by F P Adriani
*
We finally made it to Leaf Bank; Roberto and I left our guns in the car and yanked Vervais out of the car.
With the two of us behind him now, Vervais walked into the bank and up to one of the bank tellers at the main counter. The woman’s dark eyes gave him a skeptical once-over, but his sluggish fingers eventually managed to pull out his bank card from his jeans and lay it onto the counter.
“My account,” he said, and then he stopped and laughed.
The teller shot him nervous eyes now—and that made me very nervous.
I stepped up to the counter. “Excuse me, Miss. My cousin is having…issues right now.” I gave her an eye that said you-and-I-both-know-what-issues-but-PLEASE-help-me-out-here-because-my-cousin’s-such-a-drag-to-take-care-of.
She seemed to understand; her eyes were still a bit dubious, but they’d softened some.
So now I continued, “He’s interested in checking a deposit transaction from weeks ago. He lost his receipt and he needs the information for tax purposes.”
“Is this true, sir?” she asked Vervais.
He nodded.
“I’m calling up your account on the computer now.”
I waited, Roberto waited, Vervais waited, or maybe he was just…existing right now. It seemed he had totally tuned out from his environment. His face just looked numb, frozen. I reached over and pinched him right on the top of his jean-clad ass. But he didn’t even budge.
Shit. If he didn’t remain conscious here, I wouldn’t be able to get the goddamn info….
A fake smile on my face for the teller’s benefit, I leaned my face nearer to Vervais and said in a low voice, “Wake up. Remember that the cops are only a phone call away.”
He seemed to have registered what I said; he flashed me a nervous grin, but I was pretty close to him and his mouth smelled hasn’t-brushed-his-teeth-in-ages bad…. God, I couldn’t wait till the day was over and I was finally at home—assuming I would get home….
The teller now said to Vervais, “I have your account here. Which transaction?”
“Um, um,” Vervais said. And that seemed to be all he could say.
“Ed,” I said, “the woman is waiting.” I turned back to her and smiled. “Maybe from Earth—I think it was from Earth?”
She ignored me. “Mister Vervais?”
“Earth,” he finally said, coming back down to earth (I hoped).
“Well,” the teller said, “I only have limited information. I’m showing money relayed from there, but that doesn’t mean it came from there. Sometimes there are delays in the system from other planets, and money is temporarily sent to and held on Earth in limbo until the Unified Planetary Government or the Interplanetary Commerce And Flight Committee headquarters there can establish a connection with the original sender.”
“So don’t you have that info?” I asked. “My cousin needs proof of where the money came from.”
“It appears,” the teller said as she read from her screen, “that the connection went bad. This often happens when money crosses between multiple planets. Do you have an account on another planet—is that what you mean about tax purposes?”
Vervais nodded.
And so did I as I said, “We’re originally from Earth, and now he’s afraid the money came from a dead distant relative and might have to be added onto a Diamond inheritance tax for this year.”
“Well,” the woman sighed, “I’m sorry to hear that, but I’ve given you everything I know. There’s just nothing else listed here.”
I experienced a bizarre frantic moment of depression. This whole goddamn afternoon dealing with this dirty goddamn guy and his dirty goddamn house—and I wound up with goddamn zip!
*
The three of us left the bank, and my feet in my black shoes angrily pounded the ground as I eyed Vervais in front of me.
Because his normal state apparently was as close to brain dead as you could get while not on a respirator, I knew he wasn’t behind the letters. They had been planned; the whole thing had been carefully planned. And Vervais probably couldn’t plan a trip for his own goddamn ass to his own goddamn toilet seat.
“Well, Boss?” Roberto said to me over his shoulder.
I looked at him. “We’ve got nothing, except this goddamn zombie.”
“Dots,” The Zombie Junkie said then, and I wanted to jerk my foot forward and kick him right in his ass.
*
“Where you from originally?” Roberto asked The Zombie once they were in the back seat of the car again.
“Ker—Keron,” The Zombie said.
In my rearview mirror, I saw the face Roberto pulled. “He’s not a Sander. I don’t need my gun. I could snap his scrawny arm with my hands.”
“Don’t exaggerate,” I said as I put my foot to the accelerator and turned down the final road to Vervais’s place.
*
As soon as we got back to his apartment, Vervais dove for the messes inside, saying, “Dots,” as his fingers rummaged through his crap.
From the doorway, Roberto and I watched him and talked about him.
“What next?” Roberto asked me.
“We’ll help keep him stoned.”
“What?”
“Well, unless you want to babysit him for the next few days, he’s probably less of a danger to me stoned than sober.” I hated drugs, yet what choice did I have here?
“But, Pia, maybe he could remember who hired him if he was lucid!”
I frowned at Roberto and jerked my thumb at Vervais. “Does he look like he’s had a lucid moment in years? You yourself said that’s impossible on the algae.”
“Red bottle—bottle!” I heard Vervais mumbling as his hands worked at one of his messy piles.
“Let me help you,” I called to him.
I walked into the apartment and began rifling through his gross shit, thinking that after this trek, probably my whole body would need disinfecting.
I didn’t find any bottles in one of his piles, so I moved to the next pile in a corner of the room—where I finally found a red bottle. I held it up, shaking it at his still-in-a-stupor face. “Is this it?”
He tried to grab it from me, but my eyes had caught something clutched in his fingers: a small torn piece of silver paper. With my empty hand I snatched the paper from him and realized it wasn’t paper; it was part of a wrapper, a spaceship cargo wrapper. Anything ship-mailed across planets was typically packed into metallic-plastic, vacuum-packed wrappers.
I shook the silver piece in front of Vervais’s face. “What’s this?”
“Letters—three letters. Bottle,” he said, grabbing at my other arm.
But I successfully fielded the grab. “Three? You mean my letters? But I only have TWO.”
“Three. Bottle.”
“Goddammit—I think he’s saying there’s another letter!” I yanked at one of his arms and shook him. “Where—where is it?”
“Dun—dunno.”
“Shit!” I said.
His fingers grabbed for the bottle again, and this time I let him take it.
“Is it here?” I shouted.
I began searching through his messy room again, which I did with more zeal than the first time—well, I was far beyond zeal now and into full-blown-anger territory.
“Goddammit, Roberto—help me here!” I shouted as I flung something smelly off a mound of garbage.
Roberto did help me, and he was the one who finally found the third envelope—stuck beneath one of the couch cushions, the paper bent and stained with who-knew-what. But the familiar writing on the outside was unmistakable.
By this point I was so angry and so stressed, I no longer gave a shit about fingerprints or preserving any goddamn evidence—I would probably only find what I’d already found—
I tore open the envelope and pulled out the inner envelope, then tore that and saw the message inside:
I’ll see you soon when you’ll be dead before June.
What the fuck did that tell m
e? Nothing! Diamond’s June was months away. That meant I could be dead during any of the months leading up to that one!
My hands were shaking on the letter, and so was my mouth doing its own version of Saint Vitus’s Dance. I thought of what Roberto had said earlier about saints—where were they when you needed them?
I charged toward the front door and Roberto followed me. I heard Vervais call, “Thanks visit!” as I stepped over the threshold and into the outside.
I charged through the park.
“Now what, Pia?” an out-of-breath Roberto asked from behind me.
“I’ve got to get out of here. The answers aren’t here.”
“Where—Diamond, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
“Where the hell you gonna go, Boss?”
“To Earth. Back to Earth. The package came from there—it’s the only real lead.”
“But what if that’s what they want—maybe they’re misdirecting you!”
“Honestly, Roberto, at this point I just don’t know what the hell else to do.”
When I reached his car, I asked him to open the trunk so I could stick the new threat-letter and the silver-wrapper piece inside my case. But then, when I noticed anew the dirty state of the envelope, I changed my mind and just threw that and the wrapper into the trunk.
Roberto sighed heavily as he slammed the trunk closed. “My car’s gonna need a cleaning.”
“So are we.”
Inside the car now, I said to him, “You got free time tonight? Forget about doing the Jericho search tomorrow—I need you to come back to the office and do it now. Just make yourself comfortable and use your computer in your office.”
Months ago I’d had Roberto and Mike set up their own personal space in one of MSA’s rooms. Roberto actually didn’t work in his space much, partly because he mostly did leg work and not office work, and partly because he didn’t care for the room’s location: it was at the cottage’s very back, and he sometimes complained that he felt too out-of-the-know inside there, would rather be up front with me, which he usually was.
But the main room was only so big, and though I only in-person met with clients by carefully-planned appointment, some days my main room felt quite crowded….
Roberto was talking to me. “…I don’t have any plans for tonight—”
“Good,” I cut him off, because suddenly my mind was racing so fast, and I didn’t want to waste time listening to sentences that were either unnecessary or that I could finish myself.
He was driving but he glanced down at himself. “I’m filthy though!”
“Just use the big bathroom to shower and change into something else—I’m sure you’ve got something in your office.”
*
The house that enclosed MSA had two bathrooms: the full-bath, which had come with the house and was for me and my staff only, and the half-bath, which I’d just had installed a few months ago, so any visiting clients would have their own bathroom.
I always wanted to make MSA as much of a comfortable space as possible for the others there, client or not. But, it seemed death-threats were the thanks I got for being an accommodating person.
When Roberto and I reached MSA, I walked into the full-bathroom to wash my arms and Roberto walked into his room—then came out of it a minute later, his face a study in pouting. “All I could find was one of Mike’s shirts!”
Mike. I’d forgotten about him and Cooperson.
“Does it fit you?” I said to Roberto as I towel-dried my hands.
“It might, yeah. But I’m dirty all over, Boss….”
I thought of something. “Hang on a minute.” I went into Nell’s office and looked in her closet.
When I walked out of there a moment later, I was carrying a pair of black slacks, which I held open by the wide waistband. “I think these’ll work.”
Roberto frowned at them. “But those are a pregnant gal’s pants—maternity clothes!”
“Yep. Now don’t get all macho. The point is: they look like they’ll fit.”
Roberto groaned, but he did grab the pants and disappear into the full-bathroom.
While he was washing up in there, I removed spare clothes of mine from the hall closet, then I sponge-washed my body and my hair in the half-bath’s sink. This felt weird: Roberto and I had never bathed in the same house together. I hoped we’d never have to bathe in the same SHOWER together at some point. But with the way my life usually went, you just never knew….
When I had finally put on the clean clothes and was neatening up the bathroom, I noticed my face in the round mirror above the sink. My skin looked and felt tautly haggard, as if I’d aged two years in two days.
My back suddenly stooped. Then I thought of the third letter. Then I groaned and yanked open the door.
A moment later I was dialing Mike’s portable phone number and remembering how he was a recreational drug user, a recreational drug smoker—he’d never exactly said he was, but I could tell that he used some type of weed. I wasn’t crazy about it, not at all, but he’d never let this affect his work and he’d never come to a job stoned. I just hoped he hadn’t picked today to change that policy because I’d now had enough of drug addicts to last me a lifetime.
He answered his phone on the second ring. “Mike here.”
“What’s up there?”
“Pia, I’m across the street. The guy’s an exhibitionist, never closes his curtains. He came home a while ago and watched TV. Now he’s making himself food in his kitchen. He seems calm.”
“Not a care in the world, the fuckhead,” I snapped.
“He’s actually kind of cute,” said Mike.
“Don’t go getting any ideas.”
He laughed. Then: “How long you want me to stay?”
“I don’t. Come back to the office.”
“But I thought you said you’re having safety issues—”
“There’s no point in tailing Cooperson. I’m pretty sure he’s a dead end.”
I hung up with Mike and a newly-clean, damp-haired Roberto came out of the bathroom; he held his dirty clothes at arm’s length. “You got something for this—a bag?”
“Just put it in the laundry bag for the service.” I got up and walked to the main-room’s closet where I kept the bag. I had a housekeeping service come by once a week—and, shit, I just realized I’d have to cancel the cleaning for this week. I didn’t want anyone around the office even for important reasons right now, forget about the trivial stuff.
I would dump my and Roberto’s dirty clothes in the bag and take them to the cleaning service myself tomorrow; then I’d have mine held there till I came back from…wherever. What would my specific plan now be? At this moment I only knew the next direction I’d probably need to move in, and that direction was toward Earth. If that movement did become a reality, it would be hard for me—remaining on a sealed ship for days would be hard for me. It always was. I could make short trips okay, like to Hera nearby, or to Hera’s and Diamond’s moons. But a trip to Earth was longer and there were multiple flumes to travel through….
I was sighing as I tossed the bag containing our dirty clothes onto the floor. I still felt skanky though…. I thought a moment; then I grabbed a clean, long housecoat-apron I kept in the kitchen and went into the big bathroom.
I couldn’t help it: I had to take a full shower. Maybe I thought I could wash the day off better that way. But I also realized I wanted Tan with me at the office—shit, I wanted everyone there. I soooo needed people around me right now….
I finished my shower, slipped on the clean housecoat and walked out.
Roberto pointed at the half-bath and said, “Boss, didn’t you just wash up in there before?”
“Yeah.”
He didn’t say anything further, and I dumped the clothes I’d just changed into and out of right into that dirty-laundry bag. I went back into the full-bath to use the hair-dryer attached to the wall.
By the time I came back out, I had some color in my
face again. Maybe I’d lost a year in age. At least I hoped I had.
Roberto had since disappeared into his office, and now I donned rubber gloves and carefully placed the new threat and the silver wrapper piece into a plastic baggie. Then I went around spraying herbal disinfectant on everything we’d touched since we’d gotten here.
Roberto reappeared to grab a pen from Nell’s desk.
“I’ve got to call Tan,” I said to him as I dropped the rubber gloves onto the half-bath’s sink.
“I’m doing more searching on that Hydro place now.”
“Good.”
I sat down by my desk phone and was just about to telephone Tan when I thought of Nell.
I dialed her portable’s number and told her to stop by now if she could.
“For real?” she asked then, and in such an excited tone that I laughed, which felt like my first laugh of the day. Or maybe it actually had been my first. I’d lost any familiarity with happiness today….
“Yes,” I said to Nell, “for real.”
“I’m at the furniture store in town with Derek and Annie; they’re coming too—don’t say no! We’ll all be there in ten minutes. It’ll be okay.”
“All right,” I agreed. And I did this because I felt a bit safer, not totally safe, but the threat now seemed less immediate.
Whoever had planned my demise seemed to have poor taste in the people he’d gotten to do his dirty work; Vervais, at least, was a weakling. But maybe my hater hadn’t needed accomplices for anything other than being go-betweens.
I hung up with Nell and dialed Tan’s portable; when he answered he said he’d just walked in the door at the house.
“Come to MSA,” I said. “Everyone’ll be here—it’ll be like a party—ha-ha!” I laughed, but it was a forced laugh because I wasn’t exactly feeling festive.
“What have you been doing all day there?” Tan asked.
“What do you mean all day? I was out on a….” I stopped; I thought. Then I repeated,
“What do you mean ‘all day’?”
