HIS memory of the attempted coup-d’etat was a little hazy, what, nearly two decades ago now. He couldn’t remember exactly who was in attendance or where they were sitting, he couldn’t even remember all of their names, but he certainly remembered Johnny Winterbottom and the guy who had almost choked to death on the ice cube. He could actually picture the scene in the boardroom, now that he thought about it. The blinds were drawn, just as he liked it, the bare white walls reflecting the artificial light as though they were glowing with radioactive energy. Suits and ties occupied all thirteen seats around the table (no skirts or “power suits” back then, not on his board of control), except for one, the one next to Johnny at the other end of the table, the only vacant bay in the parking lot. He hadn’t known it then, but that empty seat had saved him.
“We’ve… got something else on the agenda,” Johnny Winterbottom had said that Friday back in ‘84.
Louis had already stood, tired and cranky at the end of another long week of eight-till-late. “This isn’t protocol. The meeting’s over,” he said, then hit upon the most likely reason for the delay. “Is it the damn unions again? I thought we’d fixed that last month. Does that greedy bastard Peterson want more money?”
A couple of vice presidents shuffled in their seats and fidgeted with their ties, eyes fixed to the new mahogany desktop. “Not… exactly,” Johnny said.
There was something in the way the young lawyer was trying to appease him that Louis immediately disliked, as if he had a poisoned water cooler he wanted the CEO to drink from. Go on, try it, his look was saying. It’s kind of refreshing. You’ll like it. It was the look of a lizard trying to coax a fly onto its forked tongue.
One of the VP’s on Johnny’s immediate left, Louis’ right, cleared his throat and took a sip from a glass of water. It was the Irish kid he had employed on Johnny’s advice a few years back; a clever mathematician who had already made an impact by halving company tax, but had all the social skills of a frightened guinea pig. He took a long swig and then began to gag on something, turning red in the face as if someone had snuck from behind and started throttling him. Nobody moved to slap him on the back or do anything to help. Nobody did anything except stare. The kid brought his hand to his throat, gagging and gasping for air, and Louis could actually see his temple veins beginning to throb like engorging bloodworms. Then, just when his face was turning deeper crimson, he spat the offending item across the table. An ice cube slid across the mahogany and landed in the empty seat directly opposite, the seat normally occupied by the financial advisor from Morgan Divott. All the VPs watched the ice cube hit the leather upholstery, stunned into frigid silence.
Louis, too, watched the ice cube’s route. He wasn’t thinking the tax whiz lucky not to choke on a frozen piece of H2O; rather he was thinking it completely unlike Herbert Grimsby to miss the board meeting. The closet faggot was usually the first to plunk his scrawny ass in his seat. That’s what Louis had initially liked about the guy; eagerness, promptness, willingness (not his cutesy-wootsy ass), qualities he wanted – no, demanded – from someone in control of the company funds. Why he wasn’t in attendance, he didn’t know. Neither did anyone else. Not at that moment, anyway.
All the VPs around the table turned and faced Louis, including the kid who had spat the ice cube across the table. His color had mostly returned, but his mouth was gaping and his eyes were bulging, not quite believing what he had done in front of the boss.
“What, not exactly?” Louis said to the lizard at the end of the table.
Johnny’s expression hadn’t changed. In fact, now that the atmosphere inside the hothouse had chilled to something like the ice-cube, he didn’t like the expressions on most of his subordinates. They looked like members of a jury not sure which way the evidence was pointing, evidence that could send him all the way to the gallows. It was like that movie, Twelve Angry Men, his VP’s turning on him like the jury who wanted to hang the kid. Something was up. Something rotten. He could smell its stench like Peterson could smell a bribe.
No, he reckoned, it’s not Twelve Angry Men. It’s The Dirty Dozen.
“Are you going to tell me what this is all about?” he said to Johnny, and glared at the rest of them. They all averted his gaze, apart from Johnny, who maintained his stare but still couldn’t say what was on his mind. Except he didn’t have to; Louis had a pretty good idea what was going down, and company protocol wasn’t going to save him. “Go on!” he said, almost growling. “Be a man. Have the balls to say what you want to say.”
Johnny glanced at the empty chair, the one in which the accountant’s cutesy-wootsy ass should have been parked. The ice cube had begun to melt in a little pool of water.
So that was it, Louis thought, he’s stalling for Herbert. Johnny wasn’t the leader in all this. That rat from Morgan Divott was, but he wasn’t here, was he? Something had happened, something the rest of them hadn’t planned on, especially Johnny. That’s why they were stumbling all over themselves, why Johnny had taken it upon himself to take control. Thrust the first dagger, so to speak. They had meant to catch him by surprise (and they had, hells bells yes they had), but he’d had a little slice of luck; their leader had gone AWOL, and just for the moment the mutineering sons of bitches didn’t know what to do. Goddamn it, the company was his, and his alone, and he wasn’t going to let some lizard-kid come in and steal his baby from under his nose.
“There… there’s a significant majority of the board…” Johnny began, once again glancing at the empty seat.
Here it comes, Louis smirked. Et tu Brutus?
Perhaps he should have seen this coming. When he had employed Johnny straight out of law school his grades hadn’t topped the list of candidates, not even in the top ten, but his ambition had stood out like the only vacant seat at the table. Ambition was a two edged sword, though. Louis knew that more than anyone. It could get you where you wanted to go, and fast, but it had its price. In that way, ambition was more like rocket fuel than a sword. Lots of fire, lots of power, but burned out quickly, more than often in a spectacular ball of flames. He had tried to bring Johnny under his wing and control his ambitious nature, help the protégé learn his trade while he climbed the corporate ladder. That was his second mistake, after trusting him. You can’t control rocket fuel. It just burns until there’s nothing left.
“What significant majority?” Louis said, bluffing. He could see around the table that most had already turned against him. He clenched his fists and rested his knuckles on the table. “You’d better have two thirds. You’ll burn in your own fire if you don’t.”
Johnny’s expression steeled. His eyelids hooded and his lips pursed. Coldness emanated from him. The lizard was back. “We’ve got it,” Johnny said.
The kid who had nearly choked to death on the ice cube cleared his throat again, reached for the glass of water, then withdrew his hand. Others around him fidgeted with their ties and scratched imaginary itches on their scalps and noses. Louis had to act now.
“Then call your vote.” He undid his top button, hooking down the knot of his tie with his finger. He thought of sitting, then decided against it. If they were going to bring him down, they would have to do it with him looming over them. He needed every advantage he could get, even if it was a psychological one. He knew his size was daunting, but was it enough? He needed to scare the willies out of a few of them, cause them to doubt which way they would go. One vote might be enough to swing it. He only needed one third, or four of the twelve. In fact technically, although Herbert’s absence annulled his vote, it worked in the CEO’s favor: it counted as a no vote. He only needed three to cling to power.
Louis could tell Johnny knew that too. The rat’s absence had made the count closer than he had wanted. Johnny was gambling. He probably had six definites, seven including himself, bought them off with false assurances of pay rises and promotions when the old weasel had been cast out and all the blood had been washed from the boardroom walls. Would probably get rid of
the majority within a year if he won, just maintain a handful of trusted friends at his side (and, oh, wouldn’t he learn the hard way; there’s no such thing as trust in this world) and bring in a fresh group of young lawyers and accountants straight from college, kids that wouldn’t dare challenge his power, at least not for seven or eight years. But now he needed two more to be safe, and that was just the problem. He didn’t have them.
“I… uh… I need to go to the toilet,” the Irish lout said. He pushed his chair back and stood up.
“Gregory, sit down,” Johnny said, still as cool as a lizard. “You said you were in.”
Gregory’s face went as red as it had earlier. “No… uh… to be sure, I never said that, not really. I said I’d think about it.” He glanced at Louis, eye-to-eye, and visibly cringed. For someone pushing six foot two, Louis thought, he was kind of weak at the knees. Gregory returned to Johnny and stepped back from the table toward the door, hands flicked up at the wrist, as if in surrender. “I… I don’t want to be a part of this anymore.” Taking another step back, he glanced over his shoulder at the door, then back at Johnny. “I… uh… I really must be going.”
“Gregory, if you don’t sit down now your career’s as good as over.”
Gregory glanced at the door again, and Louis wondered if the lanky galoot knew he would be out of a job by Monday irrespective of who wrestled control in the next few minutes. This was his chance, however, to create another vacant seat, another annulled vote. Once the dominos had started to tumble, who knew how many would fall? Then he summoned his most pleasant I’m-really-your-best-friend smile, and said, “Gregory, come and sit at the table.” He almost felt sick saying it, like telling Lady Di he loved her, but he needed the tax whiz like never before. “You don’t have to vote if you don’t want to. No one’s putting a gun to your head.”
Relief evaporated from Gregory’s shoulders like waves of heat above a desert road, and the faintest smile brushed his lips and eyes. “You… you’re sure?”
Louis nodded. Gregory stared back at him as if he were Jesus Almighty, the goddamned savior of the entire universe, and took his seat back at the table. Louis suppressed the urge to laugh, then glanced at Johnny. The lizard-kid’s nostrils flared almost imperceptibly, the only sign belying his coolness. The dominos had started to tumble; and to add to his woes, Wendy knocked on the door and entered with a note for Louis. She barely glanced at the others, seemingly unaware of what was happening, then left with a wiggle of her curvy hips, a subtle invitation for Louis that they were available whenever he wanted. It was an offer he would certainly take up. Tonight even, right after this sordid little affair was dealt with.
Still standing, he glanced at the memo. “Ha!” he blurted, and chuckled with surprise. The whole situation just got better and better.
He reread the memo, just to be sure. It was a message sent straight from heaven (if you believed in that bullshit), delivered by an angel with a great set of jugs and butts of steel. “It seems, gentlemen,” he said, making no attempt to hide his glee, “that your glorious leader will be unable to come to your rescue.”
He glanced at the traitors, letting them know he had them by the balls. They were all staring at the note in his hand, even Johnny. Gregory was the only one who wasn’t anxious. He was leaning back in his chair with an expression of a passenger smug enough to believe he was the only one safe in a plummeting aircraft because he was the only one wearing his seatbelt. He was smiling. He was actually smiling.
“It says here that Herbert Grimsby has been struck down with a mysterious illness and is currently in a coma in Intensive Care at St. Mary’s Hospital. The prognosis isn’t good.” Louis now let Johnny have the full intensity of his glare. “And the prognosis isn’t good for you, either. The game’s over. I accept your resignation, effective immediately.”
Johnny’s hooded eyelids lifted slightly. His nostrils flared, and for a horrid moment Louis thought he saw a forked tongue flick out and lick his lips. “The game’s not over, yet,” he said, cool as ever. “As you’ve said, we have to follow protocol. There’s still a vote to be taken.” He scanned the faces around him. “We don’t need Herbert. We can still do this.”
The suit and tie two seats up from Johnny’s right fidgeted with his cuffs and scratched his balding scalp. “I’m… um… going to abstain,” he said.
Johnny stared in disbelief, his cool now rapidly thawing like the ice cube in the seat next to him.
The VP on Gregory’s left spoke up next. “Me too. I don’t know what we’re voting for anymore, now that Herbie’s in ICU.” He made the sign of the cross on his chest.
Louis now beamed. That was four, five including himself. Johnny had just lost his two-thirds majority. The dominos had fallen quicker than he had expected.
“As I said, I accept your resignation, effective immediately,” he said.
Glaring at the two who had just betrayed him, Johnny stood, sniffed contemptuously, and headed for the door. Before he left the boardroom, he turned and fired one last parting shot. “This is not the end. You haven’t heard the last of me.”
Louis laughed in his face. “The goddamn sky will fall down before you’re ever a threat to me again.”
Johnny’s eyes hooded over. Then he was gone.
CHAPTER THREE
No More Problems
LOUIS chuckled at the memory. History was written by the victor, no truer words had been spoken; and victory was sweet, as sweet as revenge, no matter what anyone else said, almost sweet enough to douse the burning inside his chest. Surprisingly, he hadn’t seen nor heard of the lizard-kid since he slinked out of the boardroom and was escorted by security onto Broadway. He had just disappeared. Not that it wasn’t hard to meld into the New York shadows, but to completely vanish without a trace was a little surprising. He would have thought he’d have heard something from someone, maybe another CEO who had received his CV, or a client who had been solicited for services, but no, nothing, not even a whisper.
He just wished the mound of problems he was facing would disappear as easily as Johnny Winterbottom. Sighing long again, he heard the muffled ring of the secretary’s telephone through the office door. Simultaneously, the red light on Button-1 began flashing again. Damned idiot thinks we’ve been disconnected, he grumbled.
He picked up the handset and punched the button before Sarah buzzed to tell him who it was. “Do I have to get on a plane and come over and kick your scrawny butt? Just get the signature on the contract. I don’t care how you do it. Just do it.”
To his shock, someone other than Epstein cleared his throat before speaking. “Mr. DeVille, this is Sergeant Washington. NYPD.”
Louis felt his gastritis burn a path from his lower sternum all the way to his Adam’s apple. He leaned forward, resting on the elbow of the hand that held the handset to his ear. The other hand rubbed his chest. He knew what the cop was calling about (and he really should have known it would happen today, shouldn’t he?). Just part of the garbage that had been building up since this morning, since two weeks ago in fact. He cleared his throat, and said, “What can I do for you, Sergeant?”
“I think you know, sir,” Washington said, and he said sir in a way that twisted in his gut like a poker stoking the flames of his gastritis. Louis was sure the cop had been secretly coached by Lady Di to put him off his guard. “We’ve been waiting for you since half past ten this morning. This is the fourth interview you’ve failed to attend.”
Quashing the urge to slam the phone down, Louis saw the red light of Button-2 begin to flash. An instant later, he heard the muffled ring of the secretary’s phone through the door and then Sarah’s faint voice talking to the caller.
“I’d like to remind you that sexual harassment is a serious issue,” Washington continued. “We need to clear up certain facts before we can proceed with the claim.”
“I can explain,” he said. “My secretary’s new. She’s been letting a few things slip lately…”
Washing
ton’s voice firmed. “You can explain it to the courts. This is a courtesy call to inform you that because of your frequent refusal to attend police questioning a subpoena has been issued…”
“A subpoena? You’re joking.” Louis was now rubbing his chest so hard he feared he’d stick his thumb through the fleshy gap in his ribs.
“I’m not joking, sir.”
Again sir in a manner that snorted down the line: I’ve just about had enough of this. It was Lady Di’s coaching, all right. Maybe she was in cahoots with goody-two-shoes Sergeant Washington and that good-for-noth’n cow that had laid the sexual harassment crap against him. “But the bitch is lying.”
Washington paused on the end of the line, a pause as long as Epstein’s earlier. “I’d also advise you to get a good lawyer before you say anything that may incriminate yourself. Take this as a friendly warning. The subpoena will arrive in the next day or two.”
Louis was left holding a dead line. The red light on Button-1 flicked off, but the light on Button-2 was still glaring. He could still hear Sarah speaking through the door and hoped she wouldn’t put the caller through. It was bound to be more trash to pile on his plate, and he could do without that at the moment because…
…because, jeez Louise, this pain in his chest was really firing up. Hells bells, he could hardly breathe. The Kwel-Amity had done absolutely nothing. Not a goddamn thing. Worse, he had been rubbing his sternum so hard the skin was stinging raw.
Desperately hoping he had overlooked a bottle of antacids, he flung the top drawer open and rummaged around. There was nothing in there but crap. Blunt pencils. Cap-less pens. Last year’s diary. Used paper. A stapler with no staples. And what was this? A drugstore docket for… for goddamned Kwel-Amities!
He cursed and slammed the drawer. To his horror, the thud of oak on oak coincided with the biggest solar flare of the decade right in the middle of his chest. He flung himself back, arching in his chair, and tried to take a breath. The pain was too intense. So he just sat there, holding still, afraid that even the slightest movement would trigger another monstrous flare.
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