Kill screen, p.14
Kill Screen, page 14
Not anymore.
“Jack, I’m lying,” Claire said. “The truth is I’m not okay. I’m worried.”
“Oh,” I said trying not to panic.
“I’m worried about us.”
I panicked.
She leaned forward, ignoring the couple next to us.
“It’s just…you’re never happy, Jack. You never seem to enjoy yourself when we’re together.”
I couldn’t help but look over at the strangers next to us. I certainly wasn’t enjoying myself in that moment. I drained the rest of my wine; it rested queasily next to the remains of the two Beam and Cokes I’d had at the strip club. The image of Hiro’s car-dented body flashed in front of me, and I suddenly felt like I might puke up half my upper intestines.
“I feel like there is a growing distance between us,” Claire continued. “I feel like you’re always someplace far away.”
Were we really going to do this here? Now?
“I’m right here,” I assured, trying to be charming, but my chair shook as the man next to me accidentally nudged it, and irritation leaked through my voice.
“But I don’t feel like you are here. I never know what you’re thinking. Or what you’re feeling. Sometimes when we’re together, I feel like I’m still alone.”
I understood exactly what she meant. I felt that way no matter whom I was with.
Claire looked as if she wanted me to say something, and I glanced out the window, hoping she wouldn’t say anything more. A homeless man stared back at me from across the street. We locked eyes. I didn’t want to face Claire. It was easier to face society’s failures.
“Jack, please say something. What are you thinking?”
“Claire, I’m dealing with a lot of junk right now. My best friend just died and I lost my job. Can we talk about this later?”
I spoke softly, almost meekly, only willing to look at her reflection in the wine in front of us. It was a weak defense. Our relationship was a mess for many reasons, but Dexter wasn’t one of them.
“Do you find me attractive anymore?”
Claire’s voice quavered, and her eyes were pooling. She remained poised, but she was only a single word away from breaking down.
“What?” I asked, finally looking straight at her.
“Are you attracted to me?”
My jaw dropped. I couldn’t answer that. It was stupid.
The woman with the pearl necklace was watching us now. Her conversation had long since stopped. Ours was more entertaining.
“It’s just…” Claire continued hesitantly. “We rarely kiss. Sometimes you seem almost repulsed by my touch. And we never–”
“Don’t.” I shook my head.
“We never have sex anymore, Jack. What’s wrong with us?”
An angry flash came over me, but I was too aware of the prying eyes next to us. I tried to be discrete, leaning forward and keeping my voice down.
“What kind of relationship do you think we’re capable of? Not a normal one. What do you want from me?”
“I want you to act like you care about me.”
She was beginning to raise her voice. The woman with the pearl necklace couldn’t take her eyes off us. Was Claire trying to corner me in public? I felt my face flush.
“Look honey, I’m sorting through a few things Dexter left unfinished, and right now–”
“Stop hiding behind the dead!” she yelled. “You say now’s not a good time. Last week wasn’t a good time either. Last month wasn’t a good time. Will there ever be a good time, Jack? Will you ever care enough?”
My chair jiggled again as the man next to me reloaded his fork. My body went ridged as every muscle in my body clenched into a fist. I could hear the rumble of restrained energy in my own voice.
“Claire please, I am justifiably preoccupied. Dexter was working on this thing, this program–”
“He killed himself, Jack. He was depressed.”
“No, there’s more to it than that. There is an AI program. Something he called Evi–”
“AI program? Jack! This conversation isn’t about Dexter.”
Claire took a moment to breathe. The lady beside her was still enjoying her intimate view of our personal lives. I shot her a brief glance, warning her to mind her own damn business. She ignored it.
Our appetizer arrived: bruschetta with roasted sweet red peppers. It would have been delicious, but we didn’t touch it.
“I want you to answer a question,” Claire said holding back tears. “And I need you to be completely honest.”
The man next to me elbowed my chair. I felt sick.
“Do you love me?” she said.
Shit!
I took a deep breath, then somehow managed to come up with an answer that was worse than “No.”
“I…I don’t know what I’m capable of feeling anymore.”
Claire looked away. With a painted nail, she brushed one tear from her eye.
Claire had always seemed distinguished – as powerful as royalty. Even then, on the verge of heartbreak, she’d never looked more beautiful. Her head remained high as she kept perfect posture. Her skin glistened in the glow of dozens of small restaurant candles. Dark hair cascaded around her thin neck – a raven frame for her subtle, angular features. She could have had any man. Why did she even bother with me?
Something terrible was happening. As I sat in front of a wasted appetizer watching Claire cry, the emotions I’d carefully chained down for so many years began to slip out of their shackles. I realized the answer to Claire’s question. Yes. Of course, I loved her. I had for a long time.
Now it was too late.
While my passion was eating through my belly, an ugly snake began uncoiling beneath Claire’s skin. I had been feeding it venom for years, and soon the killer inside her would strike back.
“I’m sorry, Claire,” I tried. “I’m a mess. Dexter committed suicide. Do you know how many memories that brings up?”
“Jack, do you realize how selfish you sound?”
She didn’t bother catching her tears anymore.
“You’re right,” I said meekly. “But I keep thinking that maybe I’m partially to blame. I feel like I should have seen this coming. Like I should have known what my friend was going through. I should have stopped it.”
“Are you sure you’re talking about Dexter?” she spat. “And not Jill?”
I reeled back. The serpent went for the throat.
“The truth is, she’s the one that’s been keeping us apart all these years. Even though she’s been dead, she’s still alive to you.”
“That’s not fair–”
“You can’t forgive her for killing herself, and you can’t forgive yourself because you think you drove her to it.”
I couldn’t breathe. Her poison was making my hands shake. For a moment, my vision went dark. Then the adrenaline hit my heart. My muscles tightened and anger rinsed away my paralysis.
The man next to me elbowed by chair again, and my hand snapped over to grab his arm.
“If you do that again, I will snap your arm off,” I barked.
He gave me a shocked, innocent expression. It didn’t matter. I was already on my feet. My chair fell backwards to the ground somewhere behind me. I shot one long finger at the woman with the pearl necklace.
“And mind your own fucking business!”
Her mouth gaped in horror.
The restaurant’s atmosphere dimmed.
I focused on Claire. My hand was open, pointed at her like a knife. I had the whole restaurant’s attention, and I didn’t know what to do with it. I wrapped my hand into a fist, and it hovered at my side. I could think of nothing good to say, so I clenched my jaw.
“I’ll walk home,” still managed to leak out of my throat as I threw money on the table. A corner of one of the bills landed on the Bruschetta. Its edge would remain stained red – just one of the many things that would be left with a scar that night.
The people next to us stared at each other. Now they were overtly trying to act like they weren’t paying attention.
“So you’re just going to leave?” Claire asked.
I said nothing as I turned on my heels.
“Damn it, Jack!” she screamed as she followed me out the door. “Don’t ignore me.”
I was halfway across the street before she made it outside. I’d twisted my ankle in a pothole, but limped stubbornly down the street trying not to show the pain.
Claire called for me. I could feel her presence somewhere far behind. Motionless. Waiting for me to turn around. She was right: about pushing her away, about Jill, about everything. I kept walking. Each step increased more than just the physical distance between us. I turned at the end of the block, and was out of her line of sight.
My head began to ache. My jaw was still clenched.
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The memory was only two years old, but it was ancient.
As I walked home from Luigi’s, I relived it. My mind replayed the events in real time. It was August. It was misting. Another woman’s sweat was on my skin. I approached my apartment from the emptiness of a dark street, and, in my memory, the wind picked up.
I shivered with the chill.
The environment played its part. My building’s front lock fought with me. It didn’t want to let me in. The door hissed angrily as I forced it open. Two of the front hall lights were out, exactly like they had been two years before. I could feel the hall breathing – its walls expanding in the darkness. Even the stairs cackled behind me as I climbed them.
I put my key in the door. Its tumblers offered no resistance; the door was already unlocked. The apartment screamed silence. I couldn’t see her, but I could smell her. The walls echoed her ghostly sobs. She was home. She was waiting for me.
And she was very unhappy.
I wanted to turn and run, but that wasn’t how it happened.
I walked up to the bedroom door. Two years ago, I had stood here and listened to her cry. That was the night she caught me. That was the night she followed me over to Claire’s and witnessed my infidelity.
That was the last night I’d had sex with Claire.
I couldn’t face my dead wife again. Only an inch and a half of wood separated me from her, but I couldn’t open it. That strength had left me.
Her memory opened the door for me. The sobbing stopped, and with one clean motion, the door swung away.
Even as a memory, she was radiant. Even dead and stained by years of tears, she was more glorious than a battlefield. Her presence crippled me. She was like a powerful drug, overpowering me with uncertain fear just as the needle slipped in and the world slipped out.
For a moment, I hoped I would pass out. But that wasn’t how it happened.
My throat – dry as gravel – belched out, “I’m sorry.”
It didn’t matter. She was angry, and she was shaking violently with despair.
A taste like cancer settled in my mouth.
“I love you,” I said.
It was too late.
“Please forgive me,” I pleaded.
She couldn’t.
She asked me why I’d done it.
I didn’t have an answer for her.
I could hear death hiding in her shadow, preparing to pounce. Then there was a gun in her hand, and I was alert to the intent in her eyes. The first time I jumped back from fear that she might shoot me. This time, I prayed she would.
I willed her to point the gun at me. But that wasn’t how it happened.
My dead wife pressed the gun to her head and pushed a bullet through her brain.
In the stillness of memory, I helplessly watched it all unravel in slow motion. The trigger pulled. The hammer dropped. The flame and bullet exploded in opposite directions. The gory effect of physics.
In my imagination, I try to rewind it all. I try to stop her. But that wasn’t how it happened. I held her all night, as her dreams drained from her skull.
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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: ROUND TWO, PROPOSAL
At more than 25-feet-per second, D.B. Hayward Network’s state-of-the-art elevator rocketed me into the heights of San Francisco’s Financial District. Just a few blocks from the Transamerica Pyramid, Mr. Hayward’s offices may not have been as tall as the famous landmark, but the complex didn’t sit under anyone’s shadow.
Not content to have merely one successful business, nearly twenty years ago, David had begun expanding his empire into real estate and property management. He now owned everything from restaurants to sporting goods stores to an office supply chain. He needed an office large enough to hold his ego. Even in a concrete forest of commercial structures, the Hayward building was a bold symbol of American profit. Home to nearly 100 different retailers and corporate offices, the building featured one four-star restaurant, five cafés, a bookstore, an indoor rec room complete with a pool, a two-story indoor atrium, and a rooftop garden. A web of 18 elevators shuttled workers and visitors to and from a 300-car underground garage.
Seated atop all forty-three floors of steel, glass, and corporate filching was David Hayward’s personal office – his throne room.
With the gentle sway of a docked ship, the elevator came to a stop and its metal etched doors glided open. I’d been a busy man that day, franticly running between banks and law offices in preparation for this moment.
I had spent time with Meryl reviewing our original contracts. She hadn’t worked for us when Dexter and I originally signed them, and after looking it all over, she was surprised we had. There was no legal way out of the hole we had dug for ourselves. Our situation was worse than I ever realized. But here I was, hat in hand, at David’s office. One last-ditch effort to save the company. It was time to finish what Dexter had backed down from. I took a deep breath, then charged forward.
I was immediately road blocked by Emmerich. Mr. Hayward’s personal assistant strode out from behind two potted bamboo trees.
“Jack,” he greeted with mock surprise.
“Mr. … Emmerich,” I replied, haughty yet hesitant.
I realized I didn’t know his last name. Emmerich probably was his last name, for all I knew.
“You’re here to see David?” he asked pointlessly.
He knew why I was here.
“Yes, I need to–”
“Unfortunately, Jack, he’s a little busy right now. Why don’t we schedule an appointment?”
With a practiced frown, he tried to motion me back towards the elevators. I stood firm.
“He’s going to have to see me now.”
Emmerich put his hand on my shoulder, trying to look sympathetic.
“This is about what happened to the dev studio, isn’t it?”
“This is about what happened to my dev studio,” I corrected.
He sighed.
“I’ll be frank, Jack. I think it would be best if you took some time off. You don’t look good, you could use a break.”
“I haven’t been sleeping well,” I grumbled.
“Well, go home. Get some rest. We’re not disbanding the company, just restructuring it. You’ll be back to work before you know it. Let us handle the heavy lifting for a while. Just think of it as a vacation. Right now, the only thing you need to take care of is you.”
He tapped my chest with one of his long, knobby fingers.
I pushed it away.
“Don’t patronize me.”
His hands shot up in defense.
“Whoa Jack, I’m not the bad guy here. I’m just the messenger. And I’m telling you, David is dealing with some important personal business at the moment. Now is not the best time–”
“Yeah? Personal business? Is that what he’s doing? Well this is the most important business he has right now, and I feel like it’s very personal.”
I pushed my way through Emmerich’s blockade. He grabbed my arm. The tone of his voice dipped – reaching an almost threatening octave.
“Come on Jack, let’s be civil.”
“How about civil action?”
I slid a business card into the breast pocket of his sports coat.
“That’s my lawyer. You might be getting a call. The police have some questions about a break-in at Dexter’s house.”
“Jack,” he tried to say sympathetically, but it just came out pathetically.
“I know you’d like to pretend that everything is cool – that you can just roll over me, steal my company and I’ll just take it, but that’s not what’s going to happen.”
Emmerich’s jaw snapped shut. I’d never seen him struggle for words before.
“Oh, and one of my engineers says he’s being followed. Was that you? Or did David have someone else trailing him?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he insisted, not looking me in the eyes.
“Sure you don’t. Leave him alone.”
Emmerich looked around to make sure we were alone. For a brief moment, I thought he was going to hit me, but then he edged forward and whispered.
“This isn’t worth fighting for, Jack. Let it go.”
“You know, I still owe you a concussion.” I pointed to the scar on my forehead. “Should I collect on that now?”
I’d never dreamed of saying something like that before. It was the kind of gruff, take-no-shit language that Philip Marlowe might have used.
It felt wonderful.
I stared Emmerich down. I could tell that he feared me – if only a little. For a second, I thought about hitting him anyway, but I had more important business to deal with. I slowly reached for the electronic keycard attached to Emmerich’s belt and used it to open the glass door in front of us. He didn’t even try to stop me. Before I turned the corner at the end of the hall, I glanced back to see Emmerich’s sad, worried figure staring at the floor. It was almost as good as hitting him.
My heels clacked over black ceramic tiling, and I passed rows of potted Bonsais before entering Mr. Hayward’s reception area. His secretary – seated at a spacious cedar desk – stood as I breezed past.
