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And thank goodness I did, too ...
I look at the building next to us. It’s in worse external condition than the one I moved out of a couple of years earlier.
Well. He’s certainly not living like a “stinkin’ rich” guy!
I look at Hendrik with raised eyebrows. “Yes,” he said, “Here is where I've lived for all these years. Come on up with me. It's totally safe now.”
And how does Hendrik know this? How does he know that it's safe?
I look across the street and up and down the block and have my answer. I see Hendrik’s—Jared’s, I assume—sentinels. Hendrik must have seen my searching eyes. “Have no fear, Jared and his crew are here!” He handed me out of the car and put his arm around my waist and we walked up the four steps to the building’s entrance.
Hendrik keyed us in. Then, I felt transported. “Wah-ooh-Wah-Weee! Hendrik, this is like a time warp!” We’d entered the building and once the door had closed behind us, I saw we were in a marble-floored, fresh-looking, modern foyer—with …arthanging on the walls!
We walked up to the first floor on brilliantly polished dark wood stair steps, holding onto a sculpted wrought-iron banner.
To get into his first-floor studio apartment, he punched in a code, got a blink, opened a steel exterior door, then keyed us through the inner door.
We entered a high-ceilinged, bright room—sunlit from the full-length front window—on a deep-pile carpet. An efficiently-sized work desk looked built into the length of one whole wall with sturdy shelves above it. The desk and shelves were loaded with computer equipment. There was an oversized sofa the likes of which I’d never seen and just the right type of modern furniture in the rest of the space for comfort. I spied out a galley kitchen, neat as a pin, expertly tucked in a corner.
The whole place looked newly designed, impeccably clean, and as comfortable as all get-out! It was muted, quiet, serene.
I can’t hold back, “Sufferin’ succotash, Hendrik! Here we are, in a run-down-looking building in the cheapest and most dangerous part of town—and I know this because I lived in this neighborhood myself, you know!” He laughed at me, “Yes. Ahem. I do recall.”
I went on, “And the whole interior is like … last year’s Architectural Digest feature?!” And I paused a beat, “Hendrikkkk …?”
“Yesssss, my beautyyyy?” he gave me my own hesitation right back with a little grin at one corner of his mouth.
“How much money is ‘stinkin’ rich’? And please tell me to sit down if you think I’ll faint.” He laughed and wrapped himself around me and walked me backward to the cushy-looking sofa. Sat me down. Sat next to me. And took me into him.
“As of last Friday, about five billion, three hundred million dollars American. Give or take a nickel.”
I focused on breathing in and out without getting any more light-headed.
“And you are really the guy who founded and built MetriCooks? Where I work now? Really and trulythatguy?”
He made sure he held my gaze, “I really amthatguy. Yes, I founded that company, built it, and sold it for a shit-ton of money. Yes. Yes.”
I collapsed in his arms in great sobbing tears. He just held me.
When I came up for air and looked at him, he was all concern and anxiety. “My sweet, your secret is safe with me. I mean,Great Guns! It’s already been safe with me for a couple of months. After all, if you want to keep a secret, don’t tell anyone, right?”
He dried my tears with his fingertips, “I get it. I still find the sheer amount of money I now have quite daunting. That’s another reason to maintain my ‘secret identity’ in relation to MetriCooks and the media. Not even anyone in Jared’s crew knows about it. Like I just said to you, I told them I’m a ‘tech consultant.’ But …”
I sniffled, suspicious again, “But you aren’t a tech consultant, are you? I mean, if you were one, who are your clients and what do you do for them?”
He nodded, “I do consult. Remotely. I never do a video call. Audio only. And I do it to keep my hand in the game. Obviously, I no longer ‘need’ the money. But I’m sort of like you and your own All-Seeing-Eye. I have tech solutions to so many problems. So I love it. It has been amazingly easy to have a secret identity. Hendrik is unknown to the public, and Hank is invisible and silent to the public. My local identity is not so secret, because all the guys call me Professor. And if that were not enough, my online consultant persona, I guess you and I’d call it my handle, is Henry Higson.”
I was thunderstruck for three beats. Then I burst into raucous laughter. I couldn’t stop. I nearly rolled onto the floor, and by that point, the contagion overtook Hendrik who was also in peals of laughter.
He vainly protested my glee, “Hey, that name isgroovy! I have a five-star tech reputation as Higson. Don’t knock it, please!”
And we both fell into each other unable to control the giggles, then the gales, then the guffaws of laughter.
By the time I settled down, my ribs ached, my nose was snotty, and tears tracked down my face and neck. Hendrik was in the same state.
When I looked around me at Hendrik’s … what … maybe three hundred square feet of space (about like my place, when I think about it) … I still don't believe it’s actually his home.
Then someone knocked on the door.
