In the reception area, Amanda greets me with sleepy eyes. ‘Good morning, Jim,’ she says. Since last week, neither of us has acknowledged our church-basement date, our kiss, or my brush with Jesus in her apartment.
‘Morning, Amanda,’ I say, trying to sound chipper and boss-like. ‘How are things?’
‘Lonely,’ she sighs.
The complaint of a spurned lover? The gripe of an employee? When you’re in charge of a company and you can’t tell the difference, that’s probably a warning sign.
‘Things will get better,’ I say, vaguely – an answer that works in either case.
‘Sure, Jim,’ she says.
‘You know what they say,’ I begin, ‘it’s always darkest before...’ but Amanda holds up her index finger – the workplace gesture that translates roughly to: ‘Shut up, you boring load’ – and she presses a key on her telephone console, and says into the headset, ‘Tao Software. How may I help you?’ And then: ‘Let me see if he’s available.’
She looks to me. ‘Tad Billups.’
‘In my office,’ I say, and I race to meet the call as she transfers it to my desk.
I shut the office door.
‘Hi, Tad,’ I say, easing into my chair. ‘What’s up?’
‘You tell me, champ,’ Tad says. ‘How did it go?’
He means the lay-offs, and did anyone get killed.
‘Fine,’ I say. ‘Fine. I did what was required.’
‘I knew your would, champ,’ he says. ‘That’s why I hired you. Now I’m going to give you some good news. Do you want good news?’
‘Sure I do.’
‘Are you near a computer?’
‘Yes.’
‘Look in your bank account. Your personal bank account. Not the Tao Software bank account. We already know the balance there, right?’ He laughs. ‘Zero!’
‘Tad,’ I begin, ‘I’m glad you brought that up. I know you said there would be no further investment by your firm, but I think you should reconsider. We just need a little bit more runway, Tad. That’s all we need, just some runway. I thought maybe if you could talk to your partners and—’
‘Did you look yet?’
‘Look at what?’
‘Your bank account.’
‘No.’
‘Do it. Right now. While I’m on the phone.’
I sigh. On my desktop computer, I launch a web browser, log in to the Wells Fargo account belonging to me and Libby.
‘There,’ Tad says. ‘See it yet?’
At first I think I have made a mistake, that I have somehow accessed the wrong bank account – someone else’s bank account. When I understand this is impossible, I have a second thought: that the bank has made a monumental error, and that I must hang up with Tad and report this immediately. Isn’t it true that not reporting a bank error is the equivalent to stealing – that you can be thrown in jail for it? That’s all I need to put the finishing touch on my résumé – seven to twelve years in a federal penitentiary.
‘Hello, hotshot, are you there?’ Tad’s voice calls me back. ‘You see your account?’
I do see my account. The screen says that my cash balance, which – just Monday morning, when I last paid my bills, was $22,100.12 – is now, at 9.36 on Thursday morning, $2,022,100.12. Between Monday and today, I have made two million dollars.
‘Tad,’ I say. I try to keep my voice calm. I sense that something in my life is changing, and not for the better. Before this moment, I had fears and doubts and suspicions. I suspected that Tad Billups was involved in... what was the word I used, when I voiced my doubts to Libby? – shenanigans. But shenanigans are the acts of drunk fraternity brothers – short-sheeting the pledges, dabbing warm water on their wrists while they sleep. Two million dollars in a bank account is not a shenanigan. It is something different. Very different. It is something related to cash in garbage bags, to missing CEOs, to Russian gangsters.
‘What is this, Tad?’
‘What does it look like, hotshot? It’s money. M – O – N – E... money.’
‘You forgot the Y.’
‘There is no why in money, Jimmy. Get my point?’
‘No.’
‘Well, here’s how I’ll put it. This is my way of thanking you. Of saying, you’re doing a good job. Keep it up.’
‘But I’m not doing a good job. I can’t save this company, Tad. It can’t be saved.’
‘I think you must know,’ he says, and pauses, ‘that’s not what I mean. That’s not what I care about.’
‘What do you care about?’
‘Come on, Jimmy,’ he says, and for the first time I hear a human being at the other end of the phone. It’s the voice of an old friend, a man who began as my peer, long ago, but whose career has since surpassed mine. It’s the voice of compassion, and charity, and patience – the voice of a man who has slowed down for me, just for a moment, and who has reached out his hand, one last time, to help. He continues, ‘You’re a lot of things, Jimmy. You’re a drunk, and you’re a cheat, and you don’t pass up blow if it’s free at a party. But you’re not stupid. Are you?’
‘No.’
‘Are you?’ he asks again.
‘No.’
‘Well then.’ A long silence. He’s calling me from his cellphone – the connection has that radio-from-the-moon quality, but the line is quiet; he’s not calling from a moving car, or from a busy sidewalk. He’s sitting in a room somewhere, a quiet room, with the door locked behind him. He’s alone.
‘Here’s what I want you to do,’ he says softly. ‘That lovely wife of yours. She is a lovely girl, and I must tell you that if you don’t want her, I’ll take her for myself. I want you to hang up the phone with me, and get into your car, and drive down to the nearest Bloomingdales. They do have Bloomingdales out there, don’t they, Jimmy?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘They have something. Whatever they have, go there. And buy that wife of yours something wonderful. What would she like?’
‘A new husband.’
‘Nu-uh,’ he says, clucking his tongue. ‘No can do. She’s stuck with you. And you’re stuck with her. So do the right thing, for once. Buy her something expensive. Ah, to hell with Bloomingdales. Go to the Mercedes dealer, and buy her one of those convertibles. She like Mercedes?’
‘I guess.’
‘Of course she does! All women like Mercedes. They like driving around with the top down in the sunshine, while their husband is at work. Reminds them why they put up with the fat pig in the dark.’
‘I can’t keep it, Tad.’
‘Keep what?’
‘The money.’
Another long silence. ‘Why not?’
Why not, indeed? I’m not sure what to answer. Before this morning, when I had a mere suspicion of illegal activity at Tao, I was just a bystander – maybe a bystander who was encouraged to look the other way – but still a bystander. By accepting this money, I become something else. An accomplice. Two million dollars in my bank account. Exactly half of the amount missing from the company’s coffers.
‘Listen, partner,’ Tad says. His choice of word chills me. Partner. ‘Here’s what you have to understand. You’re a businessman. I’m a businessman. It’s all business. In business, there’s give and there’s take. I’m going to give to you, and you’re going to take.’
‘Tad—’
‘Listen,’ he snaps. ‘I’m not finished.’ More gently: ‘Now, after this gig is over, there’ll be other companies. Bigger companies. That’s what’s great about your line of work, Jimmy – the supply of human weakness is unlimited. There’s always more garbage for you to clean up! And, after Tao, you’ll have a track record. You’ll get bigger jobs. More important jobs. I’ll help you get them. For now, just keep quiet and make everyone happy.’
‘Who is everyone?’ I ask, suddenly emboldened. ‘Who? You and who else?’
‘My partners,’ Tad says.
‘Who are your partners?’
‘You know,’ Tad
says quietly, with a chill in his voice.
I have met the three other partners at Tad’s venture-capital firm, Bedrock Ventures. I have pitched all three of them my cockamamie business ideas, have sat in board meetings with them, and have – when things were going badly – requested desperate lunch appointments. There’s Steve Burnham, a software entrepreneur and MIT grad, who made two hundred million dollars selling a piece-of-shit start-up to Yahoo, exactly one year before Yahoo shut down the unit and wrote it off as worthless. There’s Biram Sanjay, the ex-BCG consultant, whose area of specialization, as far as I can tell, based on my interaction with him, is to show up at board meetings, draw four squares on a whiteboard, and tell CEOs that they ought to ‘move to the upper right quadrant’. There’s Tench Worthington, nicknamed (behind his back, of course) Tench Worth-a-Ton – Harvard undergrad and MBA, lineage back to the Mayflower, nose like a Roman statue – whose function at Bedrock Ventures is that of a skeleton key: he opens a lot of doors – at endowments, state pensions, family offices – and convinces important people to sign cheques.
Each of Tad’s partners is insufferable in a different way – and none is a person I want to spend an hour with. But not one is a criminal. Not a single one would sign up for this plan: to drain cash from Bedrock’s investments, and have it flow into the pockets of Tad and myself. After all, the cash is their cash. The money I now possess came from them.
‘Tad,’ I ask again, ‘who do you work for?’
‘Too many questions, hotshot.’ A pause. ‘Dangerous questions. N’est-ce pas?’
‘Tad—’
‘Listen, my friend. Men like you, how many chances do you think you’re going to get? Two? Three? Five? What number are you on, anyway?’
‘Maybe ten.’
‘“Maybe ten,”’ he mimics me, using a pansy voice. ‘Try maybe twelve or thirteen. And this is it, Jimmy. Last stop on the Loser Express. Guess what, buddy? You don’t have the luxury of picking your gigs. Take what you get. And that means taking the people who come with it. Me, my partners, the whole ball of wax. We’re a package.’
‘I’m just asking who they are.’
‘And I’m just telling you to stop asking. Now, listen, I have to go. I have an appointment. A manicure, if you can believe that. Does that make me gay? I hope, sincerely hope, you stop being so curious. This isn’t a game, Jimmy. The people we’re talking about – they aren’t Silicon Valley people. They haven’t drunk the Kool-Aid. They don’t buy into the “Let’s ask lots of questions and see if we can do better by questioning all our assumptions” bullshit. These people do not like questions. So don’t ask them.’
‘Is that what happened to Charles Adams?’
‘Goddamn it, Jimmy!’ he yells. ‘I tell you to stop asking questions, and what do you do? You ask another question. Now, remember what I told you.’
‘Not to ask questions.’
‘No, you misogynistic pig. To buy your wife a Mercedes. If you’re in doubt about the colour, try black. It’ll go great with Libby’s hair.’
‘All right, Tad.’
‘Ciao, hotshot.’
Before I can say ciao, the line is dead, and he’s gone.
CHAPTER 26
Have you ever done this?
Have you ever pulled into the driveway of your house, in a brand new Mercedes SL550 Roadster, with the top down, after spending exactly thirty-two minutes at a dealership negotiating the car’s purchase – that negotiation consisting exactly of this: asking the sticker price of the car, nodding dumb agreement, and writing a personal cheque for the entire six-figure amount?
If you have never done this, you should try it sometime. It is nice to see how the other part of humanity lives. By ‘the other part of humanity’, I mean the insanely rich, or the seriously criminal, or those who reside in the intersection between the two – the place where I now curiously find myself.
I park this new Mercedes in the driveway, cut the motor, and use my cell to call Libby. ‘I have a surprise for you,’ I tell her. ‘Come outside.’
Soon the door opens, and Libby walks onto the porch. When she sees the car, she staggers back, maybe in surprise. Or maybe it’s just the heat – it’s only three p.m., and the sun is high and incandescent.
‘What in the world?’ she says, although of course she knows exactly what in the world.
She trundles down the stairs. I climb out of the car, leaving the door open. ‘For you.’
‘Me?’
‘My way of saying thank you... for putting up with me. All my trouble. All my shit.’
‘Oh, Jimmy,’ she says, ‘you don’t have to thank me.’ I notice she doesn’t disagree about the trouble and shit part – just the thanks.
One week has passed since that night in the restaurant, and since Tad’s phone call. Things have been quiet since then – quiet at work, and even quieter at home: no anger, no conflict – just a numbness, as if the house where Libby and I live is bathed in a mist of anaesthesia.
Libby touches my arm and slides into the car, and the leather seat crinkles under her cotton sundress, and she wraps her slender fingers around the hand-stitched steering wheel. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she murmurs. She pushes back into the seat, looks at herself in the mirror. Casually, an afterthought: ‘How did you pay for it?’
‘A bonus from Tad.’
She glances at me, sidelong. ‘What kind of bonus?’
A Jimmy-should-keep-his-mouth-shut bonus, I think silently. But out loud I say, ‘Retention.’
‘Does that mean he’s happy?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘Good.’ She gets out of the car and closes the door. It makes a solid hundred-grand thunk. ‘Keep them happy, Jimmy. It’s so important to keep them happy.’
She gives a quick, almost imperceptible glance across the street, to our neighbour’s house. Just for an instant. Or maybe I’m imagining it, because now she’s looking at me again, squinting into the sun and staring into my face. She squeezes my hand – a gesture of charity, not gratitude – and rises to her toes, and gives me a chaste peck on the cheek. ‘It was nice of you,’ she says, ‘to buy this for me.’
‘I love you.’
She says nothing.
I go on, ‘I just want everything to be normal again. That’s all I want for you and me, Libby. A normal life.’
‘A normal life?’ she repeats dully. Her lips twist into one of her mean little smiles, which usually indicates a waspish comment about to come. Maybe something like: If you wanted a normal life, you shouldn’t have left your son alone to drown while you got high.
But whatever she is thinking, she does not say. She just walks silently to the house.
I stay behind. Something bothers me. When she’s on the porch, I call to her, ‘Libby?’
She turns.
I say: ‘You said “them”.’
Her face is blank.
‘You said keep them happy. Who did you mean by “them”?’
A queer look – both puzzled and annoyed. ‘Tad,’ she says. ‘Tad and... Bedrock Ventures.’
No, I think. That is not what you meant.
‘Come inside, Jimmy,’ she says. ‘Let me cook you dinner. A normal dinner. So that we can be normal together. That’s what we want, isn’t it?’
And then she’s gone.
I’m not sure how long I stand there, in the driveway, in the sun, thinking about my wife, and her moods, and her mysteries.
When I told Lance, the salesman at the Mercedes showroom, that the new car would be a gift for my wife – meant as a surprise – he laughed and winked and said, ‘You’re going to be a lucky man tonight!’ I just shook my head and told him, ‘You don’t know Libby.’
No one knows Libby, including me. Maybe not even Libby herself. She’s a Chinese puzzle box, intricate and beautiful, full of secrets. She never reacts the way I expect. When I let our son drown, she claims to forgive me. When I try to love her, she pushes me away. I understand her no better today than I did eleven year
s ago, the night we first met.
I stand in the driveway, pondering this. I’m in no hurry to go inside, to return to her. Out here, it might be a hundred degrees, something close to hell, but at least I don’t have to bear that look from my wife. I hear footsteps behind me.
I turn to see Special Agent Tom Mitchell walking up the drive, looking preposterously crisp and cool in a linen shirt and a knitted cotton tie, despite the heat. His sleeves are rolled; his white suit jacket is slung casually over his shoulder. The only thing he needs to complete the look of a Southern dandy is a straw hat and a mint julep.
‘Whoooeee,’ he says, half whistling, as he circles the Mercedes, staring lustfully. ‘Now that is one fine automobile.’ With this last word, his transformation into plantation owner is complete: auto-MO-beel. ‘That a new car, Mr Thane?’
‘Brand new,’ I say.
‘Cost a pretty penny, I bet.’ He’s still circling the car, shark-like, examining it from every angle.
‘It’s a gift for my wife.’
‘That right?’ he says. He purses his lips. ‘She must be a special lady.’
He stands on his toes and peers into the car, as if that special lady might be right there, chopped up into pieces on the floor.
‘Yes,’ I say.
‘I thought I’d stop by,’ he says, looking at me, smiling. ‘I wanted to see how things are going. From the looks of it, not bad.’
He glances at my house, and the wraparound porch, and the fence hiding what must be a swimming pool. I see the gears turning: he’s trying to figure out how much all this is worth, and how I afford it.
‘Can’t complain,’ I say. ‘What can I do for you, Agent Mitchell?’
‘Do you remember that name I mentioned to you, last time we spoke?’
‘What name is that?’
‘Ghol Gedrosian.’
I do remember, of course. The name sounded strange and foreign, back when I first heard it, weeks ago, in the boardroom at Tao. Today it seems less strange, less foreign. Indeed, I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the name of one of Tad Billups’s partners. One of his silent partners. And so, I suppose, one of my partners.
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