Vertical Run (6 page)

That scared him. It scared him more than Bernie had. Or Harry. Or Ransome. Or the sound that bullets make, close, too close, to where you cower.

Beneath the skin, after all these years, it seemed there still lived the man he had almost become. And no one—
neither Ransome, nor anyone else—terrified him more than
that
man.

Dave had to find a place to hide—to hide and reflect and plan. He thought he knew where to find it.

Now he was on the fortieth floor, Senterex’s working class district and home to the corporation’s lowest echelons. There was no high-priced artwork in this part of the corporate castle. Most of the floor was given over to a maze of partitioned cubicles occupied by junior accountants, order entry clerks, and other worker bees. They were strictly nine-to-fivers. The entire floor was sure to be empty.

The fortieth was also the floor where the employee cafeteria was located, a white-walled room furnished with Formica-topped tables, and containing a bank of vending machines. Dave walked past it, stopped, and turned around. He wanted something from the cafeteria.
Two things, actually …

He slid a stolen dollar bill into the change machine. Four quarters jingled into the change slot. He pumped two of them into the coffee machine. A paper cup tumbled into the dispenser. The machine burped and spat steaming brown liquid into the cup. Dave lifted it.

Ouch! It’s damned near boiling!

He took a sip. It was scalding, far too hot, and …

Blah! Ugh! Terrible! Christ, that’s the worst coffee you’ve had since the Army. If I worked in this joint, I’d file a complaint with the Environmental Protection Agency!

He hesitantly took a second taste.
Nope, it isn’t going to grow on you, and you don’t want it to
.

Dave walked over to the counter where the cafeteria’s condiments and tableware were stored. He thought momentarily about dosing his coffee with a suspiciously colored substance labeled “Imitation Coffee Creamer Substitute,” but decided against it. Instead, he selected two stainless steel forks and a table knife from the collection of utensils. Then he walked briskly back to the corridor.

Now where is it? It used to be just around the corner and …

The door was painted a scuffed off-white. There were two locks set in it, one the standard lockset used in all Senterex office doors and the other a heavy-duty deadbolt. A grey embossed sign hung next to the door:
ROOM 4017, TELEPHONE ROOM
.

The deadbolt would be a problem. Dave pursed his lips, remembered lessons from long ago, and set to work with the forks.

In every business and in every corporation there is at least one high-ranking executive who, no matter how competent his or her people may be, believes that they are not quite competent enough—but that they can be made so. Easily. Overnight. All it takes is a little training, a little inspiration, a little exposure to the right motivational training program.

Ahh, but which one is the right one? There are, after all, so many.

Such executives know deep in their hearts that the “right” program really does exist. It is a magic elixir that, once found, will alchemically transmute ordinary corporate drones into nonpareil paragons of productivity. This one simple thing, this philosopher’s stone, is perhaps to be found in a book, or on a videocassette, or in a computer software program, or, most likely of all, is the surefire result of a three-day seminar staged by some oddly named company headquartered (inevitably) in Northern California.

No matter. Wherever it is and whatever it is, it exists, and once located will have on the staff the same effect the word “SHAZAM” has on Billy Batson—a clap of thunder, a bolt of celestial lightning, and behold: Captain Marvel!

It was David Elliot’s misfortune that in Senterex, the chief acolyte of this particular dogma was also the chief executive, Bernard E. Levy. Bernie’s enthusiasm for the latest rages in chic managerial theory was unquenchable. He embraced them all, each and every one, with religious zeal. Worse, having been born again in the church of this, that, or the other new high priest of corporate productivity, he insisted that his entire executive cadre join him among the ranks of the converted.

During his six-year tenure on the forty-fifth floor, Dave had been subjected to the ministrations of quite nearly a dozen motivational ju-ju men, managerial messiahs, and behavioral gurus. He had sat through interminable weekend seminars staged by temporarily popular business school professors, wallowed with his fellow executives in hot tubs at the Esalen Institute, and sweated with them in saunas at the Aspen Institute. He had jogged side by side with his wheezing and purple-faced boss at an
In Search of Excellence
“skunkworks bootcamp,” and, a year later, had helped carry him down from the mountain upon which, during an Outward Bound “team-building adventure,” Bernie had sprained an ankle. On another occasion, Bernie locked the entire managerial cadre in a windowless room at the University of Arizona, demanding that they spend a day silently typing “brainstorming” ideas into personal computers. There had even been something called a “Wolverine Management Seminar,” a program that, as far as Dave could tell, consisted principally of sitting around the conference room and growling an ardent desire to eat the hearts of Senterex’s competitors raw.

Just a few months earlier, Bernie had recruited the services of a self-styled “organizational psychologist.” The man, who, like most of Bernie’s pet witch doctors, operated out of California, came to New York to subject Senterex’s top managers to an interminable regimen of pattern recognition tests and elliptic question-and-answer sessions.

Dave remembered the only one of these sessions from which he’d learned something about himself—or, for that matter, about anything else.

The psychologist had subjected Dave to a series of free form association-preference questions.

“What’s your favorite color?”

“Green.”

“Any particular shade?”

“Emerald green.”

Green as a green bottle
.

“What’s your favorite car?”

“What I drive? A Mercedes.”

“No, what would you like to drive?”

“A Porsche.”

“An emerald green Porsche?”

“No. I think a yellow one.”

“Yellow is a sexual color. Did you know that?”

“No, but I’m not surprised.”

“If you were reincarnated as an animal, what animal would you like to come back as?”

“A sea otter.”

“Why?”

“They just float with the tide, don’t they?”

“What animal would you expect to come back as?”

Dave didn’t answer.

“Come, Mr. Elliot. What animal would your fate—your karma, as it were—cause you to be reincarnated as?”

Dave shook his head. “I have no idea. I like to run. Maybe I’d come back as some sort of deer or something.”

“Ah, the hunted not the hunter.”

“If you say so.” But the answer that formed in Dave’s mind, the karma he feared himself to have, had nothing to do with herbivores.

“Do you have fantasies?”

“Of course.”

“Power fantasies?”

“Don’t we all?”

“Achievement fantasies?”

“Certainly.”

“I don’t mean success.”

“I know that.”

“What achievement do you fantasize about? What ultimate achievement? The pinnacle of your dreams?”

Without thinking Dave blurted, “Mark Twain.” Then he blushed.

The psychologist looked perplexed. “Mark Twain? Would you explain that for me, please?”

Dave felt uncomfortable. He had never mentioned his Mark Twain fantasy to anyone, not even to Helen, who would not have appreciated it anyway. In fact, he had barely admitted it to himself. He stuttered, “The achievement I dream about is … well … I’d like to write a book … a book about Mark Twain. In fact, I’d like to write a study of his life and works. That’s what I dream about.”

“A best-seller?”

“No, not necessarily. But critically … well, acclaimed would be nice, wouldn’t it?”

“Now this is very interesting, Mr. Elliot. Most business people of your seniority fantasize about sports—buying a baseball team, becoming a PGA champion, sailing around the world, and things like that. But you, Mr. Elliot, you dream about something else entirely. You dream of becoming an erudite literary figure. This is exceptionally peculiar.”

Once upon a time, David himself would have agreed that it was, indeed, exceptionally peculiar.

Once upon a time, a young man wants to be a lawyer, but his ultimate goal is more ambitious than that. Becoming a lawyer will be only a step along the way. In the end, he wants to be in politics. The Senate, the governor’s mansion, a member of the Cabinet, perhaps even … well, who knows how far he can go.

He’ll need a degree from a prestigious law school, Harvard or Columbia of preference. And, he’ll need grades good enough to clerk for a Justice of the Supreme Court—or, at a minimum, a Court of Appeals judge. Then he’ll spend a few years working for the state government, making contacts, building relationships with the right people. After that, he’ll be ready to run for office. First, the state legislature. Later something higher. The public life is what he has been made for.

He grins as he frames the witticisms he’ll make during televised debates. Already he can see his smiling photograph in the newspapers, on campaign posters, on magazine covers … standing in the spotlight, on the platform, behind the rostrum … proud and upright and popular and dynamic and respected and a leader of men … and, of course, a champion of the people. Always that. That more than anything else. He will be the man they call “the conscience of the Senate,” or something similar. Just like Jimmy Stewart in that old movie, he will be the one who …

These are daydreams, of course. He uses them to keep awake while, at a wage of seventy-five cents an hour, he works the graveyard shift in an aluminum extrusion plant some twenty miles from the university. Between classes and homework, between R.O.T.C. drill and the job he holds to pay his tuition, he usually manages to get four hours of sleep on weekdays. He catches up on the weekends.

He is shooting for cum laude. He almost makes it, but not quite.

He doesn’t mind R.O.T.C. Drill is relaxing in a mindless sort of way, and the classwork is undemanding. His only objection to the Reserve Officer Training Corps is that—in this year when more American boys enroll in it than ever before—it obliges him to associate with the jocks, frat boys, and engineering majors who actually enjoy playing soldier. It is a minor objection, easily outweighed by the stipend the program pays, and, when he reflects on it, by the certainty that an honorable military
record—ideally with a decoration or two—will be an important asset for a rising young politician.

He gets his decorations, all right. One of them is a Bronze Star.

But by then the medals are irrelevant, as is a record of military duty bravely served. He abandons his political dreams before the court-martials even begin. Instead of yearning for a public life and political power, David Elliot decides that he wants to live his years as comfortably, even prosperously, as he can; but regardless of comfort and regardless of prosperity, to slip through the world as silently as possible, leaving no footprints behind.

The village of My Lai is still fresh in the Army’s mind. Four or five hundred civilians, they never can quite agree on how many, methodically slaughtered by the baby boys of Company C. It being war, and the victims being blameless and unarmed civilians, all the time-honored traditions are followed. Torture. Rape. Scalp-taking. The conventional customs of war.

Enough of it has leaked into the press that the powers that be are mightily embarrassed. But they’re even more embarrassed by Lieutenant David Perry Elliot.

So when the time comes for the court-martials, They (with a capital “T”) decide to move slowly, cautiously, and with a great deal of secrecy.

The protracted procedures involved result in Dave having nothing but time on his hands. He is confined to base, forbidden to communicate with the outside world. Apart from his daily—some would say obsessive—workouts, the only recreation open to him is reading.

He’s never been much of a reader. High school had seen him consume the obligatory works—all carefully selected to demonstrate that reading is, or at least should be, dull. In college, between his night job and his classes he had little time for anything other than textbooks. Nor has his subsequent career, involving as it did
the practice of covert warfare, lent itself to leisurely reading.

However, for these months of waiting for the trials to begin, he has little to do but read. What he reads is what he finds, largely such worn and much-thumbed volumes as are stored in the day room of the Bachelor Officers’ Quarters.

Two passages that he reads make upon him a singular impression. The first is by Hiram Ulysses Grant, later, due to a clerical error at West Point, renamed Ulysses S. Grant. The second is by Mark Twain.

Here is the first, written while he was dying by possibly the greatest, surely the most reluctant, general America ever produced: “Experience proves that the man who obstructs a war in which his nation is engaged, no matter whether right or wrong, occupies no enviable place in life or history. Better for him, individually, to advocate war, pestilence, and famine, than to act as obstructionist to a war already begun.”

And here is the second, good Sam Clemens speaking: “Patriotism is patriotism. Calling it Fanaticism cannot degrade it; nothing can degrade it. Even though it be a political mistake, and a thousand times a political mistake, that does not affect it; it is honorable—always honorable, always noble—and privileged to hold its head up and look the nations in the face.”

David Elliot has been reading, and re-reading, Mark Twain ever since.