All I Did Was Shoot My Man

39

The traffic was pretty good and I made Lower Manhattan somewhere between two-thirty and three.

That afternoon I told the first-line security desk at Rutgers Assurance that I was there to speak to Johann Brighton. That request altered the mode of access. I was guided to an elevator at the front of the building that took me to the twenty-seventh floor, leaving me at what can only be called a large glass cage where a young receptionist sat behind a bright blue desk.

The carpet surrounding the desk was black, and across from it, against a glass wall, was a row of seven padded yellow chairs.

Beyond the transparent walls were many doorways. For a moment I imagined that I was in a theater where the audience sat center stage and the actors performed on the periphery.

In this flight of fancy I had arrived, no doubt, at intermission.

The nameplate for the lovely café au lait receptionist read KINESHA MOTUTO. She looked up at me and smiled.

“Have a seat and someone will be with you,” she said.

“Do you know how long it will be?”

“I’m sure it will be soon,” she said, returning her gaze to the papers on her blue desk.

“What section is this?”

Kinesha looked up at me pleasantly and said, “Just have a seat, sir. Someone will be with you soon.”

I took the center chair and laced my fingers, prepared for a long wait. But less than a minute later a door behind and to the left of Kinesha swung inward and Alton Plimpton appeared. That day the slight manager wore a dark green suit and a bruised-banana tie. He stared at me a moment from behind the doubtful protection of the glass barrier. Then he rapped on the glass.

Kinesha turned, saw who it was, and touched something on her desk. An invisible panel began rising from the floor, forming a gap large enough for a man to pass through.

Alton walked up as I stood to meet him.

Before he could speak I said, “I’m here to see Johann Brighton.”

“I had your name associated with mine in the visitors’ database,” he replied.

“Funny, there’s a captain in the NYPD that’s done the same kind of thing with me.”

“What is your business here, Mr. McGill?”

“Mr. Brighton,” I answered.

“Mr. Harlow does not want you on the premises.”

“Who’s that?”

“It’s enough for you to know that he doesn’t appreciate your presence.”

“Then why did you let me up?”

“We have a security team standing by.”

“And do you think that they could grab me before I broke your neck?” I hadn’t had much sleep in more than thirty-six hours. The spark on my fuse was entering the body of the bomb.

Kinesha stood up. I wondered if she was part of the security team.

A tall man in a dark suit passed through the space in the glass wall.

“Mr. Plimpton?” the man said.

Alton turned, giving me the opportunity to scrutinize the new corporate player. This man was tall, black-haired, and fit. Either he was wearing a blue suit or I was; we couldn’t both be because our clothes were different species in the capitalist jungle.

“Mr. Brighton,” Plimpton said with a deference that no doubt tore at his nerdy self-esteem.

“What are you doing here?” the VP asked the manager-at-large.

“Mr. Harlow asked me to inform Mr. McGill that he was not to come here.”

“I don’t remember asking Mr. Harlow to take that action.”

Ah... the chain of command.

“Well, I, we didn’t think that you needed to be bothered.”

Brighton turned his attention from Alton to me.

“Johann Brighton,” he said, extending a hand.

“Leonid McGill.”

Brighton was handsome and charismatic. Mentally, I had to bear down a little not to start liking him.

“Your name has been all over my desk of late, Mr. McGill. I was happy when my secretary told me that you were here.”

“Mr. Brighton,” Alton Plimpton said.

“Come with me, Mr. McGill,” Johann Brighton said, ignoring the underling. “We’ll go up to my office to talk.”