The Consultant (34 page)

For there was no elevator behind the doors. There was nothing. Only an impenetrable blackness that seemed to stretch outward to infinity.  

The sight terrified him for reasons he could not say, and he turned away—  

—to see that the corridor was no longer empty. At its far side, where distance and dim lighting had conspired to shroud the end of the hallway in gloom, were a group of dark figures milling about. In between, halfway, was a torch implanted in the floor and, next to the torch, a man’s head impaled on a stick.  

Panicked, John turned the other way and ran. The building was silent—the only noise his own heavy footsteps and heavier breathing—and the number of doors in the walls to either side of him grew increasingly sparse even as their size increased and the wood from which they were made grew ever darker.  

The silence was broken by the sound of children singing. An old song he recognized from Sunday school: “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.” Grateful that he was not alone, relieved to encounter something as safe and wholesome as a children’s choir, he hurried toward an open lighted doorway at the end of the corridor from which the singing seemed to come.  

But the words, he realized as he drew closer, were not what they were supposed to be:  

She took the whole thing, in her mouth
 

She took the whole damn thing, in her mouth
 

She took the whole thing, in her mouth
 

She took the whole cock in her mouth
 

He reached the doorway. The singers weren’t children. They were mutilated men, castrati who stood naked and exposed on a low wooden stage. He thought he recognized one of them: Steve Portis, a floor manager from his previous job, the place where he’d been working before BFG eliminated his position. “Whenever Ralph closes a door, He opens a window,” The Consultant had told him with false bonhomie before offering him the job with BFG, and shortly after he’d jumped ship, his old company had filed for bankruptcy. Were all of these men from firms that BFG had not been able to save?  

She took the whole thing, in her mouth…
 

Who was
she
? he wondered, and imagined a woman on her knees, with bloody mouth and lips, biting off the genitals of men lined up before her.  

He turned away from the room, but the blackness that had been behind the elevator doors had infiltrated the corridor and was spreading toward him. The sight was overwhelming, and in the face of such implacability, the lighted room seemed warm and welcoming, the castrated men comforting and reassuring. He turned back, stepped inside and closed the door to keep out the blackness.  

Movement against the far right wall captured his attention. He hadn’t seen anything there before because the door had blocked his view. But there
was
a woman on her knees. And her mouth
was
bloody. And as the singers on the stage went into a new song that sounded like “Onward, Christian Soldiers” but was not, John watched the woman waddle toward him, mouth open and smiling.  

He looked over at Steve Portis, singing with the others.  

It was better than that empty darkness in the hallway, he thought.  

And he braced himself as the woman, bloody mouth still wide open and grinning, unbuckled his belt, unbuttoned and unzipped him, and pulled down his pants.  

**** 

Patoff was waiting for Craig and Phil in the lobby when the two of them walked in to work together the next morning. As always, he was smiling, though his eyes were dead and flat. He straightened his bow tie. “May I have a word with you gentlemen?”  

“You may!” Phil said in an exaggeratedly chipper voice.  

The consultant frowned, but his expression of disapproval lasted only a second. “It has come to my attention that you went out after work with one of our BFG consultants, specifically John, who was assigned to observe your daily routine, Mr. Allen. Although you may not have been aware of the policy, our consultants are not allowed to fraternize with the subjects of our studies. It’s unethical, and in violation of both the employment contract they have with us and the contracts we have with our clients. As a result, John will no longer be observing you. He has been terminated.”  

He has been terminated.
 

What did
that
mean? Craig glanced over at Phil, who was clearly startled by the news.  

“Wait a minute,” Phil said. “You can’t fire him just because—”  

“I can. I’m sorry, Mr. Allen. You should have considered the repercussions of your actions before inviting him to socialize with you. As I said, he has been terminated.”  

Terminated
.  

There was that word again.  

How
did Patoff know they had met after work, Craig wondered. Had they been followed? Had their conversation somehow been bugged? None of the possible options were reassuring.  

“Oh, and Mr. Horne?” The consultant said, turning to him. “Your secretary won’t be coming back.”  

Craig had a sudden sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.  

“It seems she found a job…elsewhere. So there’s no need to hold her place anymore. Although if you think you can do without a secretary, those funds might be used to spare some of the other employees who are on the chopping block.”  

Chopping block
.  

He didn’t like that imagery, and the moment Patoff left with an overly friendly wave, Craig whipped out his cell and tried to call Lupe. He called her home phone first, and after a single ring, three discordantly toned beeps assaulted his ear, a recorded woman’s voice informing him that “The number you have reached is no longer in service.” Quickly, he hung up and called Lupe’s cell phone. It rang five times before sending him to voice mail.  

The expression on Phil’s face must have been a mirror of his own since its stunned numbness reflected back at him exactly the way he felt. Saying nothing to each other, they split up, Phil taking the elevator to his floor, Craig walking up the stairs to his own.  

Attempts throughout the day to reach Lupe were unsuccessful, and after work he drove over to her house, but the shades were closed, the door locked, and no one answered the bell.  

At home, he went directly into the kitchen, where he popped open the tab of a much needed beer.  

“What’s wrong?” Angie asked, but he didn’t want to say, wanted to keep it all as far away from his family as possible, and he shook his head, indicating it was nothing, then put down his empty can and went out to the living room to help Dylan with his homework.  

THIRTY  

The glass had long since been cleaned up from the floor, the framed painting repaired and replaced in its spot on the wall as if nothing had happened, but Matthews could not help thinking about the way the picture had flown off the wall and crashed to the floor. He could still feel that abominable hum in his ears and the splitting headache it had caused, could see in his mind his pens and pencils floating out of their Lucite holder and hovering in the air. Most of all, he could recall with perfect horrifying clarity how the consultant had stood there with his eyes closed, the cause of it all.  

What was he?
 

Matthews was not sure he wanted to know.  

What he
did
want was for all of this to be over.  

Pausing, he stared at the blank computer screen on his desk. An idea had come to him, and he wondered why it hadn’t occurred to him before. It was so simple and so obvious. Instead of trying to fire BFG, he could just tell Patoff that the job was over, thank him for his help, pay him off and say goodbye. The Board might not like it (or what was left of the Board) and his ass would be on the fryer because he was the one who’d started the ball rolling with these consultants to begin with and CompWare would have wasted a lot of money for nothing, but it would be worth it to be rid of BFG. As Craig Horne had pointed out to him at the retreat, there was no need for consultants to begin with. Everything he and the Board wanted could be done in-house with salaried employees. So while the money they’d spent on BFG would be essentially thrown away, there wouldn’t be any additional expenditures.  

He felt almost happy as he buzzed Diane.  

“Yes?” the secretary said.  

“Get me Mr. Patoff, please.”  

“On the phone?”  

“No, ask him to come in.”  

There was a pause, and when she spoke he heard the nervousness in her voice. “Okay, Mr. Matthews.”  

He clicked off. That nervousness would soon be a thing of the past. Everything would return to normal. He turned on his computer and checked CompWare’s stock price. Up fifty cents. Nowhere near what it had been before the merger collapsed, but definitely not enough of a crisis to justify BFG’s continued involvement. He leaned back in his chair. He had overreacted initially. There’d been no real reason to call in consultants at all. This was a situation that could have been managed by existing executives and easily weathered by the company. Hell, look at their game sales. Through the roof.  

This was all his fault. He had panicked. And now they were where they were.  

What he still didn’t understand was how the executives of so many other firms, men he knew and trusted, could have given BFG such glowing recommendations. Had it been a concerted attempt to sabotage CompWare? Or could their experiences really have been so different?  

No.  

He thought of Morgan Brandt at Bell Computers and how he’d been frozen out of his own company.  

Something else was at work here.  

The door to his office opened and Patoff strode in. Had Diane even had time to call the consultant? Matthews didn’t know, but the man was here now and though he hadn’t had time to prepare what he was going to say, he stood and faced the consultant. “Mr. Patoff,” he began, “I’d like a word with you.”  

“Of course.”  

The consultant was smiling in a disquieting manner, but Matthews forced himself to remain cool, calm and act as though he was in charge. “I would like to thank you for your service. BFG has been a tremendous help to us during a very difficult period of adjustment, but I think we have everything we need from you. You’ve done far more than we asked for or expected, and have helped put CompWare back on a stable and profitable path. We’re going to take it from here, but in appreciation for all you’ve done, we’re going to give you a ten percent bonus beyond the amount originally agreed on in your contract.”  

The consultant was still smiling. “I would beg to differ. Our task is nowhere near complete.”  

Matthews’ heart was pounding. He tried to tread carefully. “As much as I respect your opinion, that decision is not yours to make. It is mine.”  

The painting on the wall wiggled.  

“As I said, we are so grateful—”  

There was a tapping sound on the top of the desk.  

“—for your assistance at this trying time.” He was aware that he was speaking too fast. “You’ve done a fantastic job, and we would be happy to recommend BFG to—”  

“As a matter of fact,” Patoff said, as though he was in the middle of a completely separate conversation, “I’ve been thinking that we may need to
extend
our time at CompWare. The problems here are systemic and not easily remedied. Much more time may be required before we can resolve all of the issues facing your company.”  

“How long?” Matthews asked, and hated himself for the whiny note of subservience he heard in his voice.  

“It’s hard to say,” Patoff responded as a pen floated up from the desk and suddenly whipped backward, slashing Matthews across the forehead and drawing blood. The consultant chuckled. “I’ll let you know.”  

He strode out of the office, the door slamming shut behind him, and Matthews used a Kimwipe to pat the blood seeping from his forehead. He held the oversized tissue in place and made his way over to his private bathroom. The wound felt worse than it looked, but it was definitely noticeable, and he took some Neosporin out of the drawer, rubbed it on the cut and applied a Band-Aid. A jumble of thoughts were struggling for supremacy in his head: frightened theories about how the consultant could do what he did; paranoid notions about what the man wanted and why; pipe dreams about going to the police and charging him with assault; concern for himself, his company, his workers and his wife.  

Fear was his overriding emotion, however, and it superseded everything else, ensuring that he would remain impotent and do nothing.  

Matthews opened the bathroom door, walked back out to his office—  

And saw someone sitting in his chair.  

His heart gave an involuntary start.  

At first he thought it was Patoff come back, but though the chair was swiveled away from him, facing a window, he could see that the figure in it was shorter than the consultant and dressed in a dark cowl made of some heavy rough burlap-type material. Both observations made him uneasy. The costume was completely incongruous in these surroundings, and the fact that the person in his chair was almost small enough to be a child was just plain creepy.  

He made sure his voice was appropriately angry and authoritative. “Who are you and what are you doing here? This is my office.”  

The chair spun around, and the thing in it smiled at him, an impossibly huge smile that took up most of the bone-white face, leaving little room for the dark piggy eyes and the snake-slit nose.  

Matthews cried out, stumbling backward. The bathroom door handle hit his spine, causing a searing flash of pain, but he was afraid to take his eyes off that abomination in his chair, and without looking behind him, he moved to the right, still backing away, hoping to get back in the bathroom where he could close and lock the door before calling Security.  

The chair turned around once again, facing away from him.  

Matthews glanced quickly at the office door, thinking he should make a run for it. The door was closed, but it was on the opposite side of the room from his desk, with plenty of open space in between. Unless that little freak could move like lightning, Matthews should have no problem getting out of the office and away.