City of Endless Night

31

Baldwin Day detached the five-terabyte external hard drive from the desktop computer and slipped it into his briefcase for the short journey to the top floor of the Seaside Financial Center building near Battery Park. He made the same trip once a day, carrying the precious data that kept the company, LFX Financial, speeding along the highway of profit and yet more profit. On that drive were the names and personal information of many thousands of people his data-marketing team’s research had turned up as leads, or, as they called them in the maze of call center cube farms that occupied three floors of the Seaside complex, “colonels.” The leads were mostly retired vets and the spouses of soldiers on active duty. Most precious of all the “colonels” were the widows of vets who owned homes with paid-off mortgages. Every day at 4 PM sharp, Day delivered this hard drive to the executive office suite on the top floor, where the founders and co-CEOs of the firm, Gwen and Rod Burch, had their offices. The Burches would peruse the lists of leads, and they had a nose for sniffing out the best from the extraordinary masses of data. They would pass along their edited and annotated list to the massive boiler room operation of LFX Financial, which would go to work on it, calling thousands of “colonels,” trying to land them as “clients,” although the more appropriate word, Day thought, might be suckers. Every boiler room caller had to sign up at least eight clients a day, forty a week — or be fired.

Day had been looking for another job almost from the moment he discovered what the company actually did. He was desperate to get out of LFX, not because he was underpaid or overworked — he had no complaints there — but because of the kind of rip-off scam they were engaged in. When he first joined LFX as team leader in the high-sounding Department of Analytics and realized what was going on, he was sickened. It just wasn’t right.

And of course, on top of that there was always a chance the government might take a stronger interest in the LFX shenanigans. After all, it was the Burches he was working for.

These thoughts went through his mind as he got on the crowded elevator, tapped his security card against the reader, and pressed the button for the top floor. Security was super tight at the company ever since a discharged soldier, suffering from traumatic brain injury caused by an IED in Iraq, barged into the lobby with a handgun, shooting and wounding three people before turning the gun on himself. His name had been on one of those lists Day had sent upstairs about three months before the incident. That was how long it took LFX to take away the guy’s house — three short months. After the shooting, nothing changed at LFX Financial regarding company practices and incentives, except that a fanatical security regime had been implemented and a sense of paranoia had thickened the air. Part of that security regime was the isolation and compartmentalization of computer networks, which was the reason why he now had to transfer data to the executive suite the old-fashioned way: by carrying it up on foot.

The elevator doors opened into the elegant lobby of the Seaside building’s top floor. The Burches went in for over-the-top opulence, lots of dark wood paneling, gold leaf, faux marble, plush carpeting, and fake Old Masters on the walls. Day passed through the lobby, nodding to the receptionists, and again tapped his card on the reader next to the door. At the prompt he pressed his finger on a fingerprint scanner; the wooden door swung open to reveal the outer executive suite of offices, bustling with the comings and goings of secretaries and assistants. This was the busiest time of day at LFX Financial, just as the contracts were pouring in from the boiler room.

Day smiled and nodded to the various secretaries and assistants as he passed by on his way to the Burches’ private suite.

He checked in with Iris, the head office honcho, just outside the door. Iris was a tough old bird, no nonsense, “good people” as they say. Anyone who could survive working this close to the Burches had to be both capable and tough.

“I think the Burches are in conference,” she told him. “At least, Roland just came out a few minutes ago.”

“You know I have to deliver this in person.”

“Just warning you, that’s all.” She looked at him over her glasses and gave him a brief smile.

“Thanks, Iris.”

He crossed the plush carpet to the set of double doors that led into the inner sanctum and placed his hand on the cold brass knob. He always felt a twinge at this moment, just before entering. Beyond lay a gilded monstrosity of a space, done up in gold and black and occupied by two truly horrible trolls. Nine times out of ten they never even looked at him when he dropped off the drive, but once in a while they’d throw out a random disparaging comment, and a few times they had dressed him down for some perceived infraction.

When he went to turn the door, the handle was locked. This was unusual.

“Iris?” He turned. “The door’s locked.”

The secretary leaned over the intercom on her desk and pressed a button. “Mr. Burch? Mr. Day is here to drop off the data.”

She waited, but there was no answer.

“Mr. and Mrs. Burch?” she asked again.

Still no answer.

“Perhaps it’s out of order.” She rose and strode briskly to the door, giving it a firm double rap.

A wait.

Another double rap, done twice.

More waiting.

“How odd. I know they’re in there.” She tried the handle, tried it again. Then she took the electronic card dangling from her neck, tapped it on the reader, and pressed her thumb.

With a click the door released.

Day followed Iris into the grand and vulgar space. For a split second he thought there’d been a new decorating scheme that had done over the room in red. Then he realized he was staring at blood, more blood than he had ever seen in his life, more blood than he thought possible could exist in the two headless corpses that lay on the soaked carpet before his feet.

Day heard a sigh and turned just in time to catch Iris as she folded and sank toward the floor. He dragged her back out of the room, his feet squishing along the wet carpet. The door closed automatically behind him as he laid her on a sofa in the reception area, to the sudden consternation of everyone in the outer office space. Then he sought out a seat for himself and eased down in it, head in his shaking hands.

“What is it?” a secretary asked sharply. “What’s happened?”

Day’s mind was not clear enough to speak. But it was already evident what had happened.

“What’s happened?” she demanded again as he tried to clear his head enough to answer while people gathered around, and others approached the closed door to the inner office, hesitatingly.

“For God’s sake, tell us what happened!”

Others in the room now rushed to the door of the inner office and tried to open it, but the door had relocked automatically when it shut.

“Vengeance,” Day managed to say. “Vengeance is what’s happened.”