Cash Burn (17 page)

He could simply leave. Find Brenda. She’d said, “Anything you want.” The words and the expression in her eyes took his frustration with Vince and wadded it into a ball of fury.

His fist pounded into his desktop. Outside, the sounds of the office paused momentarily, and then returned to their ordinary pattern. Jason stalked out of the office and across the lobby to Vince’s lair.

“A meeting with investors is going long. He had to cancel.”

Vince looked up, his usual expression of irritation in Jason’s presence taking on the sneer of a man smelling rotten fruit.

Jason went on. “I’ll reschedule for sometime in the next couple of weeks. I’ll let you know.”

Vince held his gaze for a minute, his mouth drawn tight, before turning to his computer and clicking his mouse a couple of times. “I’m pretty booked, but I’ll see if I can move some things around. Sit.” His fingers were like little sausages, pounding on the keyboard with a precision they had no business possessing. Another mouse click, and he leaned back in his chair. “Go ahead. Sit down.”

The spot opposite Vince’s desk felt too much like a visit to the principal’s office. Jason took the seat at the table across the room. Vince had to rotate his chair to face him.

“Let’s go through your September numbers. I didn’t see much growth.”

Not this conversation again. It was bad enough with Mark, but Jason heard every word out of Vince’s mouth as if it were a bullet being loaded.

Jason stared at him. Vince’s white hair was shorn like a sheep’s. The scalp glistened through it. He’d started wearing it short after he moved his office here. Jason couldn’t imagine why.

Vince spread his hands. “Well?”

“What do you want me to say that you don’t hear in your pipeline meetings every Monday morning?”

“I want you to say you’re working on a strategy to turn things around.”

“Yeah, me and the president are working on turning around the economy.”

“I don’t want smart—”

“We’re in the worst economy in seventy years, Vince. What kind of miracles do you expect?”

“The branches are still growing.”

“Yeah. I’ve seen some of their deals. They look really solid.”

Vince snorted. “They’re new business. Approved by committee and booked. Nobody but you is making excuses.”

It was about to come out. All of it. Jason’s fury over everything Vince had done over the past six months was perched at the base of his throat.

Jason swallowed hard. “You’re running every deal process. Every pipeline meeting. How am I supposed to get anything done? You tighten up everything we try to do until we lose it.”

“Now who’s not paying attention to the economy?”

“Your branches get deals done that are so loose you could drive a bus through the holes in the structure. Why is that, Vince? Why do you fight so hard for branch deals, but the ones this office pitches, you’re down on? Let’s hear it.”

“Always somebody else’s fault, isn’t it, Jason? Never yours.”

Jason beat a rhythm on the tabletop. “Are we about done here?”

“No.” Vince slid a piece of paper across his desk. “Read that and sign it.”

Jason would have to get up and walk to Vince’s desk. He stayed put. “What is it?”

“A memo. For your file.”

“My file.”

Vince slapped a pen down on top of the piece of paper. “That’s right. You need to sign it, evidence that we talked about it.”

So this was what it was coming to. Vince was papering Jason’s personnel file so he could fire him for cause.

Jason stood. He turned and walked out without saying another word.

28

From his space in the underground garage, Jason could see Vince’s silver Jaguar XJ glistening in the fluorescent lights. He imagined what it would feel like to take a hammer to the hood.

That wasn’t enough revenge. The man was trying to destroy his career. Trashing a car in return wouldn’t cut it.

Jason reached for the ignition and switched on his engine. The tachometer rose and settled as the motor reached idle speed. Jason let the smooth rumble massage him while he stared at the rounded contours of Vince’s Jag.

Papering his personnel file so they had a case to fire him. Vince could never get away with that without Mark going along with it. Scotty too, maybe. Well, they’d have trouble getting that through a wrongful termination lawsuit. Every performance review had been outstanding, and his promotions backed them up. It would take more than a couple of letters in his file to overcome that track record.

Jason tapped the steering wheel, the engine’s groove rumbling through his bones.

No, the strategy wouldn’t be to terminate him. They had to know about his legal connections and how risky and costly it would be to try to fire him. Vince was a lot of things, but he wasn’t stupid. He wouldn’t try a frontal assault. The letter was just another tool in his box, another way to make Jason miserable along with undermining his authority, stripping him of his team’s loyalty, and weakening his customer relationships by injecting Vince into them.

Still, it wouldn’t hurt to talk with an attorney.

His mind automatically went to Serena. Six months ago, he would have had her on the phone, and in an instant she would have been maneuvering for him, calling in chits with colleagues who were experts in wrongful termination. She would have had them firing off threatening letters to every executive at BTB from HR to the board of directors.

He shook his head. Serena was out of his life now. She’d found another lawyer to love. He would have to find another legal expert.

But somewhere in the city, Brenda waited for him. A smile surfaced. He revved the engine of his BMW and found his cell phone. Six messages. He tabbed through them and saw Brenda’s number. She’d called twice while Vince was grilling him.

Her recorded voice in the first message brought the image of her face to his mind. “Hi, it’s me. Brenda. Where are you? I saw you at the elevator leaving, and I know you didn’t have an appointment. It was all I could do to sit still and not run after you.” Her voice paused. In the background, he heard the clopping of her heels on concrete and pictured her walking along the sidewalk, phone pressing her ear tight and angling over the smooth contour of her jaw. “Call me. I want to know where we can meet. I’m waiting for you. Okay?”

She left the next message thirty minutes later. “Jason, please call. I’m starting to think . . . I don’t want to say it. Just call me, please.”

He deleted the messages and went back to the call log to find her number. He was about to press the button to connect.

A knock on his window.

His head shot to the left.

It wasn’t Vince, chasing after him with the letter. A tall guy in a Hawaiian shirt leaned over and pressed an open wallet against the window, clicking a badge to the glass. A parole officer. The guy said something, but Jason couldn’t hear him over the rumble of the engine. After a second, the guy lifted his hand next to the window and pointed downward. The badge went into his back pocket.

Jason set down the phone and lowered his window. “What do you want?”

“Turn off the engine and step out.” The guy worked gum with the patience of a cow chewing cud. Jason didn’t move. The guy grinned. “You’re going to be like that, huh?”

“Yeah. I’m going to be like that. I’ll give you thirty seconds to convince me I need to talk to you, then I’m out of here.”

“Okay, Kahuna. Just tell me where to find your brother and I’ll be out of your hair.” A couple of pops of his gum punctuated his point.

“I have no idea.”

“You haven’t seen him.”

“We’re not exactly tight.”

“But you knew he was out.”

Jason paused. The surfer’s grin was an insult. “In. Out. As long as he stays away from me, I don’t care where he is.”

“I’m going to ask you again. Have you seen him?”

“No.”

“You’re lying.” The grin was gone. “Step out here so we can talk.”

Jason shifted gears and released the parking brake. “We’re done.” He began to raise the window.

“Okay. I’ll come back in the morning and hang around your office.”

Jason turned to him.

“Talk to your boss, maybe. Some of your banker buddies. See if they’ve seen you hanging around with your felon brother.” He patted the roof of Jason’s car. “See you tomorrow.”

The guy turned, and Jason was faced with the back panel of his shirt—surfboards, palm trees, hibiscus, dark-skinned girls in bikinis. The officer began to saunter away.

Jason clutched the steering wheel. “Hold on.”

He turned. His grin was subtle as a slap. The gum popped like some native language. “Change your mind?” Back at the car, he put a hand on the roof. “There’s a coffee shop across the street. You can buy me a Coke.”

* * *

Rosie wasn’t working this late. Customers occupied only two of the twenty or so tables in the room.

The guy slid into a booth. “I’m Hathaway.”

Jason sat opposite. “Let’s get this over with.”

Hathaway looked toward the counter. The waiter chatted with the fry cook through the opening to the kitchen. Hathaway cupped his tongue and whistled loud enough to startle every ear in the room.

The waiter said something to the fry cook and came over. He was skinny as a table leg. He brought a pad out from his back pocket. “All right. You got my attention.”

Hathaway nodded at Jason. “He’s buying me a Coke. You got any fries?”

“Sure, we got fries. This is America, isn’t it?”

“You having anything?” Hathaway asked Jason.

“Just bring me some water.”

The waiter raised an eyebrow. “Water.”

Jason stared at Hathaway until the waiter tucked his pad away and angled himself back across the room. “So your Coke’s on the way. Let’s get to it.”

Hathaway leaned back and drew an arm across the top of the booth. It caused the pictures on his Hawaiian shirt to accordion together in front. A native girl’s head was now perched atop a red surfboard. “I’m not his PO. You want to know where his PO is?”

“If you’re going to tell me, tell me.”

“He’s over in Brotman. Concussion. The docs are holding him for observation. Your little brother did that.” Hathaway’s laid-back attitude vanished. He brought his arm down and planted his elbows on the table. For the first time, Jason noticed that Hathaway’s arms had some bulk to them. “I’m going to find him. Put him back inside. And you’re going to help me.”

The waiter brought two plastic glasses to the table, one filled with Hathaway’s Coke and another filled with water. He put them both in the middle of the table and retreated.

“How am I going to help you if I don’t know where he is or how to contact him? Even if I wanted to.”

The PO stripped off the tip of the straw wrapper and took a sip of his Coke. “You know, I have a knack. You want to know what my knack is?”

Jason waited.

“My knack is, I can tell when people are lying to me. All the time. That’d probably be a good knack to have in your line of business, huh? You have that?”

“Sometimes.”

“No, if it’s sometimes you don’t have it. I’m talking about all the time. Guy says to me he’s been keeping the conditions of his parole when he’s been hanging out with people he shouldn’t, doing crack or something, I pick up on it right away. And these guys are good, too. They make lying an art form. But maybe his eyes shift a little too much. Maybe his color changes a little. Or maybe the words he uses, they’re strung together weird. Could be anything. Even something I can’t put my finger on. But I can tell.”

Jason shoved the straw aside and lifted the glass to his lips. The tap water tasted of iron, but it was cool.

“You tell me you haven’t seen your brother. You don’t know if he’s out or in. I can tell you’re lying. Don’t ask me how exactly, but I know.”

The waiter was back with a plastic basket filled with steaming fries glistening with oil. He put them in front of Hathaway and set a ketchup squeezer in the center of the table.

Hathaway never took his eyes off Jason. “So then I have to ask myself, why would this guy lie? Maybe he’s trying to protect his little brother. Or maybe he’s just in a hurry. Or maybe he doesn’t want to get dragged into anything. He’s got a reputation to protect. Or it could be he’s got something going with his little brother.”

Jason snorted. “You’ve got quite an imagination.”

“No. No imagination.” Hathaway sprinkled salt over the fries and stuffed a trio of them into his mouth. He breathed in open-mouthed. “Hot.” It didn’t stop him from following up with another bunch of them. “Help yourself.” He pushed the basket toward Jason.

“I told you—I haven’t seen him. Your knack must be on the fritz.”

“No, no. That’s the thing, see? That’s what makes it a knack. If it ever went on the fritz, it wouldn’t be a knack. It’d just be luck. It’s never been luck. It’s always right. I can tell. Just now, when you said you haven’t seen him, I had all kinds of buzzers and poppers going off in my head like an alarm system or something. You’re lying. Have some fries.”

Jason folded his arms. “I don’t know what to tell you.”

“Try the truth. Here, we’ll work up to it. I’ll help. You and Flip, you grew up in Inglewood. That right?”

“You know it’s right.”

“Good. Good. That’s a start. Tell me about that. Give me some truth, just to prime the pump, get you used to talking straight.”

“I don’t want to talk about my childhood.”

“Mom split when you and Flip were just kids, huh?”

Jason fought an urge to stand and walk out of the coffee shop. But he couldn’t have this guy snooping around the office. Not with everything else going on.

“Why’d she leave, Jason? Flip too much to handle?”

“Get off her.”

“Oh, so it wasn’t her fault. What were you, nine? Ten? That’d make Flip seven or eight. Tough to have two boys around causing trouble all the time.”

“We weren’t causing trouble.”

“Got it. Not your fault either. That leaves the old man. I know how that is. I’m divorced myself. You still married, Jason?”

There was a piece of skin on Jason’s lip that he bit off.

“I see you got no wedding band, but your finger’s slick there. You just take the ring off for special occasions, or are things a little rocky on the home front?”