“So why would he?”
“I don’t know. But this one…he seems different to me. Not as committed. Disgruntled even. We haven’t really talked or anything, it’s just a sense I have, but I honestly think that if we played this right, we might be able to have a real conversation with him. And maybe get some inside information, something that might help us.”
“After work, huh? I’ll have to call Angie and tell her I’ll be late. Dylan’s definitely not going to like it.”
“It’s for the greater good.”
“Yeah, that argument always works with second graders. By the way, in all your research, did you ever find out what BFG stands for?”
“Still no idea,” Phil admitted. “But that’s something else we can ask.”
They finished eating, and Craig refilled his cup before heading back to work. He arrived at his office with several minutes to spare. “Early!” he announced, pointing to Mrs. Adams. “Mark that down.” He walked in, closing the door behind him.
He wasn’t quite sure how Phil intended to even broach the topic of socializing with his observer, let alone extend an invitation without the whole thing being caught on surveillance, but halfway through the afternoon, Craig received a call from his friend. “This is a long day,” Phil said without preamble. “Want to get something to drink after work?”
Craig’s heart was pounding. He felt the way he had as a child when he tried to lie to his parents. “Sure,” he said with false nonchalance.
“Great. Talk to you later.”
Smart, Craig thought. No mention of either the observer or a location where they might go.
Without further communication, they met in the parking lot shortly after five. Phil was alone, and Craig immediately assumed that things had fallen through, but his friend said John was parked in the visitor’s lot on the north side of the campus and was going to follow them to O’Gill’s Pub. Phil was obviously being careful and taking precautions. He didn’t want any of the cameras trained on the lot to see the observer with them. Although Craig wondered how the meet had been arranged without any of the cameras and microphones in the building picking it up.
Phil left first, Craig following behind, and they drove through the visitor’s lot, Phil honking once to alert the observer before their little caravan headed out onto the street.
At O’Gill’s, the three of them were awkward with each other. The observer was obviously ill-at-ease, Phil was trying too hard to make him feel comfortable, and Craig was on the sidelines, odd man out. Attempts at forging a personal connection with John through questions about family, friends and general interests fell flat, but after a couple of beers, they did manage to initiate a conversation about jobs and work. Although John warned them that even if he had information about CompWare, he could not legally or ethically tell them anything, the observer did reveal that he himself had been recruited by BFG after working for a firm that the consultants were analyzing. He’d only been on the job for a couple of months, but it didn’t seem to be a good fit, and…
The observer cut himself off. The implication was that he would like to quit his job at BFG.
But was afraid to do so.
Worried, perhaps, that he’d said too much, John told them he had to leave and hastily put down his beer without finishing it. “Is this enough?” he asked, pulling a ten out of his wallet.
Phil waved him away. “We got this,” he said. “You’re our guest.”
“Well…thanks,” John told them and hurried off.
Craig looked over at his friend, eyebrow raised. “So what do you make of that?”
“He’s scared.”
“Of what?”
“Patoff, I assume.”
“We didn’t learn much today.”
Phil was silent for a moment. “Maybe, maybe not,” he said.
****
John knew he’d made a mistake even before leaving the bar. He hadn’t really said anything, hadn’t given away any trade secrets, but The Consultant wouldn’t want him speaking to civilians about anything. He’d been ordered—warned—to keep everything on a strictly professional level, and he was well aware that even this minimal amount of contact was forbidden. It had felt good to talk to someone, though. Because he was starting to regret ever taking this job. Yes, he needed the work, but even with as limited a perspective as he’d been granted, John knew that BFG was not…normal. His own duties might be fairly ordinary and straightforward, but he was well aware that he was unable to see the whole picture, and he had no idea what The Consultant did with the information he and the other monitors provided.
Although he was pretty sure it was being used for something… wrong.
Because The Consultant was wrong.
The Consultant scared him.
He shouldn’t have met with the subjects, and, walking out of the bar, John told himself that he’d learned his lesson. From now on he wouldn’t—
“Where do you think you’re going? Or, more importantly, where are you coming from?”
The Consultant stood on the sidewalk, a slight smile playing across his mouth though his eyes remained incongruously hard and steely. John’s knees felt weak. It had been stupid for him to think that he could get away with it and that The Consultant would not know. The man knew everything, and if he had not been so distracted, John would have realized that.
He looked down, afraid to meet the man’s eyes. “I know. I’m fired.”
“Did you think you would get off that easy?”
No. He hadn’t. He’d been hoping, but deep down he had known that any punishment delivered by The Consultant would not be so benign.
His heart was hammering crazily in his chest, and he considered just taking off, running down the street as fast as he could, like a little boy chased by bullies. Then The Consultant’s arm was around his shoulder and the chance was gone. Leading him up the sidewalk, The Consultant acted as though they were old pals, good buddies out for a friendly stroll. But the hand on his shoulder had a grip of iron, and John knew that even if he tried his hardest, he could not get away.
They turned right at the end of the block, moving onto a less crowded street, John’s muscles tensing even more as potential witnesses grew fewer in number. Hard hand still on his shoulder, The Consultant steered him into an alley that ran behind the first row of buildings—
Except there was no alley.
He was in the CompWare building, and he was all alone. He could still feel phantom pressure on his shoulder, but The Consultant was gone. He was standing by himself in a dim corridor that looked like the floor on which he’d been working, only…
Only the corridor was too wide. And the doors were wrong. The lights, even if they had all been on, were not where they should be in the ceiling and did not give off the illumination of ordinary fluorescents.
This was a different version of CompWare. The way The Consultant wanted it to be? The way The Consultant intended to make it? John wasn’t sure, but either could be correct.
Where was he, though?
Slowly, cautiously, John moved forward. To his left was an elevator, and he pushed the inset button on the wall next to the closed metal doors, thinking he would go downstairs and get out of here. He was aware even as he pushed the button that it was the wrong shape, a triangle instead of a circle, but that realization did nothing to prepare him for what he saw when the bell dinged and the elevator doors slid open.
For there was no elevator behind the doors. There was nothing. Only an impenetrable blackness that seemed to stretch outward to infinity.
The sight terrified him for reasons he could not say, and he turned away—
—to see that the corridor was no longer empty. At its far side, where distance and dim lighting had conspired to shroud the end of the hallway in gloom, were a group of dark figures milling about. In between, halfway, was a torch implanted in the floor and, next to the torch, a man’s head impaled on a stick.
Panicked, John turned the other way and ran.
The building was silent—the only noise his own heavy footsteps and heavier breathing—and the number of doors in the walls to either side of him grew increasingly sparse even as their size increased and the wood from which they were made grew ever darker.
The silence was broken by the sound of children singing. An old song he recognized from Sunday school: “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.” Grateful that he was not alone, relieved to encounter something as safe and wholesome as a children’s choir, he hurried toward an open lighted doorway at the end of the corridor from which the singing seemed to come.
But the words, he realized as he drew closer, were not what they were supposed to be:
She took the whole thing, in her mouth
She took the whole damn thing, in her mouth
She took the whole thing, in her mouth
She took the whole cock in her mouth
He reached the doorway. The singers weren’t children. They were mutilated men, castrati who stood naked and exposed on a low wooden stage. He thought he recognized one of them: Steve Portis, a floor manager from his previous job, the place where he’d been working before BFG eliminated his position. “Whenever Ralph closes a door, He opens a window,” The Consultant had told him with false bonhomie before offering him the job with BFG, and shortly after he’d jumped ship, his old company had filed for bankruptcy. Were all of these men from firms that BFG had not been able to save?
She took the whole thing, in her mouth…
Who was she? he wondered, and imagined a woman on her knees, with bloody mouth and lips, biting off the genitals of men lined up before her.
He turned away from the room, but the blackness that had been behind the elevator doors had infiltrated the corridor and was spreading toward him. The sight was overwhelming, and in the face of such implacability, the lighted room seemed warm and welcoming, the castrated men comforting and reassuring. He turned back, stepped inside and closed the door to keep out the blackness.
Movement against the far right wall captured his attention. He hadn’t seen anything there before because the door had blocked his view. But there was a woman on her knees. And her mouth was bloody. And as the singers on the stage went into a new song that sounded like “Onward, Christian Soldiers” but was not, John watched the woman waddle toward him, mouth open and smiling.
He looked over at Steve Portis, singing with the others.
It was better than that empty darkness in the hallway, he thought.
And he braced himself as the woman, bloody mouth still wide open and grinning, unbuckled his belt, unbuttoned and unzipped him, and pulled down his pants.
****
Patoff was waiting for Craig and Phil in the lobby when the two of them walked in to work together the next morning. As always, he was smiling, though his eyes were dead and flat. He straightened his bow tie. “May I have a word with you gentlemen?”
“You may!” Phil said in an exaggeratedly chipper voice.
The consultant frowned, but his expression of disapproval lasted only a second. “It has come to my attention that you went out after work with one of our BFG consultants, specifically John, who was assigned to observe your daily routine, Mr. Allen. Although you may not have been aware of the policy, our consultants are not allowed to fraternize with the subjects of our studies. It’s unethical, and in violation of both the employment contract they have with us and the contracts we have with our clients. As a result, John will no longer be observing you. He has been terminated.”
He has been terminated.
What did that mean? Craig glanced over at Phil, who was clearly startled by the news.
“Wait a minute,” Phil said. “You can’t fire him just because—”
“I can. I’m sorry, Mr. Allen. You should have considered the repercussions of your actions before inviting him to socialize with you. As I said, he has been terminated.”
Terminated.
There was that word again.
How did Patoff know they had met after work, Craig wondered. Had they been followed? Had their conversation somehow been bugged? None of the possible options were reassuring.
“Oh, and Mr. Horne?” The consultant said, turning to him. “Your secretary won’t be coming back.”
Craig had a sudden sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.
“It seems she found a job…elsewhere. So there’s no need to hold her place anymore. Although if you think you can do without a secretary, those funds might be used to spare some of the other employees who are on the chopping block.”
Chopping block.
He didn’t like that imagery, and the moment Patoff left with an overly friendly wave, Craig whipped out his cell and tried to call Lupe. He called her home phone first, and after a single ring, three discordantly toned beeps assaulted his ear, a recorded woman’s voice informing him that “The number you have reached is no longer in service.” Quickly, he hung up and called Lupe’s cell phone. It rang five times before sending him to voice mail.
The expression on Phil’s face must have been a mirror of his own since its stunned numbness reflected back at him exactly the way he felt. Saying nothing to each other, they split up, Phil taking the elevator to his floor, Craig walking up the stairs to his own.
Attempts throughout the day to reach Lupe were unsuccessful, and after work he drove over to her house, but the shades were closed, the door locked, and no one answered the bell.
At home, he went directly into the kitchen, where he popped open the tab of a much needed beer.
“What’s wrong?” Angie asked, but he didn’t want to say, wanted to keep it all as far away from his family as possible, and he shook his head, indicating it was nothing, then put down his empty can and went out to the living room to help Dylan with his homework.
THIRTY
The glass had long since been cleaned up from the floor, the framed painting repaired and replaced in its spot on the wall as if nothing had happened, but Matthews could not help thinking about the way the picture had flown off the wall and crashed to the floor. He could still feel that abominable hum in his ears and the splitting headache it had caused, could see in his mind his pens and pencils floating out of their Lucite holder and hovering in the air. Most of all, he could recall with perfect horrifying clarity how the consultant had stood there with his eyes closed, the cause of it all.
What was he?
Matthews was not sure he wanted to know.
What he did want was for all of this to be over.
Pausing, he stared at the blank computer screen on his desk. An idea had come to him, and he wondered why it hadn’t occurred to him before. It was so simple and so obvious. Instead of trying to fire BFG, he could just tell Patoff that the job was over, thank him for his help, pay him off and say goodbye. The Board might not like it (or what was left of the Board) and his ass would be on the fryer because he was the one who’d started the ball rolling with these consultants to begin with and CompWare would have wasted a lot of money for nothing, but it would be worth it to be rid of BFG. As Craig Horne had pointed out to him at the retreat, there was no need for consultants to begin with. Everything he and the Board wanted could be done in-house with salaried employees. So while the money they’d spent on BFG would be essentially thrown away, there wouldn’t be any additional expenditures.
He felt almost happy as he buzzed Diane.
“Yes?” the secretary said.
“Get me Mr. Patoff, please.”
“On the phone?”
“No, ask him to come in.”
There was a pause, and when she spoke he heard the nervousness in her voice. “Okay, Mr. Matthews.”
He clicked off. That nervousness would soon be a thing of the past. Everything would return to normal. He turned on his computer and checked CompWare’s stock price. Up fifty cents. Nowhere near what it had been before the merger collapsed, but definitely not enough of a crisis to justify BFG’s continued involvement. He leaned back in his chair. He had overreact
ed initially. There’d been no real reason to call in consultants at all. This was a situation that could have been managed by existing executives and easily weathered by the company. Hell, look at their game sales. Through the roof.
This was all his fault. He had panicked. And now they were where they were.
What he still didn’t understand was how the executives of so many other firms, men he knew and trusted, could have given BFG such glowing recommendations. Had it been a concerted attempt to sabotage CompWare? Or could their experiences really have been so different?
No.
He thought of Morgan Brandt at Bell Computers and how he’d been frozen out of his own company.
Something else was at work here.
The door to his office opened and Patoff strode in. Had Diane even had time to call the consultant? Matthews didn’t know, but the man was here now and though he hadn’t had time to prepare what he was going to say, he stood and faced the consultant. “Mr. Patoff,” he began, “I’d like a word with you.”
“Of course.”
The consultant was smiling in a disquieting manner, but Matthews forced himself to remain cool, calm and act as though he was in charge. “I would like to thank you for your service. BFG has been a tremendous help to us during a very difficult period of adjustment, but I think we have everything we need from you. You’ve done far more than we asked for or expected, and have helped put CompWare back on a stable and profitable path. We’re going to take it from here, but in appreciation for all you’ve done, we’re going to give you a ten percent bonus beyond the amount originally agreed on in your contract.”
The consultant was still smiling. “I would beg to differ. Our task is nowhere near complete.”
Matthews’ heart was pounding. He tried to tread carefully. “As much as I respect your opinion, that decision is not yours to make. It is mine.”
The painting on the wall wiggled.
“As I said, we are so grateful—”
There was a tapping sound on the top of the desk.
“—for your assistance at this trying time.” He was aware that he was speaking too fast. “You’ve done a fantastic job, and we would be happy to recommend BFG to—”
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