No Way Back

by Matthew Klein

  ‘Everything you have, was once his. Everything you have, he can take away. Even your life. Do you understand?’

  I nod.

  ‘Say it. Say you understand.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘You must accept his gifts,’ he says, ‘and be grateful for them.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Say it.’

  ‘I accept his gifts. I am grateful for them.’

  ‘His power is vast. More vast than you can imagine.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say.

  ‘Say it.’

  ‘His power is vast. More vast than I can imagine.’

  ‘That’s right.’ He nods. He stands. He stares at me. ‘Look at you. Pathetic. Fat. Disgusting. Weak. Yet he wants to protect you.’

  ‘Protect me?’

  He slides his knife back into its sheath. ‘Vanderbeek will not bother you again,’ he says. ‘Obviously.’

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘And as for you,’ he says. ‘There must be no more investigating. No more questions. No more thinking. Do you understand these words? No more thinking, Mr Thane.’ He taps my forehead with his huge thumb, to demonstrate where my thinking must not take place. ‘Thinking is for dead men.’

  ‘I’m not a big fan of thinking,’ I admit.

  ‘No more going to widow’s houses. No more asking your little secretary for secret files. Do you understand what I tell you?’

  To help me understand what he tells me, he gives me one last kick in the ribs, a hard one, and I hear a crack as his toe connects with bone, and I fall backwards, and I yell, ‘Oh shit! Fuck! Please stop.’

  ‘Did that hurt?’ he asks.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. This makes me happy. Go back to work. If you see me ever again, it means I’ve come to kill you.’

  CHAPTER 36

  I go back to work.

  It hurts when I breathe, but at least there’s no blood, and Amanda barely looks at me as I limp into the reception area, and head back to my office.

  I’m vaguely aware that this is how Charles Adams behaved during his final days on the planet – taking meetings with scary men, slinking back to his office, shutting his door and hiding within.

  I shut my door. I collapse into my chair.

  ‘He wants to protect you,’ the blond man said. I touch my ribs. They do not feel protected, not at this moment, and I pull my shirt from my pants, and stare at the purplish black bruises that have appeared on my chest. I press one. It hurts. No, I do not feel protected.

  But he did not kill me. Maybe that is Ghol Gedrosian’s idea of protection. Not killing you.

  I open my desk drawer, remove the business card belonging to Agent Tom Mitchell. I study it carefully, as if the telephone numbers and street address are ancient runes that require deciphering – answers to long asked, never answered, questions. I stare at the telephone on my desk. For exactly three seconds, I consider lifting the receiver, and calling Agent Mitchell. I would tell him about Dom Vanderbeek, and the corpse in the house, and how I work for a Russian mobster, and how I’ve been paid millions of dollars to look the other way while Ghol Gedrosian steals money from the company that I supposedly run.

  But of course I don’t. I don’t tell him these things. I don’t pick up the phone.

  I slide Agent Mitchell’s card into my wallet. Again I think back to the story he told me, of the DA in California, and what happened to him, and his children. I know that if I pick up the phone, the same will happen to me. That’s what the blond man meant: If you see me ever again, it means I’ve come to kill you.

  If I pick up the phone, I will see the blond man again. Maybe tonight, in my house, leaning over my bed, when I open my eyes for the last time. Or maybe at Tao, this afternoon, in reception, seated on a chair like a photocopier salesman, waiting for me to leave the office. Or maybe in my car, as I pull out of my driveway tomorrow morning.

  Somehow, Ghol Gedrosian will know if I lift this phone to speak to the FBI. Just as he knows everything that I’ve done since I’ve come to Florida.

  How did the blond man know that I drove to Sanibel? I told no one that I was going to the house on 56 Windmere. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision... one that I made when Pete Bland walked into my office, and shut the door, and told me that I owned that house.

  The blond man’s words come back to me: No more going to widow’s houses. No more asking your little secretary for secret files.

  He knew about that too. About my visit to Charles Adams’s widow. About my conversation with Amanda – the conversation that took place right here, in this office, with the door shut, the two of us alone...

  And Dom Vanderbeek, too. It was here that he threatened me –

  standing right here – in the doorway to my office.

  I feel a chill. I’m being watched. I keep my body very still. My eyes glide around the room. Searching.

  Searching.

  He hears everything, Mrs Adams told me. He has ears.

  The ravings of a mad woman.

  Or was it something else?

  I rise from my chair, slowly, trying to make the gesture seem natural, as if I’m just stretching my legs. I glance casually at the ceiling, the smoke detector, the coat hook behind the door, the power outlets in the wall. A hundred places to hide a listening device. A thousand spots to bury a microphone.

  But it’s not buried, is it? It’s not hidden. It’s right here. Right in front of me.

  From my desk, I lift the photograph with the ornate silver frame. The photograph of me and Libby and Satan. The frame that’s so heavy and peculiar and large.

  I stare at it – one final time – that curious photo, which has always seemed so wrong to me – doctored, perhaps – or staged. I lay it on the floor, and I lift my shoe, and I slam down my heel. The glass shatters.

  I kneel beside it. The metal frame has cracked, not being solid metal at all. Poking from the hidden compartment are black wires, which are attached to something that looks very much like a microphone, and a camera, and a thin metal antenna.

  Now I recall that morning long ago, when I first arrived at Tao, how Libby insisted that I bring this photograph – this particular one – to the office. ‘Because it has us together,’ she explained, and I believed her. As I have believed Libby for so many years.

  Now everything makes sense: her meanness, her sulking. Her standing beside me, despite the fact that she so certainly hates me.

  She works for Tad Billups. She has always worked for Tad.

  Maybe she is sleeping with him, too. That would explain a great deal. My wife, and my best friend, fucking, and plotting against me.

  And then, a thought comes. It arrives uninvited, and it surprises me with its clarity and its pureness.

  It is: You deserve it, Jimmy.

  Everything you’ve got, you had coming. Everything you have, you deserve.

  CHAPTER 37

  Each time I have spoken to Tad Billups on the telephone since I arrived in Florida, I have been on the receiving end of his call to me.

  Now it’s my turn to play offence, my turn to surprise him. I’m not even sure what I’m going to say to him – ‘How do you like fucking my wife?’ perhaps – or maybe nothing of the kind. I’m not worried. I’ll know what to say to my old friend as soon as I hear his voice.

  I peck around my computer for his office telephone number and I dial. The receptionist who answers has that smoky, heard-it-all-before voice that venture capital firms love to use as gatekeepers: sexy, yes; friendly, a bit – but not too friendly; always a hint of wariness – thanks for your call, but who the hell are you exactly?

  ‘Hello, thank you for calling Bedrock Ventures. This is Alicia speaking. How may I direct your call?’

  ‘Tad Billups, please.’

  A long silence. Finally: ‘Who’s calling?’

  ‘Jimmy Thane.’

  Another silence. Which leads me to think I need to add more detail. Like who I am. ‘Alicia, I’m Jim Thane from Ta
o Software. I’m sure you know that I am the CEO at one of your portfolio companies.’ My voice is meant to convey certainty, and seriousness, and more than a hint of impatience. ‘Let me talk to Tad please.’

  Another pause, as if I’ve just announced that I am calling from Planet Mars, on behalf of General Mixilplc, to discuss recalibrating the cosmic ray gun.

  Finally, after what seems like for ever, the smoky voice responds, ‘Please hold.’

  She is replaced by music – the Beatles’ ‘Penny Lane’, reimagined as muzak on a pan flute. After a minute, the music stops abruptly, and a male voice comes on the line.

  ‘This is Tench. Who am I speaking to?’

  Tench Worth-a-Ton – Tad’s partner. Every venture capital firm has a Tench, a man who can speak the language of the wealthy nincompoops whose money they need to finagle. You can’t send a dark-skinned Indian or a mysterious Chinaman into a family office in the deep woods of Akron – even if it is these exotic specimens who will actually manage the money on behalf of the fourth-generation steel barons of Ohio.

  You need a Tench. Every firm does. Dumb as a wall, but with blood that goes back to the Mayflower, and a Yale degree, and a Harvard MBA. And a mean forehand in squash.

  ‘Tench?’ I say, trying to lather up some enthusiasm for the bastard. ‘It’s me, Jimmy.’

  ‘Jimmy?’ As if he has no idea who I am.

  ‘Jimmy Thane. Tad there?’

  ‘Tad?’

  Jesus, I think to myself, I’m trying to reach the man who’s cuckolding me, and Tench wants to play Twenty Questions.

  ‘Yeah, Tad. Tad Billups. I asked your receptionist to connect me. I’m not sure why she put me through to you. How ya’ doing, Tench?’

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘Jimmy Thane.’

  At the other end of the phone, there’s a noise, a sudden explosion of breath. It sounds suspiciously like a laugh. A laugh of disbelief.

  I continue nevertheless. ‘That’s right. CEO of Tao Software. It’s part of your portfolio, Tench. I’m sure you’re aware of that.’

  This last statement is meant as a joke – or at least is as much sarcasm as I can muster, given the circumstances – because even the laziest VC knows every company in his portfolio, knows it intimately, just as he knows every single entrepreneur working at these portfolio companies – working for him, effectively. These entrepreneurs, after all, are entrusted with a large portion of the VC’s net worth, and are trying to make that VC rich.

  But Tench Worthington does not treat my statement as a joke. In fact, he is silent for a long time. I’m about to ask him if he’s still on the line, when he finally says, ‘Jimmy Thane, the drunk?’

  If I weren’t sitting down, securely in my chair, I’d reel backwards across the room. Instead, I feel merely light-headed, as if something in the world has changed, something fundamental, like the direction the earth rotates around the sun, or whether it does so at all. But I say, agreeably, ‘Drunk, sure. And don’t forget about the womanizing and the coke, Tench. So will you get Tad on the phone for me?’

  ‘Jimmy, what are you saying? Where are you?’

  ‘Jesus Christ, you piece of shit,’ I say, finally losing all patience. ‘I’m in fucking East Buttfuck, Florida, you asshole. I’m sweating my ass off for your cheating double-crossing partner, and it’s one hundred fucking degrees. Are you telling me he hasn’t even bothered to let you know that I’m working for you?’

  ‘Jimmy Thane,’ he says, in quiet wonder, half to himself. ‘I never thought I’d hear from you. Not after what happened.’ He clears his throat. ‘Jimmy, we wrote off Tao Software last year. Dead loss. Goose eggs. We decided to shut the company down. Is this some kind of – I don’t know – some kind of joke?’

  ‘Fuck you, Tench,’ I say, and only after I say it do I realize I’m not joking. Not a bit. ‘Put your cocksucker partner on the phone. Put Tad on.’

  ‘Tad,’ he says, as if the name is interesting, worth repeating. ‘Tad, Tad, Tad. Well, here’s the thing, Jimmy.’

  ‘What’s the thing, Tench?’

  ‘The thing is, Tad took a voluntary leave of absence. It was a long time ago. Early last year. He hasn’t been with Bedrock since 09. You know, after the incident, everyone thought it might be best.’

  ‘What incident?’

  ‘I’m sure you heard. About the babysitter? The girl that got strangled with her own underwear?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, until a court decides, we won’t know for sure. But we all mutually agreed that, until a jury makes a determination about guilt or innocence... ’

  ‘What jury? What the fuck are you talking about? Where is Tad? He fucking hired me.’

  ‘I don’t know, Jimmy. I haven’t spoken to Tad in over a year. He doesn’t work here. He hasn’t worked here for a long time. And he never will. And I can assure you, no one at my firm would ever hire you. Not to run anything. Not to run around the block.’ He pauses, then adds: ‘No offence.’

  ‘None taken, asshole.’

  ‘But if I see him,’ Tench says, ‘which I doubt I will, since I don’t plan on visiting prison, should I tell him you called?’

  CHAPTER 38

  It’s raining when I arrive home.

  It started softly – just a few drops on the windshield as I pulled out of the office parking lot – but by the time I step from my car, in the driveway, it’s steady and threatening more. I look up. Just past noon, but the sky is black. Water spatters the gravel at my feet, kicking up the smell of hot summer dust. In the distance, a grumble of thunder.

  Libby’s Mercedes is gone. But I didn’t expect her to be home. How can you stay in a house, waiting for your husband, when you’re leading a secret life, working for someone else, fucking someone else?

  Inside, I walk up the stairs, to our bedroom. I start in her underwear drawer – because that’s where women keep their secrets. I run my hands through her clothes. I’m not sure what I’m looking for: the sharp foil edge of a condom, or the soft bulk of a secret diary, or the crinkling paper of a letter from a lover. Maybe a letter written by Tad. Or maybe a letter penned in Cyrillic.

  I find none of these things. Just underwear, and not even much of that.

  I move to the closet. I start at the top shelves, feeling between sweaters. Then I kneel, and peer into her shoe-boxes and purses. I find nothing: no notes, no letters, no secrets.

  I pad down the stairs into the kitchen, where I open the drawers in quick sequence, flipping through the crap that kitchens accumulate: corkscrews, can openers, dull knives, spatulas, a ball of twine. I look inside the cabinets next, into the nooks behind the dishes and glassware. I dump into the sink the contents of a ceramic canister filled with flour. A Tupperware of sugar.

  Outside, the rain starts to pour. It drums against the roof. Lightning flashes and, seconds later, thunder booms over the house, rattling the windows in their sashes.

  There’s another flash, just as I’m looking through the pane of glass, and it illuminates the vegetable plot, and, behind it, the garden shed.

  The garden shed. Of course.

  I walk out of the front door of the house, leaving it open, and trudge into the rain. It’s coming down hard, pelting my scalp, painfully, soaking my shirt, washing the sweat from my face, pooling in my shoes.

  My feet sink into mud. Rivulets of water race past.

  I go to the side of the house. The garden shed is unlocked. I pull the handle. The corrugated tin door screeches in the rusted track.

  I find it where I knew it would be, right on the bottom shelf, where I once observed Libby kneeling: a small package, wrapped in white butcher paper.

  My hand shakes as I lift it from the shelf. I know I’ve found the answer, even though I don’t yet know the question. I pick at the butcher paper. My fingers are wet, and the paper is soggy, and it rips under my thumbnail. Inside is a set of three computer DVDs, branded with the Hewlett-Packard logo and the company’s slogan: ‘Invent’.

&nbs
p; Each DVD has a handwritten date scrawled in indelible marker: ‘June 2’ and ‘July 12’ and ‘July 19’.

  Back in the living room, I slide the first disc into the DVD player – the disc marked ‘June 2’.

  It plays immediately. Even without a title, I recognize the genre right away. The clues are obvious: high-contrast video, hot orange skin tone, rough rasping breath on microphones. I’ve seen it a hundred times, as every American man has.

  But something about this pornography – for it is pornography, surely – is wrong. Something about it is different.

  It’s too real.

  The video is of a young girl, maybe fifteen. Her face is familiar. I’ve seen her before, but can’t recall where. Her hair is plastered against her head. She lies on a plastic sheet, drenched in sweat. She is naked, spreadeagled, probably bound to bedposts that are off-camera. A gag – it looks like a nylon neck tie – is stuffed into her mouth. A brutal strap of black electrical tape is wrapped across her forehead, keeping her skull stationary. Her eyes are filled with tears.

  A male voice, off-camera, speaks. ‘Do you know what is going to happen to you?’ He speaks softly and very slowly. He has a Russian accent. ‘We are going to cut you. We are going to hurt you. Is that what you want?’

  The girl tries to shake her head, frantically, but the electrical tape stops her. Her movements are just small violent twitches.

  ‘You are so quiet, Lisa. Say something for the camera.’

  Her eyes glide sideways and look at me. I’ve never seen a stare like that. I hope never to see it again.

  The Russian voice says, languidly, ‘More soon, dear.’ The screen goes black.

  I stare at the dark television for a long time. Part of me doesn’t want to put the next DVD into the player, because I already know what I’m going to see, and I have no interest in seeing it. I want to wrap the DVDs in the butcher paper, and return them to the shed, and never look at them, or think about them, again.

  But I can’t. Because I have to know Libby’s secret.

  The next DVD is worse. The same girl, the same room – even the same camera angle, but time has passed. Enough time for horrible things to have happened. The girl is no longer scared. There is little life left in her at all. She is catatonic. She’s still strapped and taped to the bed. Though she is alive, and her eyes are open, and she breathes steadily, she does not move. Snot and blood and God knows what else are caked on her face. Her cheeks are bruised, her small breasts red and swollen. The fair white skin I saw in the last video is pocked with black circles oozing puss. Cigarette burns, I somehow know.