by Barry Rachin
“Yes, I know. Mother is rather upset. She thinks you lost your mind.”
Claudia pursed her lips and cracked a mischievous grin. “You’re the mental health professional. Do I need psychotropic medication or a straight jacket?”
“That depends,” Lawrence replied evasively. He didn’t want to match wits with his sister. She was smarter than him. Always had been. Claudia’s brain could process information deftly, with a blinding clarity that left him in the dust.
The computer had finished purging documents. Half a gigabyte of memory had been freed up. Claudia scrolled through the statistics then ran the figures on the screen through the printer. “I need a favor.”
Lawrence sat down on the edge of the desk. “I’m listening.”
“I’m closing the business for the entire month of August and going backpacking though Europe with Fred.”
Fred. This was the first time he heard the man’s name. “Have you ever even been outside New England?”
“I need you,” she sidestepped the question, “to run interference for me with the folks. They will assume that I’m acting irrational.” She stuck a flash card in a USB port on the front of the computer, backed up her files and turned the machine off. “I need you to plead my case.”
“It’s all very sudden, don’t you think.” Lawrence spoke in a neutral tone. He had no desire to resort to mind games. That was his mother’s specialty.
“Fred had already planned a backpacking adventure through Europe with a side trip to North Africa from last winter. Bought the Eurrail pass and set aside plane fare. Last night he asked me to join him.”
Lawrence wandered over to a file cabinet. A row of bottles containing inks – solid black and the three primary colors was arranged alongside a collection of syringes and hypodermic needles. Picking up a syringe he tapped the needle with the fleshy portion of an index finger. It drew no blood. The sharp end had been trimmed away and lay perfectly flat. Claudia used them to inject ink into her DeskJet printer cartridges. At the business supply stores, a single replacement cartridge cost thirty-five dollars. She could refill empties for less than a twenty-five cents. So she drilled tiny holes in the plastic lids, squirted a syringe full of ink into the porous lining then sealed the top with electrical tape. A month later when the printer ran dry, she repeated the process.
“Like I said,” Claudia picked up on the thread of her previous remark, “I need a small favor…”
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