The Dinosaur Club

by William Heffernan

  “I’m sure he’ll listen, Jack. You go back a long way together.” There was a note of genuine hope in her voice, and Fallon wished he felt it himself.

  “I just wish I had something solid to hang my hat on,” he said at length. “I hate like hell to go in there sounding like a damned paranoid.”

  There was a lengthy pause. “Are you free for dinner tonight?” Samantha finally asked.

  “Sure. But are you going to the gym first? I was hoping you were. I have a little surprise for you.”

  “What is it?”

  “Uh-uh. This is something you have to see with your own lovely brown eyes.”

  “Well then, I’ll certainly be there. Now that you’ve intrigued me so cleverly.”

  The smile was back in her voice, matching the one Fallon now wore.

  “Great,” he said. “I’ll see you there at six. Then we can have dinner.”

  “At six,” she said.

  Fallon was still smiling when he replaced the phone. Then he noticed the message Carol had placed on his desk—Warren Montague, the director of his mother’s nursing home. The smile faded and he picked up the phone again and dialed the number. There was no sense in putting it off.

  Montague had to be paged, and sounded slightly breathless when he got on the line.

  “Mr. Fallon, I’m so glad I finally reached you,” he began.

  “Is something wrong with my mother?” Fallon asked. He felt immediate guilt that he hadn’t called back earlier.

  “Oh, no. No,” Montague assured him. He hesitated. “Nothing physical at any rate. But it is important that we sit down and talk as soon as possible. Could you stop by tomorrow morning, perhaps?”

  “Well, what is it, then? The fees?”

  “No, no, no. Everything is quite current.” Montague paused again. “It’s just that your mother is causing a bit of a problem, one we’re hoping you can help us resolve.”

  “A problem?” Fallon had a sudden vision of a list of complaints, or perhaps demands, that his mother had issued.

  “I really can’t go into it right now,” Montague said. “You caught me in the midst of a tour with a prospective family, and there just isn’t any privacy at the moment.” He hurried on. “Would it be possible for you to be here at nine tomorrow morning?”

  Fallon thought of his need to see Charlie Waters. “Actually, a bit earlier would be better for me,” he said. “Eight. Eight-thirty at the latest.”

  “Let’s say eight-thirty then.” Montague paused again. “And, Mr. Fallon, would it be possible for you to come to the rear door. I’ll be there waiting for you.”

  “The rear door?”

  “Yes. If you simply leave the visitors’ parking lot and walk around the building, you’ll find it easily. I assure you it’s necessary. I’ll explain fully when I see you.”

  “And you’re sure my mother’s okay?”

  “Oh, yes. Yes, yes, yes. Please don’t concern yourself. Her physical health is excellent.”

  Fallon let out a weary breath. “Okay,” he said. “The rear door it is.”

  “I’ll see you then,” Montague said, an obvious tone of relief in his voice.

  Fallon replaced the phone and stared at it. Jesus H. Christ, he thought. What the hell was happening now?

  Samantha also found herself staring at her desk. Before her was the initial draft of the buyout proposal Carter had directed her to prepare. It was thirty pages long, but it felt pounds heavier.

  Throughout the day Carter’s assistant had badgered her for it, and she had forced herself to complete it. She thought about Jack, and the obstacles being thrown in his path. Her proposal included some final recommendations that she was sure Carter would not appreciate, but they had been necessary, if not legally, then to soothe her own conscience. Now they seemed even more imperative. If Charlie Waters could be convinced, Fallon and some of his men might be able to survive.

  Samantha buzzed her assistant, and handed her the document when she entered the office.

  “Ruth, I’ll need two copies of this,” she said. “One for our file, and one for me, personally. Then please deliver the original to Mr. Bennett’s office. It should be in an envelope marked confidential,” she added.

  The assistant, a slight, bespectacled woman in her early thirties, took the envelope and started to leave. Samantha’s words stopped her.

  “And, please. This is highly confidential, Ruth. Make sure the office copy is locked up, and that it’s discussed with no one.”

  “Certainly,” the woman said.

  Samantha sat back and momentarily closed her eyes. Now it’s just a question of ethics, she thought. She sat up and pushed the problem away. But it returned immediately. Damn it, she thought. She had no doubt what her law school professors would say. But that was easy, she thought. Ethics were complex, and theory and reality were very different things.

  They entered the gym behind Fallon—a group that would make any health club owner rub his hands together with the prospect of long-term profits—six sets of legs, clad in a mixture of shorts and sweatpants, each displaying oversized posteriors and protruding guts. Only Fallon looked reasonably fit. He had added morning sit-ups and painful abdominal crunches to his daily regimen, and it had begun to show some incipient results. The remaining six—Wally Green, Jim Malloy, Ben Constantini, Annie Schwartz, Joe Hartman, and George Valasquez—seemed exactly what they were: middle-aged people slipping rapidly into self-satisfied decline.

  Across the gym, Samantha Moore stared at them in disbelief. All seven wore matching navy-blue T-shirts with an identical logo emblazoned in white across their chests. The logo depicted the profile of a Tyrannosaurus rex, encircled by the words THE DINOSAUR CLUB. The back of each shirt carried the warning BEWARE OF DINOSAURS. She stared at the shirts and fought back laughter. The Dinosaur Club had just made its public debut.

  Fallon handed each of his blue-clad crew a sheet of paper bearing the exercises they would all do. Wally Green stared at his and rolled his eyes.

  “Jesus Christ, Jack. Why don’t you just buy a gun and shoot me in the head?”

  Fallon squeezed his shoulder and felt a layer of dampness beneath the T-shirt. Changing clothes—or perhaps bending over to tie his gym shoes—had already caused Wally to break a sweat. Great, he thought. You’re playing right into Bennett’s hands—killing off the very people he wants to push out the door.

  Fallon blew out a long breath, driving away his doubts. “Okay,” he said. “They’ve got four treadmills and four stationary bikes. We’ll divide up and do fifteen minutes on one or the other. Then the exercises on the sheet; then back for another fifteen on either a bike or a treadmill—whichever one you didn’t do before.”

  “And then the goddamned undertaker comes and takes us all away,” Annie Schwartz groused.

  Fallon leaned in close and lowered his voice. “No. First Carter Bennett comes here, sees your Dinosaur Club T-shirts, hears you bitching and moaning, and laughs what’s left of his skinny butt off.”

  Silence and six sets of stony eyes met his.

  Annie broke the silence. “So, I’ll do this, and later, when this gorgeous body is even more gorgeous, I’ll enter the Miss Middle-Aged America beauty pageant.”

  “That is something I will sweat to see,” Wally said. He grinned at the tongue Annie had stuck out. “Okay. Let’s get moving,” he snapped. As the others turned to the machines, he looked back at Fallon. “Did you at least alert the paramedics and my goddamned rabbi?” he asked.

  “Get on a bike, Wally,” Fallon said. “And try not to fall off.”

  As Fallon headed to his own bike, Ben Constantini beckoned him forward. “Hey, Jack. They had a gym like this at the Pentagon. I tried it when I worked there. I lasted two days.” He widened his eyes for effect. “And that was sixteen years ago, Jack. So don’t expect too much.”

  Fallon winked at him. “Just keep remembering how bad basic training was. This is a piece of cake, Ben.”

  Fallon mounted
a bike between those being used by Wally and George Valasquez. “Race you to the top.” he said.

  Wally grabbed his crotch. “Race this, you sadist. If I drop dead, I’m suing you.”

  “If you drop dead, I’ll fire you,” Fallon shot back. “Now let me see a pool of sweat under that bike.”

  “Fascist,” Wally growled. “I wanna join a union.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Fallon saw Samantha moving across the floor. She was dressed in the same black unitard and pink thong she had worn when Fallon had first seen her. She stopped before Fallon’s bike. He noticed Wally’s eyes widen.

  She stared at Fallon’s T-shirt. “The Dinosaur Club?” she asked.

  “In the flesh,” Fallon said. “All seven of us.” He winked at her. “You think Carter will be impressed?”

  “He’ll be in shock,” she said. “I can’t wait to see his face.” She held out a copy of The Daily Downsizer. “Have you seen this? It was on my E-mail this morning.”

  Fallon widened his eyes in innocent surprise. “Everybody keeps asking me that.” He studied the newsletter, then read the headline aloud. “WATERS CABLE LOWERS VOLUNTARY RETIREMENT AGE ?? 35. This is fascinating,” he said. “It says a lot about the company’s sensitivity, don’t you think? The way it keeps everyone up to speed about what’s going on.”

  “There also were some terrific E-mail memos,” she said.

  “Even better.” Fallon inclined his head to each side. “By the way, I’d like you to meet Wally Green and George Valasquez, salespersons unparalleled. This is Samantha Moore, gentlemen. From our legal department.”

  “You represent abused employees?” Wally asked. He was grinning now, desperately trying to hold in his gut, and peddling as fast as his plump legs would allow. Sweat already dripped from the tip of his nose.

  “I’m afraid I’d have to represent management.”

  “I’m management,” Wally insisted. “Represent me. Sue this sadist, Simon Legree boss I’ve got.”

  Samantha lowered her head and smiled, then looked back to Fallon. “Meet you in the lobby at seven?” she asked.

  “You got it,” Fallon said. “If I’m late it’s because the coroner hasn’t finished up yet.”

  Samantha turned away, smiling, and headed back across the floor. Seven sets of eyes followed her.

  Fifteen minutes later the Dinosaur Club was scattered about the gym. Joe Hartman sat on an exercise bench, T-shirt drenched with sweat, eyes staring at a rack of dumbbells. Wally Green lay on the floor next to him, imitating a beached whale.

  George Valasquez walked up and nudged Wally with his foot. “Come on,” he hissed. “That prick Bennett will be here any minute.”

  “Let me die.” Wally moaned. “Send for somebody to sit shivah for me.”

  Joe Hartman pushed himself up from the bench and picked up two twenty-five-pound dumbbells. “Come on, Wally. Georgie’s right.”

  Wally rolled over and struggled to his knees. “I wanna beer,” he said. “What kinda gym is this? They don’t even have a goddamned bar.”

  Wally stood and stretched his back. His stomach drooped down over his sweatpants. Across the room he could see Fallon and Constantini taking turns spotting each other on the bench press. Annie Schwartz was struggling through a set of chin-ups on an outlandishly large Nautilus ma-chine. “Outta their goddamned minds,” Wally hissed, as he joined Hartman and Valasquez at the dumbbell rack. “We’re all gonna die. Every goddamned one of us.”

  Carter Bennett entered the gym at six-thirty and stared in disbelief at the logo-emblazoned T-shirts.

  Wally spotted him first, and immediately began pumping his dumbbells at a furious pace. Sweat rolled down his face, and he grinned maliciously in Bennett’s direction. “Watch this, you motherless bastard,” he hissed under his breath. He glanced across at Valasquez. “The prick’s here,” he whispered.

  George’s eyes shot toward the door, washing Bennett with undisguised contempt. He glanced toward the others. Each had seen Bennett arrive, and each had intensified his or her own exercise. George’s pinched face took on an even sharper edge.

  Again, Wally increased his effort. His right hand shot up, and the edge of the dumbbell struck his chin. His knees quivered, and he groaned, sotto voce. “Shit, I’m dying,” he whispered. “Take me to intensive care.”

  “Not now,” George hissed. “Look at that prick’s sweatshirt.”

  Wally glanced at Bennett. He was wearing Princeton sweats with the face of a tiger set beneath the school’s name.

  “Beware of dinosaurs,” George hissed. “They eat little pussycats.”

  Wally let out a weak giggle, then forced himself to pump the weights even harder, this time holding his chin out of harm’s way.

  “If I die, Georgie, there’s a pack of glow-in-the-dark condoms in my nightstand,” he whispered. “They’re yours. I hereby put it in my will.”

  “I’ll use ‘em to fuck Bennett in the ear,” George whispered back.

  Wally giggled again. “Oh, God. Oh, God. Send for the goddamned paramedics.”

  Bennett spotted Samantha across the room and moved quickly to her side. He lightly grasped her elbow.

  “What the hell’s going on here?” His voice was low and slightly urgent.

  “What do you mean, Carter?” she asked. Her face was intentionally blank as she fought down a smile.

  “The T-shirts. What’s it all about?” There was a bewildered look on his face, mixed with a hint of anger.

  “I have no idea. I guess it’s some sort of club.”

  Bennett digested the idea, his face darkening. “Well, I don’t like it,” he whispered. “It smacks of conspiracy.”

  Samantha put down her pair of ten-pound dumbbells, lowering her head to conceal the smile that flickered across her mouth.

  When she stood, she raised her chin toward the mock newsletter that lay on a nearby bench. “Have you seen that?” she asked.

  Bennett stared at the newsletter, the muscles in his jaw doing a little dance. “I saw it. I wasn’t amused.” He leaned in close again. “I also wasn’t amused with your proposal. Especially the addendum about who should and should not be terminated.”

  Samantha stared at him. “I’m sorry it displeased you. I made those suggestions with an eye toward avoiding litigation. That’s my job, Carter.” There was an edge to her voice now that surprised Bennett.

  “I’ve told you, I don’t care about litigation. I only care about how costly losing might be.”

  Samantha fought to keep her voice even. “The best way to avoid a costly loss is not to litigate.”

  Despite her efforts, Samantha’s tone continued to be sharp, and Bennett bristled under it. “I’m starting to wonder whose team you’re on,” he snapped.

  Samantha had a sudden urge to snap back: Me too. Instead she bathed him with an innocuous smile. “I’m sorry you’re displeased. But can we meet about this tomorrow, Carter? I’m a bit pressed for time tonight.”

  Bennett felt staggered by the remark. He took another step back, then turned and glanced again at Fallon’s little group. The sweat-stained T-shirts gnawed at him. What the hell was going on? he wondered. Newsletters. E-mail memos. Now this. His jaw hardened. The Dinosaur Club, indeed.

  He turned back to Samantha. “Tomorrow morning. First thing,” he said. He spun around abruptly and moved back across the room, passing Fallon, who was now prone, well into a set of sit-ups. Bennett was surprised by the ease with which he seemed to do them.

  His lips curled into a partial sneer. “Like your T-shirt, Fallon,” he said. “By the way, have you seen Charlie Waters yet?” The sneer grew.

  Fallon stared at him; forced a grin, keeping his voice light. “Not yet. Haven’t had time. But I’ll get to it, Carter.”

  Bennett’s sneer grew. “Good luck. I believe you’ll need every bit of it.”

  * * *

  “I’d like to strangle the smarmy little creep.”

  Samantha looked up from her menu. Fallo
n’s face was tight, as he stared into a glass of Pouilly-Fuissé. They were seated at a window table at Polo, an upscale restaurant on the ground floor of the Westbury Hotel, and the delicately pale white wine glimmered in the brash glow that came in from the street. It had begun to rain again, and it had darkened Fallon’s mood. Outside, rain-slick Madison Avenue mirrored the lights of surrounding buildings, and Samantha thought it quite beautiful.

  “You’re talking about Carter, I suppose.” As they had walked to the restaurant, Fallon had told Samantha about Bennett’s jibe, and each word had seemed to deepen his anger.

  Fallon picked up his glass and took a large gulp. He looked beaten and weary.

  Samantha reached across the table and took his hand. “That’s an excellent wine, Jack. And you won’t enjoy it if you gulp it down. You won’t even taste it.”

  She was smiling, teasing him, but immediately Fallon shot her a look that seemed to say: It’s my wine; I’ll drink it the way I want. Then, just as suddenly, he let out a breath, shook his head, and forced a smile.

  “God, that rotten little bastard really got to me. I’m even ready to bite your head off.”

  “Don’t let him.” She squeezed his hand. “And please don’t bite my head off.”

  Fallon squeezed back. “It’s not just him. It’s all the Carter Bennetts who’ve crawled out of the woodwork over the last ten years.” He shook his head again. “I was thinking about it on my way back from Plattsburgh.”

  “They were always there, Jack.”

  He nodded, but it lacked commitment. “Maybe. But not in such profusion.” He let out a breath. “I seem to remember a time when companies respected the guys who had been around a while—who had survived, helped their companies survive. I used to look for guys like that in the firms we sold to, because they knew so much more than the others did. They were hard, but if you could impress them, you could impress anyone.”

  He picked up his glass again, sipped it this time, then offered Samantha a smile of concession. “My, what a wonderful bouquet,” he said. The smile turned to a grin. “Anyway, on the way back from Plattsburgh today, I was thinking how I was Carter’s age when he was sitting in his little room at Princeton fantasizing about cheerleaders.”