Jasper Lilla and The Wolves of Banner Elk

by C. S. Thompson

  “This is Jasper Lilla,” explained Mrs. Jennings. “He’s here about Carl’s job.”

  Mr. Benjamin stood next to me, eyeing me closer than he had before. “You look familiar to me. Have we met before today?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  He nodded, but he didn’t look like he believed me. “Come on in,” he said as he turned toward a door with his name on it.

  Mrs. Jennings handed him a note. “This came yesterday.”

  He looked at the note and frowned. Then he looked at me again before he asked Mrs. Jennings, “Sylvia sent this?”

  Mrs. Jennings nodded yes and said, “Yesterday.”

  “Please come in, Mr. Lilly,” he muttered.

  “Lilla,” said Mrs. Jennings.

  “Whatever,” he mumbled as he went into his office.

  “So,” he said once the door was shut, “we’ve been instructed to give you a job.” He didn’t look at me. He just stared at the paper Mrs. Jennings had handed him. “What’s your connection to Mr. Lyons?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “I’ve only met him a couple of times, but I’m friends with his daughter.”

  “Sit,” he ordered, pointing at a chair across from his desk. He stayed behind me, pacing back and forth, as I sat. “Do you want this job, Mr. Lilla?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, are you aware that the proper procedure for getting a job here is to go through the human resources department?”

  This was the first job I had ever applied for, so, no, I had no idea what the proper procedure was. I thought about asking him why Wally wasn’t here then, but I didn’t. “No, sir,” I said.

  “It might be easier to get a job by knowing the owner’s daughter, but that’s not how you keep a job. Is that clear?”

  “I didn’t try to get this job through Riley,” I explained. “I didn’t even know about this job until she told me yesterday.”

  He scrunched his face up.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t follow the right procedure,” I said. I knew he was mad at me. I wasn’t exactly sure what was so wrong with what I did, but clearly I had done something wrong.

  “Really,” he said snidely. He circled around in front of me and sat behind his desk. “I’m just playing with you,” he announced with a stupid grin. Then he laughed.

  He was one of those guys who could laugh at his own joke even if no one else laughed with him. There should be a name for that, I thought.

  “Any questions?” he asked.

  “No, sir.”

  He leaned back in his chair and said, “Friends with the boss’s daughter,” more to himself than me.

  As I sat there looking at him, I was aware that Linus would have left already.

  “You can start tomorrow,” he told me.

  As I left his office he asked again, “Are you sure we haven’t met?”

  Eighteen

  Lion Security

  I don’t know what they thought I might do, but I had to get fingerprinted. So the next afternoon I had to go back to Mrs. Jennings’s office. I was glad that Mr. Benjamin wasn’t there, but the intense guy who opened the door for Wally the previous day was.

  “This is Duncan Maddox,” Mrs. Jennings told me. “He’ll take you to the security office.”

  Duncan just nodded at me and said, “This way.”

  I followed him down a hallway, around a corner, down a flight of stairs, around another corner, and then I lost track of how we got where we went. The security office was at the end of a short, dark hallway. Duncan, who still hadn’t said anything else to me, opened the door and nodded me inside as he held the door open.

  “You must be Jazz-barr,” said someone as I entered. I couldn’t see who it was because he was sitting behind a bank of television screens, but he had the same mock Russian accent I had heard from Duncan the day before. When he stood up I could see he was even taller than Duncan. His hair was shoulder length, like Duncan’s, but his was blond. He was dressed exactly the same: a tight blue suit, a white shirt buttoned all the way up, and no tie.

  “I’m Aiden Cormac,” he said with a big, friendly grin. “Come on in.” Pointing with his finger he directed me around the bank of computers.

  Duncan remained standing in the doorway until Aiden dismissed him with a nod.

  Once I cleared the computer screens I noticed a third man sitting at a small table. Next to him was an empty chair, which Mr. Cormac pulled out for me to sit in. “You already met Duncan Maddox,” he told me as I sat down. “And this is Malcolm Fergus. He’ll be getting your fingerprints taken care of.” He patted me on the shoulder. “I’m sure it will be fine.”

  Malcolm held out his left hand and said, “Right hand.” His voice was less gravelly than Aiden’s and Duncan’s, but he had the accent.

  It seemed like a weird way to shake hands, but everything was seeming weird to me, so it would have been weird not to be weird. I grabbed a hold of his left hand with my right and shook it.

  He just stared at me the same way Duncan had. His hair was dark but cut short, and he had a dark beard. He was sitting, but I could tell he wasn’t as tall as Aiden. His suit was a dark gray, but it was cut in the tight style that Aiden and Duncan wore. His shirt was a light blue and he wore it buttoned all the way up without a tie. Like Duncan, Malcolm had on too much Axe.

  When I let go of his hand he took hold of my wrist with his right hand and said, “Relax.” His breath was hot and foul. I watched while he took my fingers, one at a time and rolled them on an electronic pad. Then he did the same with my left hand.

  When he was done he nodded at Aiden, who was standing behind me. “Come with me,” Aiden said.

  I was relieved to go with Aiden. In spite of how strange he looked and sounded, he was friendly. You’d think that a lifetime of blank stares and one- and two-word sentences from Aunt Maggie would have prepared me to relate to Malcolm and Duncan better, but it didn’t. They made me nervous.

  As I followed Aiden into the hall, I pretty much decided that I was going to call Riley and tell her I couldn’t take the job.

  “How about a tour?” asked Aiden once the door closed behind us.

  “Okay,” I found myself saying. I didn’t want a tour. I wasn’t coming back, so I didn’t need a tour. I wanted to go home, but even more, I didn’t want to say any of that to Aiden.

  He stayed next to me as we walked to what I guessed was the back of the building. As we went he asked me typical adult questions: what classes I had in school, what sports I played, if I had a girlfriend, and what I did for fun. It was standard and generic, but it wasn’t a statue like the other security guys or a bozo like Mr. Benjamin.

  We took an elevator down two floors into a large garage. There were no trucks, but across one end of the garage was a loading dock. Behind the loading dock were large security doors.

  Pointing at the doors Aidan explained, “That’s where we keep the drugs.” He grinned. “And behind this wall,” he pointed over his shoulder with his thumb at a solid brick wall, “is manufacturing. That’s where they make the drugs. Those places will be off limits to you. Any questions?”

  “No.”

  “Don’t you wonder why?” he asked.

  I didn’t wonder why. I didn’t care, but I asked, “Why?”

  He grinned again. “Do you see those people?”

  I looked where he was looking, at the far end of the loading dock. Two people had just come out. I couldn’t tell what gender either was because they were both wearing baggy white jumpsuits with white booties and white shower caps. They were taking a smoke break.

  “We make drugs,” he repeated.

  “Does everyone who works in there have to dress like that?”

  “Yes. And they have to go through quite a bit more scrutiny than just fingerprinting. You don’t need that for your job.”

  “Okay.”

  “Do you like that car?” he asked.

  I turned around again. At the far end of the garage was a single vehicle—a maro
on Jeep Wrangler JK. The top was off, and so were the doors. “Yeah,” I said, and I meant it.

  “That would be your car,” he told me.

  “Really?” Suddenly the job looked a lot more attractive.

  He snorted. “Not to take home, but it’s the car Carl would use to run errands in. Mr. Lyons bought it to be a good winter vehicle, but Carl loved to drive it stripped down like that during the summer. Do you want us to put it back together for you?”

  “No,” I blurted.

  “I didn’t think so,” he chuckled as he headed back to the elevator.

  I found myself getting more relaxed with Aiden as he continued the tour. We visited the factory office, which was to be the only part of the whole manufacturing wing I’d be allowed to go to. The accounting, marketing, and sales offices were on the second floor where Mr. Benjamin’s office was. Riley’s dad’s office was at one end of the first floor, and the labs, where Wally was, were at the other. In the middle of the first floor was the old banquet hall, which was now being used as an employee lunchroom. We finished the tour at Wally’s lab.

  “I believe you know this young man,” Aiden said to Wally as we entered the lab.

  Wally was parked in front of an open cabinet. There was a clipboard in his lap, a pencil in his teeth, and a brown bottle in his hands. When Wally smiled, the pencil dropped out of his mouth, but he caught it like he meant to do it.

  “You start tomorrow, Jazz-barr,” Aiden said with a clap on my shoulder as he left.

  “How’s it going?” asked Wally.

  I looked around before answering. I didn’t want to be heard when I said, “This place is weird.”

  Wally raised his eyebrows and nodded. “You’ve been with those security guys, haven’t you?”

  “Yeah. Where are they from anyway? I don’t get that accent.”

  “I don’t know exactly, but if I had to guess I’d say it’s Eastern European. They all wear their suits with a European cut,” said Wally. Then he added, “They’re sure a talkative bunch, aren’t they?”

  “I think they’re weird.”

  “Aiden seems nice enough.”

  “Maybe,” I conceded, “but what’s with the Axe?”

  “‘Ax,’” he repeated, sounding surprised. “Did one of them have an ax?”

  “No,” I laughed. “Axe is a cologne. They’re all swimming in it.”

  Nineteen

  Vernalisa Confronts Jasper

  Aunt Maggie was in the kitchen when I got home. That meant we were having meat. When Mom cooked we had meat sometimes, but when Aunt Maggie cooked we always had meat. It also meant Mom was elsewhere, which delighted me because I wouldn’t have to explain where I’d been all afternoon, or so I thought.

  “You’re late,” Aunt Maggie said without looking up from the soup pot she was standing over. “What you been up to?”

  “Nothing.” I said it as naturally as I could.

  Aunt Maggie turned to face me. Panic. The only way to get anything past her was to not draw her attention to it. If she focused on something, she was going to get to the bottom of it. Lying to her was unthinkable. The truth was the only option, but how much was the question.

  “He’s been with Wally,” said Carol from behind me. I didn’t know she was behind me, and I didn’t know she knew where I had been, but I was sure glad she did.

  “You been to that place,” Aunt Maggie said without even a glance toward Carol.

  I nodded yes.

  “Does your mama know?”

  “Probably.” This was not exactly a lie. In truth, my mother always knew more than I thought she knew, so I could have been dead-on, but I doubted it.

  “She does now,” came a cold voice from behind me. It was Mom.

  “I didn’t see your car outside,” I said as I turned around.

  “I can see that,” she smirked.

  “Nice cover, sport,” Carol said under her breath as she moved past me. She was getting out of the line of fire.

  “When were you planning on telling me?” asked Mom. Her arms were folded across her chest, which was not a good sign for me. The third degree was coming, and that would be followed by a lecture. Sometimes it even got churned into an object lesson for another children’s story. She wrote a story about a ferret who stole the last apple from the grocer and lost his best friend, the rabbit, who wanted to bake a pie. I was the ferret. A Snickers bar was the apple.

  “Now,” I said so whiny even I didn’t believe me.

  “‘Now,’” she repeated.

  “I was going to tell you,” I said more convincingly. “I just hadn’t—”

  “Gotten around to it,” Carol threw in with a laugh.

  Mom squinted at Carol. “Did you want in this conversation?”

  Carol, who was now seated at the kitchen table, held up her hands in surrender.

  “What were you doing up there?” Mom asked. Her attention was all mine again.

  “I got an after-school job.”

  “Did you think about talking to me before you did that?”

  “I don’t know.” I knew it was a lame response as I said it, but it bought me some time.

  “You ‘don’t know,’” she repeated. It was a dance for us: I’d say something lame to stall, and she’d repeat it to make sure I knew she knew what I was doing.

  “Wally works there,” I said, trying an evasion tactic.

  “Leave us out of it, sporto,” scolded Carol.

  “It’s not as bad a place as you think, Mom.”

  When her eyebrows went up and her head tipped forward toward me, I stepped back.

  “So, Jasper, you knew I had concerns about Lion Pharmaceuticals. Is that why we didn’t discuss this first?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” This was what I call the pivot moment. It’s the moment of surrender. Whatever battle of wills was going on between my mother and me was now over and she had won. I had a fantasy that on the day I bested my mother in a battle of wills I would be a man. It was not to be that day.

  “Tell me about the job.”

  “Errand boy.”

  “What does that mean?” she asked.

  “If there’s something that has to go from one office to another, I take it. And if something needs to go to town or be picked up from town, I’d do that, too. They have a Jeep for me to use.”

  “Why do you want that job?”

  “Money.”

  “If that’s all it is, you could work here.” She looked past me at Aunt Maggie, “Is there work for him around the alpacas?”

  “Him,” Aunt Maggie said, “no.” Then she laughed.

  “You’re not helping,” Mom told her.

  “Tell the boy you already knew,” Aunt Maggie said back to her.

  “You knew,” I said. “When were you going to tell me that?”

  “Excuse me,” she said firmly. “I am responsible for you, not accountable to you. You are accountable to me because I am responsible for you. Got it?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Now, tell me why you want this job? Does it have anything to do with your friend?”

  “Riley.”

  “I know Riley’s name. I’m asking you if she is why you want this job.”

  “She asked me to apply for it,” I confessed, “but I agreed.” I didn’t want my mother to blame Riley.

  “Of course you did, but ‘Why?’ is the question.”

  I shrugged. “Mr. Lyons is her father. She wants to protect him.”

  “How does your being his errand boy protect him?”

  “She thinks if I work there, then everyone at school will think he might not be so bad.”

  Her face softened. “Riley must think a lot of you to think you being there would have that effect.”

  That really confused me. I wondered if the third degree was over and we were skipping the lecture altogether.

  “So you agreed to apply for the job because you thought it would please Riley.”

  “I guess,” I moaned.

&n
bsp; “Who will be your boss?”

  The question made it sound like she was going to let me keep the job. “Mr. Lyons is the boss.”

  “I know he’s the owner. Who will you answer to?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “How can you not know? Didn’t you start today?”

  “No,” I said. “I start on Monday. Today I just got fingerprinted and got a tour.” I turned to Carol. “I saw Wally at his lab.”

  Carol smiled and nodded.

  “Maybe this will be good for you,” said Mom. “You don’t seem to know much about working somewhere, do you?”

  It didn’t seem like a question I was supposed to answer.

  “You know what your job entails, but you don’t know who you’ll report to.” She shook her head. “I’ll bet you don’t know how much it pays.”

  It was true. I hadn’t thought of that.

  “You’re going to either report to Leona or security, but I don’t know which yet,” Mom told me.

  I didn’t know who Leona was or how Mom knew who I’d report to.

  “Mrs. Jennings,” said Mom. “I believe you met with her today.”

  I liked the idea of reporting to Mrs. Jennings. She was real nice to me. But the idea of being near Mr. Benjamin was not appealing at all. If I had to choose I’d have picked security over Mr. Benjamin, but not by much. Also, I wasn’t sure how my mother knew so much, but she always seemed to know more than I expected, so I didn’t notice it at the time.

  “So I can keep the job?” I asked.

  “You’ve already accepted it, haven’t you?” she responded.

  It seemed like a trick question. Did that mean if I committed to anything in the future she’d go along with it because I had already done it? That didn’t seem right.

  “Yes,” I said. I started to sit across from Carol.

  “Are we done?” Mom asked in a chilly tone.

  I had hoped so, but apparently we weren’t skipping the lecture.

  She put her hands on my shoulders and stepped a little closer. “I have my reasons for distrusting that place.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “What do you know?”

  “I know you think Mr. Lyons has something to do with Dr. Dietrich’s death.”

  “I don’t know who is responsible for Dr. Dietrich’s death,” she said, “but I seriously doubt it was a suicide, and if it wasn’t a suicide, then someone has to be responsible. If I thought you were at risk there I’d never allow it.” Keeping her hands on my shoulders she looked at Carol. “And if I thought Wally was at risk there I’d have thrown a bigger fuss about him going there, too.”