“I hear you, Conner. I hear you. I’m just giving you the heads-up. Now is the time. Now is the time for you to step up and really take control, show them what you’re made of. I like you. I think you do a great job. I don’t want to see anybody get laid off, but the truth of the matter is we’re looking at significant losses this quarter and some heads are going to roll.”
“I’m taking off three days, not a month, Tom.”
“You’re taking three days off during the investors leadership summit in Mamaroneck.”
“Jesus Christ. That thing?”
“It’s a big deal, Conner. The bosses, they want to see people involved, actively engaged in problem-solving, in mitigating losses, in using the downturn to optimize for leaner and smarter investment management.”
“Christ, Tom. I went last year. It’s not rocket science; they just make it sound like rocket science. Frankly, they make it sound more like a cheap self-help book by a quack psychologist.”
“I’m just saying, Conner. You should be there. It would look good for you. It would look good for us.”
Conner stared down at his bottle of beer, its red, white and blue label slightly peeling, soft from the condensation on the glass. He pursed his lips in frustration, anger, the fucking idiocy of it all. His life on the line and here he was being upbraided for missing a meeting that amounts to nothing more than a minstrel show for bigwigs trying to hold on to the precipice of imaginary power.
“I can’t, Tom. This trip is important for other reasons. I can’t make it to the investors workshop. Not this year. I’m sorry.”
“I gotcha, Conner,” Tom said, holding up his hands as if he meant no offense. Just another slimeball sent on a slimeball’s mission, to weasel and cajole. “I’m just trying to look out for you, buddy. That’s all. Things are just lean right now and they’re going to get leaner.”
Tom poured his putty face and fish-eyes into his glass of double IPA scented with shit. Conner pounded the Budweiser and ordered another and another.
Tom Doley left at about 5:00 p.m., his long, lumbering figure making haste out of Iron Horse Tavern while Conner pulled up a stool and sat lonely and angry with his beer – every bartender’s worst nightmare. The pretty girl behind the counter avoided conversation, standing near the service bar; she chatted with waitresses and a guy from the kitchen before enough people showed up that they had to get back to work. In a way, Conner envied them. Sure, there wasn’t much money in it, but at least at the end of the night you left it all here; it didn’t follow you home, sleep with you in bed and wake you up at four in the morning just to remind you that you are owned. A job like this, he thought, one that was vastly simpler, meant for the young or those without the stress of mortgages and growing families, implied a simpler life, one not connected to status, cocktail parties, pointless meetings in faraway places and the idea that you must succeed or die trying. It was something he missed. He had worked jobs like this as a teenager and through parts of college. Still the best times of his life. And merely saying that to himself made him feel old and bitter, as if he were already on the downward slope of life.
The tavern finally became too crowded for him and his thoughts, so he paid the bill – on a credit card, no less – and left. The drive home was nerve-racking. The traffic was always bad this time of day, plus he had to contend with the hazy onset of inebriation blooming in his brain. All he would need was an accident, his fault or not, and one of the last supports of his life would be kicked out from under him. One of the guys in Sales – Peter Selchick – got pinched for a DUI last year after a ‘lunch’ with a number of other salesmen turned into a shit show with five bottles of wine and tequila shots. He got canned after a departmental review. Hell, one of the guys on the review board had been in the bar with him that very day. But what can you do? Blood in the water and everybody wants a bite. Something like an arrest just brings the feeders. Conner wondered if this little trip and missing the Mamaroneck meeting was a spot of blood finding its way to the upper echelons of Parson’s. This little talk with Tom Doley made him wonder, left him feeling vulnerable.
Coombs’ Gulch had to be put to rest. He’d spent enough of his life bleeding internally from that goddamned night. First there was the fear – the weeks and months after that night spent in suspended animation, waiting for the guillotine to slam down on his neck. Panic. Wondering when he would see that first story of a little boy missing in Upstate New York, see the picture and recognize the face, the outline of his head, wondering when he would stare at a picture of a boy with two living eyes, rather than one dead eye and a bloody hole. That time never came, and as Conner’s panic began to subside after six months or so, the guilt set in. Of course he felt terrible. Only a sociopath wouldn’t. What they had done, covering up their crime, was the same thing anyone would have done. Sure, people like to pretend they’re honest and caring, believe they would fess up right away to such an incident, but when they actually see their entire future about to be ripped away, self-preservation kicks in. Conner told himself it was only natural what they’d done. Simple numbers: ruin four lives at the behest of one
