, I’m struck by that image: my arm around Libby, Libby pulling away. It’s not a photograph of a husband and wife enjoying a night of revelry; it’s a photograph of a kidnapping in progress.

  I lay it back on the bureau. I’d like to take a photo to work with me, but not that one. I wish there was a photo of Cole. But Libby hid them all, after the night he died.

  From the bed, Libby says: ‘Take the one of us together.’

  I turn to her. She’s been watching. Even though I heard what she said, I ask, ‘What?’

  ‘If you’re going to bring one, bring the one of us together. Please.’

  I shrug. Again I lift the photo of the two of us in the San Francisco loft. I examine it. ‘It’s just... weird-looking,’ I say finally.

  ‘It has both of us,’ she explains.

  I’m not sure what she means, or why she cares, but at least she cares about something. So I say, ‘All right, baby.’

  I heft the photograph in one hand. The frame is strangely heavy. I pop my briefcase, lay the metal frame inside. I walk to the bedroom door. ‘Wish me luck,’ I say.

  ‘Knock them dead.’

  ‘I always do,’ I say, and shut the door behind me.

  I go downstairs and head out to the porch. It’s already seventy degrees. The sky is cloudless. The air smells like honeysuckle and hot gravel. I’m suddenly very glad about my decision to ditch the suit.

  Across the street, a blue Pontiac pulls into my neighbour’s driveway. It’s the only other house on the cul-de-sac – a mirror image of the house that Libby and I rent.

  The Pontiac cuts its motor. From the car steps a large, muscled man in expensive jeans and a tight silk T-shirt. He wears leather work boots.

  He stares at me from across the street. He has black deep-set eyes, a protruding forehead, and a small mouth and chin. The bulbous head and little lips make him look lizard-like, feral, carnivorous – like a velociraptor.

  I wave. I’m about to call hello, too, perhaps even walk across the street to introduce myself, but before I can, he turns and, without acknowledging me, lopes up his driveway and onto the porch. He doesn’t bother inserting a key into the door. He just turns the knob and walks inside. He’s gone.

  Something about what I just saw is odd. It’s not only the man’s physical appearance, although that is peculiar. There’s something about the way he’s dressed, too – those expensive tight-fitting clothes that don’t belong i
n a white-collar office. It’s an outfit you might see on a bouncer at a downtown nightclub – the clothes cost money, but you can’t hide the fact that, underneath, there’s a brute.

  And another thing. I look at my watch. Only a few minutes past eight o’clock. Why is my neighbour pulling into his driveway and coming home, when the rest of the world is going out towards work? I wonder what kind of job he has.

  I try to peer into his house, but the shades are closed tight, the windows dark. Everything about his house is uninviting.

  Welcome to the neighbourhood, I think to myself, as I get into my car and drive to work.

  CHAPTER 7

  Not directly to work, mind you.

  There’s that little matter of breakfast. You can’t turn a company around on an empty stomach. Indeed, there’s not much you can do on an empty stomach, except lose weight, and so I swing through the McDonald’s drive-thru for my daily Egg McMuffin.

  The Egg McMuffin is my morning ritual, having replaced cigarettes and booze a few years back. Not many people can feel virtuous eating an Egg McMuffin in the morning, but I can.

  Having driven through the drive-thru, I plop the car into park, and I eat the muffin at the side of the restaurant, with the engine running and the air blasting in my face. Twenty seconds later, I crumple the paper wrapper into a little ball, put the car into drive, dart out of the exit, then screech two quick lefts – Rockford Files style – and drive back through the drive-thru yet again, for a second McMuffin.

  Somewhere in the back of my mind, gulping down that second muffin, I sense there may be a tenuous link between my morning breakfast ritual and my ever-expanding abdomen. But that link, whatever it is, is shrouded in uncertainty, and requires further scientific study.

  I stop next at the bank, pull $200 out of the ATM, and finally arrive at the Tao office at 8.30. Apparently my ball-busting speech at the meeting yesterday had an effect: I’m not the first to have arrived. There are more than a few cars in the lot.

  Inside, Amanda is at the front reception desk, reading a book intently and underlining a passage with her pen. She’s so engrossed – staring at the text, biting her lower lip, concentrating – that she doesn’t notice me until I’m upon her. She looks up, surprised, and shuts the book.

  ‘Good morning, Jim,’ she says.

  ‘Morning, Amanda. Whatcha reading?’

  She smiles. ‘It’s a good book. Have you ever read it?’

  She holds it up for my inspection. It’s small, dog-eared, so old and worn from use that the gold foil stamp on the cover says only ‘Holy Bib’ – with the le just a faint embossment.

  ‘Not lately,’ I admit. But I’m not thrown by this. In my line of work – drug-induced self-destruction, that is – I’ve met more than a few super-hot women who turn out to be religious kooks. It’s no coincidence, either. Being attractive tends to get you into trouble, and loose women always think Jesus can get them out. Who am I to say they’re wrong?

  ‘All right,’ I say, nodding. ‘Rock on.’ I give a little fist pump to show I’m OK with Bible-reading at work. Better than porn, less good than the Employee Manual. Somewhere in between.

  I continue past, but she calls, ‘Jim.’ She lowers her voice, glances to the back of the bullpen. Her eyes convey warning. ‘Dom Vanderbeek is here. He’s been waiting for you.’

  Yesterday morning, I humiliated Dom Vanderbeek, our Vice President of Sales, by summoning him imperiously to the office at a moment’s notice. Once he arrived, I ignored him for the rest of the day, letting him seethe and glare at me across the tops of the cubicles in the bullpen. When he seemed unable to bear it any longer, I had Amanda send him a terse email inviting him to a ‘one-on-one’ meeting with me the following morning. It’s a little trick I’ve learned over the years: if you want to establish dominance in a corporate hierarchy, you have to be brutal. There must never be doubt about who is in charge.

  Now our meeting has begun, and I’m sitting in the high-tech boardroom, listening to Dom Vanderbeek. Rather than acting like a beaten man, humbly begging my approval, Dom has spent the past five minutes telling me why he’s the most important person in my world.

  These reasons include, in no particular order: Without Dom Vanderbeek, sales at Tao would plummet; Dom Vanderbeek’s mere presence boosts company morale; and Dom Vanderbeek can help me – a novice CEO – navigate insoluble management problems.

  Dom Vanderbeek looks exactly the way I expected him to. He’s in his early forties, tall and trim, with the build of a tri-athlete. He has a handsome face; short dark hair cut in a Caesar, greying at the temples; and a bright smile that is the result, I am sure, of expensive bleaching treatments. He wears a big masculine watch, which he makes a point of showing off by wearing his sleeves rolled. A Rolex Submariner, I note. The watch of choice for Sales VPs.

  When Dom finishes telling me why he is important to me, I nod thoughtfully, sit back in my chair, and say, ‘I understand what you’re saying.’

  ‘Do you, Jim?’ He leans forward, drills me with his gaze. ‘Do you really? Because yesterday you treated me very shabbily. I felt very bad about it.’

  I’ve met Dom’s type before. In his effort to move up the corporate ranks, Dom has taken several weekend seminars where they teach you effective ‘interpersonal skills’. Invariably these seminars advise you to confront co-workers, bosses, and subordinates openly and honestly, rather than stewing about perceived slights. In theory, it’s a good idea, but in practice it has the opposite effect of what you’re trying to achieve. Rather than making you seem open and honest, your co-workers perceive you as abrasive and confrontational. After all, you’re always telling them what’s bothering you.

  Dom says, ‘Do you know what I’m referring to, Jim?’

  I do. He’s referring to yesterday’s phone call where I put him on speakerphone and humiliated him in front of the rest of Tao’s employees. Actually, I do feel bad about that. But it’s one of those things you need to do when you arrive at a company that’s going down the shitter. There is no time for social niceties. You need to establish your authority. It’s immaterial who your target is. You need to pick someone. All that matters is that you let everyone at the company know that you are the alpha male, that you are in charge. In that way, the executive suite isn’t much different from prison. In both places, the leader needs to pick a bitch. I guess that makes Dom my bitch.

  ‘Listen, Dom,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry I was rude to you yesterday. Really I am. The truth is, I need you on my side.’

  ‘That’s good to hear.’

  ‘Every company needs a sales king. And I want you to be mine.’

  He nods. ‘All right, then.’

  ‘So tell me about sales.’

  ‘Sales?’

  ‘Since you are my sales king. Maybe you can let me know what’s in the sales pipeline.’

  ‘The pipeline is good,’ Dom says. ‘The pipeline is strong.’

  ‘OK.’ I nod. I wait for more. But he’s silent. So I say: ‘Can you give me a hint what’s in it?’

  ‘Well,’ he says, and sighs, as if the thought of having to run through the massive sales pipeline is frankly exhausting. ‘We’re talking to Facebook, of course. They’re the big player now. And MySpace. And Yahoo. And Google.’

  ‘You’re talking to them?’

  ‘And lots of smaller players, too.’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘So, my message is’ – he points his index finger at me – ‘I’m on top of it.’

  ‘Great,’ I say again. ‘But when you say that you’re talking to them, what does that mean? Talking like: “Hello, nice to meet you”? Or talking like: “Here’s the contract. Sign on the dotted line”?’

  ‘More like the second. The dotted line.’

  ‘OK,’ I say. ‘So do you have a pipeline report I can look at?’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘It’s a report that sales executives usually prepare. It describes what’s in the sales pipeline, and where we stand with
every prospect—’

  ‘I know what a pipeline report is, Jim. I’m asking why you want one.’

  ‘Well,’ I say patiently, ‘I’m curious whether our company will still exist in September. I’m curious if you and I will still have jobs. I’m hoping you can enlighten me.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘So will you prepare one for me? A pipeline report?’

  Dom looks at me as if I’ve asked him to change a dirty diaper.

  ‘Jim,’ he says. ‘Let me ask you something.’ He swivels in his chair, leans back, looks down his nose at me. ‘You seem to know all about me. Maybe I can ask about you. What’s your background?’

  ‘Fair question, Dom,’ I say, pleasantly, even though, at this instant, I make the decision that I will need to fire him. ‘Let’s see. I grew up in California. I graduated from Berkley undergrad. I worked twenty-five years in Silicon Valley. I’ve held sales and management jobs at several companies, including SGI, Lantek, NetGuard. A few others, too.’

  If my résumé impresses Dom, he doesn’t show it. ‘The reason I ask,’ Dom says, ‘is that I’m just wondering.’

  ‘Wondering what?’

  ‘Wondering why they appointed you CEO.’ He cocks his head and speaks in a gentle, quiet voice – as if he’s a child asking me to retell a particularly charming fairytale: the one where the village idiot wanders into the castle and is mistaken for king.

  ‘I suppose,’ I say, ‘because I have a track record.’ But it is a good question. I’m not exactly the most likely candidate for this job – or any turnaround job – with a résumé that includes two addictions, three arrests, and more than my share of day-long blackouts.

  ‘Do you have a track record?’ he asks. Again, it’s a friendly, encouraging tone of voice. There’s no malice, no hint of challenge.

  ‘Are you disappointed that they didn’t ask you to be CEO, Dom?’

  Dom nods. ‘I am. Yes, I am, Jim.’ Again, the in-your-face honesty. He must have passed that Interpersonal Skills Seminar with flying colours.