“I mean it’s better not to take the chance. The house isn’t going anywhere. If it takes us six months to have her declared dead, it’ll still be there.”
“But I’ve already told people…well, they just misunderstood is all. Oh, you’ll get a kick out of this. Her stupid brother called—you know, the one who came to Dad’s funeral. She was supposed to meet him in Denver. I let him know just what a bitch she was and how glad we are that she’s gone.”
Oh, fuck. “What, exactly, did you say?”
“I let him have it with both barrels. I couldn’t stand him, the way he wanted to be so friendly when our father had just died. I told him only a fool crossed you, and she’d got just what she deserved.”
The satisfaction in her voice was jarring, and like a lightning bolt Seth realized that his sister hated him. Maybe she thought that if he was in prison she’d have sole control of all the money. Or that she could arrange for his murder, and then all the money would be hers, free and clear. Maybe she’d resented him all his life, because their father had made it plain he wanted Seth to succeed him at the Wingate Group. Whatever her reasoning, he suddenly knew beyond a doubt that no one had ever hated him as much as his sister did.
“Just so you know,” he said slowly, “I have a will.”
“So? It isn’t as if you have any other brothers or sisters.” Meaning she expected to get his money whether he had a will or not.
“If anything happens to me, I’ve left it all to charity. You don’t get a fucking penny.” He disconnected the call and sat there for a moment, shivering. Then he called his lawyer, and turned his statement into fact.
On the first day of his employment, he was there half an hour early. He hadn’t been able to sleep much, and he was afraid there might be a traffic tie-up that delayed him. He was unaccountably nervous. How difficult could sorting and delivering mail be? The toughest part would be enduring the curious stares, because he was almost twice the age of the youngest mail-room employee. At least no one would know him on sight, except for a few of the highest-ranked executives, and he doubted he’d see any of them. If he did take mail and packages to their offices, their assistants would take it, not the executives themselves. He was glad of that degree of separation.
The other mail-room employees began filing in, most of them carrying the requisite Starbucks cups. Seth was swimming against the tide there, because he wasn’t the coffeehouse type. Coffee was okay, but he liked it ordinary and unflavored, and it didn’t break his heart if there wasn’t any available. Maybe he should cultivate the taste, he thought, to fit in. Or buy one cup of the stuff, dump the coffee, keep the cup, and pour his ordinary brew into it. He wondered how long one of the cups would last before disintegrating.
The other clerks eyed him, unsure what to make of him. Maybe they thought he worked upstairs. What the hell; they were young and he wasn’t, so he made the first move. “My name’s Seth,” he said. “I’m starting work here today.”
They exchanged glances. One of the young women, a tall, skinny girl with the cold eyes of a mongoose, said, “Here? In the mail room?”
“That’s right.”
More glances. “Did you just get out of prison or something?”
Just trying to keep my ass out of one. “No,” he replied casually. “I was in a coma for fifteen years, and finally woke up.”
“No shit?” one of the guys said, looking startled. “What happened?”
“I huffed a can of nonstick spray.”
“Bullshit,” the mongoose said. “You’d have to have severe brain damage to be in a coma that long.”
Mean, but smarter than these other kids. “Who says I don’t?” he finally said, and turned away.
The mail-room supervisor was a short, dumpy, gray-haired woman with the unlikely name of Candy Zurchin and all the fashion sense of a babushka. Her wardrobe seemed to run to navy blazers, gray skirts, and lace-up black shoes, and she ran the mail room with a no-nonsense efficiency that put Catholic schools to shame. Certainly she had the number of all the youngsters under her command, including the mongoose, who said “Yes, ma’am” whenever Candy told her to do something—and said it without sarcasm, which was the remarkable thing.
Seth reined in his ego, his pride, and his temper, and did whatever she told him to do, quietly and without complaining. The work didn’t require a lot of brain cells, but when he looked at the job objectively he could see where this was good training, because while it was hugely boring it also required an attention to detail and discipline. The inclination to slack off was almost overwhelming; some of the clerks gave the job less than their all. He knew that if he were an upper-echelon executive, though, he’d pay close attention to Candy Zurchin’s recommendations and comments.
Two days ago, he wouldn’t have paid any attention to her at all.
The job was simple: sort and deliver all the incoming mail and packages, pick up all the outgoing stuff, apply the proper postage or shipping labels, pack the stuff that needed packing, and get it all out of there that day. Over and over. It seldom varied, and it never ended. He was astonished by the sheer volume of snail mail. Hadn’t these people ever heard of e-mail? But e-mail seemed limited to intradepartment and employee-to-employee communications; letters to outside contacts and important stuff like contracts still went to paper.
Maybe Siebold had given Candy instructions not to let him hide in the basement, because that very first day, she sent him out with a cart piled high with letters, insulated envelopes, and packages. “The way to learn is by doing,” she said briskly. “The offices are clearly marked. If you can’t find someone, ask.”