Nelson could care less about Randy shaking a few grand out of some crooked bookkeeper. What was money, anyway, but a unit of barter? Randy'd kept his silence, which was what he'd promised to do, and he wouldn't have been able to do it to begin with if the books had been clean. Fair enough.
He was just about to give Randy a little teaser about the Manna-Lean, when Tim's stomach made a strangled noise so loud it startled everyone in the room.
"Uh. Sorry. Guess I should probably eat something."
"Just make sure," Nelson said, "it's not...you-know-what."
"You're enjoying this," Randy told Nelson.
"I take my fun where I can get it."
"Park Avenue manna," Tim said. "How's that?"
"I don't remember you having that fancy-schmantzy stuff in your truck."
"I didn't. I don't. I'd never pay so much for...it was here. In the upper cabinet."
"What flavor?" Randy drawled. "Truffles or caviar?"
"Eggplant tapenade."
"Shit. I was just kidding."
Since the last time Nelson had found an opportunity to sample French Cuisine was in grad school (Advanced Palate #506), and since he hadn't had anything at all to eat since Tim had offered him a bland slab of uncooked rice-flavored manna in the truck, he was struck by a sudden and profound desire to find out exactly what tapenade-flavored manna tasted like. Even if it really was nothing at all like olives, just some food chemist's weird approximation, as so many flavors of manna were. "I'm game. Slice it up, Tim."
Not only did Tim plate the Park Avenue eggplant tapenade, he interspersed it with slices of Park Avenue gruyere, and gave it a zap in the microwave while he whipped up some instant coffee to wash it all down. Nelson treated himself to an extended scrutiny of Tim's ass while he worked. A decent ass-almost enough to distract him from the nagging urge to get back to sorting out the mechanics of Phase 1. Though the formula had tickled such a special place in Nelson's imagination, he doubted anyone's ass could hope to distract him.
They ate the manna with plastic forks this time, instead of their fingers. Nelson ate quickly, eager to get back to work, and then checked his email on his phone-nothing new from Bobby or Kevin, but no news was good news. More or less.
"I think I'd rather have more of that rice," Randy said, once they'd eaten their fill. He'd left several bites untouched, poking them around with his plastic fork. "This tastes weird. Maybe it's starting to turn."
Nelson speared a cube of tapenade manna from Randy's plate. He rolled it over his tongue and inhaled through his nose. "Nope. It's supposed to taste that way. Fermented and brined."
Randy made an if-you-say-so face. "The cheese is kinda funky, too."
"Yeah, that earthy undertone. It's supposed to taste like it's been aged."
"In the back of the cabinet, maybe. Where no one but Tim could reach it."
"Umami's the hardest taste to get right."
"Manna fail. This stuff's nasty-they can keep their umami."
Nelson considered informing Randy that the hint of umami was the only thing that made mushroom-flavored Canaan, his favorite, taste like something more than the packaging and a hint of alfalfa. But the bathroom door opened, and Nelson was far more interested in what had gone down in there.
Javier and Marianne stepped out, took the plates Tim gave them, and sat down at the table. They were both so quiet and subdued, Nelson almost thought Javier had decided to throw her out on the street once the sun came up-and then Nelson would really need to have it out with him, for sure. But, no. Their body language as they cleaned their plates seemed weary, but easy, like two people who'd shared a burden.
Whatever "big secret" she'd told him must've been a doozy. Nelson almost expected Randy to demand that she air her dirty laundry in front of everyone else, just like he'd been forced to do. He wasn't the one with zero instinct when it came to women, though, and while he could have made a big stink, he chose to keep his mouth shut.
Once Javier had eaten, he went into the boss' office and came out with Tim's netbook. "Since we're all in accord," he said, "the easiest way for me to explain the situation would be to let you hear what I heard. It speaks for itself."
He navigated to a file, and sat back with his arms crossed as the netbook's small speakers hissed to life.
"Frank Logan? This is Javier de la Rosa from The Daily Gazette calling to verify some information on your charity dinner on Saturday. This phone call is being recorded for reference. May I continue?"
"All right," a nasally man's voice replied. "But the information on Canaan's website is all up to date. Can't you just-?"
"I'll only take a moment of your time. Is it confirmed that the Mayor will be in attendance?"
"Well, he...look, let me switch you to my secretary. She'll have the latest information."
"Fine. Thank you."
A series of tones sounded before Javier finished unenthusiastically thanking the man. The line rang twice, and then a man picked up and said, "Arthur-shipping."
"Is this Mr. Logan's secretary?"
"Aw, shit, did he...? Uh, sorry. The last two numbers of her extension are the same as mine, but switched. He transfers a call to me at least every other day-and then half the time the call drops when I send it back over."
"Can you give me her direct number? I'm calling from The Daily Gazette and I'd hate to bother Mr. Logan again."
A pause. "You're from The Daily? For real?"
"That's right." Nelson wouldn't have read anything into the inflection of Javier's voice if they didn't know each other. But now, having spent some time together, he could totally picture a look of excruciating caution on his face, a kind of "why on earth are you asking?" expression.
"Listen," Arthur said, "you didn't hear this from me...what is it they say?" The sound quality changed, as if the speaker had ducked into a small, enclosed space. "Oh yeah, off the record."
"Sir...."
"There's a job fair next week on Eighth Street. Something interesting might happen there. Real interesting."
A long pause in which Nelson could imagine Javier hanging up, since Arthur in shipping sounded suspiciously like a paranoid crackpot. Instead, he responded with subdued encouragement. "Go on."
"You really wanna know?"
Nelson quelled a smirk at the thought of Javier being strung along by a guy who was obviously bursting to brag about some dirt he was privy to. "If you think it's relevant," Javier said, affecting a tone of boredom rather than frustration. "Otherwise, just give me the number for Logan's secretary and-"
"Oh, it's relevant all right."
"Well? What is it, then?"
"You heard anything about the recall?"
Keys clattered as if one of them was typing on a computer. "I don't show anything on a recall."
"Right. That's right. Because no one's talking about a recall."
"But you have knowledge of a recall that's taken place."
"My whole third shift worked overtime last week on orders that came down from corporate-screwed up my whole schedule for the next two weeks, but what do they care? Went out and rotated the stock at twenty, thirty different stores. And not just the short-dated manna." A dramatic pause. "All of it."
"And this is unusual?"
"Look, pal, would I give two shits if it wasn't?"
Javier went on, dry as you please. "So the stock was removed and replaced in a number of stores...did these vendors have anything in common?"
"You bet your ass they did. All the boroughs are part of my territory. But every single place that got cleaned out and re-stocked was in Manhattan. Only Manhattan."
"What does this have to do with the job fair?"
"You don't think I been sittin' here waiting for a reporter to call me out of the blue, do you? I took things into my own hands. Told some people who might do something about it."
"Who did you tell, the police?"
"Police? Ha! What're they gonna do? Rotating stock ain't against the law."
"Then who-?"
"Whistle Blower Brigade. That's who."
Spectacular, Nelson thought. The first person who seems to actually know something, and who does he take that information to? A bunch of slime-flinging knuckleheads.
"In your experience," Javier asked calmly, "why would an entire batch get recalled? Wouldn't the product be tested for contaminants before it shipped?"
"How would I know what they test for?"
"Mr. Arthur, is it? Would you be willing to meet me at-"
"Are you kidding? You know how fast they could fire my ass if they knew I was telling anyone about this? I'm set to retire in three more years."
"But the stock-wouldn't it have accumulated in the shops over a period of time? Why arouse suspicion by replacing it all? Why not focus on the particular batch that had an issue? Mr. Arthur? Hello?"
Javier tapped the netbook's trackpad and turned off the player. "He'd already hung up."
Nelson hardly heard him. The notion of this covert switcheroo taking place had dug its hooks in his brain-and the possible reasons seemed endless. Maybe a competitor had gotten wind of Phase 1, the precursor to Manna-Lean. Maybe they needed to tweak the formula. Maybe, maybe, maybe. He would have loved to make a list just for the sake of seeing how many crazy scenarios he could come up with...but a little voice inside him was insisting that if he could understand how the mechanism worked, he'd have a much better chance of figuring out why they would recall it.
Randy stared at the netbook, uncharacteristically silent. Marianne just shook her head, and muttered, "Corporate assholes."
They drained their coffees and stood up from the table, and Tim ushered them into the big office, where the printer was blinking again, hungry for a fresh ream of paper.
"You dopes should've said something this morning," Randy said, as they all stared at the hastily arranged stacks of printouts. "Think of how much of this we would've already gone through."
"So what is it exactly that you're printing?" Marianne asked.
"Everything," Tim said.
Marianne walked up to one of the piles and took the sheet off the top. "Okay. This is the break room policy for Canaan's Nashville office."
Tim looked chagrined.
"I'm not saying we shouldn't eventually go through it all," she went on, "but what if you stopped this printing job, drilled down your results to certain keywords, and started there." She warmed to her own idea, circling the stacks of paper as she spoke. "There was a bunch of colored stock in the other office. You could print out different searches on different colored paper. Manhattan on one, trucking schedules on another. That way you wouldn't be stuck with...well..." she gestured at a particularly forbidding pile of white paper. "With this."
Randy had left the room before she'd even finished explaining her idea. He came back with four reams each of green and yellow paper while Tim worked through the most efficient way to perform a search through the various types of documents and data, targeting Manhattan, and shipping, and Manna-Lean, and Phase 1.
Nelson took the Nashville break room policy from Marianne, because his mind was already circling the formula again, and he wanted to draw it out for himself so he could feel it, touch it. The back of that printout was as good a place as any to get started. He followed up with a quick kiss on her cheek, and whispered, "I totally knew you'd rock."
Chapter 24.
Once Tim had tweaked the operating system's search function to hit certain strings of characters and wildcards and then add its findings to the print queue, he dawdled at the computer longer than he really needed to, since it could very well continue sorting and sifting without him sitting there. All of it? What had he been thinking? Maybe he'd been so distracted by the memories of the night before that he hadn't been thinking anything at all.
Randy had pages of spreadsheets arrayed across the conference room table, rows and columns of numbers and calculations so meaningless they made Tim's head spin. But, like Nelson and his formulas, Randy seemed to think he could extract some kind of meaning if he looked at Canaan Products' budget hard enough.
Javier and Marianne sat in the far corner of the big office, on a facing set of chairs that looked like they'd been placed there merely for show, chairs that had been sat in maybe a dozen times before, or less. Documents were spread in a semicircle around them, and they spoke in low tones, analyzing, scrutinizing, strategizing.
And Nelson. He'd found a bunch of castoff documents-lunch menus, packaging patents, requisitions for office supplies-and he'd scrawled on the backs of them with a pencil, and a black pen, and a blue pen, and a red dry-erase marker where he circled squiggles and symbols that must have been important.
There was probably something equally important Tim could be doing, even while the computer sorted, but he felt so tapped out that he didn't have the strength to do anything more than check his email.
A dozen custom scripts sorted and color-coded Tim's inbox before he even saw it. His mother, three words only, Are you okay? Tim shot a quick reply, Fine. Busy. Talk more later. They probably wouldn't, but it seemed like the polite thing to say. Some online acquaintances from chat who only knew him as "VoR." They could wait. They should have taken his site update as evidence that he was fine. An overdue notice from the library.
An email from his ex.
Tim wouldn't have noticed it if he'd shuffled the folder to the bottom of the column like he'd been meaning to, but there it was, right on top, with a bold numeral 1 beside the folder labeled "Phil." His heart started pounding as if Phil had just caught him rolling around naked with Javier and Nelson. But so what? So what if he had? Phil had left him ages ago, nearly three weeks now, and the only time he'd emailed before was to ask Tim what laundry detergent he used, because the new one Phil bought gave him a rash.
He paused with his finger over the delete key. Swallowed. And then decided it would nag at him if he didn't at least look at what Phil wrote. After all, Phil might be in trouble. Might need him.
Tim opened the message.
What's with that picture on your site? What are you trying to prove?
That was all. No hello, how are you, are you hiding in a trailer because the cops outside are bashing in heads first, asking questions later? In a dozen words, Phil had managed to bring every last defeated emotion Tim had felt in the past month surging back to the forefront.
Tim nearly deleted the email, but then he considered it one more time, changed his mind, and replied, I'm fine, thanks for asking. He hit send. Then he stared at his inbox for a moment, hardly seeing it, and closed the program. He felt sick. Exhausted. Completely and utterly drained.
All around him, the people he'd just met went on with their tasks as if nothing had changed. Tim stood. They didn't notice. "I'm just gonna go, uh...."
Everyone else was so engrossed in what they were doing, not one of them bothered to even look up. Tim staggered out of the office, sprawled on one of the conference room couches, and fell into a fast and shallow slumber.
It seemed shallow, anyway, in that he was vaguely aware of the gentle hum of the printer, the shuffle of papers, and the sound of the trailer pinging as the temperature dropped outside and the vinyl siding flexed. But maybe he'd been more deeply asleep than he realized, since the next thing he knew, he felt the unmistakable weight of someone straddling his hips.
He opened his eyes to darkness, but the tiny red light on a nearby surge protector illuminated pale, sun-bleached tips of longish hair. Nelson.