“Heard? How?”
Tasha wound her hand in circles. “All sorts of ways out there to reap information. That’s not why I’m here, though. Now that you’re free, I’d like to present an opportunity. May I sit?”
The Sticker pressed his lips together and shook his head. Little kids made him uneasy, but calling this girl different from most kids was a colossal understatement. He sidled over. “Sit, but park it way over there. I’m not gonna be framed as a pervert.”
Tasha hopped up and smoothed her suit pants down. “May I have a tug on that?”
Looking down at his Scotch whiskey, the Sticker simpered. “So you’re determined to get me arrested?”
“That’s pretty cheap stuff and it would be better with a little water, but I’ve had a longer day than you can imagine.”
The Sticker glanced around. “Well I didn’t see you take it…” He handed over the bottle.
Tasha tipped the Scotch back, swallowed and ran her tongue over her teeth. “Rough stuff, but it’s better than the air around here.”
He quickly took the bottle back. “Yes, one big cow pie.”
“Indeed. Now sir, I’d like to talk about that job—”
“Just cut out the game, kid.”
“Tasha.”
“Just cut it out, Tasha. I’m not in the mood for talking or playing pretend.”
“I can find you any job you like, anything you like.”
The Sticker glanced up to the sky, gradually dissolving of all light except for a few stars. “Unbelievable,” he whispered. How had he managed to lose his job and take on a midget-sized stalker all in one day?
“I’m not lying. Dead serious here.”
“Okay,” he said, lifting the bottle, then dropping it back down on his knee. “Doesn’t matter what the job is, but how about something far the hell away from here? How ‘bout that for starters, little girl?”
“You’ve lived in Azusa your whole life.”
“How did you … ? Oh forget it. Yeah I have, and I ruined my marriage by staying, so … shit why am I saying this stuff to you?”
“I’m the Master Recruiter. I can find you a job somewhere else. That’s a non-issue. What do you believe you’re good at? I already know your abilities from reading your file, but what you believe is more important.”
He opened his mouth and snapped it shut.
“You aren’t going to scare me if you say killing,” Tasha noted.
The Sticker hopped off the tailgate. “Please get down.”
“We’re just talking here.”
“Get down, now. I need to go home.”
Tasha slid off the truck and folded her arms. “But really. What now, Slaughter Man?”
That was a good question, but not one with a simple answer.
“I’ll be okay. Thanks for caring. Really. It was nice meeting you. Never met a whiz-kid before.”
“Me neither.”
He laughed dryly and shut the tailgate with Scotch still in hand.
“I’ll check in with you tomorrow,” she said.
“No, don’t.”
“Hey, I think you can appreciate keeping a boss happy.”
“Might be able to appreciate it, but I’m not very good at it lately.”
“Yes, well, I still don’t know what you think you’re good at.”
“Well, I wasn’t just going to say killing before,” he told her and rounded his truck. He opened his door and looked back at the indistinct slaughterhouse. “It’s the being numb part that I’m really good at.”
Tasha gave him a tiny smile as she fell away, into the night.
*
He slowly stirred at her touch. The Sticker had been drunk the past three days. He vaguely remembered a call last night from a representative of Sunshine State Natural Meat Products inquiring about the discharge of hazardous waste in his work area. The call was intense and legally intimidating (to say the least) and it wouldn’t have been a surprise to open his eyes to a fresh-eyed young cop bent over him with a wakey-wakey grin.
But instead, the Sticker saw the one and only person he wished it to be.
Annette fell away from him and sat at the worn swivel chair in front of the computer. Her dark hair was shorter, more styled, and she wore a flowered blouse that revealed enough cleavage to quicken his pulse. He knew though. By her darting eyes and sullen face, it was obvious. She wasn’t here to take him back. So he couldn’t work himself up to any peak, only to plummet off the side when she left.
“You come over for the last of your clothes?”
She nodded.
“Did you get my email?”
“I haven’t been online for a few days,” she said.
“Doesn’t matter,” he replied.
“What did it say?”
He propped up on the couch with one quivering arm. His head felt like a site of constant underwater demolitions. It would have been painless to vomit right now. A morbid part of him fancied puking all over Annette’s beautiful blouse and those tits she flashed so cruelly in his face.
“What’d it say?” she repeated.
“Nothing.”
“Why did I know you’d answer like that?”
“Probably because we were married…”
She kneaded a knot in her neck. She got those when she was tense. Other than her apparent awkwardness in the moment, she looked great. Her skin was a richer, bronzer color. Natural though. She’d been to the beach or somewhere outdoors recently. He wanted to tell her but silenced himself before the words formed.
Like some sort of social martyr, her eyes politely drifted away from the table where all his empty beer cans and obliterated bottles of booze congregated. “I just wanted to say, before I go—”
He sat up straight. It felt like someone shot him through the temple with a poisoned arrow. “Yeah?”
“Anyway, I just wanted to say, and this isn’t to over-salt your wounds—”
“Hey, I’m not wounded,” he snapped.
Her eyes handled him like a mother with a child. “I haven’t stopped caring about you, just so you know. I always care. That hasn’t changed.”
This was an altogether different arrow to the head. “What? What does that even mean? I mean, what the fuck?”
“Just because we can’t work in a marriage doesn’t mean we can’t work as friends.”
The laugh crawling from his throat was nearly sinister. “You walked out because of some bullshit lack-of-ambition reason, when you damn well know I’ve worked my ass off in everything I’ve ever done. Now, after all this, you have the nerve to pretend to care about me? I don’t believe you. How can you care about this loser, this guy who hasn’t amounted to dick? You aren’t going to be my friend. You don’t need my friendship. You’ve got a wealthy guy now.”
“I don’t care about money. I just don’t want a hamster in a wheel anymore.”
“Well, that Trevor fucker’s a rat in a maze.”
Annette shrugged. “I wanted a partner. After five years, I’m tired of all the desperation. I’m tired of spinning these wheels. But just because I am, doesn’t mean I want you thinking I’m some cruel bitch that never had feelings for you.”
The Sticker studied the blue paisley pattern on his boxer shorts. He was silent, unsure of her, unsure of himself. “This is like a bad dream.”
Annette looked far more uncomfortable than before. She picked up her purse from the floor and struggled to put its strap over her arm. “I need to go. You’ll be late for work.”
“I quit.”
Her eyebrows knitted. “Really? What, you got something else?”
“Sure did. Met somebody, too.”
Annette sharply laughed. “Who?”
“Wouldn’t know her. Name’s Tasha.”
“Ah, I see.” She looked up in fake jealousy. “Well, ok, I’ll be in touch.”
He jumped up, ignoring the shifting world around him. “Don’t leave yet. We can have coffee at least, can’t we?”
Annette
went through the door before he could get there. Chasing her outside would be too much.
But what if this is my last chance?
The Sticker put his hand on the doorknob but couldn’t beckon the will power to turn it. He dropped his head against the wood frame and closed his eyes.
When he opened them, he noticed the Limbus card had fallen on the carpet.
The back of it read: What are you waiting for?
*
By the time he found parking in downtown Los Angeles, the Sticker was close to gassing up and heading back home. It’d been a long, traffic-filled afternoon, and once off the freeways, his web directions led him on several inane detours before reaching the office building. Had he more to go home to, he certainly would have, but with another lawyerly voicemail this morning that added animal cruelty on top of illicit hazardous waste dumping, he supposed there were worse things than being in L.A. with a full bladder and nowhere to park.
He grumpily paid the lot fee and after a brief stop in a gas station bathroom, the Sticker headed toward his destination. A number of businesses shared the office building, mostly real estate and insurance entities. The sparsely decorated lobby was unremarkable in its avocado vinyl chairs and teak and aluminum tables. He was happy with the powerful air conditioning though as he searched the wall chart for Limbus’ room number. It was a little nutty, he thought anyway, that he’d come to accept Tasha as a legitimate job contact, but he supposed he was at that point in his life now. Nothing was too crazy. He couldn’t stay in his bubble. That damned thing had lost him a good woman. That damned thing had to be popped.
Office #A10.
It bugged him to see a number sign before a letter. He knew it shouldn’t, but it always did. Hopefully that wasn’t a bad omen from the get-go.
By the door the Sticker noticed an intercom with a silver globe adorned on its side. A helpful bronze plate had PRESS FOR ENTRY engraved in it.
He pushed the plate and an intercom bell trilled.
“Limbus Incorporated, do you have an appointment?” said an androgynous voice through the speaker.
“I’m here to meet with Tasha Willing.”
“Wonderful, and what government do you represent?”
“I… uh… am here for a job.”
“Does the Master Recruiter expect you today?”
“I guess so.”
There was a pause. “And what location are you calling from?”
The Sticker opened his mouth and caught himself. “I’m right outside.”
“Yes sir, but at what office location?”
“Los Angeles.” He laughed nervously, thinking he’d failed to understand the question.
“Thank you, sir. Come in.”
The door knob pulsed and unlocked. He twisted it and walked inside. Something frosty swept through him for a split second and everything behind fell away, pulled back, into nothing.
The Sticker stood in the center of a lobby the size of an airport now. His hand was still poised in the air from opening the door, but there was no door anymore….
He glanced around to make sure. The hallway he’d just come from was nowhere to be found. Twenty yards away, a giant globe spun before him, spears of light extruding and retracting in different locations over its surface, dazzling the floor, its every tile inlaid with what looked like cut diamonds in a flower petal pattern surrounded by a mother of pearl circle.
Tasha walked this luxurious floor with the same confidence she had at the oil-stained stockyard parking lot. A smile glued itself to her face. Today she was in a smart-looking red dress with matching hair clip that posted her straightened black hair to the side.
“You should see your expression,” she said, stopping before him. “Was that fun, or what?”
“I’ll go with or what.” He rubbed his arms to confirm he was still part of reality, that this wasn’t a drunken dream.
“If you think that small vapor convey blew your mind, just wait. I haven’t received the full employment report yet, but you’ll be going through a membrane transport and that’s like several hundred cosmic slaps to the face.” She laughed. It was a strange, ancient sounding laugh, but something about it calmed him. He liked Tasha. Maybe that was essential to her duty in bringing people into this weird place though. Maybe he shouldn’t trust her, but he did. Had he not, the Sticker would have been running to get out of this place right about now.
“I don’t know what to say…”
“That’s because the vapor convey integrates with our visitor’s panic synapses. We’ve altered your reactions to receive these new ideas in a measured fashion, invoking a less hostile animal response.”
“Come again?”
“It’s like valium, only permanent.”
“I still feel like me.”
“It doesn’t change who you are, just how you’ll perceive concepts normally catastrophic to the human psyche. We don’t want to spend months rebuilding your grip on reality. This is quicker. Painless. And especially since you’re going to another star system, it’s imperative. Your body will have to adjust to membrane travel, life in space, and all that comes with it. Despite your ability to be numb, as you said, it’s probably a good idea if you bring every precaution with you.”
“Space?”
“You said far away and I listen to my applicants. Come on, Slaughter Man, follow me to my office.”
He trailed her around the globe over to a hallway that ran with bright white marble rather than the intricate lobby tiles. After passing a few shadowy offices, she stepped into a small room and flipped on the light.
She sat down behind a slate colored desk. “Have a seat.”
“Feels better on my back if I stand.”
“Nessun problema,” she replied. A wide screen monitor rested before her, but it was astonishingly simple looking. In fact, Gerald Bailey actually had a fancier model in his office. Tasha typed a few things on a concealed keyboard and concentrated her dazzling green eyes on the screen. “I’ll just be one moment… the report should be… yeah, there it is.” She clicked her mouse a few times and softly snorted.
“How’d you get this job, Tasha? If you don’t mind me asking.”
She smirked. “My father runs this company.”
“Ah. I never could have worked for my old man. Bet that’s hard.”
Tasha was distracted by something on the screen. “Not really,” she replied, “haven’t seen him in seventy-two years.”
The Sticker laughed at this but Tasha’s look of concern deepened. She picked up a slim red cell phone from under the desk and held it next to her ear. After a moment, a miniature voice answered. “You’ve sent my guy to the Princess’s ship. Just what do you think you’re doing?”
She waited, her green eyes absorbing an answer she didn’t like.
The Sticker glanced up at the wall and his mouth fell open. He hadn’t noticed before, and this was a testament to how truly unobservant he was, but thirty or more framed photos stared back at him: there he was with a bat over his shoulder in little league, another in front of burgundy satin curtains with his prom date Ruth Pietro, another in his blue overalls standing next to a water tank at Fabulous Onion Foods, and another, there with Annette on the strip in Las Vegas, the weekend of their marriage and subsequent honeymoon. There was even a photo of him around twelve or thirteen, not too much older than Tasha, and he was in a canoe with a young woman. He wore a smile. His mom wore one too, though less sincere. The photo had to have been taken only a year or two before she ran off with that other man. Since then, he’d only heard from her on birthdays and once last New Year’s when she was drunk off her ass.
The Sticker’s eyes fluxed from her photo back to Annette’s. No, he thought, they were different people. That was a different situation.
“This is the exact same crap the directors pulled on me last time,” Tasha told the phone angrily. “Yeah, yeah, I’m listening.” She looked at the Sticker and made a gabby hand-puppet.
The Sticker’
s eyes came back to rest on Annette, hand on the lacy white hip of her wedding gown, the MGM Grand, an omnipresent green behind her. How could she consume him still? Here, in this strange place he’d happened upon, a whole new world, and all that twisted inside his bitter mind was his wife’s shadow. He’d stepped way outside of his bubble, more than he ever bargained for, but evidently his heart and mind hadn’t come along for the ride.
“You miss her, don’t you?”
He looked at Tasha. Her conversation had ended without him noticing, the cell phone resting quiet on the desk.
“I really don’t want to talk about that.”
“I’m good with that.”
“Why do you have so many pictures of me?”
Tasha batted her eyelashes. “I adore studying you.”
“Funny.”
“So, okay then, I’m going to do everything I can to transfer you from this assignment. You might have to spend a couple months there, but—”
“I don’t care. Is the pay good?”
She tilted her head. “How’s four hundred and fifty thousand a year sound?”
“Much better.”
“Marginally,” she said with a giggle that trailed off. “Really though, ordinarily I wouldn’t assign you to something so dangerous. I’ll check in on you though.”
“Sounds fine, except the part with me doubting whether I’m schizophrenic now. That aside, I’m used to dangerous jobs.”
“Yes, I know. That’s why you’re Super Slaughter Man.”
He blew out and rolled his eyes.
Tasha’s face furrowed with concern. “But you haven’t worked in one of the Princess’s ships before, and few have lived to say so. You’ll be asked to do more than stick a knife in a brain-dead animal’s throat. Depending on the Princess’s appetite, you may have to make hundreds upon hundreds of kills on any given day. It will all be challenging.”
“Could be.”
“It will be,” Tasha reinforced and stood from her chair, only coming to his waist. From a drawer, she took out a single sheet of paper and a pen and put it before him. “You will have three or four other workers helping to spread the work out. So, is this something you think you can do? If it is, go ahead and sign and we’ll get started.”
Limbus, Inc. Page 3
