Page 16 of Marcellus: House of Drakos
Bernard, like all the other times, escorted the young woman onto the elevator and then out of the home from a side exit. A car was waiting to transport her away from the estate. Bernard pulled out an envelope filled with cash and handed it to her by order of the boss, as was his standing order. Andthat particular woman, just like all the other women before her, accepted the cash. They never refused it.They never came into the house of Marcellus Drakos as a whore, but they always left as one.
Bernard felt bad for those young ladies who were too full of themselves and foolish to understand how defining a moment that would be for them: To accept cash for sex. Easy money that many of them would try to replicate with other men.
But he felt bad for the boss too, who had been used and abused by women for so long that he now preferred to pay them for one-night stands rather than suffer the indignity of pretending that they wanted him. He knew what they wanted, and that was why, every morning after, he gave it to them.
Once the young lady got into the backseat of the car and the car drove away, Bernard made his way back upstairs to the master bedroom. He knocked first and then slowly opened the doors.
The boss was in his bathrobe roaming around his room yelling into his cell phone. Although the phone was on Speaker and Bernard could hear every word, he knew to wait as if he were as lifeless as the furniture until the boss was ready to acknowledge his presence. In the world of domestic service, the staff heard everything, and nothing at all.
But Marcellus could be so salty in his English language that it was most difficult for any of the staff to not hear him. Especially when he was on the line with one of his children, whom he entrusted to run his massive corporation.
“Your ass told me you had it under control,” he yelled into his phone. “Didn’t you tell me that?”
“We do have it under control.” Bernard recognized that voice as his oldest son Olivier, his CEO. “Once we grounded 903 we’ve been doing everything we possibly can to keep it under control.”
“We went two weeks with no problems,” said Marcellus. “I thought we had it resolved. We isolated the issue and had it resolved. Now just like that one of my biggest planes fall out of the sky killing every soul onboard. And you have the nerve to tell me you don’t even know if it’s the same malfunction as the other crashes? Are you fucking kidding me!”
“That’s because it wasn’t like the other crashes,” said Olivier. “The m.o. is not the same.”
“Has the black box been recovered?”
“If it has the NTSB isn’t saying yet. I doubt it,” Olivier added.
Marcellus leaned his head back. Then he yelled into his phone once again. “By the time I get to Chicago you’d better have answers for me, Ollie. And I don’t mean this bullshit you’re telling me now. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes sir,” his son said.
“Motherfuck!” Marcellus yelled and then threw his phone violently across the room. Bernard had to ease his head slightly over to avoid getting hit. Then he stood back upright. “You rang, sir?”
Marcellus leaned his head back again and placed both hands on his hips. It had been another night of partying. This time in Monaco. Deciding against going home alone, he issued an invitation to yet another young woman eager to accompany him for the remainder of the night. Which led to yet another let down. She, nor any of the other ladies before her, had been able to satisfy him for years. He wondered why he kept going through the motions of it when he didn’t even like it anymore. He didn’t want them, and they just wanted to use him. What was the point?
Loneliness was part of the point. He hated sleeping alone. Didn’t like living alone either, but that couldn’t be helped. No way was he ever giving any of those girls any hint of achance beyond that one night in bed with him unless she was the woman he’d been looking for all of his adult life and never found. Unless she was so remarkable that she was amazing.
Only one woman had ever come close to anything near it, and she turned out to be a disappointment too. He’d given up on ever finding that one true lady ever since.
Bernard continued to stand in the bedroom that reeked of a mixture of sexual encounter, perfume, and cologne. It was a combination Bernard was accustomed to. But when he saw his boss standing there with his head back, looking like a man exhausted with life itself, his heart went out to him. His entire life was superficial. He was a good man in Bernard’s eyes who treated his workers great and paid them even better. He deserved so much more.
“I saw your guest safely off the premises, sir,” he said. “The valet is preparing your bath, and Chef is preparing your breakfast. Is there anything else you need, sir?”
“I’ve got to return to the States a bit earlier than I had hoped. The full staff will accompany me. We’ll be staying at my Chicago mansion for the foreseeable future. Or at least until I can calm the waters. We’ll leave before the morning light.”
“Yes sir.”
Then Bernard hesitated. Although he had more liberties than anybody else in the household, he still had to tread carefully. But he felt he needed to say it. “I saw on the news that there was another incident overnight. I am so very sorry, sir.”
“The skills of the pilots saved us from losing any more souls than we’d already lost in those prior crashes. We weren’t so fortunate this time.”
“No sir. But you know what they say: When it rains it pours.”
“Or it just rains. We’ve been blessed not to have any downpours at all. Now it’s our turn. Prepare the staff.”
Bernard was hoping for more. Maybe even a moment for the boss to let his hair down and let Bernard in. But it wasn’t to be. Marcellus was looking at his estate manager as if he wasn’t about to allow him to cross that invisible line that would always keep them employer and employee and never friends. A line Bernard knew not to cross uninvited. “Yes sir,” he said, backed out, and closed the door once again.
Marcellus leaned his head back again and exhaled. He was hard even when he meant to be soft. Which made the mere attempt at being friendly a useless act to him.
He spent his entire life fighting to get ahead. And then once he got ahead, he spent all his days staying ahead. But now all of a sudden his engines were failing. His aircraft were risking the lives of their passengers. His ass was on the grill.
He showed his face in America once a month only whenever he could help it, and that was to see his children, meet with his board, and handle any situations that only he could handle. Now he had no choice in the matter. His planes were falling out of the sky and nobody knew why. Stocks were down. Critics were yelling. His corporation, for the first time since its inception, was in trouble.
