The Crash of Hennington Read Free Page A

else. No personal photos, no mementos from company milestones, no sample Banyon Enterprises products. Even the coffee mug was black and unmarked by logo or design. Most definitely not the outward reflection of an unfettered soul.
    The minimalism (some would say sterility) reached to the gray carpet and on up the undecorated walls. After three years in this office, the intended inoffensive-yet-very-expensive abstract expressionist paintings were still packed in crates thirty stories below, waiting futilely for the day when Luther would finally allow them to breathe fresh air. And there was the silence, too. No bustle, no music, not even a hum from the air conditioning, just Luther’s pen scratching across a paper or the fading click of typing on the keyboard. Yet the atmosphere was not cold but melancholic, a funeral parlor’s viewing room rather than a prison cell, Luther the grieving relative and not the angry inmate. Luther at thirty-eight (grapevine verdict: ‘looks younger, seems older') appeared at once tense and exhausted. His tanned, handsome face rarely smiled, his broad chest rarely expanded into laughter, his step never betrayed any lightness. His secretaries worried frantically about him.
    The intercom lit up.
    —Yes, Lois?
    —You’re going to be late for your 9.30.
    Luther glanced at the clock.
    —Shit. Call Jules, please, and tell him I’m on my way.
    —I already have.
    Archie Banyon and Luther Pickett had a thrice-weekly tennis match, played on the grass court Archie had installedon the uppermost floor of his own office. It was meant as a friendly game between friendly rivals, father-son in intent, if not perhaps in genuine feeling; still, it was not the corporate death-saga it might have been. Luther was strapping, tall, muscular. He was bald across the top and kept the rest of his hair cropped extremely short, a trompe l’oeil that made his head seem like a single sleek muscle as well. His tightly compacted litheness paired with a set of small silver-rimmed spectacles to make Luther look for all the world like a terrifically strong man trying not to appear so. In spite of this – and spite definitely entered into the equation – Archie Banyon had an impressive game and a more impressive tenacity. Luther usually lost two out of three, even given Archie’s extra five decades.
    What the matches amounted to were three opportunities a week to speak with Archie. Three times a week to deliver the prepared speech that Luther had written and rewritten, the prepared speech that laid it all in the open at last and forever, the prepared speech that would probably kill Archie Banyon, not merely because of what it meant for Luther, but because of what it meant for Archie’s biological son, Thomas, a distasteful little caveat that helped matters not at all.
    Luther gathered his tennis clothes and bolted to the elevators. He shot up through eighteen floors of computer banks and safes, film libraries and records, corporate histories and hidden crimes, eighteen floors of valuable information that Archie had placed between himself and Luther because he only felt comfortable if he was on one end and Luther on the other. —To protect it, Archie said, like sentinels. The elevator doors snapped open. Luther spotted Jules, Archie’s assistant, arranging Archie’s equipment off to the side of the court. Jules flashed Luther a wan, impish smile.
    —Piss off, Jules.
    —Is that any way to greet your umpire?
    —Where’s Archie?
    —Here!
    Archie called from the far end of the court, behind Luther. Luther turned. One week. One week, and there would be no turning back. He would either give the speech or he wouldn’t. In one week, if he hadn’t said no, his silence would have answered yes.

5. Maggerty.
    Maggerty the Rhinoherd was not the rhinoherd, but the misnomer served a humane purpose. Though the resolute, quiet and massive Crash needed no tending, the presence of Maggerty could only otherwise be explained by