"Davis, Jerry - Scuba" - читать интересную книгу автора (Davis Jerry)

telling him to give up diving --- but this was when his father
sold the company due to illness and had sent for Jack to help. Now
he was here in Chicago, trapped, instead of going back and
challenging the reef. Jack sipped his coffee, staring out the
window. He preferred the reef, narcosis and all; narcosis was, at
least, an enemy that could be anticipated.

#

Jack's boss, Neil Cromwell, was a giant in his own mind. When
he closed his eyes and pictured himself he saw this enormous,
inflated figure, like a parade float, sitting in a giant chair at
a fifty-foot desk while everyone else in his sight went about
their jobs at his feet. They were tiny, fragile little people who
all scurried about carrying out his will.
When Neil pictured Jack Buchman in his mind, he saw an
anomaly, a misshapen cancerous figure that didn't belong, bigger
than the others but still dwarfed by himself, a flaw in the
perfection of his world. Jack knocked on Neil's door and let
himself into Neil's office, and Neil stared at him the same way
he'd stare at the one last remaining piece of a puzzle that would
not fit into its hole. "You're fifteen minutes late," he snapped
at Jack.
"I'm sorry." Jack looked pre-occupied. He looked sick, there
was no color in his face.
"You know, Jack, you're just not cut out for this job.
There's no reason in the world that you have to stick with it."
"I have a contract that says I have to stick with it."
Neil sighed. "I'm more than willing to let you out of the
contract."
"I thought I came here to get my ass chewed about a phone
bill."
"You're here to get your ass chewed for being a fool. You're
not doing yourself any good by staying in this position, you're
not doing your division any good, and you're in my way."
"Oh, power games."
"I've got ways of getting you out of here, Jack. I can play
hardball." He stared at Jack intensely, trying to sear him with
his eyes. His stare did not have the desired effect.
"If you got ways, go ahead and use them," Jack said. "I can't
sell my father's stock, and that's it." He shrugged, and was
silent for a moment. "You want to know the truth? I want out as
much as you want me out, but I'm trapped. My father was a very
dominant man, worse than you. I was always fighting to live my own
life, but somehow I always ended up living for him. He's had
absolute power over me all my life, and when he started getting
sick and decided to sell out I thought, this is it, this is my
chance to get out of the way. I was in college studying to be a
marine biologist. But he put me in his place in the contract. When
he was on his deathbed I thought, finally I will be free of him. I