I seal the envelope, dial Amanda at the front desk, and ask her to come right away. When she does, I hand her the envelope. ‘Priority Overnight,’ I say. ‘I want this delivered first thing in the morning.’
Tomorrow morning I’ll have my answer.
CHAPTER 10
I arrive home at six thirty that evening. Still early enough, I hope, to surprise Libby, who is accustomed to my returning home quite late during my turnaround assignments – usually at ten or eleven o’clock, long after she eats dinner alone. Tonight, I have a different plan: to enjoy a leisurely evening with my wife – to cook dinner together, watch TV, maybe even make love. The unfolding train wreck that is Tao Software can wait until morning.
But when I pull into my driveway, I’m surprised that Libby’s Jeep is missing. Inside the house, there’s no sign of her. No note on the kitchen table, nothing stuck to the refrigerator door.
I climb the stairs, calling her name.
The bedroom is empty. The fan above the bed whirls slowly, squeaking. I go to the sliding glass door at the far side of the room, step onto the veranda. Down below I see the backyard and the swimming pool. But no Libby.
The cool, clean swimming pool gives me an idea. Back in the bedroom, I peel off my clothes – funky with sweat – and toss them into a pile on the floor. I find a bathing suit in my bureau and pad downstairs, barefoot, to the pool.
The pool is not large – just twenty feet across and seven feet wide – meant for one person to swim laps. There’s a low diving board at the deep end, which holds eleven feet of water. I was a diver in high school, probably good enough to compete in college. But I decided not to. There comes an age when most men realize it is unseemly to compete publicly at anything while wearing a tiny Speedo. It just took me longer than most.
I climb up the five steps of the ladder, patter out to the rough end of the diving board, wrap my toes around the edge, and – without thinking – let myself fall forward. That’s the secret to a good dive – pretending that you’re dead. ‘Fall like a corpse, boys!’ Coach Kramp used to yell to us, ‘Fall like a corpse!’
So I do.
I slice the water, propel myself forward, and swim the length of the pool without coming up for air. At the far wall, still submerged, I flip and turn.
That’s when I see him.
My eyes burn from the chlorine, and bubbles cling to my lashes, forcing me to squint, and I’m moving fast through the water, so my vision is blurred.
But I do see him.
I’m as sure of the dark form, floating in the water before me, as I am of the blue sky up above. The little body is back-lit, just a silhouette, a shadow, wavering at the water’s surface, sunlight dappling around it.
There’s no doubt who it is, though. That yellow hair, spread in a wide arc around his head, lit from behind like a golden halo in a medieval manuscript illumination. The little arms, stretched along the water surface.
No doubt who it is.
It’s Cole. Floating, right in front of me. I plant my feet on the rough cement below, stand up, and yell. I don’t shout his name, or any real word at all – my yell is just an inarticulate cry – a phlegmy shout. I cough up water, too, which somehow slid down my throat in my surprise, and for a moment I think I’m going to puke in my new pool.
I catch my breath, rub my eyes, wipe the water out, and look again.
Whatever I thought I saw – isn’t there. The pool is empty. No floating little boys, of course. No corpses. Nothing but water.
I shake my head.
I consider leaving the pool, but I know that if I do, I’ll never swim in it again. It’s not exactly pride that I feel, or adult embarrassment about a childish fear. That’s not what keeps me here. It’s different. It’s primitive. I feel like an animal, an animal whose territory has been encroached. I know, without putting the feeling into words, that if I leave here – if I give up this bit of territory to my dark thoughts, they won’t stop here. They’ll press in, find another room to surprise me in – maybe the living room, or the bedroom. They can have my dreams, if they want. They’ve already won that bit of real estate. But they can’t have my waking hours, too. Those are mine.
So I take a deep breath, and stubbornly continue to swim.
I swim laps, trying to put that vision – and all memories of that night – out of my mind. I concentrate instead on the sheer physicality of swimming. I listen to my own breathing. I feel my own heart. I hear the sound of the water splashing against the sides of the cement. I try to gauge my body’s response to exercise. I’m surprised – and a little depressed – that I’m winded by the tenth lap, and I am unable to continue by the fifteenth. I sigh. Years of self-abuse have caught up with me.
I look up, arch my back, and float on the surface of the water. I stare at the cloudless blue sky. I try to clear my mind, to think about nothing. I’m not sure how long I stay in this floating position. The water slaps and gurgles in my ears, so that I don’t hear Libby’s car pulling into the driveway, just on the other side of the fence.
But she must have arrived, because when I glance down at the house, almost by accident, I see Libby walking briskly inside, past the sliding glass doors, with great purposefulness. She is, I think, carrying something in her hands – what looks like a package the size of a jewellery box, wrapped in plain white butcher paper. Then she disappears out of view.
I stand, feel the grout under my toes, shake the water from my ears.
‘Libby?’ I call. ‘I’m out here.’
Maybe she doesn’t hear me, because she’s gone for quite some time, perhaps three or four minutes. I’m about to climb from the pool to search for her, when she finally appears at the sliding door. Her hands are now empty. She looks surprised to see me. She slides open the glass, steps onto the patio. ‘There you are,’ she says.
I try to leave the pool in a brisk, manly fashion. I put both hands on the concrete edge and jump. I swing one of my legs over the side, just barely, and for a moment I’m balanced precariously between success and failure. Luckily my momentum carries me forward, and I pull my other leg onto dry land. I hop to a standing position, hoping she hasn’t noticed my decrepitude.
Now, facing my wife, my bathing suit dripping, I realize, too late, that I forgot to bring a towel with me. I am embarrassed by my flabby stomach – that damned Egg McMuffin! – or was it two Egg McMuffins? – I can’t quite remember. I don’t want to look down at my stomach or call attention to it. Instead I try to keep my gaze steady, at my wife’s face. I hear water dripping from my hair onto the stonework below. I say, mostly to keep the attention away from my gut, ‘Where were you?’
She shrugs. ‘Just shopping.’
‘For what?’
‘Clothes.’
‘The stuff still in the car?’ I ask this because when I saw her walk into the house, she wasn’t carrying any large bags of merchandise – but rather, just a small package wrapped in white paper.
She smiles, as if my question is queer. ‘No, Sherlock. I’m having everything delivered.’ She stares at me. ‘It’s good to see you swimming,’ she says.
She sounds sincere. Before I can reply, she goes on, ‘I’ll start dinner. You must be hungry,’ and she retreats into the house.
I sit at the table as Libby stands near the stove. She’s sautéing a quartered chicken in a frying pan, and the smell of onions and garlic fills the kitchen. I’ve showered and dressed, in jeans and a soft button-down shirt, and feel more comfortable now that I’m clothed and my wife cannot see my naked body in daylight.
‘How was your swim?’ she asks.
For just a moment, I consider telling her about the imagined dead boy floating in our pool. It’s tempting. I want to be close to my wife. I want to share things with her, even if it’s only despair.
But of course I know better. Some things are best left unsaid. Particularly if they concern your dead son. The son you let drown.
‘Perfect,’ I say.
‘I’m so glad,�
�� she says. But she doesn’t look up from the chicken. And she doesn’t sound glad. She stares into the frying pan.
‘It’s a nice house,’ I say.
‘Is it?’ She continues staring stubbornly at the chicken, refusing to meet my gaze.
‘You don’t like it here,’ I say. ‘Do you?’
Finally, she looks up. ‘I like it fine,’ she lies.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ I say softly. ‘We won’t be here very long.’
I mean this as a comfort. But Libby’s expression changes. She looks nervous. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘I mean... the company’s a mess. We only have seven weeks of cash in the bank. That’s it.’
‘You can ask Tad for more, can’t you?’
‘Sure, I can ask. But he’ll say no. In fact, he already did.’ I recall that conversation with Tad, yesterday evening. ‘When I asked him for money, he said something very odd. He said I should protect him.’
‘Protect him from what?’
‘I guess from myself, asking for money. I don’t know. He said, “Protect me. Protect my investment.” And then he refused to invest another dollar.’
She says nothing. She thinks, for what seems like a long time. Finally: ‘Strange.’
‘What is?’
‘That he went through all the trouble of hiring you, and bringing you down here, and he doesn’t want you to succeed.’
‘Of course he wants me to succeed.’
‘Putting you in charge of a company with only seven weeks of cash. Refusing to give you more. It sounds like he wants you to fail.’
I am about to protest. To tell her that she’s wrong.
But then I don’t. Because she’s not.
What she says is true. Why is Tad installing me in a company that’s doomed to fail? Why is he refusing to put money into it, if he really wants it to be turned around?
Perhaps Libby senses that she hasn’t sounded sufficiently supportive of her husband. She says quickly, ‘Well, he must think you can do it. He must really believe in you.’
The preposterousness of this statement escapes neither of us. No one in the world believes in me. Not Tad. Not Libby. Not even, come to think of it, me. Mercifully, she doesn’t snort with laughter and roll her eyes after she says this.
‘You know what I found out today?’ I say. ‘Somebody has been stealing money from the company.’
‘Who?’
‘I’m not sure yet. But I’ll find out tomorrow.’ I add: ‘Three million dollars, at least.’
‘Wow,’ she says, to the chicken. She pokes a thigh with a fork, stares at the juice burbling out. ‘Three million dollars.’
‘That’s why I said, don’t get too comfortable. I’m not sure I can make this work.’
My wife looks up at me. Her face takes on a new hardness, like chiselled stone. ‘Jimmy,’ she says. And she stares for a long time, as if sizing me up. ‘You have to make this work. This is your last chance.’
I think about her words. What is she saying, exactly? That this is the last chance I will be given in the technology industry?
Or that this is the last chance she is going to give me – that after being dragged across the country three thousand miles, after having her life uprooted with some vague promise of a new start – that she has finally had enough, and that she is done with me?
Either way, does it matter? ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I understand.’
‘You have to make this work,’ she says again, and then goes on cooking dinner, staring at the chicken, not looking up at me again for some time.
CHAPTER 11
The next morning, I arrive in the office early, so that I can continue investigating the thief in our midst.
By now, the priority overnight package that I sent to ‘International Tradeshow Services’ – or at least to the commercial mailbox rented by that fictitious entity – has arrived.
I open a web browser and Google the street address that Joan gave me for International Tradeshow Services: 15266 Collier Boulevard, Naples, Florida, 34119. Google returns a half-dozen companies sharing the exact same address. A plumber, a dog-walking service, an architect, a time-management consultant, and two corporations of unspecified trade. All reside at 15266 Collier, in different suite numbers. My suspicions are confirmed: it’s a commercial post office box facility – a Mailboxes Etc., or similar chain.
I pick up the phone, dial information, and ask for Mailboxes Etc. at 15266 Collier, in Naples. The operator, a helpful woman no doubt speaking to me from sultry Bangalore, explains that there is no Mailboxes Etc. at that address, but there is a Postal Plus. Would I like that number?
Yes, I certainly would.
The operator reads the phone number and connects the call. The line rings three times. A man eventually answers. ‘Postal Plus,’ he says, sounding aggrieved.
‘Hi,’ I say. ‘It’s me – from International Tradeshow? I’m expecting that important FedEx from Tao Software. Has it arrived?’
‘Just put it in your box.’
‘Damn it,’ I say. ‘How many times do I have to go over this with you? I want all FedExes forwarded directly to me. Didn’t we talk about this already?’
‘No.’
‘You have my address on file, don’t you?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Let me guess. You probably lost that, too. Why aren’t I surprised? Last time you gave my FedEx to the goddamned dog-walkers.’ Then, as an afterthought: ‘Do you know where to send it or not?’
A brief pause. I picture a man flipping desperately through a little box of handwritten index cards. He says finally: ‘56 Windmere Avenue, on Sanibel, right?’
‘That’s right,’ I say, and scribble the address on a sheet of paper. ‘Send it right away. Thank you.’ I hang up.
So: at 56 Windmere Avenue, wherever that is, I’ll find the employee who has been stealing from Tao. What will I do when I learn his identity? I’m not sure. At a minimum, I’ll try to recover the money. If it means jail time for the perpetrator, so be it.
I stand up, fold the paper with the Windmere address, and slide it into my pants pocket. I am about to leave the office, to continue my investigation, when Dom Vanderbeek appears in my doorway.
‘You ready?’ he asks.
‘For what?’
He smiles. It’s the mean smile of a school bully about to hang the weak kid by his underwear in a locker. ‘We’re on,’ Vanderbeek says. ‘Twelve o’clock sales meeting at Old Dominion Bank. You still want to come, don’t you?’ Almost a taunt. Just yesterday I told Vanderbeek to set up a meeting with any retail bank that would be able to sign a cheque for a half-million dollars. And I insisted that I should come along to run the meeting.
‘I’ll come,’ I say.
‘Great,’ Vanderbeek says. ‘I’m looking forward to seeing you in action.’
CHAPTER 12
Desperate times call for desperate measures, do they not?
What else but a desperate measure could you call this: Asking Randy Williams, my moronic Engineering VP, and Darryl Gaspar, his long-haired programmer, to come along on a sales meeting to Old Dominion Bank, in Tampa – the sales meeting upon which the entire fate of Tao Software now rests?
I ask them to bring a demo of P-Scan. This, it turns out, is just Darryl’s beat-up laptop computer, and an old digital camera. The set-up performed adequately two days ago, so I’m hoping lightning can strike twice.
We take Vanderbeek’s car. It is a stylish BMW 7 Series sedan. Sticker price: $80,000. I can’t help noticing these sorts of things, with the mysterious corporate embezzler still in the back of my mind.
Vanderbeek drives the way he talks, smoothly and authoritatively, weaving through highway traffic, ignoring the people around him, pushing them aside and slicing into their lanes. The drive takes just over ninety minutes. I spend much of the time role-playing with Vanderbeek, learning the names of the people who will attend the meeting: Samir Singh, Old Dominion’s VP of Consumer Privacy; Stan Po
ntin, their CTO; maybe even (although this is not confirmed) Sandy Golden, Old Dominion’s CEO.
The agenda for the meeting, I explain to my colleagues, is simple. We will tell Old Dominion that P-Scan is almost ready for commercial release. We will say that Tao wants to deploy the software in a handful of retail bank branches, as a pilot project. We will require a $500,000 commitment from Old Dominion, which will be used to fund final development of the software, and pay for setting up the software in the banks. In exchange, Old Dominion will buy a small piece of Tao Software.
Because we will deploy our astounding technology in Old Dominion’s branches – and not branches owned by its rivals – Old Dominion will garner all the favourable media attention that is sure to come from the project. Even better, Old Dominion will share in the profits when Tao sells its product to Old Dominion’s competitors. (Nothing delights an executive so much as discovering a way to have his competitors pay him money.)
That’s the plan, anyway. It is, I must admit, a long shot. But if we can somehow pull it off – if we can somehow convince Samir Singh, Stan Pontin, and Sandy Golden to write a cheque for $500,000, Tao will gain a few additional weeks of life. Even better, with a modest success to our credit, we may then be able to convince Tad Billups and Bedrock Ventures to sink another five or ten million into Tao.
We arrive in Tampa at eleven thirty. We park in the underground garage below Old Dominion’s headquarters, a tall round office tower that looks like a mirrored cigarette. We take the elevator to the fifteenth floor.
The elevator empties into an executive suite, which was clearly designed to convey a message to visitors. The message goes something like this: ‘If you did not choose retail banking as your profession, you chose incorrectly.’
The reception area has plush carpet, thickly upholstered chairs, and a cherry-wood table polished to high gloss. On the table, industry trade rags have been carefully fanned out: American Banker, CTO Magazine, Retail Branch Specialist. Perhaps not surprisingly, their pages seem virginal, untouched.
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