Ben Soul

by Richard George

Camino Esqueleto

  Osso Del Oso

  We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Please come visit us when you can. We miss you and all our friends in the City very much.

  Ben

  Len wrote Elke Hall, whom he had come to know through earthquake relief.

  Ms. Elke Hall

  112 Lost Lane

  The City

  December 14, 1980

  Dear Elke,

  Ben and I have moved to Osso Del Oso. Indigent Aborigine has promoted him to the data center they have built down here. He has almost doubled his income. It was too good an opportunity to pass up. I was able to get a job with the county as a secretarial pool administrator. A decent salary and better benefits than I had working for Shocker Electric.

  We have a small bungalow, with palm trees. The place looks a lot like a movie set from the 1940s except it doesn’t have climbing roses. The yard is small, and doesn’t require too much upkeep. The house is small, too, and needs a lot of dusting. The desert’s nearby, and “travels in on the afternoon winds” as Ben puts it.

  Ben works nights and I work days. So far, we haven’t got much of a social life. I have joined a committee to preserve the downtown area. That provides me some contacts outside work. Ben has almost no contact with anybody except people he works with. Social life will have to wait until Ben’s on day shift (about six months away).

  Our new address is:

  1589 Camino Esqueleto

  Osso Del Oso

  I trust your work with La Señora’s Mission is going well. You folks serve a real need in that part of the City. I’ve always admired La Señora’s dedication. Please say hello to her for me. Also, give Rosa a kiss from us. How we wish she were running a restaurant in Osso Del Oso! No one makes bouillabaisse and ratatouille to match hers. Give yourself a hug, and keep your health.

  Until next Christmas,

  Len

  Developments

  Mae Ling bid her family goodbye at the docks. They all wept openly, knowing the separation would be for many years, and maybe forever. The INS hearings had been brutal, and their so-called justice swift and severe. Despite the Ling lawyers’ efforts, many of the Ling properties were forfeit to the INS, others to the City. Some they had successfully put into Mae’s name, to provide for her financially. They sold several others, especially those held in obscure subsidiaries of the family business, and spirited the funds away to China. Much of the Ling property had gone to greedy government agencies, but enough remained for the Lings to start over.

  Mae left the docks before the vessel carrying her family and their servants set sail down the Bay toward the sea. She did not want to watch the wake billowing behind them; it would have made her loss too keen. She needed now to establish herself on her own. Aside from arranging for a trusted family financial planner to handle her investments, Mae needed an occupation. Even though her income from her investments would be sufficient for comfort, her nature did not admire idleness. She needed to be doing something.

  Some days later, as she went about inspecting properties in her portfolio, she came to Lost Lane. The property included three shop fronts, all available for rent. She said “Hello,” to the small, middle-aged lady in a long black dress who was sweeping the stoop in front of the soup kitchen next door.

  La Señora looked at her. “Hello,” she said. She took in Mae’s conservative business suit, a navy blue with a narrow skirt and wide lapels to the jacket. “What can I do for you?”

  “Have these shops been empty long?” Mae asked, making conversation. She could have got such information from her management company if she really needed to know.

  “Yes,” La Señora said. “One on the left, on the corner, used to be a Mom and Pop grocery. One in the middle was a hardware store. The one on the right, here, next to my mission, was a lot of different stores. The stores all closed up when the owners died and the neighborhood changed from families to what you see.” La Señora started sweeping again, careful to avoid dusting Mae’s navy blue slippers.

  “Perhaps a book shop would be good here, next to the mission.”

  La Señora looked up from her broom’s path. “Perhaps it would. We don’t sell tracts, pamphlets, or bibles. We concentrate on feeding the hungry and clothing the naked, practical matters like that.”

  “I know others,” Mae Ling said. “They may also be interested in opening shops in the other store fronts.”

  “Neighbors would be nice,” La Señora said. “Shops might even provide occasional employment for some of the people our mission serves.” She leaned her broom against the wall. “I don’t know who owns this building,” she said.

  “I do,” Mae Ling said. “I inherited it from my father. My name is Mae Ling.”

  “Welcome, then, Mae Ling. I’m Salvación Mandor. My folk call me La Señora. If you check our accounts, you’ll find our rent’s been paid on time every time.”

  “I’m sure,” Mae Ling said. “I’ll check back with you later. I must go attend to other business for now.”

  Mae Ling provided La Señora a small bow, and went down the street. Over the coming days, she contacted several of her acquaintance, and finally persuaded Malcolm Drye to open a gardening shop in one storefront, and the Swami to open a stationery store in the other. The stores prospered in a small way.

  Slash and Burns

  Mae Ling looked up as the red-haired man came into her shop. Something about his swagger annoyed her at once. She concealed her annoyance behind a mask of inscrutability. Annoying people spent good money on books. Extremely annoying people spent no money on books, only smudged the pages as they “browsed” along.

  The red-haired man’s trim body was just beginning to run to fat. His face was youthful, but lines had already eroded his cheeks. On the whole, it made him dissipated looking. He nodded at her.

  “Ms. Ling?” he inquired. His voice was pleasant in the way a third whiskey is pleasant, smooth, but promising an edge of pain later on. Mae Ling kept her heart-shaped face carefully neutral as she pasted on a professional smile. Her black eyes filled with suspicion. The red-haired man did not seem to notice.

  “I am Ms. Ling,” she said, adopting a slightly singsong accent she’d learned Caucasians had come to expect.

  “My card,” the man said. He came to the counter, his hand extended. Between his forefinger and second finger his snowy white card rode. Mae took it from him and read it. It said, “Cutter Slash and Forrest Burns, Developers, Slash and Burns Corporation” with a telephone number under it. She handed it back to him.

  “Are you Mr. Slash or Mr. Burns?”

  “Burns, Forrest Burns.”

  “What kind of book may I get for you, Mr. Burns,” she asked. He did not take the card.

  “I’m not here to buy books,” he said. “I’m here to ask who owns this property.”

  “My landlord.”

  “And who is that?”

  “I do not know. I pay my rent to the Tumbleweed Terrace Management Association. You will have to ask them who the landlord is.” Mae smiled professionally at Mr. Burns.

  “Where may I contact them?”

  “I will write out their address for you,” Mae said. She took a small note pad and wrote the address on it. She deliberately gave Mr. Burns the post office box where she sent her rent check. She did not tell him that one Salvación Mandor emptied that box and deposited the rent to Mae’s secret account. Mr. Burns thanked her for the information she gave him, and went next door to The Swami’s stationery shop. He gave Mr. Burns a similar answer, as did La Señora at the Mission, and Malcolm Drye at the garden store. No one wanted to cooperate with a person who identified himself or herself as a developer.

  In her office at City Hall, Vanna Dee reviewed projections for City Renewal activities. The map in front of her was marked with yellow highlighting on blocks ready for redevelopment with high-rise offices, stores, and condominiums
that would enhance the City’s tax revenues. Several of the blocks so highlighted were either empty, or had a large proportion of boarded up and abandoned buildings. General consensus agreed that these blighted areas should be re-developed.

  Vanna picked up her phone. She consulted a card from her Rolodex, and then dialed William Ding, Developer. When his secretary had put her through to him, she said, “Did you have any luck finding the owners of the Mission Block?”

  “No. Do you know anything about a Tumbleweed Terrace Management Company?”

  “Only that it’s a front bleeding heart do-gooders use to shield namby-pamby landlords. Is that the lead the people gave you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Even the Mission leadership?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll check the property tax rolls. I’ll get back to you.”

  Vanna replaced the receiver, and then lifted it and dialed again. This time her call went to the City’s property tax office. She soon knew the property deed was in the name of Fa Ling. She smiled at the Venus Fly Trap a friend had given her for her desk. The plant shriveled under her smile. Fa Ling’s property was forfeit to the City under his deportation sentence. This piece had not transferred into Mae Ling’s name with the others. Vanna called Rome Burns and gave him the news. Within two hours, Slash and Burns had offered the City a reasonable bid on the property. By nightfall of the next day, escrow had closed. Slash and Burns worked well within the City’s bureaucracy.

  Mae Ling, The Swami, Malcolm Drye, and La Señora learned of the