“She’s been discharged.”
His grizzled eyebrows crinkled unevenly, each thatch of steely hair
pointing randomly. Beneath the brows were lumps of scar tissue.
His eyes got tiny. For the first time I noticed they were a watery
brown.
“That so? When?”
An hour ago.”
“Damn.” He squeezed his broken nose and jiggled the tip back and
forth. “I came by expressly to see her because I didn’t get a chance
to see her yesterday-blasted meetings all day. She’s my only
grandchild, you know. Beautiful little thing, isn’t she?”
“Yes, she is. Be nice if she were healthy.”
He stared up at me. Put his hands in his pocket and tapped a wingtip
on the marble floor. The lobby was nearly empty and the sound
echoed.
He repeated it. His posture had lost some of its stiffness, but he
straightened quickly. The watery eyes sagged.
“Let’s find a place to talk,” he said, and barreled forward through the
lobby, confident once more. A solid little fireplug of a man who
carried himself as if self-doubt wasn’t in his DNA. Jingling as he
walked.
“I don’t keep an office here,” he said. “With all the money problems,
the space shortage, last thing I want is to be seen as playing fast and
loose.”
As we passed the elevators one of them arrived. Tycoon’s luck.
He strode right in, as if he’d reserved the lift, and jabbed the
basement button.
“How about the dining room?” he said as we rode down.
“It’s closed.”
“I know it is,” he said. “I’m the one who curtailed the hours.”
The door opened. He strode out and headed for the cafeteria’s locked
doors. Pulling a ring of keys out of his trouser pocket-the jingle he
thumbed and selected a key. “Early on we did a resource-utilization
survey. It showed no one was using the room much during this time of
day.”
He unlocked the door and held it open.
“Executive privilege,” he said. “Not too democratic, but democracy
doesn’t work in a place like this.”
I stepped in. The room was pitch-dark. I groped the wall for a light
switch but he walked right to it and flipped it. A section of
fluorescent panels stuttered and brightened.
He pointed to a booth in the center of the room. I sat down and he
went behind the counter, filled a cup with tap water, and dropped a
lemon wedge in it. Then he got something from under the countera
Danish-and put it on a plate. Moving briskly, familiarly, as if he
were puttering in his own kitchen.
He came back, took a bite and a sip, and exhaled with satisfaction.
“She should be healthy, dammit,” he said. “I really don’t understand
why the hell she isn’t, and no one’s been able to give me a straight
story.”
“Have you talked to Dr. Eves?”
“Eves, the others, all of them. No one seems to know a damn thing.
You have anything to offer yet?”
Afraid not.”
He leaned forward. “What I don’t understand is why they called you
in.
Nothing personal-I just don’t see the point of a psychologist here.”
“I really can’t discuss that, Mr. Jones.”
“Chuck. Mr. Jones is a song by that curly character, whatsisname-Bob
Dylan?” Tiny smile. “Surprised I know that, right? Your era, not
mine. But it’s a family joke. From way back when. Chip’s high school
days. He used to ride me, fight everything.
Everything was like this.”
He made hooks of his hands, linked them, then strained to pull them
apart, as if they’d become glued.
“Those were the days,” he said, smiling suddenly. “He was my only one,
but he was like halfa dozen, in terms of rebellion. Anytime I’d try to
get him to do something he didn’t want to do, he’d rear up and buck,
tell me I was acting just like the song by that Dylan Thomas character,
that guy who doesn’t know what’s going on-Mr. Jones. He’d play it
loud. I never actually listened to the lyrics, but I got the point.
Nowadays he and I are best of friends. We laugh about those days.”
Thinking of friendship cemented by real estate deals, I smiled.
“He’s a solid boy,” he said. “The earring and the hair are just part