by Joshua Corin
“Hello again!”
The conversation in the ballroom lowered to a murmur.
She then proceeded to crack a few jokes about the food. The crowd laughed. Ross shifted uncomfortably. For Christ’s sake, he was about to announce a man’s death!
“Anyway, folks, it’s my honor now to welcome to the stage the administrative director of Atlantans Helping Atlantans, Mr. Ross Berman!”
Applause, applause. As if he were going up to accept an Oscar.
He gripped the podium for steadiness.
“Ladies and gentlemen…ladies and gentlemen, Phillip Wilkerson was my best friend. I’ve known him almost as long as I’ve been alive…as long as he’s been alive…Phillip was my best friend—he was always Phillip, by the way, never Phil, not even in kindergarten…he had to correct our teacher the first few times…he was always Phillip, and we couldn’t have been more different, but we were best friends, and…and this morning, very early this morning, I got a phone call from the police. They needed me to identify his body—”
At this, the room popped with gasps, which was fortunate for Ross because he needed a moment to regain his composure.
“You see, there was an altercation in the hotel, in his room, and he was killed. But I know how much this conference meant to him. And how much his presence here meant to all of you. His presence meant so much that when he insisted his best friend be allowed to use this opportunity to promote his local charity, Atlantans Helping Atlantans, the conference organizers didn’t even hesitate. Last night, we were in here, rehearsing, and Phillip had his speech fed into the teleprompters, although the truth of the matter is that he had it memorized. He was a man who prepared, you see…in his speech, he tells you that is one of the reasons that he’s succeeded…this conference meant a lot to him, this speech meant a lot to him, and so I’m going to read it now. Can you please turn on the teleprompters?”
While Ross waited for the screens to click on, the seventy-five millionaires murmured and muttered among themselves. He felt a hand on his shoulder.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” said Ashlee, quietly. Without a comic rhythm to her cadence, she sounded so unusually childlike. Her dress, he noticed, was baby blue. He suddenly felt hot and dizzy.
“Thank you,” he managed.
Another minute passed, and maybe a defter gentleman could have vamped with an anecdote, but Ross didn’t want to share any more personal stories with these people. Pearls before swine. Still, Phillip’s speech was not coming up on the prompters.
Ross could tell that Ashlee wanted to take the mike, that this dead air was eating at her sensibilities, but what was she going to say? This was hardly the time for a joke about airline food. He felt no sympathy for these stone-souled millionaires, but he did feel bad for her. And again, there was something about the color of her dress…
Oh. Right. Jessabelle had worn that exact shade of blue the day she had led him to her VW. A baby-blue jumpsuit. Yes. How could he have forgotten that, when so much of what happened that day would stay with him for the rest of his life.
They had driven to a working-class cul-de-sac in East Atlanta, the kind of neighborhood where the houses lacked garages, lacked driveways even, and they leaned against each other for support, both moral and otherwise, and the front window faced out toward a fissured blacktop. This was where everybody parked their Harleys and their Ford F-150s and where, presumably, their children ran around until dusk. But Jessabelle and Ross were arriving in the midday, and the children were still in school, and their parents were still at work, and the barren lot was theirs for the parking.
All the while, Ross felt a serious disorientation. Call it cognitive dissonance, but he simply had not expected a woman as witty and winsome as Jessabelle to live…here. Prejudices were silly, and yet more often than not they were born from seeds of truth. Ross had assumed Jessabelle lived in a gated community, in a mini-mansion. He worked day to day with lower income families and had never, not for one minute, considered the possibility that Jessabelle and her two children were in any way like those hard-luck cases. Love had made him naive.
Love? Maybe. What other word was there for this sensation of belonging? Why else had he wordlessly, willingly accompanied this woman on this trip?
And what was to come next?
True, the drive from the coffee shop to here hadn’t been entirely wordless. They’d exchanged thoughtful musings about the weather. The fact that she too was nervous had made Ross want to stop the world. Phillip would have been able to put her at ease. He would have known what to say.
On the other hand, what was there to say? She was bringing him to her home. One small step for a man, one giant leap for Ross Berman.
Jessabelle’s house was no different from the rest, save for the long-dead wreath nailed to its green door. Ross disregarded its ugliness. In fact, there was something charming about keeping a Christmas ornament up year-round. She was making a statement. He wanted to articulate that, impress her with his observation, but then she unlocked the front door with her key and they stepped inside.
First came the reek of pot, and then the sight of mud-stained T-shirts lying over the back of a legless argyle couch. The couch faced a large TV that had a hairline fracture down its right cheek. A wooden baseball bat leaned against the TV like a long day.
This couldn’t be where Jessabelle lived. It just couldn’t. Nothing here was feminine. Nothing here spoke to the reality of two kids, especially not that throat-clawing stench of marijuana.
Then Ross took another look at the baseball bat. And he knew who did live here. And then Jessabelle, following the line of his astonished gaze, picked up the bat, and she handed it to him, and said, “Walker will be home soon.”
He had so many questions. So, so many.
But he’d accepted the baseball bat. He’d clenched it in his hands and—
Ah, finally. Here was the speech—or at least the first few lines of it. Ross had never used a teleprompter before. He couldn’t even remember the last time he had read anything aloud. Had it been high school? If so, then Phillip must have been there in the room. How appropriate.
He began, “ ‘Life. Liberty. Property. These are the essentials, and by monetizing the essentials, we are able to tailor them to each client and by doing so we promote individualism, both ours and theirs. We are the champions of the individual. Let no one tell you otherwise.’ ”
Ross’s mind reeled at the rhetoric. He disagreed with just about every syllable. But he wouldn’t let his loathing show. The least he could offer in remembrance of his best friend was false sincerity.
“ ‘But life and liberty can be risky investments. Only property carries with it the added value of tangibility. It can be seen, touched, owned. It—’ ”
Ross stopped again, because the teleprompter stopped. It halted mid-scroll as if taking a breath. And when it resumed, it resumed in all caps.
WE KNOW IT WAS YOU, the text read, AND WE WILL PUNISH.
Chapter 13
Once again, Ross found himself in the hotel restroom. His speech—Phillip’s speech—had concluded only minutes ago, and rather than glad-hand the millionaires—who had risen to their feet and clapped loud and long their appreciation—rather than bask in their accolades, Ross had retreated to the nearest exit, and then retreated down the nearest hall, and then retreated into the nearest restroom, the very same restroom he had hid inside before the speech.
But he was too flustered to appreciate the ironies. No, not flustered. Terrified. He stood with his back to the door and could feel his heart thudding so intensely that he could have sworn he heard it pounding dully against the wood. He was reminded of an Edgar Allan Poe story he had read in middle school. That he and Phillip had read. He was reminded of Mrs. Vazquez’s voice, ringing in his ears. These stories, like all American horror stories, were puritanical. They were warnings against sin. And the way Mrs. Vazquez enunciated the word sin, as if it were a hammer that could crack the eggshells of
their souls. They were adolescents. Their minds were wound with sin.
“Oh God,” said Ross. He could taste his own mortality. “Oh God.”
How had they learned of his culpability? How long had they known? Had they been aware of his friendship with Phillip? Was this all a test that he had failed?
Questions, questions, but more to the point: They were in the hotel. Someone had infiltrated the tech booth and manipulated the teleprompter. They were nearby and they had promised punishment and here he was, standing inside the single most obvious place for anyone to hide.
Fool!
He whipped the door open and rushed back into the corridor. No one was there waiting for him with a giant ax or a cocked revolver. But it was only a matter of time.
The ballroom was on the third floor. There were two routes to escape: elevator and stairs. If he took the elevator, he’d first have to wait for one to arrive and then he’d be trapped inside one and then, once the doors opened at his destination, someone could be waiting for him with a giant ax or a cocked revolver and he’d be trapped again. If he took the stairs, he’d be visible the entire time to anyone peeking down or up the stairwell. On the other hand, he’d also be visible to any passing guests or hotel employees and whoever was out to get him would want to avoid witnesses.
He took the stairs. Three at a time. Bounding down them like a toad. One hand on the railing as he leapt and leapt and leapt. The third floor above him, now the second floor above him, now the first floor coming up, one more flight of wide, carpeted stairs and he’d be in the lobby and then through the doors and then across the street to the parking lot and then—
“Mr. Berman.”
Male voice. From behind.
Ross became an ice statue, four steps away from the lobby’s parquet tiles.
“Mr. Berman, I just wanted to tell you…how sorry I am for your loss.”
Ross turned around. He vaguely recognized the man from the ballroom, from one of the tables near the back. The man was older, maybe sixty, though with an athletic build and animated brown eyes. His suit was also brown, and impeccably smooth. He held out a steady hand. At first Ross didn’t understand why. Then common sense resumed, and Ross shook the man’s hand.
“Thank you.”
“My name is Buddy Meeks. Here is my card. I actually am from Atlanta and I’d love to hear more about your charity.”
With his other hand, just as steady, Buddy Meeks produced a fudge-hued, palm-sized piece of card stock and slipped it to Ross with confidence and dexterity. Buddy Meeks was obviously a card-sharing pro.
“Thank you,” Ross repeated, and turned to continue his retreat.
“Oh, and Mr. Berman?”
“Yes?”
“Even when things look bleak, remember that perspective is always subjective.”
Perspective is always subjective?
That had to be up there with “the grass is always greener” and “every cloud has a silver lining.” Empty bons mots one and all. But when your bank account numbered in seven digits, you probably believed that every bit of wisdom you spouted offered some worth. And so, there on the stairs, as Ross itched to leave, ached to flee, Buddy continued to expound on his empty-minded bromide about perspective. Ross nodded at the appropriate places, added “Mm-hm” when “Mm-hms” were due, but acting was never his forte, and what this man was saying amounted to little more than fortune-cookie gibberish. Always darkest before the dawn, huh? And what kind of dawn might a recently paroled black man expect when it came to gainful employment? Or how about a twelve-year-old girl who has just given birth nine months after being raped? How rosy were her dawns going to be, Buddy?
It was no different, really, from that out-of-touch drivel Phillip had written in his speech. It was as if these men and women lived in an alternate reality where Ayn Rand’s philosophies were healthy and productive rather than responsible for some of the worst economic disasters of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. It was enough to made Ross sick, enough to make him angry, enough to fire up his engines and propel him toward action. Because he believed in the ideology of the Serendipity Group. He even understood, in the abstract, why, six months ago, they had chosen Phillip to receive special attention.
Phillip, through his company, had exploited thousands of low-income families from Seattle to Portland. He had fed them home loans they could not afford and then made a profit each time they failed to repay. Sure, the government finally outlawed these practices and had even fined brokerage firms such as Phillip’s for their bad behavior, but no one went to prison. Phillip’s bonus this past year had been over three million dollars. His bonus! And he wasn’t ashamed about it. He had boasted about it to Ross over the phone.
“It’s the free hand of the market giving me a reach-around,” he’d said, laughing, but then they changed subjects, because talk of money, understandably, had always been a point of contention between them. They mostly discussed science fiction, fantasy, and comic books. They both geeked out over science fiction, fantasy, and comic books. Phillip was one of the few people in the world with whom Ross felt comfortable discussing his infatuation with Ms. Marvel and conversely, Ross had been Phillip’s only confidant when it came to the latter’s undying love of Fraggle Rock.
When it didn’t seem as if Buddy was anywhere near a conclusion, Ross finally piped in, “I’m sorry. Really. But I need to get going.”
“Oh that’s a shame. I was so hoping to hear more about your organization.”
Which was wonderful—but did it have to be now? Now, when somewhere in the building someone was looking to pin Ross for his betrayal? Although, as long as he stood here with Buddy, he was safe, wasn’t he? Whoever was out there, whoever the Serendipity Group had sent to teach him a lesson, wouldn’t dare make a move in front of a total stranger. They weren’t psychopaths.
“I started Atlantans Helping Atlantans about twelve years ago, although really I guess you could say I started it when I was eight. I was in the Cub Scouts and my troop took a field trip to a soup kitchen. I forget what merit badge we were trying to earn. Anyway, I still remember—”
Buddy Meeks held up a hand and took out his phone. The following conversation lasted forty-five seconds and it was entirely in—what language was that? Japanese? Chinese? No, Chinese wasn’t a language. Ross remembered that much from school. Buddy finished his call and hissed a sigh.
“My car’s here,” he said, “and it looks like I’m going to be taking my second lunch appointment on my way to my third lunch appointment. You know how it goes.”
Oh. Yeah. Sure.
“But you have my card. Use it. I want to help.”
They shook hands. Buddy continued down the stairs and out the front door to the valet curb and the limo and only then did it occur to Ross that he should have asked for a lift. It would have been presumptuous, but it also would have saved him from confrontation. Ah well. Buddy went his way and Ross Berman went his, proceeding past the valet curb to the paid parking lot across the street.
The offices of the Serendipity Group weren’t that far. Perhaps the best option was to drive straight there and be a man. Explain why he did what he did. Perhaps he should have been open from the get-go.
Yes. That’s what he would do. And what was the worst that could happen?
Ross thought again about the baseball bat.
Yeah, maybe he needed to disappear for a few days. Then he would call them and offer up his justifications. A few days couldn’t hurt. He could collect his thoughts, write everything down. And what better time than the autumn to spend a week or so in the idyllic isolation of rural Georgia.
“Hi, Ross.”
He heard her before he saw her. Jessabelle Rothstein, perched on the hood of his eighteen-year-old station wagon. Sipping Starbucks. Because of course she was.
Chapter 14
She looked good, but she’d always looked good, even when she was bad. And Jessabelle was bad. That, more than anything, had been the primary
lesson Ross had learned that day in Walker Berno’s home. The primary lesson, but not the only one.
“It’s so good to see you,” she said. “It really is.”
She wore her blond hair in a ponytail. Her jumpsuit was red grape. Her glasses were new, though. The wire-rims had been replaced by a thicker, blacker pair. They were the glasses of a scientist.
She hopped off the hood and loped around to the passenger seat and said, “Let’s go for a ride. It will be just like old times.”
He could have run. He should have run. He didn’t run. Despite it all, this woman still had power over him. Despite it all, Ross found himself pulling out of the lot with her right beside him, following her directions toward I-85S.
“You’ve gained weight.”
“I stress eat.”
She glanced at his backseat, which had become a storage area for several dozen Dunkin’ Donuts bags and soda cups. “It suits you. You’re growing into yourself.”
“Phillip was my best friend.”
“I know. That’s why we reached out to you when we needed to bring him here. Don’t miss the entrance ramp.”
Ross merged with the late-afternoon traffic. Soon they would cross the east-west I-20, but until then, the max speed he could achieve in this congestion of cars was a brisk fifteen miles per hour. Wherever he was headed, he had time.
Time to think.
“You helped us out, which was lovely, and then you helped him out, which was less lovely, and now two people are dead, and that’s a mess. Did you like the sinister note we added to the teleprompter? That was my idea. As soon as you said you were going to go ahead with his speech—which was such a nice thing to do, by the way—I insisted we add that note. It was a test, actually. My associate wasn’t convinced you were the one who tipped our hand. But you should have seen your face the moment those words appeared on the screen.”