Carol for Another Christmas (4 page)

“Oops, sorry. Am I getting too personal again? Just say so.”

“You're getting too personal again, Wayne.”

“Don't be shy. I mean, I hate it when you hold stuff back. It's so bad for you . . .”

“Get out, Wayne. I've got work to do. How did you get past Brenda, anyway?”

“I bribed her with some marshmallow Santas.”

“You've got a company of your own. Go run it.”

“I've got a better boss than you do. He gives me days off, including all national holidays.”

“I have a product that needs to be ready for demo by New Year's.”

“Who doesn't? Besides, what
I
hear is you don't have a product yet.”

“You've been spying on us!”

He shrugged. “Word gets around.”

“Does word also say it's an extremely important government contract, and I'm working on the project right now, which is classified, thank you, so you shouldn't have even come in?”

“Nope, word says, actually, that it's one of those things maybe it would be better if it didn't get built . . .”

“Are you suggesting sabotage?”

“I'm suggesting ethics. This system you're producing isn't just another address book program. You're building something that will potentially allow a serious invasion of people's privacy.”

Her smile was humorless. “I'm quite used to that. Listen, Wayne, you and Doug may have been lucky enough to make big money following your bliss or whatever with these machines, but you and I both know that Doug knew nothing about business. He has left the company with some outstanding debts here.”

There was anger and scorn in her voice and Wayne said gently, “Monica, it's not like he took the money and runna Venezuela, if you'll pardon a Belefonteism. He died. He left his shares and his position and his life's work to you.”

“Of course he did,” she said. “Who else would he leave it to? You? He'd already bought you out, and you've received all you're going to from Databanks. He knew I had the good business sense to put this outfit back on its feet and bail it out of trouble with Uncle, and that's exactly what I intend to do.”

“You talk like it's an overextended mortgage or a credit card debt. This is a multibillion-dollar concern.”

“The principles are the same. Simply on a grander scale. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got work to do.”

“What I meant was,” Wayne continued, patronizingly, no less, this kid who used to cost her a small fortune in Diet Pepsis and Cheetos, “Doug worked night and day and all holidays to build this place until he dropped dead over his keyboard. Not recommended. You gotta take time off sometimes. Come on, Monica. Tomorrow is Christmas. I'm cooking. It's supposed to snow. Santa Claus is coming to town. Whaddaya say?”

“I already said it,” she said, rising, pulling him out of his chair and propelling him toward the door. “Go away. I'm busy. Mind your own business, and I'll mind mine.”

Nerd!
she thought angrily.
No social skills whatsoever. Just like Doug. Just like all of these weird people working here.

As she showed Wayne out, Brenda, shamefaced, said, “Senator Johansen is here to see you, Ms. Banks.”

The tall, white-haired man with the expensive dental work carried an elaborately wrapped gift. To him, Monica was all smiles and graciousness. “Bob! How nice to see you!”

“Since I couldn't talk you into going to dinner with me last night, I had to come by and bring you a little holiday cheer.”

They entered her office, the senator still talking as fast as a TV shopping channel show host.

“I did want to speak to you about getting your support for the bill I'm proposing. It would abolish unnecessary subsidizing of housing and support money for unwed mothers and their offspring, which clearly does nothing but encourage more dependency. Instead, the mothers would be required to go to training and to work on state projects. The children would be less expensively housed and better cared for in a state boarding school facility where they can receive occupational training in the same useful trades their mothers are learning: cleaning, maintenance, cooking, etcetera. Why, the state would even find them jobs where they could work off the cost of their living expenses and schooling.”

“Sounds like a wonderful plan,” Monica said. “These women could use some supervision till they learn to control themselves. And all those children, just growing up to make the streets unsafe while their mothers are off having more! I knew as a very young girl that I had to earn my own way in the world, and I did the responsible thing and had no children for an employer to worry about or my fellow citizens to support with their tax money. I wonder why this generation of girls can't just use birth control or, better yet, simple restraint.”

“So few women are as wise as you, Monica dear. Aren't you going to open your present?” the senator asked.

“Oh, you shouldn't have,” she said, quite sincerely since she didn't want to incur obligation she might not wish to repay. “I didn't get you anything.” She hadn't, in fact, gotten anything for anyone. She never bought Christmas presents. Far too expensive. Nor cards. Why write once a year to people you didn't care enough about to write to the rest of the year? Besides, it was all a ploy to make the card companies rich. Better to keep the money in her own pocket.

“Nonsense, my dear. Your dear brother would have wanted me to look after you . . .”

“Oh, Bob, you've been a real knight in shining armor, defending Databanks to Congress and the courts. It's been so difficult since Doug died.” She smiled up at him, her most gracious smile.

“Nonsense, my dear. What's good for Databanks is good for America, and I'm the first to say so. Won't you open your present now?”

“Oh, a fruitcake. How—lovely,” she said. Good. She no longer felt any obligation concerning the gift. She loathed fruitcake. Still, she had to pretend to be pleased. “If you don't mind, Senator—Bob—I'd like to share it with my staff. They're working so hard on finishing our project, I'm afraid many of them have had no opportunity to celebrate properly.”

“Do as you wish, of course, my dear, though I had hoped you'd accept it as a
personal
token from me.”

A personal fruitcake! If he thought a fruitcake was personal, then there was more than one fruitcake in the room.
“Er—certainly,” she said. Bob was perfectly correct, of course. There was no reason to throw the fruitcake as a sop to the whining of the employees about the free company cafeterias she'd closed. She had no need to help the employees, really. They got paid, didn't they?

“After the project is over, Monica, I'd really like to have you over to dinner to celebrate. I have a lovely houseboat on Lake Union.”

He also had a wife, three children, an ex-wife, and a mistress, according to the press, but none of
them
controlled an international corporation.

“It sounds divine, Bob. I'll look forward to it as a special treat.”

He looked deeply and meaningfully into her eyes while kissing her hand. “The first of many, I hope. Merry Christmas.”

“Same to you,” she said, walking him to the door.

“Ms. Banks?” Brenda stopped her from reentering the office. “Ms. Banks, what about those contribution requests from the Salvation Army, the March of Dimes, Paralyzed Veterans, the Gospel Mission for the Homeless, UNICEF, and United Way this year? You said you'd review them.”

“I have,” she said, impatient at all the interruptions. Returning to her desk, she picked up the senator's Christmas gift and handed it to Brenda. “Here. Let them eat fruitcake.”

Five

By evening, the rain outside had turned to sleet and Monica thought her employees should be glad she had required them to remain at work instead of having to commute on the icy highways.

Doug had, of course, left her the mansion he had built for himself, but it was full of complex electronic controls, and she preferred the suite of rooms adjoining the office. They were simpler and more conventionally appointed, though still furnished with computers in every room, including the bath.

She decided she might as well fix herself something to eat. From her window, she saw a pizza delivery van pull up outside the building, and the delivery man emerged with a pile of boxes. After a few minutes, one of the employees met him at the door and took custody of the boxes. She had forbidden any deliveries inside the building. Her competitors were perfectly capable of disguising themselves to steal Databanks's secrets.

Well, she had a TV dinner left in the fridge, she thought. Last one, and she was tired of them. But if the cat went away, the mice would play, so she had to stay within pouncing range. Honestly, these were supposed to be such intelligent people. Why couldn't they just act like adults and get on with the job? She knew they weren't applying themselves. They'd always come through on deadlines for Doug.

While the dinner was in the microwave, she clicked on the news.

KING-5 showed a huge traffic snarl on I-5. A reporter who looked as if she were trying not to freeze to death stood, microphone in gloved hand, near the freeway entrance. Snowflakes coming down big as teacups and thick as excuses at a tax audit fell around her at a strong slant, propelled by the heavy north winds the weatherman had mentioned.

The Dow Jones was down, the Sonics had lost again, some stupid people had managed to burn down an apartment building including a set of parents and a small child. Four children survived out of the same family.
Probably they'd be taking up beds in Bob Johansen's boarding school when it opened,
she thought sourly.
Might be a better neighborhood for them
. She was about to change the station, hating the way the camera dwelled on the children's sad little faces while the anchor maundered on about homeless orphans at Christmastime, when the image disappeared in a crackling blizzard of electronic snow.

“Damn,” Monica said, fearing electrical problems that might slow down her little elves slaving away in their offices.

She checked her computer screen, and it was also filled with snow. “Double damn,” she said. But as she started to turn away, the snow squiggled about like the iron filings on a magnetic drawing toy she had bought for Doug when he was a child. He hadn't liked it. Said the magnetism was bad for his project.

But like the iron filings, the black-and-white distortion suddenly took on a recognizable form—black eyes burning a hole in an oval—a face, of white, white snow—mouth, chin, ears—Wait a minute. She knew those ears. And the nose—that nose! The face was Doug's. She turned around to the television. The image on the TV screen was identical to the one on the computer. How could that be? Was the television perhaps transmitting an old image of Doug and doing a follow-up story on his death—yet another story where they'd refer to her as “Former IRS tax auditor, heiress Monica ‘Money' Banks”? But how could the computer be picking up the same image? Was one of her loyal employees screwing around with her equipment?

She had never seen this shot of Doug before. This looked like his face the day he died, after he died, except the eyes were open.

Then the mouth opened as well. “Hi, Sis,” it said.

“If this is some kind of a computer trick or a video splice, it's childish and mean,” she said, not expecting an answer.

“It's not, Sis, and there's nothing up my sleeves, either. In fact”—he raised arms into the screen, arms that had rotted away in places, despite that expensive coffin, to bone—“no sleeves.”

“This is a truly tasteless joke, whoever you are. My brother may have just been a billionaire to you, but he was—”

“Your brother. God, Moni, you can be so dense. It's me, Doug. I came to warn you, okay?”

“
You're
warning
me
? That's impossible. You're—I mean, Doug is—dead.”

“Well, yeah, I know. But don't get hung up on details. This was originally scheduled to just be a phone call from the dead, but I thought, Hey, you know what? Me, Doug Banks, the techie billionaire, making a simple
phone
call—well, it's not only dated; it's completely out of character. So I was allowed to tinker with the production values and we've arranged to bring in someone I think . . . I'm getting carried away here . . .”

Monica smiled, not warmly. “You always did.”

“But I'm not the only one, Moni. There's got to be some changes made, Sis. Before it's too late.”

“I know it's getting late, and those idiots you hired still haven't come up with a product,” she said. “But they do understand that they are not leaving here until they do or I'll sue their genius asses off. Say, as long as you're doing some computer haunting, how about haunting them and maybe giving them some otherworldly tips on how to finish this product before Databanks goes broke?”