Джозеф Файндер - Company Man

“Not having kids,” LaTonya pointed out.

“Right. It’s dealing with Leon.”

“What the hell does he do all day?” LaTonya demanded, one hand on her left hip, waggling the other hand to cool it off.

“He watches a lot of TV and he drinks,” Audrey said.

“You see, I knew this would happen. We spoiled him growing up. The baby of the family. Anything he wanted, he got. My momma and me, we waited on him hand and foot, and now you’re paying the price. You hear what I hear?”

“I don’t hear anything.”

“Exactly.” She shouted, earsplittingly loud, “Camille, you’ve got twenty more minutes of practicing, so don’t stop now!”

An anguished, garbled protest came from the next room.

“And you don’t get any supper until you’re done, so move it!” She glowered at Audrey. “Honestly, I don’t know what’s wrong with her ownself. She pays me no mind at all.”

Dinner was meat loaf, macaroni and cheese, collards, and sweet-potato casserole, everything heavy and greasy but delicious. Leon sat next to his sister at one end of the table, LaTonya’s husband at the other, the two squirming boys on one side facing Audrey and Camille’s empty place.

The sound of the piano came from the living room, sporadic, sullen. Brahms, Audrey recognized. A pretty piece. A waltz, maybe? Her niece was struggling with it.

Thomas squawked with laughter over something, and Matthew said, “Fuck you!”

LaTonya exploded: “Don’t you ever use language like that in this house, you hear me?”

The two boys fell instantly silent. Matthew, looking like a whipped puppy, said, “Yes, ma’am.”

“That’s right,” LaTonya said.

Audrey caught the younger boy’s eye and gave him a mildly disapproving look that was still, she hoped, filled with auntly love.

Leon was stuffing his face meanwhile. He said, “I wish I could eat supper here every night, LaTonya.”

She beamed, then caught herself. “Is there any reason you can’t get yourself a job?”

“Doing what?” Leon said, dropping his fork dramatically. “Operating an electrostatic spray gun at the Seven-Eleven, maybe?”

“Doing something,” LaTonya said.

“Doing something?” Leon said. “Like what? Like what do you think a guy with my skills can do here?”

“Your skills,” LaTonya scoffed.

“How do you think it feels getting laid off?” Leon said, his voice rising. “Do you have any idea? How do you think I feel about myself?”

“I’ll tell you how I feel about you sitting around doing absolutely nothing,” LaTonya said. She cocked her head. “Camille,” she shouted, “what are you doing?”

Another muffled cry.

“We’re all eating in here,” LaTonya yelled. “We’re likely to finish dinner without you, rate you’re practicing.”

Camille screamed back, “I can’t stand it!”

“You can yell all you want,” LaTonya bellowed. “Won’t make any difference. You’re not getting over on me.”

“Let me talk to her,” Audrey said. She excused herself from the table, went into the next room.

Camille was weeping at the piano, her head resting on her elbows atop the keys. Audrey sat down at the bench next to her. She stroked her niece’s hair, lingering on the kitchen, that kinky hair at the nape of her neck. “What is it, honey?”

“I can’t stand it,” Camille said. She sat up. Her face was streaked with tears. She looked genuinely upset; it was no act. “I don’t understand this. This is torture.”

Audrey looked at the sheet music. Brahms’s Waltz in A Minor. “What don’t you get, baby?”

Camille touched the music with a pudgy, tear-damp finger, making a tiny pucker.

“The trill, is that it?”

“I guess.”

Audrey nudged Camille over a bit and played a few measures. “Like that?”

“Yeah, but I can’t do that.”

“Try this.” Audrey played the trill slowly. “Down an octave.”

Camille placed her fingers on the keyboard and tried.

“Like this,” Audrey said, playing again.

Camille imitated her. Close enough. “That’s it, baby. You got it. Try it again.”

Camille played it, got it right.

“Now go back a couple of measures. To here. Let me hear it.”

Camille played the first two lines of the second page.

“Boy, are you a fast learner,” Audrey marveled. “You don’t even need me anymore.”

Camille smiled faintly.

“When’s your recital?”

“Next week.”

“What are you doing besides this?”

“Little Prelude.”

“Beethoven?”

Camille nodded.

“Can I come?”

Camille smiled again, this time a happy grin. “You think you have time?”

“I’ll make time, baby. I’d love to. Now, hurry up and finish. I’m getting lonely at the table without you.”

Paul looked up as Audrey entered the dining room. He was a pigeon-chested man with sunken cheeks, a recessive gene but a sweet-natured guy. Camille was back at the Brahms, strong and enthusiastic. “I don’t know what you threatened her with, but sounds like it worked,” he said.

“She probably pulled out her handcuffs,” said LaTonya.

“Probably her gun,” Leon mumbled. He seemed to have calmed down in the meantime, retreated back into his old, monosyllabic self.

“No,” Audrey said, sitting down. “She just needed a little help figuring something out.”

“I want an ice cream sundae for dessert,” the younger boy said.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” said LaTonya. “Right now it’s looking awful grim for you.”

“How come?”

“You got more than half your meat loaf left. Now Audrey, what are you working on these days?”

“It’s not dinner-table conversation,” Audrey said.

“I don’t mean the gory details.”

“I’m afraid it’s all gory details,” Audrey said.

“She’s working on that murder of the Stratton worker got murdered down on Hastings,” Leon said.

Audrey was amazed he even knew what she was working on. “People aren’t supposed to know what I’m doing,” she told him.

“We’re all family here,” said LaTonya.

“Right, but still,” said Audrey.

“No one’s going to say anything, my saditty sister,” LaTonya said. “You think we know anybody? This guy fell off the edge, that right? Get into crack and other poisons like that?” She cast an evil eye at her two sons.

“I met the guy,” Leon said.

“Who?” said Audrey. “Andrew Stadler?”

Leon nodded. “Sure. He kept to himself, but I talked to him in the break room once or twice.” Leon reached for the macaroni and cheese and shoveled a huge lump onto his plate, a third helping. “Couldn’t meet a nicer guy.”

“A troubled man,” Audrey said.

“Troubled?” said Leon. “I don’t know. Gentle as a lamb, I’ll tell you that.”

“Really?” said Audrey.

“Gentle as a lamb,” Leon said again.

“I’m done,” Camille announced, entering the room and sitting down next to Audrey. She found Audrey’s hand under the table and gave it a little secret squeeze. Audrey’s heart fluttered for a moment.

“Took you long enough,” said LaTonya. “I hope you learned your lesson.”

“You sounded great,” Audrey said.

Nick got in a little earlier than usual, got a cup of coffee from the executive lounge, and checked his e-mail. As usual, his inbox was cluttered with offers for Viagra and penis enlargement and low-interest mortgages, the subject headings inventively misspelled. The putative wives and sons of various deceased African heads of state urgently sought his assistance in transferring millions of dollars out of their country.