Parts Per Million

by Julia Stoops

  Nelson clears his throat. “Do you, ah, if you don’t mind me asking, keep tampons or pads in your desk?”

  Nancy’s finger-splayed hand pushes flat above her bosom. “Well. Uh-huh.”

  “Will this fit in the package?”

  “I believe it will.”

  “Great,” says Nelson. “Just keep an eye on when the tapes run out.”

  Fetzer bundles up the VOX and the receiver and the recorder and puts them in a paper bag. He looks up. “Your desk’s wood, right, not metal?”

  Nancy nods.

  “Good.” Then he drops two latex gloves in the bag and Nancy’s eyebrows bounce.

  “May as well take every precaution,” he says.

  Her hand goes up. “Now you’re making me scared.”

  “Don’t be. It’s got my prints all over it, and if I was worried I’d take the time to wipe the whole thing clean.”

  Nancy stares at the paper bag. She shakes her head. “No.”

  “Dude,” I say. “Come on.”

  Nancy folds her arms. “Sorry. I changed my mind.”

  “I thought you wanted to build alliances,” I say.

  Her black-brown eyes. “I thought you gave me your word you weren’t going to involve me in this.”

  Fetzer says to the bag, “Yeah. We did.”

  “Sorry, Irv,” she says. “But I can’t put my ass on the line for this.”

  “We’ll figure out something else,” says Nelson. “You’re right, we shouldn’t have even put you in this position.”

  Great. Just fucking great.

  The door clicks closed. “That was embarrassing,” murmurs Nelson.

  “She’s certainly changed,” says Fetzer. “Guess it was stupid of me to expect otherwise.”

  “It would’ve been so easy for her,” I say.

  Fetzer says, “She’s got a job, she’s supporting a kid. Too much to lose.”

  “Lose to what? How the hell would she even get caught?”

  “But what if she was?”

  “That’s practically impossible. Besides, she said she’d do it. Backs out soon as it gets a tiny bit risky.”

  “Hey,” says Fetzer. “It was stupid to ask her. Period.”

  “It needs to be done, dude. I’m locked out, okay? Fucking vulnerabilities got patched. We going to just let this slip through our fingers?”

  Fetzer sighs, swipes his hands over his baldness. “Let it go, Jen. We’ll think of something.”

  Right. Like I’m going to wait around for that to happen.

  56: FETZER

  Honestly, I didn’t have a clue. Dee complained about a “fizzy light switch” and I went over there to check on it, hoping the problem was on the room side of the wall and not deeper in. She opens her door and next thing I know there’s a thousand people yelling “Surprise!” But when my eyes got used to the dark it turned out to be a more manageable number.

  Kate, who I was surprised was even there, brought two bottles of Gevrey-Chambertin that I’ll never forget. Isobel and a few other folks from the station came. A couple of guys from Veterans for Peace. Three kids from the infoshop—invited by Jen, but they were mellow and funny and put Jen in a better mood. She’d been pissy ever since Nancy left that morning.

  Mr. Nguyen turned up with a tray of pastries. Dee’s place was decorated all over with strings of colored lights. There was a little bit of dancing, but mostly we drank wine and talked, and nobody was in a hurry to leave. I forgot about Colin Powell’s address to the UN, and the computer-generated diagrams of mobile WMD production facilities that were offered up as “proof” of Saddam’s failure to comply. Instead, my mind drifted in and out of the conversations, and the colored lights winked on and off all around us. A strand came loose and dangled close to Deirdre’s head. She was laughing at Isobel’s jokes and the reflections off her hair turned red, then green, then gold, then blue, then white. She looked pretty in the soft light. More feminine, less angles. Funny that Nelson was so into her from the get-go. Never thought scrawny would be his type, but then Nelson didn’t seem to have a type, unless you counted damsels in distress.

  When Deirdre leaned forward to take a handful of corn chips from the bowl, a necklace fell out of the V-neck of her sweater. It was a tiny crucifix. She tucked it back in. I was going to ask her about it, but the conversation flowed on, and I soon forgot.

  At one point Franky bent down close to me and said, “You having a good time?”

  I raised my glass to him. “Doesn’t get better than this.”

  “Yeah,” he said, and he looked around the room like he was committing the scene to memory. “Wish Sylvia was here, though.”

  But that was the only time she came up.

  Before midnight Dee and Nelson slipped out to the bathroom and came back with a big-ass chocolate cake. Fifty candles poking out of its dark shiny frosting. And the singing, everyone singing. Dee and Nelson’s hands under the heavy cake, their eyes locked on it, their feet shuffling forward into the dark room, their candlelit smiles. Shoulder to shoulder, holding the cake steady like a sacred thing of joy they were bringing to an altar. It was one of those moments you don’t forget. The sweetness of it.

  The phone vibrating in my pocket woke me up. I was lying on Deirdre’s sofa. The room was filled with gray light, and it was hard to tell what time it was. My bones were cold and a hammer banged randomly inside my skull when I sat up. Deirdre’s green sofa looked dirty in the daylight. I turned around and Mother of God Deirdre’s bed had Deirdre in it, and Nelson, and Franky. But in the next beat I took in enough fully clothed limbs poking out from under the covers that my heart slowed and I was able to pull out the phone and see it was quarter past ten.

  “Omnia Mundi,” I whispered. No one stirred in Dee’s bed.

  “Dude!” Jen yelled into my ear.

  “Where are you?”

  “On my way home. Ohmygod, you are so not going to believe this!”

  “What—what are you calling from? I’ve got the cell.”

  “I took Dee’s. Listen, I’ll be there in fifteen. Be in the kitchen, okay?

  Jen came into the kitchen grinning. “Oh, fuuuuck!”

  “Where on earth did you go?”

  “Harry Lane,” said Jen. She slammed the tape deck on the kitchen table. “This. Is. Incredible.”

  She had the tape cued up, and before I could say anything a voice came out of it.

  “Six copies, Will.” The voice was slow and flat, maybe drunk. Maybe just stressed. “Six copies. The whole goddamn timeline. Recorded conversations.”

  “Fuck,” said Jen. She paced up and down. “Can you believe this?”

  “No, you won’t,” said a second voice. It was Reynolds, I recognized his patronizing tone.

  “Stamped and addressed,” said the stressed voice. “They’re going out today. Three papers, three networks.”

  Jen grinned. “That’s Gary Wellesley. The president.”

  The tape player sat small and black on the green Formica table. “Jen—” I said.

  “They’ll ignore you,” said Reynolds.

  “You think I’m stupid? Three papers. Three networks—”

  Reynolds said, “I heard you the first time, Gary.” There was a beat or two of silence, then, “Yeah, you’re stupid. I still have your hard drive.”

  “I know you do,” said Wellesley, “and I don’t care. I’ve got nothing left to lose.”

  “For Christ’s sake, you’ve got everything to lose.”

  “I’m in hell, Will. When it’s all public, at least I won’t have to pretend I’m not.”

  “Jen—” I said again. That hammer was banging away, and one half of me wanted to rip her a new one, and the other half couldn’t tear my ears away from the recording.

  Reynolds sounded baffled. “You really want the public to know?”

  “I want those recruiters off my campus.”

  “You know I can’t change that.”

  “Figure out a way.” There was another few secon
ds of quiet, then Wellesley added, “And I want the grant monies returned. I want the Pentagon contract canceled. And I want your resignation.”

  “That’s not going to happen, Gary, not while I have your nasty little drive.”

  “This institution has turned into a fucking train wreck, Will. And I let it happen. Three papers. Three networks. You and me, going up in flames, and by god it’ll be sweet watching you burn.”

  “That’s career suicide.”

  “Better than living like this.”

  “Think of the shame, Gary. Your wife. Your kids. Your colleagues.”

  “I am going to expose both of us. Do not doubt that I will do this.”

  “Listen,” said Reynolds. “Let’s talk about this some more, huh? Over a beer? We can work something out.”

  “Six packets. Going out today. Unless you give me my hard drive. And a letter to the Pentagon. And a letter turning down the grants. And your resignation.”

  “Jesus, Gary. Let me work on the Pentagon, okay? I don’t know how but I’ll see what I can do, okay?”

  “Those letters and my hard drive, Will. Nothing less.”

  There were a few seconds of silence.

  “Fuck you, Gary. After all I’ve done for you.”

  “On my desk before the afternoon mail pickup.”

  “I should’ve given up that drive months ago, Gary, but I didn’t. I protected you.”

  “On my desk.”

  More silence.

  Reynolds said, “You’re one ungrateful motherfucker.”

  “And you’re a lying, manipulative, opportunistic bastard.”

  “I brought in a five-million-dollar contract, asshole.”

  “And I let you skim ten percent of it. And gave you every perk. Because I’m a coward.”

  “Well, fuck you, you sleazy coward,” said Reynolds.

  Another stretch of quiet.

  “Do I get all the packets?” said Reynolds.

  “Yep.”

  “You know I can still get you. None of your information is safe from me.”

  “I don’t care. After I clean this place up, I’m resigning, too.”

  Then there was a click.

  The look on Jen’s face. Like she’d caught the biggest fish in the sea.

  “What the hell did you go and do that for?” I yelled.

  Jen’s face dropped. “For? What did I do it for? The investigation. What the hell else would I do it for?”

  “You don’t go and do shit on your own.”

  “Well, who the fuck else is going to do it? Nancy bails, and you and Nelson get wasted. Fucking crisis was going down, dude. It’s not like we could try next week and get the same results.”

  I was pacing. I couldn’t help it. “You still don’t go and do shit on you own. We’re a team, damn it. But no, you sneak out to go stenciling. You organize a secret protest right in the middle of Deirdre’s reception—”

  Jen approached, pointing. “Don’t you tell me what to do, you paternalistic asshole.”

  I grabbed her wrist. “For Christ’s sake, we need to stick together.”

  She wrenched away. “You’re always on my back about something.”

  “Goddammit,” I yelled. Despite myself I was following her up and down the kitchen. “Your impulsive shit is going to be the end of us.”

  She wheeled around. “You think I can’t do an op on my own?”

  “You have got to work with us, Jen, it doesn’t work if one person’s got their own agenda.”

  “I’m sick of waiting around for you two to creak into action.”

  “It isn’t about what you want, Jen, it’s about the goddamn bigger picture.”

  “No! You need to focus on the real problem, dude—”

  “What, you being such an extreme butthead?”

  “Picking on me when Deirdre’s the one you should be worrying about.”

  “It’s taken us six years to build up what we’ve—”

  “Dude, you just don’t want to see what’s going on, do you?”

  “You’re blaming Deirdre for your impulsive shit now?”

  Jen stopped pacing. We were both breathing hard. She draped her hands on her hips. “How’d you know about the stenciling?”

  “In the trash. Found it wrapped up. Pretty sure it wasn’t Nelson’s.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You’re stalking me through the trash now?”

  “When it smells like spray paint, I dig around. You’d do the same.”

  Jen dropped her arms, whispered a resigned, “Fuck,” and walked to the counter.

  “What the hell’s going on?” said Nelson from the top of the basement stairs.

  Jen poured water into the coffee maker.

  “What happened?” Nelson sat at the table and nudged the tape deck. “Why were you yelling? Is this something?”

  “Jen went to HLU this morning,” I said. “Caught Reynolds and the prez in a compromising position.”

  Nelson gave me a slow, disbelieving look.

  “Figuratively speaking,” I added, and I sat down across from him. Rewound the tape. Pushed Play.

  Reynolds’s and Wellesley’s voices started over, and the enormity of what Jen had uncovered sunk in.

  Jen set coffees in front of us. A peace offering. “Where the hell was he hiding those recorded conversations is what I want to know.”

  Nelson looked at his watch. “When’s the afternoon mail pickup is what I want to know.”

  I wanted to know those things, too, but more than that, I wanted to know where the hell we were all heading—as a family, as a team.

  57: NELSON

  Fetzer drives them onto the bridge. The river is gray and opaque, the city translucent with mist. Nelson pulls on the blond wig. He’s sick of the smell of it.

  “Silly, huh?”

  Deirdre smooths the bangs away from his eyes. Her gaze is soft, appraising. It’s calm between them now. Nelson is grateful for the calm.

  Those sounds behind Deirdre’s door. He had rushed in thinking she was hurt. From the bed, their eyes, frozen, staring. Then it was limbs, the naked women’s limbs of them scrabbling to cover up. And the space around him like lightning bolts, striking and striking.

  Deirdre smooths the bangs again. “You look like a kid.”

  He breathes in. Breathes out. Calm.

  “Slow down,” says Jen. “Find a park.”

  Fetzer says, “Going to the parking building.”

  “Park off campus.”

  “No,” Fetzer snaps. “We could be hours.”

  They’ve been bickering all morning. Fetzer’s right, of course: Jen shouldn’t have acted alone. But it’s not as bad as the protest at Dee’s reception. And if she hadn’t tapped Wellesley’s phone, they wouldn’t be intercepting this smoking gun. And he had to smile when Jen gave them the play-by-play. How she’d borrowed a shirt of his and a tie, put her hair under a hat, and showed up with a briefcase at eight a.m. outside Reynolds’s office. But Nancy recognized her and shooed her away because Reynolds was in there. So Jen found her way to the president’s office. From IT, she’d said. Need to run diagnostics, she’d said. “Finally!” said Wellesley’s assistant. Luckily Wellesley wasn’t there.

  Jen had the phone line tapped in two minutes. On her way out she passed Wellesley in the hall. Then she changed into regular clothes. She hung out in a waiting area nearby, with a book in her lap, earphones on, and the receiver in her backpack. She had food and coffee and was prepared to wait all day, but the conversation was over by ten. Then a quick change back into shirt and tie, an explanation to the assistant about leaving something behind, and she removed the bug, right under Wellesley’s nose. He was flushed and distracted and barely glanced at her fiddling with the phone socket in the corner.

  The stone bench is cold and slightly damp. But the tacos are hot and tasty—the campus food carts reliable as ever. In the quad a young woman is playing a Bach piece for solo violin, a sonata, but Nelson can’t remember which. “She’s very
good,” he says to Dee and Fetz. A longing wafts through him, a kind he hasn’t felt for a while. The burl on the violin shines in the weak winter sun.

  The violinist finishes, and they clap as best they can while holding tacos. Since the lunch period ended the quad has emptied out. Even the vigil outside of Sci and Eng is gone. Hardly anyone else in the quad except Jen, on an identical stone bench on the opposite side.

  Fetzer says, “He used to play, you know.”

  Deirdre lowers her taco. “You did?”

  “Yeah,” says Nelson. The woman packs away her beautiful violin.

  “Why’d you stop?”

  “Money got tight,” he says through a mouthful of spicy beans. “Had to sell it.”

  “That’s terrible,” says Deirdre. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Fetzer goes, “Aww, crap. Crap!” and flings out an exasperated hand. “By the bike racks.”

  Reynolds. Dark suit, sandy hair, quick stride. Coming not out of the administration building, where they’ve been waiting for two hours, but out of Humanities.

  “He’s put on weight,” says Nelson.

  Fetzer pulls his headset forward, and Nelson does too. “Jen, for Christ’s sake, can’t you see? He’s crossing the quad heading west.”

  “I see him now. Shit. I was watching the wrong door this whole time.”

  Reynolds is halfway across the quad. “Let’s go,” says Nelson.

  Fetzer mutters, “Split,” and Nelson pulls Deirdre up. The food lies abandoned on the stone bench.

  “Pretend we’re lost,” he says to her.

  She mutters, “Pretend?”

  He pulls off the headset and stuffs it in his pocket. Reynolds is nearly across the quad. Nelson bounds into his path and says, “Excuse me?” Reynolds halts, frowning. In the briefcase in his hands is the goldmine they need.

  “Mu-sic house?” says Nelson, and he draws a building in the air with his fingers. “Please tell where is the music house?”

  “Concert hall?” says Reynolds, not even looking at them.

  Nelson glances at Deirdre. She glances back. He grins at Reynolds. “Yes.”

  “That way.” Reynolds gestures impatiently. “Four blocks.”