I pulled my silver-blue Mercedes 450SLC into a parking space in front of my office and, with grunting effort, extracted myself from the car. My brother Tom and I co-owned a company that sold custom advertising specialty products. The quantities were huge and our competitors were sharper than rats’ teeth.
I’d been putting together a deal for Anson Laboratories, a client that was launching a new pharmaceutical product. I’d developed a custom promotional item for them—a futuristiclooking, plastic dosage spoon that sales reps could hand out to doctors, nurses, and pharmacists when they called on them. Anson had maybe three thousand reps and was considering buying over a million spoons. Because my design was proprietary, if the deal went down right we stood to make a couple hundred thousand dollars in profit.
I had a few things to clear up on the spoons deal before I went in for surgery the next day, if I could just focus for an hour or so. It wasn’t going to be easy. For me, nothing was easy those days.
I left the crisp morning sunshine behind me and felt the buzz of busy people and fluorescent overhead lights as I walked in the glass front door of my office building. The receptionist and customer service rep were working at their computers, and my assistant, Diana, had a phone perched between her right ear and shoulder and was leaning over the fax machine, guiding an incoming fax out with both hands.
Diana was in her late twenties, pretty, with a freckled nose and straight auburn hair cut in a Dutch Boy. She was a jogger, and her face and hourglass figure probably drew a lot of whistles from men when she ran. She turned toward me, raised her eyebrows and smiled brightly, nodding and pointing at the fax. I gave her a weak smile, grunted a hello to everyone, and turned right into my office.
I closed the door, shuffled out of my jacket, and tossed it onto the maroon leather couch, narrowly missing the Raku flower vase on the coffee table. With a huff, I collapsed into my high-backed leather chair. From the other room I heard Diana’s clear voice saying over the phone, “It’s coming through now, Harry. Cam just got here. I’ll take it right to him. Would you like to hold or should we call you back? Okay, bye.”
My speakerphone intercom bleeped and Diana’s voice came over it. “The fax came in from Harry,” she said. “He had to take a call. I told him you’d call back. I’m coming in.” Four seconds later she came briskly into my office, closed the door behind her, handed me the fax, and plunked herself down in one of the two client chairs in front of my desk, pad and pen at the ready on her lap.
The fax was a copy of the schematic of the dosage spoon that our graphic artist had drawn. There were two images, one from the top and one from the side. At the bottom of the page was a quote for a two-piece mold and a three-color imprint, with price breakdowns and turnaround times for different quantities.
I pressed Tom’s intercom button. “Good morning.”
“You again.”
“That’s what I say when I look in the mirror. The fax came in from Hairball. Diana’s in here.”
'“I’m already there.”
We were different, Tom and I, not just in age—he was older—but in most other ways. He was tall and thick, like my father, where I was of average height and wiry. He had an incredible memory, and I had to write everything down. He could wait till the last minute, trusting that whatever he was involved in would somehow come together, and I tried to be prepared for every eventuality and trusted no one. Except Rikki.
In a few seconds, Tom walked in and sat down in the other chair. I passed him the fax.
“You should be in bed,” he said, without looking up.
“I’m leaving as soon as this is together,” I said, taking my calculator out of my center drawer and punching in some numbers. “Oooh ... this looks tasty.”
Tom smiled a toothy smile and nodded, looking at the fax. “Scrumptious,” he said.
I put the calculator down and sat up as straight as I could.
Diana grabbed her pen. I took a deep breath and began. “We’re going to need a pre-pro sample, which Anson isn’t going to pay for. I want Harry to split the sixty-two hundred for the mold with us—he’ll do that; it’s probably only two g’s to him. He’s got to turn the spec sample around—with the threecolor hit—in a week. No less than two dozen of ’em.”
Tom said, “Have him send them to my attention, Diana, and label it urgent. They’ve got to be perfect.”
“Handwerker’s going to want to pass some around Purchasing,” I said, “and tell everybody they were his idea. Harry says if we make a million of them he’ll keep the overrun to 3 percent. We’re going to tell Handwerker that plus or minus 5 percent constitutes a completed order, and we’ll have Harry overrun 4, maybe 4½, percent depending on the quantity. I’ll run the numbers again and call Handwerker, and then you can fax him the final quote. This is our deal, our turn to pillage. When this is over Genghis Khan is gonna want to join our fan club.”
Diana finished jotting notes and looked up.
“That’s it,” I said, sinking back into my chair. “Thanks.”
“Got it,” Diana said, tapping her pen on her notepad. She got up and hustled out of my office, closing the door behind her.
Tom stood up. “Nice going, Killer,” he chuckled, shaking his head. “Genghis Khan.” He stopped at the door and turned to me. “Go home.”
“Ten minutes,” I told him, wiping a little sweat off my forehead with my shirt sleeve.
I worked out the final quote and called Handwerker with it.
He seemed pretty happy about the price, although I knew he’d beat on me some before it was over. I reminded him that my design was proprietary, and he assured me it wouldn’t bid out. We hung up and I had Diana fax him the quote. That was it for me; I was done. I could go home and collapse.
Before leaving, I stopped in the restroom to splash some cold water on my face. I hunched over the sink, supporting myself with my left hand, ladling water onto my face with my right. With my eyes shut tightly I groped for some paper towels, wiped off my face, and tossed the wet towels into the trashcan. I fumbled for my wire-rimmed glasses, which I’d perched on the corner of the sink, and put them on. I opened my eyes and checked my reflection in the mirror, and as I did, something bizarre happened.
A sudden jolt shot through me like an electric shock, and my whole body trembled for just a second. Then I began to mumble gibberish, like I was trying to say something, but had lost control of my mouth.
Terrified, I looked in the mirror again and saw a reflection—mine—disconnected, staring blankly, mumbling. I tried to decipher my words but they were unintelligible. What’s happening to me?! And then, with another jolt and shake, I was back and the mumbling stopped. I slumped to the floor, chest heaving, heart racing. The tile felt cold against my hands.
After a couple of minutes I pulled myself to a standing position, relieved that no one had walked in on me. You’re a very sick person. Go home.
I shuffled to my office, shrugged on my jacket, and left without saying goodbye to anyone. I made it home without hitting anything, dragged myself upstairs, and passed out until dinnertime. I didn’t tell Rikki what had happened.
* * *
The next morning at nine I went under the knife. Rikki stayed with me all day and through the night, holding my hand and feeding me ice chips to soothe my scorched throat, while I lay in a wretched hospital bed with packing up my nose and stitches in my gums, feeling like my face had been rolled over by a Case combine.
Dr. Mercer said the operation was a success, but a few days after I got home I developed a severe infection in my right maxillary sinus. The pressure from the infection burst open the sutures over my right upper teeth, where my gums had been cut to access the sinus cavity, and I was left with a gaping hole.
My immune system was in such a weakened state from the years of antibiotics, the illness, and the surgery itself, that battling the infection was like trying to hold back a tsunami with a parasol. Although I’d walked the rocky path of chronic illness for a long time, I’d never actually kicked a stone over the precipice of death. But now I felt like I was sliding over the edge, desperately clawing at the loose scree, scrambling for a foothold, while thick black smoke and searing embers belched from the reaper’s fiery mouth as he beckoned me in.
About a week after I’d returned home, I was in my usual position, flat on my back under the covers, a cold, damp mist from the humming vaporizer blanketing my face to make swallowing easier. I couldn’t breathe through my nose, and my throat felt like it had been worked over with a wire brush. A videotape of M*A*S*H reruns played endlessly in the background, and I stared at the white stucco ceiling, my head feeling like a hand grenade with the pin missing.
The phone rang. Kyle was at school, and Rikki was out grocery shopping; it was just me, my misery, and the gang from the 4077th. I clicked the mute button on the TV gizmo with my right hand and pawed for the receiver with my left.
“Hello,” I rasped.
It was Tom. “Hey pal, how’re you feeling?” he asked, in the chipper way people do when they know you’re suffering and don’t really know what to say.
“Never better,” I croaked, but it came out “nare bear.” My face felt like I was wearing a thirty-pound mask lined with needles.
“The pre-pro samples came in,” Tom said, “and Handwerker loved ’em. The deal’s going down today, but I really think you’re the guy to close it. You were right about Handjob. He’s really hard to read.” Tom paused. “I’m sorry to bug you with this, Cam, but it’s your deal.”
I sighed deeply, still looking at the ceiling. Oh, brother.
“Did you hear me?”
“Uh huh,” I mumbled.
“Are you up to it?”
“Yeah,” I lied. “Hold on.” I put the receiver down and reached over to switch off the vaporizer. Now came the hard part. Like an ancient rusty crane, I slowly shifted to an upright position and placed my stockinged feet on the rug. I felt feverish and dizzy. My eyes focused on Rikki’s open closet, and for half a second I wondered what she was wearing. I slowly and painfully turned my head toward the telephone and picked up the receiver again. It felt heavy. With a great effort to speak clearly, I said, “Okay. Where’re we at?”
The deal was a phone call away from closing, which is the very point at which deals can go in the hopper.
“All right,” I grunted. “Have Diana call Handwerker and patch me through. I don’t think I’ll be able to remember the number if you tell me, and I don’t see a pencil.” Tom said he’d do it right away and hung up. I put the receiver down and noticed a yellow-lined pad of paper and pencil right next to the phone. Focus.
The phone rang again less than a minute later. It was Diana.
She told me she was going to connect me. I said, “Mmff,” and suddenly a very odd change took place. My body shook briefly, like a shiver, and instantly my head cleared. It was as if I were still lying on the bed buried under the rubble of my illness while someone else sat up, lucid and focused—as if I weren’t alone. Gone, but not gone. A second later I heard Handwerker’s game voice on the phone.
“Louis Handwerker.”
“Hi, Louis, Cameron West. Sorry I’m talking funny. My mouth’s not completely healed.” He made a joke about my needing to stop having operations every time I wanted a vacation. I faked a chuckle and got down to business.
It took maybe three minutes to hammer out the specifics of the deal. I pushed him to take more of the dosage spoons than he needed then or would ever need. He balked, and I promised to take him to Rosie’s Kitchen for the tamales and buy him a Baby Ruth afterward, which really meant that I’d buy him the top-of-the-line treadmill he’d hinted at and have it delivered to his house. In the end, we settled on 1.2 million spoons, and he gave me a purchase order number and asked me to fax him the deal. He told me to take care of myself and said goodbye. It was done.
I called the office and gave Tom the specifics. He was ecstatic and said he’d handle the rest. He called Handwerker a “chiselin’ rat” and told me to take it easy, and we both hung up.
And then, just as quickly as it had emerged, the power I’d experienced disappeared. I was sweating and shaking. I switched on the vaporizer and leaned my face into the cold fog. Grunting, I gingerly lowered myself back down onto the pillow and pulled the comforter up to my chin. My face throbbed, and the inside of my head glowed and pulsed like an ambulance light. I pressed the mute button to get back to M*A*S*H and glanced at the television. Colonel Henry Blake was whooping it up because he’d just found out he was shipping out of Korea—he was going home. I’d seen this episode before and knew that the plane taking Henry back to the States would get shot down. In a week he’d be dead. I wondered if I would be, too.