Terminated

by Ray Daniel

  I said, “And then I got promoted.”

  Carol’s lips twisted with annoyance. “Yup,” she said. “It was the beginning of the end.”

  “And now it’s the end of the end.”

  “Don’t be so glum. You’ve got a bright future,” said Carol, “assuming you don’t get killed.”

  “What future?”

  “The future you’ll start living once you figure out why I died.”

  “And who killed you.”

  Carol leaned forward. “You know who killed me.”

  I rubbed my neck where the garrote mark was fading and said, “I guess I do.”

  “And you know he wasn’t the guy who killed Alice.”

  “Yeah, but the two are linked, aren’t they?”

  “You know that too,” said Carol.

  The bathroom door opened. Dana stepped out, wearing a long blue Wellfleet sleep shirt that had once belonged to Carol. She sat where Carol had been a second ago. An upgrade over Carol? A downgrade? An upgrade. Dana was alive. Big advantage.

  Dana crinkled her nose at my tea and said, “What’s that smell?”

  I said, “It’s maté.”

  “Does it have caffeine?”

  “Yup.”

  “Fill me up.”

  I put a tea bag into a Linux-penguin mug and poured hot water on it. The bag floated to the top like a Portuguese man-o’-war and steeped. I focused on the tea bag to avoid staring at Dana’s nipples as they poked through her shirt. She was obviously going commando.

  I grabbed the frying pan and flipped the omelet onto a plate. Then I put it on the counter between us and gave Dana a fork.

  “Mangia!” I said.

  Dana said, “You’re Italian?”

  “On my mother’s side.”

  She breathed in the steam from the maté, took a sip, then dug into her side of the omelet. The toast was done. I served it dry with butter on the side. Too bad I didn’t have scones. The thought of scones made me think of England, Roland, MantaSoft, and Kevin.

  I said, “It was a code, wasn’t it?”

  Dana nibbled some omelet. “What was a code?”

  “When you told me that I liked older women. You and Kevin had set up a code so you’d know I was helping you. But he never got a chance to tell me.”

  “It was a code. I felt it was kind of mean, but Kevin thought it was funny.”

  I asked, “So what now?”

  Dana said, “There is no ‘what now.’ I have to go back to work. Maybe tonight.”

  “No, not that kind of ‘what now.’ I meant what about figuring out who killed Alice?”

  Dana looked disappointed. She said, “You mean last night was just a one-night stand?”

  “Well. No. What I mean to say is …”

  Dana’s eyes developed a pixie-like glint.

  I asked, “Are you screwing with me?”

  “Maybe.” Then a laugh.

  “Well, quit it.”

  “I just like seeing you get all worked up,” she said. “It’s cute.”

  I drank some tea and said, “You know, we don’t have much time. Tomorrow Jack announces the merger, the show ends, and everybody scatters. After that, we’ll never figure out what happened.”

  Dana shifted back into being serious. She said, “Don’t forget the serial killer. He’s still going to need his Thursday-afternoon kill.”

  “That’s true. But I still don’t see how he fits into this. Or why he was the one to kill Alice. Why didn’t they just cut her throat?”

  Dana forked some omelet and said, “I think it was an opportunity killing. They thought Alice needed killing and this guy was horny. He just took on the job.” Dana drank her tea and continued, “I read Kevin’s report on Alice.”

  “The one where Roland said that I did it?”

  Dana cocked her head, gave me a How did you know that? look.

  I said, “Bobby told me it was Roland. He wanted me to watch my back.”

  “Bobby was right. You do need to watch your back,” she said. “Roland told Kevin that your wife was sleeping with Alice and that you were probably out for revenge.”

  “Roland is a fucking asshole.”

  “Is it true?”

  “That Roland is a fucking asshole? Absolutely. Hand to God.”

  “Is it true that your wife was sleeping with Alice?”

  “I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense. It was a rumor around the office.”

  Dana hopped off the stool and said, “We need to figure out how that rumor started.” She walked back to the bedroom.

  I called after her, “I have just the guy.” Then I started texting.

  Two breakfasts in one day. Bonus!

  forty-two

  Huey, the programming man-child, dug into a pancake the size of a laptop and considered my question. We were in the cafeteria in the Waltham building, an airy expanse where you could get a bite to eat and listen to the water rushing in the fountain. Huey was making short work of his pancake, and I tweeted his success while I let the silence build:

  Man vs. Food. @hueybigdog 1, Pancake 0.

  Huey asked, “What did you tweet?”

  “I gave you props for showing your pancake who’s boss.”

  “Thanks.”

  “But you still haven’t answered my question. Where did people get this idea that Alice and Carol were lovers?”

  “I don’t know,” said Huey. “Suddenly it just seemed that guys were talking about Alice and Carol.”

  “Come on, dude. That kind of thing doesn’t just start up. There must have been a trigger. Did you guys go out drinking or something?”

  Huey shifted his girth in the small aluminum chair. If I had ever had doubts about the tensile strength of aluminum, they were gone. Still, the chair seemed burdened. He shifted back. Huey was uncomfortable, and it wasn’t just the chair. He wolfed some more pancake. Somewhere above us, Jael was watching.

  “You’ve got some on your mouth,” I said, and pointed to the corner of my own mouth. Huey’s tongue flicked out and nabbed a syrup-soaked crumb.

  Huey looked at the floor and said, “Sorry, man, I can’t help you.”

  “Bullshit. You’re a crappy liar. That’s why they don’t let you in front of customers.”

  “I’m not lying,” he whined.

  “It’s all over your face.”

  “I got that piece.”

  “Not the crumb. The lying. You should never play poker. Now tell me who started the rumors about Carol.”

  Huey shifted in his seat again. He tore at his pancake, gulped a chunk of it, drank some Diet Coke, and rubbed his hand down his face. Then he leaned close and said conspiratorially, “All right. I think I started it.”

  “What? How? Why?”

  “Look, I just want you to know that I don’t look at porn all the time.”

  I said, “OK.”

  “But you know, while I’m waiting for the computer to do something and have nothing else to do …”

  “You don’t do it on company computers, do you?”

  Huey looked at me like I had just suggested that he wore his pants inside out.

  “Of course not. I have an Android tablet. I steal WiFi from the office next door. They use WEP, so it’s easy to hack.”

  Huey was right. Using WEP security was like hiding your house key above the doorframe. I said, “So you’ve got your own little porn thing going? What’s that got to do with anything?”

  Huey shifted again, creaking his seat. He stopped making eye contact.

  He said, “I’m not proud of it. I just like certain things. You know. Specific things.”

  “What? Whipped cream or something?”

  “No,” he said softly, poking at his food.

  I thought of the pictures of A
lice and guessed, “Bondage?”

  Huey’s face went red under his beard. He looked miserable.

  I chucked him on the shoulder and said, “Don’t sweat it, man. Everybody’s got something.” Something occurred to me. “It’s just porn, right? You don’t do anything, do you? Like with Alice?”

  Huey’s eyes shot up and locked on to mine. “You mean about killing her with duct tape? No! Of course not. It’s just porn.”

  “Then what’s this got to with anything?”

  “It’s got to do with those rumors about Alice and Carol. There’s this—” Huey’s eyes flicked up and over my shoulder, and widened.

  “They weren’t rumors.” The British accent cut through the room. “Your wife was a lesbian, and a hot one at that.”

  I knew that voice. Roland was standing over us. I stood and faced him. He was wearing a black MantaSoft-logo shirt and black pants.

  I said, “Roland, you stylish devil. You matched your colors today. Was it for me?”

  Roland took a step closer and said, “Laugh it up, wanker. Your wife had given up on you. You put her off the entire male sex.”

  The people around us stopped talking. Roland and I were standing in the middle of the cafeteria, nose to nose. It was breakfast time, and the place was full. The clanking of glasses and chatting died away.

  “How the fuck would you know?” I asked.

  Roland said, “I know because there were three of us in that room. It was incredible.”

  “You’re full of shit.”

  “Am I? I suppose I should offer proof.”

  “I suppose you should shut your mouth.”

  Roland leaned in close and whispered in my ear, “When did Carol get that lovely tattoo on her ass? What was it? A lizard?”

  It had been a gecko. Carol had gotten it just after we were engaged. She said it would be our “saucy little secret.”

  Roland continued in a septic whisper, “She had an amazing set of tits. Real ones. You would have been a lucky man if you had been getting any. It’s a shame your work interfered.”

  Then I left my body as something else took over. I watched, like a spectator, as I shoved Roland in the chest with both hands. He took a step back to regain his balance. The people around us stood and formed a circle. It was like a fight at the ball game.

  “Shut the fuck up,” I said. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Truth hurts, doesn’t it? It just burns you that someone else was seeing her naked. Touching her tits.”

  I stepped close and said quietly, “Did you fuck her?”

  Roland smiled, his bad teeth jutting like tombstones.

  He said through rank breath, “I did much worse.”

  That’s when I hit him. I’d never hit anyone in my life, but I balled up my fist and took a swing. It landed on his cheek, and his head snapped sideways. He looked at me with pure hatred and grabbed at me. I grabbed him back, leaned my weight to the right, and then when he resisted, I pushed to the left and threw him into the fountain like a sack of shit.

  The crowd surged in. People bumped and jostled me as they went to help Roland out of the fountain. Then Huey was next to me. He said, “Get out! Get out before they call the cops.”

  I took his advice, turned, and left. I walked straight out of the cafeteria, took a right, and walked down the hallway. The commotion in the cafeteria faded away, and I was walking past offices. My cell phone rang. It was Jael.

  “Meet me in front. I am in the car,” she said. God, she’s fast.

  I walked out through the front doors feeling light and elated. I was coming to the end of a long dream, and better days lay ahead. I floated down the front steps of the office building toward her Acura MDX, which idled in the visitor lot.

  Jael jumped out of her car and rushed around to embrace me. She pressed her left hand into my back and her right hand into my side. I raised my arms to hug her back. She said, “You are bleeding.”

  I looked down. Blood trailed down my side, soaking my T-shirt and smearing my jeans.

  I said, “Holy shit. I’m bleeding.”

  forty-three

  I lay on the floor in Jael’s bathroom and winced as she applied antiseptic to my cut. We were in her apartment in Brookline.

  “Maybe I should go to the doctor,” I said.

  “I would be happy to take you to the doctor. Are you willing to lose half the day?” asked Jael. She poured some liquid on the cut.

  I gasped and said, “No.”

  “Then be still. I will close the cut with butterfly bandages.”

  Jael patted the wound dry. Then she began applying the bandages.

  “How did I get cut? I didn’t even feel it.”

  “There was a man in the crowd. He was 175 centimeters tall. He was wearing a blue striped shirt, black suit pants, and good shoes. He had short, dark hair. He was a little bit fat.”

  “You saw all that?”

  “Yes, but I noticed him too late. I did not have time to help you.”

  “Don’t feel bad.”

  Jael stopped applying bandages. “I do not feel bad.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.”

  Jael started applying the butterfly bandages again.

  “How did he cut me?” I asked.

  “After you threw Roland into the fountain, the man brushed past you in the crowd. He cut you with a switchblade. Obviously, it was very sharp. I saw him walk away from the fountain, closing the blade.”

  Jael poured more liquid onto the cut.

  “Son of a bitch!” I swore as I pounded the floor.

  She ignored me and continued to close the cut with butterfly bandages. “We are lucky in a way.”

  “How are we—Jesus, that hurts! How are we lucky?”

  “The man is a sadist. He could have killed you just as easily as cut you, but he likes to torture his victims. It is unprofessional.”

  “By God, you’re right. I am lucky.”

  Jael poured some more liquid into my cut and I gritted my teeth. Was that a smile? It seemed an excessive punishment for sarcasm. She said, “He is not a killer. He is one who kills. I am worried for you.”

  “Well, that’s not very comforting coming from my bodyguard.”

  “It is the truth. I am not sure I can defend you.”

  “Maybe if you walked next to me.”

  “It would not help. He would know about me and plan his attack with me in mind.”

  Jael went back to applying bandages. I lay on my side as she worked. Then I turned to talk to her again. Carol was standing over Jael and crying.

  “Baby, quit! Please quit. It’s too late. You can’t save me, and she’s right. He’ll kill you just like he killed me.”

  I looked at Carol and said, “I’m not quitting.”

  Jael said, “I did not suggest it. I believe you need to find this killer of your wife.”

  I said, “And if he kills me?”

  “Then he will die. I will make sure of it.”

  So I had that going for me. I looked at Carol who was still standing over Jael, her hands folded against her mouth as she sniffled.

  I asked Carol, “How did Roland see that tattoo?”

  Jael responded, “Which tattoo?”

  I glanced at Jael and Carol was gone. It was just the two of us again.

  “Carol had a tattoo of a gecko on her left butt cheek. Roland told me that he had seen it. That’s when I hit him.”

  “There are only two ways that Roland could have seen the tattoo you describe.”

  “They are?”

  “He either saw it himself, or saw a picture of it.”

  That brought me back to Huey and his laptop. Alice and porn. What was he driving at? As soon as Jael was finished, I grabbed
my phone to call Huey’s cell.

  It went immediately to voicemail. Why would he shut off his phone?

  I left Huey a message” “Call me.” Then I sent him an email and a text. All with “Call me.” When I was done, my phone rang, but it wasn’t Huey. It was Nate.

  Nate said, “Tucker, you’re fired.”

  forty-four

  The Boylston Suites lobby was resting in mid-morning silence. The conventioneers were across the street pitching each other, and the tourists had all gotten in line for the duck boats. Nate said he’d meet me here, but he was late. Another commitment shot to hell. A koi bobbed to the surface. I snapped his picture and tweeted it:

  Sushi on the hoof

  The elevator doors opened and Nate entered the lobby. He saw me and pointed to a pair of overstuffed lobby chairs. He sat in a chair and I took the other one.

  “Hi, Tucker,” Nate said and put out his hand to shake.

  I ignored his hand and said, “This is bullshit!”

  “Will you keep your voice down?” said Nate.

  “It’s the middle of the morning. Who’s going to hear? The fish?”

  “There’s no need for a scene,” said Nate.

  “A scene? You think this is a scene?”

  “Let’s be adults here,” said Nate.

  “Oh, screw that,” I said. “You fucked me over again. Again! And you want to have a quiet chat?”

  “I fucked you over? How did I fuck you over?”

  I had never heard Nate drop the F-bomb.

  Nate continued. “You’re the one who punched the Rosetta project lead in the face and threw him into a fountain. If anyone is fucked over, it’s me. Jack told me not to hire you, but I did it anyway and then you assault a manager? Not just a manager, but his pet? What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “Whose side are you on?”

  “Side? What side? I’m on the side of not punching people because you don’t like them. I’m on the side of getting my job done.”

  “And all that bullshit about me being like a son to you? What was that about?”

  “That wasn’t bullshit. That’s a fact. You are like a son to me. A pain-in-the-ass son who thinks he’s smarter than his father.”