Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 77354 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77354 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
It’s not that I wasn’t proud of my mom—I was. She was a phenomenal actress and savvier than many, careful with the projects she chose and the money she made from them. I just didn’t understand the allure of fame. I didn’t get why she enjoyed everyone looking at her, people hanging on her every word. Maybe I saw that it wasn’t her they were interested in, just the gilded version of her she let them see. A version they created in their minds. It didn’t concern her why they were interested; she drank down the attention like she was constantly parched.
True, deep, authentic friendships are hard to find, and the six of us know it. There’s an unspoken understanding among us that regular gatherings nourish our bond. None of us wants to lose it. We know what we’ve got is rare.
“How long are you going to stay here?” Fisher asks.
“I don’t know,” I reply. “I need to understand if the break-ins at my apartment building are aimed at me.”
“They didn’t try to get into your apartment, though, did they?” Leo asks. He takes everything at face value. Sometimes I wonder how he’s made so much money. Because money is always made in the space between ideas.
“No. Just the two apartments under mine,” I reply.
“So that’s good, isn’t it?” Leo asks.
“Depends on what the goal is,” Worth says.
Exactly.
“Why don’t you just move? Like, get a new apartment?” Leo asks.
I sigh and my chest sinks as I relax. Now they’re here, I feel like I can take off the metaphorical masks I wear and finally be myself.
“I might have to move in the end,” I say. “But I want to get rid of the problem first. I want to figure out whether the break-ins are linked to me, who’s tracking me if they are, and what they want.”
“I can answer that for you,” Fisher says. “Every tech firm in America is tracking you and they want what you have and they don’t—the Midas touch.”
I groan at the mention of the Greek king. I first got the moniker from the tech press when my company, Fort Inc., sold the technology for mapping the entire world to a well-known tech firm in Mountainview, California. It caught on in the mainstream press when Fort became the fifth-largest privately owned company in America. I hated it because I’ve tried hard not to make Fort about me. It’s the last thing I want—partly because it underplays the role my hugely talented staff have, and also because I have no interest in the fame and publicity that comes alongside that kind of nickname.
“Make it make sense,” Leo says. “You live in New York City and you think your building getting broken into twice is about you? Maybe we can skip past the paranoia box and tick narcissism.”
I sigh, resigned to the fact that I’m going to have to explain it to convince Leo. I’m pretty sure Leo’s approach to business is to yap at people like a chihuahua with a caffeine addiction until the people he’s dealing with surrender and give him what he wants.
“Before these last two break-ins, my building had been broken into once in the last five years. Its security is second to none downtown. The one break-in years ago was opportunistic—residents left the goddamn window open and they lived on the first floor. Fast-forward to two weeks ago, when the two apartments underneath mine get broken into. There’s no connection between the owners of the two apartments, and nothing of value was stolen. But if someone wanted to track my movements, plant listening devices, cameras or god knows what else, an apartment abutting mine would be the place to start.”
“And they’re after Ben Fort?” Worth asks. Ben Fort—the pseudonym I invented after my mother died—is the CEO of Fort Inc.
I shrug. “No one’s interested in Bennett Fordham.”
“Unless maybe someone’s made the connection between the two?” Worth asks.
I take a sip of whisky as I revisit the question that I ask myself on a daily basis. “I don’t think so. If they had, I think I would have read about it. But they may have made a connection between my apartment and Ben Fort. That’s the first step. They may or may not have a photograph of me.”
“But you always wear a hat coming or going,” Fisher says.
“Yeah, but that’s so any street cameras don’t get a shot. Someone with a telephoto lens could get a picture easily.”
“You think they’ve tracked everyone coming in and out of your office building and followed them home and thought to themselves, that’s Ben Fort?” Fisher asks. “I mean it might be possible if you worked at some downtown building with a hundred people in it. But your offices are at the Time Warner building or the Deutsche Bank Center or whatever the fuck they’re calling it now. There are thousands of people coming and going from that place every day.”