“Not exactly,” said Kossweiller.
“Not exactly?” asked Bubber, his eyes lighting up slightly. “What do you mean by that?”
“Ninety over ninety,” he said, and explained.
“Did it say ‘Love from B’? That’s my doll,” said Bubber, smiling. “I send him one from time to time, just to keep him on his toes. It’s good to know this one actually was put to good use. What’s your ninety over ninety?”
Kossweiller explained. “Four months already,” he said. “Two dozen names, then I’m free.”
Bubber let go of his arm. “You won’t be free,” he said. “I know Darbo. He’ll twist the knife. He’ll figure some way to make it hurt more than you think.”
“It hurts plenty this way,” said Kossweiller, and felt very depressed.
“It’ll hurt more,” said Bubber.
Bubber, he knew, was right: Cinchy, boss of the people, was endowed with an almost unabatable reservoir of sadism. Cinchy would let him go, perhaps would let him quit, but he would never be free.
“What do I do?” Kossweiller asked.
“There’s nothing to do, Koss,” Bubber said. “Just survive it best you can.”
They sat for a moment mulling this over, Kossweiller moving his teacup around slightly so that the liquid swished in the cup. “I should go,” he finally said.
“There’s something you should see first,” said Bubber.
He took both teacups and shambled to the sink. He dumped and rinsed them, turned them upside down on the counter. He opened a cookie jar and removed from it a key on the end of a string. Taking Kossweiller by the arm, he led him down the hall, past a bedroom to a padlocked door.
“My workroom,” said Bubber, as, one-handed, he worked the padlock open.
The room inside was windowless, dark. Bubber drew him in, still keeping hold of his arm. “Ready?” he said, and flicked on the lights.
Before them, on a makeshift shelf running the whole length of the wall, were a series of handmade dolls, just like the one Kossweiler had seen in Cinchy’s office, except in this case, they were stacked in twos, one doll affixed to another doll’s shoulders.
“Ninety over ninety,” said Kossweiller.
“Actually right now just eighty-five over eighty-five, but nearly there. Maybe that’s some consolation. Cinchy won’t know what hit him.”
“It may kill him.”
“We can always hope,” said Bubber.
A month later, by cutting a few corners, Kossweiller had hit his own ninety over ninety. He had several hundred manuscript pages, all of them terrible — even the recipes led to practically inedible food — but it was there. Setting his teeth, he took the typescript to Cinchy.
“Karswelder,” Cinchy said. “Back so soon? Can your servitude be over? All there?” Cinchy said. “All ninety of them, and all of them over age ninety?”
“Yes,” said Kossweiller. “It’s done.”
“Seems as though you’ve done it,” said Cinchy. “Seems you’re free to go.”
Kossweiller headed toward the door, then stopped. “That’s it?” he said. “That’s the end?”
“What else would there be?”
“You’re not going to double-check?”
“Why should I double-check, Karse? I trust you.”
“You’re not going to burn the manuscript or humiliate me in some other way?”
“Karse, Karse,” said Cinchy. “Trust me. The last thing I want to do is get rid of all the hard work you did. Just the opposite, my friend.”
Kossweiller nodded. He left Cinchy’s office and started down the hall to his own office. Halfway there, he stopped, turned back.
“What do you mean ‘just the opposite’?” he asked from Cinchy’s door.
“Hmmm? You again, Koss?” said Cinchy, looking up from his desk. “Just what it sounded like. I’m going to publish the fucker.”
“Really?”
“Of course. And to show my appreciation, I’ll make sure that ‘Edited by Philip Kossweiller’ appears on both cover and spine. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if your name wasn’t in larger print than anything else. Back copy something like ‘Esteemed literary editor Philip Kossweiller’s personal choices for what’s best in literature for the older set,’ along with talk of a ‘personal quest,’ and whatnot. I’ll make sure that it gets reviewed everywhere. And I’ll save it for release until just the right moment.”
“You wouldn’t,” said Kossweiller.
“I would,” said Cinchy. “No dolls, Kossweiller!” he said, shouting now. “Never dolls! You should have remembered that.”
Dazed, Kossweiller retreated. It was true, he thought. Cinchy had twisted the knife, and what was worse was it was a knife Kossweiller himself had given him.
He slowly made his way back to his office. Anders was there outside, fiddling with the change in his pockets.
“I hear you’re leaving us, Koss,” he said. “Sorry to see you go.”
“You know already?”
“Word gets around,” he said. “That and Cinchy called to give me the Verenson series. That doesn’t upset you, does it?”
“No,” said Kossweiller, “you’re welcome to it.”
Anders, perhaps feeling sentimental, perhaps trying only to put on a good front, attempted and bungled a hug, then left. Kossweiller found a box, began to pack up his desk. Cinchy, he knew, would wait until the worst possible moment to release the book, probably timing it to coincide with En Masse, if Kossweiller could ever find somewhere to publish it.
But, he thought, there was something he could do in the meantime.
He opened the bottom drawer and took out the doll. True, he had promised to burn the box, but Cinchy hadn’t said anything about the doll. Technically, he had kept his promise.
He unpinned the note, “Love from B,” and wrote on the doll’s chest with permanent marker, 90/90. Then, hiding the doll in a #6 envelope, he carried it down the hall and knocked on Cinchy’s door.
The door was open but Cinchy had stepped out. Am I the kind of person who does this? he wondered. And then thought, I have become the kind of person who does this. In a way, he told himself, it was a kindness, a first shock before Bubber’s larger, grimmer surprise, a warning to get ready. But he knew that this was not why he was doing it.
He set the doll up on the desk against a paperweight. It sat there limply, staring blindly at the door.
His desk was completely packed and he was already on the way to the elevator when he heard the scream. Despite himself, despite considering himself a literary man, he could not help but take great pleasure in the sound.
Invisible Box
In retrospect, it was easy for her to see it had been a mistake to have sex with a mime. At the time, though, she had been drunk enough that it seemed like a good idea. Sure, she had been a little surprised, once she had coaxed him upstairs, when he refused to speak, and even more surprised by his refusal to wipe off his face paint or shuck his beret, but, whatever, so what: it would give her a story to tell at parties.
But, ever since, she’d had trouble sleeping. She could manage a fitful hour but then woke up, imagining him there again above her, naked save for his face paint and beret and white gloves. She watched as, straddling her, he carefully felt out an invisible box around them. He kept making gestures to remind her about the box, feeling it out again, steadying her as she approached one imaginary edge, running his flattened palms along the box’s ceiling just before penetrating her. It was a hell of a thing, at once funny and deeply disturbing, and distracting as hell.
When he was coming, pretending to cry out silently, she suddenly realized this was not a story she could bring herself to tell at parties. Mostly passed out, she lazily watched him lift the imaginary box off of them, get up and get dressed, then lift the box back in place, over her. She drifted off feeling it there around her, edges softly gleaming, holding her in.