Jack O'Connell - Box Nine

“What I mean to say is you’re the perfect person for this case. You appear to have a highly evolved sense of what I would call semantic intuitiveness, or, maybe, semiotic intuition, or …”

She cuts him off. “Look, Fred, whatever you think, I’m not a very intuitive person …”

“I beg to differ …”

“I’m just not, okay. I’m the ultimate pragmatist. That’s why I’m great at my job, if you want to know the truth. I find the easiest, most effective way of getting something done, then I just carry that out, follow it down the line. It seems simple to me and I don’t really understand why everyone doesn’t behave in this manner. Right now, what we’ve got to get straight is that fate has thrown us together. Well, fate and Mayor Victor Welby. Now, I don’t know why. Standard procedure would be that you leave us your phone number and we call you up when we’ve got a question. Maybe you make an appearance at a progress briefing. But Miskewitz made it clear that the mayor has other ideas. He wants you and me together on this. He doesn’t share his reasoning with me. So now I’ve got Mr. Ph.D. taking a field trip to Bangkok Park, with me as the tour guide. And there’s nothing I can do about it. I just have to deal with it, figure out what might be the best, most efficient way to achieve our mutual end. Our end is to find out if this Lingo shit has found its way to my street, and if it has, to neutralize its effect on the local environment. You agree with that?”

Woo smiles, pushes his sandwich away. “I like the way you talk. I like the rhythms of your natural speech.”

Lenore shakes her head. “Jesus Christ, you don’t catch on, do you? You know, in your own way you’re a real moron.”

“No, no, Detective,” he says. “I’m very clear on the fact that, from a romantic avenue, you’ve shut me down …”

“A romantic avenue,” Lenore repeats. “Jesus.”

“But from your side of things, you have to try to keep in mind that my life revolves around language. So when I make the statement that I love the way you speak, I’m commenting on a professional level.”

“I’m sure.”

“Now, as to your summation of our mutual problem, yes, I agree.”

“You agree?”

“That our first step is to determine the presence of the drug, to find out if there was any mass production or marketing. Let me ask you. It’s known I consulted with the Swanns while they were still at the Institute. Why aren’t I a suspect?”

“Don’t worry, you are.”

“Then let me say, here at the start, that my contact with them was very brief. We met three or four times at the most. I simply gave them my opinion on certain theoretical questions. If need be, Detective, I can certainly account for my whereabouts at the time of their deaths.”

“Yeah, well, believe me, Freddy, you’re a long shot right now. I’m more inclined to start piecing things together from the distribution end. Down in the Park.”

“Bangkok Park?”

“You ever been?”

“I’m afraid not,” Woo says.

“Not even a drive-through? Little tourist peek?”

“My time is fully claimed, I’m afraid.”

“Yeah, mine too.”

“I’ve heard many of the stories, of course …”

“Of course,” Lenore mumbles.

“Younger colleagues who’ve ventured down …”

“A little excitement, a little spice, little break from the scholarly grind.”

“Exactly.”

“They lose a week’s pay and their Blaupunkts and they think it’s worth it.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“I would. Middle-class tourists in the Park piss me off.”

“Of course.”

“Place is a cesspool. Tell your people to stay in the Canal Zone with all the bohemians. They can get their kicks hitting on teenage lesbians with purple-dyed hair and snake tattoos.”

“Now, the Canal Zone I’ve been to …” Woo begins.

“I bet. Listen, Fred, the Zone isn’t the Park. The Zone is all these kids playing artist in the run-down factories that their grandfathers broke their backs in. And that’s fine, that’s okay, I don’t care. If they want to pretend that the Zone is loaded up with truth and danger, great. As far as I can see they’re not hurting anyone. They play zipperhead music and write bonehead plays …”

“Actually, I’ve seen some of the performance pieces and …”

“And read dirty poetry. Super. Have a ball. But Bangkok Park isn’t the Canal Zone. It’s a whole different world. You know that the mortality rate in the Park is four times greater than any other square-mile area in the county? Probably in the whole goddamn state. Are you aware there’s an entire economy that’s completely independent from the rest of Quinsigamond and I’d bet its own little GNP works out at about ten times the city’s total budget? You can’t imagine the kind of cult crap that goes on in there. There’s just a whole culture, a whole different set of … I don’t know. You just have to taste it, you know. Words aren’t going to do it.”

Woo sits back. He folds his arms like he’s the one who’s made some point, waits a beat before quashing an almost condescending smile, leans forward, right in line with Lenore’s face, and says, “That’s always the case, isn’t it?”

All right, now just calm down, take a breath, you feel faint? You look a little green, you want to put your head down? Just try to relax for a second, you’re just a little queasy. It happens.”

Eva closes the door to her office and pulls a battered green shade down over the window. Ike sits in the dull-metal straight-back chair, the weight of his upper body resting on his forearms, which rest against his thighs. He’s breathing heavily.

Eva moves behind the chair, puts her hands on his shoulders, lets them rest there for a second, then begins to rub them in small circles down to the shoulder blades, then back in close to the neck.

Ike mutters, “I’m really sorry about this. I just got a little nauseous.”

Eva repeats, “It happens.”

Ike clears his throat. “What should I do? Should I head downtown, tell the postmaster?”

Eva stays silent. She walks to her desk, looks down into the small package laid open for inspection on top of yesterday’s newspaper. She looks at the package’s contents dispassionately, maybe even a little bored, as if she were an aging pathologist and the contents were just one more in a series of autopsies she’s run through year after year. The smell, however, is difficult to ignore.

“My job right now,” she says, “is to be brutally honest with you.”

Ike comes upright in his chair, nods, and says, “I understand that.”

“What you did in opening that package is a big offense. We both know this. Procedure would have been for you to bring it to me. To let me make the determination. You acted on impulse and that surprises me.”

Eva pulls a long black-handled scissors from her pencil cup and makes one slow, deliberate poke at the mess in the center of her desk.

“Still, we’re dealing with a very unusual set of circumstances here. And experience has taught us all that it can be quite costly to march to the letter of the law. We all remember Shipley.”

Ike nods, staring at the floor. He doesn’t actually remember Shipley, but he knows the story that gradually, as time goes by, is being upgraded to legend. It goes back maybe twenty years now, when Quinsigamond was caught in an unusual wave of civil unrest. Shipley was a nighttime sorter down the main station who came across a suspicious package that was making a ticking noise. He was a by-the-book guy and as he walked the long corridor to the supervisor’s office, the bomb went off and Shipley lost his hands.