The Big Exit (20 page)

L
OWENSTEIN WASN’T KIDDING WHEN HE SAID HE’D SOLD HIM
. I
N
exchange for putting up $200,000 for a bail bond, plus his house as collateral, Bender bought himself two days of Richie
Forman. He said he wanted five, but in the end he got two, and Richie’s now his for the next forty-eight hours, with a few
hefty strings attached.

Bender has his exclusive all right, but he also has to adhere to strict guidelines over what he can post and when; everything
has to be approved by Lowenstein before it goes up online. Lowenstein has worked the contract so that Richie will benefit
mightily—and monetarily—should Bender fail to live up to his end of the bargain. But despite Lowenstein’s assurances that
there’s more upside than down to the unusual arrangement—and their best option given the circumstances —Richie still thinks
that once again he’s drawn the short end of the stick.

Their first stop is Bender’s gym, the Equinox just off the El Camino in Palo Alto on Portage Road, where his newfound benefactor
says he can get “cleaned up and recharged.”

After being locked in an austere, windowless room for more than two days, it’s something of a culture shock to be suddenly
among the Lululemon set in an old warehouse that’s been transformed into a hip, modern gym and tagged with the “industrial
chic” label. Wearing sweatpants, a T-shirt, and baseball cap plucked from Bender’s swag-filled car trunk, Richie walks around
in a bit of a daze, doing a set here and there on various weight machines until settling in on a treadmill for twenty minutes.
He then heads upstairs to the roof, where there’s a small lap pool.

It’s bright and sunny outside, though a little cool, in the midsixties. Only a couple of swimmers are in the pool, and when
he retires to one of the chaise longue chairs surrounding it, he notices someone’s left a copy of that day’s
San Francisco Chronicle
under it. There, on the bottom of the front page, is a story about the murder, with a picture of McGregor and him from the
old days, when they were friends.

The
Chronicle
had run the same picture years ago during his trial and the story is really just a rehash of the trial and the accident,
though after the jump, he comes across a jarringly large picture of him doing his Sinatra routine. It seems oddly out of place,
if only because it would seem more at home in the Sunday Datebook section.

There’s something surreal about sitting there by the pool, reading the article. While he knows it’s about him, at times he
feels like he’s reading about someone else, a total stranger. He knows the story through and through, but he has nothing to
do with it, which is probably why he’s less concerned now than when he first walked into the joint that someone will recognize
him or notice the tracer bracelet.

Yeah, I’m Richie Forman
, he thinks.
But so fucking what? Who fucking cares?

Before dumping the paper he peruses the sports section, then heads back down to the locker room, stopping along the way to
catch a bit of Bender’s manic workout, which involves jumping from a stationary bike to a treadmill to an elliptical machine
and engaging in a furious two-minute sprint on each machine before taking a gasping forty-five-second break, then repeating
the process.

Later, as they make their way down to the underground garage where his Audi covertible is parked, Bender explains what Richie’s
witnessed: it’s his new All-in, All-out Circuit Method, copyright pending.

“As I like to say, either you’re all in or you’re all out. Or, in my case, both.”

Richie asks whether a defibrillator is included. “I was kind of hoping you’d drop dead of a heart attack,” he says, getting
back in the car. “It seemed well within the realm of possibility.”

Bender ignores the remark. On the way out he’d picked up an açaí berry–wheatgrass “cleansing” smoothie at the club’s juice
bar. He drops the cup into a well built into an armrest between the seats. Then
he checks his email on his phone and taps out a quick message before plugging the phone into a car charger.

“Look, the idea here is not to be pissed at me,” he says, backing out of the space. “I am the savior here. I am the Good Samaritan.
Your ass would be on its way back to prison if I hadn’t come along. Do you know how many companies would pay money to get
twenty minutes of my time? Do you?”

He does. The souvenirs of Bender’s meetings are littered across the floor of the trunk behind them—T-shirts, hats, coffee
mugs, and assorted other tchotchkes emblazoned with a cornucopia of nonsensical company names and logos, all by-products of
the golden rule of start-up naming: keep it short, seven letters or less.

“Here you are,” Bender goes on. “You have my undivided attention for the next forty-eight hours. And you’re still worried
about the bad call you got back in the fourth and you don’t realize you’ve just yanked one yard and cleared the bases. Enjoy
the trip. Take a curtain call. Soak it in.”

Tires screeching, he peels out from the underground garage, accelerating toward the intersection ahead. The light’s green
but seems in danger of turning yellow thanks to Bender’s urgency.

“Where are we going?” Richie asks, a little alarmed that they’ve veered left onto El Camino instead of turning right and heading
north toward Menlo Park, where Bender lives.

“To catch the killer.”

“Excuse me?”

“Well, if you didn’t do it, someone else did, right?”

“That’s not part of the contract,” Richie says.

“There’s no contract on innocence.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“I don’t know. I just made it up. As you’re probably aware by now, I tend to make shit up as I go along but it’s all perfectly
planned out. That’s the beauty of me.”

“Charming.”

Bender reaches over and picks up his smoothie from the cup holder, takes a long drag on the straw.

“You know why I ponied up the cash for you?” he mumbles after a moment, his mouth still half full with the supercharged concoction.
“It’s not what you think. It’s not about making money off your story. That’s a given. No, the real reason, quite frankly,
is that I was bored. I needed intellectual stimulation. I needed a mixing of the disciplines.”

“Where are we going?” Richie asks again. “Specifically?”

“Sunnyvale.”

“What’s there?”

“McGregor’s office.”

“Why are we going there?”

“To talk to Don Gattner, McGregor’s right-hand guy. I know him.”

Richie knows him, too. He tells Bender they crossed paths back in the day. He’d been part of their karaoke group at one point.
Richie asks whether Gattner knows that he’s coming.

“Sure,” Bender says. “I’ve got an appointment.”

“No, I mean me.”

“What fun would it be if he knew you were coming?”

“You do understand that the police are probably following us?”

Bender glances up at the rearview mirror and takes a look at what—or rather who—is behind them.

“Oh, yeah? With the way I drive, you think they can keep up?”

They don’t have to, you arrogant bastard
, Richie thinks. Bender seems to have forgotten he’s wearing a tracer bracelet.

“I’ll stay in the car,” he says.

“Fuck that. I didn’t spend two hundred grand for you to sit in the car. That’s like telling a hooker you just want to talk.
There’s no story in that. The story is in you walking into McGregor’s office and getting some answers. This is about the money,
friend. Screenshot this moment.” He takes his hands off the wheel for a second, shapes his figures in to the bottom of a frame,
and makes a little sound with his mouth that comes off as a cross between a camera shutter and gun going off. “This guy went
down for money. Mark my words.”

It’s the first sane thing he’s said.

“If I’m going in, I’ve got some questions I want to ask.”

“I’m asking the questions,” Bender says. “You’ll be distracting him.”

“From what?”

“His computer.”

“Why?”

“Don’t worry about it. Just when I give the signal, occupy him.”

“What’s the signal?”

“You’ll know.”

“I’ll know?”

“Believe me, you’ll know.”

McGregor’s office is in a business-park complex that’s made up of several small two- and three-story structures surrounded
by a parking lot. The complex is in a decent location, and while it’s a bit nondescript, the architecture is attractive enough
and the building seems fairly new, which means McGregor had probably been spending a decent chunk of change on rent, unless
he’d gotten a deal subletting from a friend or investor.

Not surprisingly, the receptionist is a knockout: early twenties, with short dark hair, full lips, a perfect complexion, and
bright, intelligent eyes. Knowing McGregor, she’s getting paid well to sit around, look good, act friendly, and set a wow-these-guys-aren’t-fucking-around
tone, though today she looks pretty somber.

Bender takes her appearance in stride. “Well, you’re fucking hot,” he says. “We’re here to see Don. But you know that. Because
not only are you beautiful but you’re clairvoyant.”

That gets a little smile out of her. “I’ll tell him you’re here.” As she picks up the phone to call Gattner he appears behind
her. Richie guesses his office is close enough to the front desk that he’s heard the whole conversation.

He comes out and shakes Bender’s hand. “Hey, Tom.”

The guy looks glum and weary, like he hasn’t slept much in the last couple of days. Aside from the dark bags under his eyes,
he doesn’t look too different from when Richie last saw him. He’s one of those guys who went bald at a young age and keeps
his dark hair shorn very short. And his uniform of choice hasn’t changed: jeans, running shoes, and a crisp white dress shirt
with the top two buttons open, exposing a white T-shirt underneath.

“Sorry for your loss,” Bender says perfunctorily, then steps to his right to give Gattner a better look at Richie, who’s hung
back a little. “You know, Rick, I think.”

“Hey,” Gattner says, extending a hand while looking up at Richie’s baseball cap. “You affiliated with those guys?” he asks,
referring to the scripted logo on the front of the hat.

Maybe it’s because he’s wearing the hat—or that he hasn’t seen him in so long—but Gattner doesn’t recognize him.

“No,” Richie says. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Bender studying Gattner’s face, waiting for a reaction. Finally,
he gets one.

“Shit,” he says, taking a step back, his eyes opening wide. “Is that you, Richie?”

“Yeah, it’s me, Don. How are things?”

Gattner looks at Bender, his expression now one of deep alarm. “What the fuck, Tom? What’s he doing here?”

“I’ve got an exclusive. We’re making the rounds. You’re our first stop.”

“What the fuck?” Gattner says again. Behind him, Richie catches a glimpse of the receptionist, who’s trying to figure out
what’s going on. “I didn’t know he’d even gotten out. I thought they’d sent him back to prison.”

“I bailed him out a couple of hours ago,” Bender says.

“Why’d you do that?”

“’Cause I’m kind and generous.”

“The fuck you are. Are you fucking crazy bringing him here? Are you out of your mind? Get the fuck out or I’m going to call
the police.”

“Go ahead,” Bender says. “You’ll be out of business by tomorrow.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’ll write that you’re insolvent.”

“That’s bullshit. Look,” he says, pointing to the room behind him, where a half dozen or so heads are visible through the
cubicle windows. “Everybody showed up for work. Paychecks are going out tomorrow as usual. We’ve got cash in the bank. We’re
not insolvent. Far from it.”

“After I write it, you will be.”

“But it’s not true.”

“You don’t own the future. It belongs to everyone.”

Gattner, his head about to explode, now turns to Richie.

“Look, I’m sorry, man,” he says, unexpectedly opting for a more conciliatory tone. “You know, I always liked you. You were
a good guy. But this is wrong. This asshole calls me saying he’s doing a tribute to Mark on his site and wants a few quotes
and remembrances and would I mind meeting with him for a few minutes. Now there’s clearly another agenda here. This is fucked
up.”

Richie smiles. Bender has some nerve. The guy’s truly a dick. But Gattner’s an idiot for agreeing to see him. He obviously
couldn’t resist the opportunity for some free publicity.

Richie: “A tribute, huh?”

“That was the plan,” Bender says. “Plans change.”

Gattner: “You’re fucking demented, you know that? Threatening to write that we’re insolvent if I don’t talk to you. You’d
go ahead and flat-out lie, that’s what you’re saying?”

“The road to the truth is often paved with lies. I forget who said that but I think it was someone famous. Oh, wait, it was
me.”

“Fuck you. I’ll sue your fucking ass.”

“Please do. I would thoroughly enjoy that. Lawsuits are my aftershave. I like to splash them on in the morning.”

Bender then reaches for his wallet in his back pocket, and extracting a card from it, walks over to the receptionist and hands
it to her.

“Email me,” he says. “When you guys shut down, I’ll get you a job. I also want to invite you to a benefit concert I’m planning.
We’re raising money for this guy’s defense.” This is news to Richie.
Concert? What concert?
“I want you to tell all your friends. And not just the hot ones. The clairvoyant ones, too.”

He then turns to leave, motioning for Richie to follow him. From the defiant look on Gattner’s face, Richie doesn’t expect
him to stop them, but just as they’re about to hit the exit, he folds.

“Wait,” he says.

Bender swivels slowly around.

“Yes?”

“You know you’re a fucking bully,” Gattner says. “We’re all pretty traumatized here.”

“I’m here to help you, Don.” Bender’s voice is surprisingly sincere. “I mean that.”

“What do you want?”