Chapter Seven
New Balance
New Balance
~~*~~
The carved, wooden storefront sign announced:
Jordan nodded.
“If you wish.”
Jordan looked
him up and down. “And don’t worry about the office duds from now on. You didn’t
need to wear them today. That’s on me. Sorry, my friend. Wear what you want,
what’s comfortable, all right?”
Normal was thirty-seven.
Jordan continued
gazing out the window. “The world is a cruel, dark place. Mr. Watson was always
aware of that. It became many times worse however after his discovery. He
withdrew and became a virtual recluse. Can you imagine? The man who gave the
world the means to illuminate itself like a supernova went and hid in the
shadows. It was a very sad, angry, and crazy time for all of us close to him.
It was filled with uncertainty and doubt. We were all very scared for our jobs,
our futures. Rumors swirled that Mr. Watson had become the next Howard Hughes
and was going crazy.”
Jordan ’s smile
held. He reached for her hand and took it between both of his. “You will. Talk
to Ronan. He’ll explain.”
Williams and Thomas
The Finest Clothes in the World
The owner was a man
perhaps two or three years Ronan’s senior and eager to make his acquaintance.
“Mr. Sutton,” he
said, enthusiastically offering his hand as he, Lee, and Jordan walked in. “A
great, great pleasure. Jace Williams.”
Ronan took his
hand.
“You must be Mrs.
Sutton; it’s wonderful to meet you,” said Mr. Williams, shaking her hand when
he released Ronan’s. To Jordan
he said, “It’s always good seeing you again, Mr. Page.”
“How’s the biz?”
smiled Jordan, who stepped in fully as Stan came in behind him. The shop was
located in a smaller building in Dublin ’s
wealthiest shopping district. Strangely, it did not have a front entrance, only
a large display window. Customers had to enter from the back.
Jace Williams
returned Jordan ’s
query with a quick but significant up-and-down glance at Ronan. “It’s ...
intriguing, to say the least.”
An older woman of
Indian or Pakistani heritage came up behind him. “Nur, would you see to our
guests, please?”
“Certainly, Mr.
Williams,” she answered.
“Come this way, if
you would, Mr. Sutton.”
Ronan followed him.
Lee and Jordan came up behind.
As Mr. Williams measured Ronan, and as Lee sipped coffee,
and as Nur assisted, Jordan
spoke.
“After Jace gets
you sized up, let’s grab some dinner, then head back to your place so I can take
down your bank account info, whaddya say? We can take care of getting an
account set up for you and depositing your commission tomorrow morning. Sound
good?”
“I’m confused,”
said Lee. “He hasn’t done any work for you yet.”
“That’s not totally
true,” offered Jordan
with a cryptic smile. “Let’s say it’s ninety-nine and seven tenths percent
true, but not a hundred.”
She blinked.
“Ninety-nine point seven? I don’t understand.”
“You will. In any
event, the money is yours to do with as you please. Even if Ronan doesn’t do a
lick of work for us, you still get to keep it. All right?”
The concern on
Lee’s face deepened ten-fold. “A hundred thousand pounds—for free?”
Lee gazed with
horror at him, then at Ronan, who turned from the mirrors to look at them. He
brought his attention to bear on Jordan for a long, uncomfortably silent
moment. “It’s all right, babe.”
Her mouth went
slack. She closed it, then peered at Jordan . “I’m sorry, Jordan —Mr.
Page. I really am. But ... I mean ... you aren’t going to make Ronan do
something ... I don’t know ... I mean ... he’s not going to be a hit man, is
he? Or smuggle drugs? I don’t understand any of this.”
Credit Jordan : he
didn’t try to humor her. He seemed to intuit that Lee was the wild card in this
arrangement (which she was), and so addressed her with all seriousness. Ronan
watched him with as much eagerness to hear his answer as he admired Jordan ’s
practiced people skills.
“Mr. Watson ...” Jordan began,
glancing at both of them “... he’s a different sort of fellow. He’s looking for
someone who might, just might, be a little like him. I know this isn’t
something that will make sense to you, but please understand: the money isn’t
for anything illegal. Do you know how many hundred thousands are in one-point-three-six
trillion dollars, his estimated worth?”
She shook her head
blankly.
“One-point-three-six million,” he answered. “In other words, Mr. Watson
could give every single man, woman, and child living in Dallas , Texas
“Then,” asked Lee,
clearly flustered, “what’s he going to do?”
“He’s going to
represent our company at the very highest level. That’s really all it is. He’s
going to have mentoring—from me. On-the-job training, if you’d like. The money
really isn’t a big deal. I know it’s asking a lot, but please don’t worry.”
Measurements done, they left for dinner. Not at a fancy
restaurant or club, but in a small, modest diner downtown named Dempsey’s. Stan
joined them; and so did Jace Williams, who showed up half an hour after they
sat down.
(Nur had been
invited as well, but wanted to return home to her family.)
Ronan noticed that
Lee had relaxed a little. He got further proof when she ate normally. Anytime
she was on-edge, she didn’t eat. She sat between Jordan and Mr. Williams and
laughed at their banter, sometimes adding her own, and then at Stan, who
occasionally carried the conversation with stories about growing up in St. Louis ’ slums before moving to New York . Beyond that, the conversation
never steered into serious territory. Stan parked the car in front of the
apartment building two hours later, and Jordan accompanied them back into
their flat. He had somehow managed to set Lee at ease, enough for her to take
his arm as they walked down the hallway after getting out of the lift.
Once inside, they
went on a hunt for their bank information. It took some time, as a lot of the
documentation was buried in cardboard boxes they never unpacked after moving,
and which were piled inside the bedroom closet. Jordan helped with the unpacking,
and then with going through the documents.
Later, as they
sipped tea, he instructed, “Think of a password—make it a good one—and tomorrow
after work we’ll get you to the bank so you can talk to the manager about what
you want to do with the money. Sound good?”
Ronan nodded as Jordan handed
him his Smartphone. Lee looked nervous but expectant. “We’ve gone through dozens
for this job,” said Jordan
as Ronan punched his password in. “But this is the first time that I feel truly
comfortable with a candidate.”
“Thanks,” said
Ronan, feeling a little awkward. He handed the phone back.
He left them at the
door. “Goodnight, you two. And Lee? Have a little faith. Sometimes good does
come to good people.”
“What was your
password?” she asked once they closed the door and gave themselves a moment to
look at each other. Ronan could see her barely contained panic. It was a credit
to her recovery that she hadn’t totally freaked out by now. It didn’t take a
tenth of the momentousness of this day in the past to get her to reach for a
bottle. She had reached for his hand at points the past four hours, and he felt
their cold clamminess. The smile she wore those moments was entirely fake, and
he damn well appreciated it.
“I chose ‘Celtic
Survivors.’ ”
He didn’t let her
respond, but bent and kissed her.
“What are you going to do with the money?”
He went to answer,
“Uh ... get out of debt?” but stopped. Something clutched his heart and made it
ache. Paolo watched him patiently.
He had almost
laughed when asked if he needed two weeks to quit a minimum wage petrol station
attendant job, but stopped himself just short.
He was suddenly
there, in the station. Mack was shaking his hand. “Made me feel like a proper
executive-type there, Ronan. Thanks.”
Mack was a good
man, a hardworking one. He brought in something like thirty-five thousand as manager.
He worked sixty hours a week. Bloody salary work. The owner was a right tosser
named Wayne Shrader, a bigoted, bloated pig Ronan met once. The station wasn’t
pulling its weight, and he heard Shrader laughingly threaten to close it and
put Mack and the employees out of work. Mack had spent seventeen years working for
the pig, and was genuinely worried. His wife suffered health problems, and his
oldest son was battling heroin addiction.
Mary McFilbrish, suddenly
sitting across from him, looked him up and down like nuns did on occasion during
his school years. “You are irresponsible, Mr. Sutton,” she scolded, staring
down her nose at him from over her glasses. Her desk was even more imposing
than he remembered it. “Responsible adults don’t default on their mortgages.
Responsible adults don’t get fired from their jobs. Responsible adults don’t
drink on the job!”
A rain-soaked alley.
Lee was at his feet, clutching at his legs. “Please! Just a drop! A little
contribution!” She was dressed in rags, and had dried vomit on her shirt. She
was so skinny as to be almost unrecognizable. She licked her cracked lips and
shook violently as she held him.
He bolted upright
in bed.
He climbed out, his
heart racing, and heaved. Covering his mouth, he ran into the bathroom just a
moment before vomit exploded out of him into the toilet. He heaved again, then
again. Coughing and breathless, his grabbed some toilet tissue and wiped his face,
then reached for the handle. He shook violently as he got to his feet.
He glanced back
into the dark of the room. Lee hadn’t stirred. The red digital display of the
clock next to her read 3:17.
When he was certain
that he didn’t need to puke again, he turned and went to the shower. He was
covered in sweat.
Standing under the hot
water in the rank dark, he wept. He knew that image of Lee would never leave
him.
He was twelve the last time he puked. He’d eaten some
leftover stew at his grandparent’s house with meat that tasted, to him,
suspect. That night he began vomiting. It got so bad that his mother took him
to emergency, where they hooked him up to an IV. He spent the rest of the night
in the hospital. Oddly, neither his parents nor his grandparents got sick.
The experience was
so nasty that he swore he would do everything possible never to vomit again.
For twenty years he had been successful. Until now.
He emerged from the
shower shaking with chills that went far deeper than the steamy cold of the
bathroom. He found the oral thermometer in the cabinet and stuck it under his
tongue while sitting on the toilet. The red line stopped at thirty-nine. He
pulled the thermometer out. “Jesus feckin’ Christ.”
Fever.
He crawled back
under the covers. Lee still hadn’t moved.
She pulled out the thermometer, inspected it, and shook her head.
“Thirty-nine-point-seven. Any higher and I’m going to take you to emergency.
You are very sick, love. You’re burning up.”
Headache kept him
from focusing fully on her. “Thanks for calling Mack.”
“I’m going to call Jordan too. You
aren’t going anywhere, probably tomorrow and the next day as well.”
He thought of
telling her about the nightmare, but decided against it. Instead he coughed.
“I’m sure he’ll
understand,” she added.
He caught his
breath while fighting off another round of chills. “Why don’t y-y-you go? It’s
our account, after all. You can take the m-money just as easily as I can.”
“I’m not leaving
you here! Not like this! No way!”
“I’ll be fine. You
go. Seriously. Just go. It’s just a bloody flu. It’ll make me feel better,
imagining all that dosh going into our barren savings account.”
“I’m not sure I
will.”
“I’ll just lie here
and wish for a speedy death.”
“Speedy would’ve
meant last night. I’m afraid you’re in the flu dungeon, Ro, and the guy with
the black hood is just getting started with ya.”
“Wonderful.”
She stood and went
to the kitchen after closing the bedroom door. He could hear her talking. She
laughed uneasily; a moment of silence followed; and she came back in.
“He’s coming by in
an hour.”
“Good.”
“If things get
worse between now and then,” she continued, stepping back to the bedside, “I’m
going to cancel. I’ll give you the phone so that you can ring me should you
need to.”
More coughing.
“Fair enough.”
“You looked like
death warmed over, dearest.”
“Thanks. I’m pretty
sure I look ten times better than I feel.”
She bent and kissed
his head. “Then you really must feel like shit.”
She showered and dressed—not in business attire, but a
casual skirt and top. It had begun raining; she glanced out the bedroom window
and sighed as she waited. Jordan
was due any time.
He turned over to
watch her. “You look good.”
She continued
staring out. “What is it about rain, you think, that’s so depressing?”
Ronan was in too
much misery to think deeply about anything, so he shook his head. “Don’t know.
Are you depressed?”
She smiled briefly.
“Oddly, no. I was just thinking out loud. I mean, is it really depressing, or were we just taught that it’s depressing, and
so we come to think of it as depressing? Everybody thinks it’s depressing, and
so we do too. But is it really? It’s just rain.”
He croaked, “
‘Rainy days and Sundays always get me down.’ ”
She snickered. “That
may actually be the worst rendition ever sung, ever.”
“I’m sure the
Carpenters would agree.”
She glanced out the
window again. “I think perpetual sunshine would be just as dismal as endless
rain. There’s something in me that likes the rain. I hate thinking I’ve always
thought it gloomy and forlorn because everybody else does. That seems really ...
I don’t know ... pathetic?”
They both heard the
sudden, muffled rumble that was the lift. “That’s probably him,” she said, and
went to the front door and opened it. A few moments later he heard Jordan ask, “Is
our hero on his death-bed? May I go in and say hello?”
“He’s probably
contagious,” Lee warned.
“I’ll take my
chances,” said Jordan, who appeared in the door a moment later, fashionable
long-coat on and scarf around his neck. He took off his gloves as he looked
Ronan over. “Frankly, I’ve seen better-looking road-kill.” He laughed and
approached the bed and held out his hand. Ronan reluctantly took it.
“I don’t want to
get you sick, Jordan .”
“Don’t worry about
me, my friend. The last time I got the flu, I was forty-one. I don’t plan on
getting it again.” He grinned. “Mind if I take your gal out and give her a
hundred thousand bucks?”
Ronan coughed.
“Just no making out in the back. She’s putty in limos.”
Lee, who had come
up to the foot of the bed, shook her head, then reached and gave his covered foot
a squeeze. “Do you have any desire to do something extravagant with the money?”
“Just ... put it in
our account,” he murmured.
“Mind if I take her
out afterward for a little lunch?” asked Jordan .
He shook his head.
“Not at all. I’ll be okay by myself.” He glanced at Lee, who looked as though
she were about to veto the idea. “Seriously. I just need rest.”
“Get some, partner.
See you in a bit.”
“Will do.”
Lee bent and kissed
his forehead. “Still pretty hot. Don’t forget that there’s some broth in the
cupboard. Just sip it.”
“I’m not hungry,
but thanks anyway, love.”
He heard them walk
to the front door, and out. He heard the door click shut softly.
In just a half
hour, maybe a little more, they would have a hundred thousand pounds in their
account to do with as they pleased.
It was so far
beyond anything he could visualize that he forced it out of his mind. He pulled
the covers higher, closed his eyes, and tried to sleep.
Lee took a steadying breath as the limo glided along the
avenue towards the bank. Jordan ,
to her immediate right, patted her hand. “ ‘There are two basic motivating
forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are
in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and
acceptance.’ ”
She gazed at him.
He smiled. “John
Lennon. I’m a big fan of his. I was twenty when I saw my first Beatles concert.
The Fab Four made a lasting impression on me, like millions of others, I
suppose. You’re scared. I know. All of this is completely out of bounds. But
does that mean it’s necessarily nefarious?”
She glanced away
and shook her head. “No. It doesn’t. I’m sorry, Jordan .”
“For many years Mr.
Watson chased money, fame, and glory. He got rich. Then very rich. And then
scientists from his company discovered the Alpha. And then he got very, very
rich, the king of the world, King Midas himself.”
The Alpha was a
battery—the battery. Once released to
the market, it put every other battery maker out of existence within two years.
A single AA Alpha battery used five hours a day in a flashlight would last nine
years and provide nearly three times the power an ordinary AA could. Alphas
were so powerful and long-lasting that generic specifications for batteries had
to be changed. To add massive insult to deadly injury to those soon-out-of-business
battery companies, Alphas were easily disposable, easily recycled, and did less
than half of the environmental damage of regular batteries.
Alphas powered
everything now. They even powered spacecraft, solving many intractable problems
concerning getting payloads into orbit and with spaceflight, so much so that
because of the Alpha, NASA had been, at least before Donald Trump stole the
presidency of the United
States , busily building the very spacecraft
that would take the first human colonists to Mars. Trump canceled the program
almost immediately after taking office.
Alphas had revolutionized
every industry on Earth. They had especially revolutionized medicine—her field.
Ronan had by the
wildest of chances changed the tire of the very man responsible for creating
the Alpha. And now that man had hired him and wanted to give them a hundred
thousand pounds—for shits and giggles. It wasn’t “out of bounds,” no. What it
was was so far beyond “out of bounds”
that Lee couldn’t wrap her mind around it.
It wasn’t original
or intelligent; but it was all she could think to say: “I can’t imagine.”
“ ‘The world is
powered by Karl Watson,’ ” said Jordan ,
glancing out the window. “That was the headline on the cover of Time magazine the year he won Man of the
Year.”
“I remember,” said
Lee. “I remember that article. It was in the waiting room in the hospital I
worked at.”
Lee nodded. “I
remember those articles too. I remember the recession that was blamed on him a
few years ago.”
He peered at her.
“What did you think when you read those articles?”
She shook her head.
“Not much, truthfully. I was ...” She shrugged shamefully.
“You were numb.”
She gave a single
sad chuckle and glanced down at the floor. “That’s one way of putting it.”
“So was Mr. Watson,” said Jordan . “That
was the word he used—numb. He gave the world his very best, and the world, as
the world always does with authentic gifts great and small, shit all over it.”
“I can’t imagine,”
she said again.
She waited for him
to respond. When he didn’t, she glanced at him. He was staring right at her.
“Yes, you can,” he
said simply.
He sat with her as she spoke with the bank manager, upon her
insistence. She watched as Jordan
made the transfer electronically using Ronan’s password, and tried not to gawk
as the manager handed her the slip of paper that read:
New balance: £100,000.00
With a shaking
hand, she folded it up, put it in her billfold, gave Jordan a nervous smile, and walked
with him out of the office and into the waiting limo.
“He gets it,” said Jordan after
five minutes of strained silence.
She glanced at him,
confused. She had avoided his eyes ever since she shook hands with the manager.
“Ronan?”
“He gets it,”
repeated Jordan .
“Ask him. He’ll tell you.”
“Gets what?”
“Ronan is flawed
just like I am, just like you are. He could have driven by that day. He could
have left Mr. Watson out there in the rain. Mr. Watson was in real trouble. In
his ever-more reclusive state, he has repeatedly ‘gone dark’ from his people.
We were frantic looking for him. Ronan found him first.”
“I don’t
understand,” she said.
He accompanied her
up the lift to the door, but did not come in. He had wanted to take her out for
lunch, but she insisted on returning home.
“Hot tea with
honey,” he offered. “Chicken soup. Let him fast if he wants. Making sick people
eat is ridiculous.”
She grinned. “I
agree.”
He bent and kissed
her cheek. “See you tomorrow, Mrs. Sutton.”
She watched as the
lift doors closed.
~~*~~
