CHAPTER SIX: Tanner
Monday morning, 7:45 AM.
I noted the time because Henry was supposed to pick me up for our trip to Tucson with the Goldman team around eight-thirty. I had my assistant pack a bag over the weekend and it was sitting next to the front door, ready to go.
That was my motto: always be prepared.
Or have an assistant prepare it for you.
I had time to kill, so I fixed a cup of coffee using the twenty-thousand-dollar brewing machine Henry had convinced me to buy during a business trip to Italy a few years back.
It was supposedly the best coffee brewing system on the planet. The coffee beans the system also supposedly brewed the best cup of coffee on the planet. I think the beans were imported from the deepest jungles of Columbia and had been shit through a tiger’s ass or some such nonsense.
I didn’t get the big deal. The coffee it brewed was mediocre at best. It had the consistency and the smell of burnt ink. It certainly was not a twenty-thousand-dollar cup of coffee. The hundred dollar Keurig in my office made better coffee.
Henry said I had the palette of a caveman.
What-the-fuck-ever, dude.
I knew a shitty cup of coffee when I tasted it.
I kept meaning to buy a Starbucks franchise and install it downstairs off the lobby (I own this building and live in the penthouse), but I kept forgetting to call Starbucks CEO Howard Schulz to make the deal.
I picked up my iPhone and spoke into it.
“Siri, remind me to put a Starbucks in the lobby downstairs.”
Siri confirmed my brilliance and I set the phone aside.
I set the mug of steaming coffee on the kitchen table and fired up my laptop. I logged into Facebook and tapped my fingers on the keys.
I ignored the 1,835 notifications and 2,018 messages that flashed at the top of the screen.
The truth is, I hate fucking Facebook and only use it to dig up dirt about people I might be doing business with.
Or people that simply fascinated me.
People like Candice Carlson.
I was constantly amazed at some of the things people posted on Facebook. They just put it out there for all the world to see, without any concern of consequences.
Hey look, here’s a shot of you getting shit-faced drunk at a bachelor party.
Hey look, here’s a shot of you in the bathroom with a naked hooker from the party.
Hey look, here’s you getting a lap dance from said hooker.
Oh look, look, look! Here’s a picture of you doing a line of some white powder that looks an awful lot like coke off the hooker’s tit!
Ah, finally, the coup de grace… here’s a picture of you passed out drunk in the hotel room naked and covered in magic marker.
Oh look, someone drew a happy face on the head of your dick.
I had found all those wonderful images when digging into the background of a guy who wanted to be my Chief Financial Officer at a salary of four-hundred-grand a year.
I just went to his Facebook page, hit Photos, and bam!
I took great joy in showing him what I had found, then asking, “So, you want me to let you manage my company’s financials? Seriously? Uh, I don’t think so. Thank you, drive through.”
Okay, granted, I put the poor guy through hours and hours of grueling interviews before I sprang the Facebook pics and told him to fuck off. But hey, a guy’s gotta have a little fun. Right?
I typed in Candice Carlson’s name into the search bar and sipped the shitty coffee as I waited for her profile to pop up. I wondered what embarrassing moments or tantalizing tidbits I would find on her page.
And like magic, there was Candice Carlson’s life in full living color for all the world to see.
“Okay, Candice Carlson,” I said with a grin. “Let’s see what deep dark secrets I can surmise from your lovely profile.”
I clicked to enlarge her profile picture and was disappointed to find that it was a standard bullshit company portrait, probably the pulled from her bio on the Goldman website.
“Shit,” I said as I clicked to close the enlarged image. “Come on, Candice. Don’t let me down.”
I went back to her profile page and clicked on the “About Candice” link. Standard stuff: twenty-five, Harvard MBA grad, hometown Ottumwa, Nebraska, population who gives a shit.
“Single is good,” I said, noting her relationship status.
I clicked on her Photos, hoping to find a drunk party pic or two or three. Or Candice at the beach in a string bikini with her tits hanging out.
Woo-hoo! Wouldn’t that be a fucking awesome way to start the day! A hot bikini shot of Candice that I could rub one out to before leaving the penthouse.
“Shit,” I said again as her photos loaded on the screen. “So much for whacking off to Candice’s tits.”
There’s Candice at a business event.
There’s Candice at a fundraiser.
There’s Candice at a formal dinner.
There’s Candice with a group of sorority sisters.
There’s Candice in her cap and gown.
“Son of a bitch,” I said with a sigh. I pushed the computer away in disgust and picked up the coffee cup. “Are you really that fucking boring, Candice Carlson? You couldn’t give me one decent tit pick to start my day?”
My iPhone buzzed with a text message from Henry. He was downstairs with the car. Crap. My quest to learn more about Candice Carlson would have to wait.
I stared at her utterly boring profile picture for a moment.
I closed the laptop and shook my head.
Candice Carlson needed a little excitement in her life.
And fortunately for her, I was just the guy to give it to her.