Paradime (19 page)

‘Then,’ she says, composing herself, and turning around, ‘when I saw what was happening with PromTech . . .’ She shakes her head. ‘It was ridiculous. It was clear that you were some kind of a . . . a
puppet
.’ She looks me directly in the eye. ‘So when I saw you down in the lobby just now, it was a little alarming. I didn’t know what to think.’

I drop back onto the sofa.

‘What do you think now?’ I ask.

Leaning against the window, she studies me for a while. ‘Well, what’s weird is, you coming here like this, wanting to talk,’ she says. ‘It doesn’t make sense. I saw you on
Charlie Rose
,
and that didn’t make sense either. So what I think is that when Doug Shaw first became aware of you – however that happened, maybe Teddy told him, in his excitement, I don’t know – but he saw an opportunity, a chance to stop Teddy in his tracks, to replace him, and he couldn’t resist, because that’s something Doug has wanted to do for a very long time.’ She pauses. ‘But maybe he didn’t know what he was getting into. Maybe he didn’t know that when his partner chose
you
’ – she points at her belly again – ‘for
this
, it wasn’t a choice based solely on appearance, that maybe there were other, more complex factors involved. And maybe . . .’ She leans forward a little from the window. ‘What’s your name?’

‘My
name
?’

‘Yeah.’

How can such a simple question feel so loaded, so dangerous? I hesitate, but then just say it. ‘Danny Lynch.’

‘Okay.’ She nods, considering it. ‘So maybe Doug didn’t know that trying to control Danny Lynch would be just as hard as trying to control Teddy Trager. I mean, what you said on
Charlie Rose
? That was pure Teddy. Don’t tell me Doug approved that, or had a say in it. And the idea of running for public office? Those
thoughts were in Teddy’s head too, no question about it. So I don’t know who you are, Danny Lynch, but I don’t think Doug Shaw knows either.’

It’s a convoluted theory, and I could shoot some holes in it, parts of it anyway, but what would be the point? If she believes in this notion of a grand romantic gesture on Trager’s part, fine, I’m not about to take that away from her. Something important still needs to be cleared up, though.

‘Nina,’ I say, ‘you do know . . .’ I close my eyes for a second. ‘You do know that Teddy is dead, right?’

She gently taps the back of her head three times against the window. ‘Is that why you came here? To tell me that? Because I’ve been assuming it for some time.’

I look up at her. ‘It was an accident, Nina . . . Teddy lost control of the car, he crashed it into that tree. I guess that was when Doug Shaw seized his opportunity and got me to take Teddy’s place.’

As an account of the events of that night, this is light on detail and extremely disingenuous. I try to prepare myself for a barrage of questions, a cross-examination that will expose the half-truths and misdirections and deliberate ambiguities here, but it doesn’t come. She just stands at the window, staring at me. Eventually she says, ‘You really think it was an accident, Danny? Is that what Doug told you? Is that how he got you into this? How he persuaded you to keep it going?’

I don’t answer. How
can
I without admitting I was actually there when it happened?

‘One thing about Teddy,’ Nina goes on, ‘he couldn’t lose control of a car if he tried. And especially not
that
car. It’s something I was really puzzled about before I saw you, before I even got to the hospital. Teddy was an exceptionally good driver.’

I feel a tiny twitch in my hand as I remember – as my hand remembers – how I landed that punch on Teddy’s face.

‘But once I accepted that he was gone, that he wasn’t just going to show up some morning with coffee and bagels . . .’ She stops and takes a deep breath. ‘Once I figured out that he’d been murdered – assassinated, actually – that Doug Shaw had effectively carried out a
coup d’état
at Paradime . . . well,
then
I started wondering how he’d done it.’

I must have a look on my face.

‘Oh, what, you don’t think Shaw is capable of something like that?’

‘But Nina, it was an acc—’

‘Danny,
they hacked his car
.’

I stare at her now, moving my head very slightly from side to side. I have no idea what to say to this, but somewhere in my subconscious a sequence of controlled depth charges is being detonated.

‘I looked into it online,’ she says, ‘which wasn’t easy, believe me, but guess what? It’s now entirely possible with Wi-Fi or Bluetooth to gain remote access to a car’s ECUs and to do whatever you want with it, to turn off the AC, to lock the steering wheel, to accelerate, to
crash
it. I knew this in theory, but to see demonstration videos was pretty shocking. Then I went back and got some details on Teddy’s supposed accident, which was even harder to do . . .’ She takes another deep breath. ‘I don’t know if you realise it,
I
didn’t, but there are already conspiracy theories out there about what happened that night. On the deep web there’s this one site that keeps track of suspicious accidents – you know, car crashes, plane crashes, helicopters, whatever, people who get killed or injured and the timing is weird, or the details don’t add up – well, Teddy’s crash is on there, and I don’t know how they gather their info, what their sources are, but they make a couple of very serious claims. One, they say the airbag didn’t go off – now how
that
could have happened without some kind of interference, I don’t know – and, two, they say that if you take stuff like throw weights and friction coefficients into account, the damage to the car clearly shows there was no
way
the driver could have survived, let alone escaped with minor injuries.’ She pauses. ‘So I think it’s pretty obvious what happened.’

As I continue to stare at Nina, my insides are churning. Everything she’s saying is plausible and makes sense. At the same time, my brain is spooling back through those last few seconds with Teddy. I know he was angry, and with good reason, but his actions
were
strange. I mean, banging the steering wheel like that . . . was he not able to turn it? Was he not able to slow the car down? In retrospect, I suppose, it
could
seem that way. And there was the second vehicle. Did I imagine that or not? So, here’s the real question: is it possible that when Teddy was pushing me out onto the road he had just realised he was no longer in control of his car? That that was
why
he was pushing me out? That he was actually trying to save my life?

I stand up, feeling unsteady, dizzy, a bit like I’m out of my mind on something, bad acid or too much cheap tequila. I want to get out of there now, and fast. I want to escape, but something is holding me back. I look at Nina. ‘If all of this is true,’ I say, ‘what are you going to do about it?’

She shakes her head. ‘Nothing.’

‘But . . . I don’t . . .
nothing
?’

She steps forward a few paces and stands right in front of me. ‘What
can
I do? I can’t prove anything. Besides, I’m pretty sure I’m being closely monitored, so if I cause any trouble, if I rock the precious boat, how long do you think I’ll last?’ She lifts a hand up and gently strokes the side of my face with it. ‘And Danny, you know what? To be perfectly honest, forget about me, I really can’t see
you
lasting very long at all.’

I look into her eyes. I’m not sure what she means. ‘No?’

‘No.’ She glances down for a moment, then back up. ‘You should consider what you’re doing very carefully. Because the more you act like Teddy, the sooner you’ll end up the way he did.’

‘So . . . what, I just go on being a puppet?’

‘I don’t know. Why not? They’re
paying
you, right?’

She’s so calm,
so controlled
–
it’s impressive.
And then it hits me again, what she said earlier. She’s pregnant. She doesn’t
care
.

I look down and place my hand – slowly, tentatively – on her belly. Because when will I ever get the chance again?

She doesn’t stop me.

After a couple of seconds, I look up, feeling very self-conscious. I withdraw my hand. ‘I have to go.’

‘You know,’ she says, ‘I miss him every day. I grieve for him. So this is not easy for me . . . standing here, looking at
you
.’ She studies my face for a moment, carefully scanning each feature. ‘It’s really quite extraordinary.’

Her gaze is intense.

I look away and move across the room.

When I get to the door, I turn around. ‘I’m sorry, Nina.’

‘Don’t be,’ she says, patting her belly once more. ‘Really. I
have
what I want.’

The next week is something of a blur. I show up at the office but do no work. I cancel things at the last minute and refuse to see people or take any calls. I spend most of my time standing at the window, staring out over Midtown. If Nina is right, then I’m little more than a puppet here at Paradime, so what difference will it make? None. The work of the company won’t be impeded in any way. And if I persist in trying to be more like Teddy? Then . . . I’ll just end up like Teddy.

It’s remarkable how quickly I get used to the idea that his death wasn’t an accident. I resisted at first, because it seemed so preposterous. But what seems preposterous
now
is that Shaw would wait around for some random act of chance to move things along when he already had an elaborate arrangement in place that would do it for him on command.

I’m prepared to concede, therefore, that my blow to the side of Teddy’s face wasn’t the cause of the crash. But doesn’t that mean, in turn, that when I signed those contracts – here in
this
office – I was effectively signing his death warrant? Because wouldn’t that have been the obvious trigger for Shaw?

These questions play on my mind, but they’re not the only ones. Why, for example, did Shaw want to replace Teddy? What was the
real
reason? A clash of cultures within the company? A disagreement over which direction Paradime should take? A contentious deal even? Whatever. These are all legitimate sources of conflict, but . . .

Car hacking and murder? Seriously?

Say Nina is right, though – about this much at least, that the opportunity
I
presented was simply too much of a temptation. Fine.
Where is Shaw then?
MIA in Florida? That doesn’t make any sense. You’d imagine he’d be up here micromanaging my every move. Instead, it seems, I’m free to do as I please and am only limited by . . . what? My own lack of imagination?

I don’t get it.

I probably should have asked Nina if she knew anything about Dr Karl Lessing, but I didn’t, so all I can do now is follow my nose.

Near the end of the week, in something of a fluster, Nicole informs me that six months ago I was invited to speak at a tech and innovation conference in Ireland and that I apparently accepted. It’s happening next week, and she apologises for reminding me about it so late – somehow the event slipped through her scheduling grid – but she can cancel if I like.

‘No,’ I tell her, ‘that’s fine. Make the arrangements.’

I’ve never been to Ireland, even though I have family there, or so I understand – it’s hardly surprising with a name like Lynch. I go through Trager’s notes from the cache on the flash drive and find a couple of files relating to the conference, including a sketchy outline for his keynote address. I spend most of the weekend working on this, fleshing it out, reading up on stuff and generally keeping myself distracted.

The event is in Dublin – an annual affair called ExpoCon – and it draws all the big names in global tech and investment, so if Shaw or Lessing or whoever it is don’t want me getting my Trager on in front of all those people, they’re going to have to intervene.

And I wait, expecting up to the last minute that they will, but it’s only when I’m crossing the Atlantic in a Gulfstream G650 that I realise just how much latitude I have here – or maybe it’s not even latitude, maybe it’s actual freedom. As I sit gazing out the window at the billowing sea of clouds below me, I speculate – or fantasise, really – about what it’d be like if both Shaw and Lessing were somehow to be eliminated from the equation. Who else would then know for sure that I wasn’t the real Teddy Trager? More to the point, who would have the authority or the balls to call me on it and expect to be taken seriously? And in
that
scenario, with all of Trager’s resources, what could I not achieve?

Dublin is small and has lots of local charm, but the convention centre where ExpoCon is taking place could be anywhere, Seattle or Frankfurt or Kuala Lumpur, a neutral, streamlined international ‘space’. I meet a lot of people, and I expend no psychic energy whatsoever angsting over whether or not I actually know any of them. Have I met them once or a thousand times? Have I rejected their pitches or vacationed on their islands? I don’t know, and I don’t care. I maintain a steely demeanour, an aloofness, and, far from silencing people, this tactic renders most of them helplessly garrulous while at the same time laying bare certain familiar and unattractive insecurities. I attend seminars, workshops and panel discussions. I have coffee with people, engage in whispered confabs on the ‘sidelines’. By the time I’m waiting to step out onto the main stage that evening to deliver what is now very definitely
my
keynote address, I feel – to use Karl Lessing’s word – ‘bulletproof’. I’ve done a run-through with the production people, approved the music cues and scanned a version of my speech on the teleprompter. The speaker before me was showcasing an amazing new piece of technology, but his delivery was flat and uninspiring, so he’s not exactly a hard act to follow. I know it’s one thing to appear on TV in a controlled studio setting and that it’s quite another to walk out in front of two thousand pumped delegates in an auditorium, but as the host announces me now, and the music surges, I experience no real fear or even nerves . . .

I head back to the States the following day and spend most of the flight time reading emails and blog reactions to my speech. A hefty percentage of these range from the sceptical to the dismissive: I’m naive, my ideas are ill thought out, they’re derivative, the speech was quixotic, it was dangerous, I’m a crazy person. But some of them give it a fair shake, with a select few going all out for the Kool Aid. ‘Teddy Trager’, one of them writes, ‘is a true visionary in a time when the vision thing has been debased beyond recognition. We may not deserve this man, but we certainly need him.’

When I get into the office early the next morning, Nicole is dealing with a torrent of interview requests from various media outlets. At one point I sit down with her and we go through a list, quickly rejecting most of them out of hand. Nicole has a good grasp on this stuff, she knows what’s worth pursuing and what isn’t: which shows or podcasts are popular, which sites run stories that get picked up by the aggregators, that kind of thing. As I’m scanning the list, I spot a name that I’ve seen before and point to it.

‘Who’re they?’

‘Oh . . . no,’ she says. ‘I wouldn’t bother with them, they’re too niche.’ She pauses. ‘Weirdly enough, though, they
are
persistent. I’ve had repeated requests from them over the past month, three or four I’d say, at least.’

It’s a political website called Pivot, and I’m pretty sure it’s the one that Kate interviewed for and got that job with. I ask Nicole for the name of the contact person there, the one who made the request.

She checks. ‘Pete . . . Kettner.’

I google him and go straight to Images. The page that opens up contains a lot of different possibilities for Pete Kettner, but I spot the one I’m looking for almost immediately, in the second row of the first page – and that’s because I recognise him. He’s the beardy hipster guy I saw with Kate that night. I stare at his picture for ages – it’s small, like an ID photo – and several things race through my mind at once.

He’s a colleague. They work together. It’s a small world. This is a
coincidence
.

Then I point at the list and say to Nicole, ‘That guy, Pete . . . whatsit, arrange something with him, will you? As soon as possible. Today, if you can.’ I stand up from my desk. ‘We’ll look at the others later, okay?’

‘Oh . . . yes, of course, if . . .’

‘What?’

Her eyebrows are furrowed. ‘If you’re sure?’

I nod,
yes
.

Nicole stands as well, gathers up her stuff and leaves.

I wander over to my default position at the window.

Fifteen minutes later, Nicole reappears. ‘Lunch with Pete Kettner today, twelve thirty, at Soleil.’

I arrive early so I can see him enter the room. He’s young, probably mid-twenties, if that. He’s fairly scruffy and may well be wearing the same jacket and T-shirt he had on the night I saw him with Kate. As he approaches the table, he has that defiant air of someone refusing to be fazed by unfamiliar surroundings – in this case the opulent decor of a slightly stuffy high-end Midtown eatery.

I don’t know why I’m doing this, other than from some perverse need to check the guy out, to put my mind at rest on the question of whether or not Kate could possibly be interested in him, or he in her. Probably,
he
is, but it’s less likely that . . .

Oh God.

This was a bad idea.

‘Pete?’ I say, half getting up and extending my hand. ‘Hi. I’m Teddy.’

‘Hi, Mr Trager, uh . . .
Teddy
,’ he says awkwardly, and sits down. ‘Thanks for agreeing to meet with me.’

‘Finally.’

He smiles. ‘Yes. I was beginning to wonder how else I could get your attention . . . without . . .’

He stops, and fumbles for a moment with his phone and a small notebook, placing one on the table and the other in his jacket pocket, and then switching them around.

‘Without
what
?’ I say.

He stops fumbling and looks at me. ‘Without going some other route, I guess . . . the legal route maybe.’

I express surprise at this. ‘Oh?’

He nods. ‘Yeah, well . . . let me explain why I wanted to see you.’

Before he can start, the waiter arrives. I order something simple, and Kettner surrenders his menu saying he’ll have the same. He then launches into a quick spiel about Pivot, the kind of stories they run, what they stand for, the kind of change they’d like to bring about, ‘. . . oh, and by the way,’ he says, interrupting himself, ‘that was a
great
speech at ExpoCon the other day.’

‘Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome.’ He pauses, clearly nervous now. ‘Okay, so . . .’

It turns out that there’s this other issue Kettner wants to raise with me, it’s not strictly a Pivot story, not yet anyway, and he wants to be both thorough
and
fair. He wants to give me a chance to respond before he takes the story any further.

I’m intrigued. But also starting to get a little worried. Does Kate come into this? Is it
not
a coincidence after all?

‘So,’ Kettner says, ‘I’ll just get straight to it. I have this friend at the office, okay, and her boyfriend died a couple of months ago. He was found in the river, over by Pier 81, they think it was probably suicide, they don’t know, but the thing is . . .’ He hesitates, and as he looks down at his place setting for a moment, I stare at the top of his head in disbelief. Then he continues. ‘I’m sorry, it’s just that this is going to sound very weird.’

‘No need to apologise,’ I say, trying to be reassuring. ‘Go on.’

‘Okay. Well, for a while before he died, her boyfriend, whose name was Danny Lynch, had become more or less fixated on
you
, but for a very good reason, as it turns out.’

I might be expected to show curiosity here, even irritation, but I remain impassive.

‘Which is?’

‘He looked
exactly
like you.’ Kettner takes something out of his pocket and slides it across the table in front of me. ‘This is him.’

It’s a photo, naturally. But it’s of
me
, standing next to one of the grills at Mouzon. I remember the day it was taken. I assume he chose this one because it’s both very clear and very clearly
not
Teddy Trager.

‘Oh my God.’

‘Yeah.’

The waiter arrives with water and bread. I pick up the photo, as though to examine it closely. When the waiter leaves, I hand the photo back to Kettner. ‘I don’t know what to make of this, Pete.’

‘I understand,’ he says, putting the photo away again. ‘But the thing is, Mr Trager, after Danny died, Kate – that’s the woman I work with, Danny’s girlfriend – she was so cut up about it, naturally, that she couldn’t bring herself to go through his stuff, and didn’t for quite a while afterwards, a few weeks. But then she did.’ He takes a sip of water. ‘The night he died, Danny had been working on his laptop, and when Kate finally got around to checking his browsing history, it was all to do with
you
. . . your business partner, Paradime Capital, a Ms Schlossmeier. It was just Teddy Trager, Teddy Trager, Teddy Trager, columns and columns of searches going back days. Now fine, that wouldn’t be . . . it wouldn’t
mean
anything if Danny and you weren’t so physically alike, and it wouldn’t—’

‘But what does it mean
anyway
?’

I’m feeling very uneasy now.

‘I don’t know, that’s the thing. Danny was troubled, in certain respects, and he’d been behaving strangely, there’s no other way to put it, but . . .’ He looks around, as though searching for the right words. ‘Kate is trying to understand why he took his own life, if that’s actually what happened, and she can’t help wondering if Danny may have . . . approached you, if there wasn’t some form of contact, if—’

‘Why doesn’t she ask me this herself, why send—’

‘Oh, she’s tried. She’s called your office multiple times now, left messages, sent emails, but she’s never heard back. You see, as a blogger, as a
journalist
, I get to knock on a few more doors. I get to push a little harder.’ He smiles sheepishly, almost apologetically. Pete Kettner is doing this because he likes Kate. No other reason. He thinks he might get lucky.

‘What does Kate do at Pivot?’

‘Oh . . . she’s a production assistant.’

I nod. ‘What you said there, “if that’s actually what happened.” What does that mean?’

Kettner squirms a little. ‘Well, in the absence of any response from you, at least up to now, Kate hasn’t been able to keep herself from speculating.’ He looks me in the eye. ‘To put it bluntly, she wonders if you maybe had something to do with Danny showing up dead in the Hudson.’

I hold his gaze, but don’t speak for a few moments. My whole body is tense, my insides are churning. All I want to do is get up from the table and walk out of there,
run
out.