Adrenaline (6 page)

“That’s right. Until the house is finished.”

Jansten chuckled. “Better get it finished before winter comes. Boston is not Charleston.”

He moved them along slowly through the house.

In the office, Jansten was constantly surrounded by people and seemed to enjoy all the perks of his position, from the limo drivers to the barbers and tailors that would come to his office. Steve had expected to see a substantial staff at his home. Yet it became apparent, as Jansten walked them about the house, showing Geoff and Steve his place, that the three of them were alone.

He led them into the kitchen, which also offered beautiful views of the cove. “We’re having omelets, gentlemen, unless you have some objections.” He smiled. “Geoff, I know you’re some kind of health nut, can you stand it?”

“I’m not that kind of health nut.”

“Good. Then the two of you take the plates out onto the deck, and I’ll get us going here. Coffee is in the pot, help yourself.”

Geoff turned to Steve with a what-is-this? look. Steve smiled, bemused. He didn’t mind schlepping dishes, but he too wondered what the old man was about.

Jansten lit the burners on a big, industrial-sized stove, and poured beaten eggs into a large pan. Cheese, mushrooms, peppers, tomatoes, and bacon were already prepared alongside. Steve and Geoff came back to watch the old man finish making their breakfast. He went about it slowly, whistling tunelessly as he checked and rechecked to see that the eggs weren’t sticking. It struck Steve that Jansten didn’t really know what he was doing, but he seemed to be enjoying himself nonetheless.

“Steve, make some toast, will you? And Geoff, I guess we’ll need those plates back after all.”

“Guess you better stick to your day job.”

“Wait ‘til you eat.” To Steve, he said, “Did I hear you salvaged that boat of yours?”

“That’s right. A friend who’s still in the salvage business brought it up from fifty feet, and we’ve been pouring money into it ever since.”

Geoff hesitated on the way outside. “Why didn’t you buy a new one? I’m sure you’re paid pretty well running that little division.”

“Pretty well,” Steve said, dryly.

“I love the thirty-five,” Jansten said, as if Geoff hadn’t spoken. “Got her set up with a clubfooted jib and self-tailing winches, and I can handle her all by myself.”

Geoff brought the plates in and Jansten divided the omelet into three portions. “Let’s go out onto the deck.”

After they settled down, Geoff said, “Did I hear we have one of those team-building outings of yours coming up?”

“Hiking and rock climbing in the White Mountains around the end of the week. I hear that you both are quite experienced climbers. Something you’ve got in common, maybe you two should go off together sometime, get to know each other better. This thing, it’ll be senior staff, about a dozen of us, with the wives who can make it. I’m counting on the two of you being there.”

Both of them nodded.

Geoff said, “So, what’s up this morning?”

“Breakfast,” Jansten said, curtly, and began to eat.

Geoff and Steve followed suit. Steve noticed the old man glanced their way from time to time, apparently to see if they were enjoying the meal. Otherwise, he kept up the friendly but innocuous dialogue of before, talking about the Red Sox, asking about Lisa.

About her he listened intently. “She’s a special one. Guess you know that.”

“Certainly do.”

He turned his attention to Geoff. “Did you ever marry that girl, Kelly?”

Geoff shook his head. “We’ve gone separate ways.”

“Big mistake.” Jansten looked over at Steve. “Absolutely breathtaking woman, this Kelly. Flirted with me once when I came into San Francisco. Did it just to help Geoff’s cause, but who was I to object?”

Geoff smiled politely, but there was something behind his expression that Steve couldn’t catch.

Jansten shoved his plate away. He winced as he adjusted himself in the chair to look at the two of them. “Okay, that’s done. I always hated small talk and socializing. But now that I’m seventy-one, I find I’m beginning to like it. Just like I now like making breakfasts, sailing a boat not much bigger than the lifeboat on my last yacht, and confusing the serious, ambitious young men who come to my home.”

He grimaced. “The fact is, I’ve got this thing inside my gut. Malignant. Started in the colon. And so I’ll be starting the song and dance with doctors and hospitals that people in my position start.”

Steve felt a quiet stab inside himself. He realized he knew something like this was coming. “I’m sorry to hear this,” he said, hating how inadequate the words sounded. He hesitated. “I really don’t know what else to say.”

“Course you don’t.” Jansten shrugged. “I’ve done my share of swearing and stamping around, but I don’t know what to say either.” He glanced over at Geoff and cocked his thumb at him. “Geoff here doesn’t know what to say, so he’s not saying it. He’s thinking, ‘What does this mean for me?’ ”

“And how would you know what I’m thinking?” Geoff said quietly.

“Because that’s what I would’ve been thinking if I was your age and the old man told me he was about to cork off.”

Geoff made a dismissive gesture. “That’s what anyone would think. You and I just admit it. So tell me why I’m sitting here.”

“Partly what I told you on the phone. I wanted you two to come back and help me put together a plan that will keep Jansten Enterprises thriving for the next decade—whether I’m here or not. What I didn’t tell you is that when it comes to executive level management, you two are it. You two represent the future of this company. Rudden and Lerner have done some amazing things for me in the past twenty years. And they’ve done it just the way I wanted. They’ve ripped into other companies, gutted them, and drained every drop of financial blood out of them—at my request. Made both of them rich men in their own right, not to mention what they’ve done for me.”

He looked at Geoff with an expression close to fondness … but not quite. “And Geoff, you represent the best example of that line of thought. You are the youngest, toughest Turk I’ve got. A year ago, you would have been my automatic choice to succeed me as president … if I ever became willing to let it go under normal circumstances. Who knows, maybe I would have in the course of the next five to ten years. But now they tell me I’ve got less than a year, if I can figure out everything I’m hearing in all that gobbledygook from the doctors.”

“I’m ready now,” Geoff said.

“I know you think you are. And maybe you are.”

He shifted his attention to Steve. “And Steve, I’ve always admired you and your work. We’ve never been friends, not only because I’m in my goddamn exalted position—but because you and I are two very different members of the human race.” He smiled. “Hell, I’m ex-marine, and you’re ex-navy. It was hard for me to respect you right there. But really, it’s a matter of personality. When I was Geoff’s age, I would have tried to weaken your role and smash you because I would have been nauseated by this sincere form of business you try to promote. I would’ve seen it as a Boy Scout approach to a storm trooper’s job. Yet, your business is thriving. Now that I’ve gotten to this advanced age, I’ve been not only publicly, but privately quite proud of having you and your clean little enterprise in place within Jansten Enterprises. And now that I’m dying, I tend to give it even more weight.”

“You’ve found religion,” Steve said.

“Something like that. I’m not wasting my time at church, but I do recognize there’s going to be an entity with my name on it for at least a while after I go. I cut Rudden and Lerner free last week. They’ll be drifting away on some pretty remarkable golden parachutes. That leaves you two. The youngest, and best, examples of two diametrically opposed ways of doing business at Jansten Enterprises. In three weeks, we’ll be having a board meeting. I know that I can convince them to put either of you at the helm, and I know either of you would probably keep the company alive. Geoff, most likely running it as I would have. Steve, most likely running it as I should have.”

“Just what are you saying?” Geoff said, his tone even.

Steve saw Geoff remain stone-faced, not the slightest hint of change as Jansten’s words rolled over both of them: “What I’m saying is that assuming the two of you are willing—I’m going to recommend that Steve succeed me as president and CEO, and Geoff, you will become executive vice president and general manager of Jansten Enterprises. That’s what I’m saying.”

Chapter 6

Jammer was on the verge of beating Carly again. They were in their apartment on the edge of the Combat Zone, and he had already done it to her twice since hauling her out of the bus station the night before, blood streaming from his forehead.

She was just in from a hard day on the street, and Jammer had his eye on her just about every second so he knew damn well that she couldn’t have his frigging sword cane. But that didn’t stop him from working himself up again. “I told you to get it back. Today!”

“I don’t know him.” She said it quietly. Like she was talking to a little kid. Which was pretty much true. She had done enough baby-sitting before she ran away from home to know Jammer was about as patient as an infant and as cruel as a ten-year-old boy with a captured fly.

Jammer shoved her against the wall. He grabbed his belt buckle, a broad-faced plate, and she cried out, “Don’t, Jammer, please don’t!”

Darlene came up beside them, doing her best. She edged her body between them, saying, “Come on baby, let me calm you down, let me take care of you, don’t baby, don’t …”

But Jammer wasn’t listening to her either.

He shoved her away, and put Junior—the short dagger attached to his belt buckle—right under Carly’s eye. The blade protruded between his fore and index fingers, and she knew it was sharp enough to punch through metal, never mind her face. He said, “You looking to get messed up?”

“No.”

“That’s not the way you’re acting. The way I see it, you’re begging me to rearrange that pretty face and put you on the street as a geek fuck.” He pitched his voice high. “Screw the bag girl. Got a body that won’t quit, but you take off that bag, you get the scare of your life.” He lowered his voice, “I can market that, baby, you think I can’t?”

Even with her heart pumping like it was going to jump out of her chest, even with Darlene wailing in the background, a little part of Carly noticed the “market that.” Jammer was so fucking stupid. The idiot hadn’t finished high school, but liked to talk as if he was some kind of businessman instead of a pimp in the dying Combat Zone.

Carly thought this, but what she said was, “You’re scaring me. Jesus, you’re scaring me. I’d tell you if I knew. I’ll find him, but I just don’t know this second. I just don’t know who he is.”

Jammer sighed.

Then he yanked her hair tight, making her scream. The blade winked past her eye, and she felt a tug on the side of her head, and then he shoved her to the floor. She looked up as he dropped a handful of her hair onto her face. “You find it. Or me and Junior are going to take you apart a piece at a time.”

He left.

Darlene rushed over. “Oh, baby. You’re okay. It’s just a little hair, he didn’t cut you. And he won’t. Your face makes him too much money.”

“Yeah. He won’t do it right up until the moment he does.”

Carly stood up, resting on Darlene a moment, then pulling away. She felt the reaction beginning to come over her. A tear slipped down her cheek. That made her angry with herself, furious. It was one thing to beg for mercy with Jammer, that was what she needed to do to make him walk away. It was another thing to be scared of him after he was gone, and Carly hated that she was.

Darlene followed her into the bedroom.

“I’ve got to get out of here,” Carly said, her voice shaking. “I’ve got to get clean!” She took a picture out of her drawer, and Darlene moved beside her, leaning close.

“Look at you,” Darlene said, putting her arm around Carly’s waist as they looked at the picture. In it, Carly stood knee-deep in a mountain stream, her hair wet, her arms covering her breasts as she looked back over her shoulder. She was smiling in a way Carly herself knew she hadn’t smiled in over two years. She wondered if she still could smile that way, if her face could ever be taught again to show such happiness.

“You’re like the girl next door every boy wants to meet,” Darlene said. “You’ll get back there; you’ll go for a swim like that some day.”

“He always finds me.”

Darlene rolled her eyes. “That’s the truth. You never know when that son of a bitch is watching.” Darlene was only a few years older than Carly, but they had been hard years. Jammer had made her become a blonde, dark roots there for everyone to see. She leaned closer, pushing herself against Carly. “Oh, baby, I wish I could take care of you better.” She kissed Carly on the cheek.

Carly slipped back. “Stop it. I’m sorry, but no.”

Darlene looked hurt. “You want to get clean of everything, huh?”
 

“Yeah, I do. I don’t belong here.”

“And I do?”

Carly looked at Darlene and her face softened. She put her palm against Darlene’s face. “Hey, thanks for trying to pull him off. You’ve saved my ass more than once.”