Heaven Is Small (23 page)

If yesterday’s prime suspect had taken her advice and proceeded to the parking garage at the end of the workday, everything would have been a thousand times simpler. Instead, for whatever reason, the monitor showed him sitting at his desk again. This time, rather than tapping tirelessly at his keyboard, he had spent the night tapping a familiar thumb-sized plastic case, a pillbox that he had a tendency to treat as a rattle. Over and over he turned the box. At one point he had fed himself one of the small white antidepressants it contained. For the rest of the time he peered intently at it, unblinking, as if waiting for the exact moment the pill might reappear.

Today a long nail tapped the four hearts of Heaven — empty for the time being — and Lillian sat contemplating the risk factor of #1299, one Small, G., against the risk of rumour mongering from IT employee #8050 and how those rumours might affect the entire IT division, particularly — Lillian pursed her lips — employees #8036, #8039, and #8048. All of them were too questioning already, too restless, too dissatisfied, and too tactical. She knew they were looking for reasons — and methods — to unionize. Lillian placed a thin hand across her abdomen, the feeling — fear this time — rearing its head beneath her appendix. Unionization would shut the branch down immediately. Small, G., was small potatoes in comparison to that. Shorter hours, longer breaks, vacation time. With these demands achieved, she would have not one wanderer on her hands but ten thousand. The employees would realize that they deserved lives beyond what occurred at their desks.

Lillian worked her fingers around her hip and began adroitly massaging the muscles there. Heaven Corp. technology was out of date — and if she had told Head Office once she had told them a hundred times that she needed better!

“They work on beasts of computers,” she said aloud to no one. Then she turned, catching her hand in mid-massage. She took the offending hand away, glaring at it.

She turned back toward her LCD screen and its closet — it had been recently installed, but even the surveillance system had been bought at a discount and couldn’t zoom in for close-ups. She decided simply that the fruits of Small, G.’s labours between the hours of six in the evening and eight in the morning were likely not leaving the building via virtual communication. Like Heaven itself, he was the slightly out-of-date type, and although surveillance records had shown him in the Internet Division, they had also shown him with alarming frequency in the mailroom. If there was incriminating evidence to be found on employee #1299, surely it was sitting in some obvious desktop folder on his machine. All that needed to be done, then, was to physically remove his computer without giving him a moment to empty its files, and without arousing curiousity in IT about why the computer was being seized.

Lillian picked up her receiver and informed IT employee #8050 that the following morning there would be four new top-of-the-line computers for Floor Twelve.

“Yes, Heaven has received funding to conduct a temporary test of a brand-new editing software,” Lillian invented, a thin smile draping her gums. “I would like these computers installed specifically in cubicles 129 to 133.” After placing the call, Lillian dialled one of her assistant’s extensions.

“We’re experiencing some motivational problems on Floor Twelve . . . Yes, exactly, same old story,” Lillian elaborated. “I need you to do some research today into editing software . . . Yes, I realize this isn’t in your job description, but we’re being creative,” Lillian explained through gritted teeth. She oughtn’t to have explained herself at all. All she wanted was the hard drive.

“Just — just get the latest, whatever it is. Find it, pay for it, and have it ready for IT #8050 to install tomorrow morning . . .Yes, tomorrow, absolutely, regardless of cost. Order everything express. Also I need you to secure a copy of a specific Heaven title for me, one that just released this month, called
Deceptive Darling. . . .
No, first, get the software. Second, find the book. The software is priority. Well, yes, don’t you
always
use my name on the purchase order?” Then, without thinking about it, Lillian blinked. Her eyes closed and popped open again, three times in rapid succession, in an expression of exasperation, though no one was there to see. She realized what she had done only afterwards. This flummoxed her further.

When Lillian laid a finger alongside her temple a moment later, she found that the corner of her eye was inexplicably wet. She pulled the digit away and examined it. A full droplet of water clung to the ovals of her fingerprint.
Impossible.
She flicked her finger and the globule fell onto the page before her. When it landed, it made a damp mauve blotch.
Small, G.,
was scrawled along the side of the folder where the drop had found its home. Lillian’s hand darted forward jerkily, uncharacteristically, as if she had spotted a bug that needed killing. The tip of her index finger made contact with the tear that had recently left it, and when she pulled back again, her fingerprint remained, inked on the edge of Small’s file. His name, indubitably lost.

in window 12-i on lillian payne’s lcd, employee #1299 stood above his new computer. The gear hunched. Lines of dust surrounded it, marking the shape occupied by its bulky predecessor. Manos, J., hurried into the window’s edge, head swivelling, speaking above the cubicle walls so that all of the occupants could hear. Lillian crossed her arms, assessing, as the figures’ lips moved silently. Two of the women on her monitor sat down, reached out, and turned on their new machines. The third began hastily cleaning up the dust lines with the help of a tissue. Only #1299, Small, G., remained standing, motionless.

“Has IT brought them up?” Lillian questioned the mouthpiece of her telephone. The reply was not the one she wanted to hear.

The camera that surveyed the cafeteria showed that #1202, Bitz, G., was still bingeing. She had been eating peanut butter and tuna-fish sandwiches interchangeably — always preparing them ahead and wrapping them in waxed paper, then retrieving them mere minutes later — stacks of them, for almost two weeks now. She no longer retired at the end of the day, just continued to order supplies from Eden Eats, placing the orders by telephone. Restaurant-size jars of mayonnaise. Paint buckets of Jif and generic jelly. It was an awful situation, one Lillian had not encountered before. Because no damage was being done — the exception being to Bitz’s own bank account — Lillian had procrastinated on handling it. It was not priority, but it was gruesome. The short-term solution was to pull rank and get on the phone to Eden, have the employee’s food service account suspended, but in the long term . . .

As she was waiting for her assistant to check in with IT and return her call with more positive news, Lillian felt a distinct acidic pang beneath her right ovary, as if a cyst had ruptured. She placed her hand over the spot and rapped the knuckles of her other hand repeatedly against the desk, harder and harder, to absorb the pain she felt inside. It was the fear again.

“Relax,” she instructed herself, and attempted to straighten from her doubled-over stance. Eventually she was able to. Tentatively she shuffled a few steps around the outside of her office, one hand out to steady herself. Her palm trailed against the titles that packed her bookshelves tight.
Too Good to Be True, Careful What You Wish For, Kansas Casanova, Kiss TV, Miss Jitters and the Wedding Blues, Two Worlds: One Woman, Four-Alarm Man, Inspector Delectable, The PI’s Private Side, Inspector Steele-Me-a-Kiss, The Sheik Can’t Help It, Tough Tingles, The Nanny Assignment, Little Miss Yes, Naughty or Nice, Erogenous Zone #10, A Little Too Thirty for Love, Making Love in Manhattan, Make Love Not Murder, His vs. Hers, What a Girl Almost Wants, Brand New Heart, Designer Baby, The Splurging Virgin, The Wedding Impulse, New Year’s Ever After, Husband on Call, Prime Suspect: Love, The Commitment-phobe, Affection Prone, Terminally in Love, Lovesick, Intensive Care, Diagnosis: Diamond.
Each shelf had its own shade, from candy floss to cantaloupe, raspberry to ruby red to watermelon, each series with a shelf to itself, an unending line of uniform design, and each so snug against its neighbour that Lillian felt no hesitation leaning upon them as if they composed a solid wall.

“I’m fine,” she proclaimed, patting the spines of the books as if reassuring a set of old friends. “Just fine.” She squared her shoulders and let her hand drop from her belly. Inside her garnet jacket pocket was a compact. Lillian removed it and with quivering fingers snapped it open, held it to reflect her pale, pointed face. She located a tube of lipstick and reddened her lips. “All right.” She snapped the compact tight and dropped the personal items back into her pocket. Her hands smoothed down the front of her outfit. She stood tall and shook her head. “All right,” she began to say again, but the sound came out as a growl. With a single jab of that phantom pain, she felt her backside slide down the ridge of each shelf until she came into contact with her office carpeting. As she dropped she pulled a reddish surf of Heaven titles down with her.

It took a few minutes before she regained her composure. She massaged herself with both hands, and then, feeling assured the pain had passed and spying the glistening red and pink chaos around her, Lillian did something that was very uncommon to her. At first she did not process what it was, it had been so long since she had heard the sound or made the shape that produced it. When she finally did, she nodded her head ever so slightly and made it again, recognizing the revving noise as a laugh. She reached out and heartily slapped one of the paperbacks with her palm so that it made a satisfying
smack
. She picked up the title and thwacked the pile with it repeatedly.

When she stopped,
Darling Deception
was dangling from two fingertips above her creased lap.

“That
girl
—” she sputtered.

“That
assistant
—” she corrected herself.

Black flats smashed cover corners as Lillian regained her feet quickly and tramped across her own archive of titles. She reached her desk. She laid the bristling book upon it. The fear inside her had accumulated again, into a tight knot in the kidney area on the left side. She covered it with one quivering palm. Her other hand jerked the receiver to her ear. She had reached out to dial her assistant when she realized there was no dial tone. “Hello? Hello . . . Lillian Payne here.”

Lillian cocked her head and the assistant’s voice crept into her ear. “Oh, it’s you. Didn’t I ask you to locate a copy of
Darling Deception
for me?” Lillian barked. “I’ve had to do it myself.”

Lillian paused.

“I did?” she queried the receiver, her shoulders falling, her palm creeping around to her back again. “Yes, yes, I suppose I did say the new software was top priority. . . . You were calling me? Head Office? On line two?” Lillian listened to her voice rise in pitch with each question, and watched her right hand shake as her finger plunged toward the lit button on the telephone.

The sentences that tumbled out of Lillian Payne’s mouth sounded to her professional ears like those of a nervous intern. “Of course, of course. I have the folders on my desk. I haven’t interviewed them all, but as many as I could possibly get through in one day. Warnings have been issued, and — We will soon —

“Yes, I have read the book,” Lillian lied, clamping her lips tightly together after the words had left them.

At that moment the door to her office was flung forcibly open, knocking against the door jamb as a ponytailed IT man, #8050, began unloading computers from a long dolly. Behind him the apologetic face of Lillian’s assistant bobbed.

“I’ve begun a search —” Lillian covered the telephone receiver and mouthed,
Leave them
. Her shooing failed.

Number 8050 tapped the dolly, his ring finger knocking against it with a
tink, tink
of gold band on metal. He had no intention of leaving the whole cart; he wanted the dolly. Lillian put a finger to her lips and he began swinging towers and monitors onto the carpet. The machinery rattled, stray plastic mice and keyboards skittered — unloaded less gently, they twisted on their cords and fell, clattering. The dolly screeched as it exited, particularly as it made the drop from Lillian’s plush carpet into the reception area.

“Yes,” she said with firmness, attempting to inject into the single word the calm of any ordinary task, the simplicity of tomato selecting in a grocery. “Yes. The background noise you hear is the arrival of the computers. Some of the suspects. My assistant is just setting them up now.”

The wide-eyed assistant skulked from the doorway warily, as if by simply entering the office she might become culpable in whatever discussion was occurring. With adolescent gawkiness the girl eyed the computers but did not bend to move any of them or begin plug sorting.

Lillian’s hand revolved, an imaginary kite-string collector.
Hurry.
“Yes,” she said again. “Absolutely. I agree that the incident has reached the stage where we must take action. I’d only been waiting for word from you. I haven’t the slightest idea how this could have occurred, but if it did originate from someone specific within our branch — and the key word there, I think, is
if
—”

A hard-drive tower plunked upon Lillian’s desk. The assistant disappeared beneath the desk in search of a socket.

“I understand the risks to profits and to the company at large . . .” Lillian cleared her throat and straightened her shoulders, feeling her sense of power return once again.

Her own terminal went dead.

“There is no way we will allow the author to contact Chloe Gold, her agent, or . . .”

A power cord untangled.

“. . . any other publishing agent.”

The drive of Small, G., began to boot across the face of Lillian’s monitor.

“I understand how damaging a romance that ends in suicide could be for our reputation as a company, particularly now that it has hit the public consciousness and gained such notoriety — and I as much as anyone had hoped it would not. As far as the situation at this branch is concerned, I —”