The Big Exit

by David Carnoy

  Later, as they make their way down to the underground garage where his Audi covertible is parked, Bender explains what Richie’s witnessed: it’s his new All-in, All-out Circuit Method, copyright pending.

  “As I like to say, either you’re all in or you’re all out. Or, in my case, both.”

  Richie asks whether a defibrillator is included. “I was kind of hoping you’d drop dead of a heart attack,” he says, getting back in the car. “It seemed well within the realm of possibility.”

  Bender ignores the remark. On the way out he’d picked up an açaí berry–wheatgrass “cleansing” smoothie at the club’s juice bar. He drops the cup into a well built into an armrest between the seats. Then he checks his email on his phone and taps out a quick message before plugging the phone into a car charger.

  “Look, the idea here is not to be pissed at me,” he says, backing out of the space. “I am the savior here. I am the Good Samaritan. Your ass would be on its way back to prison if I hadn’t come along. Do you know how many companies would pay money to get twenty minutes of my time? Do you?”

  He does. The souvenirs of Bender’s meetings are littered across the floor of the trunk behind them—T-shirts, hats, coffee mugs, and assorted other tchotchkes emblazoned with a cornucopia of nonsensical company names and logos, all by-products of the golden rule of start-up naming: keep it short, seven letters or less.

  “Here you are,” Bender goes on. “You have my undivided attention for the next forty-eight hours. And you’re still worried about the bad call you got back in the fourth and you don’t realize you’ve just yanked one yard and cleared the bases. Enjoy the trip. Take a curtain call. Soak it in.”

  Tires screeching, he peels out from the underground garage, accelerating toward the intersection ahead. The light’s green but seems in danger of turning yellow thanks to Bender’s urgency.

  “Where are we going?” Richie asks, a little alarmed that they’ve veered left onto El Camino instead of turning right and heading north toward Menlo Park, where Bender lives.

  “To catch the killer.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Well, if you didn’t do it, someone else did, right?”

  “That’s not part of the contract,” Richie says.

  “There’s no contract on innocence.”

  “What the fuck does that mean?”

  “I don’t know. I just made it up. As you’re probably aware by now, I tend to make shit up as I go along but it’s all perfectly planned out. That’s the beauty of me.”

  “Charming.”

  Bender reaches over and picks up his smoothie from the cup holder, takes a long drag on the straw.

  “You know why I ponied up the cash for you?” he mumbles after a moment, his mouth still half full with the supercharged concoction. “It’s not what you think. It’s not about making money off your story. That’s a given. No, the real reason, quite frankly, is that I was bored. I needed intellectual stimulation. I needed a mixing of the disciplines.”

  “Where are we going?” Richie asks again. “Specifically?”

  “Sunnyvale.”

  “What’s there?”

  “McGregor’s office.”

  “Why are we going there?”

  “To talk to Don Gattner, McGregor’s right-hand guy. I know him.”

  Richie knows him, too. He tells Bender they crossed paths back in the day. He’d been part of their karaoke group at one point. Richie asks whether Gattner knows that he’s coming.

  “Sure,” Bender says. “I’ve got an appointment.”

  “No, I mean me.”

  “What fun would it be if he knew you were coming?”

  “You do understand that the police are probably following us?”

  Bender glances up at the rearview mirror and takes a look at what—or rather who—is behind them.

  “Oh, yeah? With the way I drive, you think they can keep up?”

  They don’t have to, you arrogant bastard, Richie thinks. Bender seems to have forgotten he’s wearing a tracer bracelet.

  “I’ll stay in the car,” he says.

  “Fuck that. I didn’t spend two hundred grand for you to sit in the car. That’s like telling a hooker you just want to talk. There’s no story in that. The story is in you walking into McGregor’s office and getting some answers. This is about the money, friend. Screenshot this moment.” He takes his hands off the wheel for a second, shapes his figures in to the bottom of a frame, and makes a little sound with his mouth that comes off as a cross between a camera shutter and gun going off. “This guy went down for money. Mark my words.”

  It’s the first sane thing he’s said.

  “If I’m going in, I’ve got some questions I want to ask.”

  “I’m asking the questions,” Bender says. “You’ll be distracting him.”

  “From what?”

  “His computer.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t worry about it. Just when I give the signal, occupy him.”

  “What’s the signal?”

  “You’ll know.”

  “I’ll know?”

  “Believe me, you’ll know.”

  McGregor’s office is in a business-park complex that’s made up of several small two- and three-story structures surrounded by a parking lot. The complex is in a decent location, and while it’s a bit nondescript, the architecture is attractive enough and the building seems fairly new, which means McGregor had probably been spending a decent chunk of change on rent, unless he’d gotten a deal subletting from a friend or investor.

  Not surprisingly, the receptionist is a knockout: early twenties, with short dark hair, full lips, a perfect complexion, and bright, intelligent eyes. Knowing McGregor, she’s getting paid well to sit around, look good, act friendly, and set a wow-these-guys-aren’t-fucking-around tone, though today she looks pretty somber.

  Bender takes her appearance in stride. “Well, you’re fucking hot,” he says. “We’re here to see Don. But you know that. Because not only are you beautiful but you’re clairvoyant.”

  That gets a little smile out of her. “I’ll tell him you’re here.” As she picks up the phone to call Gattner he appears behind her. Richie guesses his office is close enough to the front desk that he’s heard the whole conversation.

  He comes out and shakes Bender’s hand. “Hey, Tom.”

  The guy looks glum and weary, like he hasn’t slept much in the last couple of days. Aside from the dark bags under his eyes, he doesn’t look too different from when Richie last saw him. He’s one of those guys who went bald at a young age and keeps his dark hair shorn very short. And his uniform of choice hasn’t changed: jeans, running shoes, and a crisp white dress shirt with the top two buttons open, exposing a white T-shirt underneath.

  “Sorry for your loss,” Bender says perfunctorily, then steps to his right to give Gattner a better look at Richie, who’s hung back a little. “You know, Rick, I think.”

  “Hey,” Gattner says, extending a hand while looking up at Richie’s baseball cap. “You affiliated with those guys?” he asks, referring to the scripted logo on the front of the hat.

  Maybe it’s because he’s wearing the hat—or that he hasn’t seen him in so long—but Gattner doesn’t recognize him.

  “No,” Richie says. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Bender studying Gattner’s face, waiting for a reaction. Finally, he gets one.

  “Shit,” he says, taking a step back, his eyes opening wide. “Is that you, Richie?”

  “Yeah, it’s me, Don. How are things?”

  Gattner looks at Bender, his expression now one of deep alarm. “What the fuck, Tom? What’s he doing here?”

  “I’ve got an exclusive. We’re making the rounds. You’re our first stop.”

  “What the fuck?” Gattner says again. Behind him, Richie catches a glimpse of the receptionist, who’s trying to figure out what’s going on. “I didn’t know he’d even gotten out. I thought they’d sent him back to prison.”

>   “I bailed him out a couple of hours ago,” Bender says.

  “Why’d you do that?”

  “’Cause I’m kind and generous.”

  “The fuck you are. Are you fucking crazy bringing him here? Are you out of your mind? Get the fuck out or I’m going to call the police.”

  “Go ahead,” Bender says. “You’ll be out of business by tomorrow.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’ll write that you’re insolvent.”

  “That’s bullshit. Look,” he says, pointing to the room behind him, where a half dozen or so heads are visible through the cubicle windows. “Everybody showed up for work. Paychecks are going out tomorrow as usual. We’ve got cash in the bank. We’re not insolvent. Far from it.”

  “After I write it, you will be.”

  “But it’s not true.”

  “You don’t own the future. It belongs to everyone.”

  Gattner, his head about to explode, now turns to Richie.

  “Look, I’m sorry, man,” he says, unexpectedly opting for a more conciliatory tone. “You know, I always liked you. You were a good guy. But this is wrong. This asshole calls me saying he’s doing a tribute to Mark on his site and wants a few quotes and remembrances and would I mind meeting with him for a few minutes. Now there’s clearly another agenda here. This is fucked up.”

  Richie smiles. Bender has some nerve. The guy’s truly a dick. But Gattner’s an idiot for agreeing to see him. He obviously couldn’t resist the opportunity for some free publicity.

  Richie: “A tribute, huh?”

  “That was the plan,” Bender says. “Plans change.”

  Gattner: “You’re fucking demented, you know that? Threatening to write that we’re insolvent if I don’t talk to you. You’d go ahead and flat-out lie, that’s what you’re saying?”

  “The road to the truth is often paved with lies. I forget who said that but I think it was someone famous. Oh, wait, it was me.”

  “Fuck you. I’ll sue your fucking ass.”

  “Please do. I would thoroughly enjoy that. Lawsuits are my aftershave. I like to splash them on in the morning.”

  Bender then reaches for his wallet in his back pocket, and extracting a card from it, walks over to the receptionist and hands it to her.

  “Email me,” he says. “When you guys shut down, I’ll get you a job. I also want to invite you to a benefit concert I’m planning. We’re raising money for this guy’s defense.” This is news to Richie. Concert? What concert? “I want you to tell all your friends. And not just the hot ones. The clairvoyant ones, too.”

  He then turns to leave, motioning for Richie to follow him. From the defiant look on Gattner’s face, Richie doesn’t expect him to stop them, but just as they’re about to hit the exit, he folds.

  “Wait,” he says.

  Bender swivels slowly around.

  “Yes?”

  “You know you’re a fucking bully,” Gattner says. “We’re all pretty traumatized here.”

  “I’m here to help you, Don.” Bender’s voice is surprisingly sincere. “I mean that.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want numbers. I want to know where you’re at, where you’ve been, and where you’re going. And who the players are.”

  “I can only tell you what’s public already.”

  “You need to do a little better than that. Even if it’s off the record.”

  Gattner lets out a little laugh. He knows Bender well enough to know he has a way of accidentally confusing “off” with “on.”

  “Have a little fucking respect,” he says. “Just a smidgen. Would you?”

  “Play a little ball and I will. I’m not going to fuck you, Don.”

  “I’m going to tape the conversation. If you make anything up, I’m going to post the recording.”

  “I don’t make shit up unless it’s true. That’s the truth.”

  Gattner shakes his head, clearly questioning his judgment. He weighs his options one more time, then tries to set the terms.

  “Okay, you can come back,” he says. “But he stays here.”

  “You sure you want to do that, Don?” Richie counters, inspired. “Leave an accused killer out here with your lovely traumatized receptionist? You may end up with a lawsuit yourself.”

  Gattner looks at the receptionist, who now truly does seem traumatized. “Fine,” he says. “Let’s go.”

  The office is just an open room or “pen” with cubicles in the middle and some small offices around the perimeter that have glass fronts with shades you can draw for privacy. The place doesn’t look much different from the outfits where Richie worked a decade ago. The décor, the minimal amount of it anyway, is right out of the Grind School of office design, exuding a creative, merry-band-of-misfits vibe that doesn’t quite ring true. A small electric car is parked toward the front along with an electric scooter propped up against the side of a cubicle. On the floor, he notices a Nerf football, a Frisbee, and a cardboard box with a remote-control helicopter sitting on top of it in the middle of a homemade bull’s-eye that marks its landing pad. It’s fucking FAO Schwarz, the Lite version.

  He suspects there’s a small break room somewhere with Ping-Pong and foosball tables and perhaps a large flat-panel TV with a game console connected to it. Knowing McGregor, they probably also have access to some sort of outdoor space for “unwinding.” The guy could be a slave driver but he’d also been a big believer in throwing impromptu celebrations for irrelevant successes. Richie remembered him walking out into the middle of the office on more than a few occasions and gustily proclaiming, “Are we having fun yet?” Plenty of people loved him but just as many came to the conclusion that he was a raging asshole.

  Gattner is an equally polarizing character, but for different reasons. Where McGregor’s charm was in his alpha-male bluster and directness, Gattner’s good-intentioned straightforwardness is tinged with a touch too much weasel, like a diet soda with a questionable aftertaste.

  Needless to say the guy is cagey. He says he met with detectives on Sunday and that they seized McGregor’s work computer and some other items in the office. They questioned him for over an hour, asked the things you’d expect them to ask: Had McGregor expressed any concern that someone might want to do harm to him? Did he have any trouble with any particular individuals? When did he leave the office? And finally, did he mention having had any contact with Richie Forman?

  At least from what he’s telling them now, Gattner didn’t seem to offer up any terribly revealing leads. He says that McGregor told him that someone claimed to have evidence that he was driving the car the night of the accident all those years ago and was now trying to blackmail him. While McGregor suspected Richie might have something to do with it, he wasn’t sure.

  “He told me that he was going to get to the bottom of it even if the police didn’t,” he tells Bender. “He was determined to figure out who was behind it. That’s what I told the police.”

  Richie’s sitting next to Bender, across the desk from Gattner, but he feels ignored, excluded. Gattner addresses only Bender, making it a point to pretend that Richie isn’t in the room. Which is why he’s surprised when all of sudden Gattner turns to him and says, “I’m going to take a SWAG and assume the cops asked you about blackmailing him.”

  Richie: “SWAG?”

  “Scientific wild-ass guess.”

  “When did he hire the Tongans?”

  Gattner’s eyes blink, not once, but twice, then a third time. The question’s clearly caught him off guard, but he decides to feign ignorance anyway.

  “Who?”

  “Come on, man. You fucking know damn well who.”

  “I’m not going to talk about them. There is an ongoing police investigation.”

  Richie leans forward in his seat and in a low, conspiratorial voice, says: “I heard they worked for the company. They were on the payroll.”

  Gattner’s eyes shift to Bender, then back to him, then back to Ben
der.

  “Where’d you get that photo of them you posted on your site, Tom?” Gattner asks. “Did Beth give that to you?”

  “McGregor’s wife?” Bender replies. “Why would she give it to me?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, something made you think she’d give it to me, what was it?”

  Gattner suddenly takes on the look of someone who’s cornered. He realizes he’s dug himself a little hole and it’s not going to be easy to get out.

  He shrugs, offering up a second “I don’t know.”

  “Try again, Don,” Bender says. “I know when someone’s full of shit because I’m so full of shit.”

  Gattner falls silent. After a moment, he says, “They were interns. They did a little office work. Errands and stuff mostly. But McGregor was also using them for security. I didn’t ask what they were doing but I know Mark was paranoid, clearly for good reason. And I know he was concerned with what Beth was up to. He didn’t trust her. I can’t say it any more simply than that. After hours, I think he paid them out of his own pocket. My impression was he was paying them extra because I can tell you they weren’t making much here. I cut the checks.”

  “But why would you think Beth gave me the photo?” Bender asks.

  “Because she knew they were following her. After that photo ran on your site, one of the guys—one of the Tongans—called me and said he was sure Beth had given it to you. He said he always knew she was a conniving little bitch. She was setting them up.”

  Richie: “That you calling her a conniving little bitch or them, Don? ’Cause the way you said it methinks it was more you than them.”

  “No, it wasn’t me. Those were his words.”

  “Beth didn’t think too highly of you, you know that, don’t you?”

  “News to me. We got along fine.”

  “She said you were unhappy with how much stock Mark had given you,” Richie goes on. “She said you’d didn’t think it was fair given how much work you were doing and how instrumental you were to the company.”