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“But why do you—”
Chris hung up.
He went back to the booth. Tapped on the plexiglass.
The woman dragged herself over to him slowly, her expression caught between confused and annoyed.
“Yeah?”
“I’m Christopher McLachlan,” he said as he pulled out his driver’s license and slid it over, “owner of the McLachlan Group box and I’d like to go up. Please.”
She looked at it, forehead creasing. “Hang on,” she said and slid over to grab a radio.
A few minutes later, she rolled back, smiled and told him to go right on in, that gate, yes, it’d be open, and then explained, a lot bewildered when he asked, where his box actually was.
Chris went in, the expansive concrete halls empty and cool, and made his way to the stairs and followed the directions until he was outside his box. A security guard was manning it. Perfect.
He introduced himself, showed his ID, and the burly, soft-spoken Maori hunched down to listen over the noise from the crowd, nodded his head and opened the door wide so Chris could go in.
“Actually,” Chris took a deep breath. “I’d like to see Joaquin, Head of Security, can you get him for me?”
The guy looked around, alarmed. “Did something happen?”
“No, no, nothing like that. Joaquin and I are,” he tried to think of the word, “friends.”
The guy relaxed. “If you’re friends, why don’t you just call him yourself?”
“I tried, it would seem his phone is dead,” Chris replied. He’d prepared for this.
“Hmm,” the guy said and pulled his radio out. He gestured to the camera in a corner with his radio. “Look up there, he’ll see you.”
Chris followed where he indicated, looked up, and hoped he looked normal. He felt like a bug on display that Joaquin could crush with a word.
“Boss, camera four. You know this dude?”
Chris swallowed, waited.
The radio crackled to life.
“Boss called it, he ain’t here,” a voice very much not Joq came down the line.
The guy turned to him. “He’s not here.”
Chris deflated. He didn’t realise he’d been so tense until the energy sagged out of him.
“Will he be here tomorrow? Is there a game tomorrow?”
“I reckon, but he’ll probably charge his phone by then,” the guy replied.
“Right,” Chris said. But he wouldn’t answer it if Chris called.
“You wanna go in,” the guy held the door open.
Chris glanced around at the bar, the buffet, all the men in suits holding drinks, felt accosted by the noise and drunken language.
“No, thank you,” he said and tucked his hands in his pockets. “I’ll just,” he jerked his chin behind him.
“Course, nice to meet you, Mr McLachlan, good luck with the boss,” he smiled like he meant it and for some reason, it made Chris feel worse.
