Survivanoia

by Baroness Von Smith

  “Okay,” she said, and her voice was steady. “You’ve said what you have to tell me. What are the conditions?”

  Sydney grinned in a quintessential villain-like way. “Alright,” he said by way of admiration. “The first is that you find out who the silent partner is. The person who put you in power.”

  “You have more than enough resources to identify him yourself. You’ve just contrived an elaborate snipe hunt to keep me busy while you wait around for other companies to develop a cure for your virus.”

  It occurred to Daci that perhaps Sydney himself sent Terri those notebook pages. That his intention was to sabotage his old company. But it also occurred to her that everything he was telling her was contrived. An elaborate…Sydney was talking, apparently had been.

  “I already know who the silent partner is,” he was saying. “I want you to discover it for yourself. I’ll even give you a hint, condition free: Ask GrandMama.”

  * * *

  “Well, I didn’t expect to see you today.” GrandMama smiled, proudly displaying teeth that were still her own. “Something good or something bad?”

  Daci had to grin at the woman’s insight. “Never could keep anything from you.”

  “Old people know it all. Now tell me something new.”

  “I’ve been talking to Sydney.”

  “That’s not new.”

  “It was all new to me.” Daci relayed what had driven her to Sydney, and his chilly, sadistic response. She divulged the details in full, about the NOx credits and Barry and Remington, how he claimed to have invented Flower Flu and she’d lost track of her little scientist. And she told her grandmother of Sydney’s nastiness, his cruel joy at her failure and his absolute refusal to help her or his own company. Then she paused. Searched for the way to ask her question without being overly dramatic.

  “Just spit it out, Kid.”

  “Sydney threw it all back at me. He blamed Dad. For taking me to Romania, saying Dad traded his little girl like so much cattle, for some black market connections. Said my whole family has set me up for failure from day one, why should I expect anything different from my husband.”

  “Ex-husband.”

  “Yeah, well, tell him that.”

  Another pause. Followed by another prompting from GrandMama. “You still haven’t told me what brought you here. To me.”

  Daci looked at every other thing in the room, then finally met her Grandmother’s expectant gaze. “Who’s the silent partner?”

  GrandMama ran her thumb along the hangnails of each finger, making a dry little scratchy sound. “Why?” she finally barked.

  “He says the partner is part of this unconscious conspiracy as well.”

  “I’m the silent partner. And that’s a line of crap.”

  Daci was surprised to find that she wasn’t surprised. “Of course.”

  “Of course.” GrandMama nodded. “How else could I have gotten you into that position? Nobody has that many strings to pull.”

  Daci pondered the ramifications of this strange, wild fact for a long, silent moment. “But if I drive the company broke,” she said quietly, “I take you with it.”

  “So? I’m old! I’ve got a place to live, whether you shut Survivanoia down or blow it up, makes no difference. The corporation is its own being. It doesn’t affect my money in my bank.” She pointed a crooked finger. “I checked.”

  “When? Did you enter into this partnership, I mean.”

  “Syd wanted to expand. And he wanted to marry you. And you seemed to want to marry him. So, talk of you stretched to talk of him and his company. And, as you know, I had just come into some money around then.”

  Daci hoped her face didn’t expose the sense of betrayal she felt. Not nearly as deep or as intentional as Syd had indicated. But perhaps that was merely a matter of perception. Or yet another example of her own willful ignorance, like not catching onto the obvious fact of Flower Flu being purposefully developed, or refusing to recognize that of course GrandMama had to be the silent partner.

  Despite some trepidation, Daci asked the begged question. “Why? Why the company, why me as the president? I don’t know what I’m doing, you knew that.”

  Her grandmother folded her lips over her teeth the way only old people can. “You ever see that movie GoodFellas?”

  “Isn’t that a little violent for you?”

  “I’m over seventeen, they let me in. Nothing you can do about it. Anyway, you see it?”

  Daci nodded.

  “The one guy, he says, ‘you light a match.’” And kid, I knew just what he meant. Torch the place. Burn the company, hell, the whole damn economy! To the ground, and make money on the way down.

  “I watched the super-rich make a profit off of the Great Depression. Made me sick. But what could we do? Sydney comes along—and for the record I never liked him. But he had this piece of wealth and power that he wanted me to invest in. And he’s a lot of rotten things but he’s a savvy businessman. I gave him some money and he made me more. Lots more.

  “You threw a monkey wrench into things, coming here and telling me about that cure he won’t release, and saying you should just take over. Got me to thinking, maybe she should just take over!” GrandMama waved a hand. “The rest, you already know.”

  “But then….” Daci took a deep breath. “How is Syd wrong?”

  “First, in thinking that I wanted you to fail.” GrandMama brought a fist down against the arm of her Halloween couch.” You’re my only granddaughter, I want you to be the Queen of the goddamn Universe! Second, in Sydney’s mind, if you don’t make money, you failed. I don’t agree with that. If you don’t try the best you can, if you don’t follow your conscience, then you failed.”

  The same strange humility overtook Daci as overtook her that night a few weeks back at the hospital with Geo and Eddie. Still so vivid it felt like yesterday. She wanted to say something, preferably something funny—GrandMama was not usually so candid or so earnest. But Daci knew if she tried to talk her voice would shake, and those tears rimming her eyes would spill down her cheeks.

  GrandMama saved her by speaking first, more calmly this time. “You’re upset for the wrong reasons, Kid. And at the wrong people. You need a good meal and a night’s rest. Go see your father tomorrow when you’re head is screwed on straight.” She laughed gently. “Don’t see him like this, though, you’ll kill him.”

  She gave Daci an uncharacteristic hug goodbye.

  In the elevator, a nurse reviewed the nighttime meds with an aide. “Mrs. Sanchez won’t take a sleeping pill, so tell her it’s a laxative. Don’t let Hollister drink these down with that rum she keeps. And make sure you get Mrs. Ogden’s teeth out tonight. She convinced the last aide they were real and then nearly choked on them.”

  Daci was happy for the levity.

  Outside, thick heat slowed her, radiating off the parking lot’s blacktop like an invisible curtain. Daci decided GrandMama was correct, she did need a good meal. And this fact conveniently coincided with the one more stop she had to make before she could relax.

  If Sydney wouldn’t help her get the Flower Flu treatment released, then she had to find an answer on her own. With her ignorance and shortcomings having been splayed out this evening like so much meat at a butcher, it seemed “re-discovering” the Flower Flu vaccination was her best option. If the wheel’s inventor refuses to let the device be used at any price, then it’s certainly worth reinventing.

  Daci recalled that The Doctor had said he walked to the Romanian restaurant. And he’d given her a solid idea of where said restaurant was located. Logic dictated if she could find it, she could find him.

  Instead of exiting at the 90, she stayed on the 405, which took her to the 105. There she headed east, into uncharted territory, parts of L.A. that seldom made the silver screen, cloverleaf j
unctions and green line metros running down the center of the freeway, and little Romanian restaurants housing mankind’s hope.

  The restaurant proved elusive, having no sign. But The Doctor had described the odd building housing it, a long white box with a sharp peaked roof. Daci drove the three square-mile area surrounding the 110-105 interchange, making an ever-widening circle. Eventually she spotted it, about three blocks from the exchange.

  Luckily, Romanians are late eaters; even on Tuesdays the kitchen stayed open until two a.m. She had a fantastic meal; the menu proved much broader than she’d been led to expect. She started with a plate of cheeses and cold cuts and a bottomless glass of tuica, Romanian’s potent plumb brandy. She followed this with a tripe soup and then nisetru la gratar, grilled Black Sea Sturgeon, paired with the black vodka of which The Doctor had spoken. She finished with a chocolate-filled crepe and more tuica.

  Daci brought the check to the front register herself, and asked the hostess who had doubled as an attentive waitress about Dr. Stuckhowsen, as if inquiring of an old friend. The girl, Sorina, had consistently replied in English to Daci’s Romanian. Pride at having grasped this monkey-puzzle of a language? Rebellion against her off-the-boat parents? Most likely some of both with the ratios shifting when the weather changed.

  Sorina recognized The Doctor’s description almost immediately. “Yes, he comes and uses telephone. He was here tonight, you just missed him.”

  Daci asked if Sorina knew where The Doctor lived. She didn’t, but a thin man in cuffed trousers and a llama wool sweater looked up from his book to interject. “A mile that way,” he said pointing. “Off the road a bit. Probably is best not to go alone.” He grinned in a volunteering kind of way, but Sorina agreed to go and convinced him they’d be fine.

  “He is lonely,” she told Daci once they were outside. “But harmless.”

  They took the Hummer the short trek, found a dirt road leading to a clearing literally under the over pass, and now the two women stood side by side looking at…Daci wasn’t sure.

  “That,” Sorina pointed at the giant panel of metal impaling the little box that presumably had been a house, “used to be a billboard.” The sign had come down in not quite the center of the house, flattening one side while leaving the other largely intact. Oddly, wood covered the windows. Impossible for emergency enclosures to have arrived already. They must have been boarded up before the sign crushed The Doctor’s house.

  “I wonder if he’s in there,” Daci pondered aloud.

  From her peripheral vision she caught Sorina’s shiver. She watched the young woman, saw her pragmatic, flippant American upbringing wrestle with the dark superstitions carried in her bloodline. Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t believe that he is.”

  “I need to check,” Daci told her. “You don’t have to come.”

  Sorina nodded. “I’d prefer not to,” she admitted. “Something is off, is bad.”

  Daci suggested that she wait in the Hummer, with it running. But they had to keep the headlights pointed at the house, as neither of them had thought to bring a flashlight.

  The headlights made stark contrasts in the destroyed abode, splashes of blinding white against spots of unknowable darkness. The front door hung half open, stuck there on busted hinges in its crumpled frame.

  Just past the threshold, a sweet, coppery stench took hold. A smell humans are hardwired to recognize: Blood. Her breath quickened and she felt her heart do the same. She saw a flashlight in the stinging glow of her car’s headlights, but that smell made her think twice about touching anything.

  And there he was. Just to the left if the doorway, glassy eyed and horrible, a dark chasm where there should have been a white, fleshy neck. Daci stepped away, shoved a hand in her mouth to keep her from screaming. They made it look much easier on television, accepting unexpected corpses.

  It didn’t look like The Doctor. Seemed outsized to be the little scientist. But she needed to be sure. She stepped back inside, forced herself to take a good look at the dead man. Large indeed, and with a dark smear of hair. Not pale, either; this man had been Mexican or Latino. Not The Doctor.

  She looked away, into the dark recesses of the house. She supposed she should check them. But they weren’t very well lit. And she really didn’t want to.

  As if in response to her ruminating, the sign shifted and creaked, leaned another few inches and brought the house down that same distance. Daci ducked and covered—earthquake training. The creaking stopped. Dust and debris rained from the ceiling, rattling through the house.

  Daci found herself half under an end table, crouched against an overstuffed leather chair. An afghan had been draped over the chair; she clutched it in one of her hands. Soft. Hand knitted. She spotted a small horse head on the floor, a knight from a chess set. All very depressing. And dangerous. The debris slowed, too quiet now to be heard over the cars above, though she still felt them landing on her face and in her hair.

  As she stood up straight, a patch of angular brightness on the floor caught her attention. An envelope. It protruded from under the overturned coffee table, stark white in the murky darkness. Daci delicately withdrew it. The postmark said Pennsylvania, some town Daci didn’t know. Neat but severe and very slanted lettering, half cursive half print, graced the front, and the return address carried the name Lucretia Stuckhowsen. Mother? Sister? She couldn’t make out the date on the postmark. She slid it into the pocket of her pin-striped pants.

  Daci took a deep breath, scanned the broken house for any sort of clue. It offered none. And the dead body at her feet suddenly frightened her completely; images of the dead man rising up shrieking and moaning filled her vision unaccountably.

  She spun and fled. The glare of the headlights forced her to squint, and she shielded her eyes with an arm. Sorina, smartly, saw this and switched the headlights off, mercifully leaving just the running lights.

  Sorina was moving to the passenger seat. The girl assessed her. “Something is bad.”

  “Someone is dead.”

  Daci sat panting for a time, realized to her embarrassment that her hands were shaking. She raised one to show Sorina. “Americans,” she joked. “We’re so sheltered, a little death and we fall apart.”

  Sorina scrutinized the house, dark and distant in the reduced light. “It’s not The Doctor.” She said this, did not ask it.

  “No. Too big.”

  Daci put the car in reverse and the engine growled while the tires spit rocks and dirt. She paused a moment, hand on the wheel, took some measured breaths. Back in control again. Car in gear and out of the clearing.

  Sorina remained silent the duration of the short drive back to the restaurant. Daci pulled to the curb and put the Hummer in neutral, put the brake on. “Thanks for your help.”

  The girl’s eyes hooded again. “I believe the Doctor is alright. You will find out.” She hopped from the vehicle and closed the silent door, not looking back. Daci kept watch on her until she was safe inside the restaurant.

  She took another measured breath, whispering as she let it out, “I hope so.”

  CHAPTER 22

  The universe is a weird place.

  This thought summarized all the disjointed static buzzing in Daci’s head as she assessed Lucretia Stuckhowsen. With her spiky purple hair and striped tights and arm warmers, the girl appeared for all the world like a petulant teenager. Her vehemence matched this facade, but her methodical stated logic implied something more complex; a mature but cracked psyche.

  It occurred to Daci that Lucretia’s thoughts regarding her likely mirrored her own, given that Daci currently wore a wide white jacket with a ruffled collar and fist-sized fuzzy balls for buttons—a Pagliacci clown suit. She’d worn it as a courtesy to her VPs after requiring them to dress appropriately for their monthly meetings, to demonstrate that she’d never demand that they do something sh
e herself would not.

  Lucretia had just shot one of Daci’s VPs, and said VP happened also to be Sydney’s son. Lucretia had also shot Daci. Luckily for all parties involved, the girl’s chosen weapon was a paintball gun.

  Daci had wrested the gun from the girl, who had proven deceptively strong. Slender but taut, all muscle and sheen like a cheetah or a serval. She’d hustled her out the door, away from the terrified Scally, who, given the color of the ink and how much the damn things stung, could not be blamed for believing himself to have in fact been shot and dying this very moment.

  Now the women sat in Scally’s office, Lucretia in the guest chair and Daci on the desk.

  “I received a note from my brooder. He was very upset.” Lucretia’s accent was more pronounced but her arrangement of words more correct than her brother’s. “He interviewed at dis place, your place, was told one ding by a woman and later dismissed by a man. On the telephone, a message, not in person. Den I go to his house and find it is destroyed. What would you feel?”

  Daci shook her head. “He wasn’t in it. I know, I checked.”

  “Den where is he?”

  “I’m trying to figure that out myself.”

  The girl’s storm blue eyes drilled her. Used whatever irregular standard to size Daci up. “Der is a man who verks here. He sent my brooder here.”

  “Who? I’ll find him.”

  The woman stiffened, probably thinking she was about to betray something. Daci appreciated, not for the first time, that political fears are as deep seated as religious superstitions.

  “If you’d prefer I can give you our phone list, you can call his extension. I’ll even leave the room.”

  Lucretia’s eyes narrowed and her lips pursed. Cheekbones like razors and eyes such a vivid blue, Daci thought the girl should remain in L.A. and take up modeling.

  “Where are you staying?” Daci finally asked.

  Lucretia looked away, feigning boredom. She raised a hand by way of a shrug.