The Consultant

by Little,Bentley

  “Angie says they haven’t started. Or at least haven’t shown up onsite. They might be combing through emails, computer files and phone records for all anyone knows, but there are no boots on the ground as of yet.”

  “Small favors.”

  “I’m curious to see what they do there. If it’s different than at CompWare.”

  “Leopards don’t change their spots.”

  “You’re just a font of clichés today, aren’t you?”

  “What I don’t get is how they’ve gotten all these big clients and how they keep getting good recommendations.”

  Craig sighed. “Like you said before: they make the companies money. People get laid off, employees get harassed, people die… but stock prices go up and profits do, too. How are we supposed to fight that?”

  “I don’t know,” Phil admitted. “But we will.”

  Driving back to work, they were almost to the entrance of the CompWare parking lot when a rolling contraption came speeding out into the street in front of the car. Craig slammed on his brakes so hard that the shoulder harnesses locked up. He didn’t hit the fast-moving object, but he had time to see that it was a man in a wheelchair, a wheelchair that seemed to have been shot out of a cannon, and then there was the screeching of brakes, the honking of horns, and a terrible sound of crashing metal as a pickup truck in the southbound lane smashed into the speeding chair. The man must have been strapped into the seat as the momentum of the collision should have sent him flying. Instead, it buckled him under the collapsing chair as the truck rolled over him.

  Craig threw the car into Park, got out and dashed across the double yellow lines to see a broken body tangled up in rods and wheels, blood and bits of brain spread in a sickening smear across the pavement.

  “I not see him!”

  The driver of the truck had leaped out and was running back and forth in confusion, hands in the air, looking from the mess on the ground to Craig to the other people who were beginning to gather. “I not see him!” the man kept repeating. “He just speed out in front of me!”

  Craig looked back toward the CompWare parking lot, at the spot where the wheelchair had come flying out onto the street. It had had to jump a curb, cross a sidewalk, pass over a thin strip of grass, then go off the curb onto the street. The fact that it had done so at such a speed seemed a complete impossibility, and Craig could not figure out what had propelled the chair.

  By this time, Phil had come over, and Craig did not even have to hear him speak to confirm what he already knew.

  “That’s Jess Abodje.”

  His friend looked numb, and Craig felt numb, too. No doubt, this would be classified as a freak accident, and while it was definitely freaky, he was sure it was no accident. The consultant had wanted to get rid of Jess, the same way he’d wanted to get rid of Tyler. Like Craig, Phil had objected to that decision, and, like Tyler, Jess had been killed. There was no way to prove it, nothing that would stand up in any court, but it was true nonetheless. They looked at each other, then looked across the CompWare parking lot toward the building where they both worked. People around them were shouting, screaming, talking, and someone must have called 911 because, from far away, came the sound of sirens. The front of the building was mirrored glass, so nothing could be seen within, but Craig had no doubt that if the windows were clear and he was looking through a pair of binoculars, he would be able to see Regus Patoff looking out at the scene.

  And smiling.

  TWENTY FIVE

  Caught in an atypical Saturday morning traffic jam caused by a localized power outage that had taken out three consecutive traffic lights, Angie was late for work. The minute she walked into the Urgent Care, she could tell that something was different, something had changed, though it took her a moment to figure out what it was. The lights, she realized. The lights in the waiting room were dimmer than usual. Someone had turned them down, probably to save money.

  The consultants were here.

  The knowledge arrived with a shiver. Suddenly, the Urgent Care, which she knew like the back of her hand, seemed foreign to her, the placement of doors slightly off, the sink alcove smaller than usual. It was wrong to let Craig’s experiences color her perspective, but she couldn’t help being affected by what he’d told her, and in an instant, the homey familiarity of her longtime workplace disappeared, replaced by a feeling that was far less welcoming. Walking up the poorly illuminated hallway to the front desk, Angie was struck by the abundance of shadows swaddling the nurse’s station, the eerie gloom that seemed almost a solid entity and wrapped around the perimeter of the waiting room.

  She jumped when Sharon said her name. She hadn’t seen the other nurse sitting there.

  “Heads up,” her friend said in a low voice. “The new consultant’s here. Was here when I arrived. He already asked about you: why you were late, if you called in to tell us, if this is part of a pattern.”

  “There was a traffic jam. And it’s only been ten minutes!”

  “I know. I told him this was a first, that you’re our most reliable nurse, but…” She shook her head. “He had a look on his face.” She motioned Angie closer. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think I liked the other weirdo better. This one…I don’t know. I don’t trust him.”

  Reaching down to the computer next to Sharon, Angie signed on and signed in. “Where is he now?”

  “Room four with Dr. London.”

  Angie patted her friend’s shoulder. “Thanks for the warning.”

  The Urgent Care was busy. So busy that it was fifteen minutes before she even saw the consultant, almost half an hour until they were in the same room and introduced to one another.

  Craig was right, she thought, looking at him. There was definitely something off about the man. Despite the geek chic imprimatur granted to bow ties by Doctor Who, the consultant’s neckwear looked not merely out of fashion but out of time, as though it could easily have come from a century ago. He was tall and unnervingly thin, and his peculiarly tinted hair was cut into an unflattering flattop that would not have been in style during any age. He smiled at her, bowed his head slightly in greeting, but the smile did not touch his eyes, which were hard and cold.

  They had no time to speak with one another. Angie had to help Dr. Bashir with a young girl who’d been bitten by a neighborhood dog and was on the verge of crying again after stopping only moments before, and the consultant was monitoring the interchange, typing notes into an electronic tablet. Angie spoke calmly to the girl, explaining to her what the doctor was doing, and once the tetanus shot was given—without an accompanying scream or prolonged crying jag—the doctor explained to the mother what was to be done, handing out a prescription, while Angie dressed the wound.

  Cleaning up after the patient and her mother had left, and after the doctor and the consultant had moved on to another exam room, Angie noticed something she hadn’t before: a video camera installed in the upper left corner of the room, cattycorner from the door. Her first reaction was shock—This wasn’t right. It wasn’t even legal—but then she started thinking about the logistics of such an installation. The Urgent Care had closed last night at six and had reopened this morning at eight. So someone had come here in the middle of the night to mount and wire the camera. Which meant that the consultants had keys to the building and could let themselves in at any time.

  She was upset as she walked out to inform Sharon that the room was ready for another patient. It was another ten minutes before her path and the consultant’s crossed again, and by this time, she had discovered that there were cameras in all of the exam rooms. So when she encountered the consultant by the coffee machine as he scoped out the tiny break room, she confronted him.

  “Why?” she asked, “are there cameras in the exam rooms?”

  “Because we put them there.”

  She could feel her face getting hot with outrage. “The patients are entitled to privacy. By law.”

  He gave her a flat stare. “This is not
our first rodeo. We have consulted for many hospitals and healthcare companies, and, inevitably, we find that someone within the organization is stealing.”

  “Stealing what?”

  “Supplies…drugs…who knows?”

  “So you think you’re going to catch me shooting up or shoving prescription painkillers in my pockets?”

  “We don’t know what we’ll learn. But when everything is under surveillance, we are provided with a fuller picture of the workplace and are better able to make informed decisions as to its future.”

  She thought about everything Craig had told her and about the fact that the consultant had keys to the Urgent Care. She wouldn’t put it past him to steal from the office and blame it on someone else. She didn’t want to say anything to him about it, but she was going to talk to the doctors and other nurses. Before they closed up each evening, she was going to suggest, two of them should either take a quick inventory of all medications onsite or, at the very least, use their phones to photograph the supplies in all of the drawers, cabinets and closets, so the consultant couldn’t frame anybody for anything.

  “As you no doubt know,” Patoff said, “BFG is also consulting for CompWare, the firm at which your husband works. We have not yet decided whether it is a conflict of interest for both of you to be working for organizations being studied by BFG. But if it’s determined that there is a conflict of interest, I’m afraid that one of you will have to resign your position.”

  “What? That makes no sense whatsoever!”

  “It’s important to avoid even the appearance of impropriety.”

  “Impropriety? What are you talking about? If anything’s improper it’s the fact that you are passing judgment on the two of us. If you have a problem with Craig, you might take it out on me, or vice versa. I think you need to recuse yourself from one of these jobs.”

  Patoff laughed, though the mirth did not touch his eyes. “Feisty! I like that.” He patted the top of her head as though she were a dog. “We’ll be seeing more of each other.”

  And then he was walking away, out of the break room and into the hallway.

  For the rest of the day, he was in every exam room in which she assisted, and it appeared to Angie that the consultant was paying more attention to her than he did to the doctors. It might have been self-consciousness, might have been paranoia, but the result was an increased ratcheting up of tension throughout the rest of the morning and the afternoon. She had the feeling he was waiting to catch her in a mistake, and though she tried to keep her focus on the patients, his unwanted attention had the effect of compromising her ordinarily unimpeachable standard of care.

  As soon as she got home, Angie told Craig everything that had happened. She assumed Dylan was in his bedroom, playing, but he poked his head around the corner of the kitchen after she finished talking, a worried expression on his face, and she quickly reassured him that she had merely had a long day at work and was tired. Her eyes told Craig something else, however, and she waited until later that evening, when their son was asleep, before talking to him about it. They spoke in the kitchen, on the opposite side of the house from his bedroom, and purposely kept their voices low. He tried to calm her down by reminding her that BFG had stayed only a week at Dylan’s school and probably wouldn’t spend much longer at the Urgent Care, but she could tell that he didn’t believe that himself. The consultants’ engagement at CompWare was open-ended, had already lasted nearly two months and might very well have several more months to go, and there was no reason to assume the same thing couldn’t happen at her work.

  Despite all of his complaints over the last weeks, Craig seemed to go out of his way to try to minimize her concerns. It didn’t make her feel less anxious, only pissed her off—she didn’t want to be placated—and Angie broke off the discussion, turning away to do the dishes. He attempted to help, but she wouldn’t let him, and after he’d retreated to the living room, she stood in front of the sink, staring at her ghostly reflection in the window, her pale face superimposed above the patio furniture against the blackness of night. She was afraid, she realized, and a part of her thought it would almost be a relief to be fired, because then she wouldn’t have to encounter the consultant again. She thought of the night she’d found Pam’s dead body, the way the office manager had looked, that terrible expression of horror on her face, and Angie found herself wondering if the consultant had had anything to do with that, if that was when he’d started to make his move on the Urgent Care.

  In bed, Craig wanted sex, but she wasn’t in the mood. He pulled his underwear down and began masturbating next to her, and at the last minute, before he came, she took him in her mouth so there wouldn’t be any mess to clean up.

  She fell asleep almost immediately after and dreamed that she was on duty at the Urgent Care when Craig came in with a horrible case of hives that covered his entire body. She took off his clothes and got him into a gown, in preparation for the doctor’s arrival, but instead of one of the doctors, the consultant showed up. He was holding a hatchet in one hand, a small video camera in the other, and as soon as he walked in, the room went dark. The camera in the corner of the room was no longer a camera but a spotlight and it illuminated Craig’s body which was now naked. The consultant chuckled. “Nurse, watch and learn while I film your husband’s death.”

  The alarm woke her in the morning, but Angie had no desire to go to work and promptly shut it off, crawling back into bed.

  “Get up,” Craig said next to her, prodding her shoulder with his.

  “I’m calling in sick,” she told him.

  Suddenly he was wide awake. “You can’t.”

  “Yes, I can.”

  “They’ll be looking for anything you do, any reason to get rid of you.”

  “Let them try.”

  “Ange…”

  She heard the concern in his voice—

  the fear

  —and she understood where it was coming from. She felt it, too, and as much as she hated to do so, she forced herself to throw off the blanket and get out of bed. The dream was still with her, and though she knew it was ridiculous, she felt nervous about going in today. There would be other nurses and doctors and patients, but just the thought of facing the consultant again filled her with dread.

  She didn’t actually see the consultant until mid-morning, and Angie had no idea whether he had arrived late or had been busy monitoring someone else. Either way, she was happy not to have run into him until now. They met in the hallway, he coming from one direction, she from the other, and as soon as she saw him, Angie put her head down and moved to the right, intending to pass by.

  He moved in front of her to block her way.

  Forced to look up, she took in his odd clothes and his blank face, feeling cold just being near him. “Excuse me,” she said, flattening herself against the wall and trying once again to pass.

  He pressed his shoulder against the wall to block her and, defeated, she moved to the center of the hallway, stood there and faced him.

  He looked at her, wrinkling his nose and frowning. “Did you poop your pants?”

  “What?”

  “Did you poop your pants? It smells like you pooped your pants.”

  She stared at him, stunned into silence. The question was so childish, so unprofessional, so off-the-wall batshit crazy, that she did not know how to respond. Anger was the emotion that replaced surprise, and she immediately turned away—

  “Answer my goddamn question!” he screamed.

  She whirled around. The other two nurses in the hallway were frozen with shock at his outburst.

  “Did you shit your fucking pants?” he demanded. His entire face was red, contorted with rage.

  “No!” she responded.

  His features immediately smoothed out. “That’s all I wanted to know,” he said, smiling. Bowing gracefully, he stepped aside to let her pass.

  Shaking, she went into the women’s restroom to calm down. In the mirror, her face was drawn, fr
ightened. With trembling hands, she turned the water on and, using her fingers, sprinkled some on her eyes, rubbing it in. The door opened behind her, and she jumped, expecting to see the consultant. But it was only Barbara. “What was that about?” the other nurse asked.

  Angie shook her head, breathing heavily. “I have no idea.”

  “Jesus! We need to report him or something. That was…crazy.”

  “I know.”

  “Should we tell management? Or is there someone above that guy we can complain to?”

  Angie shook her head. “Let it go.”

  “But—”

  “That company, BFG, has been consulting for my husband’s work for the past month. You think this is bad? You should hear some of the crazy stuff that’s going on there. Those consultants are…” She took a deep breath. “There’s something wrong with them. I don’t know what it is, but… I think the best thing to do is just wait them out. They’ll be gone eventually.”

  Barbara looked toward the closed bathroom door, her mind obviously on the hallway beyond. “What do you think he’s going to recommend? What do you think his suggestions are going to be?”

  “I don’t know,” Angie said, and shivered involuntarily. “I don’t know.”

  ****

  The smells of a sunny Sunday morning. Eggs and sausage. Bacon. Coffee. Breakfast. The delicious scents wafted through the neighborhood as Craig and Dylan walked to the park. It was a windy day, the first since Dylan’s birthday nearly two months ago, and they’d decided to finally try out the dragon kite Angie’s mother had given him as a present. Craig carried the oversized kite while Dylan jogged next to him, holding onto his belt when the two of them crossed a street.

  They were the only ones at the park, and Dylan was disappointed. He’d wanted their kite to fly higher than everyone else’s, and he felt let down as he realized there would be no competition. As soon as they got the kite into the air, however, Dylan’s disappointment disappeared. The multi-colored dragon soared over the field, over the trees behind the field, over the street and neighborhood behind the trees. It was higher and farther than they’d ever gotten a kite before, and Dylan shouted excitedly as he played out the line.