Chapter 8
CHESTER STONE'S DAY started out in the normal way. He drove to work at the usual time. The Benz was as soothing as ever. The sun was shining, as it should be in June. The drive into the city was normal. Normal traffic, no more, no less. The usual rose vendors and paper sellers in the toll plazas. The slackening congestion down the length of Manhattan, proving he'd timed it just right, as he usually did. He parked in his normal leased slot under his building and rode the elevator up to his offices. Then his day stopped being normal.
The place was deserted. It was as if his company had vanished overnight. The staff had all disappeared, instinctively, like rats from a sinking ship. A single phone was trilling on a distant desk. Nobody was sitting there to answer it. The computers were all turned off. The monitor screens were dull gray squares, reflecting the strip lights in the ceiling. His own inner office was always quiet, but now there was a strange hush lying over it. He walked in and heard a sound like a tomb.
"I'm Chester Stone," he said into the silence.
He said it just to be making some noise in the place, but it came out like a croak. There was no echo, because the thick carpeting and the fiberboard walls soaked up the sound like a sponge. His voice just disappeared in the void.
"Shit," he said.
He was angry. Mostly with his secretary. She had been with him a long time. She was the sort of employee he expected to stand up and be loyal, with a shy hand on his shoulder, a gleam in her eye, a promise to stay and beat the odds whatever the hell they were. But she'd done the same thing as all the others. She'd heard the rumors coming out of the finance department, the company was bust, the paychecks would bounce, and she'd dumped some old files out of a carton and boxed up the photos of her damn nephews in their cheap brass frames and her ratty old spider plant from her desk and her junk from her drawers and carried it all home on the subway to her neat little apartment, wherever the hell that was. Her neat little apartment, decorated and furnished with his paychecks from when the times were good. She would be sitting there now, in her bathrobe, drinking coffee slowly, an unexpected morning off, never to return to him, maybe leafing through the vacancies in the back of the newspaper, choosing her next port of call.
"Shit," he said again.
He turned on his heel and barged out through the secretarial pen and back out all the way to the elevator. Rode down to the street and strode out into the sun. Turned west and set out walking fast, in a fury, with his heart thumping. The enormous glittering bulk of the Twin Towers loomed over him. He hurried across the plaza and inside to the elevators. He was sweating. The chill of the lobby air struck through his jacket. He rode the express up to eighty-eight. Stepped out and walked through the narrow corridor and into Hobie's brass-and-oak lobby for the second time in twenty-four hours.
The male receptionist was sitting behind his counter. On the other side of the lobby a thickset man in an expensive suit was coming out of a small kitchen, carrying two mugs in one hand. Stone could smell coffee. He could see steam rising and brown froth swirling in the mugs. He glanced between the two men.
"I want to see Hobie," he said.
They ignored him. The thickset man walked over to the counter and set one of the mugs in front of the receptionist. Then he walked back behind Stone and put himself nearer the lobby door than Stone was. The receptionist leaned forward and rotated the coffee mug, carefully adjusting the angle of the handle until it was presented comfortably to his grasp.
"I want to see Hobie," Stone said again, looking straight ahead.
"My name is Tony," the receptionist said to him.
Stone just turned and stared at him, blankly. The guy had a red mark on his forehead, like a fresh bruise. The hair on his temple was newly combed but wet, like he'd pressed a cold cloth to his head.
"I want to see Hobie," Stone said for the third time.
"Mr. Hobie's not in the office today," Tony said. "I'll be dealing with your affairs for the time being. We have matters to discuss, don't we?"
"Yes, we do," Stone said.
"So shall we go inside?" Tony said, and stood up.
He nodded to the other guy, who slid around the counter and took up position in the chair. Tony came out and stepped across to the inner door. Held it open and Stone walked through into the same gloom as the day before. The blinds were still closed. Tony padded ahead through the dark to the desk. He walked around it and sat down in Hobie's chair. The sprung base creaked once in the silence. Stone followed after him. Then he stopped and glanced left and right, wondering where he should sit.
"You'll remain standing," Tony said to him.
"What?" Stone said back.
"You'll remain standing for the duration of the interview. "
"What?" Stone said again, astonished.
"Right in front of the desk. "
Stone just stood there, his mouth clamped shut.
"Arms by your sides," Tony said. "Stand straight and don't slump. "
He said it calmly, quietly, in a matter-of-fact voice, not moving at all. Then there was silence. Just faint background noises booming elsewhere in the building, and thumping in Stone's chest. His eyes were adjusting to the gloom. He could see the score marks on the desktop from Hobie's hook. They made an angry tracery, deep in the wood. The silence was unsettling him. He had absolutely no idea how to react to this. He glanced at the sofa to his left. It was humiliating to stand. Doubly so, when told to by a damn receptionist. He glanced at the sofa to his right. He knew he should fight back. He should just go ahead and sit down on one of the sofas. Just step left or right and sit down. Ignore the guy. Just do it. Just sit down, and show the guy who was boss. Like hitting a winning return or trumping an ace. Sit down, for God's sake, he told himself. But his legs would not move. It was like he was paralyzed. He stood still, a yard in front of the desk, rigid with outrage and humiliation. And fear.
"You're wearing Mr. Hobie's jacket," Tony said. "Would you take it off, please?"
Stone stared at him. Then he glanced down at his jacket. It was his Savile Row. He realized that for the first time in his life, he'd accidentally worn the same thing two days running.
"This is my jacket," he said.
"No, it's Mr. Hobie's. "
Stone shook his head. "I bought it in London. It's definitely my jacket. "
Tony smiled in the dark.
"You don't understand, do you?" he said.
"Understand what?" Stone said, blankly.
"That Mr. Hobie owns you now. You're his. And everything you have is his. "
Stone stared at him. There was silence in the room. Just the faint background noises from the building and the thumping in Stone's chest.
"So take Mr. Hobie's jacket off," Tony said, quietly.
Stone was just staring at him, his mouth opening and closing, no sound coming out of it.
"Take it off," Tony said. "It's not your property. You shouldn't be standing there wearing another man's jacket. "
His voice was quiet, but there was menace in it. Stone's face was rigid with shock, but then suddenly his arms were starting to move, like they were outside of his conscious control. He struggled off with the jacket and held it out by the collar, like he was in the menswear department, handing back a garment he'd tried and hadn't liked.
"On the desk, please," Tony said.
Stone laid the jacket flat on the desk. He straightened it and felt the fine wool snagging over the rough surface. Tony pulled it closer and went into the pockets, one after the other. He assembled the contents in a small pile in front of him. Balled up the jacket and tossed it casually over the desk onto the left-hand sofa.
He picked up the Mont Blanc fountain pen. Made an appreciative little shape with his mouth and slipped it into his own pocket. Then he picked up the bunch of keys. Fanned them on the desktop and picked through them, one at a time. Selected the car key, and held it up between his finger and thumb.
&nbs
p; "Mercedes?"
Stone nodded, blankly.
"Model?"
"500SEL," Stone muttered.
"New?"
Stone shrugged. "A year old. "
"Color?"
"Dark blue. "
"Where?"
"At my office," Stone muttered. "In the lot. "
"We'll pick it up later," Tony said.
He opened a drawer and dropped the keys into it. Pushed the drawer shut and turned his attention to the wallet. He held it upside down and shook it and raked the contents out with his finger. When it was empty, he tossed it under the desk. Stone heard it clang into a trash can. Tony glanced once at the picture of Marilyn and pitched it after the wallet. Stone heard a fainter clang as the stiff photographic paper hit the metal. Tony stacked the credit cards with three fingers and slid them to one side like a croupier.
"Guy we know will give us a hundred bucks for these," he said.
Then he riffed the paper money together and sorted it by denomination. Counted it up and clipped it together with a paper clip. Dropped it into the same drawer as the keys.
"What do you guys want?" Stone asked.
Tony looked up at him. "I want you to take Mr. Hobie's tie off," he said.
Stone shrugged, helplessly.
"No, seriously, what do you guys want from me?"
"Seventeen-point-one million dollars. That's what you owe us. "
Stone nodded. "I know. I'll pay you. "
"When?" Tony asked.
"Well, I'll need a little time," Stone said.
Tony nodded. "OK, you've got an hour. "
Stone stared at him. "No, I need more than an hour. "
"An hour is all you've got. "
"I can't do it in an hour. "
"I know you can't," Tony said. "You can't do it in an hour, or a day, or a week, or a month, or a year, because you're a useless piece of shit who couldn't manage his way out of a wet grocery sack, aren't you?"
"What?"
"You're a disgrace, Stone. You took a business your grandfather slaved over and your father built bigger and you flushed it all straight down the toilet, because you're totally stupid, aren't you?"
Stone shrugged, blankly. Then he swallowed.
"OK, so I took some hits," he said. "But what could I do?"
"Take the tie off," Tony screamed at him.
Stone jumped and flung his hands up. Struggled with the knot.
"Get it off, you piece of shit," Tony screamed.
He tore it off. Dropped it on the desk. It lay there in a tangle.
"Thank you, Mr. Stone," Tony said quietly.
"What do you guys want?" Stone whispered.