Naive Charles Royce (great novels .txt) 📖

tourists waiting in line to visit the top of the trade center. As the light above the intersection turns red, she motions for a taxi, which swerves to the right to pick her up. She ducks into the cab and catches her breath.

“Up, up, up, 45th and 12th, quickly please,” Jenna says to the taxi driver. “And don’t take the highway all the way, there’ll be too much traffic during rush hour.”

“Yes, ma’am,” replies the driver.

Jenna turns her attention back to Josh.

“I’m listening,” Josh says in an impatient tone.

“James West just asked to see me, so I’m headed there right now.”

“Wait, what? Why?”

“Hell if I know. But I think it may have something to do with Lennox.”

“Lenny? What do you mean? Is that why you’re calling me?”

“No! I mean yes. I mean kinda. You know how Micah is about to go on trial for killing Lennox?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I told Shawn that I knew certain things about a corporate cover-up, and now I’m scared the corporation knows something.”

“What are they covering up now?”

“Josh, did you hear me? I think they know something. I think they know something.”

“Oh.”

Jenna notices the taxi is not moving.

“Excuse me, what is going on?” Jenna asks the cab driver. “I thought I said don’t take the highway all the way up.”

“We’re on 8th Ave.” The driver is on the phone with his dispatch. “Sorry, ma’am. Apparently, some kid just got run over in the street a few blocks from here.”

✽✽✽

“I like this getting ready together in the morning thing.” Shawn tightens his tie. “We never get to do this.”

“Eh.” Her unenthusiastic responses are a running joke between them. She finishes straightening her hair, lays the flat iron on the floating teak vanity and sees her husband in the mirror heading in her direction.

Shawn grabs his wife by the waist and pulls her toward him.

“I love my wife,” he says, then pushes her away from him as he backward-dances out of the bathroom.

“You better,” she says, as she grabs her lipstick.

He doesn’t reply.

“I have a giant life insurance policy,” she says louder.

Nothing.

Haylee finishes putting on her lipstick and places it on the countertop. She peers through the door to the bedroom. Shawn is sitting on the bed watching the large television hanging on the wall.

“Come on baby, that was funny … Micah? Lennox? The life insurance policy? Too soon?” She walks toward him.

“Shhh, shh, shh.” He grabs the remote and turns up the volume. The ticker at the bottom of the big screen reads HEROIN OVERDOSE?

“Eye-witnesses close to the scene described the man as ‘half-naked, pale, and foaming at the mouth,’ and have questioned if the young man struck by this Manhattan taxi cab just minutes ago may have been in the middle of an overdose,” a voice-over reads as footage shows a shaky Facebook live video zooming in on the man’s face. The ticker quickly changes to RAW FOOTAGE.

“Jesus,” Haylee says.

“Sources have confirmed that the young man is twenty-four-year-old New York native Frank Jabali, a computer programmer who lives on the Lower East Side. He was rushed to a nearby hospital and is reportedly still alive. We will continue to update you on this tragic and …”

“Holy shit.” He turns off the television and grabs his briefcase. He pulls out a folder, then another. He opens the second. He scans each one of the pages until he comes across a witness interview transcript for Frank Jabali.

That’s him! he thinks. Frank Jabali, or Frank J. as Micah called him, one of Lennox’s sponsees who might have been the last to see Lennox alive.

He tucks the paper in his lips, while he shoves the folders back in his briefcase. He takes the paper out of his mouth and kisses his wife.

“Gotta go.” He shuts the door in an anxious exit.

Haylee stands there.

“Oh, okay,” she says.

C h a p t e r   2 9

“Oh, oh, it’s right up here,” she says to the driver.

Jenna’s cab approaches Élan’s current office, a modest building compared to the new headquarters, at the corner of 45th Street and 12th Avenue, right on the edge of Hell’s Kitchen. She texts her former boss, James West.

Almost there.

She pays for the cab with her phone. $67.50? she thinks, then remembers she’s been in the taxi for almost an hour.

She enters the giant lobby, which is fully enveloped in early golden daylight. The entire fortress is glass, from the front and side windows to the plexiglass furniture. The transparent landscape serves to highlight a large linear structure of dark, bent-plywood slats which curve like an ocean wave from the 30-foot ceiling down to the reception desk.

Remembering how much she used to admire the cold beauty of her former workplace, Jenna walks toward the front desk, noticing the reverberation of her metal heels on the marble floor. She readjusts her walk to compensate, but realizes she’s simply added a prissy note to her loud pace.

Slut-clacking, that’s a new one.

God, this place, she thinks, knowing how much money was poured into this building not eight years ago only to be usurped by the new one being built across town. She continues to walk, a little nervous about being here, a little grateful that she does not have to be here every day.

A simple row of thin brass pendants illuminates two beautiful young women directly below. Jenna recognizes one of them but cannot remember her name.

“Jenna! So good to see you,” the familiar one says.

Good to see you, too, nameless person I used to see every day, Jenna thinks.

“Good to see you too,” she says.

“Mr. West is expecting you. Here’s your security badge. Through security and up … well, you remember.”

“I do,” Jenna says with a half-smirk. She looks at the security area. She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes.

✽✽✽

((Ding.))

She exits the elevator on the thirty-first floor, flashes her badge at the executive receptionist, a dapper young fellow who winks and waves her through. She walks past her former desk, hoping not to be recognized.