Marcus Sakey - The Blade Itself

The morning dragged by in a morass of paperwork and blank periods when he found himself staring at the wall. He had an embarrassing moment at his lunch meeting, when a client had to repeat a question three times before he heard it. “Jesus, Carter, where were you?” the man had asked, holding his gaze, then deciding to let it go, saying, “Must be better weather than here. Can I come next time?”

That had burned. Not the client’s smart-ass comment, but the idea that he couldn’t hold it together. That with his skills and experience and goddamnit, brains, he was simply not pulling through. The anger at himself surged quick and hot enough to keep his nerves humming through the rest of lunch.

As he walked back into the office, he held onto that glowing ember, fanned it, urged it to scorch. Forget this nonsense of moping about. If he wanted to rebuild his life when this was over, he couldn’t succumb. No more. He would throw himself into work. Hit the phone hard, check in on the bids they’d shipped last month. Get some things accomplished. And when the day was done, go home to Karen. Better pissed off than helpless.

Jeff Teller, one of their foremen, was walking a guy Danny didn’t know through the lobby, giving him the grand tour. Danny nodded hello, and Teller stopped him, introduced the man as an electrician new to the team. “He’s going to be helping us this winter.”

“Hey, welcome.” They shook hands, the guy’s grip firm.

“Danny,” Teller said, “is one of our project managers. The one you hope is running your job.”

“Hey, Teller, we already have you on contract. You can stop kissing up now.” The trash talk coming easy, a rhythm he knew.

Teller laughed. “Seriously. He’s a good guy,” making the two words into one. “One of the ones in management you can trust.” There was no trace of irony in his eyes, and Danny found himself touched, wondering how Dad would have felt to hear that.

“Danny.” Richard stood half in, half out of his office door. “Could you join me?”

Danny’s mouth went dry, the good feeling evaporating in an instant. What was going on? Could Evan have screwed up somehow, gotten caught? Could Richard know? Was there a roomful of cops waiting? Part of him wanted to turn and run, just bolt.

Stay cool. You’re hitched to the whirlwind, and the only way to land safe is to keep your head .

“Sure. Let me just drop my things.”

His boss nodded and stepped back inside his office. No police officers boiled out to replace him. There must not be any in there; what kind of a cop would give him time to climb out the window? Though that didn’t mean that Richard didn’t suspect something himself. Danny shook hands again with Teller and the new guy, then walked into his office, willing his pulse to calm. He dropped his bag in the chair, glanced around the room without knowing what he was looking for, then put on his work face.

Richard sat in his expensive chair, leaning forward to rest his forehead in his palms as he stared down at financial statements. The usually neat mahogany desk was crowded with paper, binders with the Merrill Lynch logo on them and a notebook covered in Richard’s neat, feminine handwriting. Danny rapped on the wall with his knuckles, and his boss jumped a little, like he’d forgotten he’d asked anyone to join him. Then he gestured to a chair. “Get the door, would you?”

That did nothing to quiet the alarms in Danny’s mind. Richard rarely closed his door. It wasn’t a hippie, open-concept kind of thing; he just liked the whole office to know when he was in a rage. Danny took a seat, keeping his face neutral as he studied his boss.

Richard looked like hell. Dark circles carved canyons under both eyes. Generally capable of a five o’clock shadow by ten in the morning, today he looked like he hadn’t shaved at all, and the salt-and-pepper stubble made him look older, more frail. His tie was impeccably knotted, and gold dice secured French cuffs, but with his left hand he fiddled with a pen, spinning it nervously between his fingers.

His boss’s evident distress sent a stab through Danny, but he quickly closed it off. Everything would be fine. It had to be.

Richard looked at him, rubbed his eyes, and then leaned back. He opened his mouth, stopped himself. Though he looked like a man with something important to ask, what came out was, “How’s the progress on the restaurant?”

“It’s fine. They’re running electrical this week.”

“They know they need extra breakers for the kitchen? Morris wanted every cook surface on its own.”

Danny nodded, waiting for the man to get to the point. They sat in silence for a moment, Richard gazing out the window at the convenience store across the street.

“And the wiring, they know to use the-”

“It’s under control. What’s on your mind?” He knew, of course, but didn’t dare give any indication.

His boss turned back from the window and began shuffling papers around. “Right. Well, I’ve just been going over the financials, and I wanted to see if yours were up to date.”

“As of last week.”

“Anything change since then?” Was that a note of hope in Richard’s voice?

“No. Everything is pretty much on schedule.”

“We haven’t gotten the advance from the Cumberland people, have we?”

Danny shot him a perplexed look. Work on Cumberland Plaza, a strip mall in Joliet, wouldn’t begin until at least March. It was their big spring job, and would come with a healthy advance for materials and manpower – but not in October. “No.”

Richard nodded, slumped back in his chair.

“Should I call them about it?” Danny asked.

“Yeah, why don’t you do that.”

“Any reason I can give them? For wanting the money this early, I mean?”

Richard peered at his notebook, not looking at Danny. “Tell them we can swing a twenty percent discount on materials.”

“How are we going to do that?” The question sprang from habit, the project manager side of him trying to protect Richard from the pitfalls he liked to dig in front of himself.

“I’ll negotiate a ten percent on a preorder. And the rest we’ll make up by running a tight project.”

“This bid was already tight. There’s no pad in it.”

“Look, we’ll figure it out when the time comes. Right now, we just need the money.”

“For what?” The moment the question left his mouth, he realized he knew the answer. The puzzle pieces had been in front of him all along, he just hadn’t put them together. Oh God .

Richard looked up, his eyes watery. The normal type-A arrogance was nowhere to be seen. “I… we have some things we need to cover.” He looked back down, his shoulders low. “Just do it, okay?”

It was clearly a dismissal, and Danny rose slowly, feeling numb. A memory of dropping by Richard’s house flooded through him. The den, with its modern art paintings and drug-dealer leather couch. The grim, defeated expression on Richard’s face as he hurried to shut off the computer monitors. Telling Danny he’d been getting worked in the stock market. That shrapnel from the bursting tech bubble had cut him badly.

How much had he lost?

Enough , came the answer. Enough that he can’t pay the ransom himself .

And as a small business owner, if you find yourself in a desperate situation, like, say, trying to find the money to pay the ransom on your son, where do you go?

He’s going to burn the company.

The bottom fell from his stomach as he walked out. Richard didn’t watch him leave, his attention buried in the company balance sheets, as though a solution might be written within them. But Danny knew the numbers as well as the old man. Better. He knew what Richard was discovering. The money was there, sure. But it was the support structure of the company. It covered rent, kept the lights on, bought materials. It paid salaries and health insurance. If you tugged it out, the whole structure collapsed – and everyone who’d thought their footing was safe was suddenly scrabbling at air.