CHAPTER FOUR
SAME BUILDING
WALTHAM
SAME DAY
HARRY BOOKER WAS FURIOUS. He stomped up and down the second floor hallway in the Waltham office building. If I keep this up, I’m going to wear out the soles of my shoes, he thought. He marched back into his office and plunked himself down on the chair behind his desk. There were photos of his wife and two grown children on a shelf in the bookcase across from him. Another photo showed a younger Harry slamming a tennis ball across a net with a trophy next to it. A window on the far wall faced the street and had a waning spider plant on the sill begging for more sun. Harry was in his forties with his thinning hair combed over a bald spot and rimless reading glasses slipping down his pencil-thin nose.
Fritz Barker followed him into the room and shut the door behind him. “You wanted to see me?” Harry’s assistant was ten years younger with a full head of frizzy hair and a scruffy mustache that resembled a worn out three-inch paintbrush. It pretty much covered buck teeth than hadn’t known an orthodontist’s care.
“We’ve got to do something about this woman,” Harry said.
“What do you suggest?” Fritz asked.
“She’s undoubtedly going to continue to attack us. I’ve checked on her, and she clearly has an anti-pipeline agenda.”
“So?”
“We can’t have our investors spooked. There has to be some way we can scare her off.”