That was a nice dream. A dream of fresh sheets and room service, safe sex, and a promise of escape that I’d never have.
But every dream ends, and I had to return to reality the next morning.
Ariel and I walked out of her hotel together to prolong the last embers of that dream, until she got into a taxi for the airport and I headed for my car to the office.
Mark was back from Mexico when I walked in.
“Que pedo güey!” he cried, Mexican slang for “What’s up, dude!” or its equivalent.
“Mark, how can you spend a whole week in Mexico and still come back white as a sheet?”
“I am tan-proof, sir. My deepest mark as an Englishman.”
Benjamin and Olivia were watching and logging the videos on Sandra’s laptop. There was one of Darren, Powys, and six other bankers in balaclavas and tracksuits in a conference room at Holloway-Browner, shouting and laughing as they gathered around Jack Higglesworth. He was in an orange jumpsuit and on his knees.
“Is that—?” I began to ask.
“We are here to execute our brethren who has failed to live up to our code and make maximum moolah!” cried Darren in the video.
The other bankers yelled in agreement.
“Failure is a disgrace to us all! He is to be punished! He must pay!”
“OFF WITH HIS HEAD!” they cried.
“Jackie boy, your volumes lack volume! You are crap!”
Gavin began to mime sawing Jack’s head off with a wooden ruler while the others clapped and laughed.
I realized that Sandra was the one behind the camera, filming on her phone.
“Well. That’s fucked,” deadpanned David.
“Completely off their faces on coke,” Benjamin said.
“This is probably not an approved team-building exercise,” Marcie said.
“I take it Roger’s seen this?” I asked.
“He was well pleased,” Cheryl said. “More leverage.”
“Leverage for what?”
“Whatever deal he might want to make with the bank down the line.”
“Oh. Of course.”
Roger came out of his office in announcement mode.
“I just got off the phone with the editor of the Morning Post. They’re leaning on us about the password. Where are we on that?”
“Nowhere,” Olivia said.
“And Holloway-Browner’s legal department called earlier,” Cheryl said. “They were fishing about Ms. Rodriguez and, quote, ‘any confidential information she might have passed onto us.’ ”
“How did they know about us?” I asked.
“My guess is the Post must have called them to fish for information and get a statement,” Cheryl said.
“They’re applying pressure on us from two fronts,” Roger said.
“I better prepare a brief,” David said. “If we’re getting accused of theft of confidential papers, I want us to be prepared. Cheryl, if Holloway’s lawyers call again, put them through to me.”
“Ravi,” Roger said, “you have my permission to do whatever it takes to get that password out of Ms. Rodriguez. If we don’t know what’s on that drive, we can’t control the situation.”
“But that affects her, not us. Why do you want the information, boss?”
“Leverage, old son. Now, be firm. Don’t be her psychiatrist. Don’t be her priest. You need to be teacher here. Sir is very cross. Drag it out of her.”
“Why do I get the feeling you know something I don’t?”
“I always know something you don’t, old son. Now on your bike.”