All the Whys of Delilah's Demise

by Neve Maslakovic

  There’s been a development on the personal front—Dax has given me a ruby. The thought coupled to it is not exactly overflowing with praise: “Scottie keeps things interesting.” It struck me that it’s only fair to give Dax a gem in return, but I had trouble with the wording. I recalled the moment at the town party when I stumbled and stopped myself from a fall by grabbing his arm, an instant that stretched to a lifetime, the spark the brief touch evoked cascading down my body, electric and warm… Get a grip Scottie, I chided myself, and cut out the impossible, cheesy daydreams. This week had served to remind me what’s at stake—Monday’s bottomer was a section Q violator, Peggy. Earlier in the year, she and Leon, PALs and youth center employees, were revealed to be lovers; they lost their jobs, their rank tanked, and Leon bottomed first. Peggy is being sent to a different greenhouse, into the farm-work position Oliver left behind.

  I ask Cece as the auditorium fills up, lit by bulbs under the cropped roof encircling the gallery, Why do we even have section Q?

  Cece’s response might have been delivered by Dax himself. The Code is clear and precise on the matter, Scott: “It’s important to have bonds that are rock solid and the ones formed in youth are the strongest. Romantic partners come and go—never mix the two. PALs are for life.”

  It seems to me, Cece, that the Code claims to be clear and precise on things that aren’t clear and precise at all. Then again, since I’m being kicked out in two days, what difference does the Code make? Don’t bother answering, it’s a rhetorical question—Dax would never go for it.

  I finally settled on a boring “From one PAL to another” for his gem.

  As to Sherlock Scottie, it was a dud from the get-go. What made me think I could take on the number one? There’s been no response from Rick to my query asking if I can apologize in person. I’m about to watch him onstage but doubtful that will present any opportunities for further Sherlocking. Neither did vacuuming the theater yesterday—the only time I saw Rick, he was with a group of other actors and unapproachable.

  As if on cue, a thought arrives. “Apologies will be accepted backstage after the performance, at the opening-night party.”

  I sit up in the plush seat, making Dax glance over at me. Now we’re talking. It took Rick five days to respond, but he wants to see me. The question is…why? And why now? Doubtful that he bothered to look up my whereabouts and saw that I was in the gallery. Just catching up on his in-thoughts while he readies for the spotlight, a way to stave off opening night jitters? No, Rick isn’t the type to have opening night jitters. More likely he’s looking for a diversion later, a romantic conquest or a humiliation of some kind.

  Only one way to find out.

  Dax sends a smile in my direction as the last of the seats fill up. We’ve agreed to shelve all talk of rank for the evening, so his comment is a mundane one. “Tacoma told me that Delilah wrote the play.”

  And herself a starring role. Something else I didn’t know about her, in addition to secrets collecting.

  “Apparently she modernized classic stories,” Dax goes on. “This one, Mrs. Montag, was originally by Shakespeare, I think, from way back in the seventeenth century…”

  This is awkward—I’ll need to tactfully let Dax know that, having procured a pair of expensive tickets for us, he needs to mosey on home after the play while I head backstage for a party. It’ll be a poor way of repaying him for the effort but I can’t see a way around it, not if I want to talk to Rick alone.

  After a cast member comes out to remind the audience to mute their CCs for better enjoyment of the performance, the lights dim and evening settles into the auditorium, broken only by lit windows on the upper floors of neighboring buildings. The curtain rises, a slow motion pregnant with drama, to reveal a few items of furniture placed on stage to give the illusion of a real room: a table, two chairs, and a grand, wrought-iron chandelier hanging from the heavens. A servant is doing a half-hearted job of polishing the table. Vicky strides on and chews out the servant; a wealthy house-owner dissatisfied with the help, she’s in Delilah’s costume, the blue jeans, checkered shirt and red cowboy boots.

  I sat down in the expensive seat expecting Vicky to be a poor imitation of Delilah, but she’s not bad. It’s as if she’s come to life; it’s hard to believe that the woman with the pinched face and dour outlook I saw trailing Delilah and the costumed actor delivering her lines in a spirited fashion are one and the same. Her character is Mrs. Montag, carrier of the outdated tag, Mrs., and the mother of one Rom, who has yet to make his appearance but whose welfare she seems to base her happiness on, judging by the way she sends off the servant to polish Rom’s pickup truck next.

  Rick makes his appearance, also in a checkered shirt, boots, and jeans, his character the troublesome son, Rom. Though they’re about the same age, Vicky has adopted a stoop to her shoulders that adds decades to her years and believability to the mother-son pairing. Rom is off to see a lover and his mother doesn’t want him to go.

  Cece, wake up, I instruct as the stage is changed to an outdoor scene, with Rom and Mrs. Montag continuing their argument by a bicycle-and-cart stand-in for the pickup truck. Focused as we were on Rick, we forgot about Vicky. What if the motive for Delilah’s murder wasn’t Eternal Life and the number one chair, but the spot on the stage? I’ll try to talk to Vicky at the after-party as well. Take a snapshot of her—now—and tack it onto the WHO KILLED DELILAH corkboard.

  Will Vicky or Rick admit it, Scott?

  People never admit bad things—not willingly. You have to lead them or trick them into saying it. I’ll have my work cut out for me…

  Shelving for the moment the certainty that one of its leads is a killer, I’m soon drawn into the story. Rom is in love with one Julie, a fresh-faced cast member whose real-life name I don’t know. Though there’s animosity between the Montag family and Julie’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Capo, the main reason why Rom and Julie’s romance has hit a snag is Mrs. Montag herself, who wants the whole of her son’s love. The play is a rebuke of kinship and its binding ties—of cave-clans.

  After a flurry of scenes involving the flighty servant, a well-endowed nurse, and puns that lightly brush against the bad language section of the Code, the curtain rises on an evening scene. Rom stands under Julie’s balcony. Above them is a starry night made of cardboard. In an amorous verbal exchange, the pair vow to be together forever, with promises made to flee hand-in-hand in the morning in Rom’s pickup. But when the fake sun rises at the back of the stage, Julie, suitcase packed, waits alone. The stage is changed to the indoor room again, where Rom is facing his mother, who has thwarted the couple’s plan by the simple expedient of taking the truck keys. She tosses them on the table and dares Rom to take the keys, threatens to find the couple wherever they go, then switches tactics and wrings her hands as she beseeches him to stay. Rom holds his head high throughout, the mother and son well matched. Finally, Mrs. Montag strides off, leaving her only son with a decision to make.

  Rom kicks a chair out of the way beneath the wrought-iron chandelier. At last, a plan that will free him forever: If he fakes his own death, he reasons, pacing back and forth, his mother will be left behind to mourn. He sends the flighty servant to a pharmacy to obtain a strong sleeping potion, then sits down at the table to pen a note to Julie telling her of the plan. After the servant brings the vial and leaves again with the note, Rom rises to his feet. Alone on the stage, facing the audience, he asks of the universe, “Is this the only way? Is this what love demands?”

  I clutch the seat—I’m filled with a dread that the whole thing will end in tragedy, that the servant will misdeliver the note—and my fingers brush against Dax’s.

  “Love is a curtain of smoke, a fire, a sea fed by tears.” The vial in his hand, chest heaving with each breath, Rom falls to his knees. The chandelier inches down an arm’s length and stops, its circle of light tightened around the kneeling lover. He uncorks the vial. “What else is it? It is a madness…”

  It all happens
so fast that had I blinked, I’d have missed it.

  The chandelier descends.

  The warning shouts from the audience come too late. The heavy frame sends Rick sprawling. Bulb glass shatters with a ringing peal that carries all the way to where Dax and I are. On the wooden boards of the stage, the number one lies motionless, the dark stain spreading away from his body reflected in the glittering shards strewn about.

  A hush falls on the audience, everyone uncertain how to react—even my first thought is Is this part of the play? Did Mrs. Montag want to ensure her son stays home permanently?—but on stage, pandemonium has ensued. Vicky rushes over to Rick. The lights encircling the auditorium come on full blast. “He’s badly hurt,” Vicky cries, panic blurring the line between her inner and external voice. “CC, medical emergency!”

  Swift, urgent, a whisper travels through the gallery. “First Delilah and now Rick—it’s Gemma Bligh’s curse, has to be… It’s struck again!”

  16

  Monday, March 29

  Bodi calls out a brisk “Enter” in response to my mid-morning knock. He’s at his small desk, stuffed into it as he keeps an eye on the rotating array of dot-sprinkled maps. He spares a glance in my direction. “Ah, Scott. Still with us, I see.”

  I’m hanging on by a thread. Rick’s onyx has sunk me down to 9,999—I’m in the bog. A spot above me is Wayne; a spot below is Ellen, an accountant prone to taking embarrassing snapshots of others and slinging them onto the Commons—nose-picking, that kind of thing. She’s headed to Greenhouse Five. I caught her reaction on the Commons. “I was only revealing your true selves.”

  Bodi adds, “I’m glad you dropped by.”

  It’s a terse statement, but then all of Bodi’s are. Before he can say anything more, I do. “You believe me now, don’t you, that there’s someone behind all of this? First Delilah dies and now Rick.”

  This takes his attention away from the screen. “Rick succumbed to his injuries?”

  “No, but it was a close call.”

  “Last I heard, a close call is a much better state of affairs than dead.”

  I was so sure the killer was Rick. But Rick is in Medical One in a coma. This morning’s update has Bonnie at number one, followed by Chase, Samm and Sue, Jada, Rick, Poulsbo, Ben, Franz, and McKinsey. Bonnie is at the top, Samm and Sue have toggled again, Ben’s birds have inched him up past Franz and McKinsey…and Rick has sunk to six—while there’s much sympathy for him, everyone agrees that in a crisis, it’s important to have a leader who’s awake.

  Bodi reaches for the lone item on his desk other than the computer, an antique letter opener, which I didn’t notice the previous time I was in the room. We have no letters to open; it’s a thinking object for him, like my snow globe. With one hand, the back of it hairy under his shirt sleeve, he taps the silver knife against the palm of the other. “Scott, if the Security Office found anything irregular about the two accidents we’d have taken action. I would think that’d be obvious.”

  “It’s not the curse.” Watching the chandelier descend convinced even me of the power of Gemma Bligh’s anger, but only for a brief moment.

  “So you think we have a killer in our midst.” Another tap. “Who, Bonnie, on the quest for Eternal Life?”

  I don’t want it to be Bonnie, with her cozy tavern and harmless secret. “What about Ben?” I offer. “He was stuck on the shelf, so close to being a Tenner. Now he’s safely in and rising… And he is getting on in years, isn’t he?”

  Bodi chastises me much like Bonnie did. “Sixtyish is not old, Scott. Besides, making it into the Ten is one thing. Making it to number one and Eternal Life is quite another.”

  “But aren’t you investigating him for halo-padding? You said so to McKinsey. A scandal. If he’s guilty of that, who knows what else he might have done?”

  The letter opener lands on the desk with a clang. Bodi shakes his head at me. “If you must know, the scandal has to do with Delilah, not Ben. Ben’s blameless. Delilah tried to keep him on the shelf by spreading false rumors. That he was halo-padding. That he was buying sparrows from traders to artificially inflate their population inside the Dome. Neither was true. Ben came to me and I dug into it. What I unearthed was that Delilah stockpiled secrets and leaned on people to make things happen… If she hadn’t died when she did, you bet there would have been a scandal.” Bodi eyes flash, as if he’s mad at himself for not catching on earlier. He reins in his reaction. “McKinsey and Hugh made the argument that since nothing can be done about it now, the town is best served by keeping Delilah’s memory intact.”

  I consider pretending to be surprised but decide against it. “I know she collected secrets. Don’t you think that made her even more of a target?”

  His eyebrows knot at me. “You knew about it? Why didn’t you report it?”

  “I didn’t know until after she died. And then I wasn’t sure you’d believe me.”

  “Next time, try me. Anything else?”

  “Jada has them. Delilah’s box of secrets, though I suppose if you asked her, she’d deny it.”

  He nods, as if taking me at my word. “I’ll keep an eye on her. As to Rick… Take a seat.” I turn a table chair around so it’s facing the desk. He continues, “It seems to me, Scott, that what we have here is a state of affairs where everyone’s forgotten about the Incompetent Intern, just like that.”

  He’s right. One accident equals blame for the intern. Two accidents is a whole ‘nother story. The Commons is abuzz with speculation about Gemma Bligh’s curse and where it will strike next—with Bonnie as the leading contender. I’m off the hook and Evan and Vicky have pulled their onyxes—it was what saved me from falling into the last place instead of Ellen, the misbehaving accountant.

  “The theater,” Bodi goes on. “You know your way around the building. When were you there last?”

  “When Rick had his accident. A lot of people were there along with me—it was opening night.”

  “And before that?”

  I don’t like where this seems to be going. Starting to regret taking the initiative to knock on Bodi’s door, I answer, “The day before, to vacuum. There were dried flower petals, things like that, left over from Delilah’s memorial.”

  “I see. Were you there as part of a crew?”

  “The others were cleaning the bathrooms. There’s carpet only in the lobby, so it’s a one person job.”

  “Was it busy?”

  I think back. “People were in and out. There was a morning rehearsal.”

  “After which the stage area would have been empty—giving you the opportunity to climb the ladder up to what I’m told is called the heavens and to saw at the chandelier rope.”

  I sit up in the chair. “So it was cut?”

  “Leave the questions to me.” Bodi reaches for the letter opener and starts tapping his palm again. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. “Let me tell you how things look from where I sit. Delilah refused to help you gain social standing and this made you angry. You realized an opportunity lay in the timing. Eighty-five years and Gemma Bligh’s curse. And so Delilah died. But the blame still landed on you. You were desperate, panicked. You tangled with Rick. Why? To throw suspicion on him, so you could rehabilitate your brand?”

  I’m now definitely regretting taking the initiative to knock on Bodi’s door. “I have no brand. I’m in the bog.”

  He points the letter opener in my direction. “And Rick is the one who put you there. He landed in Medical One and you’ve gotten your revenge and cleared your name at the same time. You have to admit it smells bad.”

  I resist wiping the beads of sweat that have broken out on my forehead as if the gesture will somehow make me look guilty. “I know how it smells, but I didn’t have anything to do with it—any of it.”

  Bodi’s expression makes me wonder if he’s about to slip handcuffs on my wrists, but he only adds a mild, “If you are innocent, let me give you the same piece of advice as before—stay out of this. Ac
cidents happen. Balcony railings give way, chandeliers fall.”

  “Right when Rick happened to be underneath?”

  “The theater is a busy place. Someone was bound to be underneath. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do. The new Outsider’s been assigned housing and a spot on the List, but she still needs to be scheduled for a ConnectChip implant and be matched to a job…”

  I leave, feeling Bodi’s gaze linger on me. I take that as a sign that despite the advice he just gave me, he’s not so sure there isn’t more to it all than meets the eye.

  I’m waiting for Lu to finish her evening shift. The back of the eatery has a less-than-appetizing aroma hanging over it. Sparrows peck in and around waste bins, oblivious to my presence. The creatures seem more inscrutable than ever. Unreadable. Impossible to know if they’re eager for the largest crumb that’s to be found or if they’re planning a coup as in Samm and Sue’s sketch. The feeling frustrates me. A new hobby, Bird Control, has been announced—they’re to be moved out. This strikes me as a good thing. The Dome was only ever meant to house people.

  Lu comes out in a beige smock and loosens her hair tie. As we leave the eatery behind us and the small talk runs out, I relay as best as I can Wayne’s reasons for turning his back on his rank. Worried that he’ll lose his nerve, he asked me not to tell Lu anything. But I figure the ally in PAL has to stand for something.

  Lu listens without interrupting, then sighs. “So that’s what it is. I’d been wondering.”

  The topics dominating the Commons—the curse, Delilah, Rick, the new Outsider—seem far away tonight compared to the more immediate problem facing my PAL. “Are you going to try and change his mind? He can reverse course and go on an apology tour.”