Due Diligence: A Thriller by Jonathan Rush

can’t say,” said Rob.
    Greg looked at him doubtfully.
    Rob smiled. “I’ll tell you when it’s finished.”
    “Everyone’ll know when it’s finished,” said Greg. “What’s the point of being friends with a hotshot investment banker? We want to know now!”
    Rob shook his head.
    “He won’t even tell me,” said Emmy.
    “Does he talk in his sleep?”
    Emmy laughed.
    Louise got up. “I gotta pee,” she said, and headed for the bathroom.
    She took her time. When she came back, Ricky came out with their first courses on a tray. He shook a little. Teresa never filled the soup bowls right to the top.
    “Who’s having the meatballs?” he said.
    “Ricky, who always has the meatballs?” said Rob.
    “I always ask,” said Ricky fastidiously. “Ladies first. Who’s having the minestrone?”
    Emmy put up her hand.
    “Okay. A minestrone for the lovely lady.” He put the soup down, shaking it all the way to the table. “And asparagus … for the other lovely lady. And a marinara … and the meatballs … Buon appetito! ”
    “ Grazie, Ricky,” said Rob and Greg, putting on the most flamboyant Italian accents they could muster. Ricky shook his head, waving his hand dismissively, and shuffled off.
    Rob and Greg grinned at each other.
    Greg started twisting his fork in his marinara. “So what’s it like, seriously, working on this deal?” he asked, putting a forkful in his mouth.
    Rob was digging into his spaghetti. “Seriously?” he said. “Intense. It’s very intense.”
    “Like when you were working at Roller Waite?”
    Rob shook his head as he ate a mouthful of spaghetti. “No. Not like that at all. I mean, we worked pretty hard at Roller Waite, we had our moments, but not like this. This just explodes. Suddenly there’s this deal and everything’s time critical and you’re crunching through an incredible amount of data and it’s all eighty-twenty, eighty-twenty, what do I have time to cover and what do I leave? You live or die by eighty-twenty because you never have time to do everything. That’s the difference. When you’re working in a law firm, you have to cover everything. I mean you don’t, but you do, if you know what I mean. That’s where the time goes. Here, the coverage is potentially infinite, so you’re constantly selecting. What do I need, what can I leave, what do I absolutely have to have before I can go on to the next thing?”
    “So what do you actually do all day?” asked Greg.
    Louise sighed ostentatiously and stared out the window.
    “Well, mostly, I get yelled at.”
    “What?” said Emmy. “Someone else is yelling at you? Honey, that’s my job.”
    “Baby, there’ll always be room for you.” Rob looked back at Greg. “No, really, the VP who runs the team is so abusive you could just about sue him for breathing. It’s not just me he yells at, it’s everyone. Every time he walks in it’s like, get ready, here he comes. And every second word’s a curse word.”
    Emmy frowned.
    “And when he’s not yelling at you?” said Greg.
    “Mostly, I crunch a bunch of numbers. See, my job is to figure out the value of the company we’re going after, so I’ve got these estimates and I’m working and reworking them, trying to get more and more accurate. To be honest, Greg, I’m so deep in that side of it, I don’t even know what the other guys are doing. I don’t even see the document my numbers go into. I just give them what they need.” Rob picked up his spoon and took more of his spaghetti. “I guess that doesn’t sound so great. But actually, I don’t mind. The learning curve is like…” He pointed straight up at the ceiling. “Awesome. I don’t mind being yelled at if I’m learning stuff, right? And Emmy doesn’t really want to see me, do you, Em?”
    “Occasionally would be nice.”
    Rob grinned. “All those times when I was at Roller Waite and I thought, Should I, shouldn’t I? Greg, you remember? Should I go back to school and take on all