The fish tank is a tall, hexagonal prism filled with salt water, swaying vegetation and fleshy globes of color floating in zero gravity. A filter spits out up fat bubbles of air. It’s supposed to add ambiance to his office and instill his racing mind with gentle thoughts.
But he’s not looking at it. His eyes are focused on the space beyond. Through the wall, burning two holes in the wall and through the forehead of the man at the desk in the next room. A samurai sword leans against the wall, a striped necktie wrapped around the hilt. He wants that office and that sword.
The tie? He could take it or leave it.
Minutes before he was pacing back and forth, moving with such intensity that if he kept walking straight he’d walk right through the wall into the next office. The corner office.
He’s on the phone now. Chattering away about nothing with nobodies. He sees a heaving bosom in his peripheral vision and glances up. His secretary, Christine, wearing a red dress and some kind of starburst brooch on which he is now trying to focus.
“I didn’t hear you come in,” he says.
“I knocked,” she says.
She sits on the edge of the desk, knees pressed together, ankles crossed. One high heeled shoe slips off her foot and falls to the floor.
“New man in your life?” he asks her, looking down at the curve of her thigh.
“No, just a present for myself. A little retail therapy.” The scabbard is simple yet elegant, a single pale stone in a silver setting. The craftsmanship is old world and beautiful. The curve of the blade follows her shape.
“May I?” he asks and she smiles.
“I thought you’d never ask.” She reaches down and pulls out the blade. It’s a wavy dagger, double-edged.
“Kris? Very nice. Oh, I get it…”
She smirks, the corner of her smile turning up. She’s all curves and sharpness today.
“My turn.” He reached under his desk and withdraws a package wrapped in silk and tied with a violet ribbon.
Her eyebrow goes up. “I presume this is for that new girl in Finance you’ve been seeing?”
He pats the package and rubs his palm across it. “I don’t see any conflict of interest, do you? It’s a katar I had shipped here from a Kalari Payattu master in Karnataka. An old friend and business partner.”
“Lady killer.” she says, slipping off the desk and toeing her shoe back onto her foot.
“She needs something better than that pressed steel junk if she wants that promotion.”
“Lady killer and influence peddler?” Christine slips the kris knife back into its sheath and shimmies the dress back over her thigh. “You have that meeting in 15 with Franklin.” Her eyes dart over to the far side of the room, above the fish tank.
“I know. Getting my head in the right place. Breathing exercises. Meditation, you know.”
Christine turns to leave and says, “Good luck. He leads with his left side, FYI.”
“Thanks. And if I manage to take his fucking head off, you’re getting a raise.”