Urge to Kill

All of these people knew even the most intricate and devious moves and could sell in any kind of real estate market except for the one they’d had the past six months. The crappy market was the reason why the firm was in trouble, and everyone in the office knew it, with the exception of Farr, who blasted blame around the place as if from the barrel of a shotgun.

The inner-office door opened, and everyone who’d been sitting or slouching stood up straight.

The office suddenly seemed smaller and ten degrees hotter. Alec Farr strutted into the room and filled it with his presence. He was a broad, solid man with a military posture, though he’d never served his country, anything, or anyone other than himself.

He grinned with perfect large teeth overtreated with whitener. It was not a reassuring grin.

“Gentlemen and lady,” he said, “we are in a lifeboat, and it is sinking. I don’t know if we can stop it from going down, but we are sure as hell going to try.” He glared like a hungry lion at Jeevers. “How might we at least slow the vessel in its sinking, so a whimsical God might favor us with a miracle and save us?”

“Plug the leak?” Jeevers ventured nervously.

“Can’t do that,” Farr said. “Leak’s too large, and there’s nothing to plug it with.”

“Bail water?” Marlee suggested.

“We’ve been doing that without a bucket. We’re losing ground.”

“In a boat?” Berty said, before he could stop himself. The words had simply slipped out on their own.

Farr jutted out his chin as if about to use it as a battering ram. His reddish monobrow formed a sharp V. Even the hairs protruding from his flared nostrils bristled. It was a frightening sight, especially to a man who hadn’t made his quota.

“The answer to the question about the boat,” Farr said in a calm yet threatening tone, “is that we throw someone out. Toss him—or her—over the side. The other question is, who’s it gonna be?”

No one chanced an answer. The silence was like concrete hardening around them. Berty found it difficult to breathe.

“Maybe the mole,” Farr said. “Of course, there’s only so much food in the boat. We might want to eat the mole later, or use parts of him for bait. So who’s it gonna be?”

Again the silence thickened around them.

Farr’s terrible grin widened as he adjusted his tie knot and stared at each of them in turn. Then he rolled up the sales report in his hand and aimed the paper tube at them as if it were a gun.

“We’ll all think hard on that,” he said. “And see if individual sales figures improve next week. If they don’t, a certain rat might leave a certain boat the hard way. Or maybe some even more useless piece of jetsam might be fed to the circling sharks. Am I understood?”

Everyone nodded. Marlee managed a strangled, “Yes, sir.”

Farr fixed a burning stare directly on Berty, then turned and strode back into his office. The slam of the door was like a cannon shot.

“Jesus!” Keller said.

A pall of shame descended on everyone in the room.

“Why are we so afraid of that asshole?” Marlee asked.

Jeevers ducked behind his desk and picked up his leather attaché case stuffed with brochures and contract forms.

“Where you headed?” Keller asked. “Wanna stop off for a drink? It’d calm us down.”

“Give you back your balls, you mean,” Marlee said. “Glad I don’t have to worry about that.”

“I gotta make a stop on the way home,” Jeevers said. “See a client.”

“Over on West Twenty-fifth?” Keller asked.

Marlee gave him a look that scared Berty even though he wasn’t the recipient. She was a woman who’d been known to throw a punch. Berty had seen and heard enough impending violence for one day.

“Once the mole goes, that’s when we gotta start worrying,” Nichols said.

Keller looked at Berty. “That the way you read it, Mole?”

Berty didn’t answer. There was no other way to read it; he was a low producer, and in this game you produced or else. It was about time for or else. He draped his suit coat over his arm, picked up his scuffed briefcase, and headed for the door. Nichols and the others were already there, eager to be free of the dreaded office and the ominous Farr. Marlee and Berty were the last ones out.

“Farr,” Marlee said sotto voce, and patted Berty’s shoulder. “What an asshole he is.”

Berty glanced at her and flickered a smile.

Marlee shook her head. “Somebody oughta shoot him.”

All the way home in the hot, clattering subway train, Berty heard her harsh and fearful whisper over and over.

Somebody oughta shoot him.

“Shoot who?” asked the man scrunched in next to him on a plastic seat, and Berty realized he’d spoken aloud.

Berty could only shrug and shake his head, as if he hadn’t clearly heard over the rush and clatter of the train.