My Father's Wives (21 page)

Swish!

A burst of energy raced through me as Jordan retrieved the ball. Bruce was cheering wildly from the sideline. Jordan advanced toward
me, his signature tongue hanging out the side of his mouth. “Which way do you want me to take you?” he asked.

I lowered into my defensive posture, eyes locked. “I’m ready either way.”

Jordan turned and backed into me. I shoved with everything I had to keep from retreating. “Watch out now,” he whispered, “here it comes.”

I stepped backward, leaving plenty of space between us. Jordan turned as well, so we were squared up, knees bent, sweat dripping.

“You don’t have this shot,” I said.

Jordan’s eyes narrowed, and in a flash he elevated, so quickly I had no chance to do anything but turn and watch the ball as it left his fingers and sailed toward the basket, climbing in a perfect arc, then diving toward the hoop. I held my breath.

Clang!

Jordan’s shot hit hard off the back of the rim and bounced skyward, back toward where we stood. The backboard was quivering, as though it knew this was no ordinary shot it had rejected.

Bruce was making enough noise for ten people. The ball bounced directly into my hands and instinct took over. I spun to my left and raced up the court as fast as I had ever run in my life. I could hear distant footsteps behind me but my path to the basket was clear. On the final step I gathered myself and lifted off my right foot, sailing toward the rim, the ball extended in my left hand, ready to gently kiss it off the glass for an easy basket.

Thwack!

I never saw him coming. I’m not even sure which side he came from, all I knew was he suddenly appeared before me as though he’d materialized from thin air. Jordan didn’t block my shot so much as he caught it, loudly. Then, without slowing, he circled and headed off in the other direction. I tried to spin as well but my feet would have none of it. I crashed to the ground in a heap, lifting my head just in time to see Jordan’s monster dunk at the other end.

“Your ball,” he said as he jogged back toward me.

I pushed myself off the ground and raced past him to retrieve the ball, which had rolled into a corner and come to rest a few feet from where Bruce was seated. “That was something else,” Bruce said.

We played for the better part of an hour and I did not score again. I lost track of exactly how many baskets Jordan made, somewhere between sixty and eighty, but I never gave up the fight, and when finally Bruce began applauding and came walking toward us I was beaming with pride.

“How about this kid, Mike?” he asked.

Jordan nodded. “You were right,” he said. “He can play.”

Bruce put a hand on my shoulder. “Take a shower, I’ll bring Mike down to your office in a little while.”

I looked Jordan directly in the eye once more and nodded, and he nodded back, with a level of respect that was—to me—too significant for words. I still had the ball in my hands as I watched them step into the elevator and the doors slide shut. I paused a moment, trying to grasp what had happened, but that wasn’t remotely possible. Instead, one more time I tried my most familiar move, the fake to the right and then hard drive left. I pulled up a few feet from the hoop and banked a shot in off the backboard. Then I walked straight to the showers, peeling my soaked shirt over my head, listening as the ball bounced away behind me amid the enthusiastic cheers of an imaginary crowd offering a well-deserved standing ovation.

WORD THAT MICHAEL JORDAN
was in the building spread like wildfire. By the time I stepped off the elevator to return to my office the floor was flooded with faces. Most people knew Bruce and I were basketball buddies; they likely figured mine would be an office Jordan might visit. There were more people on the floor than actually worked at our firm; I didn’t recognize everyone.

Among the faces I did know was that of Ken Siegel, a senior executive responsible for all our corporate security, including digital. I wouldn’t have taken him for a sports fan. He seemed more the artsy type, always wearing a neatly knotted bow tie and matching pocket square. The sight of him made the image of Cranston and his fake mustache pop into my head. It raised a question, and Ken was just the person to answer.

I stopped by his side as I made my way through the crowd. “Ken, do you have a minute?”

Despite his high standing in the company, the look on his face was as though he had just won the lottery. I felt all eyes on us as we made our way into my office and shut the door behind.

“Quick question,” I said when he was seated opposite my desk, “if you aren’t in a hurry to be anywhere.”

“I have plenty of time,” Ken said, smiling.

“I recall sending you a note last week about firewalls.”

“Of course, and I appreciate it. I put my two best techs on it and we found a few areas we could tighten up. They were here all weekend and we instituted the changes Monday morning. Are you still having issues with spam?”

“Absolutely not. You did a terrific job, I commend you.”

“It’s my staff that deserves the credit.”

“Then I commend them,” I said. “I’m curious about something. Is it possible to view mail that gets denied?”

“Of course. Is there something in particular you were expecting?”

I didn’t want to raise suspicion. “No, I was just wondering, as I have noticed a reduction in the flow and I was concerned that my moment of frustration last week might create problems down the road.” Needlessly wordy. All the better to keep Ken from asking questions.

“No problem,” he said, and came over to my side of the desk. “Let me show you.” He made a few clicks with the mouse and a moment later a new folder appeared on my screen. “I’ll title this
‘junk’ for you. You can change that to whatever you want. Anything that gets blocked by our filters will appear here. That doesn’t include attachments that are deemed dangerous by our system; I can’t authorize access to those.”

“No problem.”

Ken went back around the desk. “How’s the family?” he asked, dropping into a chair.

“Healthy and happy,” I said. “You?”

“Fine,” he said. “My kid is very into sports. Not really my thing, but when he heard Jordan was here he about lost his mind. Begged his mother to take him out of school and bring him down.”

“And?”

“They should be here any minute.”

“So you’re feeling some pressure.”

“You better believe it.”

I smiled. There was something delightful about the whole thing. Meanwhile, I had a question and this was the time to ask it.

“Ken,” I said softly, “you can stay here as long as you like. Jordan will be here for sure. I don’t know when, but Bruce told me they’d stop by. Have your wife and son come directly here and I’ll make sure they meet him.”

The joy was evident on Ken’s face. “Thank you,” he said.

“But I have something I need to ask in return,” I said. “And this has to stay strictly between us.”

Ken was unfazed, probably because he was too excited about introducing his son to Michael Jordan to be worried about anything.

I glanced at the computer screen on my desk. The file titled “junk” was open, and what appeared to be hundreds of e-mails were trapped in its purgatory. I went to the search function and typed in the letters “Cr.” Instantly, three e-mails materialized, sent by “Cranston and Associates.” I didn’t need to open any of them. I knew what they’d say.

And then I saw, above Cranston’s three e-mails, one from Claire.
S
UBJECT
:
LAST NIGHT
!, with eleven photos attached. The pictures must have activated the firewall. I felt a tiny muscle deep inside of me unclench. It was one of those like a refrigerator humming, where you don’t notice until it ceases. I hadn’t realized it had been clenched until now that it was not. It felt good.

“Ken, how many people do we have in corporate security?” I asked.

“Full time, two dozen,” he said, still at ease.

“How many of those are assigned to computer stuff, like viruses?”

“Most of them. Viruses and digital espionage are the twenty-first-century corporate concerns. People aren’t going to break into your office to steal your secrets anymore, they’re going to break into your computer.”

“I understand.” I drummed my fingers on the desk. “Ken, do you remember Reggie Fernandez?”

The expression on his face grew more serious. “Of course.”

“He worked on my team. I know most of what went on, and I’m not asking you to tell me anything I’m not supposed to know. My question is, are matters of that sort handled by your department?”

Ken shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “On the record, the answer to that question is yes.”

“How about off the record?”

Ken leaned closer to me, lowered his voice. “We handle all the paperwork. But I think what you’re asking is if we handled the part of the investigation that led to his somewhat surprising departure?”

I nodded.

Ken breathed a heavy sigh. “Jon, I could lose my job for this.”

“No one will ever know,” I said.

Ken’s face was deadly serious. “Bruce has outside assistance for matters such as those,” he whispered. “I don’t have any idea how it is accounted for procedurally, but the work is not done by any of our people.”

“Who does it?”

“I’m sorry, I can’t say any more.”

I leaned closer. “Ken, I understand your obligations, but I have more at stake here than I can explain to you. It has nothing to do with the company. This is strictly personal. You have my word it will
never
come back to you.”

Ken was pale now, fidgeting in his seat. “I want to help, Jon, I do. But . . .”

I came around the desk and knelt by his chair. I didn’t know if there could be any recording devices in the room. Ken probably did know but I wasn’t going to ask; I was just going to whisper directly into his ear, softly enough that no one else could possibly hear. “Let me do this: I will say a name, and all you have to do is give me a clear indication of whether I have the right person or not. Is that acceptable?”

“Go ahead.”

“Lowell Cranston,” I whispered.

Very slowly, Ken closed his eyes and shook his head from side to side.

“You’re saying no?” I whispered.

“That is what I’m saying.”

“Are you familiar with that name?”

“I am,” he said, so quietly I had to strain to hear, “but that is not who handled the matter you asked me about.”

I rested my elbow on my knee. Now to the thought I’d had in the hall. “Is the one who handled it an older man? White hair, white beard, fancy dresser, probably close to seventy?”

This time, unmistakably, Ken nodded his head up and down.

Before I could ask anything else, my intercom sounded and my assistant’s loud voice shattered the quiet. “Mr. Siegel’s wife and son are here,” she said.

I stood up and straightened my trousers. Ken put his finger to his lips, and I nodded my assurance. Then I went back around behind my desk, dragged Claire’s email with the photos into my
regular inbox, and with an anxious smile shouted into the intercom. “Please bring them in!”

TWO HOURS LATER, PROMPTLY
at five o’clock, my phone buzzed in my pocket just as I settled into the back of Sonny’s car. Without looking I knew it was Claire, calling to remind me of the concert.

“A step ahead of you,” I said as I answered. “Already in the car.”

“How about a hello?” She sounded a bit put off.

“Hello,” I said. “I’m on my way to school.”

“What’s with the attitude?” she asked. “Everything all right at the office? How was London? You never called.”

She was right. It was the first time in all the years we had been married, through all my travels, that I had failed to at least send her a text. That hadn’t occurred to me until she mentioned it. She was right to be put off. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Just so busy, and exhausted. Too much travel, not enough sleep. I’m going to shut my eyes and I’ll be good as new when I get there.”

Claire waited a moment before softening. “Well, I missed you,” she said. “I’ll see you at school, we’ll meet in the parking lot.”

I clicked the phone off and then turned it off. I needed a few unobstructed minutes. With my eyes shut, I leaned more deeply into the plush leather seat. Truthfully, it was delightful to hear her voice. Even after all these years, it still cheered and soothed me. If only there wasn’t all this other mess to consider. Life was so much easier when there wasn’t any mess.

The image of the older man in Bruce’s car entered my thoughts. I hadn’t given him much consideration during that night; the whole event had been so surreal he had faded into the background. I hadn’t thought of him again until this day, but now that I had it was clear his presence was the only one that hadn’t fit. It still didn’t.

Unless he was there because of me. Was that possible? Did Bruce
want incriminating evidence against me? If so, for what reason? Had I done something wrong?

After a few minutes, the steady rhythm of the tires on the blacktop began to infiltrate my brain. I could feel myself slipping away. I kicked off my shoes and allowed myself to drift. Perhaps some sleep really was what I needed. There wasn’t anything I had to know that wouldn’t wait at least until I got to school.

I slept hard and woke with a jolt when the car came to a sudden stop.

“Sorry, sir,” Sonny said in his heavy accent. “We’re here.”

Eleven days of nonstop time zone change had finally caught up to me. My head was heavy and dark. I pushed open the car door and nearly fell into the cool evening air.

“Have a good night,” I said to Sonny. “Thanks.”

I shook my head, trying to clear the cobwebs, and stumbled to the bench by the playground, the same bench where I’d sat with Betsy two days before. The breeze was helping to restore my head. I dug around in my briefcase and found two after-dinner mints, which I popped quickly into my mouth. The sugar helped stimulate my mind and I thought of Ciara, who’d grabbed a handful of the mints from a bowl at the host stand as we left the restaurant. Could that really have been only yesterday?

I took my phone from my breast pocket and opened the e-mail from Claire. There were eleven attachments. As I waited for them to download I let my head roll back and enjoyed the sun on my face, those delightful final rays before sunset, glowing and warm.