First Class Stamp (7 page)

Although she’d read Ben’s email, and called and instructed
her staff not to come to work, Maria sat at her desk in Crystal Towers and
reviewed her calendar. There were still things to be done like paying the
utility bills and representing MEL Holdings with a brave face and strong
backbone. These protestors would not get the better of her…not today or any
day!

While the group protesting outside had lessened in size,
they’d moved closer to her building. Over the past couple of weeks, the closer
they came, the more tenants had left. Maria was in fact nervous, but she wasn’t
going to show it. They seemed to be disorganized now and didn’t appear to have
a united voice. They’d originally been protesting the amount of money the
government was spending on the Olympics; money that was allegedly being
diverted from other funds like schools and hospitals. And with that she could
agree. But now they were shouting about everything from the Olympics to saving
the whales and increasing money to AIDS research to banning all yellow cars!
They gave the impression of being utterly unorganized and while that could be
viewed as a good thing, the protests winding down, Maria understood that it
also meant the remaining individuals could be unpredictable and that had her
feeling anxious.

Moving through her to-do list, Maria kept herself busy and
productive most of the morning. The mail arrived and she sat behind her desk
methodically dividing the envelopes into piles as she did every day; a junk
mail pile, standard mail that came every month like bills, and the curious
pile. She began with the junk mail and tossed the majority of it into the
recycling bin in the corner under her desk. Tearing open envelopes and dealing
with bills and newsletters came next, saving the third pile for last. A lot of
that pile ended up in with the junk mail. Advertisers were getting smart in how
they sent out mail…making their envelopes look official and interesting but it
only took two seconds to realize that the inside was the same old garbage and
ended up in the same place as all the other crap.

Opening a beige linen envelope, Maria retrieved a letter
typed on matching stationary from a company, Latin World Corporation, she’d
never heard of. Scanning the contents of the letter, an audible sigh of
frustration and despair escaped her lips. “How much more?” she asked herself. Laying
the envelope and letter down in front of her, Maria rubbed her forehead and
stood to go and get a drink from the break room. The phone rang only three
steps from the door and she contemplated ignoring it, but couldn’t.

“Maria Calvo,” she said in her most professional voice.

“What the hell are you doing at work? I told you to stay
home!”

“Why are you calling me at work then?”

“Because I figured you’d still come in. You are loyal to a
fault, Maria!”

“It’s my job!” she exclaimed. “We still have tenants in the
building you know.”

“I know,” Ben replied. “How is it there? Bad?”

“It’s not great, but we’re managing.”

“So what happened to your car windows?”

“What? How did you know…”

“Luca,” he interrupted, “doesn’t understand how the ticket
box in the parking garage could possibly break the windows on the
other
side of the car. If you are going to try and hide things from him you should at
least come up with better lies...believable ones.”

Maria sank into her chair. The gig was up. “The protests are
close now,” she sighed. “I assumed the first brick that came through the window
was a random incident, but with the second one I knew they were aiming at
me
!”

“Why didn’t you tell me? We could have…”

“Could have what? You’re all thousands of miles away and you
pay me to do my job. That’s what I’m doing.”

“How’s Luca?”

“He’s fine. We live far enough away from this that he
doesn’t know anything and I need to keep it that way. A ten year old boy doesn’t
need to have the added burden of worrying about his mother.”

“Added burden?” Ben asked.

Sighing again, Maria confided in Ben, a man she hadn’t seen
in almost six years, but a man who appeared to care for her son. “I think he’s
not liking school very much,” she began, “but I’m not sure I can put my finger
on what it is.”

“He’s being bullied,” stated Ben.

“He is? Did he tell you that?”

“Not in words,” Ben frowned. “I just…sense something in his
letters. He likes learning but he doesn’t like school. In my limited
experience, it sounds like there’s some kids who he isn’t getting along with.”

“Oh God,” she pleaded. “Please don’t let anyone hurt my
boy.”

“Look, you’re coming here next week, so maybe I can talk to
him and…”

There was a massive crash that Ben heard through the phone.
If it was that loud for him he couldn’t imagine how close it was for Maria.

“What was that?” he demanded. “Are you alright? Maria?”

“I’m here,” she stuttered. “They just drove a car through
the glass windows!”

The added security leapt into action and within minutes the
building was secured and the police had arrived. The mob, however, had
scattered. Maria had dropped the phone and run to the lobby only to be
heartbroken at the site. An old battered Nissan pick-up truck had driven up the
concrete steps outside and right through the glass wall into the building. Its
bumper and tailgate were the only part of it still outside. Shattered glass
carpeted the tiled floor and steel bars were twisted and bent. Chaos ruled.

By the time Maria returned to the phone, Ben was all but
having heart palpitations not knowing what was going on and if Maria was in any
kind of danger.

“The police are here and they’ve arrested the driver. I’ll
need to get somebody here immediately to secure the building until necessary
arrangements have been made to have the repairs done. I wondered what that note
had meant.”

“What note?” Ben asked.

“The letter warning us about Americans in Brazil.”

“What letter?” he asked again.

“I faxed it to New York weeks ago. Patrick told me he’d look
into it.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Just shaken up. Everyone is in the
process of evacuating the building…voluntary not mandated.”

“Once everyone is out I want you out, too,” Ben ordered.

“As soon as I’ve gotten someone to secure the hole in the
building. But I’m completely safe now,” she laughed, more out of nervousness
than amusement. “I’m surrounded by the police. But this might be a good time to
consider the offer you got this morning in the mail.” 

“What offer?” Ben was starting to think he had absolutely no
idea what was going on in Rio.

“The offer to buy the building.”

“From who?”

“Some company I’ve never heard of.”

“Fax it to me please. To
me
…not Patrick!”

*****

“If anything had happened to her I would be strangling you
with my bare hands this very second!” Ben screamed as he entered the building
management offices of MEL Holdings. Everyone froze and gasped at Ben striding
through the desks pointing at Patrick who was on the phone with his
girlfriend.  “I hope you have some friends in here who are willing to stand
between you and me or I swear to God I’ll break your neck right this second.
That is, unless you have a fucking good reason why you sat on the letter that
was faxed to you from Crystal Towers in Rio.”

Not one of the ten or so employees in the room had ever seen
Ben anything but personable and professional. They were stunned into silence.
No one moved. No one said a word. No one even breathed.

“Well?” Ben demanded.

Patrick hung up the phone, never breaking eye contact with
his boss. “I…I got the fax and…and we get…get letters like that every so often
and…and they don’t usually…”

“Don’t usually what?” Ben glared at him, his legs touching
the desk only a couple of feet from Patrick.

Patrick shrugged. “They mean nothing.”

“Maria, you remember Maria don’t you? She’s the one who
faxed you the letter. Well, she’s had two bricks hurled at her car…WHILE SHE
WAS IN IT!”

Patrick retreated, shoving himself backwards, away from his
desk.

“And today,” Ben lowered his voice, “a truck just drove
through the front door of Crystal Towers, the crowd cheering behind it, WHILE
SHE WAS IN THE BUILDING! Along with all the tenants!” He slammed his palms down
on the desk and leaned over, teeth bared, looking like he was going to tear Patrick
apart, limb by limb.

Patrick didn’t have a reply.

“Where’s the letter?” Ben asked in a more controlled voice.

Patrick stood, hurried to the file cabinet a few feet from
his desk, opened the second drawer, skimmed through some papers and pulled out
the fax and handed it to Ben.

“What did you do after you got this?”

“I called Maria,” Patrick defended himself.

“And you told her you’d ‘look into it’?” He didn’t get a
response. “So what did you do?
How
did you look into it?”

Patrick shrugged and remained silent.

“I’ll tell you what you did,” Ben snarled. “You put it in
that fucking file cabinet, that’s what you did!”

Again, Patrick didn’t say a word.

“You’re fired.” Ben turned to one of the other employees
behind him, who was watching the drama unfold. “Call security…NOW!”

Forty-five seconds later, two men who appeared to be WWF
wrestlers in a former life appeared in the doorway. “Get him out of the
building before I rip him to pieces,” Ben spat.

“Yes, sir.”

With the fax still in his hand, he ran up the flight of
stairs and back to his office. He had to call Matt…a call he desperately didn’t
want to make.

*****

Maria arrived home just before Luca was expected to come
home. It had taken her longer than expected to deal with the police and find a
contractor to come and secure the building with plywood. Once that was
completed, she gathered up her things, including some work files, and headed
home. She took the long route which added almost thirty minutes to the drive
because of traffic congestion, but it was worth it – no angry mob and no
bricks.

Attempting to calm her nerves, she made herself a Caipirinha,
Brazilian rum and lime, and sat on the small front patio of her home waiting
for signs of Luca. He had soccer practice after school for an hour so she
expected him within a few minutes. He would be surprised to see her home and
she needed to somehow tell him the truth without raising any suspicion or
worry.

Sipping on her drink, she closed her eyes and took long,
deep breaths, eventually calming her nerves. As suspected, Luca was slowly
walking towards the house, kicking at the dirt on the side of the road with
each step. His eyes were looking down and his shoulders slumped. He turned onto
the narrow brick path that led to their neighbor’s front door, the same route
he took every day after school.

“Luca!” Maria yelled, waving at her boy.

His head whipped up and his face showed instant surprise at
seeing his mother. It also revealed blood. Maria slammed her glass down on the
small table in front of her and raced towards her son.

“It’s okay mama,” he said.

“What happened?” she cried.

“I fell.”

“You fell or you were pushed?”

Luca shrugged his shoulders.

Maria’s heart broke. Ben was right. He was thousands of
miles away and he knew more about Luca than she did. Doing her best to remain
calm, she placed her arm gently around his shoulders and said, “Come on. Let’s
get you cleaned up and you can tell me what happened.”

*****

“Our building is not for sale,” Ben repeated forcefully into
the telephone receiver. He’d read the faxed letter from Maria and had called
the man who’d sent it – Vicente Rivera of Latin World Corporation.

“I make you a generous offer,” Vicente replied. “Under the
circumstances, I doubt you will get an offer half as good as this one.”

“It makes no difference to me what the offers are,” Ben
remained firm. “The building is
not
for sale.”

“You may live to regret this Mr. Lathem. Soon, you may not
have a building to sell.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“Not at all. I just mean to say that the protestors are unpredictable
and you cannot know what they do next,” he said in his thick Portuguese accent.

“I’ll demolish the building first,” Ben muttered under his
breath. “I think we’ll go with risking it,” Ben said to him.

“Very well, but I ask you to reconsider. At least take it to
your brothers. I know you do not have the final say.”

Ben said a curt goodbye and hung up the phone.

“Matt is here,” came his secretary’s voice through the
intercom. “He’s in his office.”

Of course he’s in his office
, Ben thought.
Because
he’s still the boss even though I do all the work. I have to go to him. Once
I’d like him to condescend to my office!
But he stood and picked up the two
faxes from his desk and strode down the hall to the opened door. Matt was
pouring himself a drink and looked up as Ben entered the room.

“Want one?” he asked.

Ben nodded. He could use a stiff drink right about now. He
walked over and took the leaded crystal tumbler from Matt and the two men sat
on opposite sides of the coffee table, each on their own couch.

“Mark isn’t back from Puerto Rico,” Matt said. He sat back
into the rich leather sofa. He lifted his right leg and placed his ankle on his
left knee and took a long sip of the gin. He was in khaki shorts and flip flops
with a white polo shirt. There appeared to be jam…or ketchup on the sleeve.

“Sorry I had to interrupt your day,” Ben offered. “But I
didn’t think this could wait.”

“No,” Matt shook his head. “It can’t. Tell me exactly what
happened.”

So Ben went back to the previous Friday and the letter from
Luca and the email he’d sent to Maria and then hit all the highlights of today,
including his loss of control with Patrick.