Minions

by Addison, Garrett

  Malcolm said nothing more, leaving Devlin with a confused look on his face as if expecting some continuation. He watched with disbelief as Malcolm returned to the computer and continued reading the on-line versions of several newspapers.

  Conrad felt the stress rise in Devlin until he could actually see the thumping of his elevated blood pressure in his temples, and his neck cramping at the weight of his head. He saw that Devlin had edged forward on the couch in nervous anticipation, expectant of wisdom of some description, but now he slunk back into the couch, and rested his head on the cheap fabric of the back. After a few calming breaths, he spoke, eyes closed, as if absolutely focussed on saying something rational. “Can someone please tell me what’s going on?”

  Malcolm was unperturbed at the question leaving Conrad to comment, “Don’t ask me!”

  “This is so stupid!” said Devlin, finally having had enough. He stood and marched the few steps to the door, muttering as he went, obviously hoping that someone would call his ruse and stop him before he reached the door.

  Conrad took his cue from Malcolm and allowed Devlin to leave.

  * * *

  Malcolm felt no obligation to stop Devlin. He didn’t really care that Devlin didn’t understand, nor did he care. He remembered that Glen too was so focussed on what was in LastGasp’ that he was unable to see where the real power of his creation lay. It wasn’t the blissful ignorance of the greater population. Instead it was like a naive expectation that things would work themselves out. Describing it as ‘naive’ had upset Glen at the time. They’d debated the point for a long time, primarily because he himself had suggested that Glen’s mentality was little better than childish. They’d settled on the word ‘misguided’. He accused Glen of being misguided in his expectations, and in return Glen suggested that it was he who was misguided.

  A little older but a lot wiser now, he understood that in so doing Glen was making another ever so subtle point. That it had taken him time to come to this realisation was testament to how little he understood at the time. Glen understood more than he’d given him credit for.

  He’d met Glen at a community support group. Attending wasn’t his idea and he didn’t really want to stay, but his television had finally died and the venue offered shelter from the cold and human warmth when he lacked these things in his own hovel. He’d bypassed the cheap coffee in favour of a comfortable looking lounge and in so doing had unwittingly joined the group. It was counselling with a friendly, albeit amateur face. Sixteen people assembled in an open circle, the lounge completing the ring. By sitting on that particular chair he as much as indicated that he had something to share.

  He pretended to be shy, but that day was a good one and he was not at all intimidated by the prospect of having to talk in front of an audience, but he did need to know what to share. He could have said anything. All of them had issues, especially the most vocal of them, apparently the group leader. It wasn’t Glen, though Glen was without question the most rational of them. He didn’t burst into tears at the slightest provocation or escalated tone, and he didn’t nod or make noises of approval or acknowledgement when the speaker paused momentarily for reflection. Though Glen was the most cryptic. A lifetime of listening to people to gauge what they wanted to hear made Malcolm very good at understanding their intent. But Glen was different. He wasn’t guarded, which Malcolm would have spotted within the first sound-bite. Malcolm also sensed that Glen wasn’t fishing for medication or carefully composing feigned thoughts to avoid medication or battling the suppressive effects of medication, all of which Malcolm himself had variously done, tried or experienced.

  Malcolm felt guilty for the way that he’d taken a liking to Glen and ignored the others. It wasn’t him really. It was the day, or the meds or the lack thereof. On another day, the day before or the day after perhaps he might have focussed on someone else. Who knows where he’d be now if that had happened. He tried not to dwell on it though, just as he didn’t stress that had he paid the gas bill he possibly wouldn’t have been wandering the streets for company. The upside, the greater good in its most basic incarnation, was that he’d met Glen. This was the first thing that Glen had ever taught him.

  The next thing that Glen suggested was that he should look forward, not back. Malcolm warmed to his eternal optimism. On that particular day, Malcolm saw his positivity being appreciated rather than psychoanalysed, and he felt sure that his down days would be accepted equally. Indeed they were. Within a week he’d lost his job, as menial and below him as it was, but to be employed he needed to leave the house and he just wasn’t capable of facing the world. He just sat alone in bed crying at the prospect of needing to close the curtain a little more.

  However, Glen came and stayed. He brought a thermos of coffee and a pillow and talked through the door for hours. Others, not many, but a few people had reasonably assumed that Malcolm was holed up in his room and made a token effort to coax him out, but when he kept quiet, they left. Perhaps they reasoned that he’d been successful, this time, in leaving. But Glen wasn’t perturbed at the wait. He talked knowing that Malcolm would be listening despite an absence of any signs of life from behind the door.

  There was nothing in particular that Glen said that made Malcolm open the door. It could have been just reward for his persistence, but it was more than likely what he’d said about his mother. His mother wasn’t directly mentioned, but Malcolm understood the veiled references. Glen spoke of family exposing the darker side of people. He later learnt that Glen was possibly talking about himself, but that sentiment was also true when he thought about his own family.

  Malcolm had never known his father. The guy had died before Malcolm was born, apparently. He’d doubted his mother’s story but not enough to seek the truth for himself. It wasn’t a significant problem as a child, primarily because in his ‘passing’ he’d provided for his family, even if he hadn’t shared his surname. Of course as a child he didn’t understand the concept of wealth, but there was love in his mother’s heart and food on the table.

  He was a teenager before his health became an issue. It wasn’t a problem in his education as his mind was largely idling at school but he was still doing better than just keeping up. His social development, however, was different. He always tended to think a little differently to his peers, which was fine, but not if he lacked the confidence to carry himself. His good days weren’t a problem; he had friends. Irregularly but often though, he had his down days when he was not capable of leaving his room, much less the house.

  Even worse would be when his mood was on the turn, when he was liable to be erratic and impulsive. Like falling barometric pressure, the swing would give warning but there was nothing that could be done short of battening down the hatches. That his mother didn’t need to work was a blessing. She would allow him his bad days, riding them out, until the sun came out. Like any concerned parent, she sought professional help but that invariably resulted in medication, no matter how many second opinions she got. Fear of air travel was the only thing that prevented her trying foreign specialists. Eventually she reluctantly conceded that her only son would require medication.

  His troubles made it difficult for others to understand him. Was he the average of his vivacious, exuberant highs and his desolate, hide from the world lows, or was he something else entirely without the tidality? His mother didn’t really know either, but she knew that he was not the docile, zombified adolescent that looked back at her while on medication. Wealthy as she was, the price of the near perpetual sedation was too high. She removed her son from the doctor’s care, purchased a little cottage in a remote seaside village and lived away from the less than supportive talk or thoughts of others. On their own it didn’t matter if he was up or down.

  Home schooling sounds so alternative, but Malcolm got a better education away from the greater teenage population. Every few weeks his mother would make the short trip to the city to see friends, meet with her financial advisor and enjoy the different pac
e of life. Malcolm would come along on each visit. If he was not well enough to travel, his mother would delay the trip.

  One of his father’s investments, some mining company, hit pay-dirt one day and overnight their comfortable existence was changed forever. Suddenly they were decidedly wealthy and his mother felt obligated to do more than hide away. She looked for ways to share their good fortune. Malcolm could not fault her approach, even now. She didn’t want attention; that was not why she was doing it. She just wanted to do the right thing. Had they ever met, Malcolm was sure that his mother would have gotten on well with Glen on that point alone.

  Despite her best efforts for anonymity, soon she was being courted by all manner of foundations desperate to impress of the worthiness of their cause. She was not prepared to compromise her lifestyle, or her dedication to her son, and soon it became common for visitors to appear at their home. They would stay for a time, typically after lunch, which gave them time to drive from the city in the morning, push their case and then drive back to the city in the afternoon. Some would make the drive home considering the trip worthwhile, but most would call it a pleasant drive but a wasted day.

  One day, Malcolm’s mother hosted an effort by a refugee advocacy organisation apparently in search of a patron but they’d settle for a sponsor. Two men arrived to lobby their case, one was a nervous looking individual who just sat quietly allowing the other to talk. Malcolm didn’t feel up to meeting anyone, so he just listened to their discussion from his room. The case for their organisation was that without support, refugees and asylum seekers would be marginalised in this foreign land and their charitable organisation was the best to provide this support. About the only thing constructive that the quiet one offered was to present his colleague who then took centre stage, describing himself as proof positive of successful assimilation of a refugee. The organisation was legitimate, as were the credentials of the quiet one, but the other guy was a charlatan at best. Not that a lack of confidence is the hallmark of a refugee, but he didn’t seem to fit his story. His mother too saw a dubious story, as if his press release didn’t match reality. They left empty handed.

  The next day Malcolm felt much better and opted to clear the grey away completely with a long walk on the beach. He made a day of it and didn’t return until it was almost dark. He turned down his street just in time to see a car, the same car from the previous day, pull out of their driveway. His mother was tearful as soon as he entered the house but put on a brave face that didn’t convince or help either of them. She spent much of the night on the phone with the door closed. She was not ordinarily secretive and Malcolm was un-nerved more for her sudden demand for privacy than the sobbing that couldn’t be contained behind closed doors.

  In the morning, his mother was distracted, edgy, irrational and she resented Malcolm’s presence. From the moment he surfaced he sensed the difference, and try as he might, he couldn’t account for it with something as simple as hormones. When she rushed to the toilet to throw up after staring at him for a time, he decided it was time to confront her. He wasn’t a child, and that she would shun him suddenly was disconcerting.

  She didn’t say much, only that she hoped that he would understand. Their solitude was broken by the arrival of her lawyer. Malcolm was sent on an un-necessary errand to allow them some privacy which he accepted but resented.

  Malcolm was orphaned at the age of eighteen. Legally he was responsible for his actions, emotionally he was more than adequately developed, but was ill-prepared nonetheless. That she killed herself was a low blow. That she left him with nothing was even lower. Before her body was cold, his mother’s lawyer executed her will and intent. He was, quite literally left on a street corner with a wallet half full of cash and a puzzle book. In the space of a few days, her assets that had attracted no end of interest as a source of philanthropy was gone. The stocks and shares sold, the real estate sold, and the proceeds of the sales and outstanding cash assets gone.

  Malcolm learnt that he had amazingly few grounds to trace the proceeds. No crime had been committed, beyond the arguable crime against God’s will in her suicide, and everything else had been entirely in accordance with his mother’s wishes. This didn’t help him, and it was through this that Malcolm learnt first hand that the world didn’t care. Had he gained anything in her death, the finger of suspicion would have been squarely pointed at him, but without gain he was apparently above such suspicion.

  The stress of such an upheaval inevitably dragged Malcolm down. That in itself had an upside in that it prevented him from frittering away his money, his limited inheritance. He found a cheap boarding house at the first onset of a sliding mood and prepared for a long time of isolation. Sometimes he’d manage a month or more of wellness and he’d try for some work. Nothing too taxing, physically or mentally; it wasn’t worth the effort. He knew it wouldn’t last and that he was unexpectedly poor had also made him cynical for the pursuit of wealth.

  It was on one of these ‘up times’ that Malcolm met Glen. Perhaps their meeting was a chance encounter. Glen had cause to share what he did in the group session, but Malcolm didn’t. D.A.G.S. Domestic Abuse Group for Survivors. Malcolm didn’t have any grounds to be there. As much as he derided the others for their recollections, it did introduce him to something that his isolation had denied him. It could be worse.

  When Glen said that he’d been searching for him, Malcolm, initially at least understood the comment to be subjective. He later learnt that there was more truth than rhetoric in the comment. His protracted ill-health had made him impossible to trace, but Glen couldn’t believe his luck when Malcolm sauntered into the DAGS session.

  Malcolm joined LastGasp’ without any hesitation, lured by the prospect of learning about his mother, if not to trace the money that was rightly his. Glen promised nothing tangible other than to suggest that Malcolm would be best positioned to learn all with him.

  Money became less important with every day at LastGasp’, not only for the money that he was being given. Immersed in other peoples’ lives, thoughts and secrets, Malcolm came to understand for himself that money wouldn’t change his past and while it would surely change his future, money would not buy peace of mind.

  Malcolm wondered what it would take for Devlin to find this same peace of mind.

  Chapter - 55.

  Detective Reymond was back in his office. Without a partner, there was nothing obligating him to routinely visit his desk at the station; there wasn’t even a picture of family or friends on his desk that might make any time there more comfortable or homely. However, his desk did offer a computer terminal, and he knew that he’d need to validate the list that he’d obtained from Angie’s personal effects on admission to the hospital. Too many of the names on the list were familiar to ignore, and while legally he had no grounds to actually confiscate the list, technically, photocopying it wasn’t actually taking it.

  On top of the indecipherable handwritten notes on the list, Reymond had added his own simple annotation following a quick investigation using the Police search tools. It didn’t take long, and not just because of the technology. The first name, the name at the top of the list, meant nothing to him personally, but it came up trumps with the system. Kendrick, Derrell. The guy was deceased, and the listed address matched his last known address, which was also where his body was found. Non-suspicious death, suicide. Cut and dried. Reymond scanned the rest of the details, not really looking for anything in particular, but looking to assimilate all of the information en-masse. The guy died alone with a sizeable fortune in the bank, and quite an amount of cash on his person, and without any family or a will, the state had all but commandeered his assets.

  Reymond moved onto the next name on the list. Then the next. Virtually all were dead, each having met their end in different ways, and often, but not always, at their own hand. This explained why so many of the names were familiar. He decided immediately that each of the survivors on the list, including Whitely, were worth a visit
, perhaps after first visiting Angie. It was nearing peak-hour and the drive across town was sure to be slow, so he printed off a mass of reports and background on each of the listed individuals to while away the minutes bumper to bumper in traffic.

  He tried to mentally order what he’d read, looking for similarities and peculiarities. As well practiced as he might be, this particular scenario was not familiar. The people involved did not represent any logical single demographic. Men and women, old and young, rich and poor, immigrants and others. About the only thing that they had in common was that they were no longer among us, but even that didn’t help. A few suicides, a few road traffic accidents, a few victims of domestic violence, and a spattering of other unfortunate, but undeniably random acts, including a drive-by shooting, and a good-old fashioned shanking while on remand. Unfortunate, Reymond thought, but nothing conclusive. A statistician might raise an eyebrow that the rates of the various causes of death were high, but then the sample size was sure to be too small to be conclusive for them.

  This was just a list of people, and the fact that they were past LastGasp’ employees could easily have gone under the radar, or perhaps remained under the radar. Legally they possibly weren’t even employees, but the hotel manager had confirmed as much and the money trail for the assets of each individual stopped at the bank branch less than a block from LastGasp’. Reymond marvelled again that these things had gone un-noticed by his predecessor, and wondered if he would have made the same mistakes if he was still driven enough to resent shit assignments in favour of more meaningful work. Would he have bothered to do his homework when each of these cases were so straight forward, and when something better for his career was calling?

  He was comforted that any result would surely consolidate the important role that he could still play, thereby further prolonging his stay of execution, of mandatory retirement. Each day he would feel the pressure on him to retire, from his colleagues and superiors alike, and each day he’d avoid the issue. His few friends didn’t understand his obsession, his commitment to justice, particularly after what happened to his daughter. Neither did those in the Force for that matter. How could he retire until he saw justice.