August is difficult for a snowman. A strand of ivy carefully spiralled just so suggests regal; shifting the carefully packed balls of snow forward (cautiously avoiding putting it off-balance) gives a firm impression of overbearing. The art of caricature makes oblivious and indiscreet no problems. But, Milo decided, the scrap heap of implementationally implausible--already bloated with concepts like patronizing and irresolute--needed to expand by one to accomodate august.
After stamping his feet carefully on the steps outside his father's domicile--there would be time enough to torment Carmella after Ned left--he entered to find the house a whirlwind of preparation.
Carmella saw him first. "There's Milo."
Ned rounded the corner. "There you are, my boy. Come at last to see me off? Where have you been?"
"At the park."
"Well, I'm afraid I'm just leaving now. We falcons have to fly free, you know. We'll talk later."
Milo knew well the odds of that day ever arriving, and said nothing.
"You be good to Carmella."
"Yes sir."
With that, and some close mouth-to-mouth motion that Milo observed dispassionately, Ned was off on another of his business trips.
Carmella turned from the window. "Don't you go wandering around this house in those boots, young man."
Struggling to open the iced-over fasteners, Milo pondered the wondrous process in the English language known as the 'particle shift'. If you want to take off your boots, you have to take your boots off. Seeing off Ned necessarily involved seeing his father off. But, as far as Milo had understood from his readings--for he wasn't really personally invested in the process yet--it was not at all necessary to get off someone to get someone off; in fact, quite the contrary, in normal practice.
Milo had dreams and aspirations of power. He imagined that he would grow up to be president of some multinational conglomerate, whence he'd bandy about terms like meticulous, remunerative, and eminent domain.
Many years passed, and nobody was at all surprised when Milo found a successful career as a crossword puzzle author.
Thaddeus P. Rovale fancied himself a keen observer, and he had all his sensory apparatus going full steam as he crossed the lobby towards the receptionist.
He saw the opulence of a successful company reined in by the tight grip of a spendthrift management. The bits of activity down a corridor to the right suggested work getting done, but the minimal amount relative to the size of the office would lead an observer to suspect most of the employees were productively plugging away in their cubicles. The carpet itself implied comfort without really providing any to those standing around waiting in the lobby--of which there were, at this moment, none.
And the receptionist, well, she was very attractive. Perhaps too attractive. But then, perhaps he could get her number as a perk.
She hung up the phone and smiled brightly. "Welcome to RAJ Industries." (As if the huge logo on the wall behind her hadn't communicated that to him the moment he got off the elevator.) "Can I help you?"
"I have an interview with the Director of Technology."
She glanced down. "Mr. Rovale?"
"That's right."
She called, announced his presence, hung up, said "Someone will be out shortly," and turned back to her computer.
"What's your name?"
She shook her head. "The elite don't hang out with the mundanes."
"You, elite? You're a receptionist."
"You're the one who wants a job here." She turned back to her computer--a game of FreeCell already in progress--and he sat down.
This was make-or-break day. Living off the wealthy parents seemed perfectly reasonable to Thaddeus, but Walter Rovale had dropped the boom: get a job, or move out. Moving out would require getting both a job and an apartment. So what was a slacker to do? Even his brother had gotten something he could claim was a job, even if he didn't really make enough money to pay any bills. Of course Walter had offered Thaddeus a job at his company, but Thaddeus wasn't interested, and not just because it was the sleaziest job in the world.
So here he was. A woman appeared in a doorway opposite the corridor. Professionally dressed, no-nonsense, a strong sense of timeliness, he'd bet. "Mr. Rovale?"
He stood, followed her to her office. They sat on opposite sides of the desk. Computer, in box, out box, a framed photograph, a shredder. Lurking in the background, amidst the file cabinets and document boxes, was a safe.
"Anelle Stauffer, director of technology. Did you bring your information?" she asked.
He handed the two pages to her. She read them quickly, nodded, and shredded them. "You'll do fine. Let me show you around."
She led him down the corridor he'd seen before. People were working in cubicles: diligently typing, reading, talking on the phone. Anelle followed his gaze. "We have a fairly strict rule about goofing off. You can do what you like as long as you look like you're being productive. So no Solitaire--that's far too obvious. And regardless you can't surf the web since we don't have Internet connectivity."
They rounded the corner and went down a second row of cubicles, which were only partly occupied. "You'll time-share a cubicle, of course--how much is up to you." They entered an empty cubicle, and she pulled on one wall. A thin but large cover came off the top half. "You can put decorations on one of these, and then it's trivial to personalize any of the cubicles so it looks like it's yours and always has been."
They started walking back to her office. "And, of course, we're in the prestigious Wyatt Earp building, on the top floor, and you know that people will be impressed to hear that. It's really a fabulous location. Of course we'll set you up with your own voice mail account, and you'll even be able to check it from home. If you want, we can forward incoming calls to you when you're not in the office, too."
They sat back around her desk.
"Assuming you're still interested, let's get down to brass tacks."
"Money."
She smiled. "Yes." Then she acquired a perfect poker face. She sized him up for a few moments longer. "Fifty."
He frowned. "A month?"
"No, fifty dollars a day. For the days you come in."
"That's outrageous."
"Look, this is a business. We have to make money somehow. Renting the top floor of the Wyatt Earp building doesn't come cheap, I can tell you that. We've cut costs everywhere we could--like those cubicles--but that's the best we can do. And something tells me you really need this job."
He shook his head. "Not that badly."
"Forty dollars, but I can't go any lower than that. And a ten-day minimum."
Images of Walter loomed in his vision. "Deal. Can I start today?"
"Yes, but I'll need two days cash up front."
Thaddeus pulled out his wallet and produced four twenties. "I have to admit it, you have a great setup here. I still can't get over the idea. Rent-a-job... who'd have thought it."
"I am rather pleased." Anelle replied, taking his cash towards the safe. "And it's perfectly legal."
"Investigator Harrison, how can I help you?" His voice assumed its gruffest tone while he sized up the caller. "That's right, that's what we do. Have you got something for us?" His eyes wandered around the other folk in the office: Investigator Collins, Investigator Jackson, Investigator Parsons--professional-sounding psuedonyms that happened to be their favorite musicians. Or, in some cases, second favorite; management had deemed Investigator Nine Hundred Foot Jesus "insufficiently professional-sounding".
"Mrs. McFadden, have you considered the possibility that it's your husband who's moving things around when you're not home?" His eyes focussed in on Samantha and the unprofessionally low top she was wearing today. "Sure, it could be a poltergeist, but we have a firm policy: you must consider and disprove the natural before we will consider the supernatural. No, I realize. Yes. You should try a traditional detective agency first, to investigate whether there are any human beings responsible. Yes. If they turn up nothing, then we will take the case. You're welcome."
Hanging up the phone, Vicki looked sideways to see Polly looking at him expectantly. "95% chance her husband's having an affair."
Samantha stepped over to his desk.
He smiled. "Investigator Collins. What can I do for you this fine morning?"
She put her palms on the desk and leaned forward a little. "I've got a live one, Vicki, but it's out of state. Do you want to take it?"
"Not particularly."
"I really don't want to travel right now. I don't want to miss any of my prayer meetings, as I'm sure I'm right on the verge of transcending. Tell you what, I'll give you half of my next commission."
"Plus the full commission and bonus on this one?"
"Super-naturally. Should be a good one, too. He's quite wealthy, and the sightings have been appropriately uncertain."
"You're on."
"I'll have the client email you the address."
An hour later, he found email in his inbox with the subject "Samantha told me to send you this". The body just had a URL. He clicked on the link and found himself on the page for a time-shared condominium. Well, not really a condo at all; not a community, just the one house. Vicki wrote down the address and replied to the email, asking if the email's author was the primary owner and when he'd be there. He hadn't gotten a reply by the end of the day, and Samantha had left, but she'd said previously it was all set up and approved, so what the heck.
The next day, his detecting gear packed in his suitcase and some casual clothes in a backpack, Vicki boarded a plane, headed for boring with a capital B.
"Perfectly legal," Anelle said, interposing her body between Thaddeus and the safe. She quickly spun the combination and tossed his money in.
"If it's perfectly legal, why do you keep your money in a safe?"
"Old habits die hard." She smiled, sitting again.
"Paperwork?"
"Of course not. Let me get your voice mail set up." She picked up the phone and started punching in the control and authorization codes, pulling out a document showing the available voice mail codes--and a good thing it was they'd gone with four-digit ones. She glanced up, nearly finished, and noticed his look. "Thaddeus, I'm old enough to be your... your significantly older sister."
"What? Oh, I wasn't thinking about that. I was trying to imagine how you'd finagled such a sweet setup."
She hung up the phone. "There. Now..."
The phone rang. But Thad was the only interview today. Wait, was it April already? No. She watched a curious expression grow on his face--he was reading her expression, clearly--and picked up.
The receptionist got out one word before Anelle hung up: "Simon".
Anelle looked at Thad directly, earnestly. "Lock the door."
Thaddeus protested. "No, really, I'm not interested in you that way."
"Lock it. We have trouble on the way."
She opened the side door out of the office. Old habits die hard indeed. Then she went to the stack of document boxes, moved the top one aside. Hefted one. Two was too heavy. And there were three all told.
Thaddeus stood by the door he'd locked. "I'd get away from there if I were you," she observed.
"What are you doing?"
"Taking what's most important." She looked at the two remaining boxes, looked at Thaddeus, sizing him up. "Can you carry both of these?"
The door shuddered under vicious blows. A screaming angry voice: "Anelle! I know you're in there, my sweet!"
Thaddeus studied her expression. "I don't think I want to get involved. Who is that?"
"Ex-partner. They must have let him out early. Come on, I'll make it worth your while."
Thaddeus looked at the boxes, came over and lifted one. He grunted. With that weight, paper could make a good paperweight.
Anelle sighed. "Twenty grand if you get them both." He looked openly towards the safe. She saw it, replied, "Don't worry about that, there's only eighty dollars there."
"It was more that I was wondering where you're going to get twenty grand."
"I'm good for it."
A sudden bang--a circular hole in the door. Christ, that was a gunshot! What sort of mess was this?
"Stay or go, it's your call." Anelle strode out the side door with the box and started down the stairs.
The door shuddered again, and he heard incoherent screaming. He wasn't looking forward to confronting that. So, fine. He strained at the effort of lifting both boxes, and then hurried out the side door, closing it with his foot.
A short corridor was revealed, and stairs down. He hurried down, but no sign of Anelle. He went down one floor; down two floors...
"Thad!"
He stopped short, but the momentum of the boxes nearly pulled him down the next flight of stairs anyway. Anelle was standing in the doorway onto the twenty-third floor.
Seconds later, after Anelle--impressively prepared--had locked the stairwell door, they heard someone puffing and grunting, descending the stairs. After whoever it was had gone several floors down, out of hearing, Thaddeus said, "I..."
Anelle put her hand over his mouth, waiting a few more minutes, and then uncovered it. "My car's in the garage, and he knows what it looks like, so he'll figure out I probably haven't left quite soon. Where's your car?"
Thaddeus frowned. "In the garage."
She didn't hesitate. "Ok. Go down to the lobby, hit the street, hail a cab, and promise the driver a thousand dollars if he sits there waiting for us with the motor running and doesn't drive off with the next fair." She pulled out her wallet. "Here's forty. Give him this and everything else you've got on you as a down-payment, and then come back here, and we'll make a run for it."
She seemed a dangerous woman, and a schemer. The suspicion must have been evident on his face, because she said, "If I could walk off with all these boxes alone, I wouldn't have asked for your help in the first place."
He shrugged and ran for the elevator. "And don't run," she admonished him. "Simon doesn't know you, so don't call attention to yourself."
The building lobby was busy but not untowardly so. The woman at the office listing, determining where she wanted to go. The young lad sitting on the bench, kicking his feet. The tall, muscular fellow near the exit, biting his nails.
Thaddeus walked out, avoiding looking at the tall, muscular fellow biting his nails. From the dimwitted expression on his face, that bruiser spelled trouble t-r-u-b-b-l-e.
The cabbie was no problem; eighty dollars was plenty to get him to wait, regardless of the truth of the promised one grand. Thaddeus returned to the lobby, and straight to the elevator.
The doors opened on a midget and a transvestite, bringing to mind a really stupid joke that he supressed before it showed on his face. The midget got off as he entered. Thaddeus pushed the button for the twenty-third floor, saw the twenty-fifth was already lit up.
When they passed the fifteenth floor, the transvestite said, "Didn't your mother teach you it was impolite not to stare?"
"Sorry."
He breathed a sigh as the elevator doors closed behind him, then hurried down the corridor to find Anelle. As they carried the boxes back to the elevator, she asked, "Did you see anyone suspicious?"
"There was a transvestite in the elevator going from the garage to the top floor."
"Describe him."
Thaddeus described her, him, as best he could.
"Doesn't sound like Simon." He described the guy in the lobby, and she shook her head. "Sounds like we're clear, as long as we hurry."
Thaddeus stood in front of the elevator as it opened, but it was empty. They moved the boxes in and began the descent.
The elevator stopped at the eighth floor and opened... but there was nobody there. Thaddeus felt a sudden chill and realized he was actually frightened. He couldn't remember the last time that had been true.
The elevator descended without further incident. They hurried across the lobby and out to the waiting cab. Anelle let him get in first, sliding the boxes uncomfortably onto his lap. A voice in the distance screamed "Anelle!" He looked, but couldn't see the source. She threw a roll of bills into the front seat. "Go! Fast!"
The cab lurched out into traffic as Anelle slammed her door, looking out, back at the sea of faces.
She turned back to the driver. "Do you know of anyone who sells cars but is on the other side of town?"
"Que?" the cabbie asked.
"Cars, automobiles, vroom vroom."
"No, you've seen the ads on TV, 'Come on down and talk to Kay for the best prices on cars new, used, and anywhere in-between. See Kay's World of Autos for all you car needs.'"
"Oh, yeah. That'll be fine."
Thaddeus watched the flow of shops and streets and billboards advertising lame sitcoms flow by. "When do I get my money?"
"As soon as these are loaded in the trunk of my new car."
"At which point you won't need me anymore, nor feel any need to pay me."
"Why don't you come with me? I could use a partner."
"You seem to be forgetting, I wasn't looking for work, I was looking to not work."
"Think of it as a vacation. A paid vacation. Tell you what. Fifty grand."
"You must be desperate. You don't even know me."
"I know you better than I know anyone else where I'm going. I saw your references."
"Where are we going?"
"We--I take it we have a deal--get a car, and we go somewhere that Simon won't find me."
"Which is?"
"I don't know. Somewhere he's never heard of, somewhere that won't attract any attention. Somewhere I've never been. Maybe a smaller town instead of a big city. Not a small town, but a mid-sized town." She paused, looked at him more carefully. "You pick. Pick somewhere I've never even heard of. That'll make it tough on Simon."
Thaddeus considered, and then inspiration struck. "I know the perfect place for us."
He held out the silence, to pay her back a little.
"Boring, Indiana."
She frowned. "I've heard it's pretty boring, but did you have something more specific in mind?"
Boring, Indiana is one of the best-kept secrets in the Midwestern United States. It may not be the greatest place to live, but it's a fun place to visit.
The name itself is the subject of much debate. The popular debate is whether the inhabitants intentionally named it in an attempt to discourage visitors, or whether the inhabitants have made it such an exciting place to be out of embarassment over the name. Meanwhile, the serious historians have an entirely different ongoing debate; some widely-respected personages assert that the name derives from its founding as a mining settlement, while the other camp claims that the name's origin lies in a gold-hunting time-traveller having accidentally left behind a copy of Eightball #20 that the city's fathers must have found and read. Claims that the latter scenario is utterly implausible are undermined by the fact that the nearest town to Boring, Indiana is, in fact, Clowes.
Vicki stopped reading the brochure there and tossed it in the trash. Those idiots wouldn't know good promotional literature if it bit them on the asterisks. He decided to make a visit to the house. He left the detecting gear there for now. Didn't really need much except his cell phone--except, wait, he couldn't find it anywhere. Where the hell was it? He remembered packing it--no, wait, he remembered setting it out to remember to pack it. He remembered putting it out on the sideboard at home. He didn't actually remember packing it. Oops.
He drove his rental car to the shared house. Through a deep forest, on a relatively cleared road that wound slowly up a snow-covered hill just north of town, at last he found the driveway. He drove up cautiously and knocked on the door.
A young woman opened the door. College-aged, probably. Dressed in black, an eyebrow stud, a crucifix below her throat. There was music in the background, and an odd, inhuman moaning. "Yes?"
"My name is Harrison, I'm from SuperPink investigations."
Her expression stayed blank.
"One of the other owners reported there were mysterious goings on here and asked me to look into it."
"There's nothing wrong here," she answered. A lamp flew across the room down the hall, and crashed noisily. She closed the door most of the way, blocking his view. "Everything is fine."
Keeping the mildly concerned but unthreatening expression on his face, he said, "I see. Well, sorry to bother you, then."
He guided the car back out of the driveway, then headed further up the hill. Eventually he found a scenic overlook, from which he could look down the hill at the house and at the town far beyond it. He dug out his binoculars and settled in for the evening.
Officer Callahan had been raised to a standard of strict obedience to the rules. Ma Callahan was trying to cope with eight children, and her solution was rule after rule after rule. God forbid you should break one; for then you would face Pa Callahan, one-on-one, in person, and you'd have little interest afterwards in breaking any more rules.
As a result, Officer Callahan underwent a daily struggle to resist moving in on every infraction spotted: on an average day, ten red-light runners would give incarceration a miss, fifty jaywalkers would go unwarned, and two thousand female automobile drivers who were not preceded by a man on a horse waving a white flag would escape prosecution. Even Officer Callahan's girlfriend broke several laws every time they went to bed.
Pedestrians on a divided highway was a definite no-no; Officer Callahan pulled over and got out. The hitchhiker was a young woman, probably around 25.
"You know, you shouldn't be hitchhiking here."
"Is it illegal? I didn't know that."
"Yeah. It is. Why don't you get in the car?"
They did, the girl looking quite unhappy. Officer Callahan started filling out a notation on a clipboard about the encounter. "Name?"
"Peg Balzac."
"Where are you headed?"
"Boring."
"Any particular destination?"
"I'm meeting friends, I've got an address..." The girl fished through her pockets, found it. "6000 Skymall Drive."
"Oh, the Wynn house."
"Although they said if I got there too late, they might be off at the Death By Sunlight concert."
"Mmhmm. How did you come to be hitchhiking here?"
"I got dropped off back at the last interchange."
"And you walked all the way here? That's got to be ten miles."
"I was thumbing it, but I didn't like my chances with the couple people who stopped."
"Scary guys?"
"Yeah. There was a guy covered in blood who said he was a surgeon, a guy in an ice cream truck, a guy in the postal jeep who claimed he was a postman, and then there was the woman dressed like a nun. But, well... I don't accept rides from just anyone."
"I don't blame you. Occupation?" The report was nearly finished.
"Journalist."
"Mmhmm." The car started, and veered back onto the highway.
"Am I under arrest?"
"No, but I can't very well leave you out there, can I? I'll take you where you're going. Which will it be, Wynn place or show?"
"What is it, Thad?" He was persistent, she'd give him that.
His voice came, muffled through the motel room door. "How do I know you'll still be here tomorrow?"
Oh, that. Ok, it was time for the revelation. "Just a second." Anelle got dressed again--they definitely needed to make a stop somewhere and do some clothes shopping, Thad's intolerance for the idea or not, and, well. You can't actually slam a door when you're opening it--unless you knock it into the adjacent wall, which she definitely didn't do--but she gave as good an impression of such slamming as she could. "Follow me."
She led him to the Ford, popped the trunk. The three document boxes were there, waiting. "Get one of them."
"Which one?"
"Doesn't matter. Any of them."
Thad picked up a box, and she closed the trunk gently, checking that it was secure. She led him back up the stairs, glancing around for anyone watching (but saw nobody), then stopped at a motel room door. He walked right past her, heading for her room, and then realized that she had stopped at his door. They hadn't been lucky enough to find two adjacent rooms despite it being a Thursday night. Good old dependable Four Star Deluxe Accomodations. One star for comfort, one star for size, one star for cleanliness, and one star for staff friendliness. Each on a five-star scale. "Can you get that?" he asked.
"I don't have a key to your room."
"Right." He dropped the box and grabbed his key, and moments later they were inside. He dropped the box on the floor by his bed. "So."
"So, you know how important these boxes are to me. Now you don't have to worry about me driving off without you in the middle of the night."
"If our positions were reversed, would that be good enough for you?"
"Sure." She waited for just the right amount of time. "Well, ok, probably not. Look, I offered you twenty grand, right?"
"Fifty."
"Fifty to partner with me. If I take off without you, you're obviously not my partner. So twenty is all you should be worried about." He hesitated, nodded. "Open the box."
He did. The box was full of papers, stacked face up.
"Lift the top papers."
He did. He swore. Stacks of tens and fives, neatly arranged. "How much?"
"About two hundred thousand total in the three boxes."
"Christ, we've been running around town with a quarter million dollars?"
"A fifth."
"Where'd you get all this? Not just from rent-a-job, surely."
"Sure. A thousand rich kids, four hundred dollars minimum, minus expenses, no taxes, do the math."
Thad frowned, concentrating, and eventually said, "I guess."
"So, if you want to cash out, take your twenty grand, the box goes back in the car, and you may or may not see me tomorrow morning."
"Or?"
"Or, if you want to be partners... I'll leave the box here with you. I'll show you I trust you with more that your share."
"More? How much is in the box?"
Anelle made a mental note to remember that math was not Thad's strong suit. "Around seventy thousand. Anyway, your call."
She waited for some reaction so she could give the right nudge, but he just sat there. Finally, he picked up the papers, put them back on top of the money, and closed the box.
"Good. I'll see you tomorrow, then." She went back to her room, got undressed, and snuggled back under the covers.
She awoke to a soft knocking. 3 a.m. If it was Thad, she was going to kill him. Then again, if it was Simon, he was going to kill her, so she supposed she'd better be thankful if it was Thad.
"Who is it?" she called softly from beside the door.
"Thaddeus."
Damn, he was persistent. "What do you want?"
"I was wondering..."
"I'm not dressed. Can't it wait 'til morning?"
"Umm... well, I guess." Ok, she was going to kill him.
"Good night, then."
"Night."
She stumbled back to bed.
After a fast shower the next morning, she knocked on his door. He was showered but not shaved, and looking ready to go.
"You've got a few more minutes before we go, and I wanted to tell you something important to think about during that time."
He waited expectantly. She liked that about him. Not so much submissive as respectful. She wondered if younger brothers actually treated older sisters that way. Well, she didn't actually wonder whether they did that when they were young--she could certainly guess--but at the age the two of them were.
"If we're going to be partners in this business, that means no fucking around with each other."
"Jesus Christ, Anelle, I already told you I'm not interested. I don't know why you keep thinking that."
"I meant it metaphorically. It means being honest about how much money you took from somebody. I mean, not cheating each other."
"Well, sure."
"So, for instance, if you were to, this morning, show up with an extra bit of luggage or a bag or something that you didn't have last night, and I know I left you with a box of money, well, that might look bad. And I might, you know, actually decide to check and see what's in the box, and actually sit there and count it to check up on you, since we're in the early stages of this partnership and I don't actually trust you that far. On the other hand, if you don't have any other bags or anything, just the box, well, I probably wouldn't bother counting the money, since you'd have to go to ludicrous lengths to steal it, like burying it outside somewhere. Of course, if you wanted to claim some of your fifty grand, that would be different, but you should actually tell me about that. Now, I'm going to go check out, and when I come back, you be ready to go with the box and anything else you're bringing with you."
The poor boy was so naive. Best to get him started down the right mindset to minimize the chance of somebody else taking advantage of him as long as he was working for her. Playing it straight with him was a good way to build his trust, too. Whether she was going to take advantage of it she hadn't yet decided.
A police car descended the drive. Perhaps the activity Vicki'd witnessed had been mundane domestic violence after all.
No; the car dropped off a young woman who walked to the front door. After she got into the house, the police car backed out of the drive.
This wasn't really the best vantage point, after all. The windows that faced this way hadn't really seen much activity. Well, none, in fact. On the other hand, he'd at least be able to see the comings and goings, which was probably good enough for his purpose.
The binoculars jammed on the window frame, crushing his nose, when he turned his head sharply at the honk. The police car sat beside him. He moved back to the driver's seat and rolled down the window.
"What can I do for you, officer?"
"Can I ask what you're doing?"
"Birdwatching."
"I think those 'bairds' are a little young for you. I'd say you're watching the Wynn house. Lies right down the hill."
Vicki nodded. "Well, yes. Actually, I'm a P.I.--Investigator Harrison."
"Yes, and I'm a police officer. But you don't see me stopped at the side of the road observing people without them seeing me." It hung in the air for a second. "Wait, I guess sometimes you do, actually. Nevermind. Anyway, you'd better give me some further details so I know you're not just some random pervert."
"Well... have you heard of any strange goings on there? At the Wynn house?"
"Not that I can think of. People are always coming and going there, of course. College students throwing loud parties. But nothing strange."
"Nothing odd, mysterious, unexplained, weird?"
"No. You want 'messterious', try the place at the top of the hill." The officer pointed up the road. "That guy is totally nuts. A sweetheart, too, though. So. I asked you a question, and you answered with a question. Don't think I don't notice things like that."
"The question. Yes. Well, this is kind of embarassing." Vicki grabbed his wallet, then found to his surprise a gun was pointed right at him.
"Hands clear, now." He moved his hands into the air.
"I was just going for my business card."
"Are you right-handed or left-handed?"
"Right."
"Keep your right in sight, and heft it with your left." He complied, and, shortly after, handed over the card.
"Nice rhyme. What do you say if someone's right-handed?"
"Hey, I'm satisfied if 90% of the population gets to hear a clever rhyme and the other 10% just hear something dull. So, Vicki Harrison. Paranormal Investigator. Paranormal?"
"Ghosts, poltergeists, mysterious happenings."
"SuperPink, Inc. Never heard of 'em."
"Well, we modernized the name, 'Supernatural Pinkertons' was just too much of a mouthful."
"So, you're investigating the Wynn place for supernatural occurences? I've never heard of any such thing."
"Yeah. I was hired by one of the owners."
"Which one?"
"Umm, I don't remember the name offhand. It's on the email, though. I'd get it, but..." Vicki gestured with his hands and nodded at the gun.
"Oh." The gun disappeared. "Forget it. You staying some place in town, Mr. Harrison?"
"Yeah, the Motel Six."
"Excuse me? Oh, six. Where're you from, anyway? That's an odd accent."
"It's an invented one, actually. In college, some friends and I worked out a totally fictional accent, and we always spoke with it, just for fun. It stuck with me accidentally, and I never quite got rid of it. Makes for some awkward misunderstandings, sometimes."
"I'm going to have to verify this, standard procedure."
"Well, sure. I'm not sure where they all got to, but I'm still in touch with Howard and Clarissa. I'm sure they still remember when we designed the accent. Howard was actually the best at it, in fact."
"I meant verify your motel room, not the accent."
"Oh, then you'll want my real name."
"It did strike me as a bit odd. 'Vicki'."
"Oh, that's real. The last name is fake. Presley. Vicki Presley. Suite sixteen."
"I'd say you're well past that age."
"No, I mean, room sixteen at the motel."
"I see. How long do you expect to be in town?"
"Until the job is done. Weeks. Maybe months."
"Then I imagine I'll be seeing you quite often on my patrols out here. Good day, Mr. Presley."
"Goodbye, officer..." Vicki offered an expectant look.
"Callahan."
"Officer Callahan. Goodbye, and you can be sure I'll be sticking to the straight and narrow."
The police car drove off, and Vicki slid over and gingerly put the binoculars back to his eyes.
Peg had never met Justine and Kevyn offline before, but they were pretty much what she'd expected--shallow, self-indulgent college kids playing at rebellion. A proclivity for pointless, sudden violence towards one another, intended, apparently, as an expression of affection. Still, she'd wanted to talk to them, and they were due to leave tomorrow--she'd originally been planning on arriving several days early--so she agreed to go to the show with them. She found some attire which was scarcely appropriate and hopped in the car with them.
Sometimes people talk to one other because they want something out of the other. Sometimes they talk to each other to take stock of the validity of their beliefs and opinions by smashing them in a duel of words with an oppositely-opinioned person. Sometimes they talk to each other just to kill time when they have nothing better to do. Sometimes, sometimes they talk to each other just to get a sense of being in a community, being a social animal, some faint lingering sense of sharing in a local ur-mind. All of these uses have survival value; Peg could convincingly argue for them via natural selection.
But sometimes people talk to each other because they haven't yet figured out that talking to each other is never going to change the world. This was one of those conversations. Peg only only half paid attention to it, so afterwards, she couldn't really remember the details of what was discussed, although she knew that at one point or another they'd mentioned buddhism, Starbucks, marijuana, Dostoevsky, piercings, the power output of a nuclear submarine--all the usual subjects.
The club was a forgettable hole-in-the-wall from the outside, and a forgettable larger-than-it-seemed hangout on the inside. A chalkboard listed the bands playing: "Thursday - Death by Sunlight with Shadow of Shade and Bite Me". Peg barely noticed the club itself, though, because, when they got in, one of the opening bands was already playing.
The singer stood, long dark tresses flailing around him, while the band ground out one of the various flavors of industrial post-punk thrash grunge--Peg didn't keep particular track of the detailed taxonomy, and it seemed to sprout new branches and leaves faster than a spider plant, anyway. This guy could sing okay, but it was the lyrics that stopped her in her tracks.
"You stand about, you stupid cow / You don't know what's on you now," he crooned, and she stood there mesmerized. "If all that frights you is a tipping / Don't know how to act if your skin I'm ripping." Justine had come back and was saying something to her, but she paid no attention. "You just stand about and chomp your cud / With no warning,"--and here, the singer launched into a horrible, wailing shriek, "I Drink Your Blood!"
Peg could just picture her write-up of the performance: BEST LYRICS EVAR. Perhaps not worth bothering; one of those cases where you had to be there. The song ended, and she applauded, and finally she could hear Justine. "You like this?" Peg nodded. "Death by Sunlight is a much better vampire band." Peg smiled and shook her head.
"There's just something different about this. I don't think I could explain it to you."
"I know the singer. His name is Scum Pig. I can introduce you after their set."
"Please."
The rest of the evening was a whirlwind, but somehow she found herself drawn to him like he was magnetic. Like, maybe, like she would if he was really a vampire. She suggested they go outside, and he seemed honestly thrilled at the idea of missing Death by Sunlight's show.
They got somewhere appropriately out of earshot, and she said it. "You don't seem to mind missing the show."
"Feh." He gave her a once over again, and she was glad she hadn't tried to goth it up. "I hate that bullshit. Vampires, goth, it's all crap. Herd mentality masquerading as individualism."
Thank god. She smiled. "Then why do you do it, Scum?"
"Jeez, call me Bobby, will you?"
"Then why do you do it, Bobby?"
"It's something to do, isn't it? I kind of enjoy standing up there, watching them get off on it, with them having no clue how much I utterly hate them, hate it. There's something awesome about mocking people who are utterly clueless about it."
She told him then that her friends were leaving and she wouldn't have any place to stay. He offered to put her up at his parent's place, which she thought was awfully cute, albeit weird, but she insisted she could stay at his place, no matter how small he claimed it was.
The police car had driven by again, coming down from the top of the hill, and the sun was well past set when Vicki saw three people leave the house and get in the car. He grabbed a flashlight and hopped out. A deer trail led him almost straight down the hill to the house.
No answer at the front door. No key underneath the mat, but, hey, a bunch of dumb kids were living there. A window was unlocked, and he methodically walked through the house.
There was absolutely nothing special or mysterious there, not that Vicki really expected to or wanted to find any such thing.
The south-facing room had a dramatic all-glass southern window, and an angled sklight also facing south, no doubt to help keep the place warm. It was a living room of sorts; a bookshelf, a sofa, a loveseat, a rocking chair.
He was headed for the door, ready to get out before Officer Callahan decided to check up on him again, when the wall in front of him was faintly lit by strange, shimmering, flickering colors. It was incredibly brief; a second perhaps, and then a sharp popping sound as he turned around, to find: nothing. He stepped into the nearest bedroom; nada.
A moment later, there it was. Coming from down the hall. Multiple colors, dancing and flickering, and gone again, again with the popping sound. This was decidedly mysterious.
The hall led to the room with the rocking chair. Rocking chairs were, of course, a classic poltergeist gag, so he homed straight in on it. And waited. And nothing happened. He maneuvered around for a better look.
And there it was, on the wall in front of him again. Strange, faint, flickering light. He spun around, but was too late; there came a crack, almost like a soft gunshot, and the light had faded before he looked.
"Who's there?" he called out.
There was no answer.
Thaddeus downshifted awkwardly. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Anelle watching him, which made his performance all the worse. He'd told her he wasn't very good with a manual transmission, and she'd insisted he drive anyway--good practice. So here he was making lots of dumb little mistakes under her watchful eye. He couldn't believe he was being very convincing; his Subaru back in the Wyatt Earp garage was, in fact, a stick shift--he'd only been trying to get out of doing his share of driving.
"What did you want to ask me last night, Thad?"
"Thaddeus. Nobody calls me Thad. Well, except my little brother, but believe me, he pays for it."
"Okay... what did you want to ask me last night, Thaddeus?"
He pondered the best way of answering. There didn't seem to be utility to offering her the truth--that he'd felt scared and cold and alone in that motel room, that he'd wanted to sleep on her floor. As soon as he'd knocked, he'd realized the foolishness of that situation; that she'd take it the wrong way, or probably two wrong ways.
Finally he went for the one question he'd come up with this morning. "You said the rent-a-job thing was perfectly legal, didn't you?" She murmured assent. "You also said you didn't pay any taxes on the money."
"True."
"Doesn't that make it illegal?"
"Well, if you insist on looking at it that way. What I meant was, it's not a scam. I'm not defrauding my 'customers'; they're not going to run off and turn me in to the cops."
"But you're defrauding the federal government."
"Maybe we shouldn't have this conversation while you're trying to drive."
"I can cope."
"How fast are you going?"
He checked the speedometer. "70mph."
"What's the speed limit?"
"What's your point?"
"Everybody does it. Everybody goes a little over the speed limit; everybody who gets a little cash in their hands without any paperwork tracking it skips reporting it to the IRS. Same kind of thing."
"Two hundred grand isn't 'a little cash'."
"Tell that to Bill Gates."
"I don't know."
"You woke me up for that?"
"Yeah. Well, it was bothering me."
A semi cut in front of the car. Thaddeus swore, jerked the wheel, accelerated sharply as he slipped into the other lane. When he was well past the truck he switched lanes again.
He glanced at Anelle. She was smiling like a cat in a tuna fish cannery. "Nice shifting," she said. Fuck.
The bells at the front door rang, but it was only Frinje. Eve offered him a professional smile as he took a seat at the counter. Images of the bellboy from the movie she saw on TV last night flashed before her. It was a tiny bit part, but she'd been enchanted with him.
"What'll it be?" she asked.
"You know what I love?" he responded.
"No, Frinje, I don't. What?"
"Well, youse know what I love."
"No, I don't."
"No, not you. Youse. Female sheepies."
"Do they now."
"They do. It's quite exciting."
"Sure it is."
"I g-knew you wouldn't believe me."
"Are you going to order?"
"You don't want to yak?"
"I'm working, Frinje."
"Well, sorry. I'll have two eggs over easy and a side of hash. And really. I didn't mean to get your goat."
"Oh, shush."
"I wool."
While she was passing the order on, the bells rang again. It took her a few seconds before she could look.
And there it was. Love at first sight. He must have been new to town. A stylish trench coat. Graying at the temples, she loved that. A cute little slouch as he crossed the room.
He sat beside Frinje. She gave him an unprofessional smile. He looked a bit rattled.
"What can I get you, hon?"
"Uh, how aboot an omelette."
"Sure darling, you can have anything you want. Want anything special on it?"
"Whatever the hoose specialty is."
Frinje butted in, addressing the stranger.
"You know what I like?"
"Nope."
"Ewes know what I like."
"Nope, rally, no clue."
"Not you, ewes. Female sheepies."
"On an omelette?"
"No, no, I like ewes, but not that way."
"What why doy you like tham?"
"Well, I like to rub my hands through their soft fleece, and then..."
Eve interrupted. "Don't you pay Frinje here no nevermind. He's just big on stupid puns. He's got the most vanilla tastes of anyone I know. In fact, he's about the only person in town who doesn't like sprinkles on his ice cream."
Frinje retorted, "Don't listen to her. She just doesn't want to shear you."
"Oh shush, Frinje. What's your name, stranger."
"Vicki." How cute! His eyes were locked on hers; they were like limpid pool cues, ready to pull back and accidentally poke her if she wasn't careful.
"What brings you to Boring?"
Frinje jumped it. "I bet he's on the lam. I know that's what I like about Boring, being on the lam, if you know what I mean."
"Stop it, Frinje."
"I love how you ungulate when you're mad."
"Ectually, I'm an investigator ento supernatural phenowmena. Ghorsts, things leek that." What an awfully cute accent. Mmm, she could just picture being locked in a spooky house with him there to protect her. "Either if you ever haired of anything leek that going on ate the old Wynn house?"
Eve shook her head. "No, nothing special about the Wynn house 'cepting the view." She imagined being there in the house alone with him, imagined the fireworks.
Vicki hrmmed quietly, drumming his fingertips on the counter.
The bells rang, and Eve looked up to see a trucker entering, a trucker she'd never seen before in her life. But, wow.
The claim was that humor comes from a combination of suprise and humiliation. This stimulus causes the brain of the receiver to enter a metastable state which degenerates rather quickly, unless sustained by further, similar stimuli, or, oddly enough, by raucous laughter from others nearby. The latter phenomenon, Peg took to have some sort of natural selection status like that of yawning--it is somehow healthy for a community if everyone gets sleepy at the time, so maybe it was healthy for the community if everyone laughs at the same jokes. But the initial stimulus itself; she'd struggled to come up with an explanation in terms of survival value, and gotten nowhere.
Bobby was still sound asleep, so she got up. She was annoyed at going so long without an internet connection; fortunately, she'd brought the little notebook with her, and she was able to jot down notes. Last night, she'd written down the words to one of the songs she'd convinced him to sing for her in her attempt to get him to seduce her.
I'll kiss you right atop your bangs
It's only lust that's causing pangs
Soon you'll find out how I hang
Down from a bar with my bat gang
I will not drink vodka with Tang
Just stab at you with my sharp fang
He was such a man of contradictions. Something about the words just reached out and grabbed her, but the boy himself did not, literally or metaphorically.
"What are you doing?" he asked her.
Awake after all. "Reading some of your lyrics."
"Oh."
"Where do you get your ideas?"
"Huh? Oh, they're not my ideas. I don't write the lyrics, I just sing them."
For a minute, she was lost to reality. When she came back down, he was talking to her.
"I don't get it. What's so funny?"
"Suprise and humiliation." Maybe laughter is something the brain developed to keep people from killing themselves. That would offer definite survival value. "Who writes them?" She ran through the other guys in the band in her head. Maybe the bassist?
"Back when we started, I was writing songs, but they were serious punk songs, about sticking it to the man and all that. And then the band decided to go this goth bullshit route, and I was like, fine, whatever. But I couldn't figure out how to do it. But I know this weird guy who lives on top of the hill north of town. I was talking to him once about music, and about this problem, and he said he thought it would be a fun challenge to do something like that. Although that wasn't how he put it, of course. He's got an odd way of speaking."
"He got a name, too?"
"It's something weird so I never remember--oh yeah, Peregrine. But he doesn't go by that. He calls himself 'Pair of Dimes', I think it is."
"Mmhmm. Could you give me a ride there maybe?"
"Me? I ain't got a car."
"Ok then. Bye."
"Wait, you're going?"
"Yes. That is usually what 'bye' means."
"See you later?"
"I sincerely hope not."
Thanksgiving is difficult for an actor. Obsequious? Milo had conquered that. Implacable, sympathetic, and distant were as easily executed as superior and distrustful were avoided. Apathetic, Milo'd had some trouble hiding. But that was the point of acting. There was no way he'd hold onto a fast food job without acting. But apathetic... that caused a problem with the manager--as did having to work on Thanksgiving. He wasn't particularly thankful for the shit job they'd so kindly deemed to bestow upon him that forced him to work on holidays.
As usual, he'd brought the gradually growing line under swift control once he came on shift; on the keys of the cash register, he was a madman, a genius, a Bach for the consumer masses--a talent owing largely to the toy McDonald's cash register Carmella had gotten him for Christmas years ago--and what exactly had that been intended to imply, anyway?
Do you want fries with that? Of course not. How about the extra value meal, whose cost is several cents higher than the combined costs of the items? Want to stupor-size it? It's not a ripoff to charge twenty-five cents for five cents worth of additional product, given that you're charging a dollar for fifteen cents of product in the first place.
One girl returned her fries, demanding fresh ones, twice in a row. Milo smiled both times. An uncomprehending idiot demanded to talk to his manager, and Milo complied dutifully--too dutifully for his manager's tastes, really. The line built up to obnoxious lengths as one customer constantly changed his order; Milo made eye contact with those waiting in line to let them know he was doing everything in his power to get to them--which was basically nothing, of course.
Milo was too smart for the job. If he'd stuck it out long enough, he could have become a manager there, but nobody was at all surprised that he didn't even last three months working the front lines.
Many years later, though, his friends and family were rather surprised by the display of business acumen he showed in parlaying his career creating crossword puzzles into a veritable empire of puzzledom.
Officer Callahan paced the dark blue Mustang doing 71 mph well past the line where the speed limit went from 65 to 55. A gradual acceleration, flashing the lights, and the perpetrator pulled over. The temporary license plate info and the make and model went into the log.
Two occupants. A couple, the woman driving. The guy was maybe a little younger than her. He looked a little nervous. But more the kind of nerves of being pulled over for the first time, not the kind of nerves of a dead body in the trunk. The woman was cool. Maybe too cool. Officer Callahan checked her license and registration. The latter was lacking. Definitely too cool.
"I just bought the car and drove straight here," the driver explained. Simple explanations are the best ones; but perhaps the woman knew that, was playing on it.
"Where are you folks headed?"
"Boring."
"Popular destination. Where you staying?"
The driver looked at her passenger, who said something negative. She turned back to Officer Callahan. "Dunno. Maybe a motel. Depends on how things work out."
"Can't really register a car when you're living in a motel, can you?"
"Well, that's just until we figure out what we're doing. We'll rent a place within a month, I'm sure."
"Jobs aren't that easy to come by in Boring, these days."
"Not looking for a job. We've got money. It's in the trunk if you want to see." Overconfident, too. The sass. Time for a reminder who's in charge.
"You realize you were doing 71 in a 55 zone?"
"Shit. I mean, umm, no, officer. I didn't notice the speed limit changed."
"Maybe you should try to be more observant in the future."
"I certainly will, officer. Much more observant." Still cool. Not meek, just playing at it.
"Mmhmm. You do that. Boring's not that small a town, but you can bet I'll have my eye on you."
"We won't be a problem to nobody, officer."
"You do that. And you get going now."
In Officer Callahan's head, a thousand Ma Callahans screamed, demanding Pa Callahan's personalized enforcement. For not the first time, Officer Callahan reconsidered whether becoming a police officer and been a product of that youthful upbringing and a desire to inflict the same on others, or a product of that youthful upbringing and a desire to purge the evil by doing the exact opposite. The truth, no doubt, was lying somewhere in the middle of the road, a fatally injured deer taken down by a car with a broken brake light, an expired registration, and a driver who refuses to take a breathalyzer test.
Peg offered a not particularly heartfelt goodbye to Kevyn and Justine as they got in their car, again refusing the offer a ride. They were perfectly fine kids, but she was once again learning on this trip why she hated to trust in the hospitality of the people she knew over the Internet. Sure it was cheap, but they just never turned out to be as interesting in person as they seemed on the net.
She walked up the drive to the road, then looked up the hill. Somewhere up at the top; it would be fun exploring.
The road apparently switched back on the way up; she found a deer run and hiked up it. As she neared the road again, she saw a car was parked there at the top of the run. Not an abandoned car; she could see a guy moving around in it.
She realized she was all alone, sort of in the middle of nowhere, but there was really no turning back now. She thought maybe she could sneak by without him noticing, but he'd rolled the window down as she approached.
"Good duy there," he said.
"Hi. Car trouble?"
"Oh, no, just enjoying the view." She turned to look; it overlooked the same view as the house had, although the trees blocked much of it. It didn't particularly seem interesting, but you never knew with these locals.
"Well, have fun." She turned back and studied possibilities for her further ascent.
"You going to the place on top orf the hill?" he said to her.
"That's right. Do you know the best way there?"
"Eh, just keep going up, I think. It's at the top."
"Right, well, thanks."
The deer run did continue further up the hill to the road again. It continued past there, but it didn't look like it hit the road again, so she followed the road up. Then a hedge alongside the road blocked her view, until she the hedge was broken by a gate, and she got a look at the place. Justine had made it sound like a mansion, but it wasn't a mansion. It was a castle. Perhaps a small castle, as castles go--although Peg didn't really have much personal, up-close experience--and lacking in amenities like moats. But it had turrets and those little jiggery staggered blocks at the top of the walls that Peg didn't know what they were called.
The gate was closed, but Peg spotted an intercom system. She wasn't quite sure how it worked, but she pushed the only button on it and said, "Hello?" Immediately as she pushed the button, though, there was a clack on the gate. She pushed on the gate, but it was still held tight. She pondered a moment, and then held down the button--it clacked again, and she pushed on the gate while holding down the button, which turned out to do the trick.
Vicki stepped into the once-again-vacant house. It was midday, and perhaps the mysteries only happened at night, but he was charging by the day, so it was best to show his client (whereever he'd gotten to) that he was getting his money's worth.
Vicki set up the infrared dector at the edge of the hallway, pointing into the mystery room. A motion sensor next to the rocking chair. He unpacked the Neumann U47 carefully. It went in a corner, attached via digital delay to a real-time spectrum analyzer. Then he started setting up the more esoteric equpiment: the ectoplasmatorium, the geister counter, the supernaturator, the ball peen hammer, and, of course, the Undeadphänomennähewahrheit Maßvorrichtung.
He had everything going and had been there for some time and had measured absolutely no anomalies, when he heard the front door open.
Moments later, a young man stepped in the room. Vicki only looked at him out of the corner of his eye, staying focussed on the equipment.
"What are you..." the guy began.
"Shh. I'm in the middle of a very delicate experiment."
"I thought nobody was supposed to be here after noon."
"Me too, that's why now was supposed to be a good time." Vicki looked up in annoyance. "Well, if you're going to insist on interrupting..." Just then a woman emerged from the bedroom off to one side.
"Who are you?" she asked.
The guy said, "So he's not Simon? Thank god."
"Who's Simon?" Vicki asked.
"Who are you?"
"I could ask you the same thing. I was here first."
The guy looked around at all the equipment, and said "What kind of experiment?"
"What's it to you?"
The woman jumped in again. "Ok, this is getting us nowhere. This is Thad Rovale. His father owns this place. What are you doing here?"
Vicki shrugged. "I was hired by one of the owners to investigage some odd goings on."
"In an empty house?"
"Yes. They're that odd."
"Which owner? Did he give you a key?"
"I forget the name, but I can get it from the car if you want. And, yes, I have a key--you don't think I broke in here, do you?"
The guy, Thad, said, "What are you doing, anyway? Measuring seismic activity or something?"
"Or something. You vacation here often?"
"Used to do so once in a while when I was little. It's been years."
"Have you heard anything, or experienced first hand, any strange things? Objects disappearing from one place and appearing in another, strange noises at night, that sort of thing?"
"Not that I can think of, beyond the misplaced keys and scavenging rodents I've experienced everywhere I've lived."
"I'm an investigator into paranormal phenomena. Ghosts, poltergeists, that kind of thing."
"Never heard of anything like that." Thad was looking around, checking out his equipment again. "Are you sure you got the address right? There's a crazy place at the top of the hill. That sounds like much more the thing."
"This is definitely the address I was hired for."
The woman jumped in. "Well, we're here now, so you'll just have to do your investigating some other time."
Vicki sighed. This was the stupidest assignment he'd been on. But everybody kept mentioning the stupid mansion at the top of the hill. Perhaps there was more than one possibility in this town.
Eve hurried around the apartment, giving it a desperate last minute cleaning. It wasn't perfect, but it would have to do. She worried over the possibility that a blind date might actually not want to sleep with her, and raced back into the bathroom for another look in the mirror.
Walking back into the living room, she remembered the last time she tried to get laid on a blind date. Everything would have been perfect, but it turned out the guy was somebody she'd seen once in the supermarket, so it was impossible to get in the right mood. This time was fairly certain. Her friends had hooked her up with someone from out of town. He was willing to put up with her quirky demands that they just stay in and have dinner in her apartment. So, it just came down to execution and follow-through.
Her heart beat faster after the doorbell rang. She pulled the door open. He was cute--curly hair, a mustache, on the short side. "Hi." Her heart virtually skipped a beat.
He was obviously impressed with what he saw. She watched as he invested extra effort to gather himself together and look in her in the eyes to speak. "Hi there. Do you have any pets?"
She shook her head. "No. Want to come in?"
He looked puzzled. "Would you be interested in having pets?"
"I don't know, would it make a difference?"
"I wanted to talk to you about a unique opportunity to join the pet of the month club." Only then did she notice the pamphlets he was carrying. "What we do is, each month we pick a new animal, and we send it to you. You try it out for two weeks. If you don't want to keep it as your pet, you return it to us at our cost. You have no obligation to ever accept a pet. For example, this month we've been sending out echidnas. In December, it was monkeys. If you have children, the pet of the month club offers..."
She cut him off, cute as he was. "I'm not interested, sorry." As hard as it was to do, she closed the door on his face.
She hadn't had time to recover from the stress when the doorbell rang again. "Once again into the breach," she muttered, like a surgeon who's just delivered a first twin by Cesarean section.
This one was tall, dark. Handsome. Stunning. She couldn't believe her luck. "Jules?" she asked.
"Right in one," he chuckled, miming shooting her with a gun.
"Come in," Eve said, and closed the door quickly behind him, being careful not to check the hall further.
He had stepped into the open space of the living room.
"Take a seat." When he did, she figured, well, she was only really in this for one reason. "Do you mind if I cut to the chase?"
"Be my guest. Since I'm already yours, ha ha ha."
"I haven't gotten laid in six years. I don't suppose we could take the edge off before dinner?"
He shrugged. "Well, if you want..." He stood up.
"Great. Sit down. I'll go slip into something more comfortable."
Eve couldn't stand the idea of sleeping with somebody she wasn't in love with. She had tried it once, and it was something of a train wreck. Perhaps if she hadn't been in love with somebody else it would have been ok. But she was always in love with somebody.
Jules called her from the other room. "Eve? Do you believe in love at first sight?"
She snorted. Given what she'd suggested to him, she strongly doubted that that was really what was going on in his mind. But yes, she knew all about love at first sight. That was her problem. An overabundance of love at first sight.
She called out, "I wrote the book on it."
She was changed. She was ready. She was in love with him, for the moment. She stepped out of the bedroom into the living room, and continued her answer.
"Love at first sight isn't everything it's cracked up to be." He was only half-paying attention. She followed his gaze.
Shit.
He'd turned on the TV. It was showing ER. Dammit, she hadn't seen ER yet this season. And look, there was a new doctor on it. Some scruffy pug of an actor she'd never seen before. Fat, hooked-nose; not someone anyone would normally find attractive. And Eve felt like she'd always loved him.
Eve felt a tightening in her chest, and, not taking her eyes off the actor, said to Jules, "I'm sorry, I've changed my mind. You'd better go."
Thaddeus poured the wine and brought it out into the other room. Anelle was waiting--sitting--with a curious expression on her face. She lifted her eyebrows at the wineglasses, but he ignored her, beyond handing her one of them. Then he dimmed the lights--no doubt she'd take that the wrong way too. Whatever.
She took a sip. "So what's the plan?"
"Ever heard of due diligence?"
"Of course. Why do you think I asked for references from you?"
"Well, partner, I thought I'd like to ask you some questions."
"I see."
"Tell me about Simon."
Anelle frowned, but nodded slowly. "Yes. Well, it's a long story."
"We've got time."
"I suppose now is as good a time as any. Sit down."
Simon, Anelle explained, was someone you might call a scoundrel, if scoundrel was the sort of word you'd use to describe somebody who'd sell his own mother the Brooklyn Bridge. She'd first met him around twelve years before. She'd come upon him in a science museum; he was explaining the concept of holography to a cluster of enthusiastic Japanese businessmen, but getting it wrong. She'd started to correct him--it was a science museum, after all, no point in getting it wrong--but after a brief private discussion, she'd smiled and agreed with everything he'd said.
It was an easy way to make twenty dollars. He'd been impressed with how she'd turned on a dime, and was surprised that she didn't have any experience with theater or some form of acting. She hadn't, in fact, done anything of any significance like that; in fact, about all she'd done with her life to that point was work fast food.
Simon, it turned out, already had a partner, one who went by the name of Lucretia. Lucretia, who was also Simon's girlfriend, showed hints of jealousy when Anelle joined the team, although she'd made it appear more like she didn't like the idea of splitting their income three ways. Simon insisted he was sure they could leverage three people so they'd end up making more money for each of them.
Things continued in that vein for several years, making a good profit, but a fair amount of dissension between Anelle and Lucretia. Simon acted like there was nothing he could do about it, which pissed Anelle off, because she wasn't the one causing the problems. It was clear that Lucretia just couldn't deal with her, on some level or another. She never, in fact, felt like Lucretia was playing things entirely straight with her; that the fighting was really about something else entirely--despite the fact that Anelle had absolutely no interest in Simon, and displayed none, that seemed the most likely situation. Things got clearer later--but all in good time.
Simon had been building to a big score. Saving their money because he needed a big bankroll to do it. He wouldn't explain all the details to the other two, which was unusual. And it was fairly complex, which was very unusual. Simon's scams were usually pretty straightforward. The more complex you make it, the more things that can go wrong. Simple is best. But this one wasn't simple at all. And he was only sharing some of the details.
And he wasn't sharing them all with Lucretia, either. This seemed to put her even more on edge, and it was all being redirected at Anelle, too. Until, one day, in the middle of the big score, the one Simon swore he was going to retire on, Lucretia came at Anelle with a knife.
What the hell? It is February, isn't it?
Peg was startled by a rather loud bell.
"Clangorous, isn't it?" asked her host. "Front door, I'm afraid." He rose and headed for one of several doorways.
Peg stood.
"Stay. Don't worry about it. Probably a lost soul who wants to call a tow truck."
Peg thought that seemed a little out of date, what with mobile phones and all--poor Rocky Horror, though. And she followed along anyway.
By the time she got there, one of the large double doors was open partway, but she'd seemingly only missed a greeting; she recognized the voice of the man she couldn't see as belonging to the guy in the car down the hill.
"Hi there," he said, "my name is Inspector Harrison, and I was wondering if I coyld ask you a few questions."
"What sorts?"
"I'm interested in curioos goings-on, unnatural phenomena."
"Curious goings-on, hmm?"
"Yes, and if you have any knowledge aboot that sort of thing..."
"Oh, I know lots about that sort of thing." He pulled the door wider, invitingly, and the other man stepped through. "Harrison is a mouthful. Got anything syllabically short?"
"Vicki. Vicki Harrison. And you?"
"Paradigm. My first"--and here he shrugged--"I only allow a small quantity to know. So just Paradigm." He saw Peg then, nodded, waited until Harrison spotted her. "This is..." he trailed off again.
Peg smiled gently. "Peg." She'd noticed he hadn't used her name once throughout the evening, had wondered if it was because he'd forgotten.
"A journalist," he added to his new guest. "I'm so popular today." As they made their way back to the dining room, he said, "How would a bowl of chili suit you? For two bowls await us, right now."
"None for me, thanks."
"A drink?"
"Sure, what have you got?"
"All sorts of things. Gin and tonic?"
"Budweiser?"
"Hmm. St. Pauli Girl ok?"
"Uh, I guess."
Peg sat back down at her spot, along with the new arrival, while waiting for their host to return.
"Journalist?" he said to her.
"Mmhmm."
"I'm an expert in the supernatural. If you have any interest in stories about that kind of thing, I'm your man. I hear these things tend to sell well to the mass market."
"Not really my niche, sorry."
Mr. Paradigm returned with Harrison's bottle, and they returned to eating. He looked to Harrison. "So?"
"Well, there are two major topics I wanted to talk to you about."
"Uh huh. Two major topics?"
"This place, and the Wynn house down the hill."
"And what do you want to know?"
"I'm an investigator into supernatural phenomena, and I was hired to check out the Wynn house. But everybody I talk to says they've never heard of anything weird at the Wynn house, and they've heard all sorts of things about this place."
"Aha. OK. I follow." He sat in silence for a while; Peg exchanged glances with the investigator, but it was clear that neither of them had any clue. Finally, he spoke again. "Sorry, I'm trying to think how to start."
"Begin at the beginning."
"It is said that various... things... haunt this mansion. Ghosts, goblinkind, robot orangutans--it is not known to most. But, if I am to start at the start, I must inform you about this mansion's origins."
"Perhaps it would be better to start with the Wynn house, then."
"Ah. In truth, I must concur with what was told to you--I do not know of anything odd about that."
"Nothing?"
"No thing. Nothing at all."
"Well, but see, I was in there last night--sadly, I hadn't brought my detecting equipment with me--and I had a very strange experience."
"Do go on."
"Well. I know it's going to sound weird, but there were these strange dancing colors coming down the hall. I never managed to see them directly; it didn't last long."
"Hmm. How long ago did your visit to Boring start?"
"I arrived yesterday."
"About what you saw... colorful flashing lights, but quickly vanishing? A sound: a short sharp shock?"
"That's it exactly."
"Ah. I know all about that, in fact."
"You do? Wonderful!"
"I do. But, alas, what I say now will disappoint you."
"Oh, disappoint me all you want."
Mr. Paradigm checked his watch. "Actually... First I want to show you this." He rose, and they followed him up a flight of stairs. He positioned them each at one of the south-facing windows of the large sitting-room they found themselves in, although perhaps it would better have been called a standing room. "I'm afraid our show isn't as good as that at Wynn's, but it will do."
Peg realized where this was headed and started laughing. Poor Vicki. She hadn't seen it before, but of course she knew that Boring was famous because...
Just then a burst of red light lit up the sky; a shower of glowing sparks flew out in a bright starburst. The red turned to green, and then turned white and flickered rapidly. A muffled bang followed hot on the heels.
Anelle watched the brief fireworks display in silence, turning over in her mind how this could possibly be something she could leverage, one way or another.
When it was over, Thad rose and turned the lights back up. He had an insufferable grin on his face; he'd known it was going to happen all along.
"You knew it was going to happen all along, didn't you?"
"Of course. I used to come up here several times a year, when I was a kid. They do it every weekday."
"Is there a secret Walt Disney outpost here?"
"A fireworks company. The... I forget the name."
"Just to entertain the locals?"
"Oh, no, not at all. They can test things in the lab, but they do need to field test 'em too. They can't be totally sure how they look until they actually set 'em off. This place has about the only unobstructed view, so you get to see the ones that go off too low and the ones that go off too high. That's why it's a timeshared vacation spot."
"It doesn't last long."
"No. Quality over quantity, though. Of course, sometimes the quality is lacking, too."
"And that's why you picked Boring?"
"No, I picked Boring because I figured we could stay here. And it seemed to match your request. It's why my father picked Boring, and used to bring me and my brother out here regularly."
"What do the people who live here year 'round think of it?"
"I don't know, actually. This is my first time here since I was thirteen. My brother could tell you. What are you thinking?"
Anelle's mind was spinning like clockwork, but she wasn't thinking anything that she could put her finger on. Gears were turning, but there was no guarantee that they were turning with an end in sight. If she were playing chess, she'd say she was exploring the possibility of a particular move, but not one she was sure would work out well. Of course, if this were chess, then Anelle was the queen, Thad was her knight in shining armor, the guy who'd been hanging around before was, hmm, a pawn. Actually, that was a totally stupid metaphor, but it gave her something to think about while the subconscious gears were turning, which was for the best, because if she tried to think about it consciously it tended to throw a spanner in the works, or rather throw a bishop to queen's knight three against the Berlin defense.
"Nothing."
"If you say so."
She growled, uncertain what the right way to deal with Thad was at this point. Ok. "I'm just trying to think of ideas, but I don't have anything concrete yet. If I get anything concrete, I'll let you in on it." Or maybe put them on him, if they turned out to be concrete boots.
Vicki realized how he'd misunderstood. "So, basically, I'm a total idiot," Vicki said, sitting back down and staring at the beer bottle in his hands. Actually, she was fairly cute.
The girl, Peg, spoke up. "Well, if you're the sort of people who believes in supernatural things, I'm sure that predisposes you to believe in them. So no surprise."
"I am not predisposed. I investigate them. I have no bias to presuppose such things exist."
"Uh huh."
Paradigm coughed softly. "Two topics, I think."
"Yes. Well, now I know about the truth about the Wynn house--well, about what I saw there, as one of the owners obviously thought something was up there, so there's still that mystery--but I'd be quite interested to hear about this place."
"To start with," Paradigm said. "This mansion. A man known as Jonathan B. built it. Or had it built. It was actually originally built in Scotland, if you must know. Built by whom I know not. Jonathan B. had it split into bits; upon transportation by a cargo ship to our fair country it was built back up, brick by brick. Long, long ago. I was born on a day on which, it turns out, Jonathan B.'s grandson, now an old man, bit it."
Vicki pondered. "I see. A Scottish castle, rebuilt in Indiana." Paradigm touched his nose. "Was it already haunted before it was moved?"
"Not that I know of. No, it is a sad story. It is said that a woman, Cassandra... Cassandra... I don't know. Anyway, Cassandra was a maid in Scotland."
"At this castle when it was in Scotland?"
"Right. And Cassandra was struck by a collapsing block as this mansion was going through its undoing."
"One of the stone blocks of the castle? They were disassembling it while she was in it?"
"Right. Nobody had known Cassandra was still in it."
"So the block hit her, and she died, and now she haunts this place?"
"No. Not at all. Cassandra's brain was hurt, though. And it did not know much about things prior to that collision. All Cassandra could think of was that block's impact."
"Amnesia?"
"Possibly. So, as it was such an important thing, Cassandra wouldn't willingly part with this block. But, Jonathan B. would not allow a substitution; it was mandatory to obtain originals, all originals. So, Cassandra's block did an Atlantic crossing--but with Cassandra accompanying it. Much to Cassandra's husband's dismay."
"How dreadful," Peg interjected.
"Awful. So, Cassandra was unhappy. Cassandra's block was on a living room wall. Cassandra would sit with it daily, saying nothing, thinking, writing in a journal. Jonathan B. was not so callous as to not allow that."
Vicki had heard plenty of these sorts of stories and was fairly confident he could tell where it was going. "And then she died--perhaps of old age, or perhaps she died by violence--and then she haunted the place ever after?"
"No, not that. But..."
"Oh, I know, I bet she murdered Jon B."
Paradigm smiled sadly. "Sorry, no. Truth is not fond of such simplicity, I think. In point of fact, it was Cassandra who was brought to a quick finish, but in Indiana, not Scotland." He stood, gestured for them to follow.
"How did she die?"
"Suspicion was laid upon Jonathan B., but it was odd. Jon had publically said, on various occasions, that Cassandra was up to an affair of an unknown sort with that block. Jon would walk into that room, and Cassandra would start back from it guiltily."
He led them into a living room and pointed at the far wall, which was made of large stone blocks--two foot long, a foot tall, a foot deep. The depth was apparent because one block was missing, a brick wall visible behind it.
"That block that is now missing--Jon found Cassandra with no vital signs, and that block was missing, and Cassandra's journal. An autopsy could only nail down that it was a blunt trauma that Cassandra ran into that night."
The girl, Peg, spoke up. "So... she was working on releasing the block, and Jonathan couldn't figure it out, and when she got it out, he discovered it, hit her with the block, destroyed it or buried it to hide the evidence."
Paradigm nodded. "That's a possibility."
Vicki frowned. "So she is haunting the castle?"
Paradigm shook his head. "No. Not that I know of, anyway. Upon various occasions, I saw an odd, ghostly apparition, and accompanying groaning and ugly scraping sounds."
"Apparation of who? Jonathan B.?"
"No. Not him. This apparation... it was an apparition of a four-cubic-foot block."
Officer Callahan's girlfriend wasn't home. The extra key made it easy to be sure of that--Officer Callahan knew how to be positive a house was really empty--but left open the question of where she'd gone. There was note; no message on Officer Callahan's voice mail.
TV offered an easy means to pass the time, but not a particularly satisfying one. And there were not-at-all-vague feelings of guilt at watching TV before getting everything else done that needed doing. But nothing was on.
Officer Callahan's girlfriend's videotape collection called from the bookshelf on which it resided. Some recorded TV shows, but mostly copied movies--there were two VCRs, do doubt explicitly for this purpose. Illegally copied, really. Sigh.
How many movies, anyway? A quick eyeballing suggested 35; a careful count, 41. That sort of thing was good practice; rapid estimation was a skill that could come in handy in the job. And at the end, past the 41st videotape, was a bookend. Videotapeend? Bookend.
Officer Callahan's girlfriend's videotape collection's bookend was a black metal swan, abstracted, stretched, a smooth, luscious curve gracefully flowing through three dimensions. Due to abstraction, its face was simplified, with only a faint hint of eyes and mouth; the whole thing was fabricated--carved--constructed somehow seemingly of a single piece of metal.
The swan, Officer Callahan knew, had belonged to a previous lover, and had been "donated"--abandoned really, when that previous lover disappeared with the contents of a joint bank account but none of the physical property. This had been years ago, long before they'd met, but the swans--for there was a matched pair, naturally, as one might expect of bookends--the swans apparently often brought back memories, good and bad, of that prior relationship.
Officer Callahan's girlfriend's videotape collection's bookend's twin was, however, suspiciously absent from the other end of the row of tapes, having disappeared like a janitor asked not to leave the state after witnessing a felonious dumping of banana peels in a radio station manager's office. This mysterious vanishing demanded further investigation, and Officer Callahan was perfectly up to the task. Indeed, the previously noted but unremarked upon change in tape orientation seemed more noteworthy in light of this new information.
There was, in the midst of the row of tapes, a spot where all the tapes became canted to one side, lying down in the direction of where the now-departed swan would have been. Right now the best lead seemed to be the domino-like progression of canted tapes, which led to the end of the bookshelf; accounting for gravity, it was only natural to, from there, look down.
Officer Callahan's girlfriend's videotape collection's bookend's twin's broken neck demanded immediate attention; not of the medical kind, since there were no leaking precious bodily fluids or threat of imminent irreversible cessation of vital functions. No, attention of the investigatory kind. To a naive observer, the broken neck would have followed naturally from a fall from a bookshelf of that height.
But Officer Callahan was more inclined to leave options open. Perhaps someone had grabbed the swan--leaving the tapes to tumble to their current position--and thrown it violently at the wall above where it had come to rest. No scars on the wall confirmed this hypothesis. Possibly a person could have violently, graphically demonstrated their intention to harm someone by physically snapping the swan's neck between their hands. Collecting data on this would require examing the wound more critically, but if it turned out to be true, it would be idiotic to ruin any fingerprints possibly left on it. So it was best to study the nature of the split neck without touching.
Officer Callahan's girlfriend's videotape collection's bookend's twin's broken neck's fracture lines turned out to be consistent with the initial "naive" hypothesis that they had been caused by a fall from five foot onto the hardwood floor. Accepting this, then, implied accepting that the shattering of the neck was, after all, an unintended or unimportant consequence of the videotape domino sequence. This led the investigation back to the point of orientation change, where the videotapes went from straight vertical to lying on their sides.
There was, in fact, at this point, the possibility to consider that perhaps a tape was missing. It was easy to construct an explanation for the broken swan in this scenario. Someone in a hurry, rapidly removing a crucial videotape, might have knocked the others over, knocking the swan over the edge. It thus came down to an at-best hypothetically missing videotape; Officer Callahan had insufficient prior knowledge of the number of tapes that should be present, and thus no way of knowing for sure whether this theory was correct. Thus, the alledged videotape kidnapping could not receive further official police attention without more data, such as could be provided by Officer Callahan's girlfriend.
Officer Callahan's girlfriend, who had, in fact, still not shown up by this point in time.
Thaddeus was still smirking on the inside at Anelle's initial reaction to the display. Fortunately, she'd been surprised but not panicked; he hadn't been sure how heavily Simon was weighing on her mind at this point.
"I believe you were telling me about being attacked at knifepoint."
"Yeah. But I'm feeling I bit out of sorts. Let's save it for morning." She stood.
"Wait, come on, you can't leave the story off there."
"Wanna bet? No? Actually, I was just going to refresh my wine. Want some more?"
He shook his head, watched her leave. Now that the display was over, staring into the darkness above--he felt cold. He shivered a moment, but got past it just as Anelle returned.
"So there I was," she said, "and Lucretia with a knife. In fact, I got lucky--I didn't even realize she was attacking me when I moved, and she stabbed my left arm. I still have the scar. I couldn't really move it, and I was in horrible pain, but I got a piece of furniture between us and tried to talk to her. She just swore at me and was otherwise unresponsive. So... I ran. I ran for Simon's office. I was hoping I could barricade myself in there.
"But she was after me so fast... I couldn't close the door fast enough. I knocked the knife out of her hand with the door, but she blocked the door from closing with her body or something. I shoved, but it wasn't going anywhere, and I knew she'd be able to pick the knife up before I could get to it.
"I went for Simon's desk, the lower drawer. I think she knew that's where I was headed, because she came after me so fast, I didn't have any choice. No time to tell her to stop or I'd shoot. I raised Simon's gun, and...
"It was total self-defense. I probably could've gotten off in a court of law for self-defense, too, but, well, Simon had trained us for this sort of eventuality, just in case. Those old habits I've mentioned that die hard. I wiped the gun clean. It was Simon's gun after all. Stopped my bleeding, cleaned it up. I left her--she was dead, definitely dead, sadly--locked the door behind me, and went to talk to Simon.
"There was something wrong, though. I could tell he was a little surprised to see me. And he asked me about Lucretia, had I seen her. Which just seemed odd--he knew we didn't really get along. Some sort of warning in my head was flashing, so I played it cool, just acted like nothing was out of the ordinary. I hadn't seen her. He seemed a little agitated, so I asked him about the con, but he wouldn't share any more details. Then he took a new tack, and I realized he was trying to probe the possibility that maybe I was lying about Lucretia, and that maybe something had happened to her at my hands.
"Well, if Simon knew that maybe I had... something had happened to Lucretia, despite being on the other side of town, that meant that he knew more than he was letting on to. I considered that maybe he had the offices bugged, but then I think it would have been fairly clear to him what had happened, given some of the things I'd said out loud after... after she was dead.
"I put him off somehow, went back to his office, found his spare apartment key, broke into his apartment, found some information--not much information, he wasn't foolish enough to write stuff down--but it became clear to me that the con wasn't worth as much as he'd been claiming. It was worth almost exactly one third what he'd said it was worth. So it probably wasn't enough for him to retire on if we split it three ways, but it was enough to retire on if he kept it all to himself. I had never understood the reason for the complexity and secrecy of the latest con, nor could I figure out how he planned for us to get out of it without getting caught. I was now able to guess that he had just been arranging a situation where one of us--me--would die, one of us--Lucretia--he could blackmail or manipulate or something into taking the fall for the con, most likely through evidence of the murder. Lucretia would have relied on him to help her hide it, and he could've done what he'd liked then.
"So, I want back to the office, finished framing him for it, took a third of the money we'd made since then, called the cops, and split town. They put him away, but not first-degree murder, actually, if I remember correctly."
Thaddeus sat in silence, unsure what to think.
"And after that, I went straight, as straight as I could, anyway. I don't carry a gun, a knife, anything. I'm not happy I... about what happened to Lucretia, but it was entirely in self-defense."
"So what does Simon want with you now?"
"Revenge? Money? I don't know. I don't care to find out."
"Can't you just change your name?"
"If you think I was born named Anelle Stauffer, you've got another think coming."
"I see."
"If this bothers you, I'll give you your twenty grand and you can go, no questions asked."
"Nah, I've been there myself."
"You killed somebody?"
"Well, no, not exactly. But once my little brother kept punching me. Hard enough to piss me off, but not hard enough... well, anyway, if I hit him back, he'd cry to mother, and I was living off my parents, so I had to hold back. And I kept holding back, and he kept doing this. So one day, I got so fed up, I shoved him in the pool."
"That hardly sounds..."
"Well, it was empty at the time."
Peg couldn't wait even a second after the door closed on Harrison. "You were pulling his leg, weren't you?"
"Hmm?" Mr. Paradigm locked the door securely, tested it, and then headed down a passageway Peg hadn't been done before.
"About the ghost block."
"Oh. Hmm. I saw what I saw."
"But did you see what you said you saw?"
"That would lack for fun, just saying it right out! It's up to you to work it out on your own."
"I see. They never found the block?"
"No."
They stepped into a room whose ceiling was up a story; there was a balcony accessed through the second floor looking into it.
"What was this place?"
"Train station." She glared at him, and he looked away. "Ok, actually, it was a parlor room."
"Want to give me the whole ten-cent tour?"
"Fabulous. But it has a lot of rooms, so it's two dollars."
"Fair enough."
He led her down a hall to a one-story room that was fairly long, if not wide. It had no furniture at all, though. "Library," he said.
"No shelves?"
"Didn't bring any across from Scotland."
"And you haven't bought any yourself."
He shook his head. "Too many rooms, I can't do things right for so many."
The next room was even longer, but much narrow. It had windows on both of the long walls.
Peg ventured a guess. "Reception hall?"
"Just a corridor."
"Oh. What this place needs is a suit of armor."
"Huh. A full suit of armor sounds good."
"Yeah? Can you get one?"
"I think so."
The door at the end of the hall led to a kitchen, with plenty of flat surfaces but a seeming disproportionate number of ovens of some kind.
She looked at him inquiringly.
"Pastry-making room."
"I can't picture it," Peg said, trying to imagine people busily working there. "Too many kilns and not enough kilts."
Down to a hall which had stairs at the end; but part way to the stairs they stopped at a doorway with sturdy iron bars crisscrossing. Mr. Paradigm pushed sideways on the bars, sliding the whole door sideways out the way, and stepped into the chamber beyond.
"Jail cell," she said confidently. The chamber turned in an L to a section out of sight from the doorway.
"No, prison's downstairs," he answered. "This is a panic room." The chamber was much large beyond the turn of the L.
"How did you ever afford this place?"
"Day-oh."
"Huh?"
"I own a banana plantation. Paradigm Bananas."
"Not ringing any bells."
He shrugged. "It's a possibility you should think about: that I'm lying."
"I see."
Minutes later, downstairs, she saw the small cells, the whole thing seemed rather depressing. Then the corridor led through a narrow doorway into a larger room. For once, the place was outfitted with the appropriate furnishings. Not literally a rack and an iron maiden, but stocks and what looked like whipping posts.
"Wow, a torture chamber!"
"Nah. Orgy room."
She kept in mind the possibility that he was lying.
As they walked back upstairs, she started trying to figure out how long she wanted to stay in Boring, given that Justine had left already, and that this was just one stop on her grand tour of the continental USA. Fortunately, she'd left one of the windows at the Wynn house unlocked, so she could just crash there.
When they got back to the second living room--she was pretty sure the foyer was just two turns away--she announced her intention to get going.
Mr. Paradigm showed his first interest in her since dinner. "Didn't you say your pals took off?"
"Well, yeah, but..."
"Do stay. What with forty-two rooms, I think I can afford to put you up."
"I don't know..."
"You can bar your door."
"It's not that, it's just, hmm."
"It's not that, it's just hmm? I do own two TVs. And a Sony Playstation 2."
"Do you have Internet?"
"ADSL, but it's slow."
"Awesome. Are you sure?"
"That it's slow? I am."
"I mean, you don't mind me staying?"
"As long as you don't mind that I'm a crazy old coot."
Vicki drove down the hill, looking askance at the Wynn house, uncertain what he was going to do about that. Paradigm's situation certainly invited investigation, if he could rope the codger into paying for it at least. He had time to kill before sleep and wasn't sure what to do with it. Perhaps he could go see a movie.
At the bottom of the hill he turned off of the road leading back to town and his hotel, and drove around randomly for a while. Eventually, a cluster of buildings caught his eye, and he made a few lefts and slowed to a stop at the bottom of a driveway. A sign there read "Floresca Fireworks". Perhaps they ran tours in the daytime.
He drove up the drive--perhaps there were signs with tourist info--and found a small parking lot which had, surprisingly for a weekend and at this time of night, plenty of cars--perhaps eight in a lot that would hold a hundred. In the building that faced the lot was a window which was very faintly illuminated. Colored light flickered there, reminding him of his experience at the Wynn house.
He got out and tromped towards the building. There was an entrance at the far side of the facing wall, so he headed for it. By that door was a sign with an arrow and the words "visitor center"; the arrow pointed back in the direction he'd just come. He headed around the building in the direction indicated. Another sign, and another arrow. It pointed to a smaller building next to the main one. He approached it. Tours: Thursday & Friday, 2pm. Well, a week. Most likely both he and the buildings would still be here then.
He headed back around the buildings for his car, but his eye was drawn again to the lights flickering in the window. Flickering differently from normal fireworks; slowly shifting, blinking. He tromped across the lightly-snow-covered lawn and got close to the window. The venetian blinds were closed, so all he could see was the ceiling, and the strange light reflected there.
The figure darted down the alleyway. This part of town was still hopping; caution was required. Too much caution, though, would slow things down unacceptably, increasing the risk of getting caught.
It took half an hour to find the right place: somewhere with just enough light to see by, but not enough light to be seen by. Perfect for accomplishing dastardly deeds in the dark.
The figure shook its right hand, to the sound of metal rattling against metal and the sound of a small metal object resonating and ringing out. Nobody was visible, so the figure set to work, sweeping the hissing object in rapid patterns in front of the brick wall.
It was cold, so cold. It was always so cold. The coldness had crept in and wrapped around every fiber of her being. She was so cold her icicles had icicles. She was cold in places she didn't even know she had been to--London, Hong Kong, adrift in outer space, floating in an orange-colored ocean, standing in an ice cave with a penguin who seemed to be recommending Lisa Germano's final record album on 4AD.
The only thing she knew to do was to keep on keeping on. But then the bottom fell out.
Anelle awoke abruptly and looked around the room panicked, but nothing was wrong, nothing out of place. She grabbed her watch, checked her pulse. 114. It wasn't even close to morning yet.
She got up, dressed, and slipped quietly down the hall and out the front door. She'd learned that a quick run was the easiest way to get back to sleep after something like that. Unfortunately, the only place to run was the road, which led up or down. Given the choice of going up first or last, she chose the former.
As she turned the first switchback, she realized she wasn't moving right. She'd done this many times before, but somehow it wasn't the same, like she hadn't actually gotten any sleep, or was differently tired than she thought. The thought flitted across that maybe this too was a dream, but dismissed it immediately.
As she ran up the road, she ran through the dream as best she could remember it--it wasn't a totally new dream, although it differed in lots of details from how she'd had it before, sporadically over the last couple of years. But at least she could be thankful for one thing: it wasn't a dream of Lucretia standing there with a bleeding wound, moaning at her. It had taken years for that dream to stop.
She was so caught up in her thoughts that she was taken by surprise when she found herself nearly at the top of the hill, and the hedge at her side giving way to a large gate. She stopped and stared at the structure through the gate. A castle. Snowflakes drifted down through the air.
She pinched herself.
Peg awoke and, after a moment, began trembling. Trembling because of the dream she'd had, the previous night. She'd dreamed she'd heard a faint moaning, and then scraping, the scraping of stone on stone. She'd dreamt she'd gotten out of bed, put on her socks, unlocked and unbarred the door, looked around, but seen nothing at all.
She levered herself out of bed, and discovered she had her socks on. She checked the door--it was unbarred, but locked. She started trembling again.
There was no sign of her host in the dining room or kitchen. She helped herself to some Captain Crunch and milk. A place like this really needed a live-in cook and maid and butler and whatnot. It took ten minutes just to get from one room to the next; she couldn't imagine getting anything practical done.
After eating, she wandered a bit, until she encountered a window. It faced north, looking out on the grounds "behind" the castle. But it wasn't the grounds themselves, it was the freshly fallen snow that captured her attention. And she'd discovered where her host had gotten to.
Bundled up against the cold as best she could, she found a rear passageway and rear door, and walked out towards him and the things he was building.
Which, in fact, turned out to be a small cluster of snowmen in a circle.
"Hi, Mr. Paradigm," she called out to him.
"What do you think?" he replied, skipping any actual greeting and jumping straight into conversation, which seemed something of a pattern with him.
"You're obviously very good at this."
He snorted. "No, what do you think this is?"
"A bunch of snowmen?"
He rolled his eyes. "No. How about oligarchy?"
"Umm, I guess."
"Bah." He toppled the incomplete one playfully. "Was your night okay?"
"I don't know. I heard something... something weird." She recounted her experience from the middle of the night to him.
"And you thought I was joking with that guy Harrison."
"Well, I'm reconsidering now."
"Good." He grinned a sort of goofy grin at her, and she remembered what she wanted to follow up on.
"Have you forgotten my name again?"
"No, I know it."
"That's an odd way to prove it."
"I'm all about odd ways."
"No, really, if you know it, then say it."
"I know it, but I can't say it." He hesitated.
"Is it the name of an ex-girlfriend? A dead wife?"
"No, nothing of that sort. That pronunciation isn't a thing I can do."
"'Peg'? It's not that hard."
"It's not that hard for most."
"Peg, beg, Meg, leg..."
"Big pig wig rig fig." He hesitated, then took his stick and drew a big letter 'E' in some otherwise unsullied snow. Then he slowly spelled out a word before it: "silent". It said 'silent E'. He looked at her. "I took a vow." He pointed at it. "Of that."
Well, her name had an E in it, and he couldn't say it. "It's supposed to be a vow of silence, not of silent E."
"I'm not a monk."
"I suppose not. Why'd you take it?"
"It's a long story."
"We've got time."
"I don't want to go into it. At a point such that now is in our past, I might."
"Fair enough. But listen, if you can't call me Peg... Well, I'm not going to settle for Pig."
"I wasn't planning to call you that. How about 'Pug'?"
"I think not. How would you refer to the object 'peg'?"
"I'd call it a 'hook', I think."
"Hook. Arr, matey. Ok, call me 'Hook'."
"Can do, Hook."
"Is your last name really Paradigm?"
"Nah. But my company is in fact Paradigm Publishing."
"Oh. What do you publish?"
"What do I publish? Crosswords, mostly. Also, I go by 'Milo' for short."
The convenience store proprieter shook his head at Thaddeus. "I don't recall anybody like that, no." Well, he hadn't really expected it, but the white pages hadn't produced anything useful. He went down the rows of junk food looking for something to buy, but changed his mind and left, thanking the man again.
There was a supermarket down the block and across the street; Thaddeus stepped through the snow covering the sidewalk on his way there. The streets had been cleared already, despite it being a Saturday morning; perhaps the current mayor had been elected on a 'get tough with snowfall' platform. The sidewalks, though, were still solidly covered, though broken by a small number of prior pedestrians' footsteps.
Traffic, despite the clean streets, was incredibly light; Thaddeus began to wonder whether the supermarket would even be open--although obviously the convenience store had been so why wouldn't the supermarket be as well--although of course convenience stores are notorious for being open for fairly extended hours, even if those hours are no longer as extended as the name of the franchise would suggest. During the walk from the convenience store to the supermarket, he saw several cars pull in and several cars pull out of its parking lot, but because the entrance faced away from him, he wasn't certain whether those departing were successful shoppers or people unhappily turned away from a locked and closed store.
All his worrying was for naught, he soon found, entering the store which seemed vaguely familiar from his childhood, despite the fact that it had changed its name and been redecorated (perhaps more than once) since the last time he'd set foot in it. Still, certain parts of the structure--such as the location of the meat counter--hadn't changed a bit.
The cart he'd picked out turned out to be one of those annoying ones where one wheel didn't roll properly--although, really, are there any kind other than annoying ones, one way or another?--and Thaddeus wrestled the cart to keep it on a straight bearing as he rustled up the shopping list that Anelle had provided. As it was mostly just food, there were few surprises--pens, paper, envelopes, duct tape, and a tea ball were the oddest of the items, some of which would quite possibly require a trip to some other store.
He'd vaguely noticed the guy with the monocle when he'd gone by while Thaddeus was selecting gnocchi. It wasn't until their third random encounter, maneuvering down the aisles in opposite directions, that Thaddeus really noticed him. He seemed somehow creepy and sinister, or perhaps both combined, or possibly it was just that he was really fond of leather jackets, safety pins, and aimless staring. Thaddeus gave him a good few seconds after he'd walked by, then turned to look--only to find the man had stopped and turned and was looking right back at him.
And then the man began taking steps again, right back towards Thaddeus, his eyes--well, the unmonacled one at least, it being hard to judge the stereoscopic vision properly with that--boring (for lack of a less inappropriately humorous term coming to mind) right through Thaddeus' head. Thaddeus felt the words "Hello, Simon" beginning to form on his lips in anticipation as the man came close enough to invade his personal space, but then he realized the man was looking past him...
No, the man's eyes shifted and took Thaddeus in fully, a look of disdain... and then shifted back, looking past Thaddeus, up on the shelf behind him.
"Excuse me," the man said, seemingly aware of Thaddeus only as an obstacle to his opportunity to increase his sum total worldly possessions by a jar of authentic bottled-in-America "Italian" spaghetti sauce. Thaddeus moved out of the way and began studying the opposing shelf, exhibiting flagrant fascination with what ingredients exactly go into making deviled ham. After only a few moments, the other man continued down the aisle; Thaddeus looked after him, uncertain how to interpret the vibes he was getting.
He tried to put the guy out of his mind, but two aisles later, there he was. Talking on a cell phone, no less.
"What," asked the guy, "do I sound like I'm enjoying this?" Although Anelle hadn't mentioned a cake or put anything relevant to one on the list, Thaddeus decided that perhaps he should consider the cake mix options that were right in front of him, anyway.
"Don't tell me you get stuck with all the dirty work, buddy. There's enough bad shit going down for the both of us; just coping with a jailbreak is bad enough without you making it worse. So do you want the virgin or not?"
Thaddeus started. He didn't think anybody knew that about him, but who knew what this Simon character was capable of? Anelle hadn't thought he'd find her at her last place, either.
"Ok then. But do you want extra virgin, or just regular plain old virgin?"
Oh right. Thaddeus whistled mentally, and moved on down the aisle.
He'd liked the way the checkout girl smiled at him, but he felt glad to get out of that place at last--that guy had made him feel nervous. He trudged back down the sidewalk towards the convenience store and the car parked around the corner. There were more footprints through the snow now--more pedestrians had braved the cold street since he'd entered, although there weren't any visible. The footprints all followed a straight track along the store, although eventually he came to a spot where one set seemed to turn sideways, heading towards the wall beside him. There was a niche there where two buildings met, and in the niche...
The hand reached out and grabbed him, pulled him in, thrust him against the brick wall. They were a little shielded from the street here, but somebody walking by would see them easily. There was the guy with the monocle, and there was also the gun. The handgun was really the part that drew Thaddeus' attention fairly quickly and kept him from tossing out any smart-assed remarks.
The guy was sizing him up and not saying anything, though, so comment of some kind seemed appropriate. "What do you want?"
"Give me your wallet."
Oh, shit. One of those. All that worrying for nothing. Thaddeus pulled his wallet out and handed it to the guy, who flipped it open with one hand and squinted at the license.
"Not from around here, eh. What are you doing in town?"
"I'm just on vacation. My father owns a house here."
The guy pulled out his cell phone--he was obviously fairly nimble as he managed to do this with the hand holding the wallet--and dialed. A moment later he said, "Hey partner, it's me. Does the name Thaddeus P. Rovale ring any bells for you?" He paused. "Nah, I dunno, but he's from out of town, and he was listening in on our conversation in the store."
Thaddeus said, "I was just..." but a wave of the gun shut him up.
"You do that," the guy said into the phone, and then hung up. "You got a car around here somewhere?"
"Down the block."
"Grab my bags, and let's go."
Thaddeus carried all their bags to his car, keeping his kidnapper's bags in his left hand and his own in his right, so as not to get them mixed up. As he got to the car, it struck him that that was probably the least of his worries, but naturally he was wrong.
"Put your bags in the back seat and my bags in the front," the guy told him, gesturing with the gun. He complied. "Give me your keys." He did so. "Now get in the driver's seat." No problem. The guy closed Thaddeus' door, then hustled around to the passenger side, got in, and handed him the keys. "Drive."
The guy gave him directions out into a less built-up area outside of Boring--a good fifteen minutes' drive, until they got to a little subdivision, and he ordered him to stop at a corner. The gun was still there, pointing at him from low, out of sight of passersby.
"Now?" Thaddeus asked.
"We wait."
So the waited, a minute, five minutes, fifteen minutes, Thaddeus couldn't say. Then the guy's cell phone rang.
"Yeah? Are you sure? Well, ok." He opened his door, pocketed his gun, grabbed his bags, and finally tossed Thaddeus his wallet. "Some friendly advice. Next time you're in a grocery store, don't go listening in on conversations that ain't your own. You know what they say."
"What do they say?"
"You can pick your nose, and you can pick your friends, but you can't pick your nose if you go sticking it in other people's business and they get mad and cut it off."
"Uh, right." Goddamn Jack Nicholson wannabes.
"Thanks for the ride. A nine-mile walk is no joke, especially in the snow."
With that, the man departed down the street into the subdivision.
Thaddeus put the car in gear and drove off.
Eve loved to play in the freshly fallen snow; it allowed her to retreat into the simple happiness of her youth, before puberty had begun introducing whichever combination of hormones it was that caused her interests in men to be so powerful. She had gotten hints of it soon after, as she ran through rapid crushes on every boy in school, crushes that began more normally but soon lasted only minutes and included the teachers and the principle too. She'd run out of new people to crush on when the last one was her janitor, which would have been a mess except there were always random people on the street to distract her.
Eve had been through twelve therapists, and although she was a researcher's dream, she was a practioner's nightmare, she thought; at least, they always seemed frustrated with her, as if they didn't believe that she really felt what she felt. It was hard to find good therapists, too; the first sessions were particularly difficult with the male ones, so she'd had to stop trying new ones of that flavor.
But at least she could relax and make snow angels and pretend. She couldn't always count on it to snow, but she did have some fully-under-her-control things she could do that would were familiar from those days and let her slip into that sense of being a kid again and feeling healthy: she'd climb a tree, or read an old kids book she remembered from that era, or break out a coloring book and crayons and have fun not quite staying in the lines, or, just like back in the day, she'd set fire to the neighbor's cat.
Her mind wandered to her current love--the guy who'd been in the car behind hers at the light last night and honked at her for taking too long to get moving--but shook it off and resolved to actually accomplish something that day. She sat up, rose from the snow behind her apartment building, and walked to her car.
A short drive later and she was at her friend Gehnyphur's house, standing at the front door, waiting for a reply to her knock. As she waited, she glanced around. A guy carrying three grocery bags walked by on the sidewalk. Eve had seen him a few days earlier at the diner, so she didn't have any notable reaction to him this time. He looked at her kind of funny as she stood there.
The door swung open and Gehn greeted her, and she went inside. Gehn had obviously noticed the guy walking by, so she asked her about him.
"He's an odd man, not particularly friendly, keeps to himself. A quiet man. He lives a few houses down, I'm not sure how long he's been there, but I'd guess under a couple of weeks. I've seen another guy coming in and out of that house a couple times in the last few days, but never both of them together. Why, do you have the hots for him?"
"Oh, be serious. I mean, I did a few days ago."
"Heh. You poor girl."
"Tell me about it."
"Would you like some hot chocolate?"
"That would be perfect. Do you have marshmallows?"
"Nope, sorry."
"Drat. Well, what good are you?"
"None at all, obviously. There's the door."
"Aw. How's work?"
"About as good as you can expect. I'm still irritated by the glass ceiling."
"You should be. You don't have any privacy that way. I think those people are just taking the word 'supervisor' far too literally."
"How's the diner?"
"It keeps me busy, although, I dunno."
"Lion's den?"
"Right. I'm not getting any 'healthier', so I don't see what the point is of continually rubbing my face in the problem."
"Well, I've told you what I think plenty of times, so I don't think there's any point in going into it again."
"No, there isn't."
"Right. But someday..."
"Hmm?"
"Someday, you've just got to settle."
"We're not going into this again, Gehn."
"I just hate to see you holding out for Mr. Right when it's just never going to happen."
"How do you know it's never going to happen?"
"Look at the pattern, Eve."
"What about you, are you holding out for Mr. Right?"
"Yeah, but that's different."
"What's your pattern? You keep finding guys you think are Mr. Right, but they don't last."
"I guess."
"And how is my problem any different?"
"Eve, come on. I thought you didn't want to get into this."
"You kept going."
"My mistake. Eve, your problem is different. You know it is."
"How is it any different from what I just said?"
"Eve, every single guy is Mr. Right Now for you, once. Every single one. Absolutely no discimination. There's something clinical there. Why would that ever stop happening?"
"Because eventually I find Mr. Right."
"But Mr. Right isn't going to stop you from finding more Mr. Right Nows. That's why you've got to settle. You've got to find some guy who you think you can be happy with, and even though he's no longer your number one, you run with it."
"You make it sound so simple."
"Isn't it?"
"Could you do it? You're madly in love with some guy who lives two blocks from you, and you settle down with some ex-boyfriend who doesn't really interest you at all?"
"Oh come on, there must be guys who you can be friends with."
"Doesn't interest you at all romantically, I meant. Could you do that? Settle for him?"
"Well, no, but if I were you, I'd hope so. What with all that history of feelings changing so quickly."
"I dunno. Anyway, I have to admit, I came over here for a reason."
"Oh? Go for it."
"Fortunately, I've forgotten what that reason was, so we can just chat for a while until I remember it."
"Bonus. Nice try at steering the conversation."
"Am I so transparent?"
"You're so transparent, if we put you in a window frame birds would bounce off of you."
"That would tickle."
"What made you decide to come over here?"
"Oh, I don't remember. If I remembered that I would remember what I wanted from you."
"What did you do today?"
"I got up, made breakfast, ate, played in the snow, came here."
"Did you decide to come here while you were playing in the snow?"
"Yeah. Oh right, I remember. I was wondering if maybe I could borrow a video."
"Which one?"
"I'm not sure. I remember seeing some movie here with you, but I don't remember the title."
"That doesn't help me much."
"There was this sequence where they showed fireworks going off while there was snow on the ground."
"Hmm, that's not ringing any bells."
"Well, it was just a little side thing from the main story."
"And the main story was?"
"I don't have any recollection."
"Well, let's take a look at my tapes and see if looking at them jogs our memory."
Eve stood with Gehn and crossed over to the shelf with the videotapes. Some of the tapes had fallen over, and Gehn straightened them up as they read through the titles.
None of them seemed right, so Eve took three tapes that seemed unlikely but seemed the most likely of the tapes that were there. "Thanks for loaning these to me."
"Sure thing. You going to take off now?"
"Yeah, I guess so. I've got to get to the diner eventually. What are you up to today?
"I hadn't made any plans yet. Still hoping for a call. I swore this time I wouldn't call first, and I'm sticking to my guns. So, otherwise I'm staying home--I can't go anywhere since my sister borrowed my car."
"Well, good luck. I'll see you later--and thanks for the tapes."
With that, Eve headed home. Enough with accomplishing stuff. Perhaps a nice bath, and then work.
"So what's the plan?" Thad asked Anelle as they unpacked the groceries.
"Do I look like a have a plan?" Was that going to be obviously evasive?
"Frankly, yes." Drat.
"No. I don't know yet, but I'll tell you when I do. I'd had some ideas, but I need to rethink based on your experience with Mr. Leather Jacket."
"You're sure you have no idea what that was about?"
"Sorry, no. But really, there's no way Simon could find us out here, so don't be so paranoid."
"In the car you said you didn't know how he found you at RAJ."
"Well, true." She considered. Had she been avoiding thinking about it? She had. How had he found her there? She had to assume somebody had told him about it; he'd have recognized her handiwork in that case. But how would anyone have ever connected the two of them and mentioned it to him? She hadn't moved two-thirds of the way across the country for no reason. She realized too late the Thad had said something. "What?"
"So this could be him."
"No, I'm sure it's not. If it was, he'd be here already. Whatever Simon's trick was, we've given him the slip, and we're not going to call any attention to ourselves or to Boring, so he'll never find us here." Project it convincingly and he'll stop doubting.
"What about that supernatural detective guy?"
"I'm sure he's just what he appears to be."
Thad grunted.
"What's that mean?"
"I don't know yet, but I'll tell you when I do."
"My, I can see were slipping right into this partnership like we'd been doing it for years." Of course, she hadn't told him about the castle yet, and she supposed she should, but something in her resisted the idea. "Look, is there some reason why you feel it's so urgent we get something going? I thought you were looking to avoid work."
Thad frowned and looked thoughtful. "Well... I guess I'm just concerned that you're making plans without telling me."
"Look, honestly, I have no idea... no, sorry, I have ideas, but they're not fully formed, and I need to let them solidify before we discuss them."
"Well, it leaves me sitting here doing absolutely nothing. I don't know anything about coming up with those sorts of ideas." They were done unpacking, so she walked into the living room; he followed along.
"Right, well, sit down." She sat on the loveseat. He moved to sit where he'd sat opposite her the night before.
"Hey," he said, "did you move my chair?"
"Hmm?" She looked around. There was a rocking chair over towards the window--but she guessed that wasn't what he meant.
He walked around behind the love seat and grabbed a chair--she didn't recall it well enough to know if it was the same one or a different one--wrestled it around to the other side, and sat down in it.
"Okay. Taking Other People's Money 101. Step one: choose one or more marks. These are people with enough money that they're likely to be willing to part with however much you're looking for. If you want a lot of money, you either need a lot of marks, or one rich one. Step two: figure out what your marks would be willing to spend cash on. Step three: figure out how you can either deliver that cheaply, or else appear to deliver it, or appear to be in a position to deliver it, such that they will part with the money to you. Step four: Endgame. Figure a way out of the situation so you keep the money, and they get whatever you were able to deliver--and if that's not what they thought you were going to get, you don't get busted or killed."
"That seems awfully general."
"Sure. It applies to panhandling and Initial Public Offerings as much as it applies to cons and scams. There's no formula to follow. Each con is its own unique, clever little construction."
"But you've gone straight since Simon got put away."
"Right, step four has always been easy, because I was delivered what I promised."
"And you want to keep it that way."
Anelle wasn't sure what Thad wanted, what he thought about that, so she wasn't sure how to respond. He'd joined her on impulse; was he looking for the thrill of the deceit, or was he looking for the safe, legal payout? "Well, I'd prefer to stick to the straight and narrow, I think. I guess if I had a partner who was really gung ho for the big score, I'd be flexible."
He grunted again. Men were so charmingly uncommunicative at times.
Officer Callahan stared at the brick wall. "Buy! Consume! Breed!" hardly seemed to be a message anybody would really want on their wall. The fact that it had been delivered with black paint only made it all the more suspect.
A female voice spoke. "Hi, this is..."
Officer Callahan hung up on hearing the voice mail prompt, having already left two messages. Whereever she had gone, it was far enough to be out of range of any cells. Or else she just wasn't answering, but that would be out of character.
Officer Callahan's girlfriend had several favorite hangouts, none of which had borne any fruit. That left the less favorite hangouts. Or work, but it was a Saturday. Still, better to check them than to sit around worrying in uncertainty.
If only she'd been brought up in the Callahan household, she'd have the philosophy of checking-in regularly ingrained into her. Or the police force; checking-in regularly was a good idea there, too. It was unclear what Officer Callahan's girlfriend's take on dating a police officer was, as a matter of fact, not to mention one of the Callahan brood. But that was something to pursue another time.
The girlfriend search continued. At a local pool hall, somebody hustled to hide some drugs, but Officer Callahan didn't have any real interest in investigating, trying to stay focused on the situation at hand. Nobody there had seen her in the last two days. She hadn't been to the flowershop in a week. The old folks' home she sometimes visited was much the same as the pool hall--furtive hiding of drugs, but no indications of girlfriend presence whatsoever.
The driveway of the fireworks company hadn't been plowed yet, so Officer Callahan walked up on foot, but the place was closed up, secure, and no cars in the parking lot or in the street around it--other than the police car of course. Ok, this was definitely worrisome.
April is difficult for an accountant. Sure, tax law is complicated, but that's what accountants get paid the big bucks for. And sure, their clients keep horrible records and always want to try to find some way to scam the federal government, while the accountants are, well, accountable, and would rather toe the line, finding clever ways to warm the books rather than actually cooking them; but that's why the accountants get paid the big bucks. But not every accountant goes over the itemized deduction with a fine-toothed comb, allowing and disallowing them with a careful eye for mendacity. April, Milo would explain to people, is one of these more difficult accountants.
He'd tried quite a few before finding one that suited him this way; he had a low tolerance for shady behavior. Accounting practices were something he wanted to get right at Paradigm Publishing, even when it started as a lowly struggling company-of-one. He'd found April back then, and hired her part time--she worked for several small companies at once. After the success of his first few collections, he'd somehow raised money to start the magazine, and she'd had to work extra for him, so he'd increased her hourly billing without her asking. When the magazine succeeded, he'd offered her the full-time job, not really expecting her to agree, but she had, thankfully.
Paradigm Publishing was only a small success, really. It published a small number of magazines, enough to have a decent revenue--enough that Milo was essentially rich and that employee #2 (April, in fact) was moderately well off, but the amount of money available to those further down in the company hierarchy dwindled rapidly. The freelancers themselves weren't paid any more than Milo had been paid in his day--and why should he mollycoddle them? He'd succeeded in the face of all that.
After he'd bought the castle, he saw a lot less of the day-to-day operations--although in truth it was the opposite; he'd become less interested in the day-to-day operations, so he'd bought the castle. Once a quarter, April would come by with a pile of paperwork and stay for a week--doing the paperwork and getting Milo to verify and sign off, but also visiting as old friends, since that's what they'd become by this point. At first, she'd brought her husband--whom she'd married sometime after she'd joined the company. But after her divorce, she'd come alone the last few times. She didn't seem to mind being left to herself, so he tended to let her come to him when she wanted to, and to be honest, he sometimes forgot for hours at a time that she was there.
Vicki parked at the top of the drive--whoever'd driven that Mustang in and out had had a lot less interest in not dying than Vicki, surely--and walked down to the Wynn house, carrying as much equipment as he could manage in one trip. He knocked.
The woman answered the door. He was sure he could convince the young man, but her. He could tell she was as soft as granite, as flexible as an airplane, as yielding as a nuclear reactor with the control rods all the way in. Something about her raised his hackles instinctively. He didn't know what it meant, beyond the obvious unlikelihood of her ever funding his research. "What do you want?"
"I really need to collect this data soon."
"I thought I explained this to you last night."
"You did."
"So?"
"I have a proposal."
"Not interested."
"I'll give you ten dollars to let me do it, and I promise I'll stay out of your way and I won't be a bother."
"Not interested."
"Ten dollars a day."
"Not interested."
"Twenty dollars a day." She shook her head. Come on. Who wouldn't accept a free twenty dollars a day? "Fifty dollars a day."
"Two hundred a day, no more than four hours a day."
"No way, that cuts into my profits."
"And fifty doesn't?"
He shrugged. In truth he'd just pass the cost on to the client. Fifty would be no big deal, but two hundred might lead to a fuss.
Her face shifted--a poker face. "Ok, fifty dollars a day."
He frowned. "I wasn't really serious about that, I was just trying to figure out what number was your limit. Most people would be happy with twenty dollars."
"Do I look like most people?"
"Thirty-five."
"Fifty, take it or leave it. And I reserve the right to say 'no more' at any point. You don't have to pay for that day if I do."
He hardly needed this any longer, what with Paradigm's place virtually begging for this sort of work, but a contract is a contract, and he wanted to at least give it a shot before blaming the client for not giving them access. So best to give it a few more days of solid attempts. He agreed.
Vicki went into the living room where'd he been set up before, and looked around, not particularly acknowledging the