The Company Man

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

It was not hard for Hayes to get into the office. The Nail was shut down at these hours, claiming emergency. Those few who were left behind did not see him, not if Hayes didn’t want them to. So he came to the office and sat in the dark and waited.

Brightly came in while it was still dark out. He walked in and sat down, tossing a few papers down as he did so, and he reached over and turned on the desk light. Then he glanced up and cried out as he saw what was sitting on the other side of the desk, pale-white with bone-bleached hair and skin that was sooty and ashen and scarred.

“Hello, Brightly,” said Hayes.

Brightly squinted at him, horrified. “Hayes?”

“Yes,” said Hayes softly. “Yes, it’s me.”

“Dear God, man, what happened to you?”

He shrugged.

“You can’t be in here. How did you get in here?”

“That’s not what you should be worrying about.” He took a breath and said, “Do you know where I’ve been?”

“Where you’ve been?” Brightly began glancing to the sides, trying to find some escape or weapon.

“Yes.”

“I’ve… I’m sure I have no idea.”

“I was at the morgue. Do you want to know why?”

“I… Well, I suppose,” said Brightly.

“I went there to see Garvey,” he said. “To see my friend.”

Brightly froze, staring at him. “W-what?”

“Garvey. The detective. You remember him?”

“Well, I… I never met the man personally, but…”

“He was shot,” said Hayes. “Just today. Shot dead. Did you know that?”

“N-no. No, I didn’t, I’m… I’m terribly sorry to hear that.”

“To hear that,” echoed Hayes.

“Yes.”

Hayes’s pale eyes flicked up and down Brightly behind the desk. “You’re lying.”

“What?”

“You’re lying to me, Brightly. I know Collins called you yesterday. And he told you what Garvey knew, and what he was going to do. And I know the precautions you took.”

“That’s preposterous,” said Brightly.

“No. It isn’t. You had him killed.”

“Why on Earth would I ever have… have a policeman killed?”

“Because he found out about Gerald Crimley,” Hayes said.

Brightly flinched and took a breath.

“You don’t like that, do you?” Hayes said. “That name? That man, perhaps?”

“How do you know that name?”

“I know all about him.”

“You can’t… you can’t come in here and start…”

“I can. Because if anyone in this town finds out that all those fires started under your watch or the watch of McNaughton, you’ll be hung from a window by your ankles, won’t you?”

Brightly grew very still. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yes you do. You certainly do.”

“I don’t. I don’t, and I… I want you out of this office, Hayes. I want you…”

“I know he brought in the guns,” Hayes said thoughtfully. “But I’m just not sure what they were meant for. You remember them, don’t you? The guns?”

Brightly was silent at that.

Hayes looked away, thinking. “I’m going to assume you didn’t intend for them to actually use the guns, did you? Come on, Brightly. Give it up. Just stonewalling me isn’t going to get anywhere. So. Did you?”

Brightly swallowed. Then shook his head.

“No. You just wanted them to be caught with them, yes?”

Brightly did not answer.

“Yes? Is that it?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Yes. To dirty the names of Tazz and unions. Show them as violent and untrustworthy. But you know what, I’m going to guess that Mr. Crimley went native. He started living his Tazz role, didn’t he? Started to become hard to communicate with? That happens with long jobs. To men who’re deep inside. So Mr. Crimley-or perhaps Mr. Tazz-tells his boys to go all Old West on us and then he leaves in the middle of the night. Is that it?”

Brightly looked away.

“What were me and Sam there for?” Hayes asked. “To make it easy? You get Crimley to set up the unions, then you get me and Sam to tear them down, one after the other? That’s why we never made any arrests, isn’t it? Because you wanted us to build it up naturally until we got to the guns.”

He still did not answer.

“All that,” said Hayes quietly. “All that, for just a little bit of money.”

“Not a little bit of money,” said Brightly. “For a lot of it. Unimaginable amounts. Fortunes many times over.”

“All money is little,” said Hayes. “In the long run.”

“Damn it, we’re almost our own country, Hayes,” said Brightly. “We have to defend ourselves! This is war, practically. Countries depend on us, the whole world, for God’s sake. You would have done it, too! You’re no lamb yourself, you would have done the same!”

Hayes nodded. “Yes. Yes, that’s true. The saddest thing is that I can understand what you did. To protect your own, at any cost.”

“Then what is it you want?” Brightly demanded. “Money? Is that it?”

“I have money of my own. You know that, of all people.”

“Then what?”

Hayes took out a revolver and laid it in his lap. Then he sat and stared into the front of Brightly’s desk, unmoving.

“Oh, God,” said Brightly.

“Yes,” said Hayes.

“Cyril. Cyril, listen. Don’t do anything rash, now.”

Hayes nodded again, apparently lost in thought.

“Don’t do anything silly,” Brightly said. “You’re company, Cyril, you’re one of our boys, you shouldn’t-”

“I’m not company,” Hayes said. “No one is. There’s no union. No company. No city. Just people. Alone. And unwatched.”

“I was… I was just doing my job.”

“So was he. And he died for it.”

“I can get you whatever you want…”

“Larry, I am not in the mood for negotiating right now!” shouted Hayes. He looked up at Brightly, breathing hard. “I killed a ten-year-old boy today,” he whispered.

“Oh, my God,” moaned Brightly. “Oh, God. Please, Cyril.”

“It’s worse than you think, Brightly.”

“God, Cyril…”

“I killed him because he found out what was in the mountains,” Hayes said.

“What?” said Brightly, confused. “What mountains?”

“I found it there, too,” said Hayes softly. “What’s hiding up there. I stumbled across it. I know why this company never moved away from this spot. And I know where the machines come from. The discoveries.”

“What do you mean? What’s in the mountains?”

Hayes stopped, looking him over closely. “You don’t know. You really don’t know, do you? You don’t even know what that thing in your bunker is, do you?”

“Know what? What’s in the damn mountains?”

“God, who does know?” spat Hayes, standing up. “Who really knows what started this company? Christ almighty, someone has to know. Someone on the board has to have some idea!” Hayes shook his head, furious that there was not someone to throw this in front of, no real enemy to attack.

“What do you mean?” asked Brightly. “What are you talking about?”

“I went up there, Brightly,” said Hayes. “Up in the mountains. To see what Kulahee had found long ago. And I found it, too. But it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter what I found. When I came back down Garvey was dead. All the people in the fire, they were dead. And there’s nothing I can do to change what happened. He was my friend, Brightly.”

“God, Hayes, please don’t. Please…”

Hayes pointed the gun at Brightly, who fell backward out of his chair and lay on the floor, trying to inch away. Hayes walked around, still pointing the gun. Brightly lifted his arm and shielded his face with it, staring over the top.

“He was my friend,” Hayes said. “He was just doing his job. He just died because he cared. Because he was the only one.”

Brightly swallowed and closed his eyes.

The barrel of the gun quivered and Hayes lowered it. He shook his head and sat down on the floor next to Brightly, the big man and the little man sitting together in the dark. Neither of them moved for a great while.

Hayes whispered, “I don’t want to do this anymore, Brightly.”

“All… all right.”

“I don’t want this. No more of this. No more. No more killing. No more killing, Brightly. Do you understand that?”

“Yes. Yes, I understand, no more killing,” Brightly said quickly.

“Things are going to change here. Be ready. Be somewhere else, if you need. You can try and send men after me. If you’re stupid. But I’m not what I was before. And I’ll see them coming.” Then he got up and began to walk away.

“Cyril,” said Brightly. “Cyril. What’s up there? What did you see in the mountains?”

Hayes turned, looking back, a blank figure in the shadows. Then he said, “The future,” and walked out.