A Better World: A Novel

The Sinking Ship

“Some people aren’t suited. It’s nothing personal,” Jack Lust said. “They’re simply a wrong fit.”

This guy was a clown. The creepy kind. Linda Farmer didn’t like him, but she smiled at him because she had to.

“For instance,” Jack said. He enunciated every syllable like a dis- appointed preschool teacher. “Character is paramount. When we hire people who are going to live in our town, mix with our top-level exec- utives, become top level, we need to know they’ll behave.”

Linda nodded as if to say: We have character! We ooze character!

“You’ll have no cause for concern with us,” Linda’s husband, Rus- sell, said. They were sitting together on the sunken couch, looking up at Jack Lust in the high wingback chair like a couple of kids who’d been caught doing something bad.

“Our community is small and like minded. We prefer collaborative types. It’s counterintuitive: to get to this place that you’re at today, an interview for a coveted company job in a jewel like Plymouth Valley, you must outshine all your competition,” Jack said. His bespoke black suit hugged his bony body like shrink-wrap. Linda pegged him at a vim and vigorous seventy-five years old. Cosmetic surgery, healthy living, clean air—company town people kept it tight. Nobody in their seventies looked this good on the outside.

Jack was accompanied by a small entourage of likewise elegant men, none of whom he’d introduced. Two appeared to be taking notes and two were security, waiting outside the Farmer-Bowens’ apartment door. Linda hadn’t checked—this had all moved too fast—but she suspected that the leather straps across their chests held pregnant holsters.