by Lotta Smith
“Excuse me?” I narrowed my eyes. “How many times do I have to remind you that I’m not the Grim Reaper?”
“That’s what you say.” He winked.
I clenched my fists. I was tempted to whack him in his beautiful face and storm out of the room for good. The only reason I didn’t was my humongous student loan; like it or not, I could at least stay up to date with the payment as long as I kept this job.
In addition, this job was starting to look something like an au pair for a psychiatric patient. Indeed, Rick Rowling reminded me of the people in mental facilities. I had seen more than my share of patients with conditions such as grandiose/persecutory delusional disorders. Also, other than mental patients, Rick Rowling was the only person who talked about supernatural lives so breezily, like discussing the weather.
Yeah, right.
I had a lightbulb moment.
As I recalled Hernandez’s advice to see Rowling as the combination of a difficult patient and a temperamental attending physician, I realized this guy was mentally ill. Perhaps the part about him being the only son of USCAB’s CEO was true. I could imagine filthy rich people with tons of money had the power to persuade a government office into hiring their son. I recalled how Rick Castle of Castle got into the NYPD by utilizing his friendship with the mayor of New York City so he could tag along with that beautiful female detective. In addition, Rowling was the only guy in this office wearing a Versace suit.
“Okay. Now I understand.” I smiled.
Albeit limited, I had experience dealing with mentally ill patients. I knew for a fact that any endeavor, such as trying to decipher the patients’ stories of menacing aliens snooping on their thoughts, never worked.
Okay, so my latest theory of Rick Rowling being a nutjob impersonating an FBI agent had some holes, such as, it didn’t explain why his words were convincing enough to label me as the Grim Reaper. Then again, a desperate time called for a desperate measure. I was more than happy to believe what I wanted to believe.
My smile widened. All I needed to do was pretend to listen to his story. Maybe my new career path wasn’t that bad. I had compared my pay to that of a first-year resident’s, and mine was slightly better. Considering I didn’t need to look after drug addicts and HIV-positive people, this could be a cushy job.
“Nice to meet you, Rick. We’ll work together as a team, you know,” I declared.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you for the past hour.” He shrugged.
There was a knock on the door, so I began my duties and answered it. It was another special assistant with two women. Both of them were stunningly beautiful. One was in her late twenties to early thirties. From her looks and fashion, she reminded me of a cast member from The Real Housewives of New York City. The other woman was a few years younger than her, probably in her mid-twenties. They had resemblances in the shapes of the nose and jaw, so I presumed them to be sisters.
The younger of the two looked more delicate than the other; if the elder sister was a sunflower, she was baby’s breath.
“Agent Rowling, you have visitors asking for your services,” the assistant said.
CHAPTER 4
Rowling asked me to step out of the office so he could speak with the ‘visitors’ in private.
“Hey, I didn’t know you guys set up occasional visitors as well,” I said to the guy who brought in the women as soon as we stepped into the hallway. “You know, I thought of the FBI as a serious government office, but now it’s starting to feel as if I’m working at a movie studio, like Universal Studios Hollywood.”
“Excuse me?” He frowned as if he didn’t get what I was talking about.
“I know what this is all about.” I winked conspiratorially. “This is just a silly role-play for this Rick Rowling guy, right? He’s a head case who believes he’s an FBI agent when, actually, he happens to be a mental patient who needs serious institutionalization. So, I’m guessing the parts about his dad being filthy rich and providing many jobs for retired personnel of this agency are true. Anyway, you’re all pretending he’s an FBI agent and not a nutjob with a grandiose delusional disorder with a little touch of a personality disorder, right?”
“No!” His eyes widened in what seemed like horror.
Smack!
I felt a sharp pain on the back of my head.
“Ouch!” I looked back and met eye-to-eye with Rowling, who’d just smacked my head with a rolled Wall Street Journal.
“I heard that!” He snapped, arms crossed.
“Police brutality!” I protested.
“I’m a special agent in charge, not a police officer.” Rowling stuck out his tongue like a brat. Uncrossing his arms, he continued. “It looks like you’re much denser than I expected. Killing your medical career before you had a chance to make horrible misdiagnoses might be the best thing I’ve done for society.”
“Hello? I could have become a great doctor.” Rubbing the back of my head, I protested, “I could have helped millions of sick people.”
Responding to my protest with a snort, Rowling turned to the special assistant. “Tennyson, I need three coffees: one black and two decafs. In addition, tell the queen of denial here more about her job description, so she understands the Paranormal Cases Division does exist in the FBI’s New York Field Office. Also, it’s safe to touch her so long as you’re not a killer or a rapist who previously slipped through the cracks. If she keeps operating in a denial mode, you can just hit or kick her.”
“Yes, sir!” Tennyson said.
“Come on, you can’t just abuse me like I’m some sort of criminal,” I protested, but Tennyson rushed me to the kitchenette and gave me a huge lecture about my job.
When I was summoned back to Rowling’s office thirty minutes later, I was slightly smarter than before. Okay, so it wasn’t like my IQ level had significantly improved in such a short time, but at least I understood there was no way out of this job.
To my astonishment, the Paranormal Cases Division did exist.
After serving coffee to my new boss and his visitors, Tennyson took me to the Special Evidence room and showed me case files. One of them contained the photographs of what looked like mummified corpses. They didn’t come from ancient Egypt, the Mayans, or the Aztecs, but the modern-day Bronx. According to him, they were the victims of a vampire, who went on a killing spree until Rowling took the matter into his hands. In the refrigerator, there was a hand of an extraterrestrial. It looked almost identical to the one in the Predator room at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas. I commented as such, and he responded with, “Yeah, that’s what I thought at first, but believe me, the one at Planet Hollywood doesn’t move.”
A superior woman would have conducted a close examination of the hand, and a lesser woman would have fainted like a lady from the nineteenth century. I was only myself, so I backed up when I caught a slight movement of the hand in a tamper-proof container.
In addition, Tennyson walked me through Rowling’s credentials, including but not limited to his educational background at MIT as a physics major and at the University of Maryland graduate school as a criminology and criminal justice major. Tennyson didn’t forget to mention the part that Rowling graduated from both schools at the top of his class.
He also told me truly paranormal and metaphysical events tended to happen whenever my boss was involved. According to him, Rowling practically had every scandal and weakness of the top executives of the FBI, CIA, and even local police forces at his fingertips. Obtaining this kind of information was a piece of cake for him, by utilizing his own information network and that of USCAB’s. So basically, he always got whatever he wanted. Even the director of the FBI in DC had no power over him. To make things even worse, Rowling’s case closure rate was slightly higher than 100 percent.
“The case closure rate cannot surpass 100 percent,” I pointed out. “That’s mathematically impossible.”
“Yes, it can.” He shrugged. “He often sniffs out cases and closes them,
typically wreaking havoc, which makes the rate higher.”
“Oh….” I rolled my eyes. “Sounds like a troublemaker.”
“A trouble-generator is probably more accurate. He absolutely loves trouble.”
“How does he sniff out cases before they become cases? Does he have this little bird who whispers about new ones in his ears?”
When I said that, I was feeling a little bit sarcastic, but he didn’t seem to take it.
“Well, that’s close, if not very accurate,” he said. “Actually, he has this gift. He knows if a person is dead or alive just by looking at a photograph of them.”
I opened my mouth like a moron.
“You don’t need to believe me.” He shrugged. “If I were in your position, I wouldn’t believe such a ridiculous story.”
“Okay, I can’t say if I believe you or not, but I’ll try to remember your words.” I nodded.
“Good. Zombie Repellant is what we call him,” Tennyson told me, to wrap things up.
“Zombie Repellant?” I parroted.
“Yeah, meaning that even zombies won’t go near him.”
“Were there any zombie cases in the past?”
“No. Not yet.” He chuckled. “It’s just a figure of speech. By the way, I guess I know why he made a special request to hire you as his assistant. You’re funny, Mandy.”
I didn’t know whether to be flattered or offended. I had never felt more uncertain about my future. For once, I thought getting kicked out of medical school might not be that bad, but I wasn’t keen on encountering paranormal beings. I found myself wondering which would be worse—dealing with drug addicts and sick people or possibly dealing with blood-sucking monsters.
When I went back to my superior’s office, the visitors had already left.
“We’ve got an assignment, and I bet your firstborn you’ll see something sensational,” he announced, holding a photograph of a young Caucasian guy sporting a cocky grin.
“Please do not bet my firstborn who’s not even born.”
Rowling clicked his tongue. “You have no sense of humor.”
“I didn’t know I was summoned just to be insulted.”
“Anyway, an acquaintance of my acquaintance’s acquaintance was involved in an incident,” he said, completely ignoring my words of resistance.
According to him, the two beautiful female visitors were Beth and Ruth MacMahon. Beth, the elder of the duo, was the one he knew. It was about her younger sister Ruth’s boyfriend, who disappeared in a strange circumstance.
“So, what’s your relationship with Beth?” I asked casually, expecting an answer in line of something like a neighbor.
“She’s my old man’s lover,” he stated matter-of-factly.
“Old man? You mean, like your father?”
“I don’t call my mother an old man.”
I recalled Tennyson’s lecture. Daniel Rowling, my boss’s father, was a former director of the FBI. After his retirement, he became the CEO of USCAB, taking over from his father who had founded the company, and expanded the business to a Fortune 500 company. According to Tennyson, Daniel Rowling was a real billionaire who was about to join the trillionaires’ club.
“Speaking of mother, what’s your mom’s take on his having a lover outside their marriage?” I asked, curiosity getting the better of my manners.
“Which one?” Rowling cocked his head to the side.
“Well, most people have just one mom.”
“I’m not most people,” he pointed out. “The biological one went out of my life when I was three. She’s happily divorced and pursuing her new and old career as an artist in Melbourne with a beau younger than me. Considering she never remarried, she isn’t stupid, I guess. As for the other woman I used to call ‘Mother,’ she died ten years ago, complications from multiple sclerosis.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“I’m sorry for your loss, and for asking a nosy question.”
“Never mind.” He shrugged. “I didn’t know Beth was still in the city. Considering the old fart is on a business trip in Tokyo for two more weeks, he’s going to find women there.”
That was too much information. I didn’t know what to say, so I kept my mouth shut.
“Anyway, Beth is Miss Tuesday,” he said abruptly.
“Miss Tuesday?” I parroted.
“Yup. The old bastard has five girlfriends. Each woman is in charge of a specific day of the week from Monday to Friday. He calls Saturday and Sunday ‘freedom days’ and does highly unethical activities. Talk about the enemy of moral standards.”
I rolled my eyes. “Sounds like a tough guy. How old is he?”
“He should be seventy, unless he’s cheating social security.”
Having five lovers at the age of seventy? That was outstanding, yet bordering on gross.
“So, what about Ruth? Is she Miss Monday?”
“Wrong. She’s Miss Wednesday.”
“What…?” My jaw dropped to the floor.
“I was kidding. Ruth has a boyfriend. Actually, she has not one but two boyfriends. Well, the number is not the issue, as she can have as many boyfriends as she likes. One of them is a vain painter, the other a vain actor infesting off-Broadway. Both of them blame the ignorant society that doesn’t appreciate their great genius for the lack of their success.”
“Sounds familiar.”
“Yeah, right. The kind of pathetic excuse of artists whose best expertise is beautifying the fact that they can’t make ends meet,” he spat. “Anyway, some women fall for their type, and Ruth happens to be one of them. She has a good education and she’s not particularly ugly, but the rest is history. She’s been with not just one but two pathetic losers, happily providing them with moral and financial support. What’s her problem?”
“There’s no accounting for taste,” I commented.
“As a consequence of having bad taste in men, one of her boyfriends has gone missing, and the other is being held as a murder suspect at the 34th Precinct of the NYPD. Let’s go see the loser.”
“Which one of the boyfriends is missing?”
“The painter,” he answered. Staring at the photograph, he continued. “He’s dead.” His tone was unemotional, as if he were talking about weather.
I was still skeptical about Tennyson’s words regarding Rowling’s gift to see if a person was dead or alive just by looking at photographs. “How do you know if he’s dead when his body hasn’t been recovered?”
“Mandy, how do you kill douche bags just by touching them?” he countered.
“I didn’t kill them!”
“Then again, they dropped dead, and no one can provide a plausible explanation to the incidents. Shit happens.” He shrugged, and then he explained the case. A man called Ivan Flynn disappeared, and the way it happened was far from normal. He vanished, leaving his garments and shoes remaining in a heap.
Ivan Flynn graduated from a top art college more than ten years ago, and he was still waiting to be discovered. He’d recently switched his career path from fine art to commercial illustrator. Apparently, he believed illustration wasn’t real art, but the job was easier and the pay was better—which was the reason for the change in Flynn’s career path, provided by Ruth. I’m not an illustrator, but the moment I heard about this, I hated Ivan.
He’d landed a gig for an online gaming program featuring wizards, warriors, and monsters. Actually, it was Ruth who set up the deal, but she opted not to tell Ivan for the fear of damaging his pride.
“Damaging his pride? Talk about exaggeration!” Rowling laughed his as… I mean, behind off when mentioning this part.
Ivan started working on the project, isolating himself in a shabby apartment he called the "atelier."
Meanwhile, John Sangenis, a stage actor and Ruth’s other boyfriend, was as unsuccessful as Ivan in his field. They loathed each other like Lindsay Lohan and Amanda Bynes, only cattier and less famous, which made sense because losing Ruth meant
losing the bread from the mouths of both boys.
Late in the night, John paid a visit to Ivan’s tiny apartment. According to John, Ivan had called him and declared his victory in the war of conquering Ruth’s heart. John didn’t take it very well and went straight to Ivan’s atelier, determined to punch him.
Ivan answered John’s knock without opening the door. After a noisy verbal altercation, John ended up smashing through the cheap door by kicking it. When he came inside, Ivan, who was arguing with him only a minute before, was nowhere to be seen.
Responding to a neighbor’s noise complaint, a police officer arrived to find John lying on the floor passed out and a huge candle burning.
At first, this incident was considered to be a late-night fight and vandalism until the police found a dental implant and bone fragments scattered around an unconscious John Sangenis. Forensic analysis confirmed the bone fragments as parts of Ivan Flynn’s pelvis. And after confirming the implant’s owner as Ivan from the serial number, the dentist told the police that her patient came to her office earlier on the day of his disappearance; when she saw him, the implant was securely attached to his jawbone.
John Sangenis became the prime suspect of a murder case.
CHAPTER 5
We drove to the NYPD’s 34th Precinct in a metallic silver Ferrari, Rick Rowling’s personal car.
Yeah, you heard me right—I was riding in the Ferrari.
I had seen the pricy Italian vehicle numerous times, mostly in the parking lot of the medical school I used to attend, but it was my first time actually riding in it. And I had to admit, I more than perked up when I saw the car.
“I’m the assistant. I’ll drive!” I volunteered.