He stood in front of the mirror, his aftershave still wet on his cheeks as his fingers quickly folded the fabric of his tie into a tight knot at his neck. He folded down his collar and walked into the other room, where Isabelle sat watching TV, one of the morning shows. She turned to him as he walked in.
“Don’t forget Jonathan’s birthday this evening.”
“Of course not.”
Jonathan was their grandson.
“We’re meeting at The Dahlia Lounge at six. Then going back to Jean and Cindy’s house to open presents.”
“I’ll be there. Will you need a ride?”
“They’re picking me up on the way.”
Michel nodded his head. He knew today would be busy. They had interviews for the PhD program all day, not to mention the arrival of Jeff Pepper first thing that morning. He was not easily impressed, but this was a big deal. It wasn’t every day the world’s third richest man arrived to watch his grant dollars at work. Everything about the visit was unusual, planned only the week before. His people had called the department to set up the date. Raj Gupta had almost had a heart attack, first panicking, then growing flustered, then irritable, and finally, self-important; it was a familiar pattern. The grant was in his laboratory. He’d been nothing if not secretive about its progress. Michel clenched his teeth. He never criticized people, and he’d never say it out loud, but he didn’t like Raj. He didn’t trust him. If he’d had a say, the man would never have stayed in the department as long as he had, but it had never been his decision to make. Michel had just been an assistant professor when the man was hired. He’d been tied up in his own research, his own dreams of discovery and awards. Plus, Raj had been Roger Dibble’s pet project. Roger had recruited him specifically, based on the man’s transcript, his sparkling research publications, and his single-minded focus. It had been an unusual choice, as Roger had always disdained the very type of scientist Raj had shown every sign of being, even from day one. There was no balance. Like everyone in the department, Raj was married with kids. He was young, 28, 29 at the most when he came to the University over 25 years ago.
From his first day he’d proven himself a first-class asshole. He interrupted people. He talked over them. He changed subjects on a whim. Blatantly ignored specific requests. He had his post-docs write all his papers before he slapped on his corresponding author credit. But most tellingly to Michel, it seemed the man ignored his family. That was the big problem, he was always there. If Michel came in early to prepare for a lecture, Raj would be there, hunched at his desk. When he left at night, Raj would be in his lab, delegating work to his post-docs, all of whom he clearly treated with contempt. These were all signs of a poor researcher. If there was no balance, then there was no time for the mind to recover and think. Einstein had had a family life and a whole slew of mistresses. It was when you were quiet, or in Einstein’s case, when you were screwing around, that the mind flourished. When you’re always pushing paper and bustling along in pursuit of the awards and the expanding list of publications, that’s when you lose sight of what the research is all about — trying to make things better for people! Raj didn’t care about people, which meant he’d never win that Nobel Prize he felt certain was in his future. Michel smirked to himself. How many decades had he stood in the mirror, putting on his tie, musing about Raj? Now Roger was long retired, and Michel was stuck with his friend’s pet project, whom both of them, Roger included, had come to despise. Had Raj not been so entirely oblivious to the opinions of others, he would clearly have picked up on the loathing Renoir directed towards him, but as it was, he was clueless. Now there was this Jeff Pepper business to deal with, and Raj would be like the prize peacock, strutting around the department, preening his feathers and looking down his nose at the rest of the department. It would be unbearable.
Truth be told, he couldn’t recall what it was that Raj was working on these days. He’d heard the budget names batted back and forth the last few years, but he’d heard so many study names over his time in the field that the details of each had long since faded from his memory. He wasn’t alone in this respect. So many studies, so many trials and test groups. They all blended together, one after the other. One stream, one blur of money and announcements. Occasionally this work bred results, but it mostly spawned an incestuous slurry of publications to be cited and recited in paper after paper — “a tale of tedium and drudgery, signifying nothing.” It sometimes came as a bit of a surprise when the names they’d tossed around in the labs and throughout the department over the years were suddenly published in the newspapers, ballyhooed as the new magic drug or breakout commodity on Wall Street.
To Michel, the transition from the world of research to the world of production for profit was a leap he’d never gotten used to. To Raj it was the bridge to money and acclaim. Michel had his doubts about Raj’s arrangements outside of the department. He’d never been one with an axe to grind, but something in his gut told him there was more to Raj’s interests than was reported back in faculty meetings. Sooner or later they’d need to look a little deeper, make sure nothing was percolating below the surface that might cause trouble for the department.
“Michel, I think that’s tied.”
He stopped. He’d been obsessing, straightening the knot on his tie ‘til his fingers had worried it into a virtual noose. Now he pried the fabric apart with his finger nails. His face was red with irritation.
“I was just thinking about my morning.”
“I know who you were thinking about darling. I just hope one of you retires before he gives you a heart attack.”
Michel laughed. He knew Raj would never retire.
“I think I’m the one who’ll have to call it quits if I ever want to get away from that frustration.”
“Then retire. Please.”
She said it playfully, but he knew she was serious. Isabelle had hated Raj since the day she met him. She felt he was unscrupulous. From time to time she’d even called him evil. Michel had been ready to retire for the last few years, but a part of him was afraid to see what would happen to the department if he left. But he had to go soon. His own research was virtually completed. His labs were closing down. He was more involved with administrative duties than anything else, but his mind wasn’t in it. He was ready to travel again, go back to France with Isabelle. Catch up with friends in Europe and back east. By the end of this school year he felt sure he’d be ready to throw in the towel.
“What’s on your agenda for the day?” he asked her.
“Birthday shopping. Getting a house-warming gift for Stephen and Kelly.”
Stephen was another of their sons. Their kids were all growing up, buying houses and having families. God he felt old.
“That should be nice.”
She turned to him slowly.
“I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss you too.”
He lifted his wallet and car keys from the valet on top of his dresser, put them in his pockets, and walked over to her. He bent down and kissed her.
“I’ll see you at dinner tonight.”
“See you tonight,” she responded.
Isabelle saw a brief flash as sunlight hit the leather on his shoe as he rounded the corner and left the room. Then he was gone. She felt a tug at the corners of her mouth. A sinking feeling tugged at her stomach. She didn’t know why. There was no reason to feel this way. It was odd, but there it was, and then she said it, to the silence of the room.
“Be careful.”
Pepper
There were three patio sculptures visible from the bed in the master suite, each of a different Roman emperor. He couldn’t recall their names. Since he had no alarm clock, no deadlines, no unwanted demands on his time, there was seldom any reason for him to get up at a predetermined hour. Of all the perks that came with wealth, that was probably his favorite. Even so, he hated to let an entire day go by while he slept, so he made a point of rising by ten on most days. He hated alarm clocks. Electric, wind
up, they all set him on edge. Even the sound of an alarm in a radio ad or TV commercial could send him through the roof. Instead of a clock, he slept with the blinds open, and judged time by the three statues. If he woke and sunlight was on the left side of the first statue’s face, it was far too early to be doing anything. If he opened his eyes and saw a glow on the third emperor’s right profile, he leapt out of bed, ready to play catch-up, whatever that catching up might entail.
Today he opened his eyes and saw a dim light landing square on top of the second statue’s head. Normally, this would be an ungodly early hour for him, what the working folks called 9 a.m., but this was a busy day. He’d scheduled several events that he was looking forward to, and one which he’d been wanting to scratch off his list for quite some time now.
His name was Jeff Pepper. Age: 52. He was five foot eleven inches tall, with a medium sized frame, and a slight paunch from too many nights spent eating well and to excess. His hair was salt and pepper grey — extra salt at the temples. His face was smooth but blotchy. He had terrible teeth. They’d always been bad, but an illness in his early thirties had required serious treatments — chemicals pumped through his body, radiation, test drugs — they’d saved his life, but one or all of them had made his teeth even worse. He never asked his doctors if that was true, it was simply his guess, a self-diagnosis. It was also his opinion that fixing his teeth would erase the only sign that he had almost died. They reminded him that each day he was living on borrowed time. Still, in a year or so he might have some work done. When he greeted people at events, or welcomed them aboard his yacht, he knew exactly what they were thinking when they shook his hand and opened their eyes wide, if only for the briefest second, before pumping his arm and returning the smile. They really were terrible teeth. Aside from that, there was nothing extraordinary about his appearance. Someone meeting him on the street might mistake him for a salesman of some kind, or someone who worked with numbers. In a way he did work with numbers, billion dollar figures, all of them his own.
He was loaded. Beyond loaded. His net worth was the stuff of legend. The type of figure that had to be removed when calculating averages for the regions in which he owned property. If the third-richest man in the world lives in a city, figuring the value of each citizen’s estate is thrown off by a discrepancy in the tens of billions of dollars. He had done well for himself, very well for a skin-of-the-teeth high school graduate with only two weeks of college education. His wealth came from a childhood hobby — computers. He and his friend had written some code, designed some software, and started up a business. As it so happened, they did this at just the right time, as people were starting to bring some new tools into their homes, including the personal computer. Their products were just what was needed, and since they’d struck at such an opportune moment, using just the right plan, they’d managed to corner the market on 97 percent of the computers in the world. That meant Jeff’s pockets had been well lined since his 22nd birthday. By 31 he had almost died, but he didn’t. He underwent the medical treatments, lived in the compound he’d bought for his family in eastern Seattle, and read — classics, contemporary volumes, new age, Zen, true crime, mystery, the whole caboodle. Then, once he’d gotten better, he started buying stuff, and starting stuff, and doing the things he’d always dreamed of. In the last 20 odd years he’d tried his best to spend all his money, but it just kept pouring in, despite the fact that he never went back to work for the company he had co-founded. What was the point?
Now he sat in his bed. The silk pajama top was cool on his chest, just the right temperature. The air in the room moved ever so gently, again, just to his specifications. He spun his legs over the edge of the bed, paused to take a deep breath, then stood up and walked across the room to an enormous television set. He turned it to the 24-hour business news channel, glanced down at the ticker tape stock updates running along the bottom of the screen, then cranked up the volume and walked into the closet suite, where row after row of warm, low lighting glowed down on the racks of suits and shoes. The lights brightened as he entered the room, a ring of light following him down the aisle as he picked out his clothes for the day. He heard the sound of Will's shoes padding across the carpet in the main room. In olden times, folks would have called Will his butler, his right hand man, the Jeeves to his Wooster. ‘Course, Will was just the front line for an extensive support staff. He knew how things worked behind the scenes. Yes, Jeff could lounge in bed all day, deciding when to get up on a whim, what his routine would be, but at the same time, there was a small army of people always on hand, watching, waiting to see when he would need what, and for exactly how long. His staff, the full staff, not just the 24 hour people, had probably been at the compound for two hours now. His cook, Theresa, would have had breakfast ready for each of them as they showed up on site and were briefed for the day. The staff needed to know of any work being done on the property, any guests staying at the compound, and any special events taking place that day or later in the week. Everyone ate breakfast during the meeting. Then, after they left, Theresa would prepare Jeff’s meal, usually the same menu she prepared for the workers, which she’d then put on standby, ready for delivery the moment she got the word from upstairs.
On certain occasions, Jeff enjoyed getting up early, without warning, and slipping into the line to eat with the crowd. A few times he’d actually taken them by surprise, but now he thought they were looking for him, and much as he enjoyed eating with them, he didn’t want them to get out of practice, especially if he had any lady friends over. His female companions seemed to love the morning service just the way it was.
Nevertheless, Jeff knew that the moment someone in the hall had heard his TV switch on, a series of events had been set in motion downstairs. Word went from person to person. A call was no doubt made to his personal assistants from the foundation to let them know he was on the move. Theresa would have put the finishing touches on his breakfast, set it on a serving platter, and whisked it out the kitchen door, where someone placed the day’s newspapers next to the covered dish as it passed through the main hallway. The tray went up the stairs, down another hallway, and was finally placed in the hands of William, who brought it inside, arranged the meal on the nightstand beside Jeff’s bed, and went about tidying the room and silently correcting Jeff’s mistakes.
“Sir, I have your breakfast ready,” William called assertively from the main room.
“I’ll be there in one minute, Will. What do we have today?”
“Theresa went with a Mexican theme for the day. Quite good actually, but a bit on the spicy side. Huevos rancheros.”
“Huevos rancheros, eh? Do I have practice today?”
“Yes. Mr. Morita is setting up now. He should be ready for you in an hour.”
Mr. Morita was his trainer. Jeff been studying one form of martial arts or another for the last 15 years. He didn’t know that he was any good, but it was fun; it appealed to the nerdy computer programmer in him, he guessed. Jeff grabbed a shirt and tie off one of the shelves and headed towards the smell of food.
“If I’m gonna be kicking and jumping around, I better start digesting this spicy breakfast.”
Jeff emerged from the closet with the clothes, which he tossed on an armchair to the side of the bathroom door, and sat down to eat. Will walked over to the chair and straightened the suit. He glanced at the shirt and tie and picked them up. They didn’t match. He turned to Jeff, who was taking a massive bite.
“Phew,” Jeff fanned his mouth. “These are spicy.”
“Ms. Parker and Mr. Drake have also been phoned.”
Jeff nodded. Those were his main people from the foundation, Nina and David, the ones who channeled all the information to him about, well, everything — his investments, his charity, his work, what needed his attention, what didn’t. He thought of them as not just his eyes and ears, but his arms and his legs. They kept his circus going.
“Great. Anything else I should know about?”
&n
bsp; “I believe that’s everything,” Will replied as he slipped into the closet, quickly selected a better shirt and tie, and picked up a different pair of shoes.
“Did Nina say anything about the University?”
“Yes, they’re expecting you around noon.”
Jeff looked at the clock at the bottom corner of the TV: 9:06. He glanced at the statues outside the window. They never failed him.
“Great, they’re probably gonna wanna eat lunch over there. I better take it easy on this.”
Will walked back into the room, slipping the newly selected accessories beside the suit, unnoticed.
Jeff turned back to the TV. He thought someone onscreen had said his name, but nothing they were discussing seemed to relate to him. No logos were on the screen for one of his companies. He must have imagined it. Megalomania was setting in. He thought everything was about him. Well, probably not, they probably had dropped his name. If they didn’t mention the other guy in the company a few times an hour, then they mentioned him, the weird one, the guy who’d left, but still made all the money. They were the winners of the greatest widget award. Hell, their software was probably running every graphic he was seeing on screen. Jesus, was he ever bored with programming.
He took another forkful of eggs, chewing slowly as he thought things over. Today. Today, he was going to the University to check on one of his grants that had been nagging at him. He had tons of grants out there, tons of research and education and public service money circulating, probably more than he even knew, but he tried to keep some tabs on them whenever they came to mind. The people at the foundation handled all of it for him, but as Oprah once said, no matter how rich you are, you’ve gotta sign your own checks. Otherwise, you ended up like Elvis, or Howard Hughes, or Britney. No, he couldn’t lump himself in with Britney yet. But the point was, you stop signing the checks and people get control of your money, they insulate you, they let you become “eccentric,” then fully insane, then they grab the rubber stamp with your signature, and sell themselves the farm. He swallowed his eggs and looked over at Will.
Billionaires, Bullets, Exploding Monkeys (A Brick Ransom Adventure) Page 2