The Gatekeeper's Son Read Free Page B

chair with a loud scratch and lunged to his feet.
    “Goddammit! You promised me you were done with him!” His fists were clenched tight by his sides.
    Okaasan touched his arm, but he shook it off and strode out of the room. She followed him, leaving me astonished and the room engulfed in another raging silence.
    I took a deep breath. “Who’s Bartholomew?”
    Mark answered. “He’s one of the top money men in the world.”
    I looked at Grandpa. “Why’s he mad at you?”
    He turned to me. “He lent me money years ago, helped me get my start,” he said. “But why would one of the most powerful men in the world help out a young nobody like me?” He looked around the table. “Turns out I had something he wanted.”
    “What?”
    “I had a small collection, … antiques, just little trinkets, but he wanted them. I wasn’t interested in selling, so I paid back the money I owed him and walked away. That was years ago.” Grandpa let out a short laugh. “He’s a sore loser.”
    “But why now?” I said. “Why’d he wait this long to do something about it?”
    Grandpa’s head drooped. “The bastard waited until I had the most to lose.”

    Everyone filtered out of the dining room, leaving me alone with Grandpa and Walter. I stared at my new watch. I still had an hour and a half before I was supposed to meet my friend Mack. For once I couldn’t wait to do my homework—anything to get back to reality and out of the world of big business.
    Walter paced. “Bankruptcy is a strong possibility,” he said. “We may not last to the month’s end.”
    Grandpa lunged to his feet, his face red. “We just lost the financing! So why did the Bayview project go under two months ago?”
    “It’s the economy. Everyone’s suffering.” Walter licked his lips. “Call Mr. Müller, Bartholomew’s assistant. Maybe you can—”
    “No!”
    “You’re risking the company—”
    “It’s my company to risk!” Grandpa strode from the room rubbing his temples. Not long after, Ms. Lin came in from the garden and followed him upstairs.
    Through the open door, I felt the breeze and smelled the freshness it carried. Across the room, Walter now held a glass of scotch. He smiled, but it disappeared when he caught me staring at him.
    “You’ve inherited a sinking ship,” he said.
    I was about to reply when something started nagging at me. I felt a pang of worry. Something was wrong—I just didn’t know what.
    Okaasan ran in from the garden and paused at the foot of the stairs.
    A moment later, we heard Ms. Lin yell.

    The red trucks of the San Francisco Fire Department were parked out front, paramedics waiting. Okaasan and I had run upstairs to find Grandpa slumped over his desk, his face gray, with Ms. Lin at his side. Seconds later, Mr. Barrymore and three men burst into the study carrying medical kits and a defibrillator. Everything after that was a blur.
    Mr. Barrymore pleaded with Grandpa to go to the hospital, but he refused.
    “I ate too much!” he yelled. “You’re overreacting.”
    It was about then that Okaasan and Ms. Lin pushed the men aside. Within minutes, Grandpa was on his way down the stairs, strapped to a stretcher, grumbling the whole time but no longer resisting. The paramedics took him to the emergency department of UCSF Medical Center and my parents took me home.

Chapter 3

    CHAPTER
    3
    Mack was waiting outside our gate, kicking at the weeds poking through cracks in the sidewalk. Dressed in jeans and a gray hoodie, he looked older than sixteen. He was a big stocky boy with a curly mop of blond hair that had fascinated me since the first time I saw it in kindergarten.
    I closed our gate. “Hey.”
    “Yo.” He pointed to the book and pencil case I carried, and his face twisted in mock astonishment. “You’re leaving home without your precious new computer?” He spun toward the street. “Call the media!”
    I rolled my eyes. “I left it at my grandpa’s house.” Then I told him about my