Читать книгу Skyfisher - Dan Dowhal - Страница 7

Article updated Saturday 1 November 14:48

Pardon the interruption. I’ve just returned to writing this after a bit of a scare. I heard a sound outside and (oh, aren’t I the brave one) went to investigate, a shovel in hand as my only weapon. There was a rustling in the bush nearby, and for a fleeting instant I was convinced they had found me. I was contemplating jumping back on the bike and making a run for it, when out walks this deer, a big eight-point buck, cocky as hell. It just stood there eyeing me for a minute until the sound of distant gunfire reminded us both it was deer season, and the buck bolted. Poor critter. I know just how he feels. God, I wish I had a rifle.

So, I was talking about how we three pooled together our money and got to work building the web site. Well, Stan got to work on the physical site, while Fisher and I started fleshing out the idea. Hold on, I’m skipping details. I should mention (and this just proves how driven he was) that upon returning to work on Monday morning, Fisher immediately quit his job. He hadn’t told me he planned to do it, but word spread around Warren & McCaul like wildfire. Of course, the scuttlebutt was that he had jumped to another agency, and apparently old man McCaul himself had Fisher up in his office for two hours trying to bribe and cajole him to stay, before calling security to escort him to the door.

Although the three of us had just pledged to mortgage ourselves to the hilt for our communal scheme, I had assumed we were only going to work on it in our spare time. Fisher’s resignation surprised and unnerved me. It’s not that I didn’t have some degree of deep-rooted greedy hope concerning our idea, like you do when you buy a lottery ticket, it’s just that I lacked any real faith it was actually going to pay off. In that regard I felt I was only being realistic.

Sure, I was ready to go into hock for the project, but somewhere in the back of my mind I had already projected the whole affair into an interesting barroom yarn I’d be telling in a year or two (always, in my fantasy version, with a rapt audience of secretarial hotties hanging on my every word) about how I had been a partner in this bold but quixotic scheme with Fisher that almost made us rich. However, after a recuperative period of belt tightening, I fully expected to be back in the black (or as close to it as a habitual spendthrift like me could expect to be), and leading the same old merry life as an advertising wage slave. I hadn’t pledged my full-time, undivided commitment to the plan. Or had I?

Around lunch time, I went looking for Stan to see where he stood on things. Frankly, I was looking forward to the opportunity to get him alone—I had already noticed how he behaved quite differently whenever Fisher was around. In the old days, before Fisher joined our little twosome, I had considered myself to be the de facto leader, through a combination of my writer’s gift of the gab and Stan’s pliant, introverted nature.

I was relieved to see Stan was in his office, hammering away at the keyboard. I closed the door behind me, and sat down on the edge of his desk.

Excitement was written all over his face. “Did you hear about Lou?” he asked right away (even in those days he was the only person I knew who called Fisher by his real first name). “Man, this is really going to happen.”

“Did Fisher tell you he was going to quit his job?”

Stan hesitated for a second, and appeared to be considering his words carefully. “Um, no ... ” His face turned beet red, and I instantly knew he was lying—a first in our relationship—although with Stan it wasn’t a hard read.

“What the fuck, Stan?” I protested. “I thought we were all in this together.”

That did it, and he relented. “Sorry, dude, but Lou said not to tell anyone. He didn’t exactly say he was going to quit, but he phoned me first thing this morning and told me the powers-that-be were going to be asking the system administrator for copies of all his recent emails, and wanted to know if I could erase any trace of messages between the three of us ... you know, when we were emailing back and forth last week about ‘our private web site project’ and ‘nailing down that idea that’ll make us all rich.’ So, I kind of knew he was going. It’s standard practice around here to audit emails when someone leaves the company ... they want to make sure someone’s not trying to poach clients.”

I was speechless, as much from the revelation that my emails might be monitored (even though that should not come as a surprise to anyone who works for a big company) as from the idea that Fisher and Stan were keeping things from me.

“Were you able to do it?” I asked. “I mean, did you delete our messages?” My real motivation was concern that my job could be in jeopardy if Warren & McCaul tied me to the departing Fisher.

The ear-to-ear grin on Stan’s face gave me the answer before he spoke. He laughed. “Piece of cake. The security around here’s a joke. Pretty smart of Lou to think of it, though ... we don’t want anyone stealing our idea.” Then he lowered his voice to a whisper, complementing the atmosphere of paranoia that was starting to spread over me. “So, are we going to quit too?” He was like a little boy asking permission to go outside and play.

I wanted to slap him on the head and say, Are you crazy? This is just some harebrained scheme we’ve been sucked into, and we’d be idiots to throw away our good jobs. But I didn’t. I could lie to you and say I was only trying to spare Stan’s feelings, but the truth is, even if it was at some subconscious level, I had subjugated my will to Fisher’s. I would do whatever he told me to do.

“Let’s wait until we hear from Fisher,” I replied.

I wish I had paid more attention the last time Stan had us up here to the trailer. The main power just kicked out (again, my first thought was they had found me) and I’m writing this on my laptop’s battery reserves. I know there are solar panels on the roof, and a fair-sized propane tank attached to the side of the trailer, but I have no idea how full it is, or what my status is energy-wise. There are a few hours of daylight left, so I’d better try to figure things out while I can see what I’m doing.