Razor Burnby O. J. Anderson |
Table of Contents Chapter 4 Chapter 6 appear in this issue. |
| Chapter 5 |
The sign by the north gate of the compound reads:
Bikharmer Pharmaceuticals
Garden City Headquarters
Established 1907
The office is large and luxurious, with soft leather furniture, a bar, Tiffany lamps. Behind the large mahogany desk sleeps the august bellwether of the company, Erskine Bikharmer. Snoring. Drool runs from the corner of his mouth onto the green leather blotter.
In his dream he is skipping through golden fields of barley and basking in the sun’s warm embrace. He stops at a creek where the water is cool and fresh. He drinks. From there it is only a hop, skip, and jump to the cabin. Inside is a rugged woman all rigged up in leatherwear and six-inch stainless steel heels. She is busy sucking down a Pall Mall 100 when she sees him frozen in the doorway. Quickly the woman stubs out the butt and picks up a paddle the size of a yacht’s rudder. She asks him, “Are you ready for your spanking?”
He mumbles, “I am ready.”
Delores, his secretary, enters the office and sees him sleeping. “Mr. Bikharmer? Excuse me, Mr. Bikharmer?”
But he doesn’t awaken. He’s always doing this. How can a man be so tired all the time? What does he do all night? Louder, she says, “Mr. Bikharmer!”
Erskine is startled awake. His head rises from the desk with erasure shavings and a paper clip stuck to his cheek. “Huh?” A sucking noise: shloooop!
“Mr. Bikharmer.”
“What? What’s going on here?”
“You were napping, Mr. Bikharmer.”
“No. Not napping. I was just thinking how the lightness of being really is unbearable.”
“Are you sure, Mr. Bikharmer? Because you were...”
Erskine wipes the dried drool and erasure shavings from his cheek. “What can I do for you, Delores?”
“Mr. Rheinhardt called and wanted to know why his office is unable to process files using the new L-net data management system on all existing accounts.”
She might as well have said it in an obscure dialect of Cantonese because Erskine Bikharmer has absolutely no idea what she is talking about. He says:
“Okay...”
“Well, sir, the new DM system isn’t going to work on existing D-log and SFO accounts until the beginning of next month. Only on the new accounts. He still needs to process using the existing PAC-C Plus system until the final update on the secure L-NET formatting, and that’ll take another two weeks. That means all Resource and ChemTECH docs still need to be hand delivered to the control office.”
“I see,” Erskine says, thinking: Well why didn’t you just tell him that then? He stands to exercise his authority. Tucks his shirt in a little bit. “Delores, I want you to call Jack and tell him everything you just told me.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Thank you, Delores.”
Delores turns to leave, but stops short of the door. “And Mr. Bikharmer, don’t forget your lunch meeting today at noon.”
* * *
Mary Curtis lives in a relatively quiet part of the city. Razor parks in front of her building and walks inside. Second floor. Apartment 7. He knocks lightly.
The door opens three inches and the face of Mary appears above the security chain.
“Mary Curtis?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m Berney Razor with the Garden City Police Department. May I ask you a few questions?”
Mary’s eyes jump from his face down to several points on his inflated body. Back up to his hard face. Jaw like a combat boot. Back down again, scanning the outline of his abdominal section through the T-shirt. There’s an all-you-can-handle buffet of man meat standing in the hallway and Mary can’t help but keep going back for more. Eventually, she says: “Um...okay.”
She closes the door. The sound of the security chain being undone. The door opens wide. Mary stands aside allowing the big man to enter.
“Thank you,” he says.
The apartment is neat and clean, but old; several of the furnishings are worn with holes. The wallpaper is browning. From the small kitchenette to the left comes the smell of baked beans. On the countertop, Razor can see an open package of hot dogs.
“Can I get you some coffee or...?”
“No thanks. I’ve got purified water in the truck.”
“Oh. Okay.”
Razor puts her in her late twenties. She is thin with long, blonde hair that hangs straight down. She is wearing sweat pants and a white T-shirt. She seems nervous, maybe aroused; her hands rub together like she’s trying to wipe off a pair of gloves. Three-inch scar on left forearm. Distant eyes, like she stayed too long in a stare down with the devil. Got a little grit in her aura, some funky vibes in her chi force. This one’s spent some time on the hairy side, he thinks. Razor tries to calm her with a smile.
“Why don’t we sit,” she says.
Razor turns the corner into the living room and sees a small boy sitting on the floor playing with toys. He stops, turns to stone. The boy stares at him; he stares at the boy; neither move. Razor asks, “Who’s that?”
Mary smiles and says, “That’s my Ben.”
“Does he have to keep doing that?”
“What?”
“Looking at me.”
A few quick steps across the room, Mary picks up the child. Razor slowly moves to the chair and sits, never taking his eyes off the boy. He removes the pen and notepad from his pocket.
On the small black and white TV is a talk show. The host is finishing an interview with author Jackie Wallace. The host says, “Again, the title of the book is How to Get — and Keep — a Man, by Jackie Wallace. And I should also mention that Windows Publishing is owned by our parent company, Thore. Thanks again for being with us, Jackie.”
“Thanks for having me.”
Razor wipes a bit off perspiration from his forehead. “So, when was the last time you saw Tod?”
“About two and a half years ago. Right after I told him I was pregnant.”
“Really. So, he never...” Razor points to the child.
“No. He took off a few weeks after I told him. Said he wasn’t ready for all this. Said it was too much too fast. He needed time to work on himself for a while.”
“Time to work on himself?”
“Like he was gonna come back all new and improved or whatever.”
“And how long had you been married at the time?”
“Less than a year.”
“During that time were you aware of any illegal drug use? Any strange behavior, disreputable associations, late-night activities, things of that nature? Anything that gave you concern?”
Biting her lip, Mary looks away. “Well, the truth is that we were both kinda wild a few years back. Doing all sorts of things we probably shouldn’t have been doing. That’s how we ended up getting married. One night we decided to go get hitched just for something to do. We were high. We didn’t have a wedding or nothing. One of Tod’s friends had a license. He did it to make a few bucks on weekends. And that’s what we did, went over and got married one night. It was... we did all kinds of stupid things back then. I don’t know.”
“Zanobarbitol?”
“Sure. That and booze. A lot of booze. Sometimes we’d do some pinkeye of flip if we had the cash, but Tod liked vodka and Z-ball. He used to crush it up and mix it.”
“You stopped when you found out you were pregnant?”
“Of course. Right away. I was getting tired of the whole scene anyway. Oh yeah, I didn’t think I could’ve taken much more even if I’d wanted to. It was exhausting.”
“But not Tod.”
“No, not Tod. He was still going strong.”
“Were you living here when he left?”
“No. We had a place over on Bointon, by the park. If you can call it that. I moved here right before Ben was born.”
“It seems quiet.”
“I know, right. You only hear gunshots at night. My parents only live a few blocks away. They helped me get the place.”
“And they help to raise the child?”
“Ben.”
“Right.”
“Yeah. Ben stays with them at night when I’m working.”
“My guess is that they weren’t too disappointed to hear about Tod’s departure.”
“You mean...”
“When he left you.”
“Oh, right. No they were pretty happy about that.”
“Do they know that he is currently deceased?”
“No. I only found out myself a few hours ago. I’m still...”
“Right. I know.” Razor jots a few things down. “Did Tod know you’d moved?”
“I don’t know. I left the new address with the landlord, but I don’t know if he would’ve bothered to actually give it to anyone. I doubt Tod ever came looking for us anyway. He wanted to escape.”
“Usually, in cases like these, the person goes back to familiar places looking for money, a place to stay for a few nights, things they can sell. Were there any friends? Did you ever get word of his whereabouts? Anything like that?”
Mary shakes her head. “Nothing. Like I said, I was done with that whole life. After I moved here I had no contact with anyone. I thought Tod left the city. I had no idea he was over on that side of town. He was probably so bent on Z-ball he couldn’t remember where he came from. He always had a way of overdoing anything.”
“So this comes as no surprise to you then?”
“No, not at all.”
Razor looks up from the note pad and sees the child staring at him again. “Um,” he says, “I’m going to need the name of your dealer. Then I can get out of...I can leave you folks alone.”
She thinks about it. “Ricky. Ricky something. But everyone called him Cyborg.”
“Cyborg?”
“Yeah. He never swings his arms when he walks.”
“And do you happen to know where I might find this Cyborg?”
“Not really. Try the clubs. That’s where he always was. That’s where the kids with money go to score.”
Copyright © 2006 by O. J. Anderson
