Book 07.010: The Unconditional Deal
The servant opened and let Silvia in. After she had marched in, he closed the door behind Silvia.
There in front of Silvia was an old man in slumped in a large high back chair behind a larger desk. Papers and files were neatly stacked into the shelves on three sides. All the furniture was made from the same wood, polished to the same degree and made probably by the same designer. Pens were neatly stacked; curtains; even hanging, lighting perfectly even though out the room. The most unkempt thing in the room was the man that owned it.
He looked tired, deathly tired. He skin was gray and wrinkled. His eye sunken into he skull. The youngest looking thing about him was his hair with was nearly almost gray. Given his current state, Silvia would have imagined that his health could not support body. The man slumped deeper into his chair.
“Do you know why I’m here?” the man asked. Silvia gave him an odd look
“Don’t you mean you mean ‘do you know why you’re here’ sir?” the man did not respond. Silvia swallowed cautiously.
“No the man asked again,” do you know why I am here? Don’t you wonder why a man this old and this tired is still breathing. Everyone knows that any day now Smith Armington of Armington Steel Company is going to drop dead…”
“I’m sorry.” Silvia interrupted. “I don’t follow you. I’m new here. I come from Prinson.”
“Rats that’s right,” Smith Armington jerky pulled his arm up to scratch his chin. “I never managed to get a strong hold in Prinson, or Lexio for that matter. But back to what I was saying. I’m not supposed to be alive anymore. I should have died two months ago, but plans have been made.”
Plans, what plans Silvia thought.
“I usually do not hire more employee. I believe in marginal output. I believe that it’s easier to just work your employee harder than to hire more of them.” Something in the man voice was angry. He however was incapable of fully projecting his anger because of his state of health. “But one employee is worth five years of my life, to me anyways. That’s why I’m here, hiring you.”
Silvia remained silent. The man frowned, annoyed. “I’m hiring you because I made a deal, an unconditional deal with the reeper.”
“A what?” Silvia asked. The man fluttered his lips. He reached out in front of and flicked a brass bell that was on his desk. The door opened. the servant that has escorted Silvia to the office peaked his head though the door.
“Get, that LoAngello fellow, please. Have him deal with” he painfully gesture toward Silvia, “her.”
The servant nodded his head and briskly walked off.
The man let his arm fall to the desk. As it hit he winced with pain. Silvia stared at him and he glared back.
“Consider yourself special, You are the first losing business deal I’ve made in over 40 years.”