A Novel Page 4

  “I wish he could,” he said, looking at me with pained eyes. “But he hanged himself.”

  For the next few moments his words floated unanswered in the tense atmosphere. The man again wiped his eyes and replaced his glasses. “You didn’t just take his money, Mr. James. You took his hope. So he killed himself. You remember that the next time you steal someone’s hope from them.”

  He stood. “I don’t care about the money. I just want my son back. His name was Erik West. He wasn’t just another fool in the audience. He had a name. And a family. You remember that name. Erik West.” He walked past me to the door. “You’re a crook, James. And someday you’re going to pay.” Then he walked out of my office.

  Chapter Five

  Crazy or crook, I am miserable.

  —CHARLES JAMES’S DIARY

  Erik West.

  It wasn’t the first time I’d been confronted by a disgruntled customer, verbally or even physically. It came with the territory. But it was the first time I’d been blamed for a suicide. McKay’s words from the night before came back to me. We’ve hurt a lot of people.

  “I’m not a crook,” I mumbled to myself. “I am not a crook.” I sat down at my desk. “I am not a crook.”

  I sounded like President Richard Nixon, declaring to the nation, I am not a crook. But Nixon had been a crook. Maybe I was too. Maybe I was just repeating those words over and over, hoping to believe them.

  When you boiled it down, people had lost money—money I now had or had spent frivolously. Yes, they had given their money to me willingly, but in some ways it was no different than if I had held a gun to their head. Just like a common street thug, I too preyed on fear. Fear of loss. Fear of failure. Fear of being a nobody. And I was such an expert at it, I might as well have used a gun. Weapon or not, the results were the same. I was a crook. And a father had lost his son.

  A few minutes after the man had left, Candace knocked on my open door. “Your coffee, sir.” She walked in, laid a napkin down on my desk, and set on it a Venti cup of Starbucks iced coffee. “Can I do anything else for you?” she asked.

  “You let that man in my office?” I said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Did you know him?”

  “No, sir. He said he was a friend.”

  “Did you know he was really a friend?”

  She swallowed. “No, sir.”

  “I’ve never met him before,” I said. “Did you have any reason to believe him?”

  She hesitated. “No, sir.”

  “But still you let him into my office. What if he had been here to kill me?”

  She looked horrified. “I’m very sorry. It won’t happen again.”

  “No, it won’t. Pack your desk, then let Susan in HR know you’ve been fired.”

  Her eyes filled with tears. “Yes, sir.” She turned around and quickly disappeared. I got up and shut and locked the door behind her, then came back and sent an e-mail to my HR director letting her know of the termination.

  A half hour later someone tried the handle of the door to my office and then knocked.

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s me,” Amanda said.

  “Come in.”

  “Your door’s locked.”

  I got up and opened the door, then walked back to my desk as Amanda stepped into the office behind me.

  “Why is Candace crying and cleaning out her desk?”

  “Because I just fired her.”

  “That would do it,” she said. “Pity. I liked her.”

  “There was a complete stranger waiting for me in my office when I got here. She let him in.”

  Amanda shook her head. “Who was it?”

  “The father of one of our clients.”

  She sat down in front of my desk. “Not a fan, I take it.”

  “His son committed suicide.”

  She grimaced. “Ah . . .”

  “Yeah. Ah. It’s a good thing he didn’t bring a gun.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “And the man thinks his son’s suicide is your fault?”

  “Yes, he does.”

  “You didn’t pull the trigger.”

  “No, he hanged himself. But I might have tied the noose.”

  She looked at me for a moment and said, “Maybe you shouldn’t be going to the show tonight. You’re not going to be any good onstage like this. Not to mention you’re exhausted. We need you at your best for the upcoming tour. Paulie can handle your presentation.”

  “Not tonight. I’m stage-testing the new Internet Gold marketing package. I need to see the audience’s reaction myself.”

  “And you’re sure you’re up to it?”

  “I’m always up to it. The show must go on.”

  “It can go on without you. I think you need a break. Venice is nice this time of year.”

  “I’m doing my Harley road trip.”

  “And your dream doesn’t give you pause?”

  “It’s just a dream.”

  “Maybe it’s a premonition.”

  “You know I don’t believe in crap like that.”

  She shook her head. “I know,” she said. “If you can’t touch it, it doesn’t exist.” She switched her attention to the package on my desk. It was a shoebox-size glossy black box with gold embossed lettering that read INTERNET GOLD. “Is this the new product?”

  “It’s the prototype.” I pushed it toward her.

  She picked it up, handling it admiringly. “It looks nice.”

  “At seventy-five hundred dollars, it should look more than nice. It should look like gold.”

  She set the box back on my desk. “That’s what we’re charging?”

  “You know how it works. We’ll charge what we can squeeze out of them. That’s what I want to find out tonight.”

  Amanda was quiet for a moment, then said, “You’ve been under a lot of pressure lately. And you keep having these dreams. Have you considered talking to someone about it?”

  “We are talking about it,” I said.

  “I mean a professional.” When I didn’t say anything, she added, “Like a psychiatrist.”

  “Yeah, that’s not going to happen.”

  “Why not?”

  “For one, I’m not crazy.”

  “You don’t need to be crazy to talk to a psychiatrist. You talk to one so you don’t go crazy. Maybe it would help you figure out why you’re having that dream over and over.”

  “I don’t need a shrink to tell me why I’m dreaming.”

  “Then why are you dreaming?”

  I breathed out in frustration. “I have no idea.”

  “Talking to a mental health expert helped me through my divorce.” She suddenly stood. She knew me well enough to know when she was fighting a hopeless battle. She walked over to me and kissed me on the cheek. “You are so stubborn. I care about you. At least consider it. I know a good therapist.” As she walked to the door she suddenly turned back to me. “By the way, I sent a birthday present to Gabriel.” When I didn’t respond she added, “He turned eight last Friday.”

  “Yes, I know. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said. She walked out of my office.

  I knew it was my son’s birthday because I had seen a picture of his birthday party on my Facebook news feed. He had been wearing a Batman outfit, the full-body kind with padding sewn in to look like biceps, chest, and abdominal muscles. My ex-wife, Monica, was cutting the Batman-themed cake. With the exception of Monica’s best friend, Carly, he was surrounded entirely by people I didn’t know.

  I couldn’t help but think how beautiful Monica still looked. Even though I hadn’t talked to her in years, I still thought about her. Often. I know it sounds pathetic, but I made up a fake Facebook account to follow her on social media. After what I’d done, I knew she’d never friend me.

  I put my head down on my desk. “I don’t need a shrink. I am not a crook.” I breathed out heavily. “But you are talking to yourself. You are definitely losing it.”
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br />   Chapter Six

  I’m not a believer in myth or magic. I understand so little of what I can see; I have no desire to waste my time on what I can’t.

  —CHARLES JAMES’S DIARY

  Amanda and I left for the Milwaukee seminar around four, taking Interstate 94 north along the western shore of Lake Michigan. While I’d made the trip before in less than ninety minutes, this time it took us longer than two hours. There was an accident a few miles north of Evanston that slowed traffic to a crawl.

  As I navigated the chaos, Amanda looked out her window. “You know there are monsters out there,” she said.

  “I’ve met them. They’re called auditors.”

  “I meant in the lake.”

  “Every large body of water has a mythical monster. You don’t really believe that.”

  “It’s a big world and I believe there are still things in the water we don’t know about. We’ve explored more of space than we have of our own oceans. People have seen things.”

  “Things? You mean like the Loch Ness monster?”

  “Exactly. And Big Foot.”

  “And the Easter Bunny.”

  “Now you’re mocking me,” she said.

  I laughed. “If life has taught me anything, it’s that people are generally idiots. I’m sure they see things, they’re just not what they think they are. Case in point, biologists proved that the water serpent sightings in Lake Champlain were really just otters swimming in a line. At a distance they look like a humped creature in the water.”

  “I didn’t say they’re all real. I’m just saying that I think there’s more to heaven and earth than we know.”

  “Wasn’t that Shakespeare?”

  “Why are you being so snarky?”

  “I’m always snarky. And I don’t believe in anything I don’t see and only half of what I do. The whole world is a parlor trick. Shadows and mirrors. I should know, I’m an illusionist.”

  “Yes, you are,” she said, looking back out her window. After a while she breathed out heavily. “For the record, not every myth is false.”

  “Name one,” I said.

  “The Mapinguary.”

  I glanced over at her. “The mopping what?”

  “The Mapinguary. It’s a Big Foot–like creature in South America. There have been thousands of sightings by natives.”

  “Really, the uneducated, superstitious native people said they saw a monster. That’s got to be true.”

  “I’m not done. The stories were so common that American anthropologists went down to see if they could find something. They discovered that every tribe in the region had drawn pictures of the exact same monster, even though many of the tribes had never come in contact with any other tribe. Scientists believe it’s a remnant of the giant sloth, which is believed to have gone extinct thousands of years ago.”

  “Where did you read that, the Enquirer?”

  “The New York Times.”

  I just smiled.

  “What’s the matter,” she said, “cat got your tongue?”

  “No. A Mopping Gory monster got it.”

  She laughed and shook her head. “You’re awful.” A moment later she added, “And there is a Big Foot. My great-uncle saw it.”

  Chapter Seven

  Gone are the days of Walter Cronkite, when journalists were more reporters than fabricators. Today the only difference between fiction and news is that fiction, to be accepted, has to have a basis in reality.

  —CHARLES JAMES’S DIARY

  We arrived at the InterContinental Hotel around a quarter past six, nearly half an hour later than I had planned. The reporter was already there. She was an angry, anemic-looking woman with straw-yellow hair and a faint unibrow—like a Wisconsin version of Frida Kahlo. I could smell man-hate on her fifty feet away. She stood as I walked toward her.

  “Mr. James?” she said, the tone of her voice pushing through a thin veil of civility.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting,” I said. “We got caught in traffic.”

  “I was told we have a place reserved for our interview.”

  “This way,” Amanda said, stepping forward. “I’m Amanda Glade, Mr. James’s personal assistant. Follow me, please. It’s in the back of the restaurant.”

  “Thank you,” the woman said tersely.

  Amanda spoke briefly to the restaurant’s hostess, then led us back to a room. The restaurant was crowded and I was impressed that Amanda had procured a private room for us. The reporter and I sat down at a candlelit table.

  “May I order drinks?” Amanda asked.

  “I’ll have a scotch,” I said.

  “Nothing for me,” the reporter said, even though I thought she could use a dozen stiff drinks just to loosen her up. She was one of those women who looked like she’d had a bad day for the last twenty years. Either that or she was walking around with a nail in her shoe. Maybe both.

  She turned on a hand-size digital recorder and set it on the table. “I’d like to record our interview. Do you mind?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Very well then; let’s begin.” She looked up at me. “Is this your first time in Milwaukee?” It was a softball question, a leading jab before an actual punch.

  “No. I’ve been here at least a dozen times.”

  “And they let you back?”

  It was on. I looked her in the eyes. “Is this the tone you’ll be taking for the interview?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I continued to stare her down. “Either you’re lying or you’re remarkably obtuse. You think you’re the first nasty reporter I’ve interviewed with?”

  “No,” she said. “Considering your reputation, I imagine you’ve encountered quite a few.”

  Touché.

  A server walked in with my drink. She set it down on the table in front of me.

  “Would you please wipe this table?” I said.

  She looked at the table, which, I’m sure to her and the reporter, already looked clean. “Yes, sir.” She grabbed a cloth from a nearby table and wiped it down.

  “And right there,” I said, pointing to a spot she’d missed.

  She wiped it and turned to me. “Is that okay?”

  “Thank you.” I tipped her a twenty and took a slow sip of my drink as the reporter just watched me. “You were saying?”

  “You have to admit that there are a lot of negative things being said about you.”

  “I don’t have to do anything,” I said. “Including this interview.” I considered walking out on her but decided to stay and see if I could turn the interview around. It was a game of emotional chess. I like chess. I continued. “Show me anyone who has done anything of consequence in this world who doesn’t attract criticism. Aristotle said that the only way to avoid criticism is to say nothing, do nothing, and be nothing.” I took a drink, then added, “I’ve noticed you’ve mastered all three.”

  Her jaw tensed. “Some people have called your wealth programs a sham, and your ability to get people to part with their money nothing less than psychological rape.”

  “Some people? What people?”

  She lifted a sheet of paper from her satchel. “People who have attended your seminars. Here’s a list of a few of the comments I gathered online. It wasn’t difficult finding them; there were hundreds.”

  Charles James is proof of P. T. Barnum’s words: a sucker is born every minute.

  How can you tell if James is lying? His mouth is open.

  Charles James claims to be the direct descendant of Jesse James. I believe it. He’s a crook and a bushwhacker.

  That dude’s pants must be made of asbestos.

  She looked up at me. “What do you have to say to that?”

  “The asbestos one was clever.”

  She didn’t smile. I sat back in my chair, lacing my hands behind my neck. “What do you want me to say? Haters gonna hate.”

  “Do they have reason to be angry?”

  “Your question
is nonsensical. Any idiot can be angry over anything real or imagined. In the pool of clientele we attract there’s a certain percentage who have never accepted responsibility for their lives. They’re the ones who think they can get rich without any effort on their part. Some of them never even open the package they purchased or listen to the training.”

  “But you sell the idea that everyone can be successful. Do you really believe that?”

  “Of course I do. Even you. Is there something wrong with that? Name an Ivy League school that doesn’t promote themselves with implied promises of success. But here’s the truth: Does everyone who attends Harvard walk out with a six-figure income? No. Just a six-figure school loan. But does anyone condemn Harvard for that? No, they don’t, nor should they. Because rational minds accept the fact that every student has a personal responsibility for their own achievements. An education might give someone a leg up, but it doesn’t guarantee success. So you tell me, how are we different from Harvard, or any college, for that matter?”

  She looked at me incredulously. “You’re really comparing your program to Harvard?”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “I wouldn’t demean our program like that. What I teach is far more valuable. I live in the real world, while most university professors live in the cloud-cuckoo-land of academia. I’m the son of a poor migrant worker, and today I drive an Aston Martin. I used to get up early on Saturday mornings to climb into Dumpsters to get the food other people were throwing away. How about you, Buttercup? Have you ever climbed into a Dumpster for dinner?”

  She looked back down at her paper. “The FTC has stated—”

  “You didn’t answer my question. Have you ever climbed into a Dumpster to get something to eat?”

  The question ruffled her. “No.”

  “Then what do you know about what I do? Let me guess, Mommy and Daddy sent you to Sarah Lawrence College, where you got your bachelor’s in women’s studies and journalism.”

  She looked at me with surprise. “You googled me?”

  “I didn’t need to. I’ve already met you.”

  “We’ve never met.”

  “We most certainly have. There’s a dozen of you at every daily in America. Pseudo-journalists like you aren’t made, they’re pressed from molds. They’re not educated, they’re indoctrinated. You’re not taught to think, you’re taught to regurgitate the party line, then pat yourself on the back for your moral supremacy.”