John Lutz - Pulse

“Or divorce it.”

“Or accept it. Like you’re going to have to do with e-books.”

A stiff smile from Ms. Culver. “I’m aware that Penny thinks I’m obsessive about e-books. But they are something to fear.”

“Something to accept.”

“Ha! Shelley and Shakespeare for ninety-nine cents!”

“But you lend them out free here.”

“We lend books. Not bits and bytes of electronic impulses, or whatever they are.”

“It’s text,” Fedderman said. “Stuff people read rather than watch like pictures.”

Ms. Culver stared at him.

“We have to embrace the future,” Fedderman said. “We’ve got no choice.”

“I accepted that you married my friend Penny.”

Fedderman thought that was an odd thing to say.

Ms. Culver adroitly adjusted her glasses, as if bringing him into sharper focus. It made Fedderman uneasy. “I think what you’re suggesting,” she said, “is that I set an example for Penny. I’ll no longer walk around in fear of e-books, and she’ll take my example and no longer walk around fearing that some night you won’t come home from work.”

“Something like that,” Fedderman said.

“Do you think these fears are comparable?”

Fedderman shrugged. “Fear is fear.”

“Is love all the same?”

“More or less.”

Where was Ms. Culver going with this conversation? It seemed to be getting more and more obscure.

“And you’re sure you love Penny?” she asked.

“I’ve never been more sure of anything.”

That creepy stare again. It was unnerving.

“What?” Fedderman asked.

“Nothing,” Ms. Culver said. “Just an unfinished thought. You’re right. I’ll try to set an example. We do have to learn to put our fears aside. We have to learn to do that with lots of emotions.”

“I guess that’s true.”

“I’ve never been more sure of anything,” Ms. Culver said.

“I don’t quite know what you mean by that,” Quinn said to Jody, over supper in the brownstone that evening. They were having ravioli along with a salad Pearl and Jody had spent over an hour preparing in the kitchen. Quinn mused that Jody had awakened in Pearl a domestic side that was new to him. Not that she wasn’t in other matters still the old Pearl.

Jody swallowed a bite of ravioli. “I think what they’re doing to Mildred Dash could be interpreted as illegal.”

“Interpreted?” Pearl said, taking a sip of the merlot Quinn had bought on the way home from the office.

“Mildred has a clause in her lease requiring all the tenants’ permission before the building can be razed in the event of eminent domain, and for at least six months’ notice before having to leave the property.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Pearl said. “Especially that first part.”

“Sounds illegal,” Quinn added.

“That, or we’re talking about the penumbra of the law,” Jody said with a wicked grin.

“Seems it wouldn’t hold up in court,” Pearl said.

“Of course not, but it would take a while to wend its way through the legal process. And for Meeding Properties, time is money.”

“And that’s what Mildred Dash is counting on,” Quinn said. “We understand that, but what’s her endgame?”

Jody swallowed too big a bite. She was excited. Her face was flushed and her red hair seemed to be standing on end. Quinn was enjoying this. And he couldn’t help but notice that, except for the wild and colorful hairdo, Jody sure looked like Pearl when she was argumentative.

A sip of wine, another huge gulp, and Jody was calm enough to talk. “Mildred is no fool. She’s an attorney herself. My guess is that she’s trying to stall them long enough that they’ll be losing so much money by not building, they’ll be forced to change their plans so the development doesn’t require that particular patch of ground.”

“If I’m not mistaken,” Pearl said, “Meeding Properties owns that patch of ground, compliments of the city of New York.”

“But the terms of the sale specified that the leases went with the property. Mildred became a Meeding tenant on closing; Meeding is held party to the lease, and they want to evict her illegally.”

“Maybe.”

“Meeding must think so, or they would have forcibly removed her,” Jody said.

“She has a point,” Quinn said. “Mildred Dash might not have a chance in hell legally. But every day Meeding doesn’t evict her, her position grows stronger.”

“Playing for time is an accepted and even heartily endorsed legal process,” Jody said.

Quinn doubted that but said nothing.

“How are you getting all this information about the case?” Pearl asked.

Looking at Jody, Quinn tried not to smile.

“You’re snooping around where you shouldn’t be, aren’t you?” Pearl said.

“I’m monitoring the files to see if I might perceive something illegal.”

“ That is illegal, no matter how you pretty it up with obscure language. At the least it will get you fired for snooping.”

“You might call it snooping. I regard it as investigating. Something you and Quinn do.”

“You got some idea of what we do when you went with us to that homicide scene,” Pearl said. “That’s the sort of thing that justifies our snooping.”

“And illegally evicting a poor woman doesn’t?”

Quinn backed his chair away from the table and stood up.

Was he about to run out on his responsibility to help Pearl deal with Jody?

Pearl glared at him. “Where do you-”

“To smoke a-”

“Oh, no, you’re-”

“I’m only kidding, Pearl.”

Jody stood up abruptly, as if to say, I’ve had enough of this! She wiped her mouth with her napkin as if trying to remove her lips, and then stomped out of the dining room and upstairs.

Pearl started to go after her, but Quinn laid a big hand on her shoulder. “She’s only trying get out of helping with the dishes,” he said.

“She’s gonna screw up her internship, with this Mildred Dash crap,” Pearl said.

“That’s how she’ll learn to control her temper.”

Pearl gave him a look and then sat down again and took a sip of her wine. Quinn sat back down across from her.

“You haven’t figured her out very far,” Pearl said.

“No, I haven’t.”

“She wasn’t as angry as she seemed.”

“I know. She’d rather be up in her room in a snit than down here helping with the dishes.”

“That’s not what I mean. She was working us. She cares about the Mildred Dash business, but not that much. She’s using that case for an excuse to snoop at the Enders and Coil offices.”

Quinn didn’t quite follow Pearl. Not a new sensation.

“She’s wants us to know she’s onto something,” Pearl said, “but my guess is it’s bigger than some stubborn woman who might get evicted in the name of progress. What Jody was fishing for was our tacit permission to go ahead and sneak around where she’s working, and you gave it to her.”

“I did?”

“Yes. It obviously amused you that she was taking risks for some youthful empathetic reason she didn’t begin to understand. And remember you bought into that penumbra-of-the-law bullshit.”

“I wouldn’t say I bought into it.”

“Jody would. She’s on to something bigger,” Pearl said. “Believe it.”

Quinn considered what Pearl had said. For it to be true, Jody would have to be a damned good actress. And how could they know how good she was? She didn’t have a track record with them. “Maybe we should talk to her about it.”