Chapter 28: Portents

Tuesday, a week after the catastrophe, Kennedy appeared at the Athletic Club. There were only one coach and three rowers practicing; the traffic was still light on the freeways and roads. Kennedy warmed up, then rowed out two thousand meters, then came back flying down the lane, letting all of her rage from the last week drive her.

The coach who was there laughed. "Wanna trade jobs? You could give me tips, not the other way around!" He was a tall, lanky fellow with bad skin and his hair done up in a pony-tail. "Look, the next time you're in, I'd like to see you in a double or quad boat," he told her.

"I've never really played a team sport, not competitively."

"Not even in school?"

"For years I was home tutored. My tutor is a Ren Faire fan and I'm a dab hand with a sword or bow. Working together with someone else has never been in the syllabus."

"Well, it's not that hard, trust me."

A few minutes later they were out on the water in a two-person scull and it was, as Kennedy expected, much harder than just rowing by yourself. For one thing, it did no good to row at her usual furious pace, because she kept fouling his oars. And of course, he couldn't begin to keep up with her.

Still, she left a little early and actually managed to get to school on time.

Still, the routine was established. Rowing took a lot of time, school took time, working out took time. Kennedy started ruthlessly pruning things like TV, recreational reading, even extra studying. Practice with Lady Kennedy, though, wasn't affected.

She arranged to take the SAT in the middle of October, and life settled down a bit.

Then one Monday evening her father met her after school and they drove to a nice restaurant in Scarsdale for dinner. It was clear he wanted to talk about something, but he wasn't going to rush it. The conversation was light, about school, about rowing, anything except grounding and the still smoldering piles of rubble on the tip of Manhattan.

"I was intent on that day," he told her as they sat eating dessert, "on redoing your trust funds."

"And I told you what would happen if you gave them to me."

"Well, yes you did. A week from today is Columbus Day, which you have off from school."

"They're talking about having class to make up for the lost days after the attack, anyway," Kennedy told him.

"I heard that, but I checked. There's provision for snow days, and they're going to cross their fingers and hope for no real snow days this year. I want you to come to the office with me."

"Father brings his daughter in to work day?" Kennedy laughed.

"Not really. Usually when that happens, the daughter gets stuck at a desk, is pointed to the solitaire game on the computer and is expected to be quiet and not be a nuisance. No, you'll be at my side the entire day. You'll hear and see everything I do."

"Why?" It wasn't that she was hostile, so much as curious.

"Well, several reasons. As I said, I'm going to restructure your trust funds. Perhaps the most important new feature is that they aren't automatic. You'll have to ask for them."

"That will never happen," she said with finality.

"That will be your choice, Kennedy. The one thing I will want, after next Monday, is your promise not to throw the money away."

"That bothered you, did it? I meant it to."

"I figured you did. And yes, it bothered me a great deal. You'll see why Monday.

"Another reason is that it's clear you are starting to think of the future in terms outside your possible calling."

"It gets less likely every day."

"Well, I realize there is just about no way it would interest you, but I'm going to run you around the office, showing you what the various people do. Think of it as career day for Kennedy."

She grimaced. "I think you can take it to the bank that my career isn't going to entail sitting behind a desk in a building like the World Trade Center, shuffling paper and hoping for a sixteenth point up-tick on some stock or bond."

"It may well be that you're right. That's up to you. I just want to get in a little tutoring of my own, okay?"

"Okay."

"Good. You understand that some companies take great pride in their support for Olympic athletes that they employ. Companies like UPS and Home Depot, and they're just the tip of the iceberg. There are a lot of others who just quietly go about doing it. It's kind of like what alumni do for football players ... summer jobs that entail going to practices and working out, then collecting your paycheck. Your generous paycheck."

"Wonderful."

He chuckled. "In high school and college, the athletic associations spot check to make sure the athletes actually do work. UPS, Home Depot and the rest write off the salaries to publicity."

"Can we stop at the hospital on the way home to see Pipes and Captain Harrison?"

He smiled. "Yes. And I can take a hint."

"One last thing," Kennedy told him. "I was surprised to find out that I've been a member of the New York Athletic Club since I wasn't quite nine years old."

"Originally my thought was that your tutor could have a little time off by taking you there. The club has some very good programs for young tennis players and golfers. Plus there is swimming instruction, and a number of other youth recreational opportunities. That was my first hint that your tutor wasn't following the usual PE track. He never took you. I asked him if you were getting enough physical exercise and he let me watch you run one morning. Goodness! I've never been able to run that fast in my life!"

They visited both men, although her father only briefly said hello to the police captain. Captain Harrison's wife was there and Kennedy got to shake her hand. From the look on the woman's face her husband told her a few stories about Kennedy, and she was expecting Kennedy to be older.

Pipes, on the other hand, was sitting up in bed, reading a Tom Clancy novel. "Dennis was by a while ago," he told Kennedy. "My young friend has done something bizarre and extraordinary. I wish I could be out there, helping."

"How bizarre?" Kennedy asked, remembering the Clarice in her very sheer teddy.

"She's talked to the other families. She's gotten them to agree to a one month, a full thirty-one days, interest suspension on loans to less than sterling clients, and, if anyone pays off the principal during that month, no fees and other charges would be applied. Doing their civic duty to the City, in its hour of need. Plus, of course, the PR is very good."

"And this is significant?"

"Yeah. Someday we'll find ourselves on a desert island where we'll have no fear of listening devices and I'll tell you the real story of the families. It isn't nearly as imposing as you might think. PR has been important to them since the end of the Second World War."

"She's a really nice person," Kennedy told him. "An asset to any organization."

He stuck his tongue out at Kennedy, who laughed.

Kennedy turned serious. "Why did you help Captain Harrison?"

Pipes looked at her steadily. "I was in the subway station when the first plane hit. There were a couple people who came down to the station with minor injuries, burns mostly. I thought they were crazy, and some of us helped them back upstairs, where we thought we could find an ambulance.

"After that, it was one thing after another. Captain Harrison came by at one point and saw me and asked if I'd be willing to help get to some people trapped in Tower 7, there had been some debris that had hit the building and a number of people were injured, and since the power was out, they were having to be carried by hand down the stairwells.

"I said yes and we did that. We were walking back into Tower 7 when the first of the big towers came down. One second we were walking across the lobby, the next the floor opened up and swallowed us. I had no control of where I ended up. The next thing I knew, more debris was coming down and I got hit.

"Some others upstairs hadn't gone in, and a couple of them hustled to get help, while the rest started trying to get us out. Captain Harrison and I were last; it took them hours and hours to get to us. We were being loaded into an ambulance three blocks away when Tower 7 came down. If our rescue had been delayed a half hour...

"Not that I haven't minded being thought a hero by NYPD."

"You were brave," Kennedy said valiantly.

"I was trying to do good things," he agreed. "Irony is that except for my spleen, I'll fully recover. Captain Harrison won't. Irony is if that chunk of concrete and rebar had hit two feet higher, it would have killed the both of us."

It was sobering, for sure.

The next afternoon after school Mr. Glastonbury appeared when she started working out with Lady Kennedy.

"I've been watching you, Miss Kennedy," he told her. "I think you are getting stale, not having to fight against living opponents. I'd hate to find out that you've gone stale, fighting against targets and punching bags the next time it counts."

She grimaced. "I was thinking the same thing, sir. Except I'm too stiff-necked to ask you and the one time I tried it with one of the staff guards, he quit the next day."

"Why don't we do a half hour a few times in the next week or so? We'll know if you've gotten stale. Then you can decide what you want to do."

"That sounds right. Thanks, sir."

He silently handed her a letter.

Kennedy tapped it on her finger. "And this is?"

"A note from your mother. She found out you're working on sculls at the Athletic Club. I'm afraid her hopes have once again been raised. Your father would be very proud if you made the Olympic team, or just competed in a championship event. Your mother, on the other hand, seeks reassurance that you 'won't disappoint her once again.'"

Kennedy read the note. It was self-serving, whiny, not to mention obsequious in its praise and flattery. She was tempted to throw it away, but, on the other hand, it was the first time her mother had communicated with her in years.

She stared at Mr. Glastonbury who shook his head. "It's not mine to comment, Miss Kennedy."

"Good, and with that shining example, I too will forebear expounding my opinions."

A few days later she met her father at the front door. To her surprise they went to the airport and a helicopter. "I thought your office was here?" she asked.

"Yes, it is, and it's also in Boston, New York, Buenos Aires, London and Madrid. Today, we're off to Boston."

The Boston office had, it turned out, a heliport on top of the building. The helicopter deposited them atop their destination and left for elsewhere, while they descended in an elevator.

"It seems a little ostentatious," Kennedy said mildly.

"A few months ago I consulted on a major merger. I flew back and forth across the US in the corporate jet; I chartered helicopters back and forth wherever I went. The travel bill was about a million dollars. That's an expense I incurred, for which I was compensated above and beyond the fourteen million I got for my personal services. The company billed nearly twenty million for the whole deal. It took six weeks, about two hundred hours of my time. Do the math."

Seventy thousand dollars an hour? Yeah, you could probably absorb a few helicopter rentals for that kind of money. "Wasn't that excessive?"

"I received a flat one tenth of one percent of the purchase price, with a bonus of one percent of anything over three billion, four hundred million, as I was an agent for the seller. How much did the company sell for?"

"Twenty million, right?"

"Yes."

"Three point six six billion."

He grinned at her expression. "Before you go get excited about the filthy capitalist profiting at the expense of others, when we get to the office, pick a real estate office at random from the phone book. Call them up and ask them what their commission is for selling a home."

"More, I assume."

"Well, if you pick 'For Sale by Owner' it would be less. Seven and a half percent is nominal, even the 'By Owner' types it runs about one percent."

Kennedy blinked. "You could have made a third of a billion dollars at market rates?"

"Yes. But, that's called killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. Me, I'm known as a fair man, who treats the parties honestly. That, and I have a whopping big discount for my favored customers -- that is, any customer willing to pay me a few million dollars to expedite their deal. I make a hundred million or so a year, shepherding mergers or acquisitions like that."

She nodded. The elevator door whisked open and he stopped a few feet away at a locator bulletin board. He waved at it. Kennedy wasn't sure what she was supposed to look at, and after a second, turned to her stepfather. "I assume you want me to pay attention to something. I don't know what."

"How many floors does PS Investments occupy?"

She looked at the directory. "Three."

"Count heads," he told her, then put his hand behind her back and propelled her into the office area.

There were lots and lots of people. He would stop at each desk and introduce Kennedy as "my stepdaughter" and introduce the person or persons he was talking to. He stopped, Kennedy was sure, at every desk on the floor, before he went down a hall with a row of ornate office doors on one side, all closed. The door to the corner office was open, and he went directly inside and motioned Kennedy to a chair.

"Well?" he asked.

"A hundred and fifty-six, sir."

"How many did I tell you were from another floor?"

"Two, sir."

"You have an outstanding memory. If, after lunch, I was to take you around again, how many could you introduce me to?"

"I think they all know you, sir."

"How many names and faces would you remember?"

She sighed. "About one in ten if we did it now; fewer, many fewer, after lunch."

"It's something I practice, do you understand? It flatters people when you remember their names. So I practice associating names and faces. I grant you, there are about ten percent it takes me more than one meeting to remember, but still, ninety percent isn't too shabby!"

"No, sir, it's not."

"Do you understand that you saw about ninety-two percent of the people who work on this floor this morning?"

"I'll take your word for it."

"And there are two more floors? And offices in another half dozen cities around the globe, most, of course, half or a third this size?"

"Nearly three thousand overall?" Kennedy guessed.

"Close enough. Later today I'll get the manpower report. Yesterday it was three thousand, four hundred and sixty-two. Today it will be different."

He got up and walked to the window. "There is not a person who works for me who gets minimum wage. Nowhere."

"Wow!" Kennedy said, clearly underwhelmed.

He turned and walked past her chair, as if pacing. She shook her head, not having a clue. She learned an important lesson when his foot lashed out, crashing into the chair leg. It cracked, and Kennedy started over backwards.

There wasn't anything she could do to prevent falling, so she tucked her head in, rolled and when she went to get back up, found herself pinned to the floor by another chair.

"Listen to me for one second, little girl!" her stepfather's voice was angrier than she could ever remember.

"Don't try to get up," he told her. "You owe me a few minutes of time."

"I don't owe you a thing. Not since you grounded me." Still, she didn't try to get up.

"Listen to me! I can understand you're being pissed at me for grounding you. I'm a big boy. I screwed up, I'll admit it. I'm too stubborn by half. Big deal, I screwed up! It's happened before, it'll happen again. It's only a question of when."

"Charlton Heston said it better."

"He got paid for it, too -- but not paid as well as I am. In any case, this is a freebie. Advice from me to you.

"You pissed me off when you talked about standing in the street throwing money away. Okay, if I gave it to you, I suppose you'd be within your rights. I was planning on giving you a quarter of the business, Kennedy. By throwing that money away, you'd have put nearly nine hundred people out of work, instantly! Some of those people have worked for me, loyally and faithfully, for decades! You'd toss them on the garbage heap!

"Worse, there would be repercussions. Probably, before the dominoes stopped falling, it would be about two thousand people whose jobs would have evaporated, mostly from other companies, those who do business with us.

"For what? So you could have a temper tantrum, to piss in my face because I screwed up? I thought Slayers weren't supposed to be able to hurt people? Thousands? Could you really hurt thousands?"

"I'll give the money back to you. I'll sign it right back," she said, suddenly afraid.

"Well, not to worry. Forewarned is forearmed, as they say. As I said, I'm redoing the trust funds." He laughed nastily. "I had one of my assistants calculate what we spend on postage for a month. That's what you'll get. It's still in seven figures, as we do a lot of express and certified mail, but it's peanuts. Postage stamp money!

"I'm going to let you up. Then we're going around to each and every desk on this floor, and you're going to listen to what that person does. You'll look at their family pictures they have on their desks, their trophies, awards, certificates -- all of that. The assembled accomplishments of my employees, but not you. Never you."

He pulled the chair away. "Get up."

She did so and met his eyes. "How did Victoria do on her day at the office?"

He sniffed. "I told you the answer to that once before. Nothing she will ever do in her life will earn enough money to pay for one month of her credit card expenditures. You, Kennedy, you could sit in my chair, if you wanted."

"I don't want to sit in your chair," she told him. "In fact, I can't think of many things I want to do less. I mean, yeah, there's going on a world tour with my mother again. I'd rather have my teeth pulled -- all of them."

"At your age, do you know what I had my heart set on?"

"You wanted to be a fireman?" she asked, keeping her voice light.

"No, I was going to be an astronaut. I wanted to go into space. Now, I'm one of those helping fund some startups, and we're thinking about offering some large cash prizes to companies that make big advances in civilian space technology. I may be an astronaut yet!"

"And this means what?"

"It means, one day I wondered why my father had missed an opportunity to make some money. I asked him and the answer turned out to be simple: I'd seen the opportunity, but he'd missed it. My father was a much cleverer man that I am. He gave me twenty thousand dollars. He said it didn't count if you aren't doing it for money. Later that year I had my own house, bought with my own money. I drove my own car ... all of that. I was independent! The next time I got any money from the old man was when he was dead."

Kennedy gulped. "Oh."

"Yeah, oh. I wasn't a bad boy, growing up, Kennedy. I was just wild. I didn't like to hear 'No' and above all, I didn't want to hear people tell me I couldn't do something. Sort of like you. You're smarter than I was, up to a point. You were never threatened with 'The granite hills of New Hampshire for the granite heads of New England's wealthy.'"

"No, I was just grounded."

"Where you could still talk to friends and see a few of them, instead of what I was threatened with: a total cut-off for four years."

"Except I wasn't given a warning to shape up or be shipped out. I was just told what my options were. No warning, no nothing."

"I told you, I made a mistake. It's a feature of people like us, Kennedy. We don't make many blunders, but when we do, they're spectacular. People can get seriously hurt, too. Yeah, at first I worried about that, then I worried about my own ego. Stupid. I was stupid. I can live with that, I can take the consequences for my own actions on my own head. I couldn't accept your threat to throw the money away."

"I will never throw your money away, okay?" she told him. "I just won't take it, in the first place. It'll stay in the bank."

"You think I carry mine in my hip pocket?"

Kennedy blinked, then blushed. "Sir, I know we're never going to be really good friends, but right now, I need some time to think."

"Well sorry, Kennedy. Right now, we're going around to all of those desks. I expect we'll be a little late getting home tonight, because there are a lot of desks and everyone feels that their niche is very, very important."