Chapter 9
CHAPTER
NASH WAS IN HIS STUDY packing his briefcase when Maggie appeared in the doorway. She had on a velour warmup suit in a muted shade of rose. Nash could have sworn his mother had worn a similar outfit thirty years ago. But somehow his daughter looked hip in it, he concluded.
She waved a folder at him. “Here it is,” she said.
“What?” said Nash distractedly.
She carefully laid the folder down in front of him with exaggerated solemnity. “My business proposal, Father dear.”
“Your what?”
She became all serious in a single beat.
“For my social media influencer platform. I told you I was putting it together. I’ve worked on it for weeks now, staying up late and everything, drinking espressos and Red Bulls.
My business plan, all the numbers, projections.
And I was conservative in my forecasting,” she added with a knowing look.
“Because I know you like conservative estimates.”
He opened the folder and saw colorful charts and graphs and what looked to be budget and revenue and income projections.
“Okay, I’ll take a look at it later.”
“Dad, I really need to get going on this.”
“I will look at it… later, okay? I’ve got a busy day.”
“It’s something I’m passionate about. And you always told me to follow my passions.”
“But I also said that you had to find a way to pay the rent and utility bills. And food would be good, too. If your passion can do that, great. If it can’t you have to pursue your passion in your spare time just like pretty much everyone without a big trust fund.”
“I think this can both be my passion and also allow me to pay the light bill.”
“And the rent,” he pointed out. “And food. Not much works without food.”
“I thought I’d live here until I got things really rolling.”
Of course you did, thought Nash.
“So you’ll look at it?”
“I said I would, and I will. But not now.”
Her pouty look vanished and she assumed a genuinely worried expression. “You… doing all right, Dad, after yesterday? I mean that—”
He cut in, “I’m fine.”
“Are you sure? Because that was the most unusual funeral service I’ve ever been to. And I felt weirded out, so I can only imagine what it did to you.”
“I went to funerals like that all the time when I was your age,” he lied.
“Wow, okay. But who was that big Black guy with the foul mouth? He, like, just took over the whole thing and was just spouting stuff. I think he was high on something.”
“He was my dad’s best friend.”
“But he didn’t have to do that stuff in front of everybody. It was embarrassing.”
“Well, my dad was that way to me, too, so there is that consistency.”
Nash could tell that she was having a hard time figuring out his bizarre attitude on this, and, truth be known, so was he.
In a calmer tone he said, “Look, I’m sorry, Maggie. I know I’m not making much sense, and I don’t mean to be so short with you. I… I just have a lot going on right now.”
“I get it.” She looked up at him with a timid expression. “So, is that why I never met your dad? Because he didn’t like you?”
“Pretty much, yeah. He wanted nothing to do with me or my family.”
“Well, his loss.” She tapped the folder. “Whenever you can get to it.” She leaned over and gave him a peck on the cheek. “And thanks for being a great father, unlike the guy we just buried.”
“Uh-huh, yeah.”
With a confused and somewhat defeated expression, Maggie left him alone.
When he saw the velour suit disappearing out the door, Nash thought, I wonder how she’ll feel about zero funds for her influencer/creator platform when we all go into Witness Protection?
But then Nash reminded himself that he had not agreed to help the Bureau. Hell, he had no evidence that Rhett or anyone else at the company had done anything wrong. He had to believe that the FBI did not make it a policy to just make unproven statements about such serious matters, but still.
How can I agree to help them unless I’m reasonably sure what they’re telling me is true?
He drove to the offices of Sybaritic Investments, which occupied the four top floors in one of the tallest buildings in the downtown area.
The place was expensively built out and had all the bells and whistles that the monied field of private equity typically offered their employees: a subsidized dining room, a gym, an on-call massage therapist, and free dry cleaning (up to a limit), because when you worked twelve or more hours a day, who had the time to run errands, eat, or work out?
Nash was also on the company’s board of directors, and he knew that the current financial situation wasn’t the best it had been.
Total revenue, profit, and free cash flow were all down, but his division was making money hand over fist.
But if Agent Morris is to be believed, my business home for nearly twenty years is a house of cards about to come tumbling down, and they want me to help them do the tumbling.
He pulled into his reserved space in the parking garage, hefted his briefcase, and headed to the twin glassed-in elevators.
He got off on his floor and nodded at the woman who sat alone behind a futuristic-looking, wood-and-metal receptionist’s station in a spacious and elegantly decorated reception area.
Ellen Douglas was a prim and proper woman in her fifties who sometimes brought cookies to the office.
She smiled at him and said hello as he passed through the secure door by swiping his badge on the port sensor.
His office was adjacent to Rhett Temple’s.
The man’s door was closed and Nash couldn’t see a light on under it.
Rhett didn’t usually come in early, but he normally stayed quite late.
He worked hard, Nash had to give him that.
If he didn’t have such a chip on his shoulder because of his daddy issues, he might actually make a good executive one day.
But that point was moot if he was a crook.
Nash shut his door behind him, sat at his desk, placed his palms against his blotter, and stared at the opposite wall.
Whenever he’d had to make an important decision in his life, he’d followed the advice laid out by his mother to him when he was thinking about colleges.
She’d said to take out a piece of paper and make two columns.
On the left were the pros of a decision and on the right were the cons.
For obvious reasons Nash did not want to commit anything to paper, so he did this calculation in his head.
Okay, if I’m convinced what Morris said is true, let’s walk through this.
The pros of working with the FBI: One, avoiding criminal prosecution if they found someone else to be their spy and he got caught up in all the indictments. Two, knowing that he did the right thing to bring down bad actors. Three… Nash couldn’t think of another reason.
Then the cons of working with the FBI: One, he could be killed while snooping.
Two, he could still be swept up in a criminal prosecution if the FBI decided to screw him.
Three, his wife and daughter would never forgive him for upending their lives and being forced to go into Witness Protection.
Four, he could be killed after he went into Witness Protection by the dangerous people who got away.
Nash could think of a half dozen more, but what did it matter?
He loosened his tie, collected all the air he could in his lungs, held it for four seconds, and blew it out for the same span of time.
When he was a child, his father had taught Nash how to do that when he was nervous or anxious about something, which was almost every minute of his young, angst-ridden life.
Ty Nash had lectured, “Everybody gets scared, sonny boy. But you can control your fear. You got the keys to the car, so to speak. Suck the air in for a count of four, hold that baby for four seconds, and then let it out for another four, hold it for another four, then do it all over again. See, that gives you control back. Pulse goes down, blood pressure goes down, clammy skin goes away, upset stomach no longer upset. Your brain is telling its little scare demons to back the hell off and let the adults control the room again, you got that?”
A young Nash had nodded and said yes he had got it.
“And you keep on doing it until those bad boys go back to sleep. It worked for me in combat, so it’ll work for you with whatever crap’s going on in your life.”
And it had worked for Nash. Through all the traumas boys normally went through while they were navigating puberty and girls and, well, everything.
The only times it hadn’t worked was when his father had cleaned his clock after the tennis-football thing, and then every time after that with anything having to do with Tiberius Nash.
Nash finished his breathing exercises, and he did indeed calm.
Seeking a distraction from the momentous decision he was going to have to make, he pulled out the card from Mort Dickey, picked up his phone, and called the man, wondering if he had two possible catastrophes to deal with instead of merely one.