Joel Goldman - The Dead Man

There was an entrance to the second floor offices in the center of the block on the Broadway side and another in an alley on the backside. I guided Lucy to the alley where we parked, taking the stairs to Kate's office, the door bearing the firm name in bold black, DMC, and beneath that in a smaller font, Decision Making Consultants.

Kate's ex, Alan, once told me that he liked the name because it reminded him of his favorite musical group, Run DMC. Alan is bald, five-five stretched out, and one forty-five wet with a sun-starved complexion and a rhythmically challenged body that's been declared a muscle-free zone. When I laughed and told him that he and hip-hop went together like pocket protectors and crack cocaine, he stopped talking to me. I was too hard on him but I couldn't help it. Kate had loved him, married him, had a child with him, and still worked with him. He had something she had loved that I couldn't see and didn't have. On the other hand, maybe I wasn't hard enough on him.

Kate described the office as egalitarian. It was all open space, no private offices, everyone on equal footing on the geographic food chain, the floor divided into task zones separated by chest-high partitions, money that could have paid for show-off furnishings instead plowed into the hardware and software that made DMC run.

The office was littered with empty pizza boxes, wadded sandwich wrappers, donut sacks, and coffee cups. People were slumped in their chairs, a few watching the screen savers on their computer monitors, one long-haired guy tapping the last drops from cans of Red Bull onto his tongue before adding them to the pyramid he was building on his desk.

Some of them looked up, nodding as we passed; others were too wiped out to notice. They'd been going hard for twenty hours. We found Kate, her father, Henry, Alan, and Simon gathered in one corner.

Henry was sleeping, his thick body nestled in a deep-backed chair, his legs stretched out, chubby fingers locked over his chest, breathing lightly. The older he'd gotten, the longer he'd grown his bushy white hair, letting it hang to his collar.

Alan was standing at the windows, watching the traffic on Broadway, wearing a navy warm-up suit with red piping, one of several that comprised his casual wardrobe. Simon, his eyes glazed, was shuffling through a stack of papers. Kate, her back to me, was watching a video on a desktop computer, one frozen frame at a time. Alan saw us first.

"Oh, it's you," he said.

Kate turned around, her face lighting up. She stood, swept her hair off her forehead, and gave me a quick kiss, squeezing my shoulders in a half hug. Alan watched, swallowed, and resumed his traffic survey.

Simon looked up from his papers. "I'm never buying you a cup of coffee again for as long as I live."

The subdued greeting was enough to rouse Henry. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve, sat up straight, and tilted his chin toward me.

"Jack," he said.

"Henry."

It was as close as we ever got to a conversation. Kate sighed, wordlessly apologizing for Alan and her father. I was Alan's rival in a competition that he'd lost years ago and Henry was his second, backing him up and encouraging Kate to give their marriage a second chance for their son's sake.

"Your people look exhausted," I said.

"They are exhausted," she said. "But they've worked their butts off."

"How far have you gotten?"

Simon answered. "The staff just finished the background checks on the dream project volunteers. I did the ones for the people on the list Frank Gentry gave you. "We've generated a lot of paper but I haven't had time to process the content."

"Then send the staff home," I said. "Tell anybody who doesn't feel like driving to call a cab. Add it to the expenses and tell them I appreciate what they did."

"Will do," Simon said, making his way toward the troops.

"What about the videos?" I asked Kate.

"That's taking longer," she said. "Dad, Alan, and I are about halfway through but we're done in. We can't see straight. We need a break."

"Anything worth talking about?"

She shrugged. "A few, but it's hard to tell without more context. Simon says there's additional material in the institute's files on the volunteers that might help but he doesn't have access to it."

"I'll get what you need from Frank Gentry in the morning."

"Morning would be good. We can be back at it by eight, right, Alan?" she said.

He didn't answer, his hands planted on the glass, his attention on the street.

"Eight o'clock tomorrow morning. Okay, Alan?" she repeated.

"No," he said, his voice quiet but firm.

Kate cringed, bit her lip and took a breath. "Okay. What time do you want to get started?"

He turned and faced us, hands jammed in his pants pockets. "I'm not coming in. I quit."

Kate's eyes narrowed, her mouth slack. "What do you mean, you quit? You can't quit. We took this job and we have to finish it. Our employees are depending on us."

"Kate, you're kidding yourself. The employees finished the background checks. There's nothing else for them to do. Nothing. Not on this project or any other project. They wrapped up what little we had in the pipeline last week."

Her eyes darted past my shoulder to the rest of the floor, lowering her voice to keep the conversation semiprivate. "This job will pay us enough to keep going until we get more work."

"You're wrong, honey," said Henry. "I wish you weren't but you are. This job will let us give everyone two weeks of severance and cover our rent for the rest of the month. After that, we're all in and all done."

She wheeled around, confronting her father, hands on her hips. "You taught me never to quit."

Henry was tall, his height, girth, and flowing mane giving him a mythological cast as he stood, putting one hand on her shoulder.

"I also taught you not to be a fool. It's okay. Our people are good people. They'll find something else. Hard times make for hard choices and, sometimes, choices that are past due being made. Like for me. I'm eighty-three years old. It's time I retired. I'll be here in the morning to tell the staff and help you finish reviewing the videos. Good night, sweetheart," he said, kissing her cheek. "I love you."

"What about you?" Kate said to Alan as her father ambled toward the exit.

"I'm sorry, Kate. I can't do this anymore," he said, waving one hand toward the rest of the office but aiming a finger at me, making his real point, then dropping his arm to his side in surrender. "Anyway, you and Henry are a lot better with the facial action coding system. I'm just in the way."

Kate's color was building, her face red and her blue eyes flashing. "So you're just walking out on me?"

He shrugged, turning his palms up. "You walked out on me a long time ago, Kate. I'm just catching up."

Kate stamped her foot, her hands balled into fists, her arms clamped to her sides. "Damn it, Alan, is that what this is about? Our divorce? Are you kidding me? You've got to move on, Alan."

He picked up his coat, pulled a muffler from one sleeve, draping it around his neck. "I am. I've taken a job with a neuromarketing firm in San Diego. It's good money and I'm going in as a partner."

"San Diego! How are you going to do that? Are you walking out on our son too?"

"I'll commute on weekends until the end of the school year."

"Then what?"

He took a deep breath. "Then Brian and I are moving to San Diego. He'll be fourteen in a month and legally can choose which one of us he wants to live with. I told him about the job and he wants to go with me."

Kate folded over like she'd been punched, stumbling backward. I caught her and eased her into a chair. She put her head in her hands and let out a low moan. Alan left without another word, his head down. I scooted a chair next to Kate's, sat beside her, my arm around her, pulling her close.