Green Ice (2 page)

Or he could release the poachers, keep the emeralds for himself. Not even report the incident. Perhaps the poachers would be so grateful they would forget it happened, especially forget what he looked like. But would his men never mention it to anyone?

There was the other way to deal with it.

He called the soldiers over to the jeep one at a time. Gave them instructions and two emeralds each, two of the smallest ones. He had thought of giving them three but changed his mind at the last moment.

The men were glad to get anything. Their service pay was only a hundred pesos a month, about four dollars. The emeralds would bring ten times that from the local undercover dealer, who specialized in buying stones from enlisted men. He paid very little but never questioned.

The Lieutenant would turn in forty stones when he made his report. That would leave him forty-one to sell to a connection in Bogotá. Someone he did such business with regularly, could trust. God help him, though, if The Concession ever found him out. The mere thought made his stomach contract. Anyway, his men were now conspirators. And they also knew the penalty.

For a better view the Lieutenant stood up in the jeep, leaned forward against the top of the windshield, at ease.

One of the soldiers used the barrel of his rifle to force the girl aside. Then, facing the others, the soldiers took solid stances and pulled.

They fired in bursts, spraying point-blank. The poachers absorbed many bullets after they were already dead. They lay in contorted positions, extremities twitching.

The girl couldn’t scream. She doubled over and vomited.

The soldiers waited until she was no longer retching. The Lieutenant had suggested she might have more emeralds hidden. If so, the men could have them.

They didn’t feel any.

When they had each taken a turn with her, the first who’d had her wanted her again.

She never struggled. They demanded that she move, but she might as well have been dead.

Within minutes, she was.

2

In New York City that December morning, Joseph A. Wiley sat at his practically impervious desk.

It wasn’t his desk, really, and he took care never to refer to it as his. He always called it
the
desk. “I left the marketing recommendations on
the
desk.” He had the same attitude toward that portion of space where he was now, on the thirty-second floor. It was
the
office rather than his. No matter that the plastic nameplate outside, just to the left of the door, permanently said Joseph Wiley. It was in a metal bracket that would allow it to be removed at any second.

In
the
office there was also
the
swivel chair, upholstered in one kind of plastic and situated so it rolled about on a clear sheet of a harder kind to save
the
wall-to-wall carpet.
The
lithograph of a landscape that couldn’t possibly offend or delight,
the
inevitable dying split-leaf rhododendron, and
the
ashtray stolen from Lutèce.

Wiley often ignored the ashtray, placed his lighted cigarettes on the edge of the desk. When a forgotten cigarette burned all the way down and out, it caused only a tarry residue that aggravated Wiley’s smoker’s guilt until wiped away. The desk’s defiant veneer, Wiley knew, was also unaffected by coffee, vodka, and anger.

It was employee-proof.

Wiley had known more than his share of such desks. He’d had nine jobs in the past twelve years. Nine, not counting those he’d moonlighted. He’d worked at: two advertising, one real estate, two public relations, one insurance, two networks and a talent. All on the semimanagement level in the $20,000- to $40,000-a-year range.

Not once had Wiley been fired. Each employer had wanted him to stay on. Every time he’d gone after a new job, he’d landed it.

It helped that he doctored up his résumé, made up for any blank spots, amputated a job here, a job there. Stretched dates so his employment past appeared to have flowed nicely without too much jumping around, so they wouldn’t say right off that something had to be wrong with him. If that was lying, Wiley reasoned it was for their benefit as much as his. He was merely shaping and presenting his history as they would want it. To match the way he looked.

That was it. His looks. He looked good. Doing business depended more on that than anyone wanted to admit. First impression was often first consideration. It was more pleasant to have confidence in a good-looking man; he was easier for a client to like. And if that man just happened to have ability, he was practically unbeatable.

Early enough, Wiley came to realize this value was the soft underbelly of the hard business world. And that was where he chose to cut it.

He wasn’t too handsome. Strong, slightly imperfect features. There were those who said he reminded them of Paul Newman, though he didn’t have Newman’s blue eyes. Wiley’s eyes were a variegated green, close to a deep forest shade. He still had all his hair, and it was still dark except at the temples. Looked his age. Forty-two. Squint lines. He was six feet exactly, with shoes on, and his weight was never more than a few pounds above or below one seventy-five.

Being that slim, he wore clothes well. He was smart about clothes, strategic. Went for quality rather than more of a less-expensive assortment. Instead of two suits from Saks, one from Dunhill or DeNoyer. Not so many shirts, but those he had were Turnbull and Asser, bought when Bonwit’s had a sale. Actually he had two kinds of wardrobe. Like everything else, split. One for them, one for him. His consisted mainly of jeans, sweaters and penny loafers.

If Wiley had stuck with any of his jobs, more than likely he would by now have been on top of one of those heaps, or at least close to it. He was intelligent, imaginative and a hard worker—when he was working. However, sticking was literally how he thought of it. Getting stuck. He was too ambitious for that. It wasn’t quick enough for him.

There had been a time when he believed it would be. In high school, many of his good, young times, most of his best, were sacrificed to studying. He was accepted at MIT, worked any spare hours to pay his way and in his second year got a scholarship for winning the middleweight boxing championship in the National Collegiate Athletic Association regional finals. He had a frustrating, accurate left jab, backed up by a right that could stun, especially in close. His opponents were usually overconfident because he didn’t have the look of a fighter.

He graduated twenty-third in a class of seven hundred, went on to get his Master of Science degree in electrical engineering.

America was promises.

Recruiters from several important electronics firms went after him, the way the pros went after a two-hundred-thirty-pound sure-handed tight-end. A prime prospect.

Humes Electronics in Houston got him. For twenty thousand a year, which wasn’t bad for a start then, in 1958. Humes threw in a new car as an added inducement, on the condition that he not reveal that to anyone. Special treatment? He found out later the car bonus was almost routine.

He was assigned to a phase of Humes’ responsibility in the space program and enjoyed being a part of that, did well at it, made some new friends at Humes and at NASA. On his annual review he was told management was pleased with him. Bright future if he kept up the good work. Praise and a raise of two thousand a year, which was no more than average.

Foot on the first rung, he thought. To share being pleased with himself, he called home. Father and Mother pressed their ears to the same phone to hear him, their only. They were happy he was happy. There would be more money, he promised, there would be plenty of money. Someday soon, they’d never have to worry about money. His father, off the subject, said he’d heard Houston was having a hot spell.

Wiley had been sending money home each month. A couple hundred. They hadn’t asked for it, told him he shouldn’t. But being able to help them gave him a good feeling, and he kept sending it. Besides, it left him with more than enough to spend.

The better life he wanted for them: It was nearly always in his letters, mentioned when he phoned. At first, respecting his father’s pride, he hadn’t hit directly upon it, merely sown the idea of how their circumstances might be changed. His father had been a spinner at a woolen mill for twenty years. His mother had worked regularly as a stitcher at another mill. He would remove them from the grind that was wearing out their lives in that shitty little New England town.

His parents accepted his wanting to provide for them as his way of conveying care for them. They expected nothing and went on working in the mills.

Three years with Humes took a lot out of Wiley. He saw ahead more clearly and further, and realized the track there was too slow for him. They gave him pre-computed raises, on schedule. Advancement was held out in front to keep him going. No matter that he already excelled at his work, contributed more than most of the men who had been with Humes longer and were rungs above him. It seemed prerequisite that he put the time in, keep in place, wait.

He couldn’t.

He went for another job. Got it. At Special Dynamics in Los Angeles. More money than he’d been making at Humes—however, not much more. Actually, not much of a change in any way. Wiley detected humdrum in the personnel director’s welcoming spiel, was escorted into the president’s office for an immediate dose of top-level interest. A smile that was merely a mouth being pulled upward at the corners, a handshake too vigorous to be true, a couple of stock phrases.

Wiley felt processed, rather than important.

He was assigned to a phase of the lunar vehicle project.

At Special Dynamics he tried a different approach. On his own time he came up with an improved system of electronic circuitry. It took six months of his nights and weekends to develop it: a much smaller, lighter, equally efficient circuitry that was perfect for the lunar vehicle project. It also had many other possible commercial applications.

Wiley knew better than to show it to his phase manager or even the project supervisor, though he would have welcomed their suggestions and support. The idea was too stealable. Wiley took it right to the top. Laid it like an apple on the desk of the president, who considered this meeting with Wiley a matter of employee relations, a dutiful hesitation in the sentence of his busy morning. He looked over Wiley’s diagrams. No show of reaction from the president, who removed his glasses, cleaned them and took another, longer look at each page. “Seems good,” he said, a bit indecisively. But Wiley translated the man’s eyes, saw the dollar signs in them and was sure he would get his share.

Two days later the president’s secretary delivered a sealed envelope to Wiley. It contained a check for three thousand dollars, which, an accompanying personal letter explained, was a bonus. Wiley should keep up the fine work.

Hey, wait a minute, this was like something out of Dickens. He was no fucking Bob Cratchit.

He wanted to see the president, but the president had left for a four-day Palm Springs weekend and from there would be going to Washington, D.C., for ten days.

An executive vice-president sat Wiley down, tried to calm him. Wasn’t the three-thousand bonus enough?

Hell, no.

What did Wiley want?

No lousy bonus. He wanted what was fair, and if he didn’t get it, he’d take his idea elsewhere.

Couldn’t do that.

Try to stop him.

Wiley’s file was brought from personnel. The executive vice-president marked a check in the margin of the application form Wiley had signed the day he’d come to work for Special Dynamics. One paragraph among many pertaining to company rules and policies. Nothing anyone starting a job would bother to read. In so many words it said all inventions or original designs an employee created while working for Special Dynamics belonged exclusively to Special Dynamics.

Was there anything else the executive vice-president could do for Wiley?

Wiley bit his tongue, asked for a recommendation, went home and did some shadowboxing.

Wiser, more bitter, Wiley changed to a job with Litting Industries. For about the same salary he’d been making. No special reason for his choosing Litting. Just a job. He put in his hours. Got his paychecks. At credible intervals he phoned in that he had the flu and went to the beach.

Three years of that.

Wiley was thirty.

About then was when he met Harry Galanoy. A florid-faced, overweight man who wore wash-and-wear shirts and suits with a synthetic shine. Galanoy was thirty-five. He lived two apartments down from Wiley, overlooking the pool, at a typical medium-priced place in Van Nuys. Wiley had seen Galanoy numerous times coming and going but had never said more than a neighborly hello. One afternoon Wiley took his drink and cigarette out on the balcony. Below at poolside were a pair of sometime actresses who shared a ground-floor apartment. They had only the bottoms of bikinis on, were lying fronts up, slicked.

Galanoy came from his apartment.

He and Wiley shared the view for a while.

Galanoy shrugged. “Seen two, seen them all.”

Wiley smiled, nodded.

One of the girls rolled over to get done on the other side, her breasts squashed beneath her. It appeared painful.

“Buy you a drink?” Galanoy offered.

Wiley accepted, followed Galanoy inside.

Galanoy talked freely, especially about himself. He’d worked off and on at various things, mainly as a salesman. All it took to get rich was a gimmick, he said. Like the Hula Hoop. Nothing but a goddamn plastic ring. Made millions. Same thing with that stuff called Silly Putty. Who knew what might catch on next. The injector razor, the ballpoint pen. Sweet Jesus, how he wished he’d thought up the ballpoint.

So did Wiley.

Their conversation went on for five Scotches, kept on the topic of getting rich quick. Wiley did most of the listening, but at one point he related his experience with Special Dynamics. Galanoy was only slightly sympathetic, said Wiley shouldn’t have counted on anything so complicated. The simpler the gimmick, the better. The Hula Hoop, he reminded.