Black Buck(47)

“Fuck ’em! We don’t need ’em. We never did. Even the board. They want us to quiet down, to not speak with the press or do any interviews, but forget that. This isn’t something that’ll just blow over, and it’s sure as hell not something I’m going to let take us down. Will you?”

“NO!”

“That’s absolutely fucking right. Because we’re the best fucking salespeople in this entire fucking city, and we have proven it time and time again. So we are going to sell everyone to death. The prospects who want to pull out. The clients who are trying to cancel. The media, and even the board!” he yelled, a crazed look on his face now, like he had murder on his mind. “The true salesman,” he continued, pointing at us, “is a god! And God, not man, makes the rules! And we all know what happens when man tries to conquer God, don’t we?”

“Tell us, Rhett! Tell us what happens!” someone shouted, egging him on.

He laughed. He laughed so hard and so long, I thought he had lost it, that his company crumbling right before his eyes had broken him. But no, he stopped laughing, became very still, and brought the microphone closer to his mouth.

“He drowns, burns, and turns them to stone with less energy than it takes to breathe. And that is what we will do to our enemies. Because, as the Book of Nahum says, ‘The Lord is slow to anger but great in power; the Lord will not leave the guilty unpunished.’”

The clapping went on for so long that it felt like it would be easier to continue clapping forever than stop. And while I couldn’t admit it then—because I didn’t want to see it—when I looked at Rhett breathing heavily in front of the crowd, something on his face made my heart plunge. Something that betrayed everything he had just said. Something more man than God.

Desperation.





13





I woke before my alarm went off. I was twenty-two years old and had never served in a war. I didn’t know any military drills, tactics, or strategies. I’d never read The Art of War, played Battleship, or even held a toy gun—Ma didn’t allow those. But I was ready to fight for Sumwun, to do whatever it took to win.

Reader: Salespeople are often separated into two camps: those who love to win and those who hate to lose. Before joining Sumwun, I was one of the latter. But once you taste what it feels like to win, to really win something meaningful—like your spot on the dream team—you will do everything to protect that feeling. Be careful of winning, it’s one of the most dangerous things you can ever do.



Ma wasn’t in the kitchen. She insisted on what the doctors had told her—that everything was fine—but she continued missing days of work and didn’t seem like herself. I knocked on her door. A hoarse voice said, “Come in, Dar.”

“You aight, Ma?” She was curled up in bed watching reruns of Judge Hatchett.

“Better than this one.” She pointed to the skinny teenager with tight cornrows being ridiculed.

“What’d he do?”

“Same as all these kids. Thought he was grown until he realized he wasn’t. Kids these days doin’ all types of things they never woulda dreamed of doin’ in my day. They need a healthy helpin’ of God and someone to slap them upside their heads.”

“Word, Ma. Not goin’ to work today?”

She took a sip of water and sat up, eyes fixed on the television. Her hands shook so much I had to take the glass from her.

“Ma,” I said, grabbing her hand. She weakly tried to grip my own but failed.

“My supervisor told me to take a coupla days off, Dar. Saw me coughin’ up a storm and I had a little blood on my mouth, so . . .”

My face got hot. “Blood, Ma? This can’t be right.” Either her doctors were lying to her, or she was lying to me. “You’ve been missin’ more days of work than before, you’re coughin’ up blood, and you’re losin’ your voice every other day. Plus, you can barely hold a glass of water. C’mon, Ma. What’s goin’ on?”

“Nothin’, Dar. Don’ worry ’bout me. It’s jus’ old age. The doctors say I’ll be fine in no time. But if this gets worse, I’ll head to the hospital. Deal?”

“Aight,” I said, still skeptical but not wanting to push the issue and make her feel worse. “Deal.”

A commercial flashed across the screen and then I saw it: a news clip featuring the photo of a smiling young girl with braces. I froze. The screen cut to another of an older Chinese man with a straight face and oversize glasses. The types you see pedophiles wearing in their mug shots.

“Sixteen-year-old Donesha Clark from Little Rock, Arkansas, suffered from depression. Her parents heard about a New York City tech startup called Sumwun, which they hoped would help her since traditional therapy wasn’t working. Her parents say that after a year of therapy with a Chinese man named Jiao-long Lee, Donny, as they called her, began to turn back into the smiling girl you see here. But all of that ended when Donesha flew to China behind her parents’ backs. Authorities say Donesha was lured by Mr. Lee, her therapist or, as Sumwun called him, her ‘assistant.’

“Donesha thought she was meeting him for a few days of in-person sessions, but Mr. Lee had other plans. After the FBI contacted Chinese authorities, they raided Mr. Lee’s home to find little Donny Clark tied up and dead, with multiple knife wounds, internal bleeding, and blows to the head from what may have been a lead pipe or hammer. Chinese authorities say Mr. Lee is still at large. Later today, we’ll speak with representatives from the company at the center of this controversy, including CEO Rhett Daniels.”