I don’t turn. I can’t take any more of that knife-blade eyebrow. But over my shoulder I ask, “Yeah?”
“We’re here. We’re always here. But there’s only so many times your hand can get batted away before you decide to stop offering it.”
I consider telling them that if you don’t need anybody, you can’t lose anybody, but it’s cold now, and I want to go back inside.
* * *
—
Reg is pacing outside his office, muttering to himself, and when he sees me approach he gives a very audible sigh of relief.
“Teller is on his way,” he says.
“Where do we keep our red carpet?” I ask him, as Ruby rejoins me.
“We need to go welcome him.”
“Did we welcome Kolten Smith? Do we have any plan to welcome the guy who is a literal prince? What’s so special about Teller?”
Reg looks around to make sure we’re alone. “I think he’s the one who’s going to take it.”
“Who says that?”
“My gut.”
“Reg, if your gut was any good you wouldn’t come home from the track with empty pockets so often,” I tell him. “Or spend so much time in the bathroom.”
He grimaces. “I got a gluten thing.”
“You got a nacho cheese and coffee thing.”
He rolls his eyes at me, from somewhere between annoyed and embarrassed. “No one trusts Smith because he makes Zuckerberg look like Gandhi. Davis is a self-made man, but old money always beats new money, which stacks the deck in favor of Teller and the prince. The United States government isn’t going to sign American tech over to a foreign government. Especially the Saudis. This is all not to mention that Teller and Drucker go back a long way, and you know what those relationships count for.”
That is lucid and concise. I think I’ve decided my favorite too, for the moment. Though the thing about money is, as much as we all pretend to understand it, it operates on a level beyond our comprehension. At least, the comprehension of mere mortals who don’t have a lot of it to spare.
“I feel like a betting man would have given the same level of welcome to all four players, just to play it safe, but who knows,” I tell him. “I don’t go to the track.”
Reg starts to say something, but we see movement from the carpeted tube leading down to the tram station that comes in from Einstein. Grayson and Teller. Coming up behind them is Drucker.
“Told you,” Reg says.
“Congrats,” I tell him.
We make our way to the trio, and Teller is looking around the lobby like a kid on Halloween, conditioned to wait for someone to give him something. His face is set in a perpetual frown, and he looks like the kind of man who has a couple of dead sex workers in his past.
Just seeing him kicks my blood up a few degrees.
People with money, man. They can do whatever the fuck they want.
Like use every ethnic slur under the sun—and a few it seems he made up on the spot—in a series of voice mails leaked to the press by his ex-wife during a messy divorce. And it really ran the gamut, from which ethnicities he thought were the most lazy, which members of his cleaning staff he thought were stealing from him, and which he thought would be the most fun to choke out during rough sex.
But one “I don’t have a racist bone in my body and I’m sorry if anyone was offended by my language” statement later, and the world pretty much moved on. He still gets to party with the president. The joys of being in the trillionaire club. Dude could eat a baby, probably, and most folks would look the other way as long as they were getting paid.
He doesn’t seem to notice, or care, that me and Reg are approaching, but then Reg makes a big show. “Mister Teller! Such an honor to have you at the Paradox. I’m Reginald, the manager…”
C’mon, Reg.
Teller gives him a nod and a fuck-off handshake and asks, “Has the prince arrived?”
“Well I’m not sure…” Reg starts.
“You’re the manager,” he says, finally zeroing in. “I would think you should know that.”
“Sorry, sir,” Reg says, bowing, which makes my stomach gurgle a little. “His people are here. Did you want to see them, or…”
Teller puts up his hand to quiet Reg. Done with him, forever. He turns to Drucker and says, “I’m going to say this one last time. It was a mistake to even involve them in the process.”
“That decision was made above my pay grade.”
“You’re a U.S. senator,” he says. “It’s the same thing I told Everett, and if he could get off the golf course long enough to listen, he’d agree. I don’t know why I wasted my time and effort bundling for him if this is how he’s going to treat me…”
“We are going to handle this in a fair and expeditious manner,” Drucker says, but there’s something about the way she floats over fair and lands hard on expeditious that makes me feel like she has a strong preference between the two.
“And this place,” Teller says, sweeping his arm, nearly clipping Reg. “It’s a dump. The blue carpet? Are you kidding me? It clashes with everything. First order of business. Carpet comes up. I’m thinking green.” He glances at Grayson. “Always been my favorite color.” Then he turns to me. “You. I want to unwind a little. Have something sent up to my room. Steak, well done, and whatever scotch you have that’s older than fifteen years. What movies do you have playing in the rooms?”
For the first time in a long time, I am momentarily struck speechless at the audacity, which frankly, is probably a good thing.
“God, is everyone here so useless?” Back to Grayson: “Get that taken care of.”
Grayson turns a little red, to be treated like a secretary in front of me, of all people, whom he not only dislikes but will soon attempt to murder. I take a little solace in that.
“The process…” Drucker starts.
“Don’t hand me that,” Teller says. “We know how this is going to end.”
God, he is unpleasant. And I can hear Allyn’s voice in the back of my head. Telling me to just keep my mouth shut. Which is kind of funny, because it would take no exertion or effort to just smile and nod and let Teller go watch a dumb movie.
Because what does it matter? These people who live in their golden castles, what can I do to bring them down?
Nothing. I can do nothing to hurt them.
But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try.
“Wow,” I say, snapping the word like the end of a towel.
Everyone stops and turns to me. I turn to Reg and say, in a very loud stage whisper, “It’s like they don’t even know we’re standing right here.”
“You,” Grayson says, and my heart skips a half beat. “You and I have something to talk about…”
Yeah we do, motherfucker.
But his eyes slide off me, to something over my shoulder, and a voice booms, “My friend!”