“Do you find me acceptable?” she asked.
He had been going over the roster once more. It was apparently old since it didn’t include his name and still listed Revis, Collin right before Reynolds, Harry.
“I regard you very highly,” he said.
She smiled. “You would recommend me for a post should one become available?”
“Without hesitation, Ms. Hunter,” he said.
“If you found a fly trapped between a window screen and the glass, you would raise the window and allow it to fly away? You would, wouldn’t you? It would be senseless to allow something to die when the act of setting it free was so simple, right?”
“Ms. Hunter...I don’t understand...”
“Will you need to stay one more night at my apt?”
While he was at Chutney’s desk, the property manager had left a message advising his apt had been restored to prior condition. He told her so.
“That’s wonderful news,” she said, without enthusiasm.
She started to leave but he called after her.
“Yes, Mr. Coe?”
“You stood over me,” he said, quietly. “During the night. I woke up and found you standing over me. I wasn’t dreaming?”
“You weren’t dreaming,” she said. “At least, I don’t think you were.”
“Did you want something?” he asked.
She looked at him blankly.
He said, “What I mean is...did you want something to happen?” He swallowed. “Between us?”
“I should have warned you,” she said, quickly. “I suffer from somnambulism.”
“Somnam—”
“Sleepwalking, Mr. Coe. It’s plagued me since I was a child. I’ve been treated with Benzodiazepines and tricyclic antidepressants—to limited results. I’ve been restrained and even locked inside my bedroom. Even more alarming,” she said. “I often have no memory of the episodes.”
“I suspected it was something like that.”
“I’m embarrassed.”
“Don’t be,” he said.
“I hope I didn’t make a fool of myself.”
He smiled at the beautiful memory of her. “There was nothing foolish about you.”
She blushed then and left.
When he had introduced himself to Chutney earlier in the day, he could not have predicted that he would see him shirtless and wrapped only in a towel. For that matter, he did not anticipate that Chutney would see him in a similar state of undress.
“Isn’t there a massage therapist in the Quantum building?” Coe asked.
They were laying on their stomachs on separate tables, parallel to each other.
Chutney groaned softly as the slight Asian woman who identified herself as Ling (But who Coe overheard addressed as the more Anglo, Patty), worked her slender fingers into the doughy flesh of Chutney’s upper back. “There is...but...there’s only one Ling...”
They were in a Chinese massage parlor—or at least what Coe assumed was a massage parlor, since there were no signs outside marking it as such. In fact, he and Chutney entered through a nondescript green door with a mailbox bearing the name CHEUNG that made it seem as though it were simply a private residence.
The Asian female massaging the tightness out of Coe’s bare shoulders went by the name of Miss Chu. The name strangely evoked an admittedly insensitive image of an attractive, angular Chinese woman with a page boy style haircut, seductively reposed on a chaise lounge, drawing on the end of a cigarette holder. In this stock image Coe called up from his subconscious, the woman was clad in black satin pajamas and hidden behind a rice paper screen. The actual Miss Chu was far less mysterious in her blue jeans, Ale House T-shirt, and running shoes. She said, “You are very stressed out.”
Chutney laughed.
“I’ve just recently started a new job,” Coe said.
“This much stress will kill you. Are you trying to commit suicide?” she said.
“Welcome to the world of auditing,” Chutney said. “Speaking of suicide, I hear they found your predecessor hanging from a tree.”
“I think I heard something about that,” Coe said.
To Miss Chu, Chutney said, “Mr. Revis.”
“Mr. Revis is dead?” she said, briefly stopping Coe’s massage to reflect. “Poor Mr. Revis...He was tight like you,” she said to Coe.
“Mr. Coe here is his replacement,” Chutney said with a laugh.
“I take it Revis accompanied you here?” Coe said.
“On occasion.”
Miss Chu said, “This is a very dangerous job. Very dangerous for the health.”
“You and Revis were friends?” Coe asked Chutney.
“Work friends,” he said, his eyes closed.
“There’s a difference?”
“We didn’t socialize outside of work,” he said. He opened one eye and stared at Coe. “I didn’t know he was involved in what he was involved in.”
“Steele?”
“Whoever,” he said, closing his eyes again and emitting a soft groan.
“You don’t like?” Miss Chu asked.
“Huh?”
She asked Coe again, “You don’t like?” In response to what must have been his blank stare, she added, “The massage.”
“No,” he said. “I mean, yes. Yes, I do. It’s terrific.”
Chutney laughed.
“You’re not here,” she said to Coe. “Your body is here, but the head...it’s somewhere far away.”
She rubbed his lower back, pushing her thumbs into his lumbar. It was not enjoyable. He tried not to let it show.
“Why do you think he did it?” Coe asked Chutney.
“Who?”
“Revis. Why do you think he killed himself?”
Chutney’s eyes remained closed. Coe could not tell if he was even considering his question. Finally he said, “Who knows? Shame, maybe? Hard to tell with a guy like Revis. He kept things inside. Hell, no one would ever have guessed he’d turn to Steele. Some people in the organization still can’t believe it was him. But it was old Davvy that turned him in.”
“Who?”
“Ms. Davenport,” he said. “Nothing like a woman scorned, eh, Ling?”
She said nothing. She seemed completely absorbed by her task.
“Wait,” Coe said. “Scorned? In what way?”
Chutney smirked. “I’m talking out of school here...But we’re not in school at the moment. Now don’t go running off telling Mitchell or Lyme or Ms. Hunter or Santa Claus this...” He paused as Ling worked her hands up the backs of his thighs underneath his towel and appeared to be massaging his buttocks. “Our Ms. Davenport, the frosty-nipple princess, was hanging it out for Revis.”
“Impossible,” Coe said automatically, since he was already privy to Revis’s relationship with Ms. Hunter.
“He told me,” Chutney said. To Ling, he said, “Right there. Nice and hard.”
“Revis was having an affair with Ms. Daveport? But she seems—”
“Asexual?” Chutney said.
“An adherer of company regulations,” Coe said.
“Not the one regarding employee dalliances, that’s for sure. But then Revis was quite the cocksman around town.”
“There were others?”
He sighed. Coe guessed it was a response to the massage. “The way he told it.”
Ms. Chu had begun massaging Coe the same way and her hands were moving over his buttocks. Her thumbs grazed over his anus, his scrotum. Coe attempted to ignore it. He said, “Do you think Steele has turned any other auditors in our department?”
Chutney’s eyes were closed. He was smiling. “Steele?” he said. “Who knows. There’s more than just Steele to worry about.”
Coe watched Chutney as the smile suddenly vanished and his eyes popped open. “You know something
I don’t know?”
Coe said, “I don’t know anything. Ten days ago I was still in Philadelphia. It’s why I am asking you.”
Chutney stared at him a moment. Then his features relaxed and the smiled returned. “Forget work, will you? We’ve got these two lovely ladies here rubbing oil all over us.”
“Over?” Ling asked.
Chutney flipped over onto his back. A visible, obvious, erection stood from beneath his towel. Coe looked away.
“How about you?” Miss Chu asked. “You turn over now?”
“I’m good,” he said. “Just the back, please.”
He heard Chutney laugh at the response. From the edge of his periphery, he could see Ling’s hand beneath the towel, moving up and down.
“You’re not, you know...” he asked.
“Of course, not,” Coe said.
“Then what’s the problem? You don’t like Miss Chu?”
Miss Chu leaned over him and next to his ear said, “You don’t like me?”
“You’re quite lovely—”
Chutney said, “Let her wrap this up then. I’ve paid for it, for Chrissakes.”
Coe wanted to leave. He was not prone to frequenting massage parlors or receiving hand jobs from strange women. But, he needed to blend in—to fit in—if he was to pull this charade off. At least, that’s what he told himself as he rolled over and Miss Chu ran her hand along his inner thigh, up, under the towel.
“Where are you?” Her voice was breathless.
Chutney laughed.
“There you are,” she said, her hand around him. “Now just relax. Miss Chu is not going to hurt you...nothing to be nervous about...Miss Chu is going to make you feel good...”
Sean Tate sat at his desk, staring blankly at his CRT.
“Mr. Tate? Coe said.
Tate turned to him quickly and said, “You the guy from Philadelphia?”
“Scott Coe,” he said, extending his hand.
Tate took it, gave it a firm shake. “You ready?”
Coe nodded.
Tate stood, leaving his CRT on, and slipped into his overcoat. “Let’s get us some brewskies.”
Coe had sent him a message, via communicator, asking if he’d like to have a drink after work and fill Coe in on the job.
They went to Papa Cantrell’s on Viscount Avenue—a corner pub situated next-door to a florist. “I like to go here because no one from Quantum is ever in the place.”
They took a spot at the bar and Tate said to the bartender, “Alfredo, my friend—two porters.” To Coe, he said, “You like porter, right?”
“It’s fine.”
It was relatively uncrowded for that time of day and that part of the city.
“Saw you going out for lunch with Chutney,” he said. “I said to myself, I bet that’s the new guy from Philly.” He leaned in and said, “Chutney set you up with a hand job?”
“What?”
Tate smiled. “Everyone knows he goes to Ling’s for a rub and tug.” He must have sensed Coe’s embarrassment. He said, “It’s okay. We’ve all been in there. Hell, for an extra hundred, Miss Chu will let you fuck her.” He winked.
Their beers came. They were served in glass pints. Dark liquid with tan heads of foam.
“To the Ling lunch,” he said, holding up his beer. He laughed and then took a swallow.
Coe took a drink of his beer. It was bitter. “How long have you been an auditor?”
“Four years,” he said. “Four long, fucking years.”
“You don’t like it?”
He shrugged. “It’s a job. Fucking Mitchell is always on my nuts about everything.”
“Like what?”
“Reports. Files. Fucking breathing.” He drank some more of his beer and said, “That cunt Davenport, too.”
“You don’t like her?”
“I don’t. She’s a ruthless bitch. Ever take a good look into her eyes? Next time, look at her. Those are fucking cobra eyes. She thinks she’s Mitchell’s equal—hell, Lyme’s equal.”
“What do you think of Lyme?”
“He’s impotent. Really. A limp dick. Mitchell runs the section. I think Mitchell’s got the shit on him.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Lyme was fucking Davenport for a while.”
“Lyme? I heard Revis.”
He shook his head. “Revis was fucking your secretary. Hunter. Now that’s a piece of ass—”
“Did you know Revis?”
“We were friends,” Tate said. “Not the kind of friends that knows what’s going on in each others lives outside of the cubicle walls. Like when he got tagged for selling secrets to Steele—I knew shit about that.” He took a drink of his beer. “Porter is not just a drink...it’s a full-course meal.”
“So Revis wasn’t sleeping with Davenport?”
He shrugged. “Maybe he was. I don’t know. If he did, he probably had some kind of grudge against his dick.”
“Grudge?”
“You’ve seen her. Christ. Where do you even stick it in her? She’s probably fucking Lyme with her dick.”
“You don’t like her?”
“I don’t like her,” he said. “But Ms. Hunter? Now we’re talking—”
“What about his suicide?”
“Shocked the shit out of me. I mean it sucks he got fired—and jobs are hard to come by when you got like a hundred people to every one position—but Christ. Suicide? Get out of the city, move somewhere else—move to Mars. Start over. It’s just a fucking job. I mean, c’mon. Look at all of those people outside marching like zombies. They’re surviving somehow—”
“Do you think he killed himself?”
“It’s what the papers—the police—say. I guess he did...hey? I thought this was supposed to be you wanting to know about the job?”
“Sure...sure it is. It’s just that, well...look at all this stuff happening as I come on. I mean, what would you think?”
“Okay. Yeah. You’re right. They find the guy you replaced hanging from a tree. I see where you’re coming from—”
“I’m naturally concerned that it wasn’t murder, if you know what I mean, and he wasn’t eliminated for selling secrets or something.”
Tate picked up his beer to drink and then stopped. He set the glass back down, turned, and looked at him. “Are you fucking serious? That’s what you’re worried about?”
“Well, yeah, I—”
“Jesus Christ. What do you think this is? A spy novel? It’s just corporate horseshit. This stuff happens all the time. Sure. We steal their secrets; they steal ours. At the end of the day, it’s just work. No one’s killing anybody over it.”
He laughed, probably harder and longer than he should have.
“You can see where I had cause for concern—”
“I can see where you’re worrying the shit out of yourself for no good reason. Relax. We’ve got plum jobs. We’re untouchable in the audit section. You got no reason to worry—unless you’re selling secrets to Steele.”
He stared down Coe until he blinked. Then he laughed.
“Lighten up, Coe.”
Coe thought back to his first day, Diorenzo—the IT guy—bitching about Tate. “You never worry about losing your job?” he asked.
Tate calmly took a drink of his beer, savored it, and then placed the glass back down onto the bar. Looking straight ahead, he smiled. “They can’t get rid of me,” he said. “I know too much.”
“What does that mean?”
“Just how it sounds. I know some shit that could take a lot of people down.”
“Like Lyme sleeping with Davenport?”
He laughed. “Peanuts,” he said. “Fucking peanuts. I’m talking higher-ups.”
“Like Hanover?”
“Who the fuck is that?”
<
br /> “Head of SAU.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He looked at his watch. “We done here?”
“I suppose so.”
“There’s this gal out in Somerset...cute, little blonde thing...only comes up tits high. She can practically give head standing up. Husband works second shift. Real asshole. I met her while doing some legwork on a file. Ever been to Somerset?”
“No.”
“Fucking nightmare. People practically spilling from buildings, windows. I told her I’d get her out of there if she divorces her old man.” He threw back the rest of his beer. He looked at Coe’s mostly full glass. “Drink up.”
Coe did.
“You got a car?”
Coe told him no.
“Just as well. At this hour, I’ll probably grab a hovercab.” He stood, threw down some money on the bar. He slapped Coe on the back and sauntered out.
For as sleazy as Chutney was, he was a saint compared to Tate. When he’d told his Steele handler that he had someone in mind to throw to Mitchell, he was speaking about Tate. Now, after meeting him, he was certain of it. He waited two minutes to make sure Tate had caught a cab, and then he caught the train back to his apt.
He interviewed the remainder of the auditing staff in a number of creative ways: striking up conversation after ‘accidentally’ picking up another auditor’s work at the printer; soliciting advice on local body shops for his nonexistent car; and television show talk around the water cooler. It was all essentially for appearances sake; a make-believe investigation.
“Do you still want me?” Janeiro asked. “To come? To live with you?”
She wore makeup. Her hair was different. It was wavy. She wore a black tank top. She looked as lovely as ever.
“Of course, I do.”
The minutes passed. They stared at one another; rather at the images of what they looked like in the past.
“I just...I just want you to be certain,” she said. “I love you, Scotty. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
“I’ve begun packing,” she said. “I’ve sold a number of things I no longer want—”
She paused, a look of concern on her face. The camera shook. “Oh, my god. We’re having an earthquake—”
At that moment, Coe’s apartment shook. The doors on the kitchen cabinets opened. A few dishes fell out. A glass, too. It smashed to the floor.
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