Where Are You Now?

17

B ruce Galbraith always checked in with his secretary at the end of the business day. Unlike most of the people he knew, he did not carry a BlackBerry and often turned off his cell phone. “Too many distractions for my taste,” was his explanation. “It’s like watching a juggler with too many balls in the air.”

Thirty-two years old, average height, with sandy hair and rimless glasses, he joked about himself that he was so average he wouldn’t even be noticed by a security camera. On the other hand, he was not so self-effacing that he did not know his own worth. He was a superb deal-closer and was considered by his colleagues to have a near-psychic ability to foresee the trends in the real estate market.

The result was that Bruce Galbraith had multiplied the value of the family real estate business to the point where his sixty-year-old father had simply turned over the reins to him. At his retirement dinner his father had said, “Bruce, my hat’s off to you. You’re a good son and a far better businessman than I ever was, and I was good. Now, you keep making money for us, and I’ll pursue my goal of becoming a scratch golfer.”

Bruce was in Arizona on Wednesday when he made his daily late-afternoon call to his secretary. She told him that a Carolyn MacKenzie had phoned and left a message that Mack had been in contact again and would Bruce please call her.

Carolyn MacKenzie? Mack’s kid sister? These were not names he wanted to hear.

Bruce had just returned to his suite in the hotel he owned in Scottsdale. Shaking his head, he walked over to the minibar and reached into it for a cold beer. It was only four o’clock, but he had been outside in the heat most of the day and deserved it, he assured himself.

He settled in the big armchair facing the floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked the desert. At any other time it was his favorite view, but at this moment he was seeing only the college apartment he had shared with Mack MacKenzie and Nick DeMarco, and reviewing again what had happened there.

I don’t want to see Mack’s sister, he told himself. All that happened ten years ago, and even then Mack’s parents knew I was never close to him. He never once asked me home to Sutton Place for dinner, although he was always taking Nick with him. It didn’t even cross Mack’s mind that I might enjoy going, too. To him, I was just an unobtrusive guy who happened to be sharing an apartment with him.

Nick the lady-killer; Mack, everyone’s choice for the nicest guy in the world. So nice that he apologized for beating me out by a fraction to be one of the top ten graduates of our class. I’ll never forget the look on Dad’s face when I told him I hadn’t made it. Four generations at Columbia, and I was the first not to be in the top ten. And Barbara, God, the crush I had on her in those days. I worshipped her… Shenever even glanced in my direction, he thought.

Bruce tilted his head and finished the beer. I’ll have to call Carolyn, he decided. But I’ll tell her what I told her parents. Mack and I lived together, but we never hung out together. I didn’t even see him the day he disappeared. I got out before he and Nick were awake. So, leave me alone, little sister.

He stood up. Forget it, he told himself impatiently. Just forget about it. The quote that often ran through his head whenever he happened to think about Mack jumped into his mind again. He knew the quote wasn’t completely accurate, but it worked for him: “But that was in another land, and besides the king is dead.”

He went back to the phone, picked it up, and dialed. When his wife answered, he knew his face lit up at the sound of her voice. “Hi, Barb,” he said. “How are you, sweetheart? And how are the kids?”