by Nat Kozinn
“Yeah, you’re ancient,” Alexis said and rolled her eyes. “Still, you used to be the one pushing through bullshit answers in order to get the truth. Now you’re the one flinging the crap. Isn’t that hard to live with sometimes? The girl I remember wanted to interrogate the world and make sure all those corporate bastards had their lies exposed.”
“The woman I am now sees all the digits on my paychecks and finds it quite easy to live with. Once I saw all those zeroes, I forgot all the platitudes I used to say in order to convince myself I was important,” Laurie said without breaking her smile, her years of public relations training shining through.
Alexis picked up her cocktail and downed it in one gulp. She needed some liquid assistance to turn her attitude around. “I’ve been coming to that realization myself. Whenever I feel bad about writing up my inane interviews with the Savior, I take a look at our sales numbers. At least people are finally reading what I’m writing again. If a reporter uncovers the truth in the woods, but no one reads it, did she really uncover anything?”
“Will wonders never cease. When you turned down all those jobs on the think.Net pubs, I thought you were going down with the ship while sitting on the deck on top of your high horse. Does that mean you’re ready to cash in? I’m sure everyone will be falling all over themselves to offer you a job—once your run is over, that is.”
“It’s hard for this old dog to learn new tricks, but I’m getting there. I won’t be rejecting any calls like I did twenty years ago. That’s for sure,” Alexis said. She made eye contact with a waiter and pointed down at her drink. “You want another?”
“I’m alright. One of the secrets to meetings in a bar is nursing your drink. Otherwise, things get ugly fast.”
“There’s another new trick I’ll have to learn,” Alexis said.
“I’m just glad you’re willing to try. You know I love you, Lexi, but I was starting to worry you were going to die in that horrible office. The only reason I agreed to meet you was because I wanted to see how you were doing. I hope you can understand that I was a little concerned that you were going to press me about some injustice or another you think Ultracorps is committing.”
“I guess you didn’t lose all of your journalistic instincts,” Alexis said, and she took a sip of her recently delivered drink.
“Maybe I do need that drink. Okay, let’s have it. Which of our many supposed crimes are you interested in?”
“Your support for Alderman Acado has caught my eye. I can’t help but notice that Ultracorps has donated heavily to his campaign, and I also couldn’t help but notice that he’s supporting Ultracorps’ bid to take over the municipal sanitation contracts in the Outer Areas.”
Laurie flinched ever so slightly. It was only noticeable because of how static her smile had been to that point. “That’s your story? Isn’t that merely a primer on how American politics works?”
“On the surface, yes, but Ultracorps’ support is surprising considering…”
“Come on, Alexis. This is boiler-plate stuff. We’re supporting Alderman Acado because his positions are in line with our values. Just like the Teachers’ Union supports candidates that want to spend more money on education. Are we supposed to donate to politicians that want to outlaw contracts with Ultracorps?”
“I would expect you to support politicians who have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning. Since Acado announced that he’s going to support your bid to receive the contract, he’s gone from popular to pariah in the drop of a hat. He could have slapped a child live on think.Net and it wouldn’t have made his numbers drop that quickly. No amount of campaign donations is going to make up for the damage he’s doing to his reputation. He’s committing political suicide in order to support your bid. Why would any politician do such a thing?”
“You’ll have to ask him that yourself. I’m sorry, but it’s getting late and I’ve got a big meeting in the morning,” Laurie said and stood up. “You’re welcome for the information on the Savior. At least one of us knows how to act like a friend. Be seeing you, Alexis.”
The woman got up and walked away in the fastest walk that could still be described as such.
Alexis downed the rest of her drink with a grimace. That was a burnt bridge that would never be rebuilt, but at least she was able to pull something out of the fire. No way would Laurie get rattled like that unless she was worried something might shake free.
◆◆◆
David walked toward his apartment just as Billy, the landlord’s son, was slipping a letter under the door. David would have liked to sneak up on him, but that was not possible for a man David’s size.
“Mr. Gilbreth, nice to see you, especially because I’ve been hearing an awful lot about you, and reading, too,” Billy said. His smile was friendly; his tone was not.
“I guess the world got bored and decided to remember I exist. What can I say? If you’re worried about the looky lous, they’ll be gone soon enough. And they’re mostly harmless.”
“So do you have anything for me?”
“Really? I didn’t know you were a fan,” David said, covering his mouth in phony shock. “I think I’ve got a few headshots inside. Should I make it out to you?”
“I’m glad you can be so glib. I don’t have time for jokes as I am too busy finding ways to balance the budget considering half this building is behind on its rent.”
“Alright, alright,” David said and reached into his pocket. He pulled out a wad of bills and picked out a few hundreds. “This should be enough to catch me up. Put me ahead even.”
“Well, it is the third, so I’m not sure I’d go that far, but thank you, Mr. Gilbreth,” Billy said, and it seemed like he meant it. “I hope you’re developing a plan to sustain this financial success when your time in the sun is over. Perhaps you are unaware, but rent comes due every month.”
“I’ve always been more of a live-in-the-moment type.”
“How lucky to have such a luxury. Good day, Mr. Gilbreth. I hope we do not see each other for a good long while,” he said and walked away.
“Hey! Finally something we can agree on!” David yelled after him.
He pulled out his keys and opened the door to his apartment. He got himself a glass of water and downed it in two quick gulps. Then he walked over to the corner of his apartment. He lifted up a two-hundred-pound dumbbell and pulled out an envelope that was trapped underneath the weight.
He pulled out a wad of cash from the envelope and combined it with the wad from his pocket. He counted the new, larger wad: $3260. Not a bad little nest egg considering his rent was now paid up. The interviews were paying off. But it was time for it to go back down to zero. He put the cash into his pocket and walked out of the door.
He had to go down to the Cash Connect on the corner of 43rd, and he wanted to get there before it closed. Technically, the last letter from the Springdale Retirement Home said that he had another week, but considering the stakes, David would rather be safe than sorry. It sounded like his mother might actually get kicked out this time, and while it may still have been a bluff, it was one David was not willing to call. The retirement home deserved to be paid in either case.
The three thousand dollars wouldn’t quite dig the account completely out of the hole, but it would be enough to soften the tone of the letters for a while. The worst part was the hundred-dollar fee for the wire transfer. How could it possibly cost one hundred dollars? Didn’t the bank just do a little subtraction from one account and a little addition to another? A third grader could have done the math. Of course, if David had a checking account, he could have done the wire for free or close to it. But checking accounts had fees and minimums to contend with. Just another way it didn’t pay to be poor.
The alternative, however, was worse. David could have gone down to the home and paid the cash, but getting out there was difficult. It was a thirty-block walk from the station to the facility, and that was just part of it. The 46 didn’t have a Strong-Man car, so he couldn’t
fit on the train. That meant he either had to go way out of the way and catch the 33 or get out on Hamilton and walk three blocks to get on the Hamilton 46, but the 46 only had a Strong-Man car every two hours, and he always seemed to just miss it.
All that just to see his mother who didn’t recognize him ninety percent of the time. The other ten percent of the time, all she did was ask where Carter was. It wasn’t worth the hassle; the one-hundred dollars was worth it to avoid all that hardship for everyone. Cash Connect was the plan.
Luis popped out of his apartment right as David walked by. It was timed suspiciously well, like Luis had been staring out of his peephole and waiting.
“Hey, Savior!” Luis said, yelling in youthful exuberance.
David cringed in response to the volume and the surprise. “Hey, Luis,” he said and kept walking.
Luis ran in front of David, blocking his path.
“What are you doing?” the boy asked.
“I have to run an errand.”
“Can I come?”
“I’m in a hurry, Luis. Is your mom or Mario around?” he asked.
Luis shook his head.
“Sorry, Luis. I can’t. Maybe you should just go do your homework.”
Luis’s shoulders sagged, and he trudged back to his apartment. David walked out of the building and walked until he heard footsteps running up the street behind him.
Scales. He was huffing and puffing.
“Savior, man, you got to come quick. It’s the church. Somebody messed up the place real bad. You gotta come see.”
Asking Scales for any further explanation would have taken forever and yielded few results, so David nodded and took off toward the church. He walked quickly, a power walk really, but Scales could not keep up.
There was a small crowd gathered outside Saint Mary’s church. They all seemed to be milling about, though; no one was actually going inside the building.
“What’s going on? Where’s Sister Berta?” David asked one of the many onlookers.
“I hear the place is completely trashed. She’s in there alone,” the man answered.
That explained why the crowd was in a holding pattern. David did not relish whoever had to attempt to comfort Sister Berta. And much to his chagrin, a scan of the crowd revealed no one with a closer relationship than he and Sister Berta had, so the task fell on his shoulders.
He approached the wooden double doors on the front of the church and knocked. The massive doors looked regular-size juxtaposed with the giant man. He tried the door and it opened with the slightest touch. It was not locked; no one else had even tried to come in.
It was dark inside the church. The WormLights were out, and not much light was coming in the windows, but what sunlight did shine through was enough to reveal a scene of destruction. There was graffiti all over the walls. Large bubble letters that David could not read were everywhere.
The pews were at best knocked over and at worst smashed to splinters. Bibles were strewn about, their pages torn out and their spines bent. The altar at the front of the room was smashed to pieces. Even the molding had been torn down. The ornamental candles were missing from the front. The holders were made of tin, so they had some value as scrap.
As David walked down the aisles, he was hit by a smell he knew well, but he usually only caught a whiff of it in a side alley. Whoever did this was beyond vile.
Sister Berta was at the front of the church, leaning on the steps up to the altar. She had her head down and resting in her hands.
“Sister Berta?” David asked in a whisper.
“That iron cross came from across the world. It had been in a Spanish church before it was brought across the Atlantic a hundred years ago. It moved around the coast until it found its way to this church fifty years ago. The nun who was in charge before me, Sister Rose, told me to treasure it like it was from Jesus Christ himself. It survived the Plagues without the slightest damage to the iron. I always thought the Lord was watching over that cross, watching over the whole church. Now it’s gone. Probably sold for ten dollars as scrap, and then one of those punks used that money to get high and forget what a miserable bastard he is for a few hours. How is that the end for that cross? How can that be its fate?”
“I’m sorry?” David said. “I really don’t know what to say. You’re usually the one with the meaningful words of quiet comfort. I’m sure there’s some passage in the Bible where somebody survived something this bad. Leviticus 19:42?” A clear guess.
He placed his giant hand on her shoulder. She leaned in, comforted by the touch. Most people wouldn’t reach out toward a nun, but in this case, David’s ignorance was a blessing.
“Yes, it’s safe to say there are a few passages where someone suffers a greater test of faith,” Sister Berta said and cracked a smile. “What are we going to do? We don’t have the money to fix all this. Should I put out the collection plates? Most of the parishioners line up for food whenever we’re serving. You can’t get blood from a stone.”
“Well, this stone is bleeding… or something that sounds better than that. But the point is, I have money,” David said and pulled the wad of cash out of his pocket.
“My God!” she said and popped a quick Hail Mary in penance for taking the Lord’s name in vain.
“It’s not replace Spanish-relic money, but it should be enough to at least start the clean-up, get some new pews, and take care of whatever that smell is.”
“The animals. Who could do such a thing in the house of the Lord? And all for what? They could have just taken the cross and whatever else they grabbed. Why the graffiti? Why did they have to break things?”
“I don’t know. Maybe someone should ask them,” David said as he eyed one of the gang signs. He was pretty sure he had seen it before. It looked almost like a clown hat.
“I see you’ve really been paying attention to the whole message we’ve got going on here,” Sister Berta said and slapped David’s arm lightly. “Get those thoughts out of your head, especially in these walls. Pounding on stupid young kids isn’t going to fix any of this.”
“What’s going to stop them from coming back after we fix the place up?”
“Who’s going to stop them if they come back for revenge and you aren’t around?”
“Touché.”
8
“An advance?” Alexis asked.
“Yeah, an advance. We’re supposed to have another interview this weekend. Would you mind giving me the money up front? I’m in a bit of a jam, and it would really help me out,” David said.
“We don’t do advances.”
“Okay, then can we move the interview up? It’s not like any of my old stories are going to change before Saturday.”
“I guess. When were you thinking?” Alexis asked, and then she saw his pleading face. “Now?”
“Yeah, and I need the money now, too.”
“Jesus, you really are in a jam,” she said and fully opened the door to her apartment. “Come on in. I’ll have to see how much I’ve got.”
The apartment was cluttered to say the least. There were piles of newspapers covering half the square footage. At least half the remaining space was covered in books and magazines, many of them worn and yellowed. Presumably, there was some plain-looking old furniture somewhere under the piles, but that could only be assumed because paper cannot hover in place.
“Sorry, it’s been a while since I cleaned—a long while. Here, let me clear you a seat,” she said and ran over and moved a column of newspapers that was apparently resting on top of a white Pho-Plastic chair.
“Don’t bother. That thing won’t hold my weight anyway. I’ll just stand.”
“Of course,” Alexis said. “I’ll have to check my hiding spots to see how much cash I have. You know, this would be a lot easier if you had a think.Net wire. I honestly don’t know how you live without it.” Alexis disappeared into a nearby closet, moving around a couple boxes.
“A zero balance is a zero balance whether you’re
talking cash or think.Net wires, so I’m not sure I really notice the inconvenience.”
“It’s not just that. Everything goes through think.Net now. TV shows, mail, telephone, and even the news for most people. Hell, the damn thing basically ruined my profession, but I still spend a quarter of my day lost in the stare.”
“It’s hard to miss something you never had in the first place. Everyone swears how important and life-changing think.Net is, but I don’t seem so far behind even with my condition.”
“Yeah, but you must go nuts with nothing to do while you’re on the Slug. Aha!” Alexis yelled and pulled an oven mitt out from behind a bookcase.
“I can only ride on lines with Strong-Man cars. Those mostly run at rush hour, and I don’t like getting up early. I end up walking to get around most of the time.”
“All the more reason to need something to do to kill time,” Alexis said as she pulled a mish-mashed pile of bills out of the mitt. She struggled to straighten and count the bills.
“I don’t leave the Heights that often, and when I do, I guess I just have to be alone with my thoughts.”
“That sounds awful,” Alexis said and then slipped off her shoe. She produced another bill that was hidden inside. She added it to the pile from the oven mitt. “I’ve got $745. There’s a big bucket full of change somewhere in here if you’re going to need more tonight.”
“That’s enough,” he said and pocketed the cash.
“What do you need it for?” Alexis asked. She pulled a notepad and a pen from one of the piles. She had many options to choose from.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” David said.
“Well, that’s not very nice,” she said with a frown. “I would hope you’d be a little more forthcoming.”
“I’m supposed to tell you whatever you want to know because we moved our interview up a few days? I’m not sure I follow your logic.”
