Heathern (2 page)

"Damn good research," said Thatcher. "Good talking.
Thanks, Bernard."

I remembered how so often to me Bernard referred to
Thatcher only as Stonewall's revenge. "It sounds so charismatic," I said. "So cultish."

"The snakecharmer's air clings to him," said Bernard.
"These types rise up in ebullient times such as ours as scum
rises on stew. Good to have an accomplished hand lifting
the lid now and then to see what's boiling up."

"I got a hunch about this one," said Thatcher, making a
series of tiny x's on his notepad with his pen.

"Like the hunch you had about that fool last May?" asked
Susie.

"Messages from beyond could be useful even if true,
depending on the beyond," said Bernard. "At least Swami
Lester doesn't claim to have once lived in Atlantis. So many
do you'd think the weight of the populace was what sunk
the place."

"Makes him more believable, doesn't it?" Thatcher
asked. "You got to follow these things up." Spring's oracle
had professed the ability to lift the shrouds from Elvis.
When he conjured up no incubus of higher rank than one
claiming to have been Grover Cleveland's postmaster general, Thatcher felt more assured that Elvis was still alive, or
at least for now sat waiting in the lounge of heaven's airstrip until he heard the boarding call for the return flight to earth.
"This boy didn't come calling on us, it's cost-free so far. If
there's something usable he's got it'll be a damn smart
investment, getting in on the ground floor."

"Send a magician along," said Susie. "A stage magician.
Someone who recognizes tricks and lies and knows what to
do about them."

Bernard, stonefaced, lifted his hand. Thatcher smiled,
ogling me for the tenth time that morning, his attitude
implying that he'd told all of his classmates a secret I'd
asked him not to tell. "Go down there tomorrow, hon. See
if his shoes match his suit. Report to me once you get back."

"May we proceed?" Susie asked. "More pressing matters
require notice." She turned to Gus, who'd thus far remained silent. Gus oversaw Security, and so spoke only of
matters about which we didn't want to hear. He was in his
sixties, and worked for many in many ways before signing
on with Dryco. "Fact me on this Jensen thing, Gus."

"Mister Jensen, who worked with Latin American accounts-"

"Dog bites man," muttered Thatcher. "Who doesn't?"

"-left Chicago two nights ago, arriving at the Newark
terminal on our jet number 12AR6. Jake and I were to bring
him into town and we met him there." Jake was Gus's
protege and trainee. "It startled me, how pale he looked,
but Jensen said he was fine. I sat with him in the back, Jake
sat with the driver. Halfway through the Holland Tunnel he
clutched his chest and slumped. A coronary, I thought, and
pulled him closer to me. When I tried to place the oxygen
mask over his mouth he pushed it away. His face was gray
and blue. He felt very cold. He spoke."

"What did he say?"

"'Can you keep a secret?' he asked. I said 'Yes, my
friend.' He could keep a secret as well and said nothing else.
He entered a paralytic state, almost a coma. In his eyes you
could tell he was thinking." Gus sighed.

"What's the moral to the tale?" Susie asked.

"None, so far," said Gus. "Our doctors examined him
after he was admitted to our ward at Beekman. Within an
hour he died. Poison, the doctors said."

"What poison introduced how?"

"Fugu," said Gus, "derived from a Caribbean species of
blowfish-"

Thatcher nodded. "How much was Jensen allowed to
know? He must have been aboveboard if he was using one
of our planes."

"High enough," said Bernard. "Sometimes I saw him at
various dos, forever resembling a librarian on speed. Just
the same he was vouchsafed and seemed no less competent
than the rest. Probably at some stage he simply took the
wrong path in life."

"No ifs about it," said Thatcher. "Sushi boys are in the
bush."

Bernard frowned, and when he spoke his offering was no
less serious than I would have expected. "If those little
yellow people weren't so little they'd be easier to spot."

"They hid on Guam for thirty years after the war," said
Thatcher.

"We believe the poison was on a projectile fired into the
back of the leg, behind the knee, by means of a
nondiscernible microbioinoculator," Gus said. "Dartgun,"
he added, seeing that none of us save Bernard knew what
he meant. "Easily concealed within an umbrella, for example. In a car exhaust, in a child's party whistle. Innocence
doesn't deny death."

"Sounds like Russian tomfoolery to me," said Bernard,
examining his nails. Whenever he dieted he fed upon his
fingertips to supply the calories forbidden. "Those crazy
Krasnayas eat up those Bond movies. I've often told you it's
our Moscow trolls we should keep a closer eye on-"

"They need the business too bad," said Thatcher. "We're
partners, boy. Russia's at war with the country, not us."

"The recovered pellet fits instruments of Cuban
make," said Gus, his own Cuban accent shading his soft
voice.

Thatcher shook his head. "They're in the damned Caribbean," he said. "Finally getting into the market."

"Quit fixating," said Susie.

"You've no reason to suspect," I said. "All somebody has
to do is say Tokyo and you act as if samurai were running
down Fifth Avenue."

"Stick to your assigned projects, hon," Thatcher told me.
"You know something about conspiracy we don't?"

"Returning to this supposed conspiracy of which we have
no evidence," Bernard said, "if Jensen was into freebooty he
may well have been flying solo."

"Loose cannons sink ships," said Susie.

"Somebody else was involved, since somebody killed
him," said Thatcher. "Wish to hell I could remember the
bastard. These low-level boys, it's like looking at ants-"

"He was higher on the hill than that," said Susie.
"Investigation's essentialled."

"Of course it is," said Thatcher. "You can bet Japs'll be
holding the dartgun when we catch 'em. Talk about watching too many Bond movies. Fugu poison, my ass-"

"You're such an idiot, Thatcher," shouted Susie; her
snow-pale skin darkened as if she'd been rinsed in cheap
wine. Whenever her control over anything slackened Susie
rushed to teeter wildly at hysteria's edge so that one among
those who watched might rescue her as she desired. Since
aligning with her husband, Susie lived by her balance.
"Aren't there plots enough without your making up ones
that don't exist?" Standing, she walked to the window to
sightsee while biding her time; it was Bernard, and not
Thatcher, who spoke anew.

"Let's forget Pearl Harbor long enough to approach this
logically. Why not?"

"Give it a try," said Thatcher.

"The negotiations at Kyoto have been ongoing for a year
and a half -"

"Year and eight months," said Susie, without looking at
us.

"On Tuesday you'll be meeting with the closest Japan has
to your equivalent-"

"Oswego-?"

"Otsuka," said Bernard. "You know his name, use it.
He's the one who made the bid to us and he's worth
hearing. Nothing wrong with forming with Japan the same
sort of benevolently hostile relationship we have with
Russia, and with Japan there'll be no need for military
interaction. So long as we postnet options-"

"English," said Thatcher.

"What will Japan matter in ten, twenty years? China's
learned its lesson. Once they attain production levels of
even half-strength everything will be left in the dust. Then
all we'll have to do for the Japanese is draw up their
retirement program."

"Like they don't have enough to retire on. Property,
farms, factories, stores, banks-"

"All of those assets frozen since the troubles," said
Bernard. "We do the deal, then apply the blowtorch. We
receive a thirty percent cut of their future profits in all
aboveground American-based operations-"

"Thirty percent," Susie repeated. "He bit?"

"With all teeth. Once we sign we will have to abide by the
agreement. No clowning about later on. That's our sole
requirement-"

"Sounds good," said Thatcher. "Too good."

Susie stood before Gus, sounding more tranquil as she
spoke. "Security's on double alert?"

"Absolutely. All guards are undergoing allegiance
checks. Master Dryden is safe at your house in Westchester."

"It's Wednesday," Thatcher said. "Settle this Jensen thing
by Monday, if possible. Get the police to make pertinent
arrests when necessary."

"We've surrounded the usual," said Gus. "The actual
assassin may prove untraceable."

"Wouldn't be the first time," said Thatcher, regarding
Gus until our guard looked away.

"There's so much else that needs attention," Susie said,
rubbing her forehead as if shifting her brain's patterns into
bizthink; as she eased into her traditional role even her
speech began to change. "What's tagged for intersits? List
me." Intersits were, in our economical shorthand, international situations. Thatcher shook his head, patently displeased with the grate of neology.

"Three point seven million imperial gallons at our Vancouver plant primed for disposal," said Bernard, reading
from a different printout. "Dispersal, excuse me."

"As what?" Thatcher asked. "Cancer in a jug?"

"Barter unfeasibled in this instance," said Bernard, resting his chin in his palm. "Call it charity."

"Third-world writeoff," said Susie. "Next."

"Dryco's Caracas unit to return online January first-"

"December fifteenth," she said.

"They ever figure out what happened?" Thatcher asked.

"Major malfunction," said Bernard. A guess; no one was
left alive to ask. I gazed into Thatcher's face as if to divine
the future; found myself again unsuccessful as a seeress. His
actions were forever unpredictable, but this day's whim
especially puzzled, that he should make advances to a
teacher in a ghetto. Beyond his stated claim I could discern
no higher purpose in his intentions.

"What's this I heard about some delay in the wall?"
Thatcher asked. "What's up?"

"The river." Workfare recipients built the wall that would
shield downtown from rising waters in the event Green house predictions proved accurate. Without working they
received no government assistance; for twelve daily hours
they received thirty cents. There was a two month wait for
spaces that forever reopened. "Higher tides this fall than
expected. At Cortlandt Street they ran out of bedrock,
Schist one of those things." He paused, as if hoping for a
reaction other than the one he drew forth with his pun,
before reading on. "Struck quicksand at forty feet. Geologists are insisting that additional tests be performed--

Thatcher's finger rapped my knee as if he was testing to
see if I'd gone bad. He slipped a note to me beneath the
table.

"Check it out, Bernard, whatever they say." I want to see
you tonight, his note read. On the message's reverse I
scribbled my reply and passed it back, peripherally watching his reaction. Thatcher glanced at it, his dark eyes fixed.
His features could have been called Lincolnesque, had
Lincoln been forty pounds heavier, beardless, and worn his
hair tied in a short pony in the back. "Precautions. Can't
trust nobody on faith."

Not tonight, he'd read.

I agreed to drink with them after work; so long as Susie
accompanied he usually kept his passions reined. During
this season, I settled for such company as would keep me.
Through the years, spending the Thanksgiving-Hanukkah
-Christmas circuit carving turkey rolls instead of turkeys,
decorating bushes rather than trees, I should have convinced myself without reminder that each new year's
holidays might prove more memorable than those preceding, but no; the mind rejects too many lies as the body
rejects too many sleeping pills.

"What a beautiful sunset," Thatcher remarked as we rode
the few blocks from Wall Street to Fraunces Tavern. Slivers
of sky between buildings showed half-glimpsed glory. Old downtown's narrow streets held a medieval feel, hemmed
in as they were by stone battlements and wide walls.
Evening's lingering heat slapped our faces as we stepped
from our car; we saw two visigoths who'd long before
invaded the city, bond traders giggling as over a bug in a
bottle while they poked umbrellas into a trashbag. The bag
groaned; the man within hid his face with his hands.

"Amateurs," Thatcher muttered, evincing as much concern as I or anyone I knew evinced toward those who'd lost
that we might win. Thatcher's snow queen, Bernard
laughingly called me: ice princess, glacier girl, the hoar
with heart of frost. Was I better than Thatcher for having
noticed but not remarking? That was another lie I couldn't
keep down. My generation's zeitgeist preferred to haunt its
halls alone, without undue consideration of an unlikely
heaven: therefore, like all, I saw but didn't see, cared yet
didn't care; couldn't stop long enough to think about what I
might do if I tried; convinced myself that there was nothing
I could do, and so did nothing.

Susie took Thatcher's arm as we entered, holding him
tight; he didn't pull away. He'd had involvements before
ours, yet Susie never left him, nor did he want her to go.
They never spoke of their unavoidable symbiosis, as if
embarrassed to admit that neither could have dealt with
their world by themselves. There would be no breaking of
their ring from without; I'd tired of battering myself, trying.
Soon enough, I believed-wanted to believe-I would fly
away from it all, not knowing how, not knowing when;
wanting in the meantime only to let what moments we had
left together pass silently away, that he wouldn't notice I'd
left till I'd gone.

Our drinks were on our booth's table. Gus sipped from
each before we drank. He and Jake-who had accompanied us here-took the outer seats, walling us off from the
crowd. Jake brushed debris from my corner of the booth and I sat across from the Drydens. Susie looked at her-husband
as if recounting the ways she'd loved him.