CHAPTER 14

The rotund bank officer fastidiously arranged his pencils, his Post It notes and the accordion-like panorama of pet photos atop his desk with one hand, as he beckoned with the other.  

Roxanne rose from the leather chair and made her way to his cherry wood power station, carrying a small Krispy Kreme bag.  She sat down and placed the bulging parcel on his desk.

He looked up, smiled.  “I so look forward to your visits.”  His eyes darted down at the bag.  “Warm?”

“Right out of the oven, Mr. Chumly, just like you like them.”

He lifted them, took in a quick sniff, smiled again, and placed them in his desk drawer.  “I can hardly wait.  Now…”  He turned to his computer screen, typed in a few key strokes, rose and graciously invited her to lead the way.  They walked to the stairwell leading downstairs to the Safety Deposit Vault.  As they continued down the stairs, his eyes wandered upon her frame, the red dress shifting side to side, accenting her not-often-seen seductive hips.  “You’re looking especially… lively today, Miss Daniels.”

“Oh,” she replied, “That’s because I feel… lively.”  She leaned over and surreptitiously whispered in his ear, “Time to kick ass and take names.”

“Yes,” Mr. Chumly said with a blushing grin.  “Well… I suppose there are those kind of days for such a… lively… depositor.”

She chuckled.  “Especially on a killer day like today, eh?”

Mr. Chumly, licked his dry lips and nodded, blushing once again.

                                                      ---

Saeger and Skitter moved about the monitoring room pouring their coffee, typing in notes on their personal computers, and keeping an ever-conscious eye on multiple screens. 

The primary monitor showed Roxanne standing before a handprint identity scanner.  She lifted her palm and the heavy metal door swung open, allowing her and Mr. Chumly to enter the safety deposit room.  They unlocked a box together.  “Well, I’ll leave you Ms. Daniels.  I’ll just be outside when you’re ready to leave.”

“Oh, it won’t take long.  Your donuts won’t even get cold.”  Roxanne picked up the box, entered a small room, and closed the door.  She lifted from her bag two scripts and two mini-disks and placed them inside.  One script was marked “Larett – His,” and the other “Larett – Hers.”  She took a moment to allow her leverage scheme to sink in, then closed the box, exited and, after returning the box to it’s place, again led the now sweating Mr. Chumly back up the stairs.

                                                      ---

Urian stepped up to Skitter’s desk with his coffee and raisins.

“You really like that rabbit food, don’t you?” said Skitter. 

Urian shrugged and smiled.  “Only when I know you’re gonna get excited.”

“Excited?”

Urian pointed to Roxanne’s screen.  “A new face in Roxanne’s world.  Wonder what this is all about?” 

Roxanne sat at the bar of a club nursing a Pellegrino with lime.  Seated on the stool next to her was Ms. Turner, aka, Mrs. Larett, nursing a very tall Irish whisky.  On stage in the background were two male strippers rehearsing their routine.

Skitter grinned.  “That’s some kind of carnival look, eh?  An old… well, she’d probably make Saeger’s day.”

“Hey, I heard that,” bellowed Saeger from the other side of the room.

“And one Ms. Roxanne.  A bit old for me, just right for your fantasies,” continued Skitter.  “And the… hard to tell from Roxanne’s POV, but…”

“They’re real.  Boy toys for Saeger’s bleached blond fantasy.”

“And I should get excited over what?” said Skitter.

“Over what’s about to happen, Skitter.  You love a good hair pulling fight.  Something tells me Roxanne’s warming up for something.”

“I understand you’re upset, Ms. Daniels, but God knows, he jerked me around over money far too long,” said Mrs. Larett.

“Well, I don’t get jerked around, so…”

“So, what do you want from me?  I don’t have no 50 g’s to pay you.  And those union bosses that were supposed to resign and make everything peachy keen…”

“Mrs. Larett, let’s not get into that.  You know all about the targets, then, right?”

“I sleep with him… on occasion, don’t I?  That confession about the bimbette wasn’t easy… until one night I had him in a compromising position.”

“To the chase,” said Roxanne with a lift of her Pellegrino.  “How much is it worth to you to get rid of the creep?”

“Hey!  He’s my husband.”

“More like a very rich roommate,” quipped Roxanne as she stirred her drink.

“Why you talk that way?”

“Look, Mrs. Larett, I write facts into what some think is fiction.  We both know the truth about him.  He’s a creep.”

Mrs. Larett took several studied sips of her libation and nodded toward the stage.  “Incredible buns, don’t you think?”  Smiling like a Cheshire cat, she turned to Roxanne.  “You don’t get rid of a man that powerful… easily.  He controls the transportation unions in this city, you know.”

“Yes.  Limos are a nice stall tactic.  Doesn’t mean he might not welcome a change in careers.”

What’s that supposed to mean?”

Roxanne leaned in.  “Look, get the glint out of your eye.  I don’t deal in blood.  Just persuasion.  That’s what I get paid for… to suggest other ways to think… to go.  For fifty, I think up ways to overcome problems for people.”

Mrs.  Larett chuckled.  “He told me you were something else with your imagination.  Said your scenarios were like a great ‘whodunit’ series of books.”

“Well, in this case, we know ‘whodunit’.  Your husband and his twenty-year-old aid.  And his little weak moment of indiscretion is costing the taxpayers twenty a month—that’s with three zeros—and he can’t come up with the fifty for the solution I created for him?  The solution he ignored cause his little Willie said, ‘ya, ya, ya?’  The bimbette is  sockin’ it away, and I’m takin’ hind tit.  Uh, uh.  You know, when I take a client, they have to give me a lot of details before I can write them a “persuasive” plan. Then the details have to be verified, so I keep a pretty good staff of PI’s in silk ties, you know what I mean?”

Mrs. Larett nodded hesitantly.  “Okay.  So, you want another water?”

Roxanne waved her off.

“Your verification suggested he might be wanting another career?”

“Not wanting, Mrs. Larett.  Needing.  Far, far away.  He’ll definitely be interested if he thinks the Grand Jury might get wind of the verification.  That revolving door on his piggy bank would be sorely missed by Miss X, don’t you think?  She might get ‘loud’.”

“That serious?”

“Without that fifty, plus the….  Let’s just say… yes.  Very serious.”  Roxanne caught herself in the bar mirror, and then gave another glance toward the stage.  “It’s the American way.  Two for one.  We can hope either he comes to his senses or assume miracles don’t happen.  In that case, you get to play… for free.  Bimbette goes away… he goes away… far away… and bank accounts stay as they are.  Oh, your script shows you how to get them to Switzerland without problems.  You probably know how to follow directions better than him, right?  I just want the fifty paid up.”

“That’s a lot of money.”

Roxanne shrugged and took another sip of Pellegrino.

Mrs. Larett finished off her whiskey as if it were a Pellegrino as well.  “Gotta know more.”

“And?” said Roxanne.

“And… maybe you’re that good, and maybe you’re not.”

Roxanne smiled and turned on her stool, throwing her full attention toward the two guys on stage.  “You’re right.  Nice buns.”

Urian popped another handful of raisins in his mouth.  “Exciting?”

Skitter turned and grinned.  “Hell no.  Not even a picture of the ‘bimbette’.”

“But you have to admit… Roxanne knows her way around.”

“Hey,” yelled Saeger.  “She’s just trying to make a living, for chrissake.”

“Yeah.  It’s a new kind of living, for sure,” said Urian.  “She makes those reality shows back a couple of decades look like peeping Toms for kids.

Skitter made some notes and leaned back in his chair, twirling his pencil.  “Just another day in the twisted neuroses of people.”

Urian turned to him.  “Twisted neuroses.  Yes.”  He looked back at the bank of monitors.  “What’s normal out there will never satiate the levitating appetites next door.”

“Perpetual dinner time for A2,” said Saeger.

“Yeah.  Seems that way.  I need a smoke.”  Urian walked out the door and made his way through the brightly lit hall… the hall whose windows separated him from a precarious reality he was beginning to question.  He stopped and peered at the levitating balls whose hexagon and pentagon shaped screens surfaces made a dizzying effect if watched by anyone other than A-2.  After a few moments, Urian squeezed his eyes shut.

                                                         ---

On a stool beside the little man in the fedora, Tito, was a can of iced tea and bag of M & M’s he continuously munched as he read his script.  “Nobody knows.  Nobody knows what it means.  It’s not normal language being spoken here.  It’s digital, man.  Those guys call it binary.  It’s digits, squares, o’s, and arrow shit.  And Chinese are talking with Germans with these little squiggles… these little black and white things on paper, man.  It’s out there.  It’s up there.  It’s everywhere. 

“So, what happened to us little guys in pants?  The broads in skirts?  Me?  Whadda we supposed to do?  You want I turn over and get kicked ‘cause I’m tryin’ to get warm on a park bench?  What’s happenin’ man?”

Tito gulped some iced tea, made a note on his script, and continued.  “See… I’ve been all over there… out there.  I know what’s happenin’.  I’ve been inside too.  The can.  People inside don’t know about the… the…”  He picked up the script and found his place.  “Damn, it!   Should know this.  Okay.  Okay.”   He put the script back on the stool.  “People inside don’t know about the digit stuff.  They only know three squares and a shit, shower and shave… on good days.  But, they’re people… what’s left of them.  I almost lost the people in me too, but I got out.  And here I am… waitin’ to just be a digit… doin’ what ever I can to try and stay warm.”

He walked over to the basement window and peered out to the sidewalk where the shiny wingtips, leather pants, high-heeled boots and Brooks Brothers and Armani suits paraded left and right.  “See, the feelings are hard, man.  Machines don’t got no worries.  Whadda they know?  When they die, it’s recycle-time… junkyard in space-time… drudge rockets to nowhere-time.  Ever see one of those old time 3-D commercial where the guy gets pissed, rips his head off, the wires and transistors and itty bitty shit flyin’ everywhere, and you think the shit’s gonna hit you… you, know, the 3-D thing, and you think, ‘I don’t want that thing’s brains all over me, you know?  Today’s version would have a few billion nano bits running in all directions.’  But, I digress.”

He turned back to the stool, threw a couple of M & M’s in his mouth, glanced at the script again, and continued.  “I actually almost got hit with a machine once.  Yeah.  Mindin’ my own business just sittin’ there on a sidewalk grate, ya know?  Machine comes flyin’ out of some window way the hell up the building.  Splats all over the sidewalk, right next to me, it does.  He… it don’t feel nothin’.  So I looks up above, and this guy is hangin’ out the window, cryin’.  Yeah, he’s bawlin’ his head off, sayin’ he didn’t mean it.  I look at the mess on the sidewalk, then the guy.”

Tito sat on the stool and stared at the furnace door, its glass giving him the usual reflection through soot and grime.  “We’re really fucked up, you know.  Cryin’ over what way back then they used to put in a box with a screen.  Then flat screens.  Then implants…  You know… still a plain old computer in a new form.  We’re losin’ it, man.  Bawlin’ over a fuckin’ pile of zeros, squares and arrows just ‘cause somebody wants us to believe it’s like us, the yous and mes with the arms and legs.  Here I am, freezin’ my balls off, real balls, tryin’ to soak up the puke air of the subway heat comin’ up through this grate.  Somethin’s not right, man… not right.”

From behind leaning against the doorframe, Hector clapped softly.  “You are getting good at this, Tito.  Very believable.”

Tito turned around, his eyes beginning to well up.  “You think so?”

Hector nodded slowly and ginned.

“You do, don’t you?”

Hector’s expression suddenly became stoic.  “But don’t forget.  It’s just a performance piece, Tito.  Remember that.”

“Yeah.  I know.  Just dramatizing feelings, right?”

“Just feelings,” repeated Hector.  “They’re only feelings AI is tryin’ to learn.”

Tito took a breath.  “And?”

Hector smiled again.  “Don’t worry, Tito.  Feelings aren’t your everyday easy-to-learn science for AI.  Not by a long shot.”