Джозеф Файндер - Company Man

“It’s a hell of a lot of money.”

“He worked for Stratton for thirty-six years. It’s what he was entitled to. Maybe not legally, but morally.”

“It’s guilt money. Schuldgeld, in German, right?” Those corners of her mouth turned all the way up in a canny smile. Closer to a smirk, maybe. “The word guilt has the same root as the German word for money, Geld .”

“I wouldn’t know.” He felt his insides clutch tight. “I just didn’t think you should be left high and dry.”

“God, I don’t know how you can stand doing what you do.”

She has the right to go after me, Nick thought. Let her. Let her rant, do her whole anti-corporate thing. Trash Stratton, and me. Make her feel better. Maybe that’s why you’re here: masochism .

“Ah, right,” he said. “‘Slasher Nick’ and all that.”

“I mean, it can’t be easy. Being hated by just about everyone in town.”

“Part of my job,” he said.

“Must be nice to have one.”

“Sometimes yes, sometimes no.”

“Life must have been a lot easier a couple of years ago when everyone loved you, I bet. You must have felt you were really in the groove, hitting on all cylinders. Then all of a sudden you’re the bad guy.”

“It’s not a popularity contest.” The hell was this?

A mysterious smile. “A man like you wants to be liked. Needs to be liked.”

“I should be going.”

“I’m making you uncomfortable,” she said. “You’re not the introspective type.” A beat. “Why are you really here? Don’t trust the messenger service?”

Nick shook his head vaguely. “I’m not sure. Maybe I feel really bad for you. I lost my wife last year. I know how hard this can be.”

When she looked up at him, there seemed to be a kind of pain in the depths of her hazel eyes. “Kids?”

“Two. Girl and a boy.”

“How old?”

“Julia’s ten. Lucas is sixteen.”

“God, to lose your mother at that age. I guess there’s always enough pain to go around at the banquet of life. Plenty of seconds, right?” She sounded as if the wind had suddenly gone out of her.

“I’ve got to get back. I’m sorry if it bothered you, me coming by like this.”

Suddenly she sank to the floor, collapsing into a seated position on the wall-to-wall carpet, canting to one side. Her legs folded up under her. She supported herself with one arm. “Jesus,” she said.

“You okay?” Nick came up to her, leaned over.

Her other hand was against her forehead. Her eyes were closed. Her translucent skin was ashen.

“Jesus, I’m sorry. All the blood just left my head, and I...”

“What can I get you?”

She shook her head. “I just need to sit down. Lightheaded.”

“Glass of water or something?” He kneeled beside her. She looked like she was on the verge of toppling over, passing out. “Food, maybe?”

She shook her head again. “I’m fine.”

“I don’t think so. Stay there, I’ll get you something.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” she said, her eyes unfocused. “Forget it, don’t worry about it. I’m fine.”

Nick got up, went into the kitchen. Dirty dishes were piled up in the sink and on the counter next to it, a bunch of Chinese takeout cartons. He looked around, found the electric stove, a kettle sitting on one burner. He picked it up, felt it was empty. He filled it in the sink, shoving aside some of the stacked plates to make room for the kettle. It took him a couple of seconds to figure out which knob on the stove turned on which burner. The burner took a long time to go from black to orange.

“You like Szechuan Garden?” he called out.

Silence.

“You okay?” he said.

“It’s pretty gross, actually,” she said after another pause, voice weak. “There’s like two, maybe three Chinese restaurants in this whole town, one worse than the next.” Another pause. “There’s more than that on my block in Chicago.”

“Looks like you get a lot of takeout from there anyway.”

“I can walk to it. I haven’t felt much like cooking, since...”

She was standing at the threshold to the kitchen, entered slowly and unsteadily. She sank down in one of the kitchen chairs, chrome with a red vinyl seat back, the table red Formica with a cracked ice pattern and chrome banding around the edge.

The teakettle was making a hollow roaring sound. Nick opened the refrigerator — “Frigidaire” on the front in that great old squat script, raised metal lettering, reminding Nick of the refrigerator in his childhood home — and found it pretty much empty. A quart of skim milk, an opened bottle of Australian chardonnay with a cork in it; a carton of eggs, half gone.

He found a rind of Parmesan cheese, a salvageable bunch of scallions.

“You got a grater?”

“You serious?”

He set the omelet on the table before her, a fork and a paper napkin, a mug of tea. The mug, he noticed too late, had the old 1970s Stratton logo on one side.

She dug into it, eating ravenously.

“When’s the last time you ate today?” Nick asked.

“Right now,” she said. “I forgot to eat.”

“Forgot?”

“I’ve had other things on my mind. Hey, this isn’t bad.”

“Thank you.”

“I wouldn’t have figured you for a chef.”

“That’s about the extent of my cooking ability.”

“I feel way better already. Thank you. I thought I was going to pass out.”

“You’re welcome. I saw some salami in there, but I thought you might be a vegan or something.”

“Vegans don’t eat eggs,” she said. “Yum. God, you know, there’s some kinds of ribbon worms that actually eat themselves if they don’t find any food.”

“Glad I got here in time.”

“The head of Stratton makes a mean omelet. Wait till the newspapers get hold of that.”

“So how did you end up in Chicago?”

“Long story. I grew up here. But my mom grew tired of my dad’s craziness, when I was like nine or ten. That was before he was diagnosed as schizophrenic. She moved to the Windy City and left me here with Dad. A couple of years later, I went to live with her and her new husband. Hey, this is my house, and I’m not being much of a hostess.”

She got up, went over to one of the lower cabinets, opened the door. It held a collection of dusty bottles, vermouth and Baileys Irish Cream and such. “Let me guess — you’re a Scotch kinda guy.”

“I’ve got to get home to the kids.”

“Oh,” she said. “Right. Sure.” Something waiflike and needy in her face got to him. He’d told Marta an hour or so; another hour wouldn’t be a big deal.

“But maybe a little Scotch would be okay.”

She seemed to light up, leaned over and pulled out a bottle of Jameson. “Irish, not Scotch — okay?”

“Fine with me.”

She pulled out a cut-glass tumbler from the same cabinet. “Whoo boy,” she said, blowing a cloud of dust out of it. She held it under the running tap in the sink. “I’m going to say rocks.”

“Hmm?”

“Ice cubes. You drink your whiskey on the rocks.” She went to the antique Frigidaire, opened the freezer, took out the kind of ice tray Nick hadn’t seen in decades, aluminum with the lever you pull up to break the ice into cubes. She yanked back the handle, making a scrunching sound that sounded like his childhood. Reminded him of his dad, who liked his Scotch on the rocks, every night and too much of it.

She plopped a handful of jagged cubes into the glass, glugged in a few inches of whiskey, came over and handed it to him. She looked directly into his eyes, the first time she’d done that. Her eyes were big and gray-green and lucid, and Nick felt a tug in his groin. He immediately felt a flush of shame. Jesus, he thought.