“If you could walk me through what happened? For the record?”
I sighed. But I went through it again, in quick, short sentences. She typed, though she wasn’t typing half of what I said. She definitely didn’t type the parts about the screaming, or the fear. Her face was like a mask while I told her about that.
At the end, she sat back, eyes on the screen.
“The name she gave you. Mark, you say?”
“Mark, or Mike. It wasn’t clear.”
She typed.
“No last name?”
“I was trying to gain her trust,” I said. “You can’t rush on stuff like that.”
“Your task parameters—”
“Hey, fuck the task parameters. Who knew she was going to snuff it on me, eh? You see that coming? ’Cause I certainly didn’t.”
“I don’t believe,” she said, “there’s any reason to be disrespectful here.”
She let me fume a few moments. Then she said, “Mark, or Mike.” She typed. She asked me, “Age?”
I drained my coffee.
“Young,” I said. “She called him young.”
“So—younger than you, say?”
“Could be. You get to her age, everybody’s young, I suppose . . .”
She typed this up. Then she sat back, turned the screen so that I couldn’t see it.
Ms. Ramirez put her small, elegant hands back on the tabletop. Then she said, “We think that this is somebody we’ve come across before. At least, we’ve come across his handiwork.” She tapped with her index finger, two, three times. I waited. She said, “Have you heard of Johnny Appleseed?”
“I’ve heard the name. Why?”
“Someone,” she said, “is distributing pieces of high-energy, psychoactive matter-gods, if you prefer the term. And we’re pretty sure it’s our material. Since we’re the only company dealing in the product, it would probably have to be.
“Last night’s our second, possibly third fatality. We have suspect cases in Seattle, Portland, Boston . . . reports from Vegas, too. It’s deliberate. It may be a rival company, trying to bring us into disrepute. Oil, or nuclear . . . It may be sabotage. Disgruntled employee, that sort of thing. Seventy-eight percent of all industrial problems are down to employees.
“We—I’m speaking for the East Coast office, now—we’d like you to look into this.”
“Of course.” But I was instantly on guard. “I’m tied up for the next few weeks, though. I have a mentoring job.”
I could see my time with Angel vanishing like smoke, before I’d even got to it.
Well, I wasn’t going to let that happen. Not without a fight.
Ms. Ramirez checked her monitor.
“Farthing,” she read.
I wondered who her boss was. I wondered who to talk to if she screwed me over on the mentoring. I had contacts in the US Registry but I didn’t want to use them. Mostly, I had Adam Shailer, whom I’d have very much preferred never to see again, except perhaps in court, charged with some scandalous and preferably humiliating crime. I wondered how to stop myself from sounding like a whiney teenager who’s just had his day out cancelled.
She kept on looking at the screen.
“Good,” she said, eventually.
“Good . . . ?”
“You’ll need some help. It’s an opportunity. For both of you. As things are—well, from our point of view, this is damage limitation, and I understand you have experience with that?”
It took me a moment to realize she wanted an answer.
“Just some stuff last year,” I said.
“Chicago.”
“Yeah . . .”
The index finger tapped again.
“This isn’t what I do, you know.”
“I have been told,” she said, “that you’ve had some success in other cases.”
“It’s a matter of opinion.”
“I’ll send you the files. See if you can find our Mr. Appleseed before he causes any more problems, will you?”
I nodded.
She said, “And one more matter. You met Silverman?”
“What about him?”
“You know him well?”
“He made Rikers. It was on PBS.” When she kept staring, I said, “No, I don’t know him at all. We met the other night. He helped me out, when no one else would.”
“We’ve had an e-mail from him. He says you’re working on a documentary about your job with him. Is that true?”
“Hardly. He said he wanted to make a film. I told him, talk to my boss.”
“He took you literally.”
“OK.” I shrugged. “Call the legal people, get a cease and desist, problem solved. I’m certainly not making any film.”
“Don’t be so hasty.” She was reading something on the screen. “Apparently they like him. They say he has ‘integrity.’ He could be good for us.”
“Well, tomorrow, I am out of here, and tonight, I have no intention of sitting down and being interviewed by anyone. Except maybe a barman or two. So that’s that.”
It wasn’t, but I’d had enough.
“Send me the files,” I said.
I stood up, pulled my jacket on, and left.
There is a problem in Manhattan. Rents go up, and all the little shops and bars that made it so much fun are gradually eroding, while the chains are moving in. But I knew a couple of places I could get a drink and nestle in that cozy New York anonymity, where you can drink alone and not feel like a loser, or an alcoholic.