The Music of the Machine (The Book of Terwilliger 2)

by Michael Stiles

  Rayfield stood up and said, “Where’s he going?” He took off at a much more modest speed and headed in the same direction. Joy and Sarah glanced at each other, then followed, while Perla struggled to lift herself off the ground.

  When they caught up to Ed, he was floating in space miles above the forest, looking at a bright crimson star that hung low in the sky. “That one belongs to Tom Kajdas,” he said.

  Joy looked at it too. She didn’t like the color very much. “How do you know?” she asked.

  “Nobody else is that shade of red.” He paused. “Nathaniel’s star went out when I shot him, but Tom’s keeps getting brighter.” He trailed off, thinking.

  “Something rattled you back there,” Joy said. “What happened?”

  Ed tore his eyes away from the red light. “Nathaniel was here. I think he was testing me, to see if I’d notice him.”

  “And you did,” said Rayfield. “That’s good. Right?”

  Ed looked at each of them in turn. “I need you to listen to me next time. I’ve seen him tear a mind apart. He did it to the Guru, and he could do it to me next. And who knows what he would do to you if he found you here? If I say run, I need you to run. Got it?”

  “No,” Rayfield replied, gently but firmly. “Don’t tell us to leave you alone. You need some people in your corner.”

  “I couldn’t handle it if something happened to you.” Ed was looking at Rayfield, but it was obvious that he was talking mostly to Sarah. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “We need to be more careful from now on. Nobody comes here alone. If you ever see him, get away. Don’t let him come near you. I don’t know what he can do to you here.”

  Joy chewed her lip as she thought. “Should we start meeting somewhere else? Like my mind? It’s yellow there.”

  Ed smiled. “I’m sure your mind would be an interesting place to visit. No, I think we’re safest here. I know how to detect him if he comes around. Next time we meet, we’ll just need to be on our guard.”

  “You say so, Ed,” Rayfield said.

  Joy looked at that angry red star again, glowing and pulsing. She didn’t like the look of that star. Not at all.

  * * *

  There was nothing Sarah hated more than getting all dressed up. She was a t-shirt and bell-bottoms girl, and always became a little resentful when she had to put on uncomfortable clothes just to look nice for people she didn’t know. Ed liked her in jeans. She need to impress anyone else.

  Today was different. Today she was going to a job interview.

  It was only eight in the morning, and already she was sweating like a pig. Her long, brown hair was done up in a bun to keep her cool, but it wasn’t helping much. She stopped in the middle of the crowded sidewalk to take off her blazer, and glared at a perverted businessman who took the opportunity to ogle her chest. He winked at her. She flipped him the bird.

  She arrived at her destination at 8:25, five whole minutes early, and shivered as she entered the chilly air-conditioned building. Putting her blazer back on, she took the elevator to the twentieth floor.

  DICKER AND JETT, ATTORNEYS AT LAW, proclaimed giant golden letters above the receptionist’s desk. The letters were far grander than the law firm itself. A woman with her hair in an enormous beehive hairdo sat behind the desk, watching silently like an all-knowing Sphinx as Sarah entered.

  “Yes?” the receptionist said coldly. She was an attractive woman, in a bitchy sort of way.

  Sarah tightened her leg muscles to keep her knees from trembling. “I’m Sarah Blake. I have an appointment with―”

  “You’re late,” the woman snapped. “It doesn’t make a good impression to keep a partner waiting.”

  She checked her watch. “But I’m right on time.”

  “Right on time,” the woman replied, “for us, is ten minutes early. That makes you ten minutes late. I’ll tell Mr. Dicker that you’re here, in case he still has time to see you. Sit.”

  While the beehive woman called Mr. Dicker, Sarah sank into in a gigantic leather chair that threatened to swallow her up completely. Some magazines were laid out on a glass table. She picked a copy of Time and looked at the cover, which depicted two soldiers jumping out of a helicopter. That made her think of Danny Chan. She hoped he was doing all right. Ed seemed worried about him. Will Nixon’s Gamble Work? said a yellow caption over a map of Cambodia. She opened the magazine and tried to read about what was happening in Cambodia, but her hands were shaking and she was too nervous to focus on the text.

  The secretary’s phone made a buzzing noise. “Mr. Dicker will see you now,” said Madame Beehive. She ushered Sarah through the door to the inner office and led the way down a short corridor. There were a few men about, who paused their conversations and turned to stare at the newcomer. Sarah followed the receptionist to an office where a very fat man sat behind a desk. “Mr. Dicker,” said Madame Beehive, “this is Ms. Blake.” She twisted her lips in a most unsavory way as she said Sarah’s name.

  “Thank you, Fannie,” said Dicker, getting up to shake Sarah’s hand. He took a long, studious look at Fannie’s backside as she turned to leave the room. “Forgive my secretary,” he said conspiratorially as he sat down on the corner of his desk. “She always gets hostile around women who are prettier than she is.” He looked Sarah up and down, cocking one eyebrow in a saucy way. His eyebrows reminded her of woolly-bear caterpillars.

  Sarah cleared her throat and buttoned one more button on her blazer. “I saw an ad for a paralegal,” she began. “I was hoping to―”

  “Yes, yes,” said Dicker. “We lost our last gal a few weeks ago and it’s been impossible ever since. Talented young lady, she was. But you look like you’d be able to catch on pretty quickly around here, eh?” He smiled toothily.

  There was a long, uncomfortable silence as his eyes darted back and forth between her eyes and her other parts. “I brought a copy of my résumé,” said Sarah, pulling one out of the folder she’d brought. It had taken some creativity to come up with enough to fill up a whole side of a piece of paper.

  “Oh, sure,” Dicker said. He took the paper from her and set it aside. There was sweat glistening on his upper lip. “You seem qualified enough. You’ve worked as a paralegal before?”

  “Well, no. If you’d look at my résumé, you can see that I have―”

  “Any experience doing legal research? Writing up contracts? Taking affidavits?”

  “No, sir.”

  Dicker folded his thick arms and grunted. “Can you type?”

  “Absolutely.” Her résumé was the only thing she’d ever typed in her life, but she didn’t see a need to elaborate.

  Mr. Dicker seemed to cheer up at that. “How about filing? Can you do filing? We file cases by client name, alphabetically.”

  Sarah frowned. “Are you asking if I know the alphabet?”

  Dicker nodded enthusiastically.

  “Well, yes,” she said, “I believe I do.”

  “Excellent.” He licked his lips. “Tell you what. There’s a case file in that cabinet over there, filed under Zanes. Z-A-N-E-S. Can you find it for me?”

  She looked over her shoulder at the filing cabinet against the wall. “You mean right now?”

  “Yes. Unless you have somewhere you need to be?”

  Sarah sighed, went over to the filing cabinet, and bent to open the bottom drawer. She flipped through the files, but didn’t find the name he’d mentioned.

  “I’ll want to have you meet Mr. Jett as well,” Dicker said from behind her. “He’ll want to see this. It’s pretty far back there, honey; you’ll need to reach way in.”

  She was certain, by this time, that there was no Zanes file in there. Glancing around, she confirmed her suspicion that he was just trying to check out her ass. She pushed the drawer shut, straightened up, walked calmly over to Dicker, and punched him in the nose. His head was so large that the blow didn’t move it much, but the impact made his neck fat jiggle in a most satisfying way. Dicker stared at her
agape, his nose dribbling blood.

  “What—What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he sputtered.

  “You should be ashamed of yourself!” said Sarah.

  “I should be ashamed?” Dicker put a hand to his nose and looked at the blood. “You just punched me in my own office!”

  Fannie of the beehive came running into the office. “What’s all this commotion? Oh my goodness, Mr. Dicker, your nose!” She left momentarily, then came back with a box of tissues. She pulled out seven or eight tissues and handed them to her boss in a wad.

  “This woman struck me!” Dicker whined through the wad of tissues pressed to his face.

  Fannie glared at Sarah. “Honestly!”

  “The interview is over,” said Dicker. “We don’t employ your type here.”

  “My type?”

  “And you may want to improve your attitude. You’re a very unpleasant girl. No one’s going to hire you if you go around acting all superior.” Fannie nodded agreement.

  Sarah found herself laughing in spite of her fury. “I’d rather go hungry than work for a… a… lecher!”

  Dicker pointed to the door. Fannie folded her arms and stared an icy stare.

  “And by the way,” Sarah went on, unable to stop herself, “you have the dumbest eyebrows I’ve ever seen!” She stalked out of the office, down the corridor, and stopped when she found that she was unable to push open the door to the lobby.

  “You need to pull it,” Fannie called from Dicker’s office.

  Growling with anger and humiliation, she pulled the door open and made her escape.

  * * *

  Only twenty minutes had passed, but it seemed twice as hot as before. Sarah muttered to herself as she pushed her way through the rush-hour crowd outside. She pulled the pins out of her hair and let it fall down over her shoulders. “Men are all depraved… chauvinist… pigs!” she said aloud. A man in a three-piece suit shied away from her, and she gave him a menacing stare. “You’re all the same!” she shouted after the man as he hurried away. “Pigs!” That drew more than a few stares from people on the street. She didn’t care.

  “Sometimes it seems that way, doesn’t it?” said a woman’s voice just behind her.

  Sarah spun around. The woman who had spoken was probably in her mid-forties. Her makeup was perfect and she wore a business suit that looked to be several times more expensive than the cheap outfit Sarah had on.

  “Trust me,” said the woman, “they’re not all bad. Having a rough day?”

  “I just had the worst job interview of all time,” Sarah replied.

  “Ahh, I’m sure it wasn’t so bad.”

  “I punched the senior partner in the nose.” She smiled to herself. “Made him bleed a lot.”

  The woman nodded, impressed. “See, not all bad. Did you get the job?”

  Sarah shook her head and laughed.

  “Probably just as well. Eileen Powers,” the woman said, holding out her hand. Sarah shook it. Eileen had an extremely firm handshake. “So you’re still in the market, then. What is it you do, Miss—?”

  “Sarah Greenb—Blake,” she corrected herself.

  “Here, Miss Greenblake, let’s step out of the crowd.” Eileen took her arm and pulled her over next to a phone booth, where they wouldn’t be bumped into. “What sort of job were you interviewing for?”

  “It’s just Blake. I was interviewing for a paralegal position. I wasn’t qualified. At least, not in the way they were hoping.”

  Eileen grimaced. “You seem like a sharp young lady. A firm like that doesn’t deserve you. How do you do under pressure?”

  Sarah found herself a bit thrown off by the woman’s abrupt questions. “Fine, I suppose.”

  “Have you ever worked in a job where your responsibilities were not clearly defined? Where you had to find your own way and set your own priorities?”

  “I… well, I haven’t exactly had a job before.”

  “Haven’t exactly had one? Or haven’t had one at all? Please be specific.”

  “Never had one.”

  “College degree?”

  “High school diploma.” She’d come close to graduating, so that was only a little lie.

  “Skills?”

  Sarah was beginning to look around for an escape route out of this conversation. “I don’t know. I can type.”

  “Strengths?”

  She thought about that. “I’m not sure I have any.”

  Eileen laughed. “Don’t sell yourself short! You’re not afraid to punch a man in the nose. That’s a strength. I can see that you have a good head on your shoulders. You just might do.”

  “Do for what?”

  “Come with me.”

  Eileen turned and started walking. Sarah paused, wondering whether she should follow, but she found that she was too curious not to. She hurried after the woman, forcing her way through the crowd to catch up. Eileen rounded the corner onto Broadway and stopped in front of a revolving door. “This is where I work,” Eileen said.

  Sarah looked up at the sign over the entrance. “Nightfinger Records,” she read.

  “See? You’re literate. Another strength.” Eileen gave her a wry look, indicating that she meant no offense. “I’m looking for someone who can do anything, on a moment’s notice. Someone who can do the impossible, if necessary. We’ve interviewed a hundred people, but Mr. Myles has turned them all away.”

  “So you’ve resorted to picking random people off the street,” Sarah reasoned.

  “More or less.” She leaned closer and lowered her voice. “My employer is a man named Lester Myles. He’s the head of our Artists and Repertoire division, works for Mr. Nightfinger himself. Mr. Myles is extremely demanding. Fair, but demanding. I won’t lie to you about that. He needs a personal assistant. Someone to run errands, go wherever he needs them to, do anything he asks. Within reasonable bounds—he’s not a pig, to use your word. Above all, he needs someone he can trust with any responsibility he gives them. It won’t be an easy job.”

  Sarah looked up at the sign over the entrance again. “Is he nice?”

  Eileen laughed again. “He’s a good man. He won’t try to take advantage of you. Will you come in and chat for a bit? You’re dressed for an interview anyway; why not?”

  * * *

  Early Monday morning, Ed and Driscoll went to visit Charles Witherspoon. Driscoll drove his own Chevy, with Ed in the passenger seat. They spoke little. Driscoll still wore his hair slicked back, every hair perfectly in place. He was a careful driver, always signaling and checking his blind spot before changing lanes. Ed found himself a little annoyed by his fastidiousness.

  Driscoll had been to Witherspoon’s house many times and knew the way by heart. The Witherspoons lived in a town called Great Falls, a posh community in the Washington suburbs, on the Virginia side of the Potomac. Driscoll got off the highway, pointed out the CIA headquarters at Langley as they passed, and turned onto Georgetown Pike. A few minutes later they pulled into the driveway of a big colonial house surrounded by tall oaks and set well back from the road.

  “It’s just Mr. Witherspoon and his wife living here,” Driscoll told him as they got out of the car. “They have two kids, grown and moved out of town. His wife is a super lady; you’ll like her.”

  Driscoll rang the doorbell and waited patiently. After a minute or so, the curtains in a nearby window moved aside and a woman peeked out. “Oh,” Ed heard her say, and she came over to open the door. She was short and thin, and her gray hair was set in a perfect permanent wave. “Kenny, I’m so glad you’re here. Oh… hello,” she said to Ed.

  “A friend of mine,” Driscoll said, after giving her a hug. “Emma Witherspoon, this is Ed.”

  Ed shook her hand. Her fingers were bony but strong. “It’s nice to meet you, Walter,” she said.

  “Ed. My name is Ed.”

  “Good, good.” She didn’t seem to have heard him. “Charles is having a good day,” she said as she led them through the parlor and
into a sitting room. “He might come down to see you, but let’s give him some time and see.”

  She got them each a cup of coffee and chatted with Driscoll about the gorgeous weather they’d been having. Ed sat in a chair, sipping his coffee (which was very good) and looking at the framed photographs on the mantel. The pictures showed a pleasant-looking family through the years—a young couple in wedding attire, a happy family with two young boys, a middle-aged couple posing for a family portrait, separate photos of two handsome teenagers. The man in the pictures had a gentle look about him, although he wasn’t smiling much in any of the pictures. His expression looked vaguely troubled.

  “Well,” said Mrs. Witherspoon when they were done with their coffee, “let me see what Charles is up to. He stays in the bedroom quite a bit, now that he’s no longer working. He certainly misses his work.”

  She went upstairs, taking each step carefully and gripping the handrail all the way. Driscoll watched her go with an expression of concern. “The last time their younger son came to visit was four years ago,” Driscoll said sadly. “The older one hasn’t been back in fifteen years.”

  “A shame,” said Ed.

  “I hope you visit your parents sometimes, Ed,” Driscoll said.

  “They died a long time ago.”

  Driscoll bowed his head. “I’m sorry.”

  They heard voices upstairs, indistinct but recognizable. Mrs. Witherspoon speaking, then a man’s voice. She said something else, and the man’s voice rose to a shout. Then there was a resounding crash that shook the upper floor of the house.

  “Wait here,” said Driscoll as he stood up. He ran upstairs, two steps at a time. Ed ignored the order and ran up after him. The door to the bedroom was open. Driscoll went right inside.

  Ed could hear Mrs. Witherspoon talking. “Charles, Kenny’s here, with his friend Walter. He wants to talk to you. Charles! Put down the club, dear, and talk to them.”