The Consultant (37 page)

“But you’re not doing that, are you? You and Phil are on some noble crusade—”  

“I will.”  

“You
have
to. You have a family.”  

“I know.”  

She hugged him, spoke into his neck. “I’m worried. I’m scared.”  

“Me, too.”  

She pulled back. “We could just make a clean break, have a new start.”  

He put a hand on her shoulder, looked her in the eye. “We’ll talk about it,” he said. “We’ll figure out our expenses and see what’s feasible. I don’t think we’ll be able to, but…we’ll see. If you can get another job, maybe we can… I don’t know. We’ll figure things out, see what we can do.”  

“They’re dangerous,” she said.  

He held her gaze. “I know.” He took his hand from her shoulder. “But right now we have a starving boy and some Chinese food that’s getting cold. Dylan!” he called.  

Their son came racing out, grinning.  

Angie felt herself smiling back at him.  

And knew she’d made the right decision.  

**** 

Angie’s jostling shoulder woke him from a sound sleep. “Get it,” she mumbled, and as Craig drifted up from a nightmare back into the real world, he heard the faux analog ringtone of his cell. He sat up, suddenly wide awake. How was that possible? He always turned his cellphone off before going to bed. Reaching over to the nightstand, he clumsily picked up the phone, his fingers working by sense memory as he pulled it to his ear. “Hello?” he croaked.  

“What are you doing? Why aren’t you responding?”  

He was confused, his mind unable to make sense of the words. “What? Who is this?”  

“This is Regus Patoff. I’m calling because one of your programmers sent you an email attachment well over an hour ago, and you still haven’t looked at it.”  

Anger was cutting through the fog. “It’s the middle of the night!”  

“Are you a part-time employee or a full-time employee? When you are contacted by CompWare in regard to a business matter, you are expected to respond within a reasonable time frame.”  

“I was asleep! It’s—” He looked at the clock. “—two fifteen!”  

“That’s no excuse.”  

“I’m—”
Going back to sleep
, he intended to say, but Patoff cut him off,  

“—going to read that email and its attachment right now,” the consultant finished for him.  

The line went dead.  

Slowly, Craig placed the phone back on the nightstand. Angie was awake, and she’d obviously heard enough to know what the call had been about. “This is bullshit,” she told him. “You’re an employee, not a slave. They don’t own you. You work your allotted hours, and the rest of the time is your own.”  

He sighed, rubbing the side of his face. “That doesn’t seem to be the way it works anymore.”  

“Just because they have the
ability
to contact you twenty-four hours a day, doesn’t mean they
can
. You need to call the labor relations board or the wage and hour commission or whoever’s in charge of this stuff. It can’t be legal.”  

Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t, but Craig knew that official complaints through recognized channels would not mean anything to Regus Patoff. He thought about Dylan’s experience at CompWare, Angie at the Urgent Care, and part of him thought that he should just quit right now, collect unemployment and look for another job. But an even stronger part of him refused to give up, vowed to fight, to stay standing and not let himself be run off.  

He pushed away the covers, getting out of bed. “I’ll be back,” he said. “I’m just going to check it out.”  

“Craig…”  

“I’ll be right back.”  

Moving quietly so as not to wake up Dylan, he walked across the hall to his office, turning on his laptop. He could have done it on his phone, but with Patoff being so insistent, he wasn’t sure what he’d find, and he didn’t want Angie to see—just in case. As it turned out, the email was from Huell Parrish, but while Craig had received it after midnight, the time sent was listed as three-thirty in the afternoon.  

The attachment was an official acknowledgment of a pre-approved programming update that the two of them had discussed earlier in the day.  

Patoff had called and woken him up only to fuck with him.  

Angie was waiting up when he returned, but he assured her that it was nothing and told her to go back to bed. He crawled under the covers, turned onto his side, and held her arm when she snuggled next to him and draped it over his shoulder. He closed his eyes, tried to clear his mind, thought of nothing.  

But no matter what he did, he couldn’t fall back asleep.  

THIRTY TWO  

Matthews sidled next to Diane’s desk, pretending to sort through a sheaf of papers in his hand. What he had to ask her, he didn’t want overheard. Which was why he wasn’t using the phone or the intercom, why he was making sure that they were the only two people within earshot before he spoke.  

“See if you can find me the home phone number and address of Morgan Brandt,” he said in a low conspiratorial tone. She obviously sensed his anxiety because she answered in a similarly subdued manner. “The Bell CEO?”  

“
Former
CEO,” he said.  

He didn’t have to say anymore. She nodded her understanding and told him softly, “I’ll write it down and bring it in to you.”  

“Thanks.” Still looking at the papers in his hand as though searching through them for specific information, he walked back into his office.  

Several moments later, Diane came in. “Found it,” she said, handing him a Post-It note. “It’s the most recent I could find. Hopefully, it’s up to date.”  

He smiled at her. “You’re a lifesaver.”  

There was obviously something more she wanted to ask, but she seemed to sense intuitively that he did not want to talk, not here, not now, so she left, closing the door behind her.  

He glanced at the address. He recognized the street. It was in Bel Air. A neighborhood close enough to his own that it made Matthews wonder why the two of them had never socialized outside of work. He considered driving over there and showing up at Brandt’s house, but there were probably security gates, and it would obviously be better to phone first and give the man some warning.  

He definitely didn’t want to call from his office, not even using his cell phone, so he told Diane he was going out, and waited until he was on the road, making a hands-free call from his car. The phone rang ten times, twelve times, twenty times, the rings continuing long after voicemail should have answered. Matthews didn’t even think about terminating the call, however, and he was rewarded when the phone at the other end was finally picked up. There was no voice, only silence, but he could tell there was someone there, and he proceeded as if this were a routine call and nothing out-ofthe-ordinary was happening. “Morgan? It’s Austin Matthews.”  

“Austin?” Brandt’s voice sounded weak and tired,
old
, with nothing like the dynamic authority Mathews was used to hearing.  

“Yeah!” He put some false cheer in his voice. “I heard you weren’t with Bell anymore, and I thought I’d check in with you, see what’s doing.”  

There was a long pause. “It’s about BFG, isn’t it?” Brandt said. “It’s about
him
.”  

Suddenly given the option to tell the truth, Matthews took it. “Yes,” he admitted. “It is.”  

Silence on the other end.  

He pressed on. “I was wondering if we could meet, if I could talk to you in person. I have some questions, and I’m not sure I want to—”  

“Talk over the phone?” Brandt said in his old man’s voice.  

“Exactly.”  

“I understand.”  

“I’m on my way home, and I’m in the neighborhood. I thought I could stop by your place.”  

Another long pause.  

“Do you still live off Summit Ridge? I’m over on Oak Pass.”  

Silence.  

“It won’t take long. A few minutes. I just want to…talk.”  

“Are you alone? You’re not
with
anyone?”  

“I’m alone. In my car. I didn’t want to call from work, and I don’t want to call from home. I know I’m taking a chance even here, but I have questions.”  

Brandt was apparently satisfied. “Okay,” he acquiesced.  

“I’ll be there in ten minutes. Do you have a gate or anything…?”  

“Use the intercom. I’ll buzz you in.”  

They said goodbye, hung up, and Matthews mused about what must have happened to make Brandt so fearful. He was frightened himself—and paranoid—but even after everything he’d seen, he hadn’t sunk to Brandt’s level.  

Although it might be only a matter of time
, he thought. Shivering, he turned up the radio to distraction level, concentrating only on the music as he pulled onto the onramp of the freeway.  

**** 

Brandt’s estate looked…sick. It was the only word that fit. The iron fence surrounding the property was a pale gray instead of the shiny black it should have been, and the landscaping had reverted to wildness. Shrubbery was not only overgrown but underwatered, the exotic once-carefully manicured plants now untamed and shapeless, green leaves drying out to brown. The gardeners had obviously been let go, which explained the grounds, but Matthews could think of no reason why the house itself looked so dilapidated. He cruised slowly up the drive, parking at the top of the slope next to a dirty Mercedes whose tires were connected to the cement by spiderwebs.  

Ringing the doorbell, he was told via intercom to come in, the door was unlocked. It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the dimness of the interior. No lights were on in the entryway and all of the shades were drawn. A flickering bluish light emanated from an arched doorway to the right, and Matthews walked into the most depressing room he had ever been in. There was no furniture save a recliner in which Brandt sat, and a small table next to it. The only illumination came from a flat screen TV mounted on the wall and turned to CNBC.  

“Austin?” Brandt said weakly, peering at him through the gloom.  

“Morgan,” he greeted his friend. There were a lot of questions and comments he had, but he sensed the emotional fragility of the situation and decided to pretend for the moment that there was nothing unusual going on. What he wanted—what he
needed
— was information about BFG.  

Brandt didn’t beat around the bush. “
He
put me here.”  

“Patoff?” It felt weird saying the name aloud.  

“I’m the one who brought him on board. I
hired
BFG.” Brandt struggled to put down the foot rest and scoot forward in his chair. “They were supposed to just streamline operations, make us more competitive. Like they did for all those other tech companies.” His frail voice was filled with regret. “Their references were stellar.”  

“I know,” Matthews said. “
You
gave them a great recommendation when I called.”  

“I knew by then,” Brandt said quietly. “But I was afraid to tell the truth.”  

In the light from the television, Brandt’s face looked odd, swollen. Matthews had the impression that he was suffering from some type of skin disorder, that the darkness was purposefully meant to hide his appearance.  

He put me here.
 

“What
is
the truth?” Matthews asked. “What does he want? I’ve tried firing him, I’ve offered to buy out his contract, but he won’t go. It’s like he has some sort of…I don’t know,
mission
.”  

“Oh, he does.” There was a long pause. “Do you know how many permanent full-time employees BFG has?”  

Matthews shook his head. “I have no idea.”  

“One. Regus Patoff. Owner and operator. He hires other people on an ad hoc basis, but only for specific tasks, things he doesn’t want to do himself or doesn’t have time for.” Brandt’s voice had gotten a little stronger. “That’s his goal, for BFG and for the companies he consults for—to pare down the number of workers.”  

“I got that,” Matthews admitted.  

“I’m not sure you do. Before he—” Brandt spread his arms to indicate his surroundings. “—put me out to pasture, he
talked
to me.” There followed a short coughing fit, and Matthews had the distinct impression that Brandt was suggesting that the physical state he was in was a direct result of that talk.  

“His goal,” Brandt continued, “is to create what he calls the ‘perfect company,’ an organization so lean and mean, so expertly put together, that it can be run by a single person, with no other workers. He hasn’t reached that goal yet, but he’ll never stop trying. He did it with Bell; he’s doing it with CompWare.” Brandt coughed again. “That’s
all
he cares about. He’s worked for corporations that he’s driven into the ground, others that have tripled their stock prices and profits. Doesn’t matter to him. All beside the point. The objective is manipulating departments and people, input and output, purchases and products, to get to the point where the company can run on its own, with just that one employee. And he takes the long view. He might hire
more
people. Or expand departments. But those are just temporary detours on a road that goes in one direction.”  

“He doesn’t like anyone to interfere with his plans,” Matthews noted.  

“Oh no, he does not.” Brandt let out a sickly chuckle.  

“A woman quit, a woman he wanted to get rid of, but she exited on her own timetable, not his, and he went crazy.” Matthews was not sure how much of this he wanted to tell, but he decided to press on. “He stormed into my office, and suddenly things started flying off the walls and floating off my desk.”  

“He has power,” Brandt said grimly. “I don’t know what it is or where it came from—I don’t know what
he
is or where
he
came from—but he’s not human. That’s one thing I’m sure of.”  

“So what do I do?”  

“If I knew, I wouldn’t be here.” Brandt coughed. “Bell was my company. And now it’s not. If you’re not careful, you’ll find yourself in the same situation.” He sighed. “Or maybe even if you are careful. It depends on Patoff’s plan. And only he knows what that is.”