“Along with about seventy grand in fees and another big fat bundle in ‘compulsory donations,’ ” whispered Heath Westinghouse into James Matheson’s ear.
“And I know you will not disappoint us,” finished Johns as the crowd clapped and cheered enthusiastically before moving outside to enjoy a sumptuous afternoon tea on the expansive lakeside lawns.
“What a load of crap,” said Matheson, who had been dragged by Heath to this beginning of semester routine. “Why the hell did I agree to skip kayak practice in favor of this nauseating sales pitch?” he asked, grabbing a fresh apricot pastry from a white tableclothed trestle.
“Because you are my friend, and my father is on the Board of Trustees and he is partner in one of the most respected law firms in Boston, and you are third-year law, and . . .”
“Yeah well, after this afternoon I am not sure I want to spend my life in an office next to you, Westinghouse,” said Matheson, who had just completed a summer internship at his friend’s father’s prestigious firm, practically guaranteeing him a permanent position with the blue-chip establishment when he graduated next spring. “And besides, like I told you last night, David Cavanaugh offered to help me out with my studies. Maybe he’ll convince me to go with criminal law instead of . . .”
“Cavanaugh may be your goddamned hero, Matheson, but something tells me the close to six-figure first-year income my dad will be offering might convince you that there is more money in live bodies than dead ones,” said his tall, blond-haired friend looking out at the picturesque scene before them.
“Well, Mr. Westinghouse,” said James in his best Boston Brahmin accent, “if I wasn’t such an honest man, I would take offense at such a comment.”
“Who’s taking offense?” said a well-dressed, pale-skinned, red-haired young man from behind them.
“No one,” said Matheson, shaking his friend H. Edgar Simpson’s hand. “Heath just called me superficial. That’s all.”
“Good for him,” said Simpson with a smile. “And good for you too.”
The three young men laughed before heading down toward the lake where one of the gazebos had been turned into a make-shift café serving fresh teas and espressos in Deane-logoed white china cups.
“All right, enough messing around,” said Westinghouse at last. “Did you bone Barbie or not?”
James Matheson knew this was coming. The last time he saw his two college buddies he was on the receiving end of some pretty serious attention from Barbara Rousseau—one of the most beautiful, and up until the end of last semester, untouchable girls at Deane.
Barbara was a third-year sociology major, a French exchange student whose perfect long legs were right now on their way back to Paris—or more specifically, the Sorbonne, where they would no doubt tread the historic halls of the famous French university sending shivers down the spine of every red-blooded French boy within eyeshot. She had been at Deane for two years—her dad being some big French American diplomat, and her mom an ex-supermodel who still looked hot enough to be Barbara’s older sister.
At the end of last semester, word got around that blond-haired Barbara, better known as “Marseille Barbie” thanks to her likeness to the plastic princess, had broken up with longtime boyfriend and college jock, Jason Speed. Needless to say, the male population of Deane celebrated, but then commiserated given it was the beginning of summer, which gave them little time and zero campus accessibility to capitalize on Barbie’s newly realized emancipation.
All seemed lost, until last night at the Lincoln Club, when on the very eve of her flight back to Paris, she started coming on to one James Matheson, giving every other male in the room that contradictory sensation of elation and regret—elation that Barbie had given another one of their local boys a chance before saying “
au revoir
,” and regret that the boy she picked had not been them.
“
You
banged Barbie?” asked H. Edgar, who, James thought, had probably been too drunk to even notice last night’s potential hookup.
James looked at his friend, and for a brief moment felt a strange sensation of irritation as it registered how out of place this lowbrow colloquialism sounded coming from the mouth of his normally cerebral, calculating, highly opinionated friend. There was also something about the way he had asked the question—with the emphasis on
you
—as if there was no way Barbara Rousseau would go for a guy like . . .
“None of your business,” said James, maintaining the smile he knew he should in response to such testosterone-driven inquiries.
“Come on, Matheson,” said Heath, his own good looks and recent tan from a summer in the Cape making him, from the female students’ perspectives, the male version of Marseilles Barbie. “Did you sleep with her or not?”
James rolled his eyes. “What does it matter? By now Barbara is half a world away.”
“You
did,
didn’t you?” said Heath, slapping his friend on the back. “I can tell by the look on your face.”
“Let’s just say I gave her a going-away present,” said James, telling them exactly what they wanted to hear. “A sort of thanks for coming from all her American admirers.”
“And did she?” asked Heath.
“Did she what?”
“Say thanks for coming?”
“Jesus, man, you are sick.”
“Are your parents around?” asked James of H. Edgar then, in an attempt to change the subject.
“No, they left for Europe on Wednesday.” Simpson’s father was an ex-multinational CEO who now made a substantial post-retirement income by lecturing other prominent businessmen around the world in corporate management and international business relations. “Mother had some philosophy conference in London and Dad had some dinner with Lloyds so . . .”
“How are you feeling by the way?” asked Westinghouse. “The last time I saw you you were staggering up your ridiculously long circular drive. I waited outside until you made it to the door, figuring you might have kept going around and around, not knowing where to get off.”
“Very funny,” said H. Edgar, who resided in his parents’ expansive Chestnut Hill estate. “And since you are asking, I feel like crap. Mitchell Ward wants some sort of favor from my father, so he kept serving me doubles,” he said of the Lincoln Club bartender, who was also a scholarship student at Deane.
“Didn’t your dad get him the job at the Lincoln in the first place?” asked Matheson.
“He did,” replied Simpson.
“Ungrateful SOB.” Heath grinned. “He should have been serving you triples.”
The three of them laughed again as they grabbed another coffee and headed back outside toward the lake.
It had been like this ever since the day they had met at Deane’s School of Law Main Admissions Hall just over two years ago. They had found themselves lining up to enroll in exactly the same classes and hit it off instantly as only three ambitious, commercially driven, privileged young men seem to do.
They had become instant friends, sharing similar upbring ings with the same intellectual talents and corresponding lofty goals. They were trust fund babies of the highest order, never having any doubt where they belonged—at top private schools, in prestigious colleges and law schools, and eventually walking the hallowed halls of blue-chip law firms, influential merchant banks or multimillion dollar corporations. Their Ivy League banter had taken on a life of its own—a sort of cerebral dialect that was shaped by their surroundings but contained words, phrases and self-assured opinions that set them apart from the less fortunate of the fortunate. When first overheard, it might have come across as some overt attempt to consolidate their superiority, but, in fact, it was the opposite—more an appropriate way for three similar young men to communicate in a world where privilege had set them apart through no fault of their own.
James contemplated this thought as he followed his two caffeine drinking pals across the freshly mown lawns and wondered, in that second, just how “real” their bond actually was. Did they click because they were similar people who were destined to be friends for life, or because their “mirrored existence” had created a false common ground that, if removed, would shatter their camaraderie in seconds.
They are my best friends,
he thought,
but I lied to them about Barbie
. More to the point, he knew, he had not told them about
her
—but that was understandable, given her requests to the contrary and the fact she was . . .
But James’ thoughts were interrupted by the scream of a young girl, prompting him and his two friends to look farther down the gentle sloping levee toward a nearby footbridge where a second year by the name of Meredith Wentworth was now hugging two other girls who seemed to be just as distressed.
“What the hell is that all about?” asked Westinghouse.
“Who knows?” said James. They walked over to find out.
“Hey, Meredith,” called James, who had last seen the underage strawberry blond knocking back wine coolers at the Lincoln. “What’s up? Are you okay?”
“Oh, James,” said Meredith, turning toward the three boys. “It’s Jess, she . . .”
“Jess Nagoshi? What about her?” said James, immediately feeling the involuntary gush of air abandoning his lungs in one almighty gasp.
“She’s dead—
murdered
!” cried Meredith. A mascara-stained tear landed squarely on her crisp white collar. “Jennifer Baker lives down the block from the Nagoshis and she said the place was crawling with police. Apparently they found her this morning—at home, in her garden or something. I can’t believe this.” The girl sobbed some more. “This is a living nightmare, James. Like . . . last night she was so happy. You guys saw her. She was so sweet, so smart, so . . .”
“No,” said James.
“Shit,” said Westinghouse.
“Her father is going to have a fucking fit,” said Simpson, and in that instant, James felt the bile rise in his throat, like a flare setting a torch to his dreams and obliterating them into one huge cloud of nothing.
7
Six weeks later—Monday, October 26
New York
“I am sorry, Mr. Crookshank,” said twenty-six-year-old Peter Nagoshi. “But it really is not good enough.”
Nagoshi America Incorporated President Bob Crookshank sat back in his ergonomically designed swivel chair—his large profile framed by a window taking in the expanse of the Manhattan skyline and Central Park below—and shook his head in the hope that what he had just heard was not, well . . . what he had just heard.
Just moments ago he had embraced these two men, held them tight, close, in a gesture of empathy. He had seen Mr. Nagoshi and his son—who had followed him to corporate functions like an obedient puppy ever since he graduated law/master in business administration earlier in the year—several times over the past few weeks, but always in the less intimate settings of boardroom meetings or corporate presentations. So this was the first time he had had a real opportunity to express his personal condolences to the two men, and given that he was born and bred in Texas, he did it the only way he knew how.
So much for compassion. Now they were booting his ass.
“What exactly are you saying, Peter?” asked Crookshank.
“That your productivity is down four percent Bob, your sales down seven and your overall profit margin shrinking by the minute. Need I remind you, Bob, that Nagoshi America Inc. is a publicly listed company and as of this morning the NYSE listed its shares at forty-one dollars. That is an all-time low for the past twelve months, Bob, and a long journey from the company’s high of fifty-seven dollars just two years ago.”
Shit
, thought Crookshank. That goddamned fifty-seven high had been plaguing him ever since he took over the American division of Nagoshi Inc. just eighteen months ago. It was an impossible figure to maintain and was only reached due to the collapse of a major competitor.
Still, he had to admit, his division of the international conglomerate was not exactly reaping harvests of gold. Peter Nagoshi’s figures were correct, but every president had his down times and this just happened to be one of . . .
“John,” he began, making the decision to bypass the smart-ass son and appeal to the reason of experience. “It’s a blip in the graph, that’s all. Our new head of sales is a real go-getter. I poached him from Sony so he knows his shit. We’re just about to initiate a new marketing campaign for the Notebook 3000 and, with all due respect, the share price was up to forty-eight a little over a month ago, just prior to the death of . . .”
Fuck!
He stopped himself right there.
What a fucking stupid thing to say.
“
You’re right, Bob,” said John Nagoshi, sitting firm in one of the two large leather sofa chairs in Bob Crookshank’s forty-fifth floor Madison Avenue office. “My daughter’s passing did result in, ah—what did you call it, Bob? A
blip
in the graph. And that blip was felt internationally. But I find it hard to understand why all other divisions recovered instantaneously, while the US continued to, shall we say, blip on?
“No, Bob.” Nagoshi fixed a smile on his face. “I am sorry, but my son is right. In fact, I am here to inform you that I will be taking over the presidency of Nagoshi America immediately, and working closely with my son until he is ready to . . .”
“What?”
asked Crookshank, incredulous, his normally hearty skin blanching an even deeper shade of crimson. “Forgive me, Mr. Nagoshi, sir, but the suggestion that your son is in the position to assume such an important role is nothing short of ridiculous.”
Crookshank was a physical being who, to be honest, right now felt like beating the shit out of his average-heighted boss and similarly lightweight offspring. But he took a moment, calmed himself and did his best to limit his bodily response by rising from the matching two-seater across from his two visitors and pacing the room.