Heller (6 page)

I appreciated
that, for whatever reason, he at least gave me the courtesy of
taking my application seriously. He could have easily dismissed me
as the lightweight that he surely had summed me up as by now. I
took a deep breath and began to talk myself up, eking out my meagre
experience in retail and office work.

I described to
him one of my previous positions. “I was responsible for managing
all client relations directly at the point of sale, and –”

He regarded
me, unimpressed, and interrupted bluntly. “You were a cashier at a
checkout.”

“Um . . . yes
. . . I guess that’s what you’d call it.”

“No client
management at all, then?”

“Um . . . gee
. . . well . . . not as such. But I did fulfil the customers’
preferences for how their groceries were packed into the plastic
bags, and . . .” I petered out, unsettled by his icy blue eyes that
were staring at me with unmoved stoniness.

I hurried on
to the next position. “I worked for a top-end store providing
ambulation assistance and support to valued clients in moving
costly possessions from one receptacle to another.”

“You carried
rich women’s packages from the store to their car,” he
translated.

This was
proving harder than I had expected. I swallowed noisily, eyeing the
glass of water again, before carrying on nervously. “I – I – I
attended to the women’s every need –”

“You placed
the packages into the boot or the back seat as requested,” he
carried on, interpreting my weasel words.

“– and it was
a personal joy to me when I gave excellent service.”

“In other
words, when you received a big tip.”

I blinked at
him in silence. I had hoped that he would be easy on me after my
ordeal this morning, but I was wrong. He hadn’t been lying about
not doing soft – he was a very hard man. Disconcerted, I rushed on
to speak about the last period of work experience that I was now
pinning all my hopes on.

“I was a
conduit for ensuring that client’s needs and requirements were
managed in the most efficient and expedient manner.”

“You worked as
a casual in a call-centre for the local council,” he stated,
mockery evident in his ghost of a smile.

I didn’t
respond, debating in my mind whether I should immediately stand up
and leave without dignifying him with another word, or if I should
dump the glass of water over his head first.

He continued,
not giving me the chance to do either, his head tilted to one side.
“Your experience is very limited,” he noted. “I have interviewed
other people for this position who have much more relevant and
recent experience.”

I sat immobile
and silent and took a deep breath. Trouble was coming.

“You’re not
really interested in this kind of work, are you? Your real career
is ‘acting’, isn’t it?” he scorned.

I gritted my
teeth. “I haven’t mentioned anything about acting in my CV,” I
pointed out, determinedly polite. “What would make you think
that?”

He threw me a
nasty half-smile as he rose, pacing across the office so that I had
to twist my head back-and-forth to keep watching him.

“Ms Chalmers,
let me make something perfectly clear to you,” he stated coldly.
“My business is security and surveillance. This building contains
extremely sensitive information and also valuable and dangerous
equipment. I have made it as close to a fortress as is humanly
possible. Nobody comes into my building without my say-so and
nobody comes to work for me without being completely
scrutinised.”

He stopped
pacing for a moment and turned to hold me again with those
eyes.

“For example,
I know you are the youngest of three children. Your father is a
retired university lecturer and your mother a retired primary
school teacher. You were an average student at school and dropped
out of your undergraduate arts degree in the third year without
graduating. You had a patchy work history and then decided to make
‘acting’ your career.” That emphasis again, as if he thought that
acting ranked right up there next to being a hooker on the scale of
dodgy career choices.

“How did you
find out all that? It’s a breach of my privacy!” I squeaked
indignantly.

He sat down
again and pushed the folder that was lying on the coffee table
towards me. “Do you want to read your dossier?” he asked, a
taunting tone to his voice.

I stared at
the folder with mistrust. Unfortunately though, I’ve always been a
very nosy person and didn’t have the seemliness or the presence of
mind to ignore it. So I picked up that folder, rested it on my lap
and opened it, though not without a sensible dose of dread.

My mouth gaped
wider with every page I read. It was a nightmare version of
This
is Your Life
, starring me, Tilly Chalmers. The dossier recorded
every detail of my life, down to the most mundane aspect. Every
school I’d been to, every friend I’d ever had, every subject I’d
studied, my university entrance score, my family’s occupations,
every boyfriend I’d had, their ages, the cars they’d owned, every
job I’d had back to my first career as a checkout chick when I was
fifteen-years-old. All documented right in front of me in black and
white, with a couple of coloured photos thrown in for variety.
Everything about me except my bra size was in that dossier,
although I’d probably find that too if I read it more closely. I
was gobsmacked and glanced up at him, appalled and now more than a
little wary. Who was this man anyway?

He leaned back
in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head. “I know more
about you than you could possibly imagine. I know, for instance,
that your last acting role was a small part in
Summer Days
over six months ago.” He added, unkindly casual, “Not great acting
in my opinion.”

The blood
rushed to my face.
Screw you, buddy!

“And what
about that execrable movie with the bikini women and the madman?
Not to mention that advertisement.”

Despite my
increasing anger, I was impressed with his knowledge. He had
certainly done his homework.

“They paid the
rent,” I said defensively. “I know it’s not great acting, but what
I really want to do is . . .” I stopped suddenly and remembered
that: one, I was at an interview; and two, I couldn’t finish the
sentence anyway because I didn’t know what I really wanted to do.
So instead, I smoothed back my hair and composed my features,
gracing him with a beatific Mona Lisa smile. “What I really want to
do is work for you, of course, Mr . . . um . . . Heller,” I said
calmly, my eyes big with angelic sincerity.

He gave a rude
shout of laughter at that and my temper flared again. I threw the
folder on the table and stood abruptly, clutching my handbag.

“I can see
clearly that I’m not the right person for this position or your
business, so thank you for your time today. I’ll show myself out.”
Arrogant jerk!

What a
complete waste of a day for me, not to even mention my sore nose,
the ruinous loss of my only suit and the cost of the bus trips that
I couldn’t afford and had virtually depleted the remainder of my
precious twenty dollars. I stalked to the door of his office, head
high. On a sudden impulse, I turned around to say one final thing
to him.

“And anyway,
you’re wrong. You don’t know everything about me, after all.”

He was taken
aback by that. “I’m confident in my research.”

“
Summer
Days
wasn’t my last acting role. I’ve had another one since
then.”

He frowned.
“What is this other job?”

Suddenly I
wished I hadn’t mentioned it. “It doesn’t matter,” I mumbled.
“You’re just wrong.”

“It does
matter. You tell me my information about you is incomplete. That
might affect the outcome of the interview.” He said it with no
expression, but I couldn’t shake the suspicion that he was secretly
laughing at me.

Why had I
opened my big mouth? All I’d wanted to do was to puncture his
self-assured arrogance, but instead I would be the one to end up
looking like an idiot. As usual.

As I turned to
leave again, pondering my self-inflicted predicament, one of the
big sash windows in his office exploded inwards with a shattering
crash. Shards of glass flew through the air, wickedly embedding
themselves in every exposed surface, including our skin. Before I
even registered what was happening, I was knocked to the ground.
Heller covered me with his body, protecting me from further
explosions I presumed, rather than an uncontrollable desire to get
closer to me. I lay there winded, ground into the carpet, glass
shards painfully pressing in to my face and hands, with his
incredible weight forcing the air from my lungs. If it has ever
been your fantasy to have a tall sexy Viking smothering you, let me
tell you it’s nowhere near as much fun as it initially sounds.

“
Daniel!
” Heller bellowed through the door, almost rupturing
my eardrum. “Take Niq downstairs to the basement! Now!”

I heard them
scurrying away obediently down the stairs and subsequently heard
heavy footsteps jogging into Heller’s office. He rolled off me. I
gratefully gulped in some air, coughing and gasping, pushing myself
up onto my hands and knees. My skin was stinging everywhere. It was
like a thousand paper cuts.

“Stay down!”
he yelled at me, then to one of the people who arrived at his door,
“Take her next door.” Rough hands helped me to a crouching position
and I was half-dragged, half-carried to the main office where I was
unceremoniously dumped behind Daniel’s desk before being abandoned.
I hunched up against a wall and cowered there for some minutes,
painfully picking shards of glass out of my hands and quietly
bleeding over Daniel’s clothes and the floor. I hoped nobody
minded. I didn’t know if blood came out of wool-blend carpet.

I’d decided by
then that I was going to get the hell out of this place the second
I could and would never look back. I stood up, a bit shakily to be
honest, and cautiously moved towards the stairs, not wanting to
attract any attention. I would mail the clothes back to Daniel when
I’d washed them. Then I remembered – my handbag was still in
Heller’s office. I couldn’t leave without it. It contained my
almost empty purse, house keys and my return bus ticket.
Fuck!
Fuck! Fuckity-fuck!
I sidled over to his office door and
guardedly peered around, spying my handbag lying on the floor,
half-hidden under the lounge where it had landed after Heller had
crash-tackled me.

Heller stood
with two other gigantic men, his arms crossed, listening and
nodding while they conversed heatedly. They were intently examining
the projectile, a crudely fashioned solid metal sphere, like a
small cannon ball. It had found a resting spot in the exact place I
had been sitting only moments before it had burst through the
window. I stared at the ball in horror. If I hadn’t stood up in a
huff to leave, it would probably have smashed directly into me!
Bile rose in my throat and it was a battle to choke it back down
again.

“They’re long
gone,” commented Heller with detachment, glancing out of the broken
window down to the road. “Must have used some kind of catapult or
mini-cannon.”

“It’s those
fuckers from Select Security. We all know it,” spat one of the
other men angrily.

“They won’t be
happy until they kill one of us. I’m sick of those bastards,
Heller. It’s time for pay-back,” growled the other man.

“Check the
footage from the cameras out the front. You might be able to make
out a number plate,” Heller directed one of the men, his calm voice
a foil to the other men’s fury.

None of my
business
, I told myself,
just concentrate on getting out of
here
. I warily edged around the door towards the lounge. My
shoes crunched loudly on the broken glass scattered on the carpet
and the three men immediately stopped talking and swung around in
unison to stare at me. I stood frozen in mid-step, eyes wide with
apprehension, blood gently dripping onto the carpet.

“Just getting
my bag,” I babbled nervously, helpfully pointing at it where it
nestled tantalizingly out of reach. “Then I’ll be off. I promise
I’ll mail Daniel back the clothes. Don’t worry about my suit.”

My glance
moved from one man to the other. I blinked rapidly. Twins! But like
no twins I’d ever seen before. The two men with Heller were built
like tanks and completely identical, down to the same suit. They
had the whole 1950s London gangster-look happening, doubles for
Ronnie and Reggie Kray. Imposingly tall and broad-shouldered, their
dark pinstriped tailored suits stretched tightly across their
chests. Their craggy, acne-scarred faces were carved out of stone
and topped by black, slicked-back quiffs. They had matching cold,
flat, unfriendly dark gray eyes and fleshy small grim mouths, and
one man had broken his nose at some point in his life. One of them
by himself would have been intimidating. Together, they scared the
absolute hell out of me. My immediate instinct was to turn and
flee, which I reminded myself, was exactly what I was trying to do
at that very moment.

“Who the hell
are you and why are you wearing one of our uniforms?” the
broken-nosed one demanded in a hostile, gravelly voice. He glanced
at Heller. “You need me to take care of her, Boss?” And coming from
a big brute like him, that comment sounded more menacing than
considerate.

“No Clive,
this is Matilda Chalmers. I was in the middle of an interview with
her for the client manager position when this happened,” Heller
explained, indicating the window. “Ms Chalmers, this is Clive
Trilby and this,” hand waving to the other one, “is his brother,
Sid Trilby. Clive runs my security section and Sid’s in charge of
the surveillance team.”