Chapter 9

I'm awake well ahead of time, anxious to leave for work just for the ride on the new bike. There's something addictive about driving a brand new vehicle, and it's twice as bad when the vehicle has two wheels and close to a hundred and eighty horsepower.

When I walk into the office, Little Joe looks at my motorcycle setup and laughs in disbelief.

"You're riding? I didn't even know you had a motorcycle license."

"I've had the endorsement since I was sixteen, Joe. I may look like a mild-mannered geek, but I have deep and dark secrets."

"Right," he chuckles. "Forgive me for my incredulity, oh fearsome biker geek."

"'Incredulity'?" I grin. "Have you been looking up SAT words in Webster's again?"

"Hey, I have my secret aspects, too."

I walk over to my office and dump all the riding gear on my guest chair: helmet, gloves, scarf, balaclava, and leather jacket. The only drawback to riding is the amount of time needed to get suited up and undressed, although I feel a little bit like a test pilot preparing for a flight whenever I put on all the riding stuff.

There is something different about the office today, and after a few moments of contemplation, I realize what it is. There's no conversation going on. Usually, the folks out on the floor spend the first thirty minutes after getting to work with chit-chat, catching up on news, heading to the kitchenette to get a coffee refill, clustering around a dozen donuts someone brought in—social interaction. There is none of that this morning. Everybody seems to be busy with work, nobody is hanging out at the coffee machine, and there are no heads visible in cubicle land. I trot over to Phil's office, and find him going through user emails.

"Hey, Phil. Did somebody die or something? It's entirely too quiet around here for a Wednesday morning."

"Hey, slack-ass. I covered for you against my better judgment when Benton came looking for you yesterday."

"Yeah, I got the message. I guess Nick didn't buy it, though. He wants to see me in his office this morning."

"Uh-oh," Phil says. "If you get shitcanned, I'm getting that souped-up computer of yours."

"Fat chance. Jess has already called dibs on it."

"That bitch."

"Bitch who?" Jessica says from the next cubicle over.

"Uh, nobody, dear. Just talking about Nick's momma here."

"I'm not sure he has one," she says. "They took the stuff that ran down his daddy's leg, put it in a Petri dish, and slapped a suit on it when it turned twenty-one."

Phil chuckles, and I look at him in mock horror.

"What's gotten into her?"

"Oh, brother," he says. "The whole fucking floor was written up yesterday. Every single person in the department."

"What the fuck for?" I say.

"Coming in a second past eight, chatting by the coffee maker outside of break time, coming back for lunch too late, leaving for lunch too early, making personal phone calls... that kind of stuff. We've all been put 'on notice.'" He frames the last two words with finger quotation marks in the air.

"Does he want everyone to just get up and leave or something?"

"Who the fuck knows? Maybe he's just enjoying finally being able to boss us around. He's had it in for us ever since he was a contractor."

"Whoa," I say. "Welcome to Stalag Geek."

Benton is in his office, hunkered down behind his laptop, furiously typing away. When I enter his office, he looks up and closes the lid of his computer with a sigh.

"Good morning, Frank."

"Morning, Benton." I close the door behind me, and Benton's eyes flick between me and the door in mild surprise.

"Anything on your mind, Frank? Hope you're feeling better today."

"I wasn't sick, Benton. I played hooky."

I pull up a chair and sit down in front of Benton's desk, and he turns to face me. I can tell that he's genuinely puzzled now.

"Well, your team covered for you, but do you really think it's a good idea to skip work, with the new director looking over everyone's shoulder?"

"Benton, the new director is a prick with delusions of grandeur. You know it, I know it, and the rest of the department knows it."

Benton leans back in his chair, a slight smile on his lips.

"Officially, I'd have to reprimand you now for talking smack about our boss." He shoots a glance toward the door.

"Unofficially, you know that I agree with you. It's not exactly a secret that I don't get along with Nick. But I like my job, and I need my income, so I went over there, congratulated him, and kissed his ass good and proper. Not proud of it, but there you have it."

"I have an appointment with him this morning. I have no doubt he expects me to follow suit."

Benton flashes a grin, and for a second I see the old carefree Benton peek out from the tired and somber face he's undoubtedly been wearing since Monday morning.

"Something in your demeanor today tells me that he's going to be a bit disappointed."

"You might be correct," I reply with a smile. "Hell, Benton, I never was good at this whole office politics game."

"Should I be looking for a new Notes administrator, then?"

I shake my head.

"Not if you want to save about sixty grand a year for other projects. The other guys know how to do the everyday user crap, and I've shown Jessica how to fiddle with the server-side tasks. She's been my backup every time I've taken a day off in the past. Also, you might find that an on-site consultant is only a phone call away if you have a bigger issue on your hands."

"Someone I already know, perhaps?" he winks.

"Perhaps."

We look at each other, and I can see something in his face that almost looks like envy.

"Now," I say. "Do you want to put a leash on our new Director of Information Technology?"

Somehow I am not surprised that it doesn't take much to convince Benton to go along. With the last obstacle removed, I almost skip and whistle on the way to the bike. Nick's office is in the corporate headquarters, of course. He has installed some of his goons as minor team leaders in our building, but the man himself cannot bear to leave the gravitational pull of the bigwigs clustered on the third floor of the headquarters building.

On the way in, I stop by at Dana's desk. She is looking quite lovely once again, her long blond hair carefully worked into an artful braid. On an impulse, I bend down and kiss her on the cheek, and she smiles at me in surprise.

"What's gotten into you today?"

"Oh, nothing," I shrug. "Just appreciating something beautiful, that's all."

Dana actually blushes a bit.

"What a nice thing to say to a girl. It almost makes up for having to eat lunch by myself last Friday."

"Yeah, sorry about that. I'll tell you all about the weekend over lunch. Right now I have a meeting with the dickhead that's been promoted to department head."

"Yeah, what's up with that? The help desk guys haven't smiled in three days now. And what was with that thing you had me ask of Christa?"

"Lunch, dear," I say with a grin. "Right now I have to go and save some jobs."

Nick's office is empty when I arrive. It's a plush corner office with enough empty space in it to play a two-on-two game of hoops. His office chair is antiqued leather, and there's a brand new embossed name plate sitting on the green leather blotter on his desk. Nick's laptop is in its docking station, and I am not surprised to see that it's one of the super thin machines we rolled out for the select few on the upper floor a few weeks ago. They have magnesium-alloy bodies, and they're about as thin as a small stack of credit cards. I don't like them because their keyboards are cramped, but I actually need my computer for productive work. For people like Nick, it's a status symbol—it doesn't matter how impractical it is, as long as it's the sleekest and most expensive model in the lineup.

I walk over to the generous windows and look out into the parking lot below. There's a cherry-red Porsche 911 parked in one of the spots close to the building, and I just know without a doubt that this is Nick's ride. It has a temporary dealer tag on it, and I can almost smell the new leather interior from up here. I shake my head and chuckle in disbelief. The man is a walking cliché, Rolex and hairy chest and all.

There are footsteps in the hallway outside, and I turn my attention to the door without stepping back from the window. A moment later, Nick walks through the door. He's back to his usual outfit, the setup that Jessica calls "Guido wear". He's wearing light-colored slacks, loafers without socks, and a sports coat over a black t-shirt. All in all, he's doing a passable Sonny Crockett imitation. Twenty years ago, it would have even been in fashion. The light color of his sports coat clashes with his dark Mediterranean complexion.

Nick walks around his desk without a word of a greeting. He drops into his high-backed leather chair with a sigh and then swivels it around to look at me.

"That Porsche your ride?" I ask, pointing a thumb over my shoulder into the direction of the parking lot.

"Yeah," he says. "I race cars on the weekend. This one just needs a better sound system. I'm dropping it back off at the dealership this afternoon to have that installed."

He turns around and fiddles with his mouse to get rid of the screensaver. His Notes client comes up, and he goes through the stack of red messages in his inbox for a few moments. Finally, he figures that the pecking order is established, and turns his attention back to me.

"I want to know where you were yesterday. You're my main Notes guy. I need my main Notes guy to be around when I want to discuss email stuff. I was looking for you in your office, but nobody knew where you were."

"I was at home, Nick. I was on assignment over the weekend, and we get to make those days up as we need."

"Really?" He smacks his lips. "That's a policy that we're going to have to change. You are all on salaries. I don't believe in giving special perks just for doing your job. If I can put in eighty-hour weeks, so can my department."

I laugh out loud, and Nick startles. His look goes from surprise to disbelief to hostility in about two heartbeats.

"What's funny?"

"You putting in eighty-hour weeks," I say. "You come in at nine and leave at three every day, and you spend half the day on the Internet whenever you're in the office."

His face goes even darker than usual for a moment, and he opens his mouth to snap a retort, but then he closes it again and gives me a smile that looks entirely artificial.

"You don't like me, do you?"

"Nobody in the department likes you, but I think you're already aware of that. You're a martinet, Nick. People only obey you because they fear for their jobs, but that's no way to lead a department. You're going to run this place into the ground inside of six months."

Nick looks at me for a few moments without expression. Then he shakes his head slowly.

"You have balls to come into my office and talk to me like that."

"Doesn't take balls to tell the truth. You're just not used to hearing it because you surround yourself with ass kissers and scare the shit out of everybody else."

He studies me with those droopy, deep-set eyes of his, and then he starts to smirk. He raises his hand and wags his finger at me, and the Rolex on his wrist flashes in the sunlight streaming in through the windows.

"You must think I'm stupid, my friend, but I know exactly what you're trying to do. You're trying to get me to fire you so you can go and collect unemployment on the company."

I laugh out loud once again.

"Yeah, Nick, that's exactly what I'm trying to do. I can really live it up on company dime with two hundred bucks a week from the unemployment office. Do you even try to use that thing between your ears before you talk?"

"Careful," he says. He's smiling again, but it's more like a baring of teeth. "I will not have my subordinates come in here and insult me in my own office." He slams his hand down on the ink blotter for emphasis.

"Here's something for you to consider," he says. "I have a friend who's a Microsoft Exchange consultant. I need you right now because you're the only one who can run that god-awful Notes system, but I'm planning on having the whole shop moved to Exchange. How do you like that?"

"Whatever," I say. "Saddle yourself with Exchange, and try to tell the whole web development team they have to migrate all their junk off the Notes databases. You really have no clue about our infrastructure, do you?"

"It will happen," he says with finality. "Just watch. You'll find yourself out of a job in a few months, and I'm going to work you like a fucking mine mule until I get the pleasure of kicking you off my team."

I take a look around to make sure nobody's hovering in the hallway outside, and then turn my attention back to Nick.

"That will most certainly not happen, Nick. But let me tell you what is going to happen instead. You're going to lay me off today, and you're going to sign off on a severance package. I'm thinking six months' pay, for my inconvenience of no longer being needed, and all that."

Nick looks at me as if I have grown three heads. Then he shakes his head with a chuckle.

"Now why would I do something like that? Can you tell me that? Why would I give you of all people a golden handshake? You've been nothing but a pain in the ass to me from the day I came in as a consultant."

He gestures towards his phone.

"I can call the director of HR over here right now and have you escorted out of the building, and without losing another penny. What makes you think I'll let you go with thirty grand of company money in your pocket?"

I get up from my chair suddenly, and Nick flinches slightly. There's nobody lurking in the hall, but I reach out and close the door to Nick's office anyway. Then I sit back down, cross one leg over the other, and look at Nick again, who hasn't yet decided whether to regard me with humor or hostility. He tries a mixture of both, but it makes him look like he is suffering from constipation.

"You will do this," I say, "because if you don't, I'll blow the whistle on that little 401k scheme you're trying to set up."

He gives me a wary look.

"401 what? I have no idea what you're talking about."

"You've spent the last two months convincing the boss to switch companies for our 401k administration. Too bad you forgot to mention that the company you're trying to get into the game is run by your wife's brother."

He makes no response to this, but I am grimly satisfied to see that all the color has drained from his face. For a moment, we stare at each other over the expanse of Nick's pricy hardwood desk, and I'm almost positive that he's actually squirming in his chair a little.

"You may want to be careful what you say around here, accusing people without proof. That kind of stuff can get you in big trouble."

"I have all the proof anyone needs, Nick. I have a backup copy of your email database, with every bit of mail you've sent and received since you started with the company. Even if a court throws it out as evidence, I can guarantee you that the Big Cheese will drop you like a hot potato if he sees those emails. I'd imagine he'll be particularly upset when he reads the ones where you share your true opinion of him with your buddy. And even if the boss doesn't hang you, I can guarantee you that the employees will break out the rope when they learn that their retirement cash is being trusted to a fly-by-night operation."

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