Harry Turtledove - Supervolcano - All Fall Down

“I was an administrative assistant at the ramen company’s headquarters on Braxton Bragg,” Louise answered in astonishment.

“Why did you leave?”

“I didn’t have much choice. They closed down their American operation.”

“That’s right-they did. I remember hearing about that.” The pharmacist nodded. “You can answer the phone? You can type? You can handle an inventory spreadsheet when there is power?”

Louise managed a dazed nod. “I can do all that. I’m not exactly an Excel whiz, but I can cope if it’s not too complicated.”

“I’ll give you a try, then,” Jared said briskly. “I had to let someone go last week. I feel bad about it, but she just couldn’t do the work. If you can’t, I won’t keep you, either. But if you can, I’ll be glad to have you. I can’t do all that stuff and run the place, too, not if I want to sleep, I can’t.”

Louise could hardly believe her ears. “What kind of money are we talking about?”

He told her. It was less than the ramen works had paid, but it whaled the tar out of unemployment. “Medical after six months,” he added. “It’s not a terrific plan, but it’s better than nothing.”

“When do I start?” she asked. If she couldn’t stand it, she’d start looking for something else, something better. The best time to look for work was when you already had some.

“Monday morning, ten o’clock sharp,” he said. “I’ll have paperwork for you to fill out then. Can’t do anything without the paperwork.”

“Better yours than the EDD’s,” Louise said from the bottom of her heart.

“That’s a good way to look at things,” Jared said. “Tell me your name, why don’t you? Me, I’m Jared Watt.”

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Watt.” Louise gave her own name. “You’ve got no idea how pleased I am to meet you.”

“Oh, I just might, Mrs. Ferguson.”

“It’s Miz,” Louise said.

“Okay. Ms. Ferguson.” Jared Watt repeated it, perhaps to help himself remember. “Like I say, I just might. You aren’t the only one who’s had a tough time the past three, four years.”

“I feel great now.” Louise meant every word of it. An indifferent job in a business that didn’t look to be thriving with a boss who definitely seemed peculiar? Hey, it was work! No wonder she meant every word. “If I never see that Torrance unemployment office again, it’ll be too soon.”

“Well, all right,” the pharmacist said. “If I can’t drive you loopy, I don’t expect anyone can.”

“I’m not even worried about it.” Louise meant that, too. Whether she’d mean it by closing time a week from Friday might be another story altogether. It’ll be a week with a paycheck, anyhow, she thought. They don’t make weeks any better than those .

* * *

Colin Ferguson looked at his watch. It was only twenty-five past two. He would have bet it was four o’clock. Time flies when you’re having fun, he thought, and then Yeah, as if! He hadn’t been this nervous since, well, the last time he was this nervous. And that was. . probably when he’d asked Kelly to marry him. A while ago, in other words.

He looked at his watch again. It was 2:26. He made himself not look at it, or at the clock on the cop-shop wall. The bust would go off the way it was supposed to. Or it wouldn’t. Whichever, he’d pick up the pieces and go on. What else could you do?

At 2:39 by the clock on the wall, his cell phone rang. He hauled it out of his jacket pocket. “Ferguson.”

“We have ourselves a bust, Lieutenant-best damn bust since Beyonce.” Rodney sounded happy as a sheep in clover. And well he might have; he went on, “Weed. Meth. Coke. H. Possession with intent to sell. Oh, and a.45 automatic, which he had sense enough not to pull when we dropped on him. We grabbed his laptop, too-see what kind of good shit he’s got on the hard drive, and where that leads us.”

“Okay. That all sounds good.” Colin couldn’t decide whether to be delighted or mournful. He went both ways at once, and felt torn to pieces on account of it. Tim had known what he was talking about after all. There was never any guarantee of that, not even when you asked him something as basic as his name. “Lucky for him he didn’t go for the.45,” Colin went on, bringing himself back to the matter directly at hand.

“Yeah, that would’ve been the last dumb thing he ever tried,” Rodney agreed. “This way, he’ll get some more chances whenever they finally decide to turn him loose. Wanted to let you know everything went smooth. We’re gonna bring him in now.”

“Good job, man. Thanks. ’Bye.” Colin stowed the phone. Nobody involved in taking Darren Pitcavage down had put anything into the San Atanasio PD’s computer system. Nobody’d said anything over the department’s radio net. What Chief Pitcavage didn’t see or hear, he couldn’t warn his son about.

Well, they didn’t have to worry about that any more. Mike Pitcavage would hear now. Colin couldn’t imagine that that would do him-or Darren-any good, though. Would he try to bargain this bust down to a misdemeanor, too? Good luck, Colin thought. If the DA went along with a deal like that, he deserved to be out on the street and sleeping in a park five minutes later. For that matter, the chief would deserve to be out there sleeping alongside him if he had the gall to propose something like that, didn’t he? So it seemed to Colin, anyway.

He had no trouble picking up just when people not in the know at the station found out what had happened. The buzz of conversation in the big open office suddenly picked up volume and changed tone. Yes, that was what amazement sounded like, sure as hell.

Gabe Sanchez also picked up on it right away. He, of course, wasn’t a person not in the know. He caught Colin’s eye and looked a question at him. Colin nodded back. Gabe grinned and gave him a thumbs-up.

The next interesting question was how long Mike Pitcavage would take to start blowing gaskets. In a way, there should have been a pool on that. Colin knew he would have put down some money. When he got into the Super Bowl pool every year, no way he could stay out of this one. But a pool would have turned people not in the know into people in the know too damn soon. Besides, the chief would’ve wanted to get into it, which would have been. . awkward. Pitcavage always joined the Super Bowl pool, too.

By the clock on the wall, the chief left his exalted private office and burst into the big central one exactly four minutes and forty seconds after Rodney called. For once, Pitcavage’s Armani suit flapped on him like an ordinary cop’s threadbare threads from Sears or Men’s Wearhouse. For once, he didn’t look like the CEO of a successful medium-sized corporation. He looked like any poor bastard who’d just found out his one and only son was arrested on serious drug charges. He looked like hell, in other words.

His blindly staring eyes caught and held Colin’s. “Ferguson!” he croaked. “I need to talk to you.” How much did he know? How much did he suspect? Or was Colin just the first spar he saw and grabbed after his yacht ripped its belly out on the rocks?

Colin heaved himself to his feet. “What’s up?” He wouldn’t be able to hide knowing for very long. Nor did he intend to. But he didn’t want to do a sack dance over Pitcavage’s fallen frame, either.

The chief gestured: follow me. Colin did, out of the big office, up the hall, and outside. One glimpse of Mike Pitcavage’s ravaged face was plenty to scare away a couple of curious smokers.

“They’ve arrested Darren,” Pitcavage said. He had the dazed look of a man who’d just staggered free of a bad car crash and didn’t quite realize yet he had only a few cuts and bruises himself. “Arrested. Drug possession. Drug dealing. Felony. Oh my God!”