08.06.2008 / EP. 29
On Schedule
Thick fog blanketed the alley, which squatted like a poor expatriate relation ofHighgate Cemetery in the slums of Albany, New York. The fog swirled and grewdark. Milly sat up as a big man loomed ahead. He was running toward her. Millytried to shout, but the man didn’t hear or understand or care. She found a gun in her hand and squeezed the trigger. The gun dissolved, but the man dropped. Hehit the ground hard. Milly approached warily. She nudged him with her boot. Hehadn’t been shot; he’d been stabbed. But Milly saw no one else around. Puzzled,she quickly searched his pockets. There was nothing there. She pried open hisright fist and found a gold coin. Milly rocked back and forth on her heels,clutching her sides. Which was when she noticed the doll a few feet away. Millyhowled for no reason she could think of, or because the dead man was her fatherand she was a child and didn’t understand how all this had come to pass, orbecause her father’s blood spread like accusing fire over her hands, face andhair. Beside Milly crouched a small figure, doll or girl it wasn’t clear, dressed inmourning. Milly felt panic. The fog began to lift. Around them stretched acityscape of decayed brick buildings armatured with rusty fire escapes, and oneach ladder crouched a wolf. One of the wolves was thin with hunger. He baredhis teeth and leaped to the ground. The wolf circled Milly. Saliva dripped from hisjaws. He drew near and Milly saw a locket hanging from his neck. Milly reachedfor the locket. The wolf snapped at her, but ducked his head and the locketdropped at Milly’s feet. She opened the locket and found a picture of her sister,though she’d never had a sister. The wolf jumped at Milly and Milly screamed.The wolf kissed her. It was night and for a moment Milly didn’t know where shewas. She checked the bedside clock. Milly lay back to collect her thoughts.
When she staggered up at last, Milly looked through the curtains. The carcontaining the dead man was long gone. Pam must have moved it, perhaps tothe same park as the other body. Convenient for the police, to collect corpses ina single location. Tidy. The park would become an elephants’ graveyard for themurdered. That was one beauty spot she’d forego. Milly repressed a swellingwave of hysteria. Anxiety, she corrected. There was no threat. She had nopersonality disorder. She was determined to feel no fear.
Nor was there delusion. Her cellphone rang, interrupting these melancholyreflections. A hoarse voice said he’d heard disturbing rumours about theGovernor’s presidential race. Was there a problem? Not that she knew,answered Milly.
“Good,” said the voice. “We’ll up our sales by 10%. Some friends said we can’t.We made a little bet.” Milly advised the voice, hesitating as she did so, againstprovoking the competition. “Caution noted. You’re a gem. Ten percent,” the voiceflattened and the line went dead.
Great, thought Milly. How do I tell him he’s just started a war. Hysteria rose. Orwas it anxiety? Neither were on her agenda for the day.
What was on Milly’s agenda was a normal day and night. She dressed and atebreakfast, toast and hard cheddar cheese. Fred had already left. Like estrangedcouples everywhere, life was peaceful when they weren’t in each other’scompany. Sunlight poured through the window of the breakfast nook. A chickadee pranced and bobbed outside. Milly breathed easy and took a secondcup of coffee.
At the Dennis Quall building, she dwelt on the minutiae of the legal department.She conducted the morning conference. Staffers summarized the status ofongoing political issues and Milly abbreviated them for Arthur. She assignedpeople to monitor upcoming stories and outlined the Governor’s needs in thenext few weeks; red flags, she called them. The activity was pell-mell, butpeaceful, owing to its remorseless and simplified logic. Intellectually it consistedof child’s play, analogous to moving toy soldiers around on a map: the responseto this vote by the House is a breakfast with key republicans; the reaction to thatoutbreak of crime in Bedford-Stuyvesant is a new strategy of neighbourhoodpolicing. Milly reduced all this to one page for the Governor, and Arthurpresented it to him at 10:30 sharp, by which time the Governor had alreadyattended two breakfast meetings. Alfred checked a yes or no beside a suggestedresponse to each issue. Another list would reach the Governor at 3:00 pm.Everything was under control, as it had been and always would be.
Rules controlled the Presidential campaign. Procedures were limited, certainpractices morally dubious but well within public tolerance. These included leaksto the press and manipulation by hinting, at a private lunch, that proof of amarried columnist’s latest infatuation would fall into the wrong hands if twostories favourable to the Governor didn’t appear in the next seven days. “Itbalances the equation, doesn’t it?” crooned Milly. She delivered messages of thiskind, because her position made her an improbable predator if the columnistrebelled. “You’ll look even-handed,” she said. “Everyone benefits.” Milly handledthis effectively and expeditiously. Her manner was smooth and good-natured, theoutcome predictable. It was therapeutic, like a relaxing game of cards.
Night fell and Milly encountered Steven Lin. Which didn’t make it normal at all.Milly began her night, in fact, in the afternoon. She signalled Arthur that the restof her day would be devoted to “his” drugs. This was Milly’s idea of a savagethrust. Arthur was nominal master of the legal department and of Americandistribution for Young Again. Milly had actual control, reality. He had appearance,semblance. Calling the drugs “his” was like twisting a knife in his gut. Some partof her enjoyed it. She wasn’t proud of that part, but other women did worse. AndArthur didn’t seem to mind. Mild contumely was a price he cheerfully paid for thewealth Milly deposited weekly into his overseas accounts.
Or so Milly conceived. The world was inhabited by pasteboard figures. In politics,each had status and to her fell the task of strengthening or weakening that statusin proportion to the figure’s approval of Governor Albert Brull. She was expert atthe craft. And her evening activities consisted of more of the same. The toughswho predominated in the Young Again universe were easily sifted for the pliableand friable, useful and useless, enemies and friends. As in her doll room andpolitics, the rules of drug distribution were simple and absolute. Formality governed every occasion, however ironically one treated the supposed rules.Everything proceeded by the book, neatly, efficiently. Milly’s normal night beganwith a killing.
On the date within our field of vision, the victim was a salesman with a shade toomuch cheek. He reduced the profit share he paid Milly’s distributor. No onecounted the nickels and dimes, he thought. The distributor noticed. He told Milly.There was always a question whether missing money was an accident. Thefollowing week, when a similar sum failed to appear, Milly acted. She alwayssided with her distributors. Loyalty breeds loyalty. The distributor asked for thedeath penalty. She OKed it immediately. “On condition it’s soon and painless,”she said. “And make it look like a fight over a woman. We don’t want the lawasking questions.”
Her distributor was satisfied.
Next was a complaint that one of her men talked to himself. It was more concernthan complaint. “He’ll crack,” someone said. “There’s no telling what he’ll do.”Milly silently wished for an analeptic or that her men had more serious issues tooccupy their time. But their leisure was a measure of her competence. Millydefended the man. “Give him a month,” she said. “We’re all crazy. Startdemanding stereotypes and where will it end? Watch him, but we’re a team andhe’s one of us.” Milly’s rule: support your tribe, loyalty is a treasure thatsurpasses gold. She felt the burden of becoming repetitive, always a bad sign inone whose career consisted of routine.
Which was when Steven Lin entered. He walked along the Chinese carpet intothe room where Milly met her distributors, the living room of a quiet apartment ina quiet building in a quiet residential neighbourhood. And the normal nightcracked wide open. Twenty people looked up astonished. “Don’t let me interrupt,”Lin said. “I have a key.” He held it up for all to see.
Guns appeared in people’s hands, cocked and ready, but discipline prevailed.Milly placed her palms on the table. She didn’t tell the men to put their gunsaway. Nor did she order Lin shot. “You’re inviting me to ask certain questions,”she said into the silence. “Why don’t you save time and answer them?”
“I’m Steven Lin. Yes, questions would be natural. Do you want the answers inpublic or private?”
“Give the key to Skull,” Milly ordered.
Lin gave the key to the man nearest him, a cadaverous gentleman with amocking smile. The hollow-cheeked gentleman studied both sides of the key,twice. “Looks like the real thing,” he intoned.
“Thank you, Skull,” said Milly. “We’ll adjourn the meeting. Please excuse us, all ofyou. We won’t be long.” The men filed out. Milly signaled to Skull, who gave herhis gun. “You have my full attention, Mr Lin,” Milly said.
“A profitable set-up, you have here, Ms Troie.”
Milly nodded.
“Certain people want a percentage.”
“They’d like to be masters of the universe too.”
“No doubt. In exchange for a contribution, because those certain people arebusinessmen, and businessmen – as opposed to masters of the universe – neverexpect something for nothing.”
“What do you have that I want, Mr Lin?”
