What Simon Didn’t Say

by Copeland, Joy

  Time moved ever so slowly as she waited for something to happen. It had been a long time since Zoie heard any sounds coming from the hall outside her dorm room. The snoring sounds continued to tell her that her roommates were in deep hibernation. Without her phone she had little concept of time. She figured that at least twenty minutes had passed since she last looked out the window. This time when she looked out, the light in Jahi’s office was out. In fact, except for the moonlight and the soft, dim glow from the lamppost at the corner of the driveway, the courtyard was completely dark. “Come on, Maynard!” she whispered. “Where are you?”

  At last there it was—the signal. The beam of light. In fact, there were two beams crossing each other to form a tall thin X, ending in two circles of light on the courtyard’s ground. The lights made her think of the Batman signal in the sky over Gotham, minus the insignia. But before she could take it all in, the light was gone. She almost panicked. “Wait!” she whispered a bit too loudly. She closed her eyes and again looked out in the courtyard. Thank God—the signal had returned.

  Zoie slid into her broken sneakers and peered into the dark hall. Other than an emergency light here and there, the hall was dark. Light streamed from the bathroom, but it was in the opposite direction of the Pen. She turned quickly and groped for the book light at the end of Jazz’s bunk. She clipped it to her jeans but kept it off; then she left the dorm room.

  It was difficult to tiptoe in her scuff sneakers, so she proceeded barefoot, with the laces of the dangling sneakers wrapped around her hand. The hall was dim, but she could see more light ahead. An overhead beam illuminated the Great Room’s TV area. The clock over the computers read 1:45 a.m. exactly. She headed quickly for the unmarked door that led to the Pen. Thank God that it’s not locked. She entered the short passageway leading to the outside door and closed the interior door behind her. The passageway was black. She praised herself for thinking to bring the book light and then turned it on. In the massive darkness, her light was like a firefly, but it sufficed. The door to the outside groaned when she pressed the metal bar to open it. Outside, the moon provided enough light, so she no longer needed the book light.

  A tinge of cool and damp air mixed with the still-warm air of the late night. Zoie quickly put the sneakers back on and moved close to the chain-link fence to look for Maynard in the courtyard. “Give me a sign. Please be here,” she whispered. Even if he was out there, how could she get to him? She could go no farther. She was trapped by the Pen’s security. At least if anyone should come out and question why she was outside so late, she had her alibi—the now partly crushed cigarette in her pocket. Alas, she hadn’t thought to get a match or lighter. “Maynard, where are you?” she whispered. Had she put on this charade and come to this point only to be foiled by a locked chain-link door and an unstable assistant? She took the book light off her belt, turned it on, and waved it back and forth, hoping that Maynard would see her signal.

  “Damn, turn that off, oh ye of little faith!” said a whispering and snickering voice from overhead.

  Zoie’s head jerked up. Someone was on top the Pen.

  “Turn that off!” the voice commanded again in a loud whisper. She complied. It was Maynard, and he was perched on the chain-link cage and peering down at her. His body was spread across the chain-link ceiling like a giant spider. With his much brighter flashlight, he lit his face. His illuminated yellow-toothed smile lasted a few seconds; then he extinguished his light.

  “Oh, God. You scared me,” she said, keeping her voice low. She caught her breath.

  He said, “Shhhhhhh!”

  In a low whisper, she asked, “Can you help me get out of here?”

  “Humph!” Maynard responded, forgoing his typical sarcasm. Instead, he went straight into action. The next thing Zoie knew, Maynard was gone from overhead. The whole structure of the Pen shook with his weight as he climbed down from its roof, relying on the strength of his fingers to lower himself. He landed on the loading dock in front of the cage door.

  Zoie had moved against the brick wall until the Pen stopped shaking. She now came closer to see what Maynard would do next. He retrieved some sort of tool from the nest of matted hair on his crown. The instrument looked like something she’d seen in a dentist’s office, but it was too dark to really tell what it was. Without further illumination Maynard used the tool to work on the lock. In about thirty seconds, she heard the click of the lock’s release.

  “Well, that seemed simple enough,” she said with a sigh of relief and a new confidence in the skill of her curious guide.

  Maynard didn’t seem to appreciate her half-hearted compliment. “Shhhhh,” he said and signaled to her to follow him into the dark courtyard. She complied, being careful to gently close the Pen’s door behind her.

  With the moon illuminating their way, they descended the five stairs from the loading dock to the courtyard’s ground. Zoie mimicked Maynard’s crouched position as they crept around the edge of the courtyard, moving in stops and starts, with quick steps and then painfully slow ones. They moved away from where the cars were parked and then scurried past the smelly dumpster. Proceeding along the building wall, they stopped at the building’s edge. From that point a driveway led out of the courtyard. Zoie had difficulty moving quickly in her too-large sneakers. Considering the courtyard’s crumbling pavement and other sharp objects that might be in their path, she dared not remove her shoes.

  Where the driveway began, a lamppost marked the opposite end of the building. The pair hung close to the building’s shadow.

  “Where are we going?” she whispered as they leaned into the bricks.

  Maynard pointed to a freestanding brick structure some fifteen yards down the driveway. Windowless, the structure looked like a utility building, like something PEPCO might use to house wiring, albeit considerably larger. “My binder is in there,” Maynard said in a whispered growl, “along with enough shit to keep you singing for days.”

  “What!”

  Zoie was confused but dismissed his comment as another Maynardism. Having seen him in action, she knew that questioning him would only lead to an argument.

  “Shhhh!” Like a thief in the night, Maynard darted from the safety of the shadows and into the light, scurrying down the driveway until he reached the doorway of the small building. Zoie took a deep breath and followed him. At least the doorway of the small building was in the shadow.

  Once again Maynard retrieved his tool from his matted hair. This time there were two locks to pick. He knelt in front of the door with his small flashlight awkwardly wedged between his shoulder and cheek and worked the locks. These locks were stubborn. Several times he grunted in frustration. Zoie thought to offer her assistance, thinking she could at least hold the flashlight. But on second thought, she dared not ask. Except for his connection to Simon, Maynard was an independent operator. Her offer of help would be viewed as interference. They’d teamed up to find evidence and his binder, but their collaboration had definite limits.

  Zoie watched Maynard work the locks, wondering how often he’d unlawfully entered a building. He certainly had the skill to be a burglar and certainly the economic incentive. She pondered her role in their escapade. Escaping from somewhere was one thing; breaking into a place was something quite different. But then murder, arson, theft, and intimidation were all very different too. She was in deep. Legalities, in light of the danger she and her family faced, no longer mattered. After several uncomfortable minutes, first one lock and then the other gave way. Maynard wiped his forehead with his sleeve. Zoie breathed her second sigh of relief.

  Inside the building the beam from Maynard’s flashlight was dwarfed by the room’s deep darkness. It was the kind of darkness in which Zoie couldn’t see a hand held close to her face. Zoie’s fear of the solid darkness, however, was overpowered her revulsion to the room’s strange smell. Pungent and disgusting. “Ahh!” said Maynard. “Shit! At least it’s not the smell of death.”

  “A cheerful tho
ught,” Zoie said. She turned on the book light, held her nose, and took several careful steps into the room.

  Maynard closed the door behind them. She heard the locks click.

  “Hey! Why did you do that?” Zoie said, feeling trapped.

  “And you did graduate work? Simon said you were an attorney.” He sucked his teeth. “I do wonder. I do wonder.”

  How did Simon know that she was an attorney? She didn’t remember telling either of them that in their abbreviated conversations. Now she was locked in a dark room, away from earshot of potential help, alone with a man who was both shifty and unstable. What had she gotten herself into?

  “How did Simon know about my being an attorney?”

  “Humph. You got to ask that? Now you’re really showing your ass,” Maynard said with a snicker. “Ain’t Simon the one been giving you those prophecies?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “Then duh! He don’t say much, but he knows everything. Simon’s the man, even if he’s sometimes a little too goody two shoes for my liking.”

  “Okay, I get it. Simon’s the man. Please, though, let’s leave the door open.”

  “Look, Ms. Smarty Pants Attorney, you want to find whatever it is you’re looking for and don’t want to be caught—right?”

  “Right.”

  “So if someone comes and finds the door unlocked, they’re gonna know that someone’s been here and might be here right now. Get it?”

  “Okay, okay. Let’s just hurry and look around so we can get out of here.”

  “I don’t like it here any better than you. But I gotta find my binder. You gotta find my binder.”

  Maynard shined his flashlight around the room. In the intense darkness, Zoie’s book light looked like tiny Tinker Bell. Inching forward, she stumbled against a crate and almost fell. Viewing her near accident, Maynard sucked his teeth and then shined the flashlight beam on the floor and rolled a second flashlight to her. “Here, Ms. Clumsy, take this.”

  “Thanks,” she said, immediately turning it on. “Aren’t there more lights?”

  “Yeah, fluorescents.” Maynard shined his light at the ceiling to reveal long industrial bulbs. “But we ain’t gonna turn them on today.”

  Zoie didn’t want to argue. “Hey, how do you know about this place?”

  “In scary dreams, one night, the devil’s minions caught me off guard. They dragged me in here to have some fun at my expense. He’s a smart one, that devil. He could send his disciples back here at any time.”

  “Great! Who is this devil, and who are his minions?”

  “Come on, lady. You got to know the answers to your own questions. No religious training either, huh.”

  “You mean Lucifer, the devil, the fallen angel.”

  “Mmm. I give you a B-minus for that answer.”

  “Then who are these minions?”

  Maynard hesitated. He seemed upset by the question. “I don’t know for sure. Those buggers keep changing. They’re shape shifters—some days men, other days women. They could be anybody. You never know. Even you could be a minion. I thought so at first…except Simon gave you the thumbs-up.”

  “Thank God!”

  Zoie turned back to search, not knowing what exactly she was looking for. She found a floor lamp and turned it on. Maynard groaned at the additional light, but it was too late. The lamplight was already giving her a better view of things. The room was large. Styrofoam coolers were everywhere, and there were two restaurant-sized refrigerators. A long and tall worktable surrounded by several stools consumed most of the room’s center. On the rough table, she found plant remnants—twigs and leaves, some fresh looking and some dried. There were boxes of Ziploc bags and several pairs of pruning shears. At first glance the table looked like something a gardener or florist might work on. But then it came to her.

  “My God! It’s a marijuana operation,” Zoie said, thinking out loud. Behind her she heard Maynard’s low, deep cackle. She sniffed the leaves. The plant material was the source of the room’s overwhelmingly putrid smell. She sniffed again. The smell was not the smell of marijuana. She checked the refrigerators. With the exception of several vials and one wimpy branch of the plant, they were empty. Staying near the door, Maynard chuckled nervously as Zoie searched. Every so often he shushed her and signaled her to stop and listen.

  The drugs intrigued Zoie. Who was the devil, and who were his minions? Was Jahi the devil or someone from the Shelter? The sign outside the door clearly labeled the building as property of the Shelter.

  “What’s this stuff?” she asked, fingering the pieces of brown-and-red leaves.

  “Thought you’d never ask. Catha edulis.”

  “What?”

  “Catha edulis, otherwise known as khat.”

  “Huh.” Zoie had heard about khat. She knew the stuff was illegal. And she’d heard it was a favorite of Middle Easterners. Otherwise, she didn’t know much else.

  “Everybody wants to chew this stuff. Makes you crazy,” Maynard continued.

  Zoie found it ironic that Maynard would use the word crazy, considering the state of his own mental health. But then in his mind, he was the sanest one of all.

  “You knew this was here? All this time you knew about this operation.”

  “Yeah, and I also know that the moon on average is 238,857 miles from the earth. Really helps to know this information if I plan to go there.”

  “Can you be serious?”

  “Lady, I’m as serious as the e-coli on your fast-food burger. This place is dangerous. Now stop trying to be cute, and keep your end of the bargain. Find my binder, and let’s go!”

  Strangely Maynard hung by the door. From that position he guided his flashlight beam into the room’s various corners. He didn’t want to venture farther. Zoie thought, Something must have happened to him in this room.

  “You’re afraid, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah, and you best be afraid too.”

  At least she now knew. She’d have to search alone. Maynard would stand guard by the door. She could ask no more of him.

  The drug operation was beyond what she had expected to find. She was looking for evidence of the Shelter’s misappropriation of the Foundation’s funds and the Shelter’s connection to Ray’s murder. Perhaps this was it. Perhaps the misdirected funds bankrolled the drug operation. And the illegal operation was enough to close the place down and put those responsible in jail. Beyond the hanky panky with the Foundation’s funds, she now wondered whether Ray had known about the khat operation. Was he profiting from it, or was he just tied up in grant kickbacks? How in God’s name had Ray gotten himself trapped in the whole thing? Greed, of course. He was a bit of a sleazebag. But there had to be more to it. “Because he knew all this, they had to kill him,” she said.

  “Kill who? Who’s about to be dead?”

  “My boss was killed. Possibly because he knew about this operation.”

  “See…I told you this place was evil.”

  Talk of killing set Maynard off. He started his circling dance in the small space near the door. The beam from his flashlight rounded the walls as if it were being chased. Following it was enough to make a person dizzy. Zoie tried to focus. She moved past the high table and farther into the room. Her light caught a desk against a wall, in the corner. She carefully made her way to it. There she found piles of papers, including one pile that had an orange and blue ring binder near the top.

  “Hey, Maynard! Is your binder orange and blue?”

  “Yes! Yes! My Syracuse colors.”

  “Did you go to Syracuse?”

  “No, silly woman. I taught there.”

  “Oh.” Zoie flipped through the pages of the three-ring binder. Each page was carefully hand done in a combination of what looked like hieroglyphics, Cyrillic lettering, and gibberish words.” It was Maynard’s own code spelling out his secrets, inaccessible to all but him.

  “Hey, don’t read that! You haven’t been cleared!” Maynard bellowed from across the r
oom. “Humph! You can’t read it anyway. Thank you, God.”

  “Okay. Okay. You’re right. I can’t read it.”

  Maynard laughed nervously. “Bring it to me. Bring it to me. Let’s get out of here.”

  “Just a second. Maybe my laptop and briefcase are here,” Zoie said. She looked around the desk and in the drawers. The drawers were stuffed with twine and thin wire. Some files were on the desk and in its drawers. She wanted to go through the files, but Maynard fidgeted near the door. She was afraid he’d bust a gut. She should have been afraid, but the stuff on the desk was intriguing—a folder full of invoices from Kenya Airlines and KLM. “Oh, God. This is how they’re shipping this stuff.”

  “Ms. Smarty Pants, they’re gonna be shipping our bodies if we don’t get out of here.”

  “Hang on just a few more minutes. Please try to calm down.”

  She shuffled through some folders on a table close to the desk. Then she saw her laptop. “Look, Maynard, I found my laptop! But where’s my briefcase?”

  “They took something from you too?”

  “Just this morning they stole my laptop and briefcase from my apartment.”

  “Hmm. Now they know everything about you. The devil may be evil, but he’s no dummy.”

  Maynard was right. Everything had happened so fast. The laptop had personal as well as Foundation information.

  “Come on, Ms. Smarty Pants. Get your stuff. Bring my binder. Damn, we got to go. Let’s get out of here…wait!” Maynard said, freezing. Like a mime he cocked his head toward the door and put a finger to his lips. “Shh!”

  Zoie could now hear what Maynard heard. Faint voices were on the other side of the door. She quickly moved to the floor lamp and turned it off. The voices became louder. With his flashlight guiding him, Maynard left his guard post at the door and darted into the room. He grabbed his binder and then Zoie’s arm and yanked her behind a double stack of wooden crates piled high at the back of the room. The two crouched low and turned off their flashlights. In the room’s inky blackness, they heard the door locks give way. Maynard gave her one more “Shh!” before the door swung open.