The Assistants(35)

“There was nothing I could do. My hands were tied, you know that.”

“Bullshit,” Robert said.

I could hear that Nesbitt was about to cry, which would have both disgusted and exhilarated Robert. “You’ve destroyed my career, Bob, my entire family, for what? Because you’re pissed off about not getting an FCC waiver? Are you f*cking serious?”

“You betrayed me,” Robert said, and the acid from my stomach began boiling up my throat. This was how nasty it got when someone crossed Robert.

“You betrayed me,” I heard Robert say yet again, just before I hung up the phone.

I’d heard enough.

Nesbitt betrayed Robert, so Robert ruined him. Simple as that. This was the Robert the public read about in malicious headlines (in the more liberal papers) and cruel blog posts, the one they referred to (like Margie Fischer did) as a bully and a propagandist. A monster. This was the version of Robert that had never applied to me before, that I’d never had to fear—but did now.

—

THAT NIGHT, we met at Bar Nine. Emily, Ginger, Wendi, Lily, and me. Bar Nine was the only place within walking distance of the Titan building that didn’t feel like a Midtown bar. It was a wash of red light and flickering candles, oversize velvet couches and—fortunately for us—a private back room.

The five of us eyed one another from around a too-low wooden table. We’d all come straight from the same place of work, but who could tell? Between Emily’s diamonds and Ginger’s f*ck-me pumps, Wendi’s bondage pants, and Lily’s cardigan with giraffes on it, we looked like the snapshot of a new Tumblr meme. We may as well have had a neon sign over our heads blinking, We’re a ragtag group up to something no good! Though a sentence that long would have required a lot of neon, so fluorescents were another option.

Wendi had her laptop out on the table and she was showing us what her computer program could do, which sounded a lot to me like computerstuff computerstuff functionality bitmap vector browser analytics computerstuff computerstuff.

I focused on the clickable pictograms displayed on-screen. They were surprisingly adorable, more than one clearly inspired by a fat cartoon animal. I was finding that Wendi often undermined my expectations this way, reminding me anew each time that beneath all the daggers, skulls, and anarchy symbols was a violin-playing straight-A student who very possibly had a thing for Hello Kitty.

“This here allows Tina to keep track of all the money going in and coming out.” Wendi clicked on an icon of a smiling dollar sign with googly eyes and whiskers. “We can subsidize whoever Tina approves and also allow them to contribute what they can.”

It went on like this, Wendi clicking and dragging various cartoon personifications, saying stuff the rest of us pretended to understand, until Ginger came to with sudden comprehension.

“Hang on. Wait a minute.” She flared her ruby-red nails. “Only Tina gets to decide things?”

“She’s the administrator of the site,” Wendi said.

“Why is that?” Ginger asked.

“Because that’s how I made it,” Wendi said.

Emily lingered a few thought steps behind Ginger in recognizing they’d lost the reins of their get-rich-quick scheme. “When you say subsidize,” she asked Wendi, “what exactly do you mean?”

Wendi appeared perplexed.

“You used the word subsidize before,” I said in an effort to clear up Wendi’s confusion. She wasn’t as accustomed as I was to Emily’s five-minute delay. “You said we can subsidize whoever I approve.”

Lily raised her hand up high, enthused by the opportunity to define something. “A subsidy is a grant or gift of money,” she said.

“Right, so, how much will we be subsidized?” Emily asked.

It was time for me to step in. To take control even if it meant having to audaciously imitate one of my toughest role models: Cagney and/or Lacey, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or Bea Arthur. As far as I was concerned, Dorothy Zbornak from The Golden Girls was second only to Robert in toughness overall.

“We’ll pay off Ginger’s debt using Wendi’s website,” I said in as Dorothy a tone as I could muster. “Emily, you’ve already had your debt paid off.”

“And then we can take it from there.” Wendi tossed a bag of tobacco and some rolling papers onto the table and began constructing a cigarette.

“Take it from there how?” Ginger asked.

“Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it,” I said.

“I have a few ideas.” Wendi carefully rolled her tobacco-filled paper between her thumb and middle fingers. Then she licked the edge of the paper and sealed the cigarette. “Once this groundwork is in place with all of us trickling in funds—”

Lily raised her hand. “Not me though, right? I’m only here for moral support.”

Wendi bowed her horns to Lily’s concern. “Correct. With the three of us—Tina, Ginger, and me—trickling funds through you, Emily, there is great potential for . . .”

Emily was pitched forward, clutching her diamond necklace. The gear shifts of her calculating mind were spinning.

“. . . a redistribution of wealth,” Wendi said. “Robert’s wealth.” She stuck her cigarette behind her ear.

This was just the sort of opportunity Wendi had been waiting for, wasn’t it? A foolproof way to get at the evil Robert Barlow. Why else would someone like her want to work for a corporation like Titan in the first place?