2

 

 

Oswald dismissed me, and once outside of the meeting room torture chamber, I headed down the hall towards the bank of elevators at the far end of the building. About halfway down, I passed a brightly lit lunchroom. It had four wooden tables and folding chairs, a bank of vending machines against the wall, and a counter with some coffee making stuff, a microwave and a small sink. There was a small white refrigerator over in the corner.

Digby Allen was sitting at one of the tables. He was alone in the room and he looked like he might be alone in all the world. He was just sitting there, staring at the wall. His face was red. Hands were clasped in his lap, and I noticed they were clasped so tightly his fingers were white.

Don’t ask me why, because I couldn’t give you a cogent answer, but I went in. I walked over to the coffee counter, inserted one of those plastic pod cup things, pushed the button, waited for my cup of joe to stream out and took it over to the table where Digby was sitting.

“Mind if I join you?” I said and pulled out a chair and sat down.

He didn’t respond.

“That was my first meeting with The Assassin,” I said. “They all go like that?”

He didn’t respond. Didn’t even look at me. I sipped some coffee.

“Dunno,” I said, “Based on that meeting, I’d call him The Ass, not the Assassin.”

Digby smiled at that. Well, I saw the corners of his mouth twitch a little in what seemed to me like an upward arc. Could have been a smile.

“He wants to fire me,” Digby said. His voice was a hollow whisper. It came from a place of despair somewhere deep inside. “He thinks I’m a fucking idiot.”

“Yeah, well, Hacker’s first rule is you don’t care what they think,” I said. “You just do the best you can. If he doesn’t like that, well, that’s on him, not you.”

“Who’s Hacker?” he said.

I stuck out my hand. “That’d be me,” I said.

“Oh,” he said and this time he did smile. Sheepishly. “I’m Digby Allen.” He shook my hand. His hand felt moist.

“Yeah, I got that,” I said. “I also got that you need to do something about that router thingy.”

“The w-what?”

“Whatever it is that keeps breaking down,” I said. “Oswald and that well-dressed dandy—what is that guy’s name, anyway?”

Digby chuckled. “That’s Arnie Wasserman,” he said. “Ben’s shadow. His assistant. Title is associate producer.”

“Yeah, well, Arnie says that this is the sixth time that equipment has failed,” I said. “How come?”

Digby shrugged. “AirWaves provides all that gear,” he said. “They’re in charge of uplinking the bird to our control room. Every time it’s failed, I tell them they need to fix it, and they haven’t. And I get the blame.”

“Who is AirWaves?”

He looked at me and smiled a bit more.

“You’re that new guy, right?” he said, nodding to himself as if saying that’s why he’s such a dummy. “We contract with outside companies for almost everything on the production side these days,” he explained. “One company trucks in all the gear and sets up the infrastructure around the course. Cables and relays and signal intensifiers and all that stuff. Another company sets up the flybox…er…the control room. Somebody else provides and sets up the cameras and sound. They put microphones all over the course. IBS owns nothing. Everything is leased or contracted out. Ben and about twenty network guys come in and produce the show. And the talent belongs to IBS. But most of the gear belongs to someone else, even though me and the other people in the Tech department have to keep it running during the show.”

“Ah,” I said. “Outsourcing. It’s great unless it doesn’t work.”

Digby nodded. “Right,” he said.

“So have you told AirWaves about the latest failure?”

He shrugged. And looked sad again.

“Yeah,” he said. “Got the same old, same old.”

I sipped some of my coffee and thought for a minute. The coffee was horrible and I almost spit it out, but that would have coated poor Digby and he already had enough problems.

“Can you get someone from AirWaves on the phone?” I said. “Someone high up the chain.”

“Right now?” Digby asked, eyebrows raised.

“No time like the present,” I said, giving him my best earnest smile. Which usually didn’t work on most people. But it did with Digs.

He pulled out his phone, punched and swiped on it and finally hit the speaker button and put the phone down on the table. We listened to the metallic ringing and then someone answered.

“Hello, Digby,” said the voice on the other end. “Why are you bothering me again?”

“Who the hell is this?” I said, turning my voice into a harsh rasp. Digby reared back in shock.

“This is Bill Frankel at AirWaves,” the voice said. “Who the hell are you?”

“I’ll tell you who this is,” I barked back. “I’m the goddam Grim Reaper who’s about to make your fucking life miserable, you worthless piece of shit. Now you listen up and get this straight. Your chickenshit piece of worthless crap known as a control synthesizer failed to upload correctly last week. That’s the sixth time that shit has happened, and my man Digby tells me that he’s complained about it all six times. So I want you to hear this loud and clear, and it’s coming from the top, do you understand? The T-O-P! And this is the message…if that fucking thing goes down again…ever…I will cancel the fucking contract between IBS and AirWaves so fast that the ink will catch fire. You got that? I’ve already spent more time on this fucking bullshit than I want to think about. And I’m not gonna debate with you or reason with you or even talk with you about this again. You are going to find and fix this problem today or you can go peddle your worthless junk to some cable station in Paducah that doesn’t give a crap. This is fuckin’ IBS and I will not put up with your bullshit incompetence. Have I made myself as clear as a fucking bell, Bill?”

“Y-yes, Ben,” the voice said. “I will personally take care of this right away.”

“See that you do, you moron,” I said. “And one more thing…next time Digby calls to tell you something didn’t work right, you better goddam take care of it right then and there. If I ever hear that he’s being ignored again …”

“Right Ben,” the voice said. “Please, accept my personal apology. We’ll get that thing fixed. And I’ll call Digby and apologize to him.”

“That’s more like it,” I said. I reached over and punched the call disconnect button.

Digby Allen, who had been listening to this with ever widening eyes and mouth agape, could only shake his head.

“You sounded just like him,” he said, sounding amazed. “How did you do that?”

“Just one of my many talents,” I said. “I think Bill bought it. Do you?”

“Oh, yeah,” Digby said. “Totally.”

“Good,” I said. “And now he thinks that you and Ben are tight, so he’ll likely spread the word that Digby Allen is one connected dude, not to be fucked with. I think you’ll find that going forward AirWaves are a lot more responsive.”

“Geez,” Digby said. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” I said. I got up and tossed my cup of awful coffee in the waste bin. “You going to be down in Savannah?”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “I’ll be there.”

“I’ll see you later, then.”

I left. Hacker’s good deed for the day.