Yet her churning graphs and sonic voice weren’t what caused Dan’s queasiness. It was her data that caused his discomfort. She had replicated the widely accepted second-quarter volatility after bear markets—but she had failed to include the exceptions, like the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and Berne Exchange, in four out of seven years. What’s more, she had chosen only specific DV&N investments during the volatile years—not the entire portfolio. She might be correct for the targeted sectors, but she’d need to know ahead of time which sectors, and when. Could Linda have made these a priori judicious choices in larger cap stocks at the time? Dan doubted it. No one among DV&N’s European analysts were that savvy. Her conclusions were applicable only if she were able to choose specific stocks ahead of a dip—and clairvoyance cannot be programmed into an economic model.
Dan whispered to Vinnie, “That’s wrong. How would she know ahead of time? Don’t you see?”
“Shh, Dan. We’ll talk later. Have more juice.” Vinnie reminded Dan of the rule that candidates would not criticize each other.
Dan drank his juice.
The board deliberated in private before speaking to the candidates. They complimented Dan on his thought-provoking theoretical presentation, and congratulated Linda.
Like a trained seal, Dan also barked congratulations to Linda, who responded with conciliatory words and passable modesty. Despite voting secrecy, Dan soon learned that he hadn’t impressed anyone. Bill revealed this to Linda as they walked into his office, and his remarks were overheard by Blanca. Blanca called Vinnie, who told Dan.
“Only Maria? What a joke. I wish she’d voted for Linda. It looks like a sympathy vote.”
“If I know Maria, she was sending the board a message. She knows something’s wrong,” said Vinnie.
“And just how would Maria know? Does she have the data? Does Maria know Linda’s data was perfect? Too perfect? Maria did me a disfavor with her vote.”
“Come on, Dan, I know you’re upset, but don’t blame Maria.”
A long silence followed. Dan sat in his office chair, studying the wall.
Vinnie broke the silence with a scream. “Fuck, fuck, fuck! Linda and fuckin’ pimp Bill rigged the whole fucking thing. Fuck ’em.”
“Drop it, Vinnie. What’s done is done. You think every bad event must be criminal, but not everyone has a brother like yours.”
Dan stopped himself, then held up a hand in apology.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I’m upset.”
“Forget it. You’re right. My brother is a criminal, and the fact that he’s been behind bars for two years proves it.”
Dan acted as if he heard nothing. “I’m taking the rest of the day off.”
“Good idea. Talk to Ginny, drink good wine, and tomorrow you can…”
Before Vinnie could even finish his sentence Dan was at the elevator. He glanced to his left down the hallway and saw Bill patting Linda’s shoulder.
As the elevator pinged, Dan heard another sound. “Har har, har har.”
Dan boarded the elevator and let the doors close behind him. Vinnie’s right, he thought.
Fuck ’em.
Chapter 5
Celebration
A long office corridor separated Linda and Bill from Dan at the elevator, and neither even looked in his direction. Their eyes remained fixed on each other.
Linda whispered, “Meet me in the lobby in ten minutes. We’ll go to my hotel. I’ll go over a few details in my proposal I didn’t address. You can give me the thrust of the board’s deliberation.”
“And you’ll get lots of thrusting, too. Har har, har har.” Grinning widely, Bill patted Linda on her shoulder before returning to his office.
Linda went into her temporary office and looked at Shareen. “I’m leaving now to finish packing for my flight.”
“Of course. And congratulations.”
“Thanks. I did a great job, didn’t I?”
Shareen turned away, touching her keyboard without typing.
A similar discussion took place at the other end of the hallway, as Bill gave his own departure instructions to Blanca.
“Gotta go. Need to pack and prepare for California. Only send me urgent emails, and don’t call me the rest of the day unless the building’s on fire. You can wait until you’re outside before calling. Har har, har har.”
“I’m here if you need anything,” Blanca said. Of course, what she thought was, You’re a fucking asshole, Shithead. I would rather burn in a fire than call you. You think you’re so superior, but you’re nothing but slime. Tener mala leche. She’d have to mention these thoughts in her Saturday confession.
“That-a-girl. I’ll be back in two weeks. And don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. Har har, har har.”
Bill walked out the door.
Blanca held her breath until she was sure Bill couldn’t hear her. Then she muttered, “You fucking pig. I would never do anything you would do. Your balls should become infected with gangrene that spreads to your legs and feet so you can crawl around like the snake that you are. Goodbye, Shithead, take as much time as you need. I won’t be answering your phone.”
Kicking off her high heels, Blanca relaxed. Saturday’s confession had just become longer.
****
The New York Hilton Midtown on Sixth Avenue—officially “Avenue of the Americas,” though no native New Yorker would call it that—had a standing reservation for Linda, although really the six-person suite was a generic reservation for Del Vecchio & Neale, Inc. kept available for visiting clients or board members. Bill entered to find Linda closing a suitcase. “I’m glad the asshole board guy from Texas brought his family and requested the Park Plaza instead,” he said. “Goddamn cowboy. This hotel is much better for our purpose.”
“And what purpose is that, Bill? The view?” Linda twirled the suitcase combination lock.
“You’re such a slut. I love it when your mind goes to the gutter. Shall we get started? I mean on the plans for the proposal. Har har, har har.”
“We do have a meal waiting for us,” Linda said. Food had been served to the room at Linda’s suggestion; she wanted to at least give the appearance of a more proper meeting. It was true that Bill had every right to be at the hotel, but she still felt they needed to show discretion from this point forward.
“Fine by me. We’ll eat first, then we’ll fuck.”
Her lips curled. Linda turned away and shot a furtive glance toward the bedroom. This will be my last act and final hurdle before Paris. Then I won’t have to be with Shithead again, ever. She smiled, remembering her surprise when she first overheard two staff members in the ladies’ room use Bill’s nickname. It suits him.
“Tell me about the board discussion,” she said.
Bill poured wine into their glasses. “Not much to tell. Dan’s poor performance took everyone by surprise. To be honest, I think they felt sorry for him. If he’d done better in style they might’ve overlooked his lack of data. Going in, he was the favorite by far.”
Linda swirled the wine in her glass. Fuck them. Fuck Bill too, for telling me. “How did they decide?”
“Gary summarized the arguments. Took him twenty goddamn minutes, too. Questions came up on the models. Maria raised a nontechnical question, which might have been a problem. She suggested the board consider the reaction of the European directors to you and Dan. In her opinion, Dan would inspire confidence and trust. You’re lucky I was there. I told them how you’re admired by your California group… lied through my teeth, but it did the job.”
“Fuck you. Lied through your teeth? Fuck you.”
“Hey, hold on. What’s the problem? You won. I did my part, didn’t I?”
Bill reminded Linda that it was he who had blocked Dan’s access to the data. And he had helped her manipulate the data, a fact no one had caught, not even the meticulous nerd Brian Neale. “Come on. Don’t be so sensitive. You were great. We were great. It’s over. Let’s celebrate and plan for Paris.”
Afterward, Bill was putting on his pants as Linda emerged from the bathroom.
“Did you review the estimated profit for Europe?” he asked. She knew he wasn’t referring to the figure she’d given the board; he was talking about the real figure, the figure that was just between them.
“Of course. It’s just as I said.” If all went as planned, she and Bill would each be pulling in double-digit millions. And that was her lowball estimate.
“I could cum just thinking about it.” Bill smiled. “I’ll be rid of my disgusting wife. Of course, my spoiled brat kids will want to visit their superrich Daddy, but not a goddamn chance unless I can bribe them to hate their mother so she commits suicide. Now that would be worth a visit.” Bill removed spittle from his lips with the back of his hand.
They left the room together. No reason not to, since supposedly they’d shared only a meal. Linda carried her laptop slung over her shoulder, and a bellhop toted her luggage to a waiting limo arranged by DV&N. She had three hours until her flight, but she was eager to escape the cooling New York temperatures—and Bill’s chilling comment. She understood crime for money; that made sense. But Bill’s unrestrained malice toward his wife was something else entirely.
As she climbed into the limo, Bill leaned over and snickered, “We’re on our way, babe. Nobody can stop us now.”
The limo pulled away from the curb, leaving Bill behind. As Linda opened her window to rid his breath from the car, she wondered just what Bill was capable of doing.
Chapter 6
Unnatural Defeat
Even with twenty by twenty feet of space and a larger prep room out front, Ginny’s Bloomingdale’s office confined her pacing. Dan had promised to phone by eleven a.m. with news of his success, and eleven-thirty had passed with no call. Ginny didn’t take this entirely as a bad omen, but it sure wasn’t good, either. By noon she had covered half a marathon. Enough; time to act. She telephoned Dan’s office. Her call went straight to Dan’s voice mail.
She called Vinnie next. “Vinnie, I can’t reach Dan on his cell. What’s happened? Tell me. I can guess, but I want to hear you say it.”
She could hear Vinnie sigh. No doubt he hadn’t expected to be the one to break the bad news. “I’m sorry, Ginny. The board selected Linda. It was a fucking farce… pardon the language. I’m angry. It was a goddamn circus.”
“Where’s Dan?”
“He went home. I don’t blame him. He took it hard. We all did.”
****
The front door flung open and Ginny burst in to find Dan in the living room, a glass of red wine in one hand and a near-empty bottle on the end table.
“Ginny, you didn’t need to come home. I’m indulging in self-pity.”
“Can I join you?”
Ginny went to the kitchen for another wine glass. “Tell me what happened.” She poured what was left of the bottle.
“A disaster. Without the data, I fumbled around. Worst presentation I’ve ever given. Worst presentation anyone has ever given. A total mess.”
“I’m so sorry, Dan. I love you.” Ginny was under no illusion that her words would ease his pain or repair his pride. Her Dan never came in second, at least not academically. She’d heard him talk of third place, even fifth at some college swimming competition, and he had laughed about it. He wasn’t cut out to be an Olympic swimming medalist, and he didn’t want to be. His Stanford swimming scholarship was perfunctory; they needed to fill out the squad and he couldn’t turn it down. But it was math that excited Dan—math where he sought his fame—and he had never before had to experience real failure in that area.
Dan’s knees touched his chest. “You know, she fudged the data.”
“Linda?”
“Who else? I could tell. Her premise was flawed, but I can’t prove it. She made up the data so that it looked perfect. She outwitted me. She tricked the board.”
“I’m so sorry. What can you—what can we do?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all.” Dan walked to the window, finishing his wine. He stared at Central Park “Damn it. How can life continue as if nothing has changed?” He pointed. “Look, see, the people hurrying around, the horse-drawn carriages with tourists, the darting yellow cabs. They have a purpose. Everyone down there has a purpose. What’s mine? More of the same? What should I have done better?”
Ginny had seen Dan withdraw from normal routine life before. He’d done so when working on his grad school thesis, when wooing new clients, and of course recently, when preparing for the executive director proposal. But what she saw now was different.
Looking at Dan’s colorless, gray face, his mouth half open, the tip of his tongue visible, Ginny saw a different man. Dan’s pigeon walk, with his arms glued to his side, epitomized despair. She had never seen Dan like this.
Of course, he’d been sulking this entire year, but that was her fault—because of her obsession. He complained and brooded, but he still responded to her; he’d argue with passion and anger.
He never once came home early to drink. Never.
Ginny knew a thing or two about battles with inner demons. They never ceased, not completely, and victory was only temporary. She knew that their recent sex proved that those demons could be beaten—but only in the short run. Today should have been a day of joy, for Dan and for her. It should have been another reprieve from her demon, not the creation of a new one for Dan. She had anticipated Dan telling her that he had crushed Linda and Bill, tossing them like the man in the pool, metaphorically anyway. Instead she found Dan wrapped in misery, weak and indifferent.
Ginny’s anticipated passion morphed into sympathy. She curved her body into Dan’s rear and clasped her hands around his chest, her head on his shoulder. “Let’s go to bed.”
“Ginny, I couldn’t possibly have sex now.”
“I know. I don’t mean sex. We’ll snuggle, hold each other, like we used to do. That’s all.”
Her fingers tightened on Dan’s expanding chest. This was good—for her. She felt his spreading laterals pushing her forearms out, his firm ass pushing against her pelvis.
Dan bowed his head and jerked away. She pulled back. What is this? Depression? Has self-pity overpowered him? Why does he care about tiny people on the sidewalk?
“I’m not a loser. I need air. I need to think. I’m going out.”
“I’ll change my shoes. We can walk in the park.”
“Thanks, but I’d rather be alone.”
“Wait, I’ll just be a sec…”
The front door shut behind him.
Chapter 7
Sign On the Dotted Line
Alone in the room, Ginny saw the walls, the floor, the ceiling as if for the first time—like on the day when she and Dan had moved in. And a strange day that had been.
Unlike many couples, their first anniversary did not include dinner, champagne, or an exhausting night in the bedroom. Well, it did include exhaustion, and sex, but the exhaustion was not from sex alone.
Ginny and Dan’s anniversary came on the same day they relocated to their newly purchased condo on West 70th overlooking Central Park.
Adjustments to their new location had to be made, and a new gym was Ginny’s highest priority. On her last trip from the moving van with yet another box, Ginny asked Fred, the doorman, for a recommendation. He suggested a place called UltraFit Gym on West 68th, around the block. With the elevator door closing, Fred yelled out: “The owner’s a professional bodybuilder.”
Upstairs, she found Dan kneeling among half-unpacked boxes, and she breathlessly told him the news.
“Dan, there’s an Olympic-size pool and state-of-the-art equipment.” She’d found it on UltraFit’s web page, which she’d pulled up on her phone on the elevator ride up. “Should we apply for a spousal membership?”
“I’m fin
e. My gym is convenient for my morning schedule.”
“Okay.” Ginny had immediately gone to her laptop to learn more. She followed UltraFit’s link to owner Ben Hausen’s personal Facebook page. Her computer screen filled with a picture of Ben in a poser suit, accepting the Mister America trophy. Ginny became Ben’s Facebook friend, gaining access to even more photos.
The next day, she arrived at the gym bright and early. UltraFit’s ground-floor glass windows revealed a modern gym: highly polished chrome machines, wall-mounted flat-screen TVs, stationary bicycles and treadmills in formation. Marionettes swayed in cadence to heavy thump-beating music that cascaded into the workout hall from the lobby. Thump. Sweat. Thump. Sweat. She knew from the website that the floor below housed showers lined with imported tiles, spa-like changing rooms, male and female saunas, and private massage rooms. And at the far end of the floor was the restricted-access windowless X-room.
She walked up to the reception desk, where a wall of photos and trophies, all Ben Hausen’s, was prominently displayed. The day manager, Steve, greeted her. He was muscle-buffed and varnished. Her eyes wandered over his stretched T-shirt, his accentuated pectorals, the nipple just below his pinned-on nametag. Ginny watched as Steve’s eyes lingered on her chest. Good.
Ginny’s wardrobe had been chosen specifically to impress the owner. Torpedo tits filled her push-up bra, while her plunging neckline seemed made for a Lunar Rover testing ground. Below her abdomen were silk trousers, molded to her hubcap derrière.
“Hi, I’m Steve. Can I help you? Are you interested in membership? We have state-of-the-art equipment. May I show you around? The locker rooms have private showers. We supply fresh towels, all extra large. The sauna’s ready early in the morning. We have our own scented soap. We supply alternative shampoos and individual blow dryers. Can I show you around? We have a great facility.”
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