David Wallace - Broom of the System

“Super,” Candy said.

Then there was the unlikely pair of Mr. Bloemker and Alvin Spaniard, whom Candy didn’t know from a hole in the ground, and who had been lurking in the lobby for about half an hour, waiting to see Lenore. Mr. Bloemker claimed that they’d called the Tissaws’ boarding house and spoken to a strangely familiar-sounding young woman who had said she knew for a positive fact that Lenore was on her way to the Bombardini Building. Candy had shrugged, at the console. She assumed the woman on the phone had been Mindy Metalman, but had no idea how Mindy was supposed to know where Lenore was. Anyway, the two men had looked at their watches and at each other, and said they’d wait, and their waiting had made for an unpleasant half hour, because Alvin Spaniard kept making what Candy thought might have been eyes at her, and Judith Prietht kept making what Candy knew from her long acquaintance with Judith definitely were eyes at Mr. Bloemker, and Mr. Bloemker was just being unnecessarily creepy — scratching violently at his beard, having bits of random sunlight reflect off his glasses, sometimes acting as if he were whispering to someone under his arm when there was clearly no one there, and asking Judith and Candy how they perceived their own sense of the history of the Midwest. Champ had hissed at him. Now Bloemker and Alvin Spaniard were walking slowly around the huge perimeter of the inside of the lobby, pointing at the floor in various places and speaking in low tones. Candy just could not wait for Mindy Metalman Lang to get back.

But now in through the revolving door came Lenore, and following her was Andy Lang, and out in front was the sound of Neil Obstat peeling out in Lang’s Trans Am, he having been signalled on his Stonecipheco beeper the minute the three of them had gotten far enough north on 77 to be in beeper range. Obstat was supposed to come back for them as soon as he could.

Lenore didn’t even seem to notice her brother-in-law and Mr. Bloemker when she came in. She didn’t seem to notice anything. She was also walking funny, and her dress was dirty, and she had a smear of black dust on her face, plus a brightly sunburned nose, and on her wrist Candy could see what was pretty clearly a handcuff, trailing a short length of broken pretend-silver chain.

“Jesus Lenore,” Candy said when Lenore got inside the cubicle. Judith and Champ were staring from the counter.

“Don’t want to hear it Candy,” Lenore said, without looking up. She opened one of the white switchboard cabinets and began taking some of her books out and sorting them on the counter. Out came a little cloth bag with soap, toothbush, and toothpaste. Lenore wordlessly hunted for other items in the cabinet. She opened the next cabinet door and brought out a stack of old lottery tickets bound with a rubber band.

“Hey there Candy,” Lang nodded tiredly from the switchboard counter, rubbing his face.

Candy folded her arms and looked at the handcuff hanging from Lenore’s wrist. The handcuff kept clanking on the insides of the cabinets. The skin of Lenore’s wrist was all red. On the handcuff itself Candy could see part of a pair of metal lips shaped in a kiss-design; on the lips was embossed “Bambi’s Den Of.”

“ ‘Bambi’s Den Of?’ ” she said. She looked up at Lang. Lenore was sifting through some of her magazines.

“Hi there, Lenore,‘” Judith Prietht was saying in a high, pretend-cat voice, holding Champ and moving the cat’s paw up and down in a hello. She made a move to bring the cat back into the cubicle.

“Please stay out, Judith,” Lenore said quietly.

“Ladies, let’s not give Lenore any more grief than need be, she’s had a bad enough day as it is,” Lang said, leaning his elbows on the counter.

“A bad day?” Candy said.

“Don’t want to talk about it.”

“Bad grandmother-news?”

“Don’t want to talk about it.”

“Grandmothers and Desert bondage?”

“Hush, now, Candy,” said Lang.

It wasn’t clear how long Mr. Bloemker and Alvin Spaniard had been at the edge of the counter, next to the hissing Champ. Now Mr. Bloemker rubbed an eye and cleared his throat.

Lang looked over at him. “We help you, chief?”

Mr. Bloemker gave him a bland look. “We are here to speak to Ms. Beadsman,” he said.

Lenore had meanwhile sat down, in Judith’s Bombardini-switchboard chair, and closed her eyes. Now she looked up at Bloemker and Alvin, as if she didn’t recognize them for a moment.

“Hi,” she said.

“Well hello, Lenore,” Alvin said. He was smiling the way someone smiles when he doesn’t feel very well.

“Hi.”

“We come on unprecedentedly urgent business, Ms. Beadsman,” said Bloemker.

“Do you.”

“Gentlemen, the little lady’s had herself a rough morning,” Lang said, moving over behind Bloemker and Alvin and putting a hand on each man’s shoulder. “What say we all just give her some time to collect, here.”

The phones had of course been ringing and beeping like crazy this whole time. Candy Mandible kept Accessing one trunk after another, and there would just be static, and tones.

“The phones have finally gone totally insane, Lenore,” she said through clenched teeth.

Lenore was looking from Mr. Bloemker to her brother-in-law. “Do you guys even know each other?” she said slowly.

Alvin looked decidedly uncomfortable. He kept doing something to the collar of his shirt. Half of Mr. Bloemker’s face was in the shadow.

Now a new head just barely appeared above the top of the switchboard counter, bouncing up and down a little, in the middle of everyone. Lang looked down in irritation. Lenore stood up to see.

“Dr. Jay?” she said.

“Greetings, Lenore,” said Dr. Jay.

“Well hi,” she said.

“Looking a little dishevelled today, aren’t we?” Jay looked her over.

“Can we help you out with somethin‘, here, bud?” Lang said from between Bloemker and Alvin.

Lenore saw the top of Dr. Jay’s head turn. “I’m a friend of Ms. Beadsman‘s, young sir,” he said. “I’m here to see Ms. Beadsman if I may. ”

“What’re you sniffin’ like that for?” Lang said. “You smell somethin’ out of the ordinary do you?”

Dr. Jay was hauling himself up over the top of the counter as far as he could. He looked down into the cubicle at Lenore, who was back in Judith’s chair. “Lenore, I’m afraid I’ve just gotten off the phone with Norman Bombardini,” he said. He tested the air of the cubicle. “I would be inclined to say that it might be better for you not to be in the Building right now. Norman apparently saw you arrive from some restaurant down the street. I’m afraid he’s in a bit of a bad way, emotionally speaking, at the present time.”

“Mr. Bombardini’s in an emotional bad way?” said Judith.

“How do you even know Mr. Bombardini?” Lenore said. “You never told me you knew Mr. Bombardini.”

Dr. Jay made as if to wipe his nose with a handkerchief. He left the hankie over his nose and mouth. “Ethics, et cetera,” he said through the cloth. “Actually a longtime client and friend.” Lang was giving Dr. Jay a very unfriendly look indeed. “He’s unfortunately very upset,” Dr. Jay continued, pushing himself even higher over the counter with his elbows so that his feet were off the lobby floor. He leaned toward Lenore with his hankie. “I’m afraid he’s talking with some earnestness about… consuming people.”

“Consuming?”

“All metaphorical, I’m firmly convinced. Surely you’re in a position to see that this eating business masks membranous turmoils far too… tumultuous to go into here.” Jay looked around. “Shall we perhaps—?”

“Eating?” Lang said.