This is chapter six of a novel in progress called "Uncivil Service." The previous chapter can be found here. The novel begins here.
Being a bachelor of uncertain domestic talents, my usual morning routine is to stagger out of bed, somehow make it to the deli on the first floor of my building, and return to my lair with as much caffeine and breakfast pastry as I can carry. On the not so rare occasions when the elevator is broken, this is hazardous, as taking stairs in a pre-caffeinated state can lead to serious injury. It is often said that a child learns to go up stairs more easily than down. Not just kids, unless the definition of toddler has been expanded by a few decades. I’m not much of a drummer, but I think the rhythm of my cranium bouncing off the faux terrazzo is what’s known as a paradiddle. .
The morning after my first evening with Hunny, I awoke as usual to the grindings of world class garbage crushing-machinery beneath my window. As I readied my skull for some early morning percussion, though, I sensed something was different. For some strange reason the bouquet of mid-summer dumpster juice that usually wafted in from the street seemed to be masked by something pungent and strange. As I clawed my way to consciousness the strangeness of the smell receded, only to be replaced by the oddity of its presence in an unlikely environment. My days as botanist in the highlands of Central America told me that I was detecting the volatile aromatic emissions of the high-temperature distillation of c. arabica, a process that had never before been successfully performed in the biological niche of this particular homo civilis vernula. Either that, or someone had made a fresh pot of coffee.
As I staggered the few feet from my bedroom to the kitchen, awareness of the previous day’s events worked their way toward the frontal lobes. The smell, and now the sight, in front of me told me that I hadn’t been dreaming. Once again bursting out of her Arthur Avenue uniform, Hunny lifted a steaming mug from my kitchen table and beckoned me to the table. As I sat down across from her, the sort of thoughts apparently condoned in my workplace sprang to mind. No doubt, this was one picture that appropriate though it might be to the desires of a lonely man, still didn’t belong on my office desk. What little blood left to circulate to my brain fought its way north and woke up whatever common sense was left after years of bureaucratic purgatory and a night as a public-sector private dick. Rule number one: stay away from the daughters of men named after whimsical woodland creatures. Warily, I took a sip of coffee and broke the ice.
“You know, I heard there was a coffee maker around here, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it before”
“Really? It was in the cabinet, right next to the coffee.”
“Will wonders never cease. How did that get in there? Next thing you know, a couple of eggs and a glass of OJ’ll jump out of the fridge.”
“Don’t press your luck smart guy.”
This kind of witty repartee could go on forever, and certainly wouldn’t improve unless I artificially raised my dopamine levels a bit, so I put the mug to good use for a few reps and then got down to brass tacks, whatever those are.
“Listen. I’ve been thinking about what you said last night, and I’m not saying that you’re right, but I’m getting a funny feeling there’s more going on on the job than I might have realized. The way Crazy Joe disappeared doesn’t make any sense.”
“So you’ll do it? You’ll find out what happened to Tony?” she said almost giddily
“I didn’t say that. In fact, I doubt I’ll be able to find out much, but at least I’ve got to find Crazy Joe and figure out what he’s been up to. After that, I can’t say what I’m going to do.”
“But you promise not to tell the cops about me, right?”
“Listen, I don’t know what I’m going to tell the cops. I’ve got to keep my job, and keep my ass out of trouble. If I can do that and keep your name out of things, maybe, but I’m not promising anything. That’s the best I can do for you.”
She seemed to deflate a bit, at least from the neck up, with that, but she knew she’d gotten as much out of me as she was going to.
“All right then, I guess I can’t ask for any more than that. So I guess you’re going to work, right”
“Yeah, I’ve got to at least start from there. Besides, my boss scheduled a meeting for me that neither of us is going to show up to, so I’ve got to get to the office. What are you gonna do?”
“Can I stay here?”
“I thought you said you weren’t gonna ask me for anything else.”
“What are keeping score or something? Besides, you’re forgetting something. You need me here.”
“Yeah? And why’s that?”
“Well, it’s either let me stay here, and fix your phone, or kick me out and hope the phone company shows up, and charges you 350 bucks to reconnect the lines in your walls. I read your phone bill – you don’t have a service plan.”
Damn! If they hadn’t broken up AT&T, I never would have wound up in a spot like this. Besides, it was getting late, and I had to get to work early to line up the day’s asphalt supply now that Tony wasn’t around, so I didn’t have time to argue with her anymore about deregulation of the telecommunications industry”
“All right, you win. But just for today.”
With that, she gave me what might have been a smile of gratitude, or triumph, I couldn’t quite tell. Either way, I didn’t have time to sit around and try to figure it out.
A few minutes later, dressed, and as well pressed and shined up as a man of my means can be, which is to say wrinkled and scuffed, I got ready to leave. As I headed out the door, she grabbed my arm and stopped me. She gave me a soft kiss on the cheek and as she looked deep into my eyes, said
“Thanks, and here I blow dried it, and I think it might work now.”
With that she handed me cell phone gave me a little shove through the door and closed it behind me.
So I found myself on the way to work at the usual time, with the usual level of stimulants in my system, but with an altogether different collection of thoughts and obsessions. In this state I was barely able to direct a few tourists back to Boston, failed to muster my normal level of fierceness in glaring at my fellow passengers, and almost gave up my seat to a person whose impersonation of an arthritic eighty-year-old woman with a “thirteen” totebag was quite convincing. Fool me once …
Having miserably failed to meet the standard of surliness expected of me as a resident of a natural history museum diorama, I merged from the subway and scurried the rest of the way to my place of “work”. Only to be confronted with a puzzle worthy of Indiana Jones. Years ago, there was no security in government buildings, and anyone could and did go in, including the people who worked there (who generally chose not to, at least in spirit). All of that changed due to the events of one bright autumn day. Now, municipal government was attacking security with the single-minded alacrity it attacked efficiency and public service.
My office building has four entrances, each with its own separate electronic security systems. . Each requires a separate electronically encoded card, each of which emits its own radar or electronic whatchamacallit that cancels out the others unless all four are positioned just so. This might have been the product of the highest levels of security wizardry intent on keeping evil-doing enemies of freedom away from the strategic bureaucrat reserve. Or it might have been low-bid contracting. In any event, being in the midst of a bad just-so day, I gave up entrance roulette and joined the line of visitors signing in with the security guard. As I reached the head of the line, I fanned my ID’s for the guard and awaited admission.
“May I see some identification please?”
“C’mon, you see me here everyday. My cards aren’t working on the door.”
“If you have a card key, please use it at the security gate, sir.”
“I did, and it didn’t work.”
“If your ID isn’t working, please speak to security, and they’ll take care of for you, sir.”
“Aren’t you security?”
“No, I’m protective services.”
“Since when?”
“I got a promotion, see?” he said, grinning and pointing to where someone had crossed out the word “security” on his badge and written “protective services” over it.
“Congratulations. You must be proud.”
“How did you know name?”
“Excuse me?”
“I said how did you know my name?”
“I don’t.”
“Then why did you call me Proud?”
“I just assumed that you were proud because you got a promotion.”
“Oh, so you think I can’t get a promotion without using my family connections, is that it?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I just want to get into my office.”
“Oh so that’s how you want to play it? Don’t want to tell me how you learned confidential information about a Protective Services employee? And then go insulting my abilities to get a job fair and square. We’ll see about that.”
With that, he hoisted a walkie talkie and punched a series of buttons.
“Security, this is officer Proud of protective services down at entrance 3.”
Ah hah.
“I got a code 6 here.”
As soon as he said spoke those words, an alarm went off somewhere above my head, and a voice crackled through a loudspeaker. “Security to the lobby code 6 in process”
Before I could get my bearings a pair of guards swooped down, hoisted me from both sides side and hauled me into a door I had never noticed before. Before I knew it, I found myself handcuffed and being perp-walked to an old-style manually operated freight elevator, where a third guard waited.
The two gorillas who were holding me let go, and the one to my right said,
“OK Pal, in you go.” He gave me a hard shove into the waiting car. I stumbled forward, bounced off the back wall of the car, and flipped around in time to see the gorilla number three slam the cage door behind his rainforest buddies.
“Wait a second! What are you doing to me? I work here,” I shouted
“We’ll see about that”
“You have no right to do this.”
“Sure we do. Ain’t you heard of the patriot act?”
“What are you talking about? You’re not federal agents – you’re rent-a-cops.”
“Private Special Enforcement Officers”
“What?”
“I said we are private special enforcement officers. You’re in enough trouble as it is, accessing confidential protective services information. I caution you not to risk further sanctions by further use of incorrect nomenclature.”
“Huh?”
“I will not release any more information about the details of this action until I am authorized to do so by my superior.”
“And who would that be?”
“First Assistant Deputy Assistant Commissioner for security and support, Arthur Maudlin.”
Well, it looks like I was being taken into custody in my own office. That would solve the ID problem.
“I surrender. Take me to your leader”
As I spoke, the elevator lurched to a stop, and I once again found myself levitated by my elbows, half flung down a corridor and unceremoniously plopped outside the entrance to my own office. Gorilla number two swiped an ID card along the card reader. No buzz, no green light. He tried another, with no better luck. He then gave up and picked up a telephone hanging on the wall next to the door.
“Hello this is security. May I need to see Mr. Maudlin please … What’s this about? Well, we captured an intruder attempting to gain access to the facility…Uh, yes he did have ID, but it is a suspected forgery … Why am I using the phone? Uh, my ID does not appear to be working… I see your point, ma’am … His name? Just a moment”
Turning to me, and looking a little less, a bit less Rumsfeldian than a moment before he asked “You -- what’s your name?”
Knowing better than to risk another nepotism incident, I suppressed all repartee impulses and gave him only the information required by the Geneva conventions, which he then relayed over the phone.
“Oh, you recognize the name? … Yes, I think it would be all right if you came out, identified him, and let him in.”
Ah the sweet smell of freedom. I could practically taste it. A moment later, a familiar face appeared at the door.
“Hello Mr. White, nice of you to make it in this morning.”
“And hello to you, to Shitonya. A pleasure to see you, as always.”
Next Chapter
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