17.
Dead Air – The Lawyer-Client Relationship – Today's Buzzword: Closure – Accounting 101 – LOL Wikipedia – Dalek Jokes
London
It felt like there was no air in Charles Widmore's office. Just an oppressive stillness and the sense of old ghosts staring and seeing everything. Penelope could barely breathe; the tiny intake she could manage going unnoticed by her companion. For that, she was thankful. She had shown her best poker face in the last week, re-introducing herself to old company friends and visiting Widmore sites as something other than the younger child she had been once. But the reality of her father's own space was something else entirely, a weight, an inheritance she had not expected. The lack of him hammered home things she had not come to terms with on her own grounds. It was far harder than she expected.
Behind her, Charles's personal lawyer cleared his throat. Harriman was a small, rabbity man, prone to red blotches in the face for no reason and a nervous demeanor. She remembered him – Harriman had been one of her father's earliest picks for advice in his corporation, and a family friend as well. The round rabbit face wavered faintly in many old memories of birthday parties and holiday gatherings. "Most things have been unlocked and moved on accordance with his will. Just a few personal spaces remain. We, ah. Were unsure. I made the call to wait and see if you had a say."
"And here I am," she murmured. The paralysis broke slightly, and she moved across the room to touch careful fingers to the hardwood top of the expansive desk. It was real, refusing to disappear on her.
"Yes. Of course."
Penelope looked up at the lawyer, feeling the world slowly start to settle around her. It was just a room. The weight was all within her. Time to start gripping with it. "Did he say anything? In the..." She couldn't finish, abruptly angry with herself.
"In his last days." Harriman cleared his throat. "Not much. A great deal of bustle. I wasn't privy to much about his odd little fancies." He shrugged. "Then he took the submarine. More paperwork. Little of it unusual for us."
"Fancies?" She raised an eyebrow.
He shrugged again, looked wry. "He had that obsession of his. I don't know much about it, I dealt with it a little about a decade ago. Some... cargo cult in the Pacific or whatnot. I caught mentions of it. I didn't ask after it much."
She fought the urge to laugh. It rang in her mind instead, sardonic and knowing. "Oh yes, that." She rifled through the paperwork on the desk. Nothing important, just interoffice memos. "What happened with it a decade ago?"
Silence. She looked up at him. Harriman looked uncomfortable.
She took pity on him. "I know not everything my father did was above board, Mr. Harriman."
His face relaxed slightly. "I should mention that it qualifies under existing attorney-client privilege. At the same time, as the descendant and heir, I'm willing to talk about it with you. If that changes your mind."
Penelope thought about it. She felt she'd known the worst of him anyway. "It does not."
"Ah. I was, ah, privy to some discussion and involvement of an issue between your father and some fellow still involved with this cargo cult. A Benjamin Linus."
The name still left a cold place in her stomach, forgiveness aside. "Go on."
"There was some rivalry on the topic. Mr. Linus was engaged in acts in Europe and elsewhere that distressed Mr. Widmore. He, ah, made a few calls. The stated purpose was to dissuade Mr. Linus from his antics." He sounded very specific in his words. Penelope was used to such things in her family.
"What was the implied purpose?"
Another pause. The lawyer sounded uncomfortable. "I felt quite sure Mr. Widmore would have been pleased with the man's death." He shifted his weight. "After the closure of that scenario, I made it a habit to stay out of that matter of business."
"I see. I understand." She kept her voice even. She imagined long years of her father and Linus counting coup on each other, locked in some private war. There was the faintest glimmer of something alien in her feelings. Was it sympathy for her father's opponent? She shoved it away. "Best to leave that alone then."
"Yes. Thank you." It was Harriman's turn to inhale deeply. "Well. Would you like a little time to examine your father's things here in privacy?"
"Please." She lifted her head up to watch him go. "And thank you.
. . .
The office gave up little about the relationship Widmore Corporation had with Paik or even Hanso. That didn't surprise her much; she gradually admitted to herself that she had wanted to take a look around for more personal reasons.
Closure, she thought, was a fancy concept. A nice idea, a psychological band aid that fixed everything. In reality, she felt that some things simply left a gap, a ragged hole, and the best one could hope for was to get the ship to float. It wasn't closure she sought, rummaging around her father's old things. It was understanding. She held little hope of that either.
. . .
One set of three drawers in the grand desk was locked, within another locked cabinet. Through some foresight, she'd taken the keys from Harriman much earlier. With more than a little hesitation, Penelope pulled them all open.
The cabinet itself held a small cache of private reserve MacCutcheon whiskey. She eyed with with a little ruefulness, considering whether to take a bottle or two with her. The drawers above, though, were nearly empty. The bottommost drawer held the only object, a small, heavy wooden rectangle. She put her hand on it, then pulled it away again. It was a picture frame; her fingers recognized the shape immediately. She reached down again, picked it up, and looked for a long while at the image under the glass.
It was a sweet portrait of a young girl, curly pigtails and a flower dress, smiling beatifically over the head of an oversized plush bear – a Steiff, by the eartag. The most wonderful bear in the world, she had thought at that age. She still had it, waiting in a box for little Charlie to be a bit bigger. Her breath caught at the image of herself, realizing that what her father wanted and cared for most, he hid away and crouched over, like a dragon.
MacCutcheon, which he had described once as the taste of a lost sea voyage, the words angry and full of loss. And the portrait of her.
Penelope burst into tears, the ragged hole of family feeling just that touch more ravaged.
. . .
When Harriman returned a little while later, her eyes were dry again with only the faintest touch of red. If he noticed, he said nothing. She was grateful to him for that. "I'm sorry, I'm a little early. Reception took a phone call for you."
"From whom?"
He passed her the note, scrawled on the memo pad. "A doctor from Paik. Dr..." He craned the head to interpret the note. "Dr. Werner. He asked to meet you Friday, uptown. It seems he has an interest in helping us find out why Paik's so interested in our files."
"Why ask for me, then?" Her instinct said to be cautious. There was no need to set herself up to be shot at again.
"Well, you've made yourself known the past week as being allied with us and it's gotten notice in Korea. Maybe this one wants to change sides, help us out." Harriman sounded unconcerned. It soothed her, but she remained on edge. "If you're not interested, I'll send someone else."
"No, I'll go." I'll just be very careful. She studied the note as the lawyer departed again.
Friday. Two days. She made a note to herself to be sure Des knew every detail of what she'd be up to. Just in case.
. . .
The Island
"All right, this is what I don't get. It makes no sense." Krish tapped the accounting sheets line by line with the blue pen he was using. "The Korean based accounts are just dumping money into Paik's Euro job here." He spread out the papers and pointed at what he meant. "See all the deposits here... and here... and there... and nothing else. It's like the Bioscience place is a black hole. It doesn't even qualify as a business, it's like watching a child pour flour into the sink. The money goes nowhere."
"Explain further, please." Ben watched him with a tilted head, like an eagle analyzing prey. Krish thought nothing of it, it was just how the man looked when absorbing information.
Krish pulled the stacks of paper around in front of him, reorganizing. "Look. This -" he tapped the stack on the left. "Is the estimated operation expenses for Paik Bio." He tapped the middle. "This is their actual up to last month. It's very low for a science firm. A bit of payroll, but hardly anything else." He tapped the right. "This is what's being poured in. Look at the totals. If it wasn't for the letterhead, I'd swear you were asking me to analyze three different corporation books." He shrugged. "What's odder is what Tsuchi pointed out when we started – there is no active accounting office. Oh yeah, there's one on the books handling said payroll, but they're getting the left file. They're not handling the real money."
He leaned back and looked at Ben, then at Tsuchi. They were all seated on the floor around Krish's living room table, teacups and paper ascatter. A laptop sat open before the youngest man as he continued to translate various files. "Don't start me on the purchase orders. They're nonsensical. If I were given this mess at my old job, I'd go straight to the bobbies. None of this stands up against serious scrutiny."
"It's like they don't care." The voice was a quiet murmur.
Krish pointed a finger at Tsuchi, the speaker. "Exactly."
"What about the purchase orders?" Ben pushed away a teacup.
"I said don't start me." Krish gave a wry grin as Ben fixed him with a long, cool look. "All right. One question: What does a bioscience firm need with a couple thousand tons of high horsepower diesel?"
Any answer he might have received was interrupted by a knock at the door. Krish looked up and across the table. "It's open," he called. It would be easier for them to enter while he began the laborious process of standing up.
Ben glanced up, then over at Kyra as she entered. "Good evening, Ms. Glaukopis."
She gave Ben a noncommittal grunt as he dropped his gaze again, then jutted her chin at Krish, who was just approaching full upright. "Can I talk to you for a moment, please?"
"Certainly." He steadied himself by putting a hand on the side of his couch.
In front of him, with his back to Kyra, Tsuchi's forehead rose above the edge of the laptop screen, followed by the rest of his face. Krish looked down at the younger man, then found himself astonished. Tsuchi wriggled his eyebrows up at Krish, then grinned before dropping his head again. He made a joke. A porny little joke. Krish blinked. So much for video games not ever helping anyone. Perhaps he ought to get in on Hurley's gaming nights.
. . .
Kyra drew Krish outside the front door, closing it. "It's not a big thing if you don't have time, just something I was thinking about."
"All right?" He crossed his arms against the nighttime's surprisingly cool breeze.
"I was reading this Wikipedia article and-"
"Oh dear, here we go." He smirked down at her. She reddened slightly.
"Fuck you, okay? I don't typically go all Dr. Google here, I was just thinking about it and here I am doing follow up research. Yeah?"
He arched an eyebrow in assent. "Go on."
"So I have a problem." Kyra stuck a finger in his face as he opened his mouth, full of mischief. "You are full of snark lately. Fine, I start with the obvious. It's not a drinking problem. It's not." She glowered up at him. "It's... look, it's like an identity thing and I was reading up on trying to help myself out."
"There's a lot of therapists in the world dying for a regular paycheck."
"I have trust issues, too. Shut up and listen."
"I'm honored. You must have decided to trust me if we're talking."
She kept glowering. "It's not about trusting you. It's about feeling like I'm paying someone else to listen to my problems and I hate the concept. For now. Okay? Maybe I'll get over it. First, this."
"Thrill me."
"You know about meditating right? Finding your center and all that."
Krish began to laugh, ending in a low wracking cough mixed with whooping. He put up a hand as she stepped towards him, concerned. "I'm fine." He grinned, sniffled a little. "I know all about meditation in the same way a Dalek knows staircases."
"What?" She looked completely nonplussed.
"Is this because I'm Indian? Woo, find the magic yellow person, he must know how to meditate."
She looked horrified. "No! I saw the yoga mats and you told me about the devas and stuff and I thought-"
He grinned again. "It's all right. Calm down. I can't meditate."
Her face fell with the immediacy of a child out of chocolates at Easter.
"I do know how. I'm just... horribly out of practice. You know. Ah." He looked chagrined. "Weight of the doomed world and all that." Horror began to hit her face again. "Oh, stop that. If I can deal with it, so can you. Relax." He flapped a hand at her. He smirked. "Those who can't do, teach."
"You'll try?"
"What the hell. I have, as previously stated, all damned night. And I did offer help. Tomorrow morning, at dawn. Come here, wear comfy pants, don't give me any rubbish. I've never taught anything."
"Deal."
He raised a finger. "One question, and then I need to go back in. Completely unrelated." She cocked her head at him. "What do you do with a couple thousand tons of high end diesel fuel?"
She responded immediately. "You run a ship, like cargo or bulk carriers and the like. Who's got a ship?"
Krish looked at her for a long moment. "That is an excellent question."