MY NECK HURTS a lot more than my bat-smacked leg. The neck pain is a chronic condition caused from squeezing my Sasquatch body into something called a smart car. I won it in a raffle and am required to drive it for a year or give it back. On the side of the car it says: VitaWater: Smart Water Gets You Places.
Inside of it, I look like one of those model ships in a bottle—in this case, an aircraft carrier stuffed into an airplane-sized bottle of whiskey.
I drive it because I can’t afford a car but I could afford $1 for a raffle ticket at the Fillmore Street Fair. I thought it was a raffle for the woman in the VitaWater sash. She had reminded me of Meredith, not just the long brown hair and the long thin legs, but the sidelong glance, like I held some powerful allure but also seemed deeply out of place in this world. Meredith, the true love of my life, used to give me the same look, before, like the guy said, she sacked me over iced coffee.
Did Meredith bear my kid? Do I have a reproduction running around? Did the Zeke-name skip a generation?
I’d call information on my cell phone to get Meredith’s number but I haven’t paid up on the prepaid calling plan. I’ll use the phone at the office of Sandoval Political Consultant, where I currently work, collating and filing. A visit to the office kills two birds: use the Internet and phone to track down Meredith; do a little discovery to find out what kind of computer thumb drive is worth killing for.
I contemplate whether I might call the cops. But not before I know a bit more about whether I’m putting Meredith, and our ex-love child, in harm’s way. Hearty says I’ve got twenty-four hours; that buys me a little time to play with.
It takes me two minutes to squeeze into my car and get comfortable, 10 minutes to drive to the headquarters of Sandoval Political Consulting. It’s a single-story open-plan office, some Syrah-drunk architect’s idea of bringing Eichler into the 21st century by making everyone and everything transparent through glass walls that separate the offices. I’ll take old-fashioned cubicles; I like to overhear stuff and couldn’t give a damn if people overhear me. Offices are for guys with secrets and unmet ambitions, two things I hate.
The place is dark, which surprises me. Fred works late, especially now, the eve of a presidential-year national election. We’re gathering and making sense of mountains of data on the electorate, what they want and like, what they will want and like. We’re part of the emerging Big Data industry. It feeds off of, and tries to track and synthesize, billions of fresh data bits, filled with evidence of the human condition, that appear in social networks: fast-twitch media sites like Twitter, caches of anonymous Google searches. A ton of research ultimately backed up with old-fashioned phone interviews. We look to find truths and hope social and economic policy follows them, as opposed to following ideology.
Fred is one of those prodigal engineers with business sense who made it big first in the eighties on hardware, then again in the dot-com boom with an Internet start-up. He tried to run for San Mateo County supervisor a few years back but got disgusted by the insincerity of the political process. So, for a third act, well into his sixties, he’s turning his millions toward monetizing his passion for politics. He’s truly nonpartisan, and so is our firm, almost cynically so, which is why I took this over a job making hoagies. And, when Fred hired me, he promised I wouldn’t have to join him in the high-tech culture of burning the midnight computer monitor. Interview went like this:
Fred: You look like a snacker. The cheese fish are for the customers.
Me: Then why did you call me for an interview?
Fred: You come highly recommended. You’re smart. You’re fair and you’re tough. You can work your way up.
Me: From what? What does the job entail? What are the hours? What’s the pay?
Fred: You want a job or not?
Me: Job.
Fred: Do you plan to hit me if I edit your work?
Me: Not today.
As I disgorge myself from my car in the empty lot, I’m struck that I’m almost more curious about what’s going on than I am furious about being attacked. A part of me is glad to be back in the game, a game with evident stakes. Besides, I’ve moved well past the anger and into the opportunity phase. I’m going to talk to Fred, find out what’s up with this computer thumb drive, track down the guys who did this to me, return serve, then reconcile with Meredith and my as-of-yet-unmet son, and drive off into the sunset in the smart car.
I do have my doubts that I’ve got a son. I figure Meredith would tell me. I don’t doubt that there’s a computer thumb drive with potent information on it. Politics is, obviously, big business. Billions at stake. Who gets elected dictates who gets what dough down the line. So if Fred’s stumbled onto some powerful research, I could guess that someone might want it.
I slip inside the door. I pause. I listen. I’m betting the place hasn’t been this quiet since the day after the midterms. It’s quieter than a Mondale victory party. I look through the maze of glass walls, taking in a prism of shadows. We’re usually a nine-person shop but we’ve stocked up to twelve in the months leading up to the election.
Despite my lowly status, Fred graciously gave me one of the glass-enclosed offices, the smallest. It was more for him then me. He’d come by and sit and we’d chat; or, he’d chat, I’d listen. And he’d sneak a slug of the Dewar’s he kept locked in my bottom right drawer, and I’d tell him it was lucky that he didn’t make the desks made of glass too or everyone would know his secret.
My office is in the back corner. Fred’s is up at the front, right behind the receptionist’s counter. I’m anxious to call Meredith but Fred’s door is cracked open and so I go with life’s arrow theory, namely, follow the arrows. I knuckle rap the door, causing it to squeak and open a bit further.
“Fred?”
No response.
I push open the door. I’m not sure what I see first: Fred’s safe on the wall behind his desk, open, or Fred, lying at the foot of his desk, crumpled. The grayish moonlight coming through the windows over his bookshelves provides sufficient cover to make out the knife in his chest and the blood seeping across the hardwood. It’s a murder in sepia.
I make a quick start over to him and lean over one of the few nice guys. I don’t need a GED in CSI to suspect the guy is long gone. And then he twitches. A gurgling noise. A hiss.
“Fred.”
Before he reacts further, or I can, I hear the noise behind me. I turn. Behind Fred’s door stands a looming figure. Almost certainly the guy who put the stick into Fred. Not the guy from the Pastime Bar, or his aide-de-camp. Another knockout artist. Some new danger. He and I both stand, four feet apart, then half crouch, assessing, veritable sumo positions.
When it comes to brawling, he’s doubtless got a better resume. The latest notch on his CV is prone behind me, in a death gurgle. But this jerk doesn’t have anything on me when it comes to pent-up fury. I was pissed off even before I got threatened and found my boss lying near dead. And this assassin already used up his sharp object on that attack.
“You want your knife back or do this the old-fashioned way?”
He cocks his head, a foreboding moonlit silhouette. He’s got a long face, horse-like. He takes a step forward. I see something in his hand. Another weapon?
A phone.
He holds up the screen, showing me the light, something I can’t see.
“Your friends aren’t able to answer,” I say. “They’re picking themselves off the pavement outside the bar.”
At the mention of friends, he looks a bit surprised. “Scum got their comeuppance.” Another punk with silky vocabulary. His low voice carries an undercurrent of chuckle.
We hear the siren, and I get it, instantly. He hasn’t called the other thugs. He’s dialed 911. Of course. It worked out perfectly for him. He got into Fred’s safe, killed the poor fellow, and then I showed up, the gift of a fall guy. Nice night at the office.
He pockets the phone. He takes another step forward. I just growl, something way deep, the bad Ezekiel-gene in my heritage waiting a lifetime for this chance to put someone in a justifiable sleeper hold. I can see his plan; he’s going to escape and he’s willing to fight his way out to do it. I’m about to lunge when I hear Fred moan. I start to turn my head, just start, but it’s enough for the guy to make his slip around the door. I’ve got no choice. Obvious priorities.
“Fred.”
I hear the killer escape. I kneel next to Fred. I can hear sirens. They’ve got to be less than a mile away.
“Cavalry’s on the way.”
He shakes his head. His breathing is shallow and fast, like a dog hit by a car. He’s still got that glint in his eye, the one I trusted, but it’s fading into infinity. Then he smiles. Almost toothy. With obvious effort and excruciating pain, he lifts his arm from across his chest and he drops it to the floor. His hand opens. A tiny key skitters from his palm onto the bloody hardwood.
I catch his eye and he seems to acknowledge and implore me, a look including something, weirdly, like victory. “Hang on, Fred.” He doesn’t. He makes a gurgling noise and his eyes roll back. Gone.
I scoop up the key. I know just what it belongs to. The sirens get closer. I’m going to have to work fast.