Supervolcano :Eruption

by Harry Turtledove

  Then the band set to huckstering. CDs and posters sold briskly. “I already downloaded the music,” one girl told Rob as she bought a disk, “but I can’t download your autographs.”

  “Darn right,” he agreed, scribbling his on the cover insert with a Sharpie. She paid cash, too. He approved of that. So did all his bandmates. They split the greenbacks into four equal piles after every gig. What Uncle Revenue didn’t find out about wouldn’t hurt him one bit.

  Over on the other side of the anteroom, Snakes and Ladders were shilling, too. They were trying, anyhow. But next to nobody wver to them. Lenny’d put the fear of God in people, all right. That was fine for a fire-and-brimstone preacher, not so good for a rock ’n’ roller.

  The other guys in his band seemed to be trying to talk some sense into him. He tossed his head. His mane flew. He didn’t want to hear it. The more they talked, the angrier he got.

  He finally lost it. “Will you assholes just shut the fuck up!” he screamed, loud enough to make everybody stare at him. Hideously uncomfortable silence slammed down.

  “Well,” Justin said after a moment, “isn’t showbiz fun?” Enough people chuckled-some nervously, but even so-to let Squirt Frog and the Evolving Tadpoles, if not Snakes and Ladders, get back to the serious business of separating customers from their money.

  “We’re supposed to go to Connecticut with them, and Massachusetts, and on up into Maine,” Rob whispered to Charlie Storer. “What do we do if they break up?” It happened all the time, which didn’t mean it didn’t screw things up when it did. Divorces were usually expensive and inconvenient. Rob thought of his folks again.

  “What do we do?” The drummer considered, but not for long. “We damn well do without, that’s what.”

  Rob grunted. Charlie was much too likely to be right. Maybe they could hook up with some local band that wanted to swing through New England. That might work… if they could find a band that felt like touring… if the two outfits didn’t clash like plaid and paisley… if… if… if…

  Then Rob stopped worrying about it. The young woman who set down a CD cover insert to be signed was so pretty, she should’ve been against the law. No hulking boyfriend loomed behind her, as happened much too often. When Rob found out her name was Jane, he instantly wanted to be Tarzan.

  He wasn’t dumb enough to tell her that. Instead, sounding as California cool as he could, he said, “Why don’t you hang around if you’re not doing anything else later on?”

  About half the time, a girl would say she couldn’t possibly because her hamster had the heartbreak of psoriasis. The other half.. Jane gave back a megawatt smile. “You mean it?” she breathed. “For sure?”

  “For sure,” Rob said solemnly. “Cross my heart and hope to…” Dying wasn’t what he had in mind right then. The little death, maybe-no, definitely-but not Mr. Big. “C’mon around to this side of the table. We’ll find you a chair or something. Or what the hell? You can just sit on my lap.”

  It wasn’t quite You can just sit on my face. But it also wasn’t a line most guys could try on a girl whose last name they didn’t know yet. Damned if Jane didn’t, though. She started running her fingers through his hair, which distracted the hell out of him when he tried to sign the next autograph.

  Yeah, he thought, setting a hand on her leg while kind of pretending to steady her. Oh, fuck, yeah. This is why I do this stuff. What better reason was there?

  Louise Ferguson took her sorry office skills to a sorrier job at one of the sorriest offices she’d ever seen. It was the American headquarters for a company that imported Japanese ramen into the States. When she’d first married Colin, Braxton Bragg Boulevard had been one of San Atanasio’s main drags. These days, steel-barred fencing topped by coils of razor wire surrounded the ramen importer’s parking lot. Fencing like that could have kept out the Taliban The importer needed a full-time security guard along with it. Even so, as soon as Louise walked into the building, a woman hissed at her in a harsh farm-belt accent: “You didn’t leave anything out there you care about, didja?”

  She shook her head. “Nope.” She usually thought of her years being a cop’s wife as a total waste. But they’d left their mark on her, all right, often in ways she didn’t even notice.

  She wasn’t much surprised when the inside of the office proved as big a Wild West show as the parking lot. Her boss was a Mr. Nobashi. He was about as inscrutable as a fireworks display. He spent most of the time talking to the home office in Hiroshima in impassioned Japanese interspersed with things like “Ohh, Jeesus Kerrist!” and “goddamma son of a bicha!”

  When he wasn’t swearing, he spoke tolerable if schematic English. He showed Louise the spreadsheets she was supposed to ride herd on. Her heart sank when she saw them. They were enormous and complicated, and Excel had always disagreed with her every chance it got. She had the feeling it would get plenty here.

  “Well, I’ll try,” she said doubtfully. If Mr. Nobashi didn’t get his hopes up real far to begin with, he wouldn’t be too disappointed later on. She could hope not, anyhow.

  “You no try! You do!” he declared.

  She nodded. What else could she do? You do was what she was here for. If she couldn’t do, what was the worst thing that would happen? He’d fire her, and she’d have to try to land another job somewhere else. Somewhere better than this? Maybe, but the odds were against it. This seemed to be the kind of place where jobs lived these days.

  The first thing she did after sitting down at the computer was copy her spreadsheets. If she screwed up the copies, she’d have undamaged originals to fall back on. How much good that would do her.. she preferred not to dwell on, not right this minute, thank you very much.

  “Here.” The woman who’d asked her if she’d left anything in the car plopped a pile of printouts down in front of her. “You’re supposed to plug these shipping invoices into the inventory system.”

  “Oh,” Louise said: a word full of gloom if ever there was one.

  “Want me to walk you through it the first time?” the woman asked. She added, “I’m Patty. If you don’t learn it from me, Nobashi- san sure as hell won’t be able to explain it to you.”

  “Thanks! Would you, please?” Now Louise knew she sounded pathetically eager, but she didn’t care. Maybe there was a cork ring on this ocean of trouble after all.

  “Here. What you gotta do is…” Quickly and deftly, Patty did it. When she noticed she was working on copies-Louise hadn’t even renamed them yet-she let out a wry chuckle. “You ain’t so dumb, are ya, sweetie?”

  “If I’m not, what am I doing here?” Louise asked in return.

  This time, Patty laughed out loud. “You see how I set up the inventory transfer?” she asked. When Louise shook her head, Patty did it again, slower this time. “Okay,” she said, rising from the chair. “Now you try it.”

  With no enormous hope, Louise did. Damned if it didn’t work! Louise clapped her hands together in amazed delight. She just missed cheering out loud.

  “See? It ain’t so tough,” Patty said. “Now e-mail the spreadsheet to the boss and go on to the next one.”

  Before Louise could, the phone rang. Answering it was part of the job. When she did, somebody started gabbing at her in excited Japanese. “One moment, please,” she answered in English, and pressed the HOLD button. Then she fumbled her way through transferring the call to Mr. Nobashi. Patty also helped her there.

  “You’re a lifesaver,” Louise exclaimed, remembering her thought of a few minutes before. “Why didn’t you get this slot?”

  “ ’Cause I didn’t want it,” Patty answered calmly. “I’d sooner just crunch numbers most of the time. Nobashi pretty much leaves me alone, on account of he knows goddamn well I’m good at what I do. But you-you’re gonna have to deal with him, you poor thing, you.”

  “Does he try to get his girls to go to bed with him? Is he one of those?” Louise asked. “I’ll knock his block off if he does.”

  “Nah.” Patty shook h
er head. “He knows better’n that. Guy he took over for two, three years ago thought he could get away with that crap, like he would’ve in Japan. The gal he hit on didn’t slug him. She sued the company instead-won a pile of dough, too. So Nobashi keeps his hands to himself.”

  “What’s so bad about him, then?”

  Mr. Nobashi chose that minute to yell “Coffee!” from his inner sanctum. “Coffee and sweet rolls!”

  Louise rapidly discovered that he ran on coffee and sweet rolls. Tea? Rice? Sashimi? Ramen, even? When sugar and caffeine weren’t enough to rock his world, he sent her down the street to pick up big boxes of drumsticks and thighs at Popeyes Chicken amp; Biscuits. So grease was definitely one of his basic food groups, too.

  He also guzzled bottled water by the case. He didn’t go to the refrigerator to grab a bottle himself. God forbid! That would have been beneath a boss’ dignity. He yelled for Louise to fetch and carry instead. No matter what else she was doing, bringing his supplies was more important.

  By midafternoon that first day, Louise understood exactly why Patty wanted nothing to do with the position she now occupied herself. Mr. Nobashi might not be a lech, at least on company time. A pain in the ass he definitely was.

  But the ramen company paid pretty well. The woman that other exec from Japan had sexually harassed hadn’t taken them for every nickel they owned. Besides, as long as there were college students, no ramen outfit would ever go broke. Marshall sometimes seemed to live on the stuff. So had Rob, in his college days. Vanessa… From what Louise remembered, ramen was beneath Vanessa’s dignity.

  As soon as it got to be half past five, Patty said, “I am so outa here. If you’ve got sense, you’ll bail, too. Otherwise, they’ll think you want to make like a salaryman and they’ll keep you here 24/7. Sometimes I think Mr. Nobashi lives in that crappy little office of his.”

  Bail Louise did. A different rent-a-cop was guarding the parking lot: a burly Hispanic guy who might have been an ex-Marine. He tipped his Smokey Bear hat to her as she slid into her car.

  Teo was home before her. Better yet, he’d brought back Thai takeout so she wouldn’t have to mess with ground round or chicken. “You’re so sweet!” she said. Colin would never have done anything like that. He expected to be fed. Just like Mr. Nobashi, Louise thought, a little surprised at herself.

  “Hey, it’s your first day, er younger lover said, opening packages. The smells of spices and coconut filled the condo. “How did it go?”

  “It’s not exciting, but I coped. One of the gals there is showing me the ropes, so that helps. The Japanese guy in charge is a real piece of work.” Louise was checking out the plastic and styrofoam package. “Oh, you got that squid salad I like!”

  “I thought that was the one.” Teo made a point of keeping in mind what she liked and what she didn’t. Even though they’d been together for almost three years now, Louise still wasn’t used to that. What had she ever been to Colin but a convenience?

  He was still hanging out with that geographer or geologist or whatever she was. That vaguely irked Louise, who hadn’t expected him to make anything last. After all, if she couldn’t put up with him anymore, what halfway-sane woman would be able to? Well, from what she’d heard, her ex’s squeeze was a lot younger. Odds were she didn’t have standards of comparison.

  Louise did. She knew just how lucky she was. Teo’d barely had to lift a finger to sweep her off her feet.

  “How was your day?” she asked him as she spooned food onto a paper plate. If she wasn’t going to worry about cooking tonight, she wasn’t going to worry about doing dishes, either.

  “No sweat,” he answered. It made her laugh, the way it always did. For Teo, sweating-and making other people sweat-was making a living. It was also what made him look so good. Colin was like a brick with soft corners. She’d forgotten what a man ought to be like till she signed up for the aerobics class. She knew now, by God, and she’d never forget again.

  “How many girls want your special program?” she teased. She knew she hadn’t been the first one he’d attracted. She just hoped-and kept hoping-to stay interested enough to keep ahead of the competition.

  He grinned at her. He knew what she was thinking. Sometimes he sassed her about it. Always gently, though-a younger man didn’t want to set an older woman worrying. A younger man with a heart didn’t, anyhow. “Nobody you’ve got to worry about. Believe me,” he said now.

  And Louise did believe him. She brought the paper plate over to the table and sat down beside him. No police scanner farted out calls. The TV wasn’t on, tuned to the news. Nothing but the two of them and dinner. Who needed more?

  Sitting by Teo, she had no trouble forgetting Mr. Nobashi, either, or her anxieties about Excel. And if that wasn’t magic, what would be?

  VIII

  Colin Ferguson tried to carry around in his head a map of everything the San Atanasio Police Department was doing at any given moment. The city grid was easy enough. He knew the routes the patrol cars took, and when each car would be where.

  He also knew where the detectives were working, and about the meth buy the drug squad was trying to arrange. Before long, though, something always screwed up his perfect picture. There’d be a big accident, or a knifing outside a strip club on Hesperus, or a shooting in one of the Cuban bars at the north end of San Atanasio Boulevard. Like splashes in a calm pool, the ripples from something like that would distort the picture for a while.

  He didn’t need to do any of that. He’d been passed over for chief, the one slot where such an encyclopedic grasp of what was going on really mattred. He wasn’t a hundred percent sure of making captain, even. He’d annoyed enough people that simply passing the exam might not do the trick. He carried around the mental map anyway. He’d started making one back in the days when he still rode a patrol car himself. He could no more stop now than he could stop breathing.

  The telephone rang. “Ferguson,” he said into the mouthpiece.

  “Stu Ayers, down in Palos Verdes,” said the voice on the other end of the line. Ayers was also a lieutenant, and a pretty good guy. Like Colin, he was chasing the South Bay Strangler.

  “What can I do to you today, Stu?” Colin asked.

  “To me, huh?” Ayers plainly didn’t miss many tricks. Chuckling, he went on, “Could you shoot me the lab reports from your latest Strangler case?”

  “Will do. What’s your e-mail?”

  Instead of giving one connected to the city of Palos Verdes, Ayers offered Colin a gmail. com account. Half apologetically, he explained, “My captain thinks I’m spending too much time on this. Let’s keep it private, huh?”

  “Sure,” Colin said. After he hung up, though, he thoughtfully rubbed his chin. He called up the fat folder of documents, but didn’t e-mail it right away. He looked up the Palos Verdes Police Department’s phone number, called it, and asked to be connected to Lieutenant Ayers.

  “Who’s calling, please?” Whoever the gal handling the PVPD’s calls was, she owned one hell of a sexy voice.

  “This is Lieutenant Ferguson, from San Atanasio.”

  “Please hold, Lieutenant. I’ll put your call through.”

  The music Palos Verdes played while you were on hold was different from what San Atanasio used, but no more interesting. Fortunately, Colin didn’t have to listen to it for long. “Stu Ayers here. What’s cooking, Colin?”

  “Did you just call me a minute ago and ask for the electronic file on the latest South Bay Strangler killing?”

  “Not guilty,” Ayers responded answered at once. No, it wasn’t the same voice as before. Not too different, but definitely not the same. The authentic Lieutenant Ayers went on, “Somebody just did, huh?”

  “Yup. Dunno if he’s a snoopy ordinary civilian or a reporter or what, but he wanted that file.”

  “You didn’t give it to him?”

  “Nope. I’m not always as dumb as I look-only sometimes,” Colin said. Ayers laughed. Colin went on, “My bet’s on a reporter. H
e knew to use your name and everything. So he could have taken some wild-ass guesses for the Times or the Breeze or whoever’s paying him.”

  “Like those cocksuckers don’t do enough of that anyway,” Ayers said.

  “Tell me about it. Well, thanks. I’m glad I thought to stop and check.” Colin exchanged good-byes with his opposite number, then got off the phone. He eyed the folder front and center on his monitor, the one he’d almost e-mailed. A nasty smile crossed his face. He created another folder with an almost identical name. He filled that one with subfolders and subsubfolders, and on down for several levels. All of them bore titles that had to do with the case. All of them led nowhere-except to other interestingly named folders nested within.

  Well, all but one. If Mr. Snoop out there was persistent enough, he would eventually find a deeply buried folder called Evaluation of Case. That one did have a document in it, one with Colin’s three-word assessment of the situation. Nice try, asshole, he typed. He sent the spurious folder to the no doubt equally spurious gmail. com address.

  That done, he deleted the folder from his own hard drive and leaned back in his chair till it creaked. He felt he’d accomplished more than he did on some days when he cracked a case. The SOB on the other end, whoever he was, would have to open all those folders one by one. With all that horseshit around, he was bound to find a pony in there somewhere… wasn’t he?

  Now that you mentioned it, no.

  For the rest of the afternoon, Colin was actually interested every time his phone rang. Would it be the fellow he’d thwarted, calling to tell him where to head in? Or would the so-and-so come up with some new scheme to seduce information out of him? No and no, respectively, but anticipation did keep Colin in the game.

  He knocked off at five on the dot. That didn’t happen every day-or every week, either. He put on his jacket and drove home. The L.A. basin was sweltering through a late-summer heat wave. Weathermen bleated that it might hit 110 in the Valley. Newsmen said the brushfire danger was extreme.