He took another bite of his burger and stared at me some more. I ate some more of my salad and stared back. He drankhis iced tea. I drank mine. The whole time, our gazes stayed locked. It was a game of chicken, albeit one that was, compared to most games of chicken, rather polite and low stakes. All Spike wanted was for me to tell him if my relationship status had changed from complicated to super-complicated.
“Okay, you win,” I said finally. “I’m considering moving down the shore.”
Spike’s eyes widened. “Wow.”
“Just for part of the year,” I said.
“Get you.”
“Get me.”
“Which part of the year?”
“Probably winters, weird as that sounds.”
Spike took another sip of his iced tea. “It doesn’t sound that weird.”
“I like it there in the winter.”
He nodded. “So you really did have fun with Richie.”
“I did.”
“And you think you can make it work this time.”
“I do.”
We ate in silence for several minutes.
“I’m happy for you,” Spike said finally. I could tell he’d put a lot of thought into that response. And he was telling the truth. Spike always told the truth. “One question,” he said.
“Yes?”
“Are you still going to call me when you need some heads busted?”
“It’s a five-hour drive,” I said. “You might not be able to get there in time.”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe you should teach me karate.”
Spike gave me a long, appraising look. “Judo,” he said. “With those skinny arms, you’d be much better at judo.”
Five
I arrived at Gonzo’s corporate headquarters at one-thirty p.m. They were located on one of the top floors of the Winthrop Center—a futuristic mirrored skyscraper in the Financial District that also happened to be the fourth tallest building in Boston. Riding the elevator, my ears clicked. I was a little lightheaded as I entered the offices—a feeling that was only heightened by the atmosphere. The waiting area was all white leather and chrome, decorated for the season with a white artificial Christmas tree bedecked in shiny red-and-white Gonzo cans. A giant projection screen took up an entire wall, showing continuous footage of old black-and-white monster movies—Godzilla,King Kong,The Wolfman—all with colorized cans of Gonzo edited in. The design scheme here seemed to be “unpleasant hallucination.”
I’d been able to do only the tiniest bit of research on Gonzo’s COO, Sky Farley, whom Lydia had described in the “relation” field as Dylan’s “longtime chum—WONDERFUL.” Sky didn’t seem to be on social media—not even LinkedIn. A real hindrance when you’re trying to learn about someone.
He did look good on paper—what little paper there was. According to the bio I found on the DylWel website, Sky had graduated from Harvard the same year as Dylan, dual-majoring in biotechnology and data science But instead of doing what Dylan did following graduation—which was basically nothing, other than piling up mountains of debt—Sky had gone straight to NYU’s Stern School of Business, where he’d gotten his MBA and worked on Wall Street for a couple years. Online at least, Sky seemed like the ultimate silent partner. The bio wasn’t even accompanied by a picture (I couldn’t find pictures of him on Harvard’s website, either), and if he ever went to ribbon cuttings or press events, he wasn’t photographed at them.
Here he was, second-in-command at a high-profile company. The one who did all the work, according to Lydia—but otherwise, an invisible man. For all I knew at this point, Sky Farley could have been as serious and brilliant as his bio implied. Or he could have been the one to have chosen this décor.
I moved toward the reception desk, which was very long and white and had padded leather and chrome detailing at the front to match the furniture in the waiting area. It reminded me of a spaceship’s console from some cheesy old TV show,save for the neonGonzologo flashing obnoxiously from the wall behind it.
Actually, it just saidGon. The sign was broken—theZand theOmissing in action.Strange,I thought. Everything else in this hellhole seemed immaculate.
The receptionist was gazing down at her desk as I approached. I assumed it was an effort to avoid the flashing red letters, which reflected off all the chrome in a way that was, at the very least, distracting.
