by Brian Olsen
Alan thanked the receptionist and started to walk back to the elevators, but as she picked up her magazine he snuck around behind her and dashed into the conference room.
“Hey,” the man said. “Good, I wasn’t sure you noticed me.”
“You were pretty subtle,” Alan replied, “but I noticed. Did you want to talk to me or something?”
“Yeah, hey. I’m Andrew, I’m a temp here too. I’ve been working as the assistant to the head of HR for the past few weeks.”
“Hi. I’m Alan...”
“Alan Lennox, I know, I saw the order form that was sent to your temp agency.”
Alan’s heart raced. “You saw it? Do you know who requested me?”
The man took another furtive peek out of the blinds before answering. He was sweating profusely. “Exactly who Mabel said.”
“Mabel?” Alan said. “Oh, the cat lady? She didn’t know who.”
“No, she said it was like nobody requested you.”
Alan waited for a moment, but Andrew didn’t continue. “You’re saying...nobody requested me? But somebody did. Somebody had to have placed the order. Right?”
“You’d think. But the request just appeared, from nowhere. Mabel was at lunch, I was sitting in for her. That file she was looking at, I watched it appear on Thursday, right in front of my eyes. Like it was being typed in from Mabel’s keyboard, but I wasn’t doing it. Like it was...” He paused dramatically, his eyes widening. “...a ghost!”
“A...ghost. Making a temp request. Okay.” Alan tried to think this through. He didn’t know that much about computers, but he knew enough to suggest another explanation. “Isn’t it more likely that somebody took control of her computer remotely? Maybe from the IT department?”
Andrew laughed. “Well, sure, probably. But who would go to all that trouble for a couple of temps? Why bother?”
“A couple of temps?”
“I saw the orders for three other new temps, yours made four. All four were unsigned, and all four were to replace temps who just got hired on full-time – none of them were going anywhere, there was no need to hire anybody. So my question, Mr. Lennox, is why you?”
Andrew fixed Alan with a steely glare. Alan noticed with unease that, while they had been talking, Andrew had positioned himself between Alan and the door.
“What do you mean?” Alan said. “What about me?”
“Four mysterious orders requesting temps, but only one requesting a specific person by name. You. So what’s so special about you?”
Alan raised his hands, palms towards Andrew, in what he hoped was a placating gesture. “Nothing. I have no idea. That’s what I came down here to find out.”
He took a step towards Andrew, who, in a flash, dropped the file folder he was carrying onto the conference table, revealing a long, silver letter opener grasped in his fist.
“Don’t!” Andrew said sharply, waving the letter opener about. “Don’t come any closer. I’m not going to end up like all the rest.”
“Whoa!” Alan shouted, jumping back. “Okay, okay! Calm down!” The letter opener didn’t look all that sharp, but it was solid, and Andrew looked strong enough to do some real damage with it. “I’m not going to hurt you! Nobody’s going to get hurt here!”
“Tell that to Derek Wallace!” Andrew said. “Tell that to Ruth Baxter!”
“Derek was...wait, who’s Ruth Baxter?”
“One of the other victims!” came the sharp reply.
“Other victims? There were other victims?”
“You didn’t know about the murders?” Andrew’s tone softened, but he didn’t lower his office-supplied weapon.
“I knew about one of them. Derek Wallace and Marisol...whatever her last name was. There were more?”
“Three more,” Andrew said. “All four newly-promoted temps were murdered this weekend, all by other low-level AmSyn employees. I sat in on a meeting with my boss and Pickle Dundersfield this morning, they were talking about them and trying to figure out what to say to the staff.” His voice started to choke with emotion. “They didn’t even seem to care about the people who died. It was like they didn’t even think it was strange that eight of their employees all died in murder-suicides in one weekend.”
He pointed to the file folder with the letter opener. “I have the victims’ promotion paperwork in there, along with the temp requests and files on the employees who committed the murders. As soon as the meeting ended I started pulling together as much information as I could. I was about to go to the police with it when I heard you talking to Mabel.” He swallowed. “I think you need to come with me.”
Alan thought about it. “I can’t. I think you’re right, you should take what you’ve got to the cops. I’m sure they’ve put together the AmSyn connection by now, but they won’t know about those temp orders being placed before the murders. You don’t need me for that, and I need to meet up with...”
“No,” Andrew said. He lifted the letter opener again, his hand shaking. “You’re coming with me now. Why were you the only temp requested by name? I don’t believe in coincidences. You’re involved in this somehow.”
“You’re not really going to stab me with that,” Alan said, entirely unsure that that was true.
“I am freaking out!” Andrew shouted suddenly. He lowered his voice. “I’ve been trying to call 911 and I can’t get through, not even on my cell phone. I’m panicking, completely panicking, so don’t tell me what I can’t do, because even I don’t know that. So...come over here, slowly, stand with your back to me. I’m going to poke this into your back, and...and...and I’ll cover it with the folder again, and we’re going to go out on the street and maybe get a block or two away from this building and then I’m going to scream like I’m insane until somebody calls the police. Okay? Okay.”
“Okay,” Alan said, “okay, whatever you say. Just stay calm.”
Alan weighed his options. He felt relatively safe with some distance between them, but he couldn’t get to the door without coming within stabbing reach. He considered just going along with Andrew’s plan. He wasn’t too worried about being arrested – he knew he was innocent, plus Andrew would be the one walking down Lexington Avenue holding someone hostage with a bladed weapon. But he didn’t like the idea of getting in an elevator with that letter opener sticking in his back – what if Andrew went all blank-face and murdery like Marisol?
Slowly, he began walking towards Andrew and the door. Andrew watched him nervously, the letter opener shaking in his hand. Alan rested one hand on the conference table as he walked, as if for support. When he got within arm’s reach of Andrew, he grabbed the speakerphone off the table and swung it wildly at Andrew’s head. It connected, and Andrew was knocked sideways. He hit his head on the door and fell to the floor, the letter opener falling from his grasp. He lay there, stunned, looking up fearfully at Alan.
Alan kicked the letter opener across the room. “Sorry!” he said. “Sorry, man, sorry! Good plan, though, really. You should still go to the cops. I’d leave out the part about threatening me.” He snatched the file folder off the table. “I think I need this, though. Thanks. You can print out more for yourself, right?”
Without waiting for a reply, he stepped over Andrew, opened the door, and walked out, pulling the door closed behind him. The HR Department whirled on, oblivious to the loud thump Andrew’s collision had just made. Alan tucked the file folder under his arm, smoothed his hair back, and strode professionally back to the elevator bay.
On the elevator ride back up to the fourteenth floor the adrenaline rush wore off, and Alan found himself having a mild panic attack of his own. I was just threatened with a knife, he thought. Sort of. Almost a knife. And I hit a guy with a phone!
The doors opened onto the empty lobby of fourteen. Alan stepped out and sank down to the floor. He took several deep breaths and tried to banish the resurfacing mental picture of Derek and Marisol.
He looked up at the clock above the elevator. It was mid-afternoo
n already. Mark should have finished with his “lunch” by now and was probably sitting outside Dakota’s office waiting for him. Caitlin might be there too, for all he knew. Safety. Friends and safety. Dakota would know what to do, she always did. He pulled himself together, stood up, and walked down the hall to his desk.
No Mark. No Caitlin. He lowered himself into his seat at his desk as Dakota ran out to join him.
“What’s going on?” she whispered. “I was just about to come looking for you. You look terrible. Did something happen? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he said, and gave her a quick run-down of his encounter with Andrew. He showed her the names in the file. “Anybody look familiar?”
“Two of them, sort of,” she said. “They worked in Branding, I think I met them when I was working on my organizational chart. The others don’t work in this branch – look, two are from Wall Street, two are up at the Columbus Circle building. Four temps who were just hired full-time, all murdered. Four low-level but...” She paused, flipping through the pages. “...long-time employees, all murderers who then killed themselves. Besides the type of jobs, I don’t see another connection.”
“Have Mark or Caitlin showed?” Alan asked.
“No. I was hoping they’d called you. Caitlin’s gone. I called downstairs and whatever they were doing finished up and she left. I can’t call Pickle to check on Mark, but he must have finished by now. I texted them both but no answer.”
They looked at each other. Both were thinking the same thing, but neither wanted to say it. Alan was about to pull out his phone to call his missing friends when the phone on his desk rang.
He picked up the receiver, but before he could speak he heard a voice on the line say, “Hello? Amalgamated Synergy, may I help you?”
Alan froze. It felt as if his heart stopped beating. He listened as a woman’s voice responded – it was Sandra’s mother again, asking to speak to her daughter.
“Oh my god!” came the reply. “I will transfer you to her!”
Dakota was looking at him with concern. She mouthed, “Who is it?” but he couldn’t do anything but sit with the phone to his ear and listen. He heard a few beeps, then a ring. He saw Sandra pick up her phone through the open doorway, then heard her say hello. There was another click, and mother and daughter’s voices disappeared.
Alan sat, confused and frightened, the phone still to his ear. There was a long silence. Then, the voice.
“Hello, Alan.”
He slammed the receiver down with a cry.
“Jesus!” Dakota cried. “What? What is it?”
“We have to go,” he said, throwing the file folder into his messenger bag. “Get your stuff, we have to get out of this building right now.”
Dakota didn’t ask another question. She dashed back to her desk and ignored the curious stares of her co-workers as she grabbed her own bag.
Alan stood in the doorway, waiting for her impatiently. He wanted to get out of the building, find Mark and Caitlin, and get home as soon as possible. Only when he was far away from Amalgamated Synergy would he feel safe enough to tell Dakota that the voice he heard on the phone belonged to Derek Wallace.
Chapter Fourteen
Caitlin fighting
Caitlin pushed open the door of Slot Machine and dashed inside, still unsettled from her experience at Amalgamated Synergy. It was late afternoon on a Monday so the bar was mostly empty. DJ was drying some glasses, two women sat chatting at the bar over cheap red wine, and Mark was sitting in the back corner, at their usual spot near the pool table, holding an empty bottle of beer and chewing a straw to pieces. She made her way over to him.
“Finally!” he called out. He jumped up and wrapped his arms around her. “I’ve been texting and texting you guys! Where are Dakota and Alan?”
She extricated herself from his back-breaking hug, hung her bag over the back of a chair, and sat. “I haven’t seen them. I thought they’d be here. Must still be on their way. Sorry, I didn’t get your texts until I got off the train, I thought it’d be faster to just come straight here.”
“Wait,” Mark said, sitting down slowly. “They’re not with you? Alan said you were all together.”
“I haven’t seen them since this morning. I got a 911 text from Alan saying to meet here.”
“Me too.” Mark pulled out his phone and flipped through his text messages. “He said you guys were together. Why would he say that?”
DJ walked over to their table, carrying a beer for Caitlin and a second for Mark. “More afternoon drinking, you lazy layabouts?” she said good-naturedly. “Where are your partners-in-crime?”
“Meeting us here, Deej,” Caitlin said as Mark reached for his wallet. “We think. You haven’t seen them, then?”
“Hadn’t seen much of anybody until Mark came in,” the bartender responded. “It’s starting to pick up, though. I can always tell when Pride is coming, the weather gets nice and all the scissor sisters start drinking in the afternoon.”
Caitlin looked around. A few more people had followed her into the bar. As she looked towards the door, it opened and a woman walked in.
“There’s Dakota!” she said. “D, over here!” She waved her arm, then put it down, embarrassed, when the woman looked over. “Oh. Whoops.”
DJ hooted with laughter. “I can’t believe you just did that! That is gold, right there.”
Mark smirked at Caitlin and asked her, “Do all Asians look alike, too? I’m Mark, I live across the hall from you.”
“Fuck you,” Caitlin said, her face burning. “She looks just like Dakota and you know it.”
“She does,” Mark agreed. “You know who else she looks like? Maya Angelou. Oh, and Halle Berry.”
“And Condoleezza Rice,” DJ agreed.
“And Nicki Minaj,” Mark continued. “And Rosa Parks.”
“And Eliza from Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” DJ said. “Around the eyes.”
“I hate you both,” Caitlin said, folding her arms.
“We’re just having fun with you, Caty-bird,” DJ said, patting her head. The bartender took a good look at the new arrival, who had settled at the bar. “You know, you’re right, she does look a lot like Dakota at that.” She lifted her omnipresent Stetson, ran her fingers through her hair, and replaced the hat. “I’d better see if she needs any help. Holler when you need another round.” She sauntered back to the bar.
Caitlin glared at Mark. “I’m not racist. I’m just unobservant.”
“Drink your beer, whitey,” he said. “And text D and Alan while I hit the ladies’ room.” He got up and headed down the hallway behind them towards one of the two restroom doors, both of which were labeled “Women.”
Caitlin sent off a message to her missing roommates, then checked her email just in case, but there was nothing. She took a long swig of beer to calm her nerves. Should they go back to the AmSyn building, she wondered? Try their apartment? Or keep waiting? She wished she had Pete’s number so she could see if he had spoken to Alan.
She felt a soft bump and turned to get a face full of some guy’s butt. “Sorry,” he muttered without turning around. She leaned forward to avoid his pool cue as he lined up his shot.
She shifted her chair sideways to avoid having to continually duck and weave. She looked back over her shoulder and saw that the bar had filled up rapidly. There were scattered groups of twos and threes all over – at the bar, at the tables, standing near the door, sitting on the edge of the small stage where a bawdy drag king named Benedyke Cumbersnatch would be hosting karaoke in a few hours. It didn’t look like a typical Slot Machine crowd – it was mostly men, for one thing, and the women didn’t look particularly Sapphic. She didn’t recognize anyone as a regular.
She heard Mark’s voice and turned back to see him returning from the bathroom with his phone to his ear.
“It’s Dakota,” he said. He listened for a moment, then said into the phone, “Yeah, okay. We’re on our way. See you soon.” He hung up, then picked up
his beer and started chugging.
“So?”
He slammed the beer down on the table with a satisfied exhale. “They’re both fine,” he said. “But something happened. She didn’t want to say on the phone. They were looking for us, too. They didn’t get any of our texts. We’re supposed to meet them at home, they’re headed there now.”
“Why did Alan say to meet him here?”
“He didn’t. He didn’t text us.”
“Someone stole his phone?”
“Nope,” he said. “Hasn’t left his pocket.”
“That’s...I’m just going to stop saying things are weird,” she said. “Everything is weird.”
She stood up and slung her bag over her shoulder, accidentally thwacking the pool player and ruining his shot. “Oh my gosh!” she said to him. “I am so sorry!”
He turned to face her. “That’s all right, Miss Ross” he said. “We’re done anyway.”
She froze. It was the security guard from AmSyn, Officer Johnson, the musclehead who had been outside the door to the basement. He stared at her blankly.
She turned to Mark in horror, but he was looking perplexedly at the man the guard at been playing against.
“Dell? Did you follow me here?” he asked. He turned to Caitlin, and continued, “This guy works for Pickle!”
The young man stared at Mark, stone-faced. Mark’s attention was drawn to someone behind Caitlin.
“And that lady works on Pickle’s floor!” he exclaimed. “A bunch of these people do.”
She turned around again and looked back at the crowd. She saw Officer Wilson, the older security guard from the front desk, standing by the door. And at the bar – she could have sworn she had seen that woman deliver a file to Cynthia during the shoot. Did all these people work for Amalgamated Synergy?
As Caitlin gazed out at the patrons, the bar grew quiet. Each small cluster stopped their conversation, and one by one they all turned to look at her, each with the same blank expression on his or her face.
