Kings of Infinite Space

SIXTEEN

THAT MORNING RENEE AND OLIVIA HADDOCK WERE each allowed to take a personal day and go home. Despite his promotion, Paul was still a temp and did not get personal days. Not long after the dead tech writer was wheeled away, Paul’s phone rang.

“Paul!” barked Rick. “That watermark I asked you to put in the RFP? How’s that goin’?”

Paul was sitting slumped in his office chair, his gaze lost in the tiny print of the two-page spread on his computer screen. The only readable text was the faint, gray-scale watermark on each page, the two of them slanted at an identical angle like a ghostly pair of chevrons: DRAFT DOCUMENT.

“Hey, chief, you there?” said Rick down the phone. “You alive or what?”

“I’m here,” breathed Paul.

“Well, I’m relieved. I hear y’all are dropping like flies at that end of the office.”

Paul said nothing.

“Now about that watermark,” Rick went on.

“I’m looking at it.”

“Fantastic! You figgered it out!”

Somebody did, thought Paul, but all he said was, “Yes.”

“Say, print a coupla pages of that bad boy out and let me take a look-see, willya?”

“Okay.” As slow as a somnambulist, Paul lifted his hand to his mouse.

“Chop chop, Paul. It’s the early bird that gathers no moss.”

Paul printed out the two pages on the screen, then levitated numbly from his chair and glided down the aisle towards the printer by Nolene’s desk. He had no need to temper his pace this morning — Renee, lucky girl, was home by now, with the covers pulled over her head — but he was afraid to move any faster, afraid of what he might see coming around each corner en route to the printer. The office was sepulchrally silent; the subterranean gloom of cubeland seemed gloomier than ever. The suspended ceiling pressed down from overhead like a bleak, winter overcast, clamping down on the room from horizon to horizon like a lid. What if they’re all around me, he thought, right now, in the ceiling, or waiting in the aisle, with their pale faces and rows of sharp teeth? What if — and oh, this was worse — what if one-half of my life has begun to leak into the other half, the nighttime half into the daytime half? What if Charlotte has gotten out of my apartment? What if she’s waiting for me in Rick’s office right now, sprawled across the desk, her tail switching over the edge, watching the door with her fathomless black eyes?

Paul nearly turned around and went back, but his legs carried him onward on shaky knees. He saw no one; he heard no one. He rounded the corner of the main aisle and saw an empty seat at Nolene’s desk, the printer heaving out his two lonely pages. Maybe they’re all dead! he thought, lurching onward like a zombie. Maybe I’m dead! This is the circle of hell reserved for Kitty Drowners and Failed Academics, an eternity of meaningless work in an empty office in an eternal twilight.

Rick’s office door was open, and the light from his courtyard window was a painful glare, too bright to look into directly. It shone down the aisle, drawing Paul along on his unsteady feet.

“Hey, pilgrim,” said a rasping voice behind Paul, and a firm grip was laid upon his shoulder.

“Jesus!” cried Paul, twisting free.

“Easy, compadre,” said the Colonel, his eyes twinkling.

“Don’t do that!” Paul hated the whine in his voice, and he glanced around him to see if anyone had noticed. J.J. and Bob Wier clutched the tops of their cubes and peered over like a pair of Kilroys, J.J. glowering, Bob Wier’s eyes round and shining.

“I think you need a little quality time at lunch,” said the Colonel in a gravelly murmur. “Come see us.”

Paul waved him away and continued up the aisle towards the printer.

“Don’t be afraid, Paul,” the Colonel said. “Big changes are coming.”

“It’s the only way,” said Bob Wier.

“The eyes of Texas are upon you,” said J.J., “asshole.”

The pages from the RFP rattled in Paul’s hand as he plucked them from the printer. Nolene had reappeared from nowhere. She beckoned him.

“How you feelin’, hon?” she asked, folding her hands on her desktop.

Paul gripped the edge of her cube and struggled to keep his voice low and even. “How would you feel if you found a dead guy in the cube next to yours first thing in the morning?”

Nolene nodded. “Why’n’t you take a sick day? I’m sure Rick wouldn’t mind.”

Just then Rick’s voice floated through his door, out of the glare, like the voice of the almighty. “ ’Zat Paul out there? You got my watermark, son?”

Nolene sighed silently, with her eyes closed. Then she leveled her gaze, severe and maternal, at Paul. “Or I can make it so he don’t mind. You just say the word.”

Paul waved at her speechlessly and went into Rick’s office. He shut the door behind him and collapsed in one of the chairs across from Rick’s desk.

“Here,” he said, and he shoved the RFP pages at Rick. They were airborne for a moment, then fluttered to Rick’s desktop like a pair of leaves. Rick planted a palm on each one and slid them towards him, lifting his hands to peer at each page in turn.

“Perfect,” he breathed, his eyebrows bounding. “Took you long enough, but you got it.”

“I didn’t do it.” Paul dug his fingers into the armrests of the chair to keep them from trembling. His heart was still racing from the fright the Colonel had given him.

“Say what?” Rick’s eyebrows bounded to their furthest north.

“I didn’t put the watermark in the document.”

“Then who did?”

“He did!” Paul’s voice climbed a couple of octaves. “The tech writer! The guy who died over the weekend!” Paul pointed unsteadily at Rick’s door. “He did it for me! And then. . and then. . he died.” Paul clamped his palm over his mouth to keep from whimpering.

“Ah.” Rick flung himself back in his chair so forcefully that he nearly tipped over backwards. Outside the window, the bare limbs of the dying oak seemed to reach towards him out of the glare. Rick clamped his fingers together behind his head and lifted his eyes to the ceiling. “Coupla temps, cubes right next to each other, y’all got to be friends over there.” Rick didn’t even seem to be addressing Paul but explaining the situation to himself out loud. “I guess that’s what y’all call solidarity. .”

“I didn’t even know his name,” said Paul.

“Huh.” Rick lowered his gaze to Paul and blinked, as if surprised to see him there.

“He died. At work.” Paul’s mouth was dry. “All because. . because. . she. .”

“ ‘She’?”

“Olivia.” Paul’s knuckles were white on the armrest. “I heard her tell him he couldn’t go home till he finished the job, or she wouldn’t pay him. I heard her.”

Rick lurched forward in his chair. “Way-ul,” he said, not looking at Paul. He moved his hands aimlessly among the papers on his desk. “We sent her home.”

“What for?” Paul said. “So she can’t kill anybody else?”

“Well now,” said Rick. “Well now.”

Keep your mouth shut, Paul told himself. You need this job. But it was all he could do not to stand and hurl his chair through the glass and into the bony grasp of the oak tree.

“I tell you what.” Rick’s hands twitched through a pile of folders. “Why don’t you take the rest of the day off?”

“Don’t you people get it? I’m a temp. I live paycheck to paycheck, Rick. I can’t afford to lose the hours.”

“Yep. Welp.” Rick still wouldn’t look at Paul. “You won’t have to. Just fill in the hours on your time sheet like you always do, and I’ll sign it. Go on home.”

Paul blinked at Rick. He relaxed his grip on the armrests. “Are you serious?”

“Serious as a heart attack, Paul. Now g’wan, git, before I change my mind.”

Paul rose unsteadily to his feet, pulled open the door, and started down the aisle without looking back. He stiffened as he passed the Colonel’s cube, but he managed to round the corner without incident. He came around the next corner into his own little side street and stopped short at the sight of florid Ray from Building Services hulking over the desk in the tech writer’s cube, clearing the littered desktop into a cardboard box. Paul hurried past him into his own cube, where he dropped in his chair and sat for a moment with his head propped in his hands.

“Jesus H. Christ,” he muttered. “They only just wheeled him away.” He turned and aimed his voice over the partition into the next cube. “Don’t you people have any fucking decency?” He switched off his monitor and his desk lamp and heaved himself out of the chair and into the aisle. Ray stood holding the box with one hand and a fistful of papers in the other.

“Say, bud,” he said breathlessly as Paul passed the doorway of the dead man’s cube, “how ’bout you give me a hand here? You could hold the box for me.”

Paul shot him an angry glance and stalked away.

In the lobby Preston was on the phone, but he gave Paul a meaningful look and held up his finger for Paul to wait a moment. But Paul just flipped his badge across the counter and kept going. By the time he got to his car and rolled down his windows and opened the hatchback to let the heat out, he was still trembling. He slammed the hatchback and lowered himself behind the wheel, the shocks groaning under him, and he lifted his key to the ignition. But he didn’t start the car; he only gripped the steering wheel loosely and stared through his cracked and spotted windshield at the glare of the morning sun off the SUVs and pickups in the parking lot. Little waves of heat trembled off the electric sheen of hoods and bumpers and high roof lines. Beyond the embankment, Paul thought he could actually see the stale odor of the river rising off the water. I left my lunch inside, he thought, but I’m not going back for it. I may never go back into that building again. But where am I going to go? Do I really want to spend the whole day in that grotty apartment with Charlotte? He tightened his fingers around the steering wheel and lowered his head.

“Paul?”

The voice outside his window startled him, and Paul banged the horn with his forehead.

“Aw, Christ!” he moaned. “Are you people trying to drive me crazy?”

Callie stooped at his window, her brow furrowed. She wore a man’s blue dress shirt and a faded pair of jeans — very nicely, too, Paul thought, even in his distress. She clutched the collar of her shirt together with one hand.

“You okay?” she said.

Paul sighed and sagged back against the headrest of his seat. Callie glanced back at the building, then lifted her other hand and brushed his shoulder with her fingertips. “Ray said you was in kind of a state,” she said.

“The guy in the cube next to me. .,” Paul began. “The tech writer. He—”

“I know,” Callie said, crouching closer, rubbing his shoulder.

“It’s just. . it could have been me, you know?”

“I don’t think so, hon.” She brushed his hair with the backs of her fingers. “Poor Dennis, he was real sick.”

Dennis. Was that his name? Paul sighed again and said, “Rick said I could go home.”

“Good for Rick.”

“It’s just. .” He turned to meet her gaze. “The thing is. .” How could he tell her why he was afraid of his own apartment? Especially now?

Callie bit her lip. She glanced up at the building again, then stepped back and dug in the pocket of her jeans. She pulled out a ring of keys and began to pry one free with her long fingers. “Here,” she said, and offered Paul her apartment key.

Paul stared at the key in her palm as if he had never seen anything like it. He looked up and said, “Seriously?” in a little boy’s voice.

“Take it.” She shoved the key through the window and dropped it in his palm.

“Thank you,” Paul breathed. A warm relief spread through him down to his toes.

“I don’t have a TV or nothin’. Just, y’know, the anthology.” Callie lifted a corner of her lips. “You can brush up on your Shakespeare.”

Paul grabbed her by the wrist and tugged her down to the window.

“Don’t,” she said, glancing at the blank, tinted windows of the building, but he pulled her to him, and she kissed him sweetly. Then she stepped back, blushing. “Just be sure you’re there when I get home. I can’t get in without that key.”