DeVille's Contract. Scott Zarcinas

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СКАЧАТЬ he was being headhunted to oversee the project, and at his age that was a goddamn laugh. Still, on page thirteen, the contract defined the proposed position as “Interim Management Consultant,” IMC, and went on to list the terms of his employment over the next four or five pages. Which was the first thing he needed to negotiate. He couldn’t devote himself to another fulltime position whilst remaining head of Global Resolutions Network. Goddamn it. That would mean working around the clock. It just couldn’t be done; and though he was flattered at their interest in him, he would just have to tell them that their expectations were a little unrealistic, to say the least. If they really wanted his consulting services, they would just have to accept he couldn’t do it at the drop of a hat. It would have to be part-time, once a week at most, or nothing.

      He continued reading. On page one hundred and four he saw something about “exclusivity of intellectual property” and made a mental note to query it with his lawyers (and he would, goddamn it, even if LeMont International Enterprises had a problem with getting his lawyers involved). There was more, too. The position of Interim Management Consultant entailed living on site, which was just goddamn ridiculous. He would be buggered before he packed up and left his penthouse on Beeker Street. But it was there, in writing. Clause one hundred and sixty-nine, sub-clause (b) on page two hundred and seventy-three: “It is agreed that the IMC undertakes immediate residency within the premises of LeMont International Enterprises Ltd.”

      He kept flicking through, shaking his head. From what he could gather, LeMont International Enterprises was some kind of industrial export park where all the employees worked and lived, from cleaners and maintenance workers to administrative and executive staff. It sounded massive, in fact, a corporation leviathan. A corporation metropolis.

      How hadn’t he heard of them before? He hadn’t a goddamn clue who LeMont International Enterprises were, and there was nothing in the contract from what he had briefly seen to indicate what they actually produced. They weren’t listed on the New York Stock Exchange, that was for sure; something this big he would have known about. They had to be privately owned. When he got out of hospital, he would make sure Sarah got onto it straight away. Find out just who these guys were, and what in hell they had to do with his rehabilitation.

      He put the contract back down on the leather layback. All in all it looked like the real deal. It was tempting all right. Tempting enough that he might just take them up on their offer. Maybe he could manipulate the position of IMC for the good for his own business. Maybe this company was the answer to the recent problems he had been facing.

      “I’ll need some time to go through it,” he said to the ceiling. “Devil’s in the detail, you know. I’m not just putting my name down on something without going through it with a fine-tooth comb.”

      Louis heard whispers before the voice answered: “YOU HAVE ALREADY CHOSEN.”

      “What do you mean? I haven’t signed anything yet.”

      “YOU HAVE REJECTED THE OTHER. YOUR CHOICE HAS BEEN MADE.”

      Louis glanced over his shoulder at the scroll he had tossed away. He was about to say that the assumption of choice made through indirect action was goddamn ridiculous, and about as legally binding as same sex marriage in the state of Utah, but the voice cut him short.

      “LOUIS DEVILLE. ARE YOU READY?”

      “What, goddamn it? Ready for what?”

      “YOUR JUDGMENT.”

      CHAPTER FIVE

       Judgment

      WITHOUT any indication of what was going to happen, the room suddenly lit up in a flash of brilliant white light, as though a Super Nova had just exploded over his head. Louis’ first reaction was to cringe and bury his head in the crook of his bandaged elbows. “What the hell?” he shouted.

      It wasn’t an explosion, as it turned out. There was no noise, no cracking boom that burst his eardrums and rendered him deaf. There was no heat surge, though he half expected to feel himself erupt into flames and frizzle to a pile of ash. There wasn’t even a shockwave to knock him to his knees or launch him into the wall on the other side of the room. Not so much as a breath of wind, just stillness and silence.

      Nonetheless, when he peeked from the crooks of his elbows, he found he had been temporarily blinded. The abyss of darkness had returned, to his dismay, though this time he was fully corpus mentis. “Goddamn it you son of a bitch!” he shouted to the ceiling, groping the space in front of him where the leather layback should have been. “I can’t see a goddamn thing!”

      He kept groping for the layback. At that moment, he heard footsteps scuffling from behind. He spun around, though what really freaked him out was that it sounded more like a scuttling rodent than an approaching nurse or medic. A goddamn huge rodent.

      “Who’s there?” he said. He heard the opening of a door, followed by scuffled footsteps and some sort of scraping noise. “Who’s there?” he asked again. The door clicked shut and he heard more scraping scuffles. “Answer me, goddamn it! I know someone’s there!”

      “Now, now, Mr. DeVille,” someone said, and sniggered. “No need to get hot under the collar. I’m here to help.”

      Louis almost jumped out of his bandages. It wasn’t the same voice he had heard previously, the one that boomed from every corner of the room. This was meek and reedy and filled with a false sense of courage, the kind of voice that only dared to make itself heard from the shadows. The voice’s manner was kind of familiar too, though not one he had heard for some time, and not one he could immediately put a face to. He figured it wasn’t Epstein. That good-for-noth’n Jew-boy wouldn’t fly all the way to New York to see how the boss was recovering. Not unless there was something in it for himself. In fact, he was sure it wasn’t any of his current vice presidents. They were probably this minute squabbling over who would take over the reins. Well, he had news for them. This CEO wasn’t dead and buried just yet.

      “Who are you?” he asked. “I can’t see. I’ve been blinded.”

      “You’re not blind,” the stranger said, and from the tone of his voice Louis reckoned he had enjoyed scaring him. “The lights are off.”

      Louis brought his hand to his face and held it an inch away from his eyes. It was true. He could see the bandages wrapped around his digits, though in the near total darkness he thought he could only count three fingers and they looked kind of shorter and stubbier than normal. He let the thought go, blaming it on the lack of visibility, and told the stranger to switch on the lights.

      “They’re off for a reason,” the stranger said.

      Louis heard him snigger again under his breath. His high reedy voice was really beginning to give him the creeps. It sounded like the squeak of a mouse, or even a rat; and no matter how goddamn ridiculous it sounded, the idea that he was in conversation with a rodent wouldn’t leave his head. He wanted to see who he was talking to. Had to see, for his own sanity.

      “I don’t give a goddamn hoot what the reason is. I want the lights on.”

      The stranger replied, “They’re off for your own protection.”

      Again, Louis heard the guy (mouse?) snigger. He had heard something else too, a kind of swish, like something (a tail?) trailing across the floor. Something wasn’t right here. Something wasn’t goddamned right at all. Louis took a step back, feeling his way toward the wall. “I want the light СКАЧАТЬ