The Dinosaur Club Page 24

  “She’s had some delusional incidents,” he finally said. “She’s become convinced that no one will be able to pay her nursing-home costs, and it’s made her a bit irrational. The people at the home are concerned about her, and I have to find a way to ease her mind—set up some sort of guaranteed payment plan.”

  “Did you tell her about your job? Is that what caused it?” His daughter’s voice was heavy with accusation. Fallon felt his stomach sink again.

  “Yeah, that was part of it,” he said. But she’s also a flaming nutcase, he added to himself.

  “So she’s afraid you’ll break your promise, too.”

  They were in a full fight now, and there was no way around it.

  “Liz, that’s enough!”

  She wouldn’t let go. She simply changed tack. “What are you really doing Sunday?” More heavy accusation. Only slightly veiled this time.

  “What do you mean, Liz?” Fallon’s voice softened, a fuse burning toward full-blown anger.

  A small hesitation, then: “I thought, maybe, you were really going to be with Her.”

  Fallon squeezed his eyes shut, fought for control, even thought about lying, then decided: Hell no. His voice remained soft, still on the edge. “I’m taking care of some business that involves the divorce, and also your grandmother’s needs. If I’m also seeing someone else, I fail to see what the hell that has to do with anything.”

  “So you’re still seeing her.”

  “Yes, I am. And her name is Samantha. Samantha Moore. And as unreasonable as it may sound, being with her makes me very happy. I would hope that small fact made you happy.”

  Liz was quiet for several interminable seconds. “We’re going to Mother’s when we get back,” she said at length. “So you don’t have to rush back to the house.”

  Fallon closed his eyes again, opened them, and stared at the floor. He could still see the indentations in the carpet where the table had once stood.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. “I was looking forward to seeing you both.” Another deep breath. “This is your home, and you’re welcome here if you change your mind. I hope you do.”

  “You can change your mind, too,” Liz said. Her voice was still cool, but the sarcasm was now gone. Fallon was uncertain if she meant a spring semester in Europe, or Samantha.

  He kept his voice even, equally cool. “You’re pushing pretty hard, Liz. I don’t respond well to being pushed.”

  “Someone has to talk some sense into you,” she snapped.

  Fallon’s temper boiled. He fought it. “Thanks for the effort,” he said. “I’m glad those courses in Logic paid off.”

  Liz sniffled. Tears were about to flow. Fallon felt instant regret. “Someone has to try to keep this family together,” she said. Now the words ended with a sob.

  “Liz. Honey. I didn’t break up this family. Your mother and I have separated; we’re getting a divorce. I’m getting on with my life, Liz. Nothing more. Nothing less.”

  “You’re having an affair,” she snapped. The final word was part accusation, part wail. “Don’t try to minimize it.”

  And what’s your mother doing? Fallon thought. Getting dental therapy? An image of Howard’s television commercial flashed through his mind. With effort he kept his voice soft.

  “Your mother and I are doing what adults do when a marriage fails,” he said. “She’s getting on with her life. I’m doing the same with mine. There is nothing unnatural, or sinister about it. I know it hurts and upsets you, and I’m sorry.”

  “I’m tired of hearing that you’re sorry,” Liz snapped. “You’re sorry about everything. You’re sorry about Mom. You’re sorry about breaking your promises to us. You’re sorry that you’ve turned things around so we can’t even come home.” She slammed the phone down, and was gone.

  Fallon listened to the silence. His stomach sat somewhere near his throat. “Mike? You still there?” His voice sounded suddenly hoarse.

  “Yeah, Dad.” A pause. “Gee, I’m sorry, Dad. I didn’t know everything was gonna blow up like this.”

  In his mind Fallon could see his son shifting nervously from foot to foot. The kid despised confrontation, wanted everything smooth and untroubled. He hated battle royals, ran from them even if he wasn’t directly involved.

  “Mike, I’m sorry, too. Things will work out in time. Are you coming here, or are you going to your mother’s with Liz?”

  “I guess I’ll go with her,” he said. “I mean, I don’t know what else to do. I don’t want Mom to think we’re choosing sides or anything.”

  She won’t think that. She’ll be delighted if you’re here, he thought. Two adult kids in an East Side love nest were not part of her plan. He wanted to tell his son exactly that; knew he could not. Mike didn’t deserve any additional pain. He closed his eyes again.

  “Listen. If you change your mind—or if things don’t work out at your mom’s—please come home,” he said.

  “I will, Dad. I’ll come by to see you, anyway. Maybe I’ll call you at work and we can meet for lunch.”

  “That would be great,” Fallon said. His stomach was sinking again. Was that what his life with his kids would be? Hi, Dad. Let’s do lunch. “Listen, Mike,” he added hastily. “I mean what I say. I want to see both of you. And I’d like you here. Both of you. Don’t ever doubt it. Okay?”

  “Yeah, Dad. Sure. But maybe it’s better the other way for now. Okay?”

  “Yeah, Mike, that’s fine. I’ll talk to you soon. Please be careful driving back.”

  Fallon stooped down and replaced the receiver. He remained squatting for a moment, staring at the floor of his empty house.

  Samantha walked in from the living room. “I couldn’t help overhearing. Are you okay?”

  He nodded; shook his head. He wasn’t really sure what he was. Then he told her about the Springtime in Europe plan, his daughter’s accusation that he was having an illicit affair, and the decision to stay at Trisha’s condo. He smiled faintly over the final part.

  “Trish will love it,” he said. “It will be another ploy in my evil plan to destroy her relationship with Howard.”

  “If they feel unwelcome, maybe they’ll come here,” Samantha said. She hesitated, then continued. “Jack, if I’m complicating your life …”

  He cut her off. “You’re not. You’re the only sane thing in my life right now.”

  Samantha squatted next to him and stroked his cheek. “Their concern about your seeing someone else is quite natural,” she said.

  “I know.” He smiled at her. “But I can’t change my life to suit them. Even more, I don’t want to.”

  “What about Europe? Giving in might help smooth things over.”

  “I can’t do that.” He shook his head again. “It’s really my fault. I spoiled them. I never forced much reality on their lives. It was always easier, and more fun, to just give them things. Now there’s no choice. And they’ll just have to accept the fact that life isn’t always the way they’d like it to be. It’s something they should have learned a long time ago.”

  “So there’s nothing you can do.” It was spoken as fact, not a question. She stroked his cheek again.

  “No. Nothing.” He was quiet for several moments, then a small grin played across his lips. “Yes, there is. I’ll do it tomorrow.”

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “I’ll go to The Residence, join the other lunatics, and make a novena to the Virgin.” He winked at her. “Hell, maybe a pot of gold will fall from the sky.”

  16

  FALLON AND JIM MALLOY MET UNEXPECTEDLY IN THE lobby of the Chrysler Building. Each had come down a separate marble-lined entry hall, two of three that converged at the building’s central lobby and its distinctive banks of art deco elevators. Malloy held a container of coffee in his hand. He glanced at it—embarrassed; said to Fallon, “My coffeepot left with my assistant.” His face suddenly flushed; his voice became tight. “I haven’t had to do this in ten years,” he added.
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  Fallon tried to keep the mood light. “There’s a pot in my office,” he said. “I make it myself every morning. Help yourself, Jim.”

  Malloy looked away, fought to lighten his own voice. “No wonder Carol worships the ground you walk on. She doesn’t even have to make coffee. You’re a liberated boss.”

  Fallon grinned, still struggling. “That’s true, I am.” The grin widened. “She also makes lousy coffee, so there’s an element of self-preservation in it.”

  Malloy forced a smile. It came across badly. Fallon took time to look him over. He seemed haggard, and his attempt at shaving that morning hadn’t gone well. He had missed a spot under his nose, and there were several small wounds on his neck. Fallon hoped he hadn’t started drinking again.

  Malloy looked about him, taking in the African marble walls, with their symmetrical butterfly pattern, the vaulted ceiling set off by marble inlays, then glanced back to the elevator door that stood before them, faced, like all the others, with its own distinctive marquetry and art deco paneling. “God, I love this old building,” he said. “I have since the first day we moved in.” He glanced at Fallon. “What was it? Ten years ago?”

  “Twelve,” Fallon said. Malloy was trying to seem calm, but the game wasn’t working. He was talking about their office as though he might never see it again. “How are you hanging in, Jim?” Fallon finally asked.

  The elevator arrived and they stepped inside, then turned to face the closing doors. They were the only passengers.

  Malloy stared straight ahead. “I feel like they’ve ripped the heart out of me, Jack. My customers keep asking where Marge is. You know what I tell them? That she’s on vacation. I can’t bring myself to explain I don’t have an assistant anymore. You know what else I can’t do? I can’t bring myself to think about what they’ll do to me next.”

  Fallon felt a sudden rush of guilt. It was as though he had abandoned the man. “I know,” he said, “But you’ve got to hang with it. You can’t let the bastards beat you.”

  Malloy shook his head. “Christ, if they’re going to fire me, they should just do it and stop the goddamned games.” He closed his eyes, drew a breath. “When I had to tell Betty about losing Marge it was one of the most humiliating moments I’ve ever known.” He gritted his teeth. “How do you explain something like this to your wife, Jack? Christ, I dread that one of my kids will call, or even worse, stop by. How do you explain that you’re being treated like shit, humiliated in front of the whole office, just so they can force you out. Because they just don’t want you anymore. Because you’re too damned old.” He stared at Fallon. “Christ, Jack, I’m fifty years old. I’m in my prime. I know things I didn’t have a clue about ten or fifteen years ago.” Tears welled up in his eyes, and Fallon looked away. “What do I do for the next ten or fifteen years? What do I do about the son I’ve got in law school if I don’t get a decent buyout? Tell him to kiss his future good-bye? And what about Betty? Is this what she gets? Sell the house, move to a small apartment, and spend the rest of her life with a husband who works at Kmart because nobody else wants him?”

  The elevator stopped at their floor, and Fallon took Malloy’s arm and pulled him aside. He kept his voice to a whisper. “There’s no shame in anything you’re saying, Jim. Not for you. Not one bit. Even if it all happens.” He let out a breath, took the man’s arm again. “And it won’t. I promise you. You’ll be part of any damned buyout, and I’ll fight like hell to see it’s a good one. We all will.” He squeezed Malloy’s arm. “We’re all in the same boat, Jim. All the dinosaurs.”

  Malloy lowered his eyes, shook his head. His thin face looked sunken—like someone who had just been whipped. “I don’t know how much more of it I can take.”

  “You can take it, Jim.” Fallon said. “You can take it, and you can laugh in Bennett’s face when you walk out the door.”

  Malloy looked at him, defeat heavy in his eyes. “You don’t think you can stop it, do you, Jack?”

  “I’m going to try like hell. But, no, I don’t know if I can. I told all of you that up front. But that’s as far as I’m willing to give, Jim. Don’t you give them more.”

  Malloy straightened, nodded. There was no conviction in his eyes.

  They entered the reception area and headed toward the hallway that led to the executive offices. The receptionist, a pretty, young, blond woman smiled at Fallon. When her eyes fell on Malloy a look of undisguised pity filled her face. Fallon hoped Jim hadn’t noticed, but was certain that he had.

  “Mr. Waters says he can see you right away,” Carol said, as Fallon entered his office. “I just got the call a minute ago.”

  Fallon dropped his briefcase behind his desk and started to leave. Carol took his arm, stopping him.

  “Before you go, there’s something I have to tell you.” She glanced toward the outer door, assuring herself it was closed. “Nellie Morris—she’s Willis Chambers’s assistant—came by a little while ago. She told me she overheard Willis talking to the head of maintenance yesterday. Apparently he wants the trash collected from all the offices in sales and brought to Les Gavin each night. He told the maintenance guy it had something to do with a breach in security.”

  Fallon let out a laugh, then turned suspicious. “Why would Nellie do that? Willis is her boss.”

  The look in Carol’s eyes told him he should already know the answer to that question. “She’s fifty-three years old, Jack. She has a husband who’s been out of work for a year, and she’s frightened out of her wits. The men aren’t the only ones who are scared, Jack. And they’re not the only ones who hate what these S.O.B.s are planning to do to everyone.”

  Yet another dinosaur. Fallon smiled at the thought. And Carol was right. He should have seen it. “Make sure Wally and Jim Malloy know about this trash business,” he said. He gave Carol an exaggerated wink. “I think Wally can have the troops leave some stuff for Willis that will give him nightmares.”

  Fallon headed back down the hall that housed all the executive offices, including his own. It was a long row, and the offices were set in their order of importance within the company. Bennett’s office was four closer to Waters’s own sanctum than was Fallon’s own. The message was not lost on anyone. Especially now.

  Charlie Waters’s suite was at the top of the hall, just off reception. It also had its own reception area in the oversized, outer office his assistant, Gladys, occupied—just so those important enough to come before The Man himself were not required to remain outside with lesser mortals.

  Fallon smiled at Gladys as he entered. He liked the woman—middleaged, always tastefully dressed, and exceptionally competent. Unlike many of the presidential assistants he had encountered in other companies, Gladys had never allowed an air of self-importance—apparently infused through some mysterious form of executive osmosis—to govern her treatment of anyone, down to the lowliest of mail clerks.

  “I understand my audience has at long last been granted,” Fallon said.

  Gladys smirked. “You have been beckoned to the mountain. I was beginning to think only Carter Bennett was allowed inside.” She picked up her telephone. “I’ll tell him you’re here. I think he’s ready for you.”

  Gladys was right. Fallon was allowed inside immediately.

  “Jack, good to see you. It’s been too long.”

  Waters stood behind his desk, draped in a three-piece suit, bluff and hardy and red-faced. The hail-fellow approach left Fallon cold. He took a seat that hadn’t been offered.

  “That’s true, we don’t seem to see much of each other anymore,” he said.

  Waters puckered his lips; sat. “It’s the price of running a business that’s gotten too damned big,” he said. “You even lose track of old friends.”

  Fallon sat forward, forearms on knees. He wanted the old friend approach, even if it was phony. “That’s why I’m here,” he said. “There are some things going on I don’t understand.”

  Waters offered up a false chuckle. “Hell, there are t
hings going on that I don’t understand.” He was trying to dismiss the statement.

  Fallon held firm. “For example, Charlie. I was up in Plattsburgh the other day. Just trving to have some tests run, to resolve a problem one of our customers is having. Out of the blue, Carter Bennett canceled the test.”

  Waters twisted in his chair. “What the hell are you running tests for, Jack? I set those specs myself. They’re solid.”

  Fallon hadn’t mentioned the test involved manufacturing specs, and that told him Charlie had already been briefed on what had occurred. He ignored it; pushed ahead. “It’s just good engineering, Charlie. Even if the tests only confirm what we know. We get that out of the way at the source, then we can look for end-user problems.” Waters seemed ready to object, but Fallon pushed on. “The point is, Carter didn’t even consult us, or ask us for justification. I approved those tests, and he just stopped them cold. He also had Jim Malloy’s assistant yanked. Malloy runs our team of government sales reps, and he was simply told to share secretarial time with the New York District manager. Again, it was just done. I wasn’t even consulted. And I think it’s still my division.”

  The last had been issued as a challenge. Waters twisted again, waved his hand. “Carter’s just trying to save the company some money,” he said. “Hell, that’s his job. And he’s damned good at it.” He offered another bluff smile. “He’s young and aggressive.” He raised a mollifying hand. “Maybe too aggressive at times. But the lad knows what the market wants to hear, and he has a clear picture of the economic realities we’re facing. I’ll talk to him, Jack. Advise him to ease up just a bit. Not run roughshod over the chain of command.”

  Waters eased back in his chair, seemed to study Fallon more closely. “Damn, you’re looking good, Jack. You look fit.”

  Fallon sensed he was about to be dismissed. Stroked and sent packing. He had no intention of allowing that to happen. Not before he got to the real issue. But first, he decided, he’d throw the man a curve. Charlie, he knew, was the sort who had to know what was going on around him. “I’ve been working out in the company gym, Charlie. Along with some of our sales crew. We’ve formed a club—the more senior guys, anyway.”