by Jack Womack
Lester, returning the note to Thatcher, wriggled himself deeper into the sofa, that his shoulders might brush against mine. "I'm sure you have the best intentions. What do you know about the note so far?"
"Mahaica's name of a port in Guyana," said Thatcher. "Michael Moseley is the pseudonym of a local exporter down there, we're pretty sure-"
"Mystic means the one in Connecticut," Lester said.
Thatcher received this knowledge as if hearing the weather report, and I could only imagine that the earlier shock was still insulating his system from the effects of repeated jolts. "You're sure about that?" Lester nodded. "How?"
" I don't know why," said Lester. "It came to me."
Thatcher looked Lester over as if measuring him for size. "That's to be expected, I suppose. All right, then. Sounds likely as anything. Let's take it and fly. Hey, Gus? Seem to you there might be something to interest us in Mystic?"
"It could seem that way."
"Look into it. It's funny, you know," he said, taking two folded documents from his jacket pocket. "You never know what'll turn up where. Looked for one thing this weekend and found something else entirely. Something might shine a different light on Jensen's killing, seems to me."
"What?"
"He's not dead."
Early on in our relationship Thatcher conceived the notion that his secretary was attempting to eavesdrop upon his office conversations by means of radio waves, projected through the fillings in his teeth. After she was retired, electronic equipment was found in her desk; it was never discovered for whom she also worked. Though Thatcher's manias were many-and in my absence he could have fallen prey to any of them-there could be no discounting the possibility he might, again, be right.
"I know a dead man when I see one," said Gus.
"You never saw him dead," Thatcher said. "Close to death, but that's not close enough."
"Where is he, then, if he's still alive?"
"Don't you think I'm trying to find out? Now, if there'd been a body, would it have gone to Campbell's in accordance with the usual perks?"
Gus nodded. "Personnel would have handled arrangement, not Security."
"I am correct, though?"
"As an unmarried employee," Gus answered, "Jensen's body would have been taken to Campbell's for standard treatments and the cremains would have been urned as per."
"We'd never have known he didn't make it to Campbell's if I hadn't called to follow up. Funeral records aren't automatically sent to our floor, it seems. Things get too damn compartmentalized in this outfit. From here on out, anybody in this company sneezes, I want their file on my desk. Got me?"
"Because the body didn't get there doesn't mean he's still alive-"
"You think somebody wanted a souvenir?"
"What did the doctors say?" I asked.
"Depends on which one you talk to. The ones seeming most culpable are presently being talked to." Thatcher paused. "They're still kicking. We'll see."
"When were they brought in?"
"Last night," said Thatcher. "They're denying they know anything, but if so, they're just as guilty. We might have to bring their families into this. Might help 'em remember, showing 'em that carrot on the stick."
"Why wasn't I told?" Gus asked, sounding no less angry than Thatcher. "As Head of Security, why wasn't I told?" Lester said nothing through all of this, watching intently as if struck dumb by the workings of industry made flesh.
"Be realistic, Gus," said Thatcher. "You were up on the estate with us. You think I wanted to send you down to New York and leave us unprotected?"
"By a force of sixty-five-"
"Avi took care of the situation. And I did have to be sure you and Jake weren't in on this in any way. I've ascertained matters to my satisfaction now."
"You didn't trust us?" Gus asked, his face darkening. "You didn't trust me?"
"If I didn't trust you, Gus, would I be telling you now?"
Something seemed to have shifted within Thatcher's personality, on one hand allowing him to speak so freely about company business with comparative strangers present; on the other showing every sign of having locked that personality behind yet another door.
"What were you looking for that you found this out?" I asked, hoping to distract them before anything could go further. "What did you find out, besides what you say?"
"On Sunday," Thatcher said, "I asked Beekman to send up a copy of the attending physician's report," he said, passing a Xerox across. "I wanted to see the medical word. Tests they got now, they can tell what bay the fish they took the poison from came out of. Anyway." He leaned forward; the chair groaned beneath his weight. "The average person wouldn't notice a thing wrong with those, don't you think?"
"Whose thumb?" Lester asked; Thatcher smiled. A seeming shadow showed at second glance to be a long thumb lying atop the line where the attending physician was to sign.
"Be nice to think whoever did this did it intentionally," said Thatcher, "but I'd be fooling myself. Sort of gives one pause, doesn't it? If the rest of the gang's no smarter than this, running 'em down'Il be easier than pissing on ants."
"Whose signature is hidden?" I asked.
"I wondered that myself," said Thatcher. "So I had Avi go down and bring back the original by hand. He called ahead, they told him they'd looked but couldn't find it. When he went there he took Jake along. They found it."
"Jake went with him?" Gus asked. "He said nothing to me-"
"Well, I asked him not to, Gus. You understand." Thatcher passed me the original. "Shame they don't teach penmanship like they used to."
"This doctor," Gus said, his mouth tight, "is in custody?"
"No-" When Thatcher wanted to laugh but desired more strongly to keep a straight face his feet would shake, his joy finding its outlet by passing directly into the ground. His shoes tapped against Bernard's family photos, knocking them over. "I remembered the front page of the News, morning after Jensen's little melodrama. It was the sort of thing sticks with me." I remembered Susie's paper that day; remembered a photo beneath the headline CRUSH HOUR. A woman walking to work was pinned between a tank and parked cars, trying to cross the street. The photographer took his shot as the tank rolled away. "Probably wouldn't have made the front page if she hadn't been a doctor."
"Her signature?"
Thatcher smiled. "They probably had it ready before he was even brought in. Doubt she knew about it. Sure as hell bet they had it ready before they brought her in. If they even realized it, they probably just hoped nobody'd notice. She and Jensen must have been in ER at the same time, but I doubt they had much to say to each other. Which doctor you say you'd spoken to?"
"One of the residents," Gus said. "Doctor Lao. Young Chinese woman. Our doctors took over the case from her when they arrived."
"When the bastards washed the ink off their hands, you mean. Took over the case and when enough time passed, they told you he died. She backs you up, all right-"
"I don't need backup-"
"We talked awhile," Thatcher said. "I hired her, by the way. I'd started to think they might even have made up the cause of near-death, but she'd seen fugu poisoning before, when she was an intern. Some toxiterrorist used it in San Francisco while she was out there. When she heard Jensen hadn't pulled out of it she said she was shocked. Told me she never dreamed he wouldn't."
"Why?"
"Didn't have a strong enough dose, she didn't think," Thatcher said. "Strong enough to cause problems, sure. See, when you go into storage like that not enough blood tends to reach the brain. She said he'd probably been under long enough he wouldn't ever be all right again. Now whoever did it, for whatever reason, you know what I think they wound up doing?"
We shook our heads. Thatcher had an innate talent for research and detection which could but rarely be discerned from his actions, or distractions.
"They zombified him. Like the Tontons Macoutes used to do with their prisoners, you remember." Gus pursed his lips, as if such practices were
beneath him. "Fugu poison, yeah. From a Caribbean fish."
"Haitian techniques are not often adaptable," said Gus. "It's a strange country."
"It's a rather outlandish thing to do, don't you think?" I asked.
"I didn't say it was done deliberately," said Thatcher. "This opens up all sorts of possibilities. Somebody more'n likely just screwed up."
"Then the doctors would have finished up the job in the back and sent the body on to Campbell's?"
"But they didn't," said Thatcher. "Maybe they didn't want to kill him. Maybe they did intend to zombify him, for whatever outlandish reason-"
"All entry points where his prints or eyes could be used to gain access have been recoded?" I asked.
"Yeah," said Thatcher. "He won't be much more use to 'em than a coatrack if they were going to try walking him up somewhere so he could get 'em in." Thatcher watched Gus shrug, and turn away. "Could be Jensen had himself taken care of. Could be somebody mistook him for someone else. Could be random and senseless, nothing more."
"Avi's been apprised of the situation?" I asked.
"Not entirely."
"Do Bernard and Susie know?"
"Told Bernard this morning," Thatcher said, toying at the edges of the note with two fingers. "You know how excitable's Susie's gotten herself about this. He's been talking to her about it while we've been down here, seemed like a good time to fill her in."
"Why are you letting me overhear all of this?" Lester asked. "It really seems like none of my business-"
"It's company business," said Thatcher, winking. "You're company."
"What do you trust me to do?" Gus asked.
"Don't take everything so personally, Gus," said Thatch er. "Everybody has an off day. Listen, go down there and talk to the doctors. If they don't spill by tonight, well ..."
"Is the service over yet?" Bernard's voice broke in over the intercom, coming in as if on cue, seeming that he knew when best to enter for suitable dramatic effect.
"Come on down," said Thatcher, hauling himself upright. "Keep all this under your hat for the moment, Lester. We keep lots of little secrets around here, you'll get used to it. You have anything to add from what you've heard?"
"If the wound wasn't self-inflicted," Lester said, "I suspect it wasn't unwelcome."
Thatcher nodded. "If there's reason to this, we'll find it."
When Bernard returned to his office he entered without comment, took his seat behind his desk, and replaced his family portraits, shifting them again into their proper angles.
"What's eating you, Bernard?" Thatcher asked. "Have a good talk?"
"We made progress," he said. "I've been thinking that we should have Macaffrey's speeches written for him. We can't take the chance-"
"What're you talking about now?" Thatcher said, exasperated by Bernard's endless qualifications.
"I was reading the transcripts of the questions put to him earlier today," said Bernard. "It's worse than I imagined. If God speaks through Macaffrey, all I can say is He's a bring-down kind of a guy."
"You can't have a speechwriter for a messiah, dammit."
"Macaffrey," said Bernard, turning to Lester, "what's the purpose of the universe?"
"Purposelessness."
Thatcher shoved his hands into his pants pockets and glanced at the TV screen. Whatever presently played appeared so obscure in meaning that I believe even Bernard might have hesitated to attempt exigesis. Gus stared at all of us, wondering perhaps who was capable of the greatest betrayal. "Think of it as a matter of rephrasing," said Bernard. "He says one thing, we say another."
"What would you say about Mystic, Connecticut?" Thatcher asked. Bernard blinked his eyes as if worrying away a cinder.
"It belies its name," he said.
"In this note," Thatcher continued, "'mystic' refers to Mystic, Connecticut."
"Does it?" Bernard asked, looking at him, and then at Lester. "Should you be discussing family matters around the help? Or did this conceit from beneath the stairs?"
"Mystic and Mahaica," said Thatcher. "Two ports. One importing, one exporting. Think New England's smuggling clams down to Rio?"
"If those two ports are involved," Bernard said, "a definite if, then any smuggling going on it would involve shipments of the product. Someone stepping into where we've left off."
"That's what someone's doing," said Thatcher. "I can smell it. Bringing it up from Bolivia in raw, maybe. Over from Colombia down the Amazon highways. Probably using those damn minitrucks to run the shift. Could we doublecheck those on satellite photos, see what's in the back?"
"With appropriate resolution we could count the change in the driver's pockets," said Bernard. "Say some operation along this line is ongoing. Should it matter at this stage? We don't have to keep that aspect of the operation going anymore, you've been saying that for a year now. Maybe it's some of the old Medellin boys have never quite given up-
"They'd have been in direct touch," said Thatcher. "It's not them. And it's not amateur. Jensen wasn't running this, that's evident."
"It's certainly corporate," said Bernard. "Too many aspects of it are too senseless for it not to be. Whoever's involved here simply used Jensen as they'd have subcontracted any locals, here or there."
"My locals," said Thatcher. "Wouldn't mind getting reimbursed for all this free labor I'm probably providing."
"The operation isn't large or we'd have found additional traces of it by now," said Bernard. "It strikes me as test marketing."
"Then I reckon I know who's testing."
Bernard picked up the photo of his wife and pushed it an eighth of an inch to the left. "I reckon," he said. "Even if the Japanese are in it, Thatcher, what difference does it make? You claim we're getting out of the field."
"Drugs make the world go round," Thatcher said, shutting his eyes. "They need cash. Need to barter something other than electronics gear. If they're getting involved with the product, they'll start hauling in money and they can pick the market as they choose, long as we're not in it. Guess which market they'll take over if we get out."
"It would be preferable for Americans to be drugged with American drugs, of course," said Bernard.
"What if this Otsuka bird is behind it? I've only had a chance to look at this agreement once. Isn't there something in there about promising to support them in new Latin American ventures?"
"Purely pro forma," said Bernard. "We agree to discuss with them any proposals involving countries in this hemisphere before giving our approval. If we don't agree, we don't approve and they don't go ahead."
"This is some agreement you cooked up," said Thatcher. "Why do they want to sign it?"
"So they can get back to business, simple as that. Free up their assets. They've had to coast for too long-"
"There's another reason," said Thatcher. "And if Otsuka's big as you say he can't help but be in on this."
"Well, so we stay with the product and drive them out of the market," Bernard said. "But if you ever want this damned computer to go online we need their assistance. Our boys can't take development further by themselves. We get them in on it as agreed and we're over the top. We don't sign, we don't get their help. I doubt we could pull off a kidnapping in that circumstance, so don't even consider it."
"Always good to keep all options open," said Thatcher. "You say Otsuka's pretty sharp?"
"He knows his yen from his yang," said Bernard. "You'd never guess. He looks like a root you'd find in a Chinatown grocery. Don't do anything to upset him, Thatcher. No confrontations, no escapades, no backup plans. He'll want to sign and he'll want to talk. Let him."
"Talk about what?"
"Whatever he wants. He likes hockey, talk about that. He loves old automobiles, flower arranging, bondage cabaret. He writes poetry." Thatcher sneered. "Talk about his grandchildren-"
"Grandchildren? How old's this guy?"
"Is it pertinent?" Bernard asked, smoothing the wisps of hair above his forehead down with a dry palm.
&
nbsp; "Was he in the war?"
"Does it matter? We dealt with Griesing in Frankfurt all the time until he died last year, and we had substantial proof of what he had done."
Thatcher shook his head, as if by denying it he could even more assuredly swear that it had never happened. "Don't worry, Bernard. I'll handle it. You've seen me do it before. I'm taking Joanna along. It's another new project, after all."
"It'll be a shame to split them up, if only for awhile," said Bernard, suddenly staring at Lester and I as if he were a doorman and we, messengers. "They make such a cute couple."
Susie's voice cried out over the intercom. "Matters need attending, Bernard. I'm coming down."
"So keep Lester going through the preliminaries," said Thatcher. "Once I get a line on Otsuka I'll get a better idea of when we can start putting our teacher here to work."
"What are you talking about?" Bernard said, laughing, yet evidently finding little humor in what we said.
"Mystic, Bernard. Check it out."
As Gus prepared to leave, it occurred to me that he had, during the course of listening to conversation running around him, discovered the method of Susie's trick, one I'd often wished I'd been able to perform. Never one of the more approachable men I'd known, an almost palpable shell seemed to form itself around him, protecting as well as lending isolation and distance, protecting him from those he protected. He paused, standing by Lester, facing Bernard's desk.
"No one stopped you?" he asked Gus, pointing to the pen and pencil set's plastic knoll. Bernard stared at them as if watching a movie take an unforgivable turn.
"No," he said, seemingly completing the conversation we'd interrupted. "They trusted I had nothing to do with it." He left, brushing past Susie as she entered; she cringed at the feel of shell against shell.
"Bernard didn't know," I told Lester that night, in bed. "Thatcher told me he didn't. If he did know I don't think he wanted to be reminded."
