Mr. Viikatemies Pays A Visit
"Where is that sonofabitch?!"
Cliff looked up from his desk, cluttered as it usually was, and up at the clock on the wall. His employees knew they shouldn't be late to meetings with him. Tardiness was something that tended to make him cranky.
His assistant, Jaclyn, having heard him shout, stuck her head in the door.
"Clifford," she said, in that proper British accent of hers, "you know what the doctor said about getting excited."
Cliff smirked at that. He thought Jaclyn had only called him that because she knew she was the only person in the company that could get away with it. If anyone else had done it, he'd have fired them on the spot.
"Yes, mother," he said, feigning an accent of his own.
Cliff Pollard built Pollard, Inc. from the ground up. He started this pharmaceutical company in his garage some thirty years ago and it now had gross profits in the tens of millions every month. His office, on the top floor of the company's headquarters on a sprawling campus in the Chicago suburbs, was not as ornate as you might think. The walls were lined with oak paneling and the desk was large to be sure, but the floor was covered in carpeting that was almost as old as Cliff was. He made sure it was well taken care of.
Cliff was a rotund man with thinning grey hair and light brown eyes. He had on his favorite grey suit with a white dress shirt and a pink paisley tie Jaclyn had bought him for Christmas last year.
A few more minutes ticked by much too slowly for Cliff's liking and he took to fiddling with a pencil and tapping it on his desk out of boredom.
Jaclyn stuck her head around the door again and said, "Clifford, there is a Mr. Viikatemies here to see you." She looked back over her shoulder and said, "Did I pronounce that correctly?"
Without waiting for an answer from Cliff or Jaclyn, a tall, slender man with pale blonde hair, blue eyes and sharp facial features walked into the office. He had a thin smile on his face and said to Jaclyn, "Like a native of Helsinki, my dear. Thank you."
Jaclyn blushed a bit and left, closing the door quietly behind her.
Cliff took a longer look at the man before him. Mr. Viikatemies was dressed in a black suit with white pinstripes, a black shirt and black tie. His shoes were black patent leather, clean enough you could get a good reflection in them.
Cliff smiled a bit, hoping he didn't look as nervous as he felt. "Please, sir, have a seat."
Mr. Viikatemies sat down in the chair facing Cliff's desk and crossed his legs in front of him, his hands in his lap. He said, "I think you know why I'm here."
Cliff's eyebrows lifted a bit at that. "It's really that time already?" he asked.
Mr. Viikatemies simply nodded.
"I was hoping I'd have more time," Cliff whispered.
"That's what they all say."
"Can't we make other arrangements?"
"You should have thought about that a long time ago."
Cliff looked down at his desk and sighed softly. "Is there anything I can say to change your mind?"
Mr. Viikatemies smirked a bit at that. "No, there really isn't. That's not how these things work."
"Not even stock options? We make huge profits on a regular basis..."
"No."
"There has to be a way to..." Cliff stopped in mid-sentence and his head dropped to the desk.
Mr. Viikatemies stood up, quietly muttering, "They always try to bargain." He waved his hand toward the door and then vanished.
Jaclyn opened the door and looked toward the desk. "Clifford?!" She ran to her boss's side, but it was too late. Cliff had suffered a massive heart attack and was dead by the time his head hit the desk.
Jaclyn let out a soft sigh and said, "Clifford, what did the doctor tell you?"
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