The Milkman: A Freeworld Novel (3 page)

Jack said ‘sir’ to a guy younger than him. This guy didn’t get up, shake hands, grin and comment about the weather. He performed none of the usual business rituals.

Oh no.

“Emory Leveski?” the man asked.

“Yes.”

“Detective Eddie McCallum. Ambyr Systems Security.”

Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.

“What can I do you for you, sir.” He suddenly knew how Jack felt. This guy pulled the ‘sir’ out of you.

“First, you can take a seat.”

Emory crossed and sat on the other side of the bamboo conference table. The op watched him walk, looking him up and down without concern for social norms. Emory’s mouth dried. His guts tightened. Again. This time they felt like they bulged between fingers of a mammoth internal fist.

“Can you tell me where you were last night, Mr. Leveski?”

Don’t lie
, Emory said to himself.
Much. He knows some things. Not all things.

“Time,” he said as it occurred to him. “I mean, what time? I was a couple of places, until I was home in bed. So, is there a time you are concerned about?”

McCallum watched him. Emory thought the man had tiny MRI machines for eyes, piercing and probing. He wanted to talk. Gab away. Mention Lilly and the baby and all the nice things in his life. He forced his lips closed, like a diaphragm in pressure regulator.

“Around 8:15,” McCallum said.

“8:15. Mmmm.” Emory couldn’t think up a lie that wouldn’t make things worse. He couldn’t spill the truth, either. That would expose his secret life. And John Raston’s. And possibly the other volunteers who risked their careers to feed him data. Security could pinpoint his car any time in the past. That must be why they were here now.

“That’s probably around the time I was in a parking lot.”

“Any parking lot in particular?”

“I couldn’t say,” Emory said. “I just pulled in to get off the road.”

“Why is that?”

Couldn’t say a call. They’d have his records. Couldn’t say a drink. That bar wasn’t an Ambyr place. The cars were all makes from another company. He didn’t know which. He couldn’t delay any longer, either.

“I was supposed to meet a friend. But we couldn’t decide on a place. A place that was equidistant. And I didn’t want to drive in the wrong direction any longer.”

McCallum’s face crinkled in disbelief. Emory sensed the technique. The expression on the op’s face had been carefully chosen. A tool. A signaling device to prod Emory into further action.

“I’m a…” Emory stammered. Fuck. “I’m a systems specialist. I can’t stand waste. Even in my personal life.”

“So you just pulled into a random parking lot and…” McCallum trailed off, waiting for Emory to finish the thought.

“Call,” Emory blurted. Fuckety fuck. “I waited for my buddy to call.”

“Your buddy’s name?” McCallum flicked his sleeve back. The cloth would not have interfered with the cuff’s recording abilities. Emory understood the theatrics. Understanding it made the show no less effective.

“John Raston,” he had to say. He couldn’t help it. He had no other choice. His brother, his sister, his friends Carl or Scott, anyone he could think of couldn’t fake their way through a call from ASS ten minutes from now. Not from this guy, who looked like he had seen everything there was to see and was slightly pissed off that you hadn’t.

“Address?”

“Not sure. Long Meadow’s the street. Up in Wheatfield.”

“Great.” McCallum continued to look at Emory. Mouth closed. Emory decided to do the same. He’d ride out this silence. He would.

“See anything?” McCallum asked.

“In the parking lot?”

“Yes.”

“No,” Emory said. “Should I have?”

McCallum shrugged his shoulders.

“What’s this about? Did I do something wrong? Pulling into another company’s parking lot? I didn’t think that was against policy.”

“No, Mr. Leveski. Not at all. I’d hoped you’d seen something out of the ordinary.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Thank you for your time.” McCallum stood. He poked his cuff and snatched up his coat. “I’ll tell your supervisor you were cooperative.”

Emory sat alone in the conference room, relief passing through him like a fever. Warmth, followed by slight shaking. He sat for… he didn’t know how long. His boss let him sit. Security business trumped making sponges.

Chapter Five

The little bean-like creature floated in its fluid-filled capsule, eyes wide, too curious to blink. Hands splayed and rubbery. Legs cocked, ready to leap. This tiny thing wanted to see it all and do it all just as soon as he or she could breath air on its own. Sylvia watched it on the big screen. The microphone the technician ran across her belly took in sound waves. A computer took those and modeled the creature and the capsule. Then the model rendered on a large monitor hung over the table, so she — so any mom laying here in wait, prickling with anticipation, desperate for news, barely breathing because so much of her brain’s capacity had been diverted to the 4.2 million questions at hand — could see, for the first time, the being living inside her.

“Do you want to know?” the technician asked.

“What?” Sylvia asked back. The question stunned her. Know what? She wanted to know everything. Was the baby healthy? A brain? Lungs? Could they foretell complications? Like… she didn’t know. She didn’t even know what she was supposed to be obsessing about. She needed to know that to start. What were the questions. She had no preparation. No storyboards, no script, no notes. She had no idea about anything at all and didn’t deserve to be here.

“The sex,” the technician answered. “Boy or girl.”

“I… a…” Sylvia loved and hated surprises. She liked to have everything in her life working with precision, on schedule, but it was nice to have a little excitement? How boring it would be to expect every turn.

“You can tell?” Sylvia asked. “For certain?”

“I’ve never been wrong.” The tech smiled.

“Thanks, Janice.” Doctor Caldwell entered the room. The technician turned. Sylvia saw ‘Janice Vogel’ on her nametag. “I need a moment with Ms. Cho.”

Surprise. Sylvia could see it on the young woman’s face. Not on the doctor’s. She had beautiful skin, all creased and furrowed, like a bag of coffee beans. It seemed like such a shame. Janice left. The Doctor glanced at a computer monitor Sylvia couldn’t see.

“Ms. Cho—”

“Please. I’m half-naked. Call me Sylvia.”

“Sylvia, it says here that Human Assets has scheduled you for a procedure.”

“Yes.”

“Are you ready? Do you have any questions?”

“Ha. That again. I’ve got more questions than you can handle.”

“Try me.”

Sylvia sat up. She looked at the doctor more carefully. Thin, strong, just enough make-up to be pretty without over-powering. Oh she hated women who looked like they were going to an awards dinner everyday. Becoming a doctor took dedication from early on. Companies didn’t invest that much time and money into people who weren’t rocks. And people didn’t put up with the constant grinding and polishing of a med school who didn’t want it. Really want it. For whatever reason. Prestige, money, or — and this one Sylvia always wondered about — or to help others. This Doctor Caldwell, Sylvia had no facts on her. Just what she could take in, right now, with her eyes and ears. What did this character give off? Compassion? Not exactly. Authority? A little bit. Professionalism? Was that a thing? A thing that mattered right now?

Screw it
, Sylvia said to herself.
She looks like me
.

“This procedure,” Sylvia started. “Do they ever not take?”

Surprise. This time she saw it. She smiled, seeing the doctor’s face flatten and smooth, her eyebrows stretching the stern wrinkles flat.

“What do you mean?”

“The abortion. Does it ever go wrong?”

“No.” The doctor shook her head. “This is pretty cut and dry.”

“What if there were twins? And you didn’t notice the second one?”

“I’ve never heard of that happening.”

“Maybe this could be the first time? No one could blame you for just a one-in-a-million mistake?”

Doctor Caldwell’s expression changed again. The outside corners of her eyes tipped down. Her mouth drooped to match. Sylvia’s eyes filled. Another surprise. Her body knew before the rest of her. The moment slid towards finality. That little creature in its little capsule destined for nothing.

“I can’t,” Sylvia croaked.

“It’s your job. It’s both our jobs. I’m so sorry.”

“What if—”

“There will be other chances.”

“What if they never know?”

“You can’t keep this kind of thing a secret.”

Two little falls of water streamed down the center of each of Sylvia’s cheeks. She could no longer see the doctor; she couldn’t read her face. All she could do was point her eyes at the woman.

“I can. I work magic everyday. Making dreams into reality. Making the outlandish plausible. Misdirection and special effects.”

Doctor Caldwell shook her head. “This is no movie.”

“No,” Sylvia said. “But it works the same way. Misdirection and special effects. This is a little more important than a movie, don’t you think?”

* * *

McCallum said, “Who doesn’t answer a call from the ops?” to no one in particular.

“I don’t. It just means more work.” Wayne Clement entered the squad room, a field of 12 flat, featureless workstations, with McCallum the only operative currently in residence.

McCallum laughed. He didn’t know the economist had a sense of humor. He didn’t know the man well at all. Tall, trim, red turtleneck and khaki pants, McCallum put Clement in his mid-fifties, at 190 pounds. Wedding ring. Tightly trimmed black hair. He had the look of a grade 8 or lower, but McCallum knew he was a 10 and would be for life. Which meant he either truly screwed up at some point in his past or he liked police work. McCallum sympathized with both situations.

“Counselor,” McCallum said.

“Detective,” Clement replied. He sat down in the nearest chair and locked his hands behind his head.

“You stretching your legs or am I a destination?”

“Little bit of both. I like to get out of my cubby hole, otherwise I can go a whole day without seeing another soul provided I time my trips to the restroom right.”

“Sounds nice.”

Clement chuckled. “Some days. Not everyday. Look, I found some outstanding debts on that Vasquez girl. Clothes, of course. Her student loans. It’s just not as much as I’d hoped. She was pretty frugal for her age. The company likes to carry paper on people.”

“Yeah.” McCallum nodded. “I swear, if you’re debt free they’ll sneak in and sabotage your fridge or something.”

“You ever get a call like that?”

“Worst part of my job.” McCallum made a half-smile. “Debt Services is always asking me to tear up an overcoat or put a wrench in a furnace because a guy finally zeroed out his last loan.”

“I knew it.” Clement returned the half smile. “Look, Ambyr doesn’t throw good money after bad. There’s not a lot of debt load to pin on the perpetrator. This investigation is not coming off as a wise investment. If you add in legal services, we’ve got about 87 thousand for the girl’s investigation.”

“What’s the floor this quarter?”

“The company’s not too interested in anything under 15 thousand.”

“So I can spend about 72 thousand on the case?”

“And you’ve already spent about 10.”

McCallum stared, his eyes focusing on nothing. Simple larceny — an asshole swipes a monitor from an apartment-runs about five grand. A grand larceny — an asshole steels 10 monitors off an assembly line to trade under the table. That might cost you ten, once you track everything and everybody down. Capital cases? Forensic evidence and their associated experts, witnesses and their lost time due to interviews, data searches, records and time spent sitting and thinking— murders averaged 100 Gs in op and advocate time. This was not turning out to be a good math day.

“What’s this conversation costing me?”

“This one’s on the house,” Clement said. “I feel… I wanted to find more.”

“I appreciate it.”

“People who are in the shower or dead.” Clement rose.

McCallum looked puzzled.

“You asked who didn’t answer calls from the ops.”

“You’re right.” McCallum’s mind drifted back to the case. Clement strolled away. McCallum tumbled things around in his mind. A shower? Not too many people took a shower for more than an hour. Dead? Just his luck. Where was this joker? Up in cow country?

He poked his cuff. “Call John Raston.”

He didn’t have the budget for two hours of driving.

Every morning about seven o’clock

There’s a hundred tarriers a workin at the rock

The boss comes along and he says, “Keep still

And come down heavy on the cast iron drill.”

Emory sat at the high counter running along the window. He faced out onto the city street, holding the wide coffee mug high and watching the steam dance to the song.
Drill ye Tarriers Drill
. A song one could only hear live, in places the company didn’t much care about— precisely why Emory had picked the spot.

“You don’t like to meet,” the woman next to him said. He just heard her over the guitar and voice. They didn’t look at each other.

“There may be complications,” Emory said forward. “I wanted you to know.”

“What’s going on?”

“I can’t say. I mean, I really can’t. I don’t have enough data.”

“Did the company do something?”

“No,” Emory said. “Perhaps. J—” Emory stopped himself.
No names
, John had told him many times.
Don’t use names
. “Our friend has gone missing.”

“Gone missing?” the woman said. “What does that mean?”

“He’s not responding to any attempt to contact him.”

“Have you told the others?”

“You are the first.” Emory sipped his coffee.

Now our new foreman was Jim McCann

By golly, he was a blinkin’ man

Last week a premature blast went off

And a mile in the sky went big Jim Goff.

“I don’t care,” the woman said.

“It may not be safe.” Emory tried to be forceful through a hushed voice.

“You know why I do this.”

“I just…”

And when next payday came around

Jim Goff a dollar short was found

When asked the reason came this reply

“You were docked for the time you were up in the sky.”