Bad Business

22

G avin was waiting for me with two other guys in the hallway outside my office when I came to work in the morning carrying a large coffee in a paper cup.

"Spenser," he said, "we need to talk."

"Sure we do," I said.

G avin looked as chrome-plated and slick as he had the last time. The two men with him wore dark blazers and light gray slacks. On the breast pocket of each blazer the name Kinergy was spelled out in jagged script so it resembled a lightning bolt. Beneath the logo was the word Security. I unlocked the door and we went in. They came in after me and the last one closed the door. Gavin went to the client chair with arms. The other two men sat on the couch. It was Pearl's couch, but she wasn't with me, so I made no objection.

"Now," Gavin said. "We need to talk."

"You mentioned that," I said.

Carefully, I took the plastic lid off my coffee and tossed it in the wastebasket.

"We'd like to hire you," Gavin said.

"You three?" I said.

G avin was not amused.

"No, no," he said. "Kinergy."

"So what are these guys for, to carry the money?"

"Our pipeline division is encountering vandalism problems, and we would like to employ you to look into that."

"Wow," I said. "Where are the problems taking place?"

"You'd be working out of our Tulsa office," Gavin said.

"Tulsa," I said.

"The pay would be ample and you'd be on full-time expenses. Everything first class. We have a very generous expense account policy."

"Tulsa," I said. "To track down vandals."

"And," Gavin said, "when you finish in Tulsa, there'd be other work. Southern California, for instance, or Vancouver."

"You got any problems in Paris?" I said.

"We have an office in Paris," Gavin said.

"Sacre bleu," I said.

"What?"

"Excuse me," I said. "I speak so many languages . . ." Gavin obviously didn't know what I was talking about.

"So," he said. "You have an interest? You could pretty well name your price."

"How about the Templeton Group, or Elmer O'Neill?" I said. "What price did they name?"

"Excuse me?"

"I just wondered about your other hires," I said.

"I'm sorry, we haven't hired anybody."

"I was misinformed," I said.

"So," Gavin said brightly, "you interested?"

"Nope."

G avin was silent for a moment, his eyes behind the thick glasses getting narrow.

Then he said, "Think about this, Spenser. This is a good deal for you. This is a chance to establish a long-term relationship with what may be the greatest company in the country."

"You wouldn't know who killed Trent Rowley, would you?" I said.

"That is a police matter," Gavin said. "We are permitting the police to handle it."

"So you haven't offered them a trip to Tulsa," I said. Gavin's eyes were now so narrow it was surprising that he could still see.

"I am trying to conduct this meeting in a businesslike and professional manner," he said. "You do not make that easy."

"Thanks for noticing," I said.

G avin was silent for a considerable time, giving me the sliteyed stare, tapping his fingertips gently together under his chin. While he did that I used the time to look at the other two guys. They looked like they'd been hired for their looks, sent over by a casting company to play high-powered corporate security guys. One had a dark crew cut. The other had shaved his head. They were about six feet tall, the shaved-head guy a little taller, and they looked as if they got a lot of exercise.

When he'd softened me up enough with the flinty stare, Gavin finally spoke. His voice was flat, and measured like a guy trying to overcome a stutter.

"We pride ourselves," he said, "on being a can-do company. If the conventional businesslike and professional approaches are closed to us, we find other ways."

I nodded enthusiastically.

"I admire that in any organization," I said and looked at the guys on the couch, "don't you?"

Neither of them answered. Gavin spoke again. "Do you understand what I am saying to you?"

"Same thing you've been saying since you came in with the Righteous Brothers. You don't want me trying to find out what happened to Trent Rowley. Or why you put a tail on Ellen Eisen and Marlene Rowley."

G avin hardened his stare, which was no easy task.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Gavin said slowly. "I came here to offer you a chance to make some serious money. You not only declined, you did so in an offensive manner, and I am just reminding you that we at Kinergy are used to getting what we want."

"You know what would be really helpful to me?" I said.

"What?"

"If you could teach me that stare. I could frighten the knob off a door if I had that stare."

G avin held the stare for a moment, but he couldn't keep it up and shifted his gaze to the window behind me.

From the couch the shaved-head guy said, "Mr. Gavin, if it was okay with you, maybe we could teach him some manners."

"Eeek," I said.

G avin kept looking out my window for a couple of beats. I suspected he was counting. Then he shifted his gaze back to me. "Not this time, Larry," he said. "Not this time."

"Larry?" I said. "How can you have an enforcer named Larry?"

L arry said, "You think there's something funny about my name, pal?"

"With your name," I said. "With your act. With your haircut."

"Larry," Gavin said. "Shut up."

G avin stood. The two men on the couch stood.

"I want you to think hard on this," Gavin said to me, bending slightly forward. "And we'll come back soon and make you the offer again."

"Oh good," I said. "It'll give purpose to my week." Nobody seemed to have anything to say about that, so, after a moment, the three of them turned and marched out.