The Fixer

59

How’d it go?” asked Andrea. She was leaning back in an armchair in Rick’s suite at the DoubleTree. She wore black jeans and a crisp white shirt and a pair of gray TOMS. She had no makeup on. Her hair was up, held back with a band. Her attitude made it clear that this was a business meeting at Rick’s hotel, nothing more than that. But the way she was sitting in the chair was more casual than businesslike.

“About how I expected. He came back at me with threats and ridicule.”

“How did you react?”

“He probably thought he scared me off. He’s good at that. That’s his thing.”

“That’s fine. Let him think what he wants to think.”

He looked at his watch. “Probably a good time to get back there.”

“It’s been over an hour, right?”

He nodded and headed back out the door.

At the office tower where the Pappas Group was located, front-desk security wouldn’t let Rick back into the elevator banks. They insisted on calling up to get verbal approval. Rick got on the phone.

“Alex Pappas, please. It’s Rick Hoffman.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Hoffman, Mr. Pappas is out of the office.”

“That’s all right. I think I left something in his office. I’m right downstairs.”

Three minutes later he was standing in the reception area of the Pappas Group. A woman in her fifties, thick at the waist, with coppery hair, came out and introduced herself as Pappas’s administrative assistant, Barbara. He walked with her back to Pappas’s office. “He just left for a meeting out of the office,” Barbara said.

“This shouldn’t take a minute,” Rick said. “I’m pretty sure I left my phone there.”

“I didn’t see anything left behind.”

He went to the overstuffed armchair where he’d been sitting. Sure enough, there it was, wedged between the seat cushion and the arm of the chair: Rick’s iPhone.

“Oh, good,” Barbara said, sounding relieved.

“This is something you hate to lose,” Rick said, pocketing it.

“Oh, tell me about it,” said Barbara. “I’d be totally sunk.”

“Well, all’s well that ends well,” said Rick.

Not until he got to the elevator did he take out his phone and hit Stop on the recorder app. It said one hour and forty-six minutes. Then he opened the submenu that listed “voice memos,” and he selected the most recent one. He hit Play and put it to his ear. He could hear Pappas’s voice, distant but still audible.

“Yeah, Barbara,” Pappas said on the recording, “I need to speak to Thomas Sculley. Can you get him on the phone?”

A few seconds later his secretary’s voice came on. “Mr. Sculley, line one.”

A moment later: “Thomas,” Pappas said. “We’ve got a problem.”