Gunshy, p.2
Gunshy, page 2
"Hey, thanks." I took them, then made a snatch as a shorter, classier envelope slid free, catching it before it hit the floor.
"What's this?" I asked, putting the other letters on my desk and turning the thick, textured square over in my hands. My name was written in full cursive on the front: Jennifer Anne Pierce, it said; and Guest.
I looked up at Carly. "You getting married?"
"No such luck," she said and tapped the envelope with a square forefinger. "You're going to like this one. The Twins are throwing a party."
"The Twins are throwing a party?" I repeated in stark disbelief. "Has anyone told them it's winter ?"
Carly shrugged–a gesture that draws the eye to her most prominent features. "Read and weep," she advised, and sashayed away, Earth Mother hips swinging.
I slid my finger under the flap and opened the envelope.
The Wimsy Voice is owned by John and Jerry Talbot–Jay-Two, Tee-Two, as they are known to certain of their fond employees–who reside in sunny Phoenix, Arizona, and make three or four lightning trips to Maine every year, always during the summer. They acquired the newspaper from Barbara and Tilden Rancourt, who had never been further south than Portland until they retired, sold the paper and moved to Miami on the proceeds.
Since we were now officially embarked upon winter, the Voice should have been safe from the Twins until at least May.
You are invited, read the pretty silver script, to a Christmas party to be held at the Mill Hotel on Friday, December 15, from eight until midnight. Black tie. Open bar.
"Black tie?" I demanded incredulously and heard Carly give her trademark "Hah!" of laughter behind me.
"Don't you have a black tie, Ms. Pierce?" That was Bill Jacques. I spun my chair to face him, across the aisle and down.
"There's peyote in the tap water in Phoenix."
"Could be," Bill allowed judiciously.
"How can they think anybody's going to come to this thing?" I demanded, waving the card for emphasis. "Black tie? Most of the guys in the press room are doing well to have a tie. Period."
"They'll come all right," he said, looking at me over his half-glasses. "You get to the part about 'open bar'?"
I sighed, hard, and glared at him. "Why?"
"Now, that," said my editor, "is a home question. We'll make a reporter out of you yet."
"I'm going to win the lottery," I told him loftily. "And live a life of ease and comfort. In the Caribbean." I spun around to face my desk.
"I think it's nice," Sue Danforth said softly from my right. She had pushed close to the half-wall that separated our desks, and was looking at me seriously. "I mean, the Twins have owned this paper for almost five years and they've never made any effort to–to get to know the staff, or to–to find out what people think, how to improve things . . ." She smiled at me, nervously. "Maybe they've turned over a new leaf, you know? Decided to–take an interest."
"I guess it's possible," I said, since, theoretically, anything is.
She nodded vigorously. "I think that's it. They've decided to get more involved with us here–make a difference. And they've decided throwing a Christmas party is a good way to–to . . ." she floundered.
"To soften us up," I finished. She looked doubtful, but nodded again.
"That's right." She pushed her chair back. "I think it's a good sign," she said firmly, and stood up.
"Well, I hope you're right," I said, while privately considering a black tie affair at the swankiest establishment in town the least efficient way of softening up the Voice's staff. A pizza-and-beer party at the local sports bar, now . . .
I smiled up at Sue. "Have a good night. Say hi to Molly for me."
"I will. Thanks for taking care of that story."
"No problem."
" 'Night," she said and was gone.
Shaking my head, I began to open the rest of my mail.
*
As predicted, the Comprehensive Plan Committee's recommendations were dull as ditchwater. I dutifully took notes in between knocking back two Styrofoam cups of truck-stop coffee lightened with non-dairy powder, then went out into the frigid windy blackness of eight p.m. and got into my car.
The car is new–a replacement for the one I totaled, back in mid-October. A black Camaro, genus Z28, with the five-point-seven liter V8 engine. Electronic automatic transmission. Rear-wheel drive. Platinum-tipped spark plugs. Anti-lock brakes. Stereo CD player. Plush red bucket seats.
You'd have to work a bit to produce a stupider car for slogging through a Maine winter, and I loved it like my own child.
I pulled the seatbelt tight, turned the key, brought up the lights and rolled silently out of the dark lot. I drifted through downtown at precisely the 25-mile-an-hour limit and pulled behind the police station, slipping between two Town of Wimsy cruisers.
Ken Aube lifted a hand as I came in.
"Nice night," he offered, over the squawk of the dispatch box.
"If you like freezing wind," I agreed. "Anything new on the log?"
"Nothing much. This time of year, the town just sort of settles down to freeze." He moved his massive shoulders. "It'll get busy nearer to Christmas, New Year's. Then we'll all go to sleep again 'til spring."
Small town life. Wimsy's cop log hardly ever ran longer than a dozen events, and a murder or rape was front page news that got everyone exclaiming and excited. Far different from the paper in my home town, which had simply stopped reporting rapes: Too common; too tedious.
I went over to the dispatch station, weaving around the computer boxes that had been stacked in various not-really-out-of-the-way spots for the past three months.
I nodded to the earphoned dispatcher, who pushed the log book toward me without raising her eyes from the paperback romance she was reading.
"You got anybody to install these things yet?" I asked Ken over my shoulder, flipping log pages until I came to the pencil tick showing where Milt had stopped that afternoon.
"Matter of fact, we do," said Ken, as I wrote down that Barry Grenier had been summoned on a charge of assault. I looked over my shoulder.
"Who? If you don't mind my asking."
It would be some so-called pro out of Portland, I thought. It always was. A pro out of Portland had gotten them into this mess in the first place, ordering up a bunch of expensive network computers for the cop station–and disappearing when it came down to the nitty-gritty of actually installing the idiot things. It was my own private opinion that the computers would be found to be seconds or random fire-sale discards when opened, and not an integrated network at all. Which would be just too bad: The Town had spent a lot of money on this system, not to mention the consultant's fee.
"New guy in town," Ken was saying, taking a swig out of his Big Apple Convenience Store plastic mug. "Heard he was from Texas." He put the mug down with a sigh. "Foxwell, I think his name is."
Well, why not? I thought. The Town of Wimsy might as well pay Fox as a fraudulent pro from Portland.
"I hope he can make some sense out of it for you," I said to Ken.
He shrugged. "Don't know what we need the damn' thing for anyhow," he said. "Got along without it this long."
"Welcome to the twentieth century," I said with a grin. "The Information Highway has just put a ramp into Wimsy."
"Just what we need," Ken grunted. "More speeders."
I laughed and went back to the log, noting a High Street resident had reported a boy throwing stones at her parked car and that a woman on Spring Street had been playing her stereo too loud.
"Well," I said eventually, dutifully checking off the last entry I had noted and flipping my notebook closed. "That's that." I threaded my way through the boxes to Ken's desk and dawdled there a second until he looked up.
"Know anything about the hit-and-run up by the high school?"
He shrugged. "Not my shift."
And no scuttlebutt, I added silently. Or none that Ken was willing to share.
"OK," I said equitably. "See you later."
"Stay warm."
3
The State Police didn't have anything new on the hit-and-run and, according to the spokesman at headquarters, weren't likely to get anything new.
"That time of day, that stretch of road . . ." He paused and I could picture him shaking his head. "Unless there was somebody walking right behind her, or somebody driving the opposite direction happened to look in their mirror . . . We're still asking around. But it looks like we're going to have to get lucky." He sighed, lightly. "Sometimes we get lucky."
The hospital was even less encouraging. Angel Bolduc was still unconscious, her condition guarded. I hung the phone up and went over to lean on the half-wall behind Bill Jacques' computer. He glanced up over the rims of his glasses, fingers still pattering along his keyboard.
"The kid who was hit is in guarded condition–unconscious," I said, and my voice sounded tired in my own ears. Tired and grim. "Hospital's only giving the bare bones. You want me to call her parents?"
Bill's fingers stopped moving. He pulled his glasses off, leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest, frowning up into my face.
"What've you got?"
I shrugged. "Preliminary report Sue got this afternoon. State cops don't have anything–don't think they will have anything, unless somebody unexpected comes forward with an eyewitness report. Hospital's telling me what I just told you."
He nodded, which only meant he'd heard me, and stared off beyond my shoulder for a couple seconds.
"Send it over," he said, abruptly uncrossing his arms and resettling his glasses. "It's Sue's story. She can follow up tomorrow."
"Right."
I slid into the chair at second desk, opened "Run", added my couple lines of non-information and ran the spell-check. Then I closed the file, copied it, reformatted the copy, saved it and hit control-alt-S, the sequence that in a just world would transmit the story from Sue's computer to Bill and Carly's network.
"Coming across now," I announced to the room at large. "Run-point-Sue."
"Got it!" Carly called, then: "Down to thirty."
Another miracle of the electronic age accomplished. I shut down Sue's computer and turned out the desk lamp, then moved to my desk and did the same before going back to the cloakroom.
The parka's zipper went up easy, for a change. I stopped by Bill Jacques' computer on my way out.
"Questions on any of that?" I asked, fingering the car keys out of my pocketbook.
He shook his head without raising his eyes. "Looks clean."
"See you tomorrow."
"Good-night."
I waved to Carly, walked past Sports and Features–both dark at eleven-thirty on a wintery Tuesday night–down the hall, down the stairs and for the last time tonight, out into the cold.
*
I parked the Camaro in the barn, walked up the dark, unheated ell, pushed open the plank door and stepped into the kitchen.
Jasper the cat blinked at me from the middle of the kitchen table.
"C'mon, cat, you know the rules," I said, peeling out of the parka and hanging it on its peg. "Get down."
He did, leisurely, and sauntered over to his plate, which was empty, of course.
"Going to put you out in the barn," I told him, bending down for plate and water dish. "Going to make you catch mice for your dinner."
Jasper did not dignify this with a response. He did follow me to the counter and amuse himself by stropping against my legs while I ran water into the bowl and measured cat crunchies onto the plate, purring loudly all the while.
Jasper had been my Aunt Jen's cat and she had left him to me, along with the farmhouse, the ten acres, and the gravel pit. Harry Pelletier, who had lately taken it upon herself to instruct me in the various uses to which the resources of my land might be put, is very taken with the gravel pit. She seems to be even fonder of it than she is of the ancient grove of cedar down by the river.
"Get some money for that gravel, come winter," she'd said, along back November. "Sell a couple yards to the Town, for the roads."
Which I suppose is a reasonable enough idea, but what do I need with more money? I'm not rich, but I own my house; my job brings in enough for groceries, car payment, books, and music, with a little left over to put against that "rainy day" I devoutly hope will never come.
Besides, I don't want the Town trucks coming in, messing up my land–disturbing things. I like it fine the way it is.
"Sell some of that cedar, now," Harry'd suggested, seeing she was getting nowhere with the gravel pit. "Cedar brings a good price."
But I was a city-dweller, blood and bone, and the acres of trees I had inherited were –well, holy.
"Cut down the cedar grove?" I demanded, staring at Harry in disbelief. "For money?"
"Money's plenty useful, come to find out," she'd said, looking up at me with a squint in her eye. After a minute, she decided to placate me: "Isn't like you'd have to sell 'em all."
"Isn't like I have to sell any," I told her. "I've got a job."
She'd shrugged. "Just take a few out," she urged. "Enough to buy some of them new windows, so you won't have to be running the plastic every winter."
"The plastic works fine," I'd said, icily, but standing in my kitchen–midnight now, with the wind sobbing and the mercury hovering at five–I had to admit that the plastic didn't work as fine as all that. And this was just this beginning. It was going to get colder–a lot colder–before winter let me go.
"So you get another sweater," I told myself, carrying Jasper's food and water back to the proper place while he cavorted 'round my legs.
I straightened. Jasper gave me one more over-exuberant bump before diving into supper.
"Get some thermals," I continued talking to myself as I went across the chilly kitchen to the refrigerator. "Just like a real Mainer."
I pulled out a bottle of white wine, a block of cheese, carried them to the counter, poured, sliced, and put away. A handful of crackers went onto the cheese plate, then I gathered up my snack and headed for the hall.
"I'm going to pick up my mail," I called to Jasper. He didn't bother to answer.
Upstairs, I let myself into my room–the only room in the house that's different now then when Aunt Jen died–settled the glass and plate and flicked on my computer.
It purred to life, ran a rapid systems check and sat waiting patiently while I had a sip of wine and a nibble of cheese.
I'd hit the Net first, I thought, and collect my mail. Then I'd check in at Random Access. And then, if I was as smart as everybody seemed to think I was, I'd go to bed.
*
Mail on the Net was light: An email from Paolo in Argentina; another from Suzanne in London; the latest issue of Cyberspace Review, the tongue-in-cheek "hyper-mag" that served as gossip rag and newspaper of the virtual community. I downloaded it all for later reading and reply, decided against visiting any of the live-time salons, and logged off.
Two minutes later, my computer was dialing the seven-digit number for Random Access. A phone rang, quietly, in the depths of my machine–once, twice. On the third ring, there was a spray of static, a strung-out beee-eep as my computer and the host computer negotiated with each other, followed by a chime as the connection was made. My screen went still for a moment, then words began to appear.
Welcome
You have reached
RANDOM ACCESS BBS
A place exactly like
No place you've ever been
Your sysop is
Fox
The screen froze for perhaps half-a-minute, then another line appeared, asking for my full name and password. Dutifully, I provided these and the door to Random Access opened wide.
There was mail waiting–a note from Marian Younger asking me to pick up a copy of Programmable C for her the next time I was by the Central Processing Unit, Wimsy's home-grown computer store.
Marian will be fourteen years old on New Year's day. She's confined to a wheelchair and is fascinated by computers. For awhile, her attention seemed focused on hardware–repair and installation of the actual machine of the computer–but over the last month I've seen a shift of interest toward software–the brains that tell the machine what to do. I suspect Fox has had something to do with that.
I wrote a quick reply, telling Marian I would buy the book tomorrow and drop it off Friday after she was home from school, unless she needed it sooner. Two keystrokes mailed the note and I moved on to the main board–the Speakeasy.
Today's first message was from Skip Leterneau, a regular, though one who had heretofore been more interested in the substantial file areas than the social chit-chat of the Speakeasy. Skip had lately been reading up on a new notion in hydroelectric dams, which would utilize an air turbine and require significantly less head–fall of water–in order to work. He apparently found the concept terribly exciting and went on at length, waxing nearly poetical in the density of his technical description. I reached the end and heaved a sigh of relief.
The next message was from Lisa Gagnon. I reached for my wine and had a sip.
Lisa had reached Random Access days after her eight-month marriage had fallen messily apart, a circumstance she blamed almost entirely on having lost her job as a stitcher at the Welltread Shoe factory. Lisa had worked at the factory for five years, but during the six months prior to her firing had experienced trouble making her daily quota. She claimed her hands bothered her–fingers numb; wrists achy. Her shift boss chose to believe otherwise and Lisa was out of a job.
Shortly thereafter, her truck driver husband packed his clothes and moved out, leaving behind his wife, his ancient Tandy computer and very little else.
All, however, was not lost: The Tandy had a working modem in it. Carl, owner and chief tech at CPU, gave Lisa the number to Random Access. And Lisa was hooked.
Over the couple months she had been a regular user of the board, Lisa had regaled the rest of us with painstakingly detailed synopses of her days–days so dismal, so full of rejection and self-doubt, that I for one counted it a miracle that she hadn't simply turned her face to the wall and called it quits.
We heard how she was denied unemployment benefits because her former employer stated she'd been fired for cause. We heard about having to fill out the form for food stamps and how nice that lady had been, at least.
