Perfect Partners

1

    C
harlie, you son of a bitch, you always did have a warped sense of humor. How the hell could you do this to me
?
    Joel Blackstone stood at the back of the tiny church and surveyed the cluster of mourners gathered in the front pews. September sunlight filtered down through the stained-glass windows illuminating the inside of the A-frame structure with a glow. The minister’s voice was strong and surprisingly cheerful, given the fact that he was officiating at a memorial service.
    “Charlie Thornquist was the most dedicated fisherman I ever knew,” the minister said. “And that’s saying something, because God knows I’ve done a pretty fair job of dedicating myself to that noble pursuit. But for me it was an avocation. A hobby. For Charlie it was nothing less than a true vocation. A calling.”
    At the minister’s right, an urn rested on a wooden stand. The small brass plaque that hung on it was engraved with the words GONE FISHING . Inside the urn were the last earthly remains of Joel’s eighty-five-year-old boss, Charlie Thornquist. Several photographs of Charlie with some of his prize catches were displayed around the urn. The most impressive was the one of Charlie with a marlin he’d landed off the coast of Mexico.
    Joel still could not believe that the old bastard had ripped him off in the end. After all that talk of letting Joel buy him out in another year, Charlie had stiffed him. The company Joel had built from the ground up had gone to the daughter of Charlie’s nephew. Ms. Letitia Thornquist was a librarian at some little midwestern college in Kansas or Nebraska or some equally foreign locale.
    The hell with it. Thornquist Gear belonged to him, Joel Blackstone, and he was damn well not going to allow it to fall into the grubby little palm of some ivory tower type who didn’t know a balance sheet from an unabridged dictionary. Joel’s insides tightened with anger. He had been so close to owning Thornquist free and clear.
    The company was his in every way that really counted. It was Joel who had poured everything he had into the firm for the past ten years, Joel who had single-handedly turned it into a major player in the marketplace. And it was Joel who had spent the past eight months plotting a long-awaited vengeance. But to carry out his revenge, he needed to retain complete control of Thornquist Gear.
    One way or another, Joel thought, he was going to maintain his hold on the company. The little librarian from Iowa or wherever could go screw herself.
    “We have gathered here today to bid Charlie Thornquist farewell,” the minister said. “In some ways it is a sad moment. But in truth we are sending him into the loving hands of the master fisherman.”
    We had a deal, Charlie. I trusted you. Thornquist was supposed to be mine. Why the hell did you have to go and die on me
?
    Joel was willing to concede that Charlie probably had not intentionally collapsed from a heart attack before changing his will as he had promised to do. It was just that Charlie had a way of letting business slide in favor of fishing. He had always been good at that. This time good old Charlie had let things slide a little too far.
    Now, instead of owning Thornquist Gear, the rapidly expanding Seattle-based company that specialized in camping and sporting equipment, Joel had himself a new boss. The thought was enough to make him grind his back teeth. A librarian, for God’s sake. He was working for a librarian.
    “For most of his adult life Charlie Thornquist enjoyed one driving passion.” The minister smiled benignly on the small group. “And that passion was fishing. For Charlie Thornquist, it was not the actual catch that counted, but the communion with nature that accompanied each and every fishing trip. Charlie was happiest when he was sitting in a boat with a pole in his hand.”
    That was true enough, Joel reflected. And while Charlie had gone off to fish, Joel had sweated blood to transform Thornquist Gear from a two-bit storefront operation into a cash-rich empire, a young and hungry shark that was on the verge of swallowing whole its first live prey. Charlie would have appreciated the analogy.
    Joel narrowed his eyes against the golden glow filtering through the colorful windows. He studied the trio in the front pew.
    He had already met Dr. Morgan Thornquist, thanks to Charlie. Morgan was a full professor in the department of philosophy and logic at Ridgemore College, a small private institution in