The Job (26 page)

As I headed toward the elevator, Rubinek blocked my path. He already had the printout of today’s sales figures in his hand. Staring down at the accordion-like pages, he said, “Get desperate and call a couple of friends, Allen?”

I maintained a mildly befuddled tone.

“What was that, Mr. Rubinek?”

“Five sales in one afternoon, that’s what. Which makes me wonder if you might have resorted to friends or family to save your bacon.”

“I just had a good day, that’s all.”

As I tried to walk away he blocked my path again.

“If you’re such a goddamn sales whiz, maybe I should increase your quota to eighteen units every week.”

I suddenly felt that surge of intrepid ness which always hit whenever someone underestimated my ability.

“Mr. Rubinek, I will achieve whatever quota you set.”

“Six more units by close of business tomorrow, or you’re history.”

He walked away, then turned back and said, “I don’t like you, Allen. I don’t like you at all.”

He liked me even less when, by 1:14 on Friday afternoon, those six new units were closed. I was the Golden Boy, I could do no wrong. Or, at least, that’s how I felt as I headed off for the weekend. As I walked by the Jellyfish’s office, he gave me the petulant scowl of a bully who had been shown up. For today, anyway.

I didn’t do anything stupid with my paycheck-because the recovered sofa showed up just after I arrived home from work that afternoon and the delivery guy had a COD invoice, which (as the acronym indicates) had to be paid on the spot, forcing me to write ac heck for funds I didn’t have in my account (but which would be on deposit Monday morning when the first week’s money from PC Solutions hit my account). The sofa looked whiter than white. Lizzie would be happy.

As he Was leaving the guy said, “Your wife has left, hasn’t she?”

“How’d you know that?” I asked.

“You kidding me?” he said as he scanned the apartment. Stacks of empty fast-food cartons, brimming ashtrays, crushed beer cans, a half dozen dishes with congealed food stacked high in the sink, an overflowing garbage can.

“Piece of advice, bud,” the delivery guy said.

“If you don’t want to make the acquaintance of a divorce lawyer, I’d get a maid in here before your wife comes home.”

He was right: The apartment currently looked like a stretch of industrial wasteland. I resolved to spend the rest of the evening thoroughly cleaning it. Just as I also resolved to disassociate myself from cigarettes and eat nothing but sushi for the next two weeks, as (according to our bathroom scales this morning) my weight had ballooned-by twelve pounds-to 187, and I was having major difficulty squeezing into my pants.

But before I commenced this weekend of clean-living virtue, I decided to have one final cigarette, chased with my last can of Busch, while listening to my phone messages. There was only one. It was from Lizzie. She sounded pleasant in a distant sort of way.

“Hi there, it’s just me. It’s around nine A.M. L.A. time, so you won’t be hearing this until you get home from work tonight. I’ve got to fly to San Francisco this morning to see a client, then I’m rendezvousing with a bunch of people from the office at this hotel near Carmel. Kind of a last-minute thing, but I’ve never been along that section of the Pacific Coast Highway, so…”

I sank down on the couch.

“Rendezvousing with a bunch of people from the office at this hotel near Carmel.” What bunch of people? And why didn’t you leave me the name of the goddamn hotel?

“.. . since I probably won’t be back at the Mondrian till after midnight on Sunday, it’s probably best if you reach me at the office on Monday. And I do want to talk to you on Monday because…”

Please don’t say I’ve got some news.

“.. . well, you should know, there’s some talk around the office about me possibly extending my stay out here for, maybe, four to six months….”

The cigarette shook in my hand. Ash fell onto the whiter-than-white sofa. I stared at it.

“Anyway, nothing’s definite or decided. But call me Monday and we’ll talk it all through.

“Bye.”

Click.

I sat on the sofa for a long time, unable to move, the cigarette burning down to the filter, forcing me to douse it in the can of Busch. One thought blanketed my mind: I’ve lost her. Even if this weekend in Carmel was just an innocent outing with a bunch of work mates she still didn’t want me to have the name and number of the hotel. And if it wasn’t innocent…

Jealousy was a word that never entered my domestic vocabulary. Nor was infidelity. I played the monogamous game-and, to the best of my knowledge, so did Lizzie (I would have been astonished to discover otherwise). But now…

Stop it, stop it. You have no evidence that she’s suddenly up to no good. She just doesn’t want to hear the sound of your voice right now. On the scale of marital disasters, not wanting to talk to your spouse ranks pretty high-but at least she’s not screwing some other guy.

Still, the realization hit: If her company was planning to extend her stay at the L.A. office by at least four months, and if she remained unenthusiastic about the idea of my joining her on the Coast, then our future prospects together were nothing short of dismal.

I grabbed the phone, punched in the 310 area code followed by the number for Lizzie’s West Coast office. I asked to be put through to her secretary.

“Ms. Howard is away until Monday. May I ask who’s calling?”

“Her husband.”

“Oh.”

“She didn’t leave a number where she can be reached over the weekend?”

“I’m not allowed to give out that information.”

“Like I said, I am her husband.”

“I’m sure you are, but I still can’t give out that number….”

“Can you at least get a message to her?”

“I can try. Is it urgent?”

I wanted to say it was an emergency to ensure that Lizzie did call me back. But I figured that she’d be amazed to discover that the emergency” was simply a ruse to make her phone me. And I didn’t need any further black marks against my name in Lizzie’s book. So all I said was, “Just tell her, if she wants to talk, I’ll be home all weekend.”

“I’ll make sure she gets the message.”

By Sunday afternoon, I was wondering if Lizzie did get the message. Because she hadn’t called me yet. As my anxiety grew, so, too, did my obsessive need to tidy up my life. So I became relentlessly preoccupied with neatness. I purged the refrigerator of all high-calorie crap. I rid the apartment of junk-food boxes, brimming garbage bags, and all other trash. I emptied ashtrays, and cleaned the bathtub, and scrubbed sinks, and vacuumed carpets, and dusted with Pledge. I laundered sheets and washed windows, and even rearranged my sock drawer. I made a visit to my local D’Agostino’s and came back with six bottles of mineral water and two bags brimming with fresh fruit. I stuck to a fruit-and-water diet all weekend, and shed three pounds by Sunday. Though I didn’t manage to go cold turkey on the cigarette habit, I still restricted myself to three a day. And on Sunday afternoon, in an attempt to work off some excess flab (and major stress), I grabbed my tennis racket and a couple of balls, and headed over to a playground off Twentieth Street and Ninth Avenue, where there was a handball court that worked just fine as a backboard.

It was a cold, gray afternoon, and I had the playground to myself. As I slammed the ball against the wall-practicing my ground strokes, sharpening my backhand, and musing on the fact that this was not exactly the New York Health and Racquet Club-I suddenly heard a voice behind me.

“Preparing for the Open, Allen?”

I turned around and found myself looking at Jerry Schubert. He was standing with a very tall, very thin blonde woman in her early twenties. Without question, a model.

“Is this your local club?” Jerry asked as I shook his hand.

“Yeah, and I’m its only member. Do you live around here?”

“No, I’m down in SoHo. But Cindy here is the Chelsea-ite.”

He introduced us. Cindy Mason had a deep southern drawl.

“Where are you from, Cindy?”

“Little ol’ town called Charlotte, North Carolina.”

“I’ve heard of it,” I said.

“You’re awful good with a racket,” she said.

“D’you play professionally?”

“If I did, I wouldn’t be on this playground.”

“I saw the piece in the Journal about the CompuWorld business,” Jerry said, then added with a smile, “and about the way you improved German-American relations.”

“Yeah-that was my fifteen minutes of fame.”

“Do you know what Mr. Ballantine said after reading the story?

“That guy has done something that ninety percent of the American workforce dream about.”” “Oh, everyone was really impressed-except any and all future employers.”

“Are things tough now?”

“You could say that-computer software tele sales isn’t exactly my idea of a good time.”

“I did tele sales for a week when I first came to New York,” Cindy said.

“It was the pits.”

“Believe me, it still is. But I’m sure I’ll find something better by the time I’m forty. How are things with the Great Motivator?”

“Booming. He’s got a new book out in midsummer, followed by a thirty-five-city promotional tour. And we’ve also been diversifying a bit. Setting up a couple of interesting investment projects. Give me a call sometime. I’ll buy you lunch and tell you all about them. You still have my number?”

I nodded. And accepted Jerry’s outstretched hand.

“Don’t be a stranger,” he said.

“Real nice meeting you,” Cindy said.

“Hope you find a better tennis partner than that ol’ wall.”

As they headed off down the street, Jerry put his arm around Cindy’s narrow waist and she leaned her head against his shoulder. And I felt a desperate stab of envy. He had a career, a woman, a future. Everything I once had. Until the mistakes were made, and that life was suddenly gone.

I kept pounding tennis balls against the wall until the onset of evening forced me to return to the empty apartment. I maintained my fruit-and-water diet, I smoked my designated evening cigarette, I squandered a few more hours in front of the television, I went to bed and couldn’t sleep. At midnight, I tried Lizzie’s hotel room in

L.A. No answer. I popped some melatonin tablets and drank a mug of chamomile tea. At one, I called L.A. again.

“Sorry, Ms. Howard is still out.” I channel-surfed, and ended up gazing mindlessly at an infomercial for a revolutionary teeth-whitening system. At two, I gave the Mondrian Hotel one last call. Lizzie was still out. So I left a message asking her to call me anytime. Then, resisting the temptation to drink a sleep-inducing beer, I fell back into bed, taking with me the latest Tom Clancy novel. It had the desired effect. After fifteen minutes my brain finally closed down.

And then it was morning. And the phone was ringing. I squinted at the clock radio, remembering that I had forgotten to set it. 8:03. Shit. Shit. Shit. I’d never make the eight-thirty punchin time at PC Solutions. The Jellyfish would be delighted; it would allow him to double my quota for the week. I’d blown it. Yet again.

I sat up in bed, my head still fogged in with sleep. The phone kept ringing. I managed to pick it up and mumble a “Yeah?”

“Am I speaking to a Mr. Ned Allen?” asked a brisk-sounding woman. A telemarketer, no doubt.

“Are you selling something?” I asked.

The woman was annoyed.

“I am not selling anything. I am simply trying to find a Mr. Ned Allen. Is this Mr. Allen?”

“Yeah, that’s me.”

“My name is Detective Debra Kaster….”

Now I was totally confused.

“I’m talking to a cop?”

“You are talking to a detective from the Hartford, Connecticut, P.O.”

Hartford? Why the hell would a cop be calling me from Hartford?

“I’m sorry,” I said, “I’m kind of half awake. And late for work. Could you maybe call me back?”

She ignored that request and said, “Do you know a Mr. Ivan Dolinsky?”

I was suddenly very awake.

“Ivan? Sure I know him.”

“What’s your relationship to him?”

“Has something happened?”

“Please answer the question, Mr. Allen.”

“I was his boss for two years. Is he okay?”

“He left your name and number in his note….”

“Note? What note?”

There was a long silence. And I was suddenly shuddering. Because I knew what she was going to tell me.

“I regret to inform you that Mr. Dolinsky took his life last night.”

She was waiting for me at the station. Late forties. Five foot two. Silver hair. A navy-blue pantsuit that accentuated her slight chunkiness. A bulge on her hip where her service revolver was not-so-discreetly hidden beneath her blazer. A handshake that temporarily blocked all circulation to my fingers.

“Ned Allen?” she asked as she approached me on the station platform.

“Detective Kaster.”

“Nice of you to pick me up,” I said.

“All part of the service. Thanks for getting up here this morning. We like to settle these matters as quickly as possible. Was your boss okay about you taking the day off?”

No.

“Oh, he’s one of those, is he?”

“Understatement of the year.”

“You want, I can call him myself, explain why we needed you here.”

“Thanks, but it wouldn’t do much good. The guy scores zero on the sympathy front.”

In fact, when I had called the Jellyfish right after getting the call from Detective Kaster-and explained that I was needed at the Hartford morgue to identify a body-he asked, “Was the deceased a family member?”

“No, a guy I used to work with, but-” “If it was a family member, you’d be entitled to three days off on full pay. But if he was just a guy you used to work with-” “Look, he’s pot no real next of kin so.”

” “That’s his problem. You gotta go up to Hartford, you lose your pay for today. If you’re not here tomorrow, you lose Tuesday’s and your quota jumps by three. Got me?”

“I’ll be there tomorrow,” I said, and then hung up before I said something that might get me fired.

We got into Raster’s unmarked Ford Escort. She fastened her seat belt, turned the key in the ignition, reached into the glove compartment, and pulled out a pack of Merit cigarettes.