by David Wong
“Yeah, I don’t want to bother with any of that.”
“Well, you have fifty thousand square feet of mansion and fifty acres of land here, it takes a small army to keep it looking like this.”
“Right, otherwise the people who drove past might not feel quite as miserable about their own lives when they see it.” Zoey headed toward the stairwell and said, “I’m not staying here, all that stuff is somebody else’s problem. Keep everybody out for now. Not just to keep the serial killers from leaking in, but to make sure none of Arthur’s old cronies decide to get revenge.”
“If you’re referring to the house staff, I’m not sure how much hunger for vengeance lies in the hearts of the landscapers or cleaning crew.”
“I’m mainly worried about—”
“Scrooooooge!!!”
They had reached the landing, and Jacob Marley’s ghost had been lying in wait. Stench Machine went streaking down the stairs in terror.
“Oh my god, will you unplug that stupid thing? What I was saying was, I’m mostly worried about the Suits—the, uh, creepy henchmen Arthur worked with—”
“Oh, I know who they are.”
“Well, will they come back with a bunch of thugs and try to kick down the door?”
“That would be an exceptionally poor strategy on their end. The security system would give me ample advance warning. The most difficult part would be neutralizing them before the crossfire created too much damage to the décor. I believe there are vases in that foyer older than the New Testament. No, the danger posed by those men is of a … different nature.”
“So what do you—” Zoey stopped, startled by the sound of clinking noises from down the hall. “Wait, is somebody else here?”
Armando looked confused. “Just Carlton, the butler.”
Zoey had completely forgotten about him.
Armando, growing alarmed, asked, “Was he ordered to leave? He said he never heard from you after he retired for the evening. The gunshot woke him up.”
“I didn’t even think about him. It’s … fine I guess. Can I trust him?”
Armando shrugged. “I did a background check. He has been a butler for fifty years. You can’t trust anybody one hundred percent but…” he shrugged again. “These are the decisions you have to make. It comes with the inheritance.”
“Wonderful.”
Zoey left Armando where he was and followed the busy sounds, which took her through the dining room and into the hallway where she had gone the night before, only instead of heading toward the holographic Mold door, she went the opposite way and soon found herself in a vast kitchen suited for a restaurant. She saw two huge stainless refrigerators with touchscreen controls, a flat-top grill like they have at Benihana, a deep fryer, and a row of three ovens topped by fifteen burners (Zoey marveled at all of the instant macaroni and cheese she could boil on that thing). She saw rows of copper-bottomed cookware dangling from racks over two huge sinks. Off in one corner was the arched brick opening of a wood-fired oven.
She wandered around the room, past a fragrant wall-size rack of fresh herbs sprouting from tiny little pots under grow lights. On the opposite wall was a bar—mirrored shelves of liquor and a beer tap, next to a coffee bar setup boasting an antique brass espresso machine that looked ten times as expensive as the professional one she used at work. She went over to give it a look, finding it comforting to be around tools she had mastered—grinders, steamers, even a little jar of toothpicks for drawing designs in the foam. The lingering scent of coffee oils was wonderful, even if it did remind her of long days, sore feet, and one particularly awful steam burn.
“Mr. Livingston would have his beans delivered weekly,” said Carlton’s voice from behind her. He had walked in silently from the other door, carrying Stench Machine.
Zoey spun and said, “Oh, I’m sorry. I was just … looking.”
“You’re apologizing for looking at your own kitchen? Your cat was wreaking havoc in the pantry, I had to go chase him down. I do believe he is hungry.”
“Oh. Right. I’m … sorry.”
Carlton nodded toward the coffee bar and said, “Your father, he found a service that ships the beans the day after they are roasted. Flies them in from Colombia. Have you eaten? Would you like something?”
She was starving, but said, “Oh, don’t worry about me. I’ll … order something.” Then she thought and said, “You don’t keep cat food around, do you? Not for me, obviously. I put some in my suitcase but I didn’t pack enough, I thought I’d have a chance to stop at a—”
Before she could finish, Carlton sprang into action, opening the nearest refrigerator.
“If you’re asking if I can prepare a meal a cat would find satisfactory, well, how difficult can it be?”
“You’d be surprised.”
Carlton pulled a tuna steak, eggs, and a stick of butter from the refrigerator, then continued loading his arms from a walk-in pantry. He emerged with flour, a bag of rice, a jar of peanut butter, a plastic bear full of honey, a box of brown sugar, and a single, perfect banana.
“Do you like bananas, Ms. Ashe?”
“Oh, you don’t have to—”
“Your father compensated me quite well to do precisely this, in precisely this situation. Am I to assume that my employment continues under the previous terms? It is my understanding that some staff were let go last night.”
“Um, sure, that’s fine.”
“Well, then, for you to refuse to allow me to perform my duties would turn me into a thief. Please have a seat.”
The nearest stovetop was suddenly a flurry of activity. Knobs were turned. Blue flames whooshed to life and a saucepan and two skillets were banged into place above them. Zoey took a seat at the bar and soon the intoxicating scent of melting butter joining the smell of fresh herbs and coffee. Armando stared intently at the process, but it wouldn’t occur to Zoey until days later that he was making sure Carlton didn’t poison her.
Zoey said, “You, uh, pretty much know what goes on around here, right?”
Carlton shrugged. “I try to keep to myself, but of course a man hears things. We humans don’t have lids on our ears, as useful as that would be at times.”
He grabbed a loaf of crusty bread off of a wire cooling rack on the counter, the bread presumably having been pulled from that brick oven hours earlier.
Zoey asked, “Those men. Or rather, those three men and that one girl—Will and Andre and the rest. What do they do? Or what did they do, for my dad? Are they, like, hit men?”
“They solved problems that your father needed solved.”
“So hit men, then.”
“I can only say that if they did kill anyone, they did not do it in the house.”
A banana was peeled, laid on a cutting board, and sliced lengthwise. The crusty bread was expertly cleaved into thick slices. The tuna steak was laid gently into the sizzling oil of one skillet, brown sugar was stirred into melted butter in the other. Boiling rice was pulled from its burner and covered.
“You know what I’m asking. Are they dangerous?”
“If you are looking for specifics, I can say only that I was not made privy to any illegal activity. That would have put me in a difficult situation should I ever have been called to testify. That was made explicit in the terms of my employment.”
“So you knew Arthur was a criminal.”
Carlton dropped the bananas into the butter and brown sugar mixture. Flour, salt, baking powder, and eggs were whisked together in a bowl.
“‘Criminal’ is something of a nebulous concept in this city, I’m afraid. But yes, your father dealt in many large-scale, cash-only transactions off the books and had … colorful associates. And I heard tales, particularly of things he did in his youth, and during the war. He was not a man you wanted as an enemy. But, behind every great fortune … you know the rest.”
A quarter inch of white had formed along the bottom of the pink tuna, and Carlton flipped it with an effortless, elegant motion. He
turned toward the counter, and quickly the two slices of bread were smeared with a wad of peanut butter, then drizzled with honey. Armando’s eyes followed his hands every step of the way.
“So you know Arthur left me everything? And you’re just … taking it in stride? I’m your boss now, that’s it? You don’t think all of this is weird?”
“I assure you, this does not rank even in the top ten strangest weeks I’ve had during my time in Arthur’s employ. I’m sure your needs will be different from his, but I am confident I can adjust, even at my advanced age. Otherwise, employers come and go. Some better than others.”
Carlton pulled the tuna off the heat and set it aside. He pulled caramelized banana chunks from the pan and laid them atop the peanut buttered slice of bread, then laid the other slice of bread on top and dunked the whole thing in the egg and flour mixture. He then dropped the batter-coated sandwich into the deep fryer. Zoey thought there was something vaguely obscene about it.
“And you’re not curious at all as to why he left everything to me?”
“I had a friend pass recently, who left his home and life savings to a Waffle House waitress. Said she was the only person who was ever kind to him. I once read about another woman who slept in a tent under an overpass, who it turned out had a coffee can full of gold coins buried underneath it, worth two hundred thousand dollars. She left it all to a local church that she had never attended.”
“So you’re saying he was just crazy? That’s why all this happened?”
“I believe ‘eccentric’ is the word they use when one acquires a certain level of affluence. But in Arthur’s case, perhaps it was simply regret.”
Carlton sat the barely cooked tuna on a cutting board, diced it, and piled the chunks in a small bowl. He poured in some of the rice, mashed it all up with a fork, and set a fresh batch of homemade cat food on the floor for Stench Machine.
Zoey said, “Regret? What, like he had a crisis of conscience?”
“In my youth, I used to loathe being told I would understand something when I was older, but I’m afraid I must find myself saying it here.”
He pulled the deep-fried peanut butter and banana sandwich from the fryer and let the oil drain from the basket.
He said, “At your age, life is full of possibilities. But as the years pass, those possibilities vanish, one by one, like doors closing in a hallway. You feel time slip by, and your energy slip away. One day, you realize you’re too old to be a famous musician, or change careers, or have more children. And each of those closed doors represents a regret. As you get older, well, those regrets come to define you. Perhaps the lack of a family life was Arthur’s regret. But honestly, what does it matter? If you’re asking what you should do with your inheritance, that is up to you, Ms. Ashe. If you’re asking what Arthur Livingston would have wanted you to do with your inheritance, well, the man is dead. So who gives a shit?”
He set the sandwich gently on a plate, the batter having formed a perfect golden brown crust. He sliced it diagonally, melted peanut butter oozing out as he carefully arranged the two halves. He garnished it with a fanned-out sliced strawberry, sprinkled it all with a light dusting of powdered sugar, then slid the plate to Zoey, followed by a glass of milk.
“Your father’s favorite brunch and, on occasion, midnight snack. Elvis Presley’s, too, I’m told.”
Zoey took a bite, felt the gluttonous rush of fried fat and sugar spilling across her tongue, and decided that the world was a wonderful place.
From behind her, Armando said, “A car full of your fathers’ associates is on the way. They just turned down the inlet road, heading for the gates. God, I love the security system here.”
Zoey asked, “They can’t get through the gates unless we let them, right?”
“Correct.”
To Carlton she said, “Here’s what I think. I think this whole thing stinks of one of Arthur’s scams. I only talked to that man twice in my whole life. He knocks up my mom, vanishes into thin air, then eight years later shows up at our apartment out of the blue, with a wad of money and a football.”
“A football?”
“I think he saw a picture of me my mom posted on the Internet, as a kid I was kind of a chuck wagon and I had short hair, and I was holding a football in the picture so I guess he decided that was my thing. Anyway, then he disappears until eight years after that, when he shows up on my sixteenth birthday as if it’s the first time, like every eight years he suddenly remembers he has a daughter. This time he turns up with a luxury car. And another football. Had it delivered on a flatbed truck, with a big red bow on the top—the car, not the football. And all my unemployed neighbors are standing around gawking at it … I’ve never been more angry and embarrassed in my life. I always assumed it was some stupid tax write-off or something. And that’s what I think this is—it’s all some legal thing to hide assets from the feds.”
Carlton hesitated, as if deciding whether to share what he was about to say next.
“Your father … he had a routine. He would bring home a different, very beautiful woman every Friday night. Then every Saturday morning, he would have me mostly prepare a brunch—eggs, crepes, fresh fruit, homemade whipped cream, leaving only the final assembly and plating of the dish undone. Then I would exit the kitchen and your father would come and finish putting it all together, so that when the Lady of the Week walked in, she would see your father wearing his big, ridiculous chef’s hat and preparing a five-star meal for her. And she would smile. They all did, every time.”
“I’m sorry, but that’s kind of gross. Not this sandwich, by the way. The sandwich is miraculous.” On the floor, Stench Machine was eating his fish and rice just as hard as he could.
“My point is, I cannot tell you that your father was a good man. To those who went against him, I’m sure he was not. But even to his friends … it’s not that he didn’t want to be a good man. It’s that he didn’t really know how. So, he liked to impress people. To dazzle them. That was as close to good as he could get.”
Candi the bimbo hologram blinked into the middle of the room and said, “Turn on the hot tub jets and open four bottles of champagne, Andre Knox and Budd Billingsley are at the front gates. Ooh, it looks like we’ll have enough people to form a spank gauntlet!”
Armando said, “They’re not armed. They never are. I don’t judge them to be an immediate threat to your personal safety. As to whether or not they are a threat to your financial safety or are otherwise trustworthy, well, again that’s what you have to figure out.”
Zoey chewed, then said, “All right, let them in. But if they so much as reach into a pocket without permission, shoot them both in the head.”
FIFTEEN
Armando opened the huge front doors with one hand, the other pointing his gun at the ceiling. Zoey stood behind him, kind of hoping the visitors would try to make a move. Carlton was lurking nearby, presumably to see if he’d be needed to clean up a bunch of blood or something.
Budd Billingsley took off his cowboy hat, looked past Armando to make eye contact with Zoey and asked, “Do you mind if we come in, miss?”
If he was mocking her, Zoey couldn’t detect it. “Sure, why not.”
Andre followed Budd through the door, looking very hung over and eating a giant chili dog.
Budd said, “Took some work to roust this vagrant but I reckoned he needed to be here, too.”
As he passed Zoey, Andre said, “Yeah, I’m eatin’ a chili dog at ten in the morning. Only God can judge me.”
“Carlton made me an Elvis.”
Andre squinted at Carlton and said, “You gave her a bunch of Quaaludes and made her eat them on the toilet? That’s a new low, Carlton.” He looked at Armando and said, “Who’s this?”
Zoey said, “Oh, this is—”
“Armando Ruiz,” finished Budd.
Armando said, “You have seen my ads.”
“I knew of you when you worked for Pinkerton. Also met your daddy a time or three. Is he st
ill the chief in Reno?”
Armando smiled. “I think my father will still be in that uniform when I retire. He’ll probably wear it to my funeral.”
To Zoey, Andre said, “Budd knows everybody.”
Zoey was already heading back toward the kitchen, as she still had a quarter of a sandwich left and would rather die than leave it uneaten. They all followed her, and the moment Budd entered the kitchen music faded in from out of nowhere, a man singing of a woman named Black Betty Blamalam.
Andre saw Zoey’s expression and said, “The house is programmed to play your personal theme music at random times, when you walk into a room, like you’re making an entrance. Arthur’s idea, obviously.”
“Can we turn it off?”
Budd said, “Trust me, ma’am, if we knew how to turn it off, we’d have done it years ago.”
Zoey took her seat at the bar and resumed her sandwich. “All right, you’ve got five minutes to say your piece, then Armando starts shooting.”
Armando looked alarmed and said, “That’s … really not one of the services I provide.”
Budd said, “No, we completely understand. I just want to tell you a story, if you’ll indulge me. Now this city, it can be real confusing for an outsider. I don’t care where you’re from, Tabula Rasa can make you feel like you’ve taken a train to Bizarro world. I remember my very first night here—and this is goin’ on fifteen years ago—I was takin’ a walk downtown, tryin’ to get a feel for the place. And I’m walkin’ through a construction site—and it was all construction sites back then, you understand—and I come across this hole in the ground, ’bout ten feet in diameter. I look down and I can’t see a bottom, so I pull a quarter out of my pocket and toss it down, and listen for a clink or a splash. Nothin’. Coin just tumbles into the darkness and disappears. So now I’m real curious, and I look around for somethin’ else to throw down there. And teeterin’ right on the edge of the hole is an old refrigerator. So, I circle around and I give it a good kick and it tumbles down into the hole. I hear it bang off the side a few times but once again, there’s no crash, no splash, like it just kept fallin’ forever. It was the strangest thing. So I figure this is the first of this city’s many unknowable mysteries and I start to go on about my way. But then I see the second strange thing—this goat, it goes flying past me, in midair. Like it was fired from a cannon. And now I think I’m losin’ my mind, like maybe it’s not just tobacco in my cigar, if you know what I’m sayin’. So I walk along and I come across a guy sittin’ on the curb and I say, ‘Holy cow, partner, did you see that goat?’ And the fella says, ‘Well, that’s my goat.’ And I say, ‘Well, I hate to tell ya, but I think it’s gone. It took off flyin’.’ And the fella says, ‘That’s impossible. I had him chained to a refrigerator.’”