The Best Work of His Career

Nobody at Renwick Software remembers who started it, but everybody agrees that the air horn was the point of no return.

Nina taped it under Silas's chair on a Monday in October. When he sat down, the horn went off, and he threw a full cup of coffee at the ceiling. The stain is still up there, a brown island above desk four.

So Silas needed a bigger trick, and he spent three weeks on it.

Nina makes tea at 10:40 every morning. She has made tea at 10:40 every morning for four years. On Monday night, after everyone had gone home, Silas stood in the office kitchen with a roll of black tape and taped the handle of the sink sprayer down, so that the water would come out of the sprayer instead of the tap, at chest height, at whoever was standing there. It is unlikely that a roll of tape has ever been used with more care. He said later that it was the best work of his career.

The client from Denver arrived on Tuesday at ten past ten, half an hour early.

Silas was the only person at the front of the office. He shook her hand and asked about her flight, and then, because he wanted to look like the kind of company that takes care of people, he offered her a glass of water and walked into the kitchen and turned on the tap.

The water hit him from his collar to his belt.

The worst part wasn't the water. The worst part was that the client had followed him in and was standing in the doorway, holding her coat, watching a grown man in a wet shirt turn off a tap with two fingers.

Nina came in with a roll of paper towels.

“That was for me, wasn't it?” she said.

“Totally,” Silas said.

The client wasn't upset. She was writing something on her phone. “Is this a normal Tuesday?” she asked.

Nina thought about the air horn, the coffee on the ceiling, and the nine photographs of Silas's face taped inside the supply cupboard.

“It's a quiet one,” she said.