Code blue, p.15
Code Blue, page 15
“Thanks. Nice to be here.”
Marie walked them to a table. The place was airy, unlike the offices where Regina and Izzie worked. “Enjoy your lunch.”
“Wow. It’s nice to be in a space where I’m not smashing my knuckles on the wall every time I stretch.”
Regina giggled. “What did you do before this?”
“I worked for an architectural firm. The owner sold the business, and the new owners wanted to employ their unemployable relatives,” Izzie said, and snickered. She rather liked her just-made-up story.
Regina stifled a cackle. “Doesn’t that seem to be the way?”
“Yep. No one seems to blink when it comes to nepotism.”
“For real.” Regina leaned in closer. “I heard that Edith is related to someone in upper management. I have no idea who it is, because they keep that under wraps.”
“I would too if I was related to her.” Izzie snickered. “I hope you don’t mind me saying it, but she was not very pleasant with me.”
“Ha. That is Crabby Cakes being pleasant.” Regina lowered her voice. “I’ve been here just under a year, and I can honestly say I have never seen her smile.”
“That’s too bad, for you and for her. Imagine living your life being miserable?”
“I try not to.” Regina grinned. “Let’s see what the specials are today.” She lifted a small clipboard that was on the table. “They have ropa vieja today. The chef’s family is from Cuba. It’s the real deal.”
“Sounds good. I can have a burger any time,” Isabelle replied. “Although stew in the summer in Florida sounds steamy.”
“You won’t regret it. Promise.” Regina put the menu down as the waitress walked over to the table.
“Hi, Paula. This is Izzie. She’s working in my department now.”
“Hi, Izzie. Welcome to Sunnydale, where you will feel younger than ever.” Paula raised her eyebrows. To her point, everyone in the room besides the staff was over fifty-five. It was the age requirement to live there.
“Standing next to Regina, I feel ancient.”
“Oh, stop. You can’t be more than thirty-five, right?” Regina took a good guess.
“Close enough,” Izzie replied.
“What can I get for you young ladies?” Paula asked.
“Regina highly recommends the special, so I shall have that. Water, no ice, and some lemon slices, please.”
“Make that two,” Regina added.
Paula tapped a few buttons on her hand-held electronic ordering device. “Be right back with your water.”
“This place seems to be very tech-savvy,” Izzie noted.
“And tight as Fort Knox.”
Izzie casually checked the ceiling for CCTV. Just as she thought, there were several in the dining room. There was little chance any of the patrons would dine and dash, so why so much security? She could understand one camera in the rear, positioned toward the door, but there were at least five covering every angle of the place. What were these people so afraid of?
Izzie thought all the tables might be bugged with hidden microphones. Why? Why any of it? She lowered her voice: “What’s with all the Big Brother stuff? And I don’t mean the TV show.”
Regina giggled. “Right? I often wonder, but then I figure it’s a job. A decent one, and like I said, the food is great.”
“Back to our earlier conversation. Or should I say my nose-poking. What do you want to be when you grow up?” Izzie leaned back in her chair and gave Regina a big smile.
“I like to garden. But there doesn’t seem to be much money in that.”
“What about landscaping?”
“I can’t see myself hauling bags of topsoil and laying down mulch.”
“You don’t necessarily have to do the heavy lifting. You could become a designer. I mean, if that’s what you’re into.”
“Funny you should say that. There’s a little patch of nothing behind my apartment building. I’d like to do something with it.”
“Take some measurements and then draw up a layout.”
“I can visualize it, but not sure I can put it down on paper.”
“I worked around layouts for a long time. Buy yourself some graph paper and a tape measure. I’m giving you old-school advice, but I think it’s better for your brain if you think things through. You can get a much better understanding rather than rely on something techie to do it for you.” Izzie stopped. “Now I’m sounding like an old bat.”
Regina placed her hand on Izzie’s. “Not at all. I think you’re onto something. I’ve been spending more time trying to find an app than actually doing it. Thanks. I’ll stop at a store on my way home.”
“Sometimes simple is better.” Izzie nodded. “Not that I have anything against technology.” Said the computer hacker. “But we depend on it more than we should.” Said the Sister who planned to infiltrate the system.
“One summer I went to a camp, and everyone had to turn in their phones. No electronic devices were allowed. The first two days were brutal, but by the third day I felt such a sense of relief.”
“Interesting how that works.” Izzie’s nose followed the aroma emanating from the bowls of stew Paula was carrying to the table. “Smells delish.”
Regina bowed her head for a moment. She just scored a few points with Izzie. It was nice to see someone pausing to give thanks in a modest and personal manner.
Izzie didn’t care what religion anyone followed. As long as they had integrity, decency, loyalty, and kindness, that was all that mattered. Throw in generosity, and you had a friend for life. It was not about words, but about deeds.
“I’m glad you started working here. I had a friend who used to work here. He and I used to have lunch together once in a while. But he’s gone.”
“Oh? Where is he now?” Izzie’s ears perked up.
“Right now? He’s in the hospital recovering from a hit-and-run accident.”
Bingo.
“That’s terrible. What happened?”
“I’m not supposed to be telling anyone, let alone doing what I did.”
“What do you mean?” Izzie’s brow furrowed.
Regina looked around the room and lifted her glass in front of her lips. She, too, was aware of the prying eyes. “He was let go a couple of weeks ago. I’m not sure why, but I was told not to have any interaction with him, or I could lose my job.”
“Is that what they told you?”
“Not in so many words, but Clayton made kind of a threat without actually being a threat. Ya know what I mean?”
“I get the picture. We should probably take this convo somewhere else.”
“We could go for drinks after work, maybe?” Regina said with enthusiasm.
“I’d like that,” Izzie said. Now they could move on to more banal conversation. She could drill Regina when they were off the premises. “Where shall we meet?”
“You can follow me after work.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Izzie said.
The hour passed quickly, and they handed Paula their key cards for processing. As they were leaving The Grill, Izzie couldn’t help but say, “Kind of like Brave New World.”
Regina gave her a quizzical look.
“It’s a book by Aldous Huxley. It’s about the dangers of technology and how it can take over humans and their humanity.”
“Huh. That seems to be happening.”
“In some ways, it is. What’s astounding is when it was written: 1931, published in 1932.”
“Get out! For real?”
“It was a movie in 1998.”
“Wow. That was even before I was born!”
“Yep. Did you ever watch the original Star Trek?”
“Sure, as a kid. My brother loved Captain Kirk. It was so goofy.”
“Leonard Nimoy, who played Spock, was in the movie.”
“For serious?”
“For serious,” Izzie repeated.
“Learn something new every day,” Regina remarked.
“One can hope.”
The two women walked back to their minuscule offices, closed their doors, and finished their workload for the day. Izzie was itching to share the latest info with everyone, but first she had to pry a little more out of Regina. Izzie didn’t think it would be a problem getting the young woman to open up. There was a kind innocence about her that Izzie liked. The type of naïveté that could get someone hit by a dump truck.
Regina knocked on Izzie’s door at four-thirty on the dot. No sooner, no later.
“Clayton may be standing by the exit. Let’s not say anything about us going out together.”
“Gotcha,” Izzie replied. Sure enough, the crotchety woman was standing guard at the door.
“Good night, Mrs. Clayton. I uploaded all the information required.”
“I should hope so,” Clayton grunted.
“Have a good evening,” Izzie said. She wasn’t sure if Clayton grunted again or passed gas. Izzie bit the inside of her mouth to keep from cracking herself up.
Izzie got into her car and watched Regina pull away. She lagged behind, just in case anyone was watching. Izzie got the creepy-crawlies thinking about the Sunnydale version of Huxley’s book.
The bar was less than a ten-minute drive from Sunnydale. Regina pulled into a spot, and Izzie drove farther toward the rear of the parking lot. She knew she was being overly cautious, but it was a good strategy, considering how much surveillance she had been under all day.
The two women sidled up to the bar. Izzie ordered a white wine spritzer, and Regina ordered a shot of Tequila Ocho. Instead of chugging it, Regina sipped it slowly. “Can’t get blotto during the week,” she said, chuckling.
“You don’t normally get blotto on the weekends, do you? I’m not being judgy.”
Regina laughed. “Nah. I did when I was in my late teens, but after too many hangovers, I decided I wanted to get up in the morning while it was still morning, and without a pounding headache.”
“Good plan.” Izzie raised her glass. She was trying to find a way to steer their conversation back to the young man who was hit by a dump truck. She decided that time was of the essence, and she came right out and asked. “Tell me more about your friend. The one in the hospital. Is he going to be okay?”
“Jeremy? I think so, but I’m worried about him.”
“What do you mean?” Izzie was drooling over this outpouring of information.
“They have him handcuffed to his hospital bed.”
“Why on earth for?” Izzie winced.
“They said there was a vial of morphine in the car he was driving.”
“Wow. That’s intense.”
“That’s exactly what I said to him. But I don’t think he did it.”
“Then how did it get there?” Izzie was playing devil’s advocate.
“No idea, but he was the on-site pharmacist.”
“That makes him look guilty, don’t you think?”
Regina looked Izzie straight in the eye. “Sure, but I really believe him.”
“Do you think it was a setup?”
“Possibly, but why? And who?” Regina pondered.
“Can I ask you something?” Izzie queried.
“Sure.”
“Has this place always been this, I dunno, creepy?”
“To be honest, things started getting a little weird a few months ago, when they announced they were opening a third community.”
“Weird. How?”
“Believe it or not, Crabby Clayton wasn’t always as crabby. I mean, she’s always been crabby, but the past month, she has been flying on a broomstick.”
Izzie almost spit out her drink, imagining the portly woman soaring overhead.
“And get this. When I tried to look up Jeremy’s profile, to see if I could get some family info, his file didn’t exist.”
“What do you mean, didn’t exist?” Izzie was dubious.
“I know I only have access to a few file folders, but one is for employees. For payroll. And I went over it and could not find a record of him anywhere.”
“Interesting.” Izzie felt she was getting closer to the fire. But what exactly was burning?
Pensacola, Florida
Landscaping Facility
Around the same time Izzie reported to Edith Clayton, Yoko arrived at the facilities building. Once she got past the security guard, she stepped inside. It was an extremely large warehouse and resembled the inside of a Home Depot. Yoko surmised they could build an entire complex with the supplies and tools they had on hand.
A tall, thin man with what sounded like a Russian accent approached her. “Miz Akia? I am Zhukov. Manager of Facilities. You come to do landscaping?” He eyed her petite form with suspicion.
Yoko gave him a slight bow. “Yes. There is much I can do.” Her thought balloons were already fired up. Like kick your butt across this concrete floor. He had no idea Yoko held black belts in many of the martial arts. At any given moment, she could kill someone without flinching or leaving a trace. But that is not what the discipline was about. Unless it was absolutely necessary.
Zhukov shrugged. “Follow me.” He showed her to a small locker room area. “You get clothes and change.”
Lockers with padlocks lined one wall, and several changing booths with curtains lined another. There was another wall with shelves that contained clean, army-green, folded jumpsuits with the Sunnydale logo. “You take one. Change. Lock your things. I wait outside.”
Each shelf marked the sizes of the uniforms. There was only one marked SMALL, and it was already too big for her diminutive frame. The crotch of the pants was down to her knees. She guessed it was for a small man, not a woman of her size. She rolled up the cuffs and stuffed her hair into a cap that also held the logo.
Zhukov eyed her as she exited the locker room. “You very small person.”
Yoko smiled. “Yes, but I am a very strong small person.” She nodded again.
“Come.” Zhukov motioned for her to follow him to where the topsoil and mulch were stored. “You take Danny in cart and finish front entrance. Needs refreshed.”
Yoko introduced herself to Danny, since Ivan was short on pleasantries and decorum. Yoko figured Danny was in his early thirties, but with his sun-leathered skin, it was hard to pinpoint within a ten-year range. Danny had a neatly trimmed reddish beard with a bit of matching hair poking out from under his cap. He was neat and trim. “Welcome, Yoko. I hear you’re a famous designer.”
“I am a landscape designer and florist, but famous? No.”
“I thought, maybe they’d hire a high-profile person.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I hear they’re planning on building another place and are trying to get investors. Having a well-known name on the roster couldn’t hurt.”
“They’re planning on another location?”
“That’s the rumor. New Mexico, I think that’s what they said.”
Yoko didn’t want to draw any suspicion, so she changed the subject … for the moment. “How long have you been working here?”
“Since it opened, five years ago.” He grew sheepish. “I was on parole, and the congressman got me this job.”
“That was nice of him. Do you know him well?” Yoko asked casually.
“That’s the funny thing. Never met the guy. One day when I was meeting with my P.O., he told me there was a job opening at a new senior community and word came down that they should hire me.”
“How do you suppose they got your name? Curious.”
“Some kind of mandate, I guess.”
Or a way to keep an eye on your employees, Yoko guessed. Over the years, when the Sisters were on a mission, they learned to believe half of what you hear, and disregard the rest. At least when it came to the people they were targeting. Not a good use of a word, but applicable.
Yoko checked the clipboard that was hanging on the landscaping cart. “We need ten bags for the front, ten for the sides.” To Danny’s astonishment, Yoko picked up the forty-pound bag and slung it over her shoulder as if it were a kitchen towel.
“Holy smoke! You powerlift?”
“Me? No. Not powerlift.” Yoko did not go into detail as to how she maintained her physical strength.
“I gotta say, I’m impressed.”
Yoko lugged another bag to the cart. “Maybe this is why they hired me.” She chuckled. “I can literally carry my own weight. No pun intended.”
Danny chortled. “And you’re funny.”
Funny? Me, funny? That’s a new one. “I like to laugh, but I am usually not the funny one,” Yoko responded.
Danny looked up at the rising sun. “It’s gonna be a hot one today. And huuu-mid.” He elongated the word for emphasis.
“Florida sunshine and all the moisture one could ever want,” Yoko added, as she continued to load the cart. “You drive, since I’m not familiar with the place yet.”
“Sure thing!” Danny got behind the wheel of the Cushman utility vehicle, capable of carrying eight hundred pounds at sixteen miles per hour with a ticket price of $15,000.
Yoko thought of Annie in her souped-up golf cart. She would never stand for something that moved at that snail pace. “This is quite the rig,” she said, as she climbed into the passenger seat.
“Everything here is top-of-the-line,” Danny noted, as they passed two dump trucks parked several yards away. Yoko made a mental note to check the trucks for dents, when or if she was not under surveillance. She also noticed the excessive amount of security cameras. As the cart slowly moved to the main entrance, Yoko took mental notes of the landscape and the layout. She would be able to find her way back based on the foliage. All of this was a discussion for the group.
It took them until noon to unload and spread the topsoil and mulch. Then the two got into the much-lighter transport and headed back to the facilities building. They circumvented the large patio area, where Yoko got a glimpse of Izzie walking with another woman. Things were falling into place. Next would be the arrival of Myra.
When Danny and Yoko returned to the building, they went to the locker room to clean up for lunch. “We change into a clean uniform before we eat.”
“That might be a problem. This was the only size small.” Yoko looked down at her dirty jumpsuit. “I don’t think the next size up is going to work for me.”
