Peter pushed the truck hard toward downtown, the city roads rough with potholes, trying to get to Lake Capital before they closed the doors for the day.
One eye on the rearview, watching for the black Ford. But it would be easy to miss in heavy traffic. And Peter’s truck would be easy to follow. Unless he was willing to rent a beige sedan, he couldn’t do anything about it.
He didn’t have a plan for Lake Capital. But the principle wasn’t complicated. It was the same principle he’d operated under for years.
Poke a stick into something and see what happened.
The hedge fund’s headquarters was in the U.S. Bank building at the edge of downtown, overlooking Lake Michigan and the art museum. The tall, rectangular tower’s white aluminum cladding over the steel structural grid glowed in the pale autumn light. Peter remembered taking a tour of the building as part of a high school field trip, and the profound surprise that something like an office building could be beautiful. Designed in the late 1960s by Chicago’s Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, it stood forty-plus stories and was still, he was fairly sure, the tallest building in the state.
It seemed about a million miles from Dinah’s little house.
He parked at a meter and walked in through the high glass atrium that was transparent to the outside. He felt it again walking past the broad window panels that went directly to the ceiling. That sense of expansion, like anything might be possible.
A twin row of twenty-foot-tall trees in giant marble planters led to escalators running to the second-floor lobby, with more big plants and wide glass window panels and long views on three sides. The white-clad structure was visible as he passed from the exterior to the interior, which added to the feeling of transparency. It was enough to make you want to believe in something.
He watched the constant flow of men and women in suits and business casual, with access badges on cords around their necks or clipped to lapels. Peter automatically checked for the exits, but the feeling of openness, the remains of the daylight, and the outside views kept the white static down for the moment.
There were placards for the building’s bigger tenants, including U.S. Bank and several big national financial companies and a large law firm. But nothing for Lake Capital.
Peter walked up to the security desk. “What floor is Lake Capital on?”
The security man in his neat blue uniform checked his computer. “Fifth floor,” he said, and pointed Peter to a bank of elevators.
The static didn’t like elevators.
“Are there any stairs?” The static didn’t like stairs, either, but they were better than an elevator. Peter could run up and down.
The security man shook his head. “Fire stairs only. Not for the public.”
Shit.
But it was just three floors up, and the elevator was nearly empty. Peter closed his eyes and focused on his breathing to keep the static down. It took only a minute, but by the time the doors opened, his neck was tight and his shoulders were starting to clamp up.
Lake Capital was smaller than Peter expected, sharing the floor with three other companies. Its reception area was all glass and stainless steel done in sleek, streamlined curves, but no windows. Expensive conceptual art on the walls, bright plastic machined into corporate abstraction.
Sort of like what high finance had turned out to be, thought Peter, after the bubble burst in 2008. An expensive abstraction that made other people’s money disappear.
The woman at the desk wore a severe gray suit of some synthetic fiber that fit snugly over sculpted curves, her long fingernails polished to a high gloss. Her makeup was a thin sheen over flawless skin, her hair a lacquered black helmet. She looked so sleek that reality would slide right off her.
She kept her access badge on the desk to avoid ruining the effect of the suit, Peter was sure. The room smelled of acetone, hair spray, and carpet-cleaning chemicals. The white static climbed higher, began to fizz and pop. He could feel his heart beating faster, and he was starting to sweat. He wouldn’t last long at this rate.
“Can I help you?”
There was no rising inflection in her voice, as if the question were rhetorical. As if she knew in advance that the man standing before her with the purple bruise on his face and sawdust on his work clothes was in a category beyond her ability to help, and she was making no secret of it.
“I’d like to see Jonathan Skinner,” he said. The CEO, and the only name that was on the website.
She scanned him with an appraiser’s eye. A hint of what she might be like without the severe gray suit to constrain her. There was a quick gleam of interest, maybe from the width of his shoulders or the size of his hands. But not enough to be transactional, not with his substandard wardrobe and clearly inadequate income. She would sleep only above her level.
“You lack,” she said, “an appointment.”
“Well,” said Peter, breathing slow and deep to dampen his heart rate, “I’d like to make an appointment.”