A smug glance thrown my way as team leader made a call to whomever passes for a dispatcher in his crystal palace. “I’m afraid not, Mrs. Caines. And I’m very sorry, but I suspect there may be more to this than procrastination.”
She looked at him in a way that might just have peeled his skin off if she kept it up. “Be careful, Mr. Furbert.”
“Yes, Mrs. Caines, I was born careful.”
“For Christ’s sake, Martin, you have the evidence right there.” I couldn’t stand it any longer. “This is not about somebody getting up the guts to disobey, which I assure you wasn’t Erik.”
“Quiet,” said Masami.
“No thank you, I have more to say. Martin, this is an act, all right? Erik has nothing to do with this. She’s just trying to efface the real issue with a petty one.”
“Kenji,” said Martin with a sigh intended to humiliate.
“Martin, open your eyes!”
“I apologize for this, Mrs. Caines. I made the mistake of having him over this morning—”
“The old lady may not have been a match for her, but you are, Martin!”
“And he stalked me, Mrs. Caines. He actually followed me out here.”
“What lady?” said Masami.
“Myrtle Trimm.”
“Myrtle Trimm?”
“Jesus, just stop, all right? You stashed Aetna in Myrtle Trimm’s—”
“Myrtle Trimm was this company’s first investor ever,” said Masami. “Forty years ago.”
“Then there it is,” I said.
“It was not a matter of friendship. Nothing that would inspire loyalty. This was a woman who alienated her own daughter by constantly accusing her of stealing money. She entrusted her considerable inheritance to me only because she subscribed to the racial stereotype that portrays Asian people as servile and submissive.”
“Well, you showed her, didn’t you.”
“If I may,” said Martin, with noisy throat-clearing. “Mrs. Caines, you and I both know from long and trying experience that arguing with Kenji is impossible. Once he’s ruled against you in that spiteful little courtroom in his head, you cannot redeem yourself except with drastic measures.”
“Drastic measures. Like when you cut me off to get into that parking space.”
“Excuse me, but the sign said Visitors, not Interlopers. Look, Mrs. Caines, regarding the matter at hand, I fully appreciate your priorities. In your position I’d have the same concerns. But whereas I think I can provide a pretty solid answer to your question even at this early stage, according to the man with the PhD the evidence I brought to show you is unconvincing. Ms. Simmons and Mrs. Trimm can’t speak for themselves; Char Richards, who could answer you conclusively, is suddenly unavailable or at least not answering—”
“Char Richards,” said Masami. So quietly that Martin stopped. The egregiously uninformed might’ve thought it was as if she recoiled from Char’s name. “She’s really involved?”
“No doubt,” I said. Just to be mean.
“How do you know her, Mrs. Caines?” said Martin.
“Erik-Katsuo,” said Masami. “She was his friend in business school. A close friend…”
“I would strongly recommend that you speak with him,” said Martin.
Masami seemed for a moment not to see either of us. Silence and a punctured look passed through her and vanished like noctilucent clouds. She shifted in her chair like a hint of an earthquake, turning trauma into anger with a tightening of her lips. “We’ll get to the bottom of this at once.” Her hand shot to her telephone. She murmured, “I want Erik-Katsuo immediately, please.” Then she let out a sigh. A puff of smoke from the summit of the mountain.
Don’t think I don’t realize this made everything worse. In front of me was Masami Okada-Caines sneaking up on the realization that she’d been deceived, something potent hidden from her. You are the core of it, whoever you are, I knew she’d go after you and devour you; and because you’d tricked her, you’d receive no mercy. Not even if you are the little girl who learned to eat with chopsticks at Masami’s house, who always picked flowers and brought a card for her on Mother’s Day. My mission there was quashed before I’d had a chance to begin, not because Masami was involved with Char but because she wasn’t. This was baffling to me: Char was the daughter Masami never had, finally someone with the gumption to build her own mountain; it would take no imagination to envision Masami meeting Char at Wharton and, impressed by her shrewd energy, taking her under her leathery wing. But if Martin was right, the truth was even more unnatural, and I was in no shape to counter it. By the time I gathered myself and said, “Wait, let’s think about this,” Erik was bouncing in.
“Mr. Martin Furbert, it has been too long,” he said, clasping Martin’s hand with a fatuous grin. He gave a little start when he saw me crumpled in a nearby chair.
“Onii-sama,” he said with a mincing little bow.
“I happened to run into Mr. Furbert,” said Masami. “You may recall that on a very distant day I requested that you contact his company about the Clocktower account, Erik-Katsuo. He says you never did. Is that true?”
He bowed to her deeply, looked at me askance.
“It’s true, okaa-san. I’m very sorry.”
“Yet you agree that only an idiot, or someone who wanted to conceal the truth, would have disobeyed me on this point.”
Erik winced at Momma-sama’s disapproval. He had to think fast. This is not his forte, so over the years he’d developed a crude but effective strategy for situations that required hasty excuses. I knew he’d never deviate from it, but I was spent and struggling; despite my experience, I didn’t see it coming.
It was a look I hadn’t seen in years. The look that would come over my brother when he was going to tell Masami that I had spilled the Kool-Aid and he had to clean it up. A wily look. An evil look. Not always but often, he was the one who’d spilled. It passed quickly, this look—Masami never saw it—artfully replaced by a long-suffering expression. Numerous conclusions may be extrapolated from that look. All of them fell on me at once.
He must’ve told Char the entire ghastly story of the house of Okada-Caines.
“I’m sorry, okaa-san. I hesitated because I thought Kenji might be involved. I wanted to find out—”
“It was Kenji who brought the affair to our attention.”
“He did that to protect himself. Once we knew about it, we’d be complicit.”
“That doesn’t quite follow,” said Martin.
“Well, when it comes to him, who knows? Who understands the way he thinks? I mean, come on,” Erik chuckled, “maybe he just did it to throw dirt on the fact that I landed this account.”
“Which account?” said Martin. Erik bit his lip.
“Erik-Katsuo is our portfolio manager for Clocktower,” said Masami. “Katsuo, you and your brother are barely civil to each other. How would he have known that I put you in charge of that account?”
“Because he’s, you know, involved. How else would he have known all that other stuff he claimed to know?”
You’d think I would’ve chimed in. I was starting to feel like someone had arranged a felt curtain between me and everybody else. As they spoke, they walked away, deeper into the world that is closed to me. Or I fell away from it slowly, jettisoned from their company by a betrayal that should’ve been meaningless. But even in my growing disengagement and intensifying nausea, I discerned the only salient point.
Given the opportunity, Erik would wring you out and hang you out to dry just as he’d done to me. My stricken silence encouraged him and scared him. He gained momentum as he spoke, throwing frightened glances at everyone in the room.
“My friend Char? He seduced her, threatened her. She told me. I mean, it’s how he is. Inconsiderate and hotheaded. He probably faked those documents himself. I mean, he calls himself a writer,
he’s good at feeling sorry for himself, it’s really all he’s good at, aren’t I right, okaa-san? He did it to get your attention, that’s what I think. He used me and Char to rig everything so we’d all profit from the scheme that he made up. And then he was going to leap out from backstage and announce that he was the root of our success. Just to make us look like idiots.”
“Run that by me again?” said Martin.
“No, he’s right. I’m Aetna Simmons.”
A voice I barely knew though I’ve used it my whole life.
I’m Aetna Simmons.
I mean, I really am. Char asked me to take her place and I had to accept. She’ll say there’s no one to replace, it was me all along, and that’s just fine, I’m tired.
“That’s absurd,” said Martin.
“Then why did you—” said Masami.
“I wanted to see how much you knew, that’s all.”
“I had nothing to do with this, okaa-san,” said Erik. “I didn’t call BRMS because I wanted to protect him.”
“I don’t think so,” said Martin. “Mrs. Caines, Kenji didn’t do this. He asked my team to look into it weeks ago. He wouldn’t have done that if—”
“Well, if you’d done it properly, you’d have seen how it fits together,” I said.
“Exactly,” said Erik.
“No,” said Martin. “Kenji, there’s no evidence. Mrs. Caines, there’s nothing to support this.”
“What, you think I lack the ability? The courage?”
“No, you’re just under some crazy impression—”
“Check my phone!” Slamming it onto Masami’s desk. “You’ll see all the calls from Char and ten suicide notes and at least one kid on a bike saw my car on Suffering Lane and Iesha Douglas saw me and Char—”
“That’s circumstantial.”
“Call it what you want!”
The curtain wrapped itself around my throat. A great surge of emptiness seemed to explode from me and douse the felt in its intolerable weight. I couldn’t stand another minute in that place, my voice already sounded like an echo of an old machine that had worked itself to death. “Look, you win, all right? Everything’s my fault, all of you were right, I’ve had enough.”
“Sit down,” said Masami.
“No, forget it. I have to go.”
One person came after me. He only caught me because I stopped at a men’s room to get as high as possible before hitting the streets of our misunderstood and lovely strip of coral.
“What are you doing?” Martin hissed.
“What do you care?”
“What if your brother takes this charade of yours and runs with it? What happens to Nabilah?”
Look, whatever it is you’ve done, Erik doesn’t know about it. If he did, he would’ve betrayed you in Martin’s presence. Or maybe he does know, maybe he found out somehow and to make me beholden to him or destroy me altogether gave me this one chance. Char will back him up.
This way, whether you are or you aren’t, or for some reason I don’t know you’re protecting a complete stranger and that’s why you left me, whatever. No one can ask anything of you. If they ask, point to my training, my wasted life, my confession. Martin heard it. Even if he claims not to believe me, he can’t pretend not to have been there and he won’t lie about what he heard.
“Nabi will be fine,” I said.
“Don’t be stupid. When Erik starts pointing fingers at you, what’re you going to say? Aetna Simmons is dead, everyone knows it.”
“That’s right.”
I left him there. I don’t know what the three of them decided.
I’m Aetna Simmons. Why did I say that? I’m not Aetna Simmons. Why did Kenji have to go & do that?
I am in hiding with my book. The same person who pressured that poor girl to leap up to the sky & stay there. I’m not like Seabird, I’m too scared. I’ve betrayed 2 beautiful men.
No emails, texts, or calls from my husband. Millions from Kenji. Iesha won’t tell him where I am unless I say. I don’t know what to say. I ran to my sister’s in a taxi. She lies real smooth like me. That’s why it’s frightening to hear her: “No, I haven’t heard from her, but that’s not unusual. She has a lot to do, you know. Have you tried the house?” Then she sees me going teary & gets stern: “Grow up, Nabilah. Make a choice & make it work.”
She doesn’t get it. My own sister. Why won’t Martin call me? Has he given up? Kenji’s messages are frantic. I won’t leave Iesha’s guestroom unless she makes me eat like a civilized person. I’m not a civilized person. Did I say I’m Aetna Simmons cuz it’s my job?! I told Kenji he’d betrayed us, but he hadn’t.
I have. I’m Aetna Simmons. Why? So he’d turn away in shock & forget what I had done. I’m not Aetna Simmons. I lied to conceal what we did.
I said the one way to be sure was to destroy her computer. I told her to leave it with me. I said I knew a way though it might take some time. Meantime to be safe, I got some data destruction software. I had it wipe her hard drive in multiple passes, & then I took it out of the computer. I took out all its memory too. I put the laptop’s empty shell in a grocery bag & threw it in a dumpster round Mills Creek. I kept the parts that do the thinking to destroy properly later. But Martin’s right, I make confetti, I’m a silly amateur playing around where it’s too big & dark for worker bees, I mean I didn’t think the software was gonna work!
What I did was worse than if the software hadn’t worked. I wiped that HD, I wiped & I wiped. But before I did it, I used Macrium to make a clone. I did it just in case the sanitization software didn’t get everything & I ended up wanting to start again from scratch. It’s how they all do it: make a copy 1st so if you have to you can reinstall and start over. She knew, she was always involved, step by step. We researched everything together. 2 girls, 2 computers, one getting ready to die, one starting a new shadow-life in The Art Of Vanishing in my office after dark, streaming jazz & learning all the way from scratch, nobody to say don’t worry your pretty little head. & she escaped & I helped.
I never asked why. I was “the wind in her sails,” & wind don’t ask just blows. Worker bees get to work. Not like I didn’t wonder, all the time I wondered, but I promised her no questions & I promised I’d be ready cuz it could happen anytime. & it did, a quiet sunny day after someone stole something from her. I don’t know who or what, I didn’t ask. Did the Good Samaritan ask the guy who lay there bleeding why he should help him?
But mercy, I betrayed her. I never wiped the clone.
After I left, that idiot had the nerve to call me. I didn’t answer, so he left a message:
“Hey, onii-sama. I wanted to maim you, but oh well! Changed my mind. Even though I can’t believe Char fucking slept with you. I could punch you, Kenji. Really. Day after fackin day I’m gone down Bull’s Head to slap ya ass to the North Pole. But brah, you weren’t even there, you left poor Nabilah-chan fending all by her little self down that backatahn place full of heavy machinery, and did I do you like you did me? Never even crossed my mind. Why? Because family don’t do that to each other, brah. Anyway, it’s all good. We’re straight now. I never would’ve thought you’d step up to the plate for me, almost got emotional about it when I finally got out of there. I thought you were gonna blame me and I was gonna blame you and then there’d be no proving anything, but you did me one better. I mean, I thought you were spying for You Know Her and You Know Him and they were the ones who knew it all and put you up to pretending to know something so they could weasel the rest out of me! Talk about fucked up. Anyway, thanks for being a brother at long fucking last. I say we call this your Thank-You to me for the Harvard thingy. How about it, Doctor Caines? Check.”
This is just for the record, you understand. In case you need to protect yourself. I don’t know how helpful it would be, but you should have some record of wha
t he said.
By the way—this is just a guess, I won’t be able to find out whether it’s true—I wouldn’t be surprised if Erik paid Aetna and Myrtle out of his own pocket. In return, Char talked her superiors at Clocktower into starting a big portfolio with CAM. Erik made sure he got to manage it.
If that’s what happened, Aetna might’ve told Erik when Myrtle started squeezing her for more money. My brother, given his upbringing, would’ve accused Aetna of extortion. They would’ve pooh-poohed in her face when she asked to leave that intolerable dump in Inman Square where they’d left her to rot out of revenge because she wrote. They wouldn’t let her have a penny more even when she begged. Masami Okada-Caines would shake her head like spitting in her face and say it was her own fault and keep on doing it for years, however long it takes to squander a life away.
If it comes down to you and them, Nabi, or you and whoever; don’t hesitate. Whoever it is, throw them over. And be all right. And trust yourself, acegirl. Trust your numbers, your instincts, your sharp business acumen, your years of experience. If they’re telling you to get that HDS and mobile unit, you go on and buy that girt big truck.
Every time I said, OK Nabi-girl today you gonna sit down & wipe that clone just like the other one, I don’t know, I couldn’t do it. She doesn’t know I couldn’t do it. It’s the 1st and only thing she ever asked me to do that I couldn’t do. Not cuz of what’s on it. I never looked to see what’s on it. Acegirl never asked me questions either. None of this “Why, Who are you, How could you, etc?” So why now? Kenji. Cuz of Kenji I couldn’t stop questions falling thru me like the rain that made the Flood. I plugged the clone into my laptop. Here is what I found:
Suicide notes. Some unfinished, some revised. Lots of revising. Hundreds of suicide notes.
DefinitiveBookOfHandwritingAnalysis.pdf.
Unsigned correspondence with disposable email addresses. & guess who signed up for those. Like she’s only got one trick in her book. (Clue: I just might slap her if I saw her.)
Drafts of a Suicide Note Page 36
