Derailed

THIRTY

Forest Hills seemed to be made up of Orthodox Jews and unorthodox sectarians. People who seemed alone, or who were without a visible means of support, or who didn’t seem to really belong there. In that particular apartment or particular building or that actual neighborhood. I fit in perfectly.

For instance, I looked like a married man, but where was my wife? I was undoubtedly a father, but where exactly were my kids? And then I even became a little shaky on the means-of-support thing.

On the first Tuesday after I moved out, I took the train into work at Continental Boulevard.

I was called down to Barry Lenge’s office. That itself was unusual, since office hierarchy dictated that bean counters—even the head bean counter—travel to your office when a face-to-face was needed.

I went anyway. After all, I think I was suffering from a kind of post-traumatic stress syndrome, and whatever self-confidence I had left was down to the approximate level of a whipped dog.

Barry Lenge looked even more uncomfortable than me. That should have been my first clue.

His triple chin made him appear physically agitated, in any case — as if his head couldn’t find a position where it wasn’t imposing on another part of his body. But today he looked worse.

“Ahem,” Barry cleared his throat, which should have been my second clue; there was something in there he was going to have a little trouble getting out.

“I was just looking over the production bills,” Barry said.

“Yes?”

“This Headquarters job. There’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”

Now it must have been me who looked truly uncomfortable, because Barry looked away — at his set of silver pencils — and I remembered how Eliot had doodled on his stationery the morning I was fired off my account by Ellen Weischler.

“The thing is . . . something’s been brought to our attention.”

“What?”

“You see, there’s forty-five thousand here for music.” He was pointing to a piece of paper sitting on the desk in front of him. The same bid form I’d looked at before.

“Seethat?” Barry asked him. “Right there.”

I pretended to look, if only because that’s what whipped dogs do when given a command — they obey. I could see a number there all right; it looked like forty-five thousand.

“Yes?”

“Well, Charles . . . there’s a problem with that.”

“Yes?” Was that all I was going to say — answer each of Barry’s revelations with a yes?

“Mary Widger heard the same music on a different spot.”

“What?”

“I’m telling you this same piece of music was on another spot.”

“What do you mean?”

“Correct me if I’m wrong. Forty-five thousand dollars was for original music, right?”

“Right.”

“So it’s not original.”

“I don’t understand.” But I did understand, of course. Tom and David Music had found a piece of music in a stock house, and they hadn’t bothered to see if someone else had used it before. Someone had.

“Well, maybe it just sounds the same. It’s just a bed, really.”

“No. She brought it to the musicologist. It’s the same piece. Note for note.”

She brought it to the musicologist. Musicologists were generally consulted to make sure that any music we did wasn’t too close to any other existing piece of music we might be trying to imitate. For instance, we might cut a commercial to Gershwin’s “ ’S Wonderful,” but if the Gershwin estate wanted an arm and a leg to let us use it, we might attempt to rip it off, but not too closely — because the musicologist would say no. Only in this case, of course, it wasn’t Gerswhin who was being ripped off.

“I’ll talk to the music house,” I said, trying to sound as officially indignant as Barry did. Instead of scared.

“I talked to the music house,” Barry said.

I didn’t like the way Barry said that — music house — with a noticeable derision. A pointed sarcasm.

“Yes?”

“Yeah. I talked to the music house. So the question I have for you is this. How much?”

“How much what? ”

“How much? If I was to give you a bill of what you owe this agency, how much should I make it out for?”

“I don’t understand.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Yes.”

“I think you do. I think you understand perfectly. The music house is a paper company, Charles. It doesn’t exist. It exists only to make illegal profits from this agency. So if I want those profits back — how much do I need to ask you for?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. If you’ve uncovered some kind of scam here . . .”

“Look, Charles . . .” And now Barry didn’t seem the slightest bit uncomfortable anymore. He seemed right in his element. “Look—if you pay us back the money, there’s a chance this won’t end up in court. That you won’t end up in court. Are you following me? Not that that would be my decision. If it was up to me, I’d throw you in jail. But since I’m the company comptroller, money’s kind of close to my heart, right? Eliot feels differently. Fine.”

Eliot feels differently. I'd been wondering if Eliot knew anything yet.

“Look, maybe I suspected something . . . I thought maybe something was . . . Shouldn’t you be talking to Tom and David?”

“I talked to Tom and David. They both had plenty to say. So you want to keep fucking with me, fine, but you should know that if you keep this up, Eliot will reconsider his decision. Why? Because I'll tell him to. They don’t want the bad publicity — I understand. But they want their money back. And you know something? When it comes to money versus a momentary smudge on their reputation, they’ll take the money. Trust me on this.”

It was clear I had a decision to make. I could admit taking the twenty thousand dollars. I could even pay the twenty thousand dollars back — if Deanna let me go near Anna’s Fund again, which might not be so easy. On the other hand, I had the distinct feeling Tom and David had implicated me to a greater degree than the facts actually warranted — and that Barry wasn’t going to believe twenty thousand dollars was the extent of my fraudulent activities. No, the bill was going to be higher. If I admitted anything, I decided, I was done.

“I didn’t have anything to do with this,” I said as forcefully as I could. “I don’t know what Tom and David told you, but I wouldn’t necessarily trust the word of two guys who’ve apparently been cheating you for years.”

Barry sighed. He tried to loosen his collar, an impossible task since it was already two sizes too small.

“That’s the way you want to play this,” he finally said. “Fine. Your decision. You say you’re innocent, we institute company procedures. Fine.”

“Which are . . . ?”

“We suspend you. We hold an internal investigation. We get back to you. And if I have any influence on the powers-that-be at all—we fucking arrest you. Understand, pal?”

I got up and left the office.