Killer Instinct

by Joseph Finder

  Tom Duffy was an affable, moon-faced, burly man with a double chin and a gray crew cut. He wore a bow tie and a loose navy blazer. He laughed quietly.

  “Nice to meet you,” she said, extending a hand. Her fingernails were pink and dangerously long. “So there’s been a hell of a lot of turnover at Entronics, I hear.”

  “I just joined Entronics from NEC,” Letasky said. “I figured it was time to join the championship team.”

  Score one for Letasky. Give this man a raise.

  “I’m talking about layoffs,” she said, settling into her chair. I held it for her. Not that I’m such a gentleman, but I wanted to make sure she sat so that she and Duffy couldn’t make eye contact without our seeing it. A basic sales meeting trick. Duffy sat where we wanted him to as well. “You guys going to be there next year?”

  “Entronics was founded in 1902,” I said. “Back when it was called Osaka Telephone and Telegraph. I think it’ll be around long after we’re gone.”

  “Is it true you guys had a suicide there not too long ago?”

  “A tragedy,” I said. “Phil Rifkin was one of our finest employees.”

  “Entronics must be a stressful place to work,” she said.

  “Not at all,” I lied. “You just never can know what’s going on in someone’s personal life.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you what’s going on in my personal life,” said Lorna. “Thirst. I need a glass of wine.”

  “Let’s order,” I said, reaching for the long leather wine list.

  But Lorna was quicker. She grabbed the menu—there was only one, unfortunately—and flipped it open.

  “Warm evening like this, I like to get a nice crisp white,” Duffy said.

  Lorna was peering at the list through black reading glasses. “And I was thinking of a Pauillac. How about the Lafite Rothschild?”

  I almost gulped. That was four hundred dollars a bottle, and this woman looked like she was a serious wine guzzler.

  “Great idea,” Letasky said, giving me a quick look that said, I think, that for the millions we’re going to make on this deal, forget about the wine bill.

  Lorna waved the waiter over and ordered the Pauillac and an expensive Montrachet for Duffy and a couple of bottles of Pellegrino for the table.

  “So, Atlanta airport is one of the busiest in the country,” Letasky said.

  “The busiest in the world, in fact,” Duffy said.

  “Not O’Hare?”

  “Nope. And we’ve got the flight records to prove it. We had thirteen thousand more flights than O’Hare this year, January to June. We serve three million more passengers.”

  Lorna’s cell rang, and she picked it up and began talking loudly. A waiter came over and whispered in her ear, and she glared at him, then snapped it closed with visible annoyance.

  “They insist all guests turn off their phones,” she announced. “As if anyone can hear a cell phone ring in this place. I’m going positively deaf.”

  I reached down and turned mine off, trying to be subtle about it.

  After dinner—Lorna ordered a lobster dish with truffles, the most expensive thing on the menu, of course, and Duffy ordered the Statler chicken—I excused myself to go to the john.

  Letasky joined me in there a minute or so later.

  “At the risk of stating the obvious,” he said, standing at the other urinal, “I think Tom Duffy has been deballed.”

  “You know what a ‘tell’ is in poker?”

  “Sure. Why?”

  “People take classes in how to read facial microexpressions,” I said. “And you know what?”

  “What?”

  “You don’t need any of that junk to see that every move she makes, Duffy mirrors. She’s the decision maker. Not Duffy.”

  “You think they’re sleeping together or something?”

  “No way. I can tell.”

  “I’ve seen stranger couples. This is not looking good, this dinner.”

  “We’re getting jerked around,” I said. “This woman changes the whole equation, damn it. I had Duffy hooked until she showed up.”

  “You think she has another candidate?”

  “I’ll tell you this much—she didn’t listen to a word I said.”

  “She nodded a lot when you were talking.”

  “Women do that. They nod to show they’re listening. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  “You’re right. You think it’s time for a little brinksmanship?” I’d told him about Chicago.

  “No,” I said. “She’s not ours. We get up from the table, and the deal goes to Hitachi or whatever.”

  “AirView Systems.”

  The restroom door opened, and Duffy entered.

  “All yours,” I said, going to the sink.

  By the time dinner was over, the conversation had rambled everywhere but flight information display systems. We’d gone through three bottles of the Pauillac, and Lorna had had a great time. I silently cursed her and her immobile face.

  We said good night, and I got my car from the valet and popped my phone into the hands-free cradle and turned it on.

  There were six voice mail messages.

  Kate’s voice was weak. “Jason, I’m—I’m bleeding.”

  I went cold all over.

  The next four messages were from Kate, too. She was sounding weaker and more desperate. There was a lot of blood, she said. She needed help.

  “Where are you?” she said. “Will you call me back? Please?”

  The sixth message was a male voice. Kurt’s.

  “Jason,” he said. “I’m with Kate at the Children’s Hospital emergency room. Just drove her over here. Call me on my cell. Or just get over here. Now.”

  41

  I rushed into the emergency room, saw Kurt sitting in the waiting room, his face stony.

  “Where is she?” I said.

  “Trauma room.” He pointed, off there somewhere. “She’s okay. Lost a lot of blood.”

  The big dinner was sitting heavy in my stomach. The wooziness from all the wine was gone, replaced by fear and adrenaline.

  “Did we lose the baby?” I couldn’t believe I was saying the words.

  He shook his head. “Talk to the nurse. I think it’s okay.”

  “Thank God.”

  His eyes were fierce. “Why the hell didn’t you tell her where you were?”

  “I—” I began. What, I didn’t know the name of the restaurant? “She has my cell phone number.”

  “Yeah, and you should have left it on. You’ve got a pregnant wife, for Christ’s sake. You’re out at dinner and you turn off your phone because you don’t want to screw up a sale? That’s messed up, man.” He shook his head.

  I felt a rush of contradictory emotions. Gratitude that he’d brought her here. Anger at his indignation—where did he get off being so righteous? Massive guilt. Relief that Kate was okay. Relief that we hadn’t lost the baby. “I had to turn it off.”

  “You’re lucky I was there.”

  “She called you?”

  “I called the house. Good thing too.”

  “Mr. Steadman?” An ER nurse approached Kurt. She wore blue scrubs, had silver hair, clear blue eyes. She looked to be in her late fifties and had a reassuring air of authority. “Your wife is fine. She came in anemic, but we’re replacing the lost blood.”

  “I’m the husband,” I said.

  “Oh,” the nurse said, turning to me. “Sorry. She’s, what, sixteen weeks pregnant?”

  “Right.” I noticed she hadn’t used the past tense. She is pregnant. Not was.

  “Would you prefer to speak in private, Mr. Steadman?”

  “No, it’s all right.” I glanced at Kurt. “He’s a friend.”

  “Okay. She has something called placenta previa, where the placenta covers the cervix. Do you need me to explain?” She spoke in a calm, almost hypnotic voice. She had a working-class Boston accent, sounded like my mom.

  “I think I get it,” I said.

  “Her
pregnancy is considered high-risk. She’s going to have to stay in the hospital for a couple of days, in the high-risk maternity ward, then stay in bed for the remainder of the pregnancy. On bed rest. That means lying on her side as much as possible, using bedpans. After a while she’ll be able to sit up and take the occasional car ride. But she can’t exert herself. There’s a risk of preterm delivery. At this stage of the pregnancy, the fetus wouldn’t make it.”

  “What’s the risk to my wife?”

  “Only ten percent of women diagnosed with placenta previa still have it when they deliver. There’s a pretty good chance the placenta will start to move away from the cervix on its own. She should be fine.” The nurse crossed her fingers.

  The fetus. It was a baby, dammit. “How’s the baby?”

  “The fetal heartbeat is normal. That means the fetus wasn’t distressed by all the loss of blood.”

  I nodded.

  “Did she have any cramping before this? Any bleeding?”

  “I don’t think there was any bleeding. But she had cramps.”

  “Did she see her obstetrician?”

  “He just told her to take it easy.”

  “I see. When did you last have sexual intercourse?”

  It’s stupid, but I became aware of Kurt’s eyes on me. Of all the ridiculous things to get defensive about at a time like this. “A while,” I said. “Probably a month. Can I see her?”

  Kurt stayed out in the waiting room while I went in to see Kate.

  She looked pale, circles under her eyes. Looked sad. She was hooked up to a couple of IVs, one with blood and one with clear fluid, and a cardiac monitor and a fetal monitor.

  “Baby,” I said. I put a hand on her forehead, stroked her face, her hair. “How are you feeling?”

  “Tired. I almost passed out. There was blood everywhere.”

  I nodded. “They said you’re going to be okay. The baby’s going to be okay.”

  “There was a surgeon in here who said I have to stay here for a while.”

  “Just a couple of days.”

  “I’m going to have to stay in bed until I deliver.”

  “I know. But you’re okay, and the baby’s okay.”

  “I guess that means I’m taking an early pregnancy leave.”

  “The foundation will get by without you.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.” She smiled a little, an attempt at a joke.

  “I’m sorry I had my cell phone turned off. The restaurant made me do it, but I should have left it on anyway. Or called you with the number of the restaurant.”

  “It’s okay. I called Claudia, but she’s in New York, and I called Sally and Amy, and I couldn’t reach either one of them, and then I was about to call an ambulance, but then Kurt called, thank God.”

  “Thank God.”

  “What a good friend that guy is, huh?”

  No better friend, he’d said. No worse enemy.

  I nodded but didn’t reply.

  42

  I spent the night in Kate’s hospital room on a couch. In the morning, aching all over and exhausted, I drove home, retrieved some things she wanted, and brought them to the hospital. Not until noon did I get to work.

  I found a message on my cell phone from Jim Letasky, but when I called him back, there was no answer on his cell or at his office. I called Festino and asked him to locate Letasky for me. Festino said Letasky was out of the building at a presentation but wanted to talk to me about something important.

  When I got into the office, I checked my e-mail while listening to my voice mail on speaker, and I was surprised to hear a message from Kurt.

  “Hey,” he said. “Let me know the latest on Kate, man, okay?”

  Now I felt really weird, totally conflicted, about Kurt. I owed him in a big way for taking Kate to the hospital, but that didn’t change how I felt about him, fundamentally, or what I knew I had to do. He had to leave the company. But I was beginning to feel that he deserved better than my going behind his back again to get him fired. At the very least, he deserved to hear it from me face-to-face. Scanlon hadn’t called back, and I doubt he’d seriously “looked into” firing Kurt.

  So I decided to tell Kurt, man-to-man, that he had to leave Entronics. I’d help him find a good job somewhere else. But his career at Entronics was over.

  As I picked up the phone to call Kurt, the phone rang.

  “How’s she doing?” Kurt said.

  “Better. Still on fluids.”

  “I shouldn’t have yelled at you about not answering your cell,” he said.

  “No, you’re right. I shouldn’t have turned it off. Screw protocol. And Kurt—I never thanked you.”

  “No need.”

  “Well, thanks, man. I owe you one.”

  “You keeping score?”

  Every chance I got I went on the Internet and researched placenta previa. Some of the websites made it seem like not a big deal. Some of them made it sound awfully dire. I didn’t know which one to believe.

  Letasky appeared in my doorway, dressed in a suit and tie.

  “You have your browser open?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Go to the City of Atlanta website.”

  I typed in the web address.

  “Now go to Departments, and then Procurement. Got it?”

  “What is it, Jim? You gonna torture me?”

  “No, I want you to see it. You see ‘Aviation RFPs/Bids’?”

  It came up on the screen: The deal I once thought was ours. In red letters it said APPARENT LOW BIDDER AIRVIEW SYSTEMS CORPORATION and CONTRACT AWARD PENDING. The contact name was Lorna Evers.

  My stomach sank. “Crap. You mean those bastards let us take them to dinner, and all the while this was up on their website?”

  “Just appeared this morning.”

  I sank down in my chair. “Shit. We needed this. I thought we had it.”

  “You didn’t have a chance,” Letasky said. “We didn’t have a chance. The fix was in.”

  The fix was in. Every salesman’s favorite complaint. That along with They never return my calls. “You have no idea how badly we needed this. So is this it? The deal’s done?”

  “Officially and formally it’s tentative. ‘Under consideration,’ meaning it just requires sign-off at the highest levels. But yeah, it looks like it’s done.”

  “We tried,” I said. “Tried our best.”

  “Not always good enough,” Letasky said.

  An e-mail popped up in my in-box from Dick Hardy. The subject line was: ATLANTA. The message contained one word: “Well?”

  I e-mailed back, “Still working it. Not optimistic.”

  On his way out of the office, Letasky stopped for a few seconds and turned back. “Oh, listen. Trevor invited me to play basketball with him on Thursday nights, and if Gail lets me, I’ll probably do it.”

  “Okay,” I said, not sure what he was getting at.

  “I just wanted you to know. It’s not like I’m choosing up sides or anything.”

  “Sides? Trevor’s my second-line manager. We’re not on opposite sides.”

  “Okay.” Letasky nodded, humoring me. “It’s just that—well, you know, maybe it’s none of my business, and maybe I should keep my mouth shut, being new and all. But, well, did anyone ever tell you that Trevor sometimes…says stuff about you?”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Not always very nice. Kinda bad-mouths you, sometimes. He says you can be ruthless—that you do stuff to your rivals.”

  I shook my head, smiled sadly.

  “I just thought you should know,” he said.

  “Well, that’s too bad. But I appreciate your telling me.”

  After Letasky had left, I stared for a long time at the City of Atlanta website. Then I picked up the phone and called Kurt.

  “I need your help,” I said. Dear God, I thought, now you’re really mucking things up. “Just one more time.”

  43

  At the hospital that night
we got the word that Kate was okay to go home in the morning. Which worked for me, because I was in serious need of a chiropractor after spending the nights on the soft couch in her room. I told Kate I wanted to hire a private nurse to help her out at home, since she was supposed to get out of bed as little as possible, but she told me I was being ridiculous, she didn’t need a nurse.

  She looked at me out of the corner of her eye. “Susie wants to visit. You know, make sure I’m okay.”

  I nodded. “Good. I don’t want you home alone.”

  “She’s flying over from Nantucket.” Craig and Susie had taken a house in Nantucket for August and September, as usual.

  “It’ll be nice to see Susie and Ethan again,” I said. I’d enjoy seeing Ethan, in fact. “Craig, not so much.” Christ, I thought, wasn’t there some legal limit on the number of times I had to see Craig?

  “Craig isn’t coming. He’s back in L.A. She’s bringing Ethan. It really would be good for Ethan to spend more time with you.”

  “It would be good for Ethan to be taken away from them and placed in foster care.”

  “Jason.”

  “Anyway, I don’t have much time to hang out with him, you know that.”

  “I know.”

  “Well, I’m glad she’s coming.” Without Craig.

  Kurt called me on my cell phone as I was drifting off to sleep.

  “How long does this trade show go on?” he asked.

  “The one at Bayside?”

  “Right. The one your friends from Atlanta are attending.”

  “Two more days. Why?”

  “I came across something interesting. Called in some favors with an SF guy in Marietta, Georgia, who knows people in Atlanta.”

  “Interesting how?”

  “Let’s talk in the morning when I have something more concrete.”

  In the morning, they did an amnio on Kate to make sure everything was okay. The nurse asked us if we wanted to know the sex of the baby, and Kate quickly said no, so the nurse said they’d send the results without mentioning sex.

  Then I signed Kate out of the hospital, and one of the nurses brought her down to the main entrance in a wheelchair and I drove her home. I skipped my morning workout and instead spent a few hours being a good husband, getting her set up in bed with a commode right next to her so she wouldn’t have to get up to relieve herself. I made sure the phone and the TV remote were within reach on the bedside table. I set up one of those Airport gizmos, which wasn’t as hard as I feared, so she could easily use her laptop in bed, lying on her side. I put a tall stack of books on the table too. For Christmas last year I’d bought her a hardcover set of Russian novels in a “hot new translation,” as Kate put it. Anna Karenina and The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment and The Double and The Gambler, and a bunch more. One of them had been an Oprah Book Club selection. Her idea, obviously; to me, that’s worse than getting socks for Christmas. She often talked about how she wished she had time to read all of Dostoyevsky. Now was her chance. She’d grabbed The Brothers Karamazov greedily and dived right in.