The Escape Room

by Megan Goldin

  ‘If you ever raise a hand to me again,’ Vincent spoke in a matter-of-fact tone that made his message all the more chilling, ‘I will kill you, Jules.’

  It’s funny how you block out the things you don’t want to see. All I saw in that first year at Stanhope was that I’d made it to the big time.

  I was earning a small fortune. For the first time in my life, I could shop at boutiques and pay full price rather than waiting for the end of season sales. Professionally, I was working alongside the best and brightest in the business. I was getting unparalleled experience, working on major international deals. My career was exactly where I wanted it to be. I was on track to achieve all my ambitions.

  The sniping, the backstabbing, the lack of women in senior roles, never mind people of colour or other minorities – it was all there in plain view. But I didn’t see it. I was busy enjoying the ride. Not to mention struggling with the gruelling hours, which never seemed to let up. We went from one big deal to the next. They all blended together after a while, becoming indistinguishable in my memory.

  The deals were little more than numbers, statistics, profit margins, rates of return. They never had a human face. They all generated huge amounts of money for the firm, which we were certain would translate into bigger bonuses for us all.

  But one deal broke through the haze. We were working on a large automaker’s acquisition of manufacturers in its supply chain. Among the companies being eyed was a small auto parts factory in Michigan. It was a successful business; profitable, great products, healthy cash flow and excellent productivity. The owners had no reason to sell. But buying their firm was a cornerstone of the strategy we’d devised for our client. Our client made the board of this company an offer that they couldn’t refuse. And indeed didn’t refuse. The company’s board voted unanimously to sell to our client.

  My team was involved in structuring the acquisition. Sylvie, who was the team’s tax expert, figured out that if the production of the parts was taken offshore then we could take advantage of a tax incentive in the destination country that would save our client $110 million over five years. That alone would effectively pay for the acquisition. On the day the deal was signed, all 530 of the factory staff in Michigan were told they’d lost their jobs.

  The night the factory lay-offs went into effect, we were all working back in the office. We saw news footage that showed picketing workers scuffling with police outside the automaker’s headquarters in Detroit. One guy had brought his baby in a t-shirt that said: ‘My dad got fired. Who’s going to feed me now?’

  ‘Doesn’t it make you feel bad?’ I asked Sam.

  ‘Why should I feel bad? We did our job. It’s why they pay us the big bucks,’ he answered. ‘Why do you care?’

  ‘They’re regular people,’ I said. ‘People who have bills to pay. Mortgages. Kids to school and feed. We’ve destroyed their lives – we should have gone over the numbers until we found a way to do it without putting them on the street.’ My voice dropped off uncertainly.

  ‘They’re all dumb fucks for depending on an obsolete industry,’ Sylvie interjected.

  ‘Sylvie’s right,’ said Jules. ‘It’s the people who are too stupid to know how dumb they are who drag us all down. Take my advice, Sara. Don’t become one of them. There are winners and losers in this world. The winners are the one per cent who get to live the dream. The losers are everyone else.’

  At home that night, I was unable to meet my own eyes in the bathroom mirror. I hated myself for not fighting harder to avoid those job losses. I should have made more of an effort to find an alternative. It was my first taste of disillusionment, the first twinge that maybe I didn’t belong.

  Despite my misgivings, I was addicted to the cachet and perks of my job. Cold-pressed fruit juices lined up in neat colourful rows in the office drinks fridge, free gym membership, vouchers for massages and facials that would suddenly appear on my desk as part of the employee welfare program. The never-ending supply of free tickets to Broadway shows or prime seats at sports games. And, most importantly, the money they dangled in front of us.

  It all gave me temporary amnesia, or perhaps wilful blindness, at the damage we wrought on the lives of the nameless people at that factory in Michigan, or a hundred other places affected by our decisions. We used profit as justification for shattering lives. It was that simple.

  ‘Never feel bad for doing your job,’ Sam told me during one of our unofficial mentoring sessions. ‘Your allegiance should be to our client, to the firm and, above everything else, to your own net wealth.’

  I didn’t know the people affected at the Michigan factory, but I knew people like them. My dad, for one. He had been a mechanical engineer and had spent half my childhood unemployed. He’d lost his job not long after his first health scare – after his third time in hospital, his boss said he couldn’t have him taking so many sick days. He needed someone reliable. Dad was fired and we lost our health insurance at the worst possible time. I don’t think that he ever recovered from the shame.

  I knew first-hand the implications of putting someone in their mid-forties out of work. At that age, those factory workers would be very lucky to get another permanent job. They’d move from one itinerant job to another, one contract to the next, until the work dried up completely and they’d be left with nothing.

  Nobody at Stanhope seemed to care. To them all of life was a casino. As far as they were concerned, those factory workers had placed the wrong bets.

  Three months later, I found out that a former foreman at the Michigan auto parts factory had blown his head off with a hunting rifle. His wife had left him and the bank was about to seize his family home. I was filled with self-loathing. His blood was on our hands.

  ‘What do you think about it?’ I asked Lucy later that night. I’d gone to her apartment after work. I was distraught over what happened and needed to talk it through with someone. ‘Do you think that we’re responsible?’

  ‘I’ve never understood why someone would do that,’ Lucy said in a rough voice.

  It was the closest I’d ever seen her to being emotional.

  ‘But at the same time,’ she went on, ‘I can’t help but think that our actions pushed him into a corner.’

  I swallowed guiltily. I’d been thinking the same thing since hearing the tragic news. Lucy lifted up her head and glanced straight at me, which was very unusual. Usually she avoided eye-contact at all costs. I sensed that she wanted to confide something to me.

  ‘Sara, there was another way of doing that deal. I showed Jules and Sylvie the numbers. They said I was being overly optimistic with my projections.’

  ‘Were you?’

  ‘Of course not. Jules and Sam took the easy way out,’ Lucy said. ‘They wanted a sure thing.’

  That was the first time I realised why the firm gave us such generous perks and pay. It was to skew our moral compass so that we wouldn’t hesitate, wouldn’t flinch, when we had to be ruthless.

  ‘It’s rather short-sighted of you, Vincent, to screw me on my bonus,’ said Sylvie sweetly, breaking the silence that had hung over them since his physical confrontation with Jules. ‘We know so much about each other. So many secrets.’

  ‘Is that a threat, Sylvie?’ asked Vincent, quietly. Everyone in the elevator froze. Jules licked his lips nervously. They’d now all seen what Vincent was capable of. Jules knew better than anyone. The cut on his neck still stung.

  ‘No, it’s not a threat, Vincent. I’m merely pointing out that it’s best for us to be on the same team. Don’t you think? And to tell you the truth, right now, I’m not feeling like a fully fledged member of your team.’ Sylvie was beyond caring about overstepping the mark with Vincent.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I want it fixed,’ Sylvie said. ‘You still have time to amend my bonus before I get the official letter on Friday. If necessary, you can ask for your own bonus to be cut back and pass the difference on to me.’ Sylvie had never made such a demand before.
She’d always been in awe of Vincent. In the dark, she felt no fear. Sylvie knew that Vincent would never lay a finger on her. He was old-school when it came to women.

  They all waited for his reaction. Nobody ever gave Vincent an ultimatum. About anything.

  ‘Is that how you feel as well, Jules?’ Vincent asked.

  ‘Well, I would like to know why my bonus is so much lower than Sam’s,’ mumbled Jules.

  ‘You screwed up the Paragon deal. It really is that simple,’ answered Vincent. ‘By all rights, you shouldn’t get a bonus at all. You should have been fired. You should be very grateful to be getting anything at all, let alone a bonus this substantial.’

  ‘There’s nothing substantial about my bonus. Vincent, you have a substantial bonus. It’s almost three times what I’m getting.’ Jules whined. ‘Sam’s doing pretty nicely too. Meanwhile I have alimony to pay, kids to support. It’s not enough.’

  ‘I’m not discussing this further,’ Vincent said, sharply. ‘I don’t even know if the bonus figures on that sheet were accurate. I don’t know where that envelope came from. They could easily have been random numbers.’

  ‘The numbers are the real deal,’ said Jules. ‘I held the paper. It was on watermarked Stanhope letterhead.’

  Vincent knew Jules was right – he’d signed off on the amounts the previous day. But he had no idea how the envelope ended up in his briefcase. Bonus details were kept under lock-and-key until bonus day. He also knew that if any of them were retrenched then they wouldn’t be getting their bonus, it would instead become part of their severance package. He didn’t say a word. It was better for them not to know that unpleasant detail.

  The revelation of their bonuses did not just generate animosity, it robbed Vincent of his power over them. He was usually deft at manipulating all of them with how he handed out their bonuses. He did it to keep people motivated and to keep the peace. Mostly, he did it because the system was opaque and he could get away with it.

  ‘You’ve been lying for years, Vincent, telling us how you fight for us to get our rightful bonuses and salary increases,’ said Sylvie. ‘All the while, you made sure that you received the biggest share.’

  Vincent shut his eyes in the faint hope that it would improve his vision when he opened them again. His poor eyesight made him vulnerable. He tried to read their emotions through their voices. He could tell that Sylvie was furious but she’d get over it, and he felt he could still count on some loyalty from Sam. It was Jules who worried him most. He didn’t have to see Jules to know he was as dangerous as a rabid dog.

  ‘For the record, Vincent, I did most of the work on the Paragon deal.’ Jules insisted. ‘We had a few bumpy moments but I pulled it together.’

  ‘That’s rich.’ Sam interrupted him. ‘You left most of the work to first-year graduates because most days you were drunk by 11 a.m. Vincent and I didn’t mind – we figured that first-year graduates, no matter how inexperienced, would do a better job than a drunk.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ said Jules, sounding more vehement than he felt. How could they have known that he’d been drinking each morning? He only ever drank vodka. ‘I don’t drink when I’m working.’

  ‘You were drunk when we got into this elevator!’ Vincent said. ‘We might not have noticed if it had been a two-minute elevator ride, but it’s obvious now. You smell like a distillery.’

  ‘Attack is the best defence, right, Vincent,’ said Jules. ‘You smear me as an alcoholic so that we all forget that you’ve been robbing us blind for years.’

  ‘I don’t need to smear you, Jules,’ hissed Vincent. ‘You are an alcoholic.’

  ‘Do you have any idea what I had to do to pull off that Paragon deal?’ Jules said, pointing at his chest with his finger. ‘My wife walked out on me because of the hours that I put into that deal. It was my idea, I structured the whole thing. But you took the credit. As you always do.’

  ‘The Paragon deal was your idea,’ admitted Vincent. ‘But it would have come apart at the seams if Sam and I had left it to you. We had to intervene when you screwed up.’

  ‘Sam?’ Jules gave a hoot of derision. ‘You’re the only person who thinks that Sam adds any value to our work. Sam’s a face man. A human handshaking machine. Sam wouldn’t know a business strategy if it bit him on the ass. One day they’ll build robots to replace the Sams of this world, shaking hands and greeting clients all day. Taking them to exquisite lunches on the corporate card like a sycophantic salesman incapable of an original thought. I didn’t see my wife and kids for weeks! I sacrificed my marriage for the Paragon deal!’

  ‘Do you really think that you’re alone in making sacrifices, Jules?’ Sylvie said. ‘I sacrificed my relationship for this job. Peter wouldn’t marry me unless I agreed to have kids, but I’d seen what Stanhope does to women who get pregnant. They’re sent to the equivalent of corporate Siberia until they quit.’ Sylvie paused. ‘Do you know what Peter did after we broke up? He got married. Five months later. To a 26-year-old business school graduate. I see their kids on my Facebook feed constantly. Every burp gets shared. From the way they go on, you’d think their son was nominated for a Nobel Prize for chemistry just because he pooped in his glow-in-the-dark potty for the first time. It drives me nuts.’

  ‘You should block them.’

  ‘I don’t want Peter to know that I care enough to block him! Don’t talk to me about sacrifices.’ Sylvie swallowed back tears. She was well aware of the fact that if they didn’t get out soon she wouldn’t make it to the airport in time for her Paris flight. Marc wouldn’t tolerate another no-show; he’d already warned her. She wasn’t willing to sacrifice another relationship for Stanhope.

  ‘Did it ever occur to you,’ said Jules, ‘that Peter walked out on you because he didn’t want a manipulative bitch to be the mother of his children?’

  ‘Leave her alone,’ spat Sam. ‘Stop attacking everyone else, Jules. Maybe you should use this as an opportunity to take a look at yourself.’

  ‘Shut up, Sam. You always were Vincent’s whore. That’s why you earned a higher bonus than me,’ answered Jules. ‘Vincent pays you off for loyalty.’

  ‘When will you understand, Jules, that I don’t decide the bonuses.’ Vincent’s patience was wearing thin. He rarely raised his voice but when he lost his temper it was like a volcanic eruption. There were admin staff at the office who left meetings in tears when Vincent’s legendary temper exploded.

  ‘Oh please, Vincent. Stop acting like you have nothing to do with it,’ Sylvie said. ‘You decide our bonuses. Only you. The remuneration committee only rubber stamps your decision.’

  ‘I’ll tell you what. If our team survives the lay-offs next week, you’re all welcome to quit in protest over your bonuses,’ Vincent suggested. ‘Stanhope pays far more generously than our competitors. You’ll never even come close to these amounts anywhere else.’ Vincent’s accent became more pronounced when he was angry.

  ‘Do you really want us to quit?’ asked Sylvie. ‘I always thought the only way out of this team was in a box.’

  ‘I am going to assume, Sylvie, that it’s the stress of this situation that’s making you talk like this,’ Vincent’s voice was soft but the threat was clear.

  ‘Oh, I’ve barely begun,’ answered Sylvie. ‘While Jules was in a semi-permanent state of intoxication last year and Sam was hanging out with an endless procession of prostitutes and coke dealers, I was the one doing the bulk of the work. Yet come bonus time, they magically get way more than me. All I am asking is why.’ She turned to Vincent. ‘Why? That’s a fair question.’

  Vincent didn’t answer. He wasn’t going to get pulled any further into a line-item analysis of everyone’s bonus. Sylvie was way out of line. The dark was emboldening his subordinates to say things they’d never dare say to him in the cold, hard light of day.

  ‘For the record, Sylvie, I resent your comments about my personal life. How dare you intimate that I’m cheating on my wife,’ snapped Sam.

&
nbsp; ‘I’m not intimating.’ Sylvie laughed. ‘I saw you last week at a club with a quote unquote model. She was so full of silicon that she might as well have been a sex doll.’

  ‘You’re not being fair to Sam,’ said Jules with thick sarcasm. ‘His wife is a shopaholic. His only consolation is hookers. Believe me, I’ve seen Kim in action. The woman is a bankruptcy lawyer’s wet dream.’

  It was too dark to see exactly what happened, but they all heard the crunch of fist on jaw as Sam punched Jules. And then a thump as Jules violently pushed Sam against the wall.

  Jules’s nose spurted blood all over his white shirt. It didn’t bother him. He was still laughing when the screen lit up with another clue.

  I was in Seattle on an assignment when Lucy died. By the time I returned to the office in New York I knew the details of how it happened. What I didn’t know was why.

  The weekend before my Seattle trip, Lucy and I went to the Met to see the Leonardo da Vinci exhibition, ‘Inside the Mind of a Genius’. The exhibition displayed da Vinci’s collection of papers, known as the Codex Atlanticus. It contained notes and drawings of inventions centuries before their time; parachutes, tanks, a crude version of a submarine.

  Lucy was in her element. She was particularly entranced by da Vinci’s use of mirror writing and the mathematical concepts he employed in his designs and his art. After a couple of hours, I was ready to leave. Lucy insisted on staying until the museum closed, and she told me she was going to come back the next morning when it reopened.

  The last time that I saw Lucy alive, she had her face pressed to an illuminated display case as she examined a da Vinci sketch. That is how I like to remember her.

  Lucy was found dead in her bathtub. A power outage in her building had been traced to her apartment and when the janitor knocked on her door several times, there was no answer. Eventually, he let himself inside with his key, and he was the one who found her.