Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits (13 page)

With the pistol still pointed at Will's uncanny valley stare, Zoey took a calming breath, leaned over, and stuck her head into the vault once again. For a moment there was only silence. She took another deep breath, and let it out.

Finally, there was an approving chime, then a click and a squeak of hinges.

Everyone in the room but Zoey let out a gasp. Zoey pulled her head out and moved out of the way of the swinging vault door. She put her back to the opening and told herself not to turn around, since once again seeing what was in there would only shorten her life span.

The gun still trained on Will, she kneeled down and picked up her cat and said into his ear, “If they kill me,
run
.”

But no one was looking at her anymore. Will had forgotten about Zoey and even the gun, and was staring into the vault, mouth agape (which in his case, meant there was an opening between his lips of about a quarter of an inch). He rushed forward, brushing past Zoey. And that's when she made her mistake: she turned to follow him with her eyes, looking into the vault.

It was empty.

Or at least, it was empty of treasure—the metal room was perfectly vacant save for a single, silver coin lying on the concrete floor, mockingly. Just behind the coin, was a man. In his late fifties, in a pinstripe suit with an elaborate mustache, standing placidly in a vault that had been locked airtight for days. It took a moment for Zoey to recognize that it was, in fact, her biological father, Arthur Livingston.

 

TWELVE

Zoey never heard Kowalski coming.

It took him all of two seconds to close the distance, and one second to wrench the gun from her hand, ripping the skin from her index finger in the process. In one continuous, practiced motion he then twisted her arm and shoved her to the floor, pressing a boot to her back. Zoey's face was mashed painfully into the carpet of gold coins. She noted that the one right next to her eyeball had been minted in 1918.

“Hello there,” said the voice of Zoey's biological father from inside the vault. She craned her head around just in time to see Will walk through the man. When Arthur Livingston was alive, he had sure loved his holograms. Will was looking around the vault, as if hoping something else was hiding in one of the clearly empty corners. He accidentally kicked the single, sad coin across the floor, then picked it up, staring at it as if hoping he could make it start multiplying with the power of wishful thinking.

“If this recording is playing, then I am either talking to Zoey Ashe, my daughter by the lovely Melinda Ashe, or to a person or group of people who have found a way to subvert the security of one of the world's finest vaults. If it is the latter, you should know that I admire your skills, and such a breach in fact entitles the estate to a full refund from the Fisk Vault Corporation. But you will be otherwise disappointed with the contents you have worked so hard to gain access to—as you can see, this vault contains but a single coin, one which cannot even be redeemed as legal tender, whose significance will be apparent only to those closest to me. As for the purpose of this recording, well, I assume by now there is some anxiety over the fact that I did not leave behind a Last Will and Testament. But I have, and you are watching it. From here on out, I am going to address this message to my daughter, and only offspring that I know about, Zoey Ashe. Zoey, I am going to begin with a phrase I have always wanted to use: if you are watching this, it means I am already dead.

“Hopefully I died in my sleep, after a nice evening with a lovely lady, and hopefully I did not foul the bed at the moment I expired. But, if I have assessed the situation correctly, then that is not how I passed. I have, instead, died in some violent manner before my time, at the hands of brutal and greedy men. If so, then you should know that this event is not wholly unexpected and in fact is the reason why I am making this recording now, though I am only fifty-eight and have been told I am in perfect health. As such, my first wish is that my killers be found, and that this hologram projector be placed outside of their bedroom window at night so that they will think they are being haunted. But I digress.

“Zoey, about six years ago I got drunk one night and started doing what men like me do when we get drunk and lonely, which is hunt around social-networking Web sites to track down old girlfriends. There I found your mother and all of her proud photos of you. Little Zoey Ashe, my daughter, turning into a woman. I saw you smiling into the camera and striking poses, your mother's hips and my eyes. I saw birthday parties in tiny apartments and run-down trailers, you smiling over store-bought cakes and generic soda, your mom in the background, with a different boyfriend each time. Three different stepfathers, if I'm counting right. So, I made some drunken phone calls and, full of myself as I often was, I decided I would be a hero to little Zoey. On a whim, I bought you a hundred-thousand-dollar luxury car, and paid the dealership to deliver it to your home in Fort Drayton. I flew in, imagining myself rolling up to your trailer with my shiny gift, and you coming out and giving me a big smile and a bigger hug. I'd give you the keys and we'd take it for a spin and you'd decide that maybe I wasn't such a bad guy after all.

“But as you know, that's not what happened. Instead, you stood in the driveway, your arms folded across your chest just like your mom used to do, and you gave me absolute hell. You told me you'd rather walk to school every day than to be the stray I rescued. You said one expensive gift sixteen years too late didn't buy me the right to walk around thinking I had done right by you and your mom. You put a finger in my face and yelled and made so much ruckus that your neighbors came out to see what the commotion was. I was furious, as you surely remember. I said some terrible things and left that place with my tail between my legs.

“But I was only angry because deep down, I knew you were right. In your anger, I saw myself as I truly was when I wasn't surrounded by ass-kissers and yes-men. You must understand that in my world, I buy and sell people for the price of nothing more than shiny toys and lavish vacations. A bribe here and a beautiful escort there, that's all it takes to make people turn a blind eye to misdeeds, or do secret favors, or tell me what I want to hear. To abandon everything they know to be right. And these are comfortable people, who aren't hungry or desperate but who'll still sell out in a second for the right trinket. But then there was you, standing there among the weeds and dog turds and rusting cars, throwing my gift back in my face, because you wouldn't sell out. I saw all of the fire that made me crazy for your mother all those years ago, and that has made me unable to forget her since. All of the backbone that I like to pretend I have. Of course, years passed and I never saw you again, but I found myself thinking back to that day, more and more.

“So, in these tumultuous final days, I saw the writing on the wall and I thought, who can I trust? I'm surrounded by a core of capable people. Some of them are even loyal. But they're also ambitious. They like playing the game, acquiring power, the way men like me do. So who could I trust with my fortune, and my secrets? If I made it known that any of my inner circle would be in control of my assets, or even what those assets truly were, then it would begin—the jockeying for position, the jealousy, the under-the-table deals. No, it had to be someone on the outside. Someone worthy of the riches and the awesome power that even my inner circle does not yet fully understand. It had to be someone they'd never suspect in a thousand years, someone who would not be corrupted by the power. And so, Zoey Ashe, the daughter I never really had, I say to you, and to the world, the following:

“I, Arthur B. Livingston, being of sound mind and disposing memory and not acting under duress or undue influence, and fully understanding the nature and extent of all my property and of the disposition thereof, do hereby make, publish, and declare this document to be my Last Will and Testament, and do hereby revoke any and all other wills and codicils heretofore made by me. The entirety of the property owned by me at my death, real and personal and wherever situate, I devise and bequeath to my only daughter, Zoey Marceline Ashe, minus any estate taxes and the cost of the kick-ass memorial celebration I have detailed in my Last Will and Testament, a full text copy of which has been electronically transmitted to my attorney as of right … now. Ms. Ashe is also given full control of all offshore accounts, landholdings, stock, corporate holdings, and assets associated with all of my entrepreneurial endeavors under the umbrella of Livingston Enterprises, again as detailed fully in the text copy. All current employees will continue in their present roles until notified otherwise, at Zoey's discretion.

“If you examine the floor of the vault you should find but one object—my lucky coin. A rare, one-sided 1911 Chinese Silver Dragon, the roaring dragon on one side, the other completely blank due to a minting error. I won this coin in a poker game when I was sixteen, from a man who told me it was worth a hundred thousand dollars. It turned out to be a worthless counterfeit. I have always kept it, as a reminder. That coin was always on my person, from that day until the writing of this will. Years ago, Will Blackwater gave a job interview that consisted of nothing more than borrowing that coin and doing a magic trick with it. I hired him immediately. Zoey, the final provision in this will is that you have him show you how the trick is done. Oh, and tell Gary he can keep the golf clubs, I don't think Zoey plays.

“And … that's it. If anyone gets any bright ideas and tries to bring bodily harm to Ms. Ashe in hopes of acquiring some or all of my estate, they should be aware of the following. In the event of her demise, all assets will be liquidated and donated to the Church of Mormon, minus thirty million dollars, which will immediately be placed as a bounty on the head of whoever brought said harm to Ms. Ashe.

“Good luck, Zoey. I'm sorry I wasn't there for you. This is the best I could do. What you do with your inheritance is up to you. I only urge you to make sure you grasp exactly what it is you have been left before deciding what to do with it—the money and the land are trivial in light of the real treasure. Beyond that, my only advice is what my father gave me before running out on us when I was ten years old. Figure out who you can trust, and let them do the work for you. Arthur Livingston out.”

The hologram man stood awkwardly for several seconds and then said, “Is it still on? No, it's the black button. The black one. Here, let me—” Then he walked out of his own hologram, and it blinked off.

There was silence. Zoey struggled to breathe, her chest pressed between the cold gold coins and Kowalski's heavy boot. And then Will started laughing.

Echo Ling, sounding near panic, said, “What just happened?”

Will wiped his eyes, straightened his tie, and walked out of the vault. As he passed Zoey, he said to Kowalski, “You might want to take your foot off my boss, before she fires all of us.”

The foot lifted from Zoey's back and she sat up, clutching the hand that was bleeding freely from when Kowalski ripped the gun away. Her head was spinning.

All she could think to say was “Somebody get me a towel. And tell me what's going on. Did he … did he leave everything to me? The house and … everything?”

Will said, “Yes. You've seen
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,
right? Well, you're like Charlie.”

Echo elaborated, “Only instead of a golden ticket, it was Arthur Livingston's aversion to condoms.”

“Wait … really?”

“Another way to put it,” said Will, “is that your father just killed all of us. Including you.”

He pulled out a silk pocket square and tossed it to her. She wrapped it around her finger. Feeling light-headed, she looked around the room, and saw everyone looking back at her, waiting. Eager to hear what the boss had to say.

Zoey said, “You guys with the guns? You were Arthur's henchmen or whatever?”

One of the men said, “We're contractors. We're twenty-four-hour grounds security.”

“So you heard his ghost say you work for me now?”

“Well … we've been told to assume the contract remains active until informed otherwise, and as far as—”

“Good.” She looked at Kowalski and said, “You're fired.”

“I never worked for you, babe.”

To the guards she said, “Escort this man from the grounds. Tell him to take his severed hand with him.”

Kowalski stuffed his gun back into his shoulder holster and headed up the spiral stairs. “I can see my own way out.”

Zoey turned to find Will and to the guards said, “Him, too. He's fired. Everybody is fired. Whoever else is here.” To Echo, “You, too.” To the guards, “As for your contract, it expires the moment you finish that final task. Escort these people off the grounds, then escort yourselves out and close the gates behind you.”

Will and Echo exchanged a look.

Will said, “Zoey, I want you to think carefully about—”

“
Get OUT!
You're trespassing. All of you are.”

“Listen to me. If you leave this house unprotected, you will not survive the weekend. Word is going to get out and when it does, the predators in this city
are going to swarm this place like piranha.”

“Guards, if this man doesn't leave this house in the next ten seconds, shoot him.”

The guards clearly did not want to do that. But one of them—the oldest—cleared his throat and said, “You, uh, have been asked to leave, Mr. Blackwater.”

Will stared long and hard at Zoey, like he was trying to read something in her face. Whatever it was, it convinced him to turn on his heels and follow Kowalski up the stairs. Echo followed him, and the four henchmen went last. Seven sets of heels clanged up the spiral stairs and then knocked faintly across the floor overhead. And then it was silent, and Zoey was alone. She sat there on the golden floor with her cat, bleeding in her dead father's cavernous palace, which she apparently now owned.