Matt Ruff - Bad Monkeys

“Back up a second. You’re telling me Deeds didn’t have a rap sheet?”

“He was a criminal, all right, just not a violent one. He had a long history of petty drug offenses, including one early charge for theft of a doctor’s prescription pad. The prescription pad theft happened while he was an intern at Saint Francis Memorial Hospital, studying to be an oncologist.”

“No, you’re mixed up. The oncology student, that was—”

“Your dealer friend Ganesh, yes. Of whom there’s also no record. Or none that I could find: I wasn’t sure if Ganesh was a first or last name, or an alias.”

“I’m not sure either,” she says, “but I didn’t just imagine him. Hey, I bought dope from the guy for years.”

“Well if Ganesh is a real person, Jane, can you explain how Julius Deeds ended up with his biography? Or is that another Nod problem?”

“No, it’s not a Nod problem.” She frowns. “It’s Catering.”

“Catering?”

“Organization counterintelligence. They must know I’m talking to you.”

“The organization altered the police records?”

“Somebody did. And I know how this is going to sound, but if it is Catering? You can forget about fact-checking my story anymore.”

“I see. That’s a rather convenient development, isn’t it?”

“Oh yeah, it’s very convenient, having you think I’m full of shit…”

“Why ‘Catering’? That’s a strange name for a counterintelligence division.”

“They do a lot of logistics work,” she explains. “One way the organization keeps itself off the radar is by not having a fixed headquarters. Cost-Benefits, the whole bureaucracy, it’s constantly moving around, and Catering are like the movers. They scout new locations, pack and set up equipment, and provide transport for personnel. And as sort of a natural extension of that, they’re also in charge of meetings and special events: scheduling, security, hors d’oeuvres, whatever.”

“So if you needed to arrange a rendezvous with another operative, you’d contact Catering.”

“Right.”

“And how does that work? Is there a number you call?”

“No number. You just pick up a phone and start talking.”

“Operators are standing by?”

“Unless the phone’s in an insecure location. Then you just get a dial tone and look stupid.”

“All right,” says the doctor. “Let’s get back to your story. Once you’d been accepted into the organization, I assume you underwent some sort of training regimen…”

“They call it Probate. Training is part of it, but also they’re still testing you, making sure it wasn’t a mistake to offer you the job. They team you with a senior operative called a Probate officer, and you’re given a Probate assignment, which is like a standard op but more complicated, with more ways to screw up.”

“What was your Probate assignment?”

“A guy named Arlo Dexter.”

“Another serial killer?”

“More like a serial maimer. His thing was explosive booby-traps: he’d take, like, a Scooby-Doo toothpaste dispenser, fill it with black powder, ball bearings, and a motion trigger, and leave it on a store shelf for someone to pick up. He hadn’t actually killed anyone yet, but he was definitely working his way up to it—and then, right before the organization stepped in, he met some people who wanted to leapfrog him straight to mass murder.”

“You stopped him?”

“No.” She frowns again. “I was supposed to, but it went wrong.”

“What happened?”

“He saw me coming.”

THE VOICE ON THE PHONE SAID: “Jane Charlotte.”

“Yeah, I’m supposed to make an appointment to meet my Probate officer…”

“Southeast corner of Orchard and Masonic, tomorrow, eight-thirty a.m.”

“Do you know what this guy looks like? Or will he know me?”

“Southeast corner of Orchard and Masonic,” the voice repeated, “tomorrow, eight-thirty a.m.”

Dial tone.

Oh well, at least I knew where I was going. That intersection was in the Haight, and assuming I had my compass directions straight, the southeast corner was just across Orchard Street from the elementary school that Phil and I had both attended.

Next morning I was there, standing under the awning of a candy store where I used to shoplift Mars bars, and playing “Who’s the Probate officer?” with the other pedestrians. Despite the drizzle there were plenty of prospects: a guy waiting at the bus stop who didn’t check the numbers of the buses pulling up; another guy who’d been out in the wet so long that the newspaper he was reading had soaked through; a bag lady who had her forehead pressed up against a utility pole like she was trying to mind-meld with it; a bored-looking school crossing guard.

My money was on the crossing guard. His uniform didn’t fit him, and he held his stop sign the way a circus bear would, like this meaningless prop some midget had just handed to him. He also didn’t seem to care whether any kids made it across the street in one piece. At the school, the second bell had already rung, but there were still a few members of the Jane Charlotte tribe racing to get in under the wire; if the guard happened to be facing the right direction when they darted out into the crosswalk, he’d make this token gesture to stop the traffic, but for the most part they were on their own.

So I decided this was probably my guy and tried to make contact with him, which wasn’t easy, because he wasn’t paying any attention to the adults around him, either.

“Hey,” I said, waving a hand in his face. “Hello?”

Three more kids ran into the street behind the crossing guard’s back, on an intercept course with a speeding delivery truck. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the bag lady come to life. She whipped her shopping bag up in a circle and let fly; the bag arced above the heads of the jaywalkers and burst on the truck’s front hood, spraying cans everywhere. The truck screeched to a halt; so did the rest of the traffic, and every pedestrian within earshot.

The bag lady went charging at the kids, shrieking, “Look both ways! Look both ways!” Two of them bolted straight off; the third, definitely my tribe, stood his ground long enough to give the woman who’d saved his life a one-finger thank you.

She went after the crossing guard next: “Not…paying…attention!” She started smacking him on the chest and shoulders—“Pay attention! Pay attention!”—sloppy, overhand girly slaps that he was too stunned to defend himself against. Then her slaps turned into punches and he got mad; he stiff-armed her and raised his stop sign threateningly. The bag lady fell back into a cringe, chanting “Hit me? Hit me?” (Or maybe it was “Hit me! Hit me!”—when I thought about it later, that seemed more likely.)

“Get the hell out of my face!” the crossing guard said, and she did—but as she turned to go she stumbled and fell into me, hissing three words in Latin into my ear. Then she was gone, fast-walking east along Orchard.

“What do you want?” said the crossing guard, finally acknowledging me. I gave him the tribal salute and took off after my Probate officer.

By the time I caught up to her she was in full schizophrenic muttering mode. Most of it was impossible to make out, but here and there I’d catch a few words: “Pay attention!..Watch! Watch!..Not on the rocks, Billy!”

She led me to a delicatessen called Silverman’s. A sign in the window said CLOSED FOR FAMILY EMERGENCY, but when she stepped up to the door, it opened for her.

Inside, Bob True was sitting at a table by the meat counter. The bag lady breezed right past him, going into a back corner of the room and putting her face to the wall. True gave her a moment, then called out gently: “Annie. We need you in the present day.”