“Sure thing,” Domino said with a small shrug, tucking the gun under his waistband and buttoning his coat to hide it. “Anything else?”
“No.” Domino turned to go but Copal said, “Yeah, wait. There is something. Get a padlock for your message tube.” He pointed at his own to show what he meant. “Some of the ‘competitive’ agents take cases assigned to others when their backs are turned.” Copal ground his teeth and said, “It’s against policy, but the company overlooks it most of the time because it helps keep cases moving. If that happens to you, we’re screwed.”
“Then maybe you need to take ownership of that policy,” Domino suggested. “But I’ll pick up a lock on my way back to the office.” He remembered something before he could move to leave again. “I wanted to ask you something. Is you’re secretary always so pleasant?”
Copal laughed. “Yeah, Eva’s got a chip on her shoulder, all right. But she does her job OK. Why?”
“No reason, really. I just thought maybe I should try to, uh, cool her down.”
“I don’t think you’d have much luck. Calavera’s more her type.”
“That so?” Domino shrugged. “Doesn’t matter, I suppose.”
Domino took care of the day’s business, and clients, and got back to the office in the middle of the afternoon. He saw that the file cabinets had been emptied while he was gone. He put his special papers in the back of a bottom drawer and shook his head. He wished he could get rid of them, or keep them in his apartment, but he needed them close to work. And he needed that new computer if he was going to cover his tracks and still have access to what he needed. He wasn’t going to take Copal’s slob approach.
He spent the rest of the afternoon getting familiar with the office. Calavera had been right in saying that the others would resent him. Or maybe the stunted little half-wit had put the idea into everyone’s heads himself. Domino had heard that he was supposed to be one of the company’s best agents, but Domino found that hard to believe. Calavera seemed to spend more time orbiting Eva than doing his job. It looked like Copal was right about her taste in men. The way they sniped at each other, they might even be married.
That night Domino went out to a new nightclub Hector had half-interest in. It was a pretty swanky place with a good bar and cocktail waitresses with legs from here to Judgment Day. Domino was starting to really enjoy himself when he thought he heard an all-too-familiar screech. He looked around and saw Manny and Eva at a nearby table. Domino felt his good mood evaporate a little, but he got up and went over to be friendly, always ready to give people a second chance. Just because they got off badly at the office, he figured, was no reason they couldn’t get along now. He was wrong. Eva, although cranky, was reasonably quiet, but Calavera chose to be a complete dick. Domino realized then that those two were a waste of his time, so he left them to spit their venom at each other.
In the following days the other agents continued to cold-shoulder Domino. He knew then for certain that Calavera had turned them against him. He could have tolerated that, but one of them went too far. He kept getting into Domino’s face about Lana, even though she got herself shredded through no fault of his before he’d even heard about her. When Domino pointed that fact out to the little prick, he jumped him. Domino came close to turning him into kindling for that, and soon after the kid slunk out of town like a whipped puppy. Which was just fine by Copal. The fewer agents he had, the more cases he could send to Domino, and Hector wanted him to process as many Double-Ns as possible. So Copal didn’t bother asking for a replacement, and had the agent’s office converted into a storeroom.
Copal and Hector were satisfied with the way things were turning out, but Domino wasn’t. Figuring that the kid hadn’t picked that fight all on his own, Domino decided that he’d taken all the shit from Calavera that he was going to. So he pitched an idea to Hector. He said it was too great a risk to have a big shot like Calavera in the same office with him. He had to be gotten rid of before he could get wise. Personally, he said, he’d prefer to just sprout the miserable little greaser and be done with it. But maybe Copal’s ‘subtle’ approach would be better. So, instead of Copal diverting cases from all his agents evenly, he could take as many as possible from just Calavera—shunting all ‘good’ cases (not just Double-Ns) to Domino, and giving Calavera all the ‘bad’ ones. With any luck, Calavera would soon be running out of town as fast as his stunted legs would carry him. That seemed to be the way the agents in the office dealt with their frustrations. The idea sounded good to Hector, and so Calavera’s career quickly began its slide into a bottomless pit of well-earned failure.
Domino enjoyed watching Calavera’s slowly-dawning realization that he wasn’t the DOD’s golden boy anymore. Calavera also seemed to realize somehow that Domino was behind it. At least, his resentment of Domino seemed to grow. But that was all right. No matter what Calavera suspected, he wouldn’t be able to pin anything on Domino.
At the office Christmas party, Calavera got tight as a drum early on and managed to get even more in the bag as time wore on. Then he started a loud, nearly incoherent rant about Domino’s unbelievable luck. Or maybe it was about solar power. There was some debate afterwards about what exactly he had been saying. Eva tried to maneuver him out, but he was nearly liquid by then and easily slipped away from her. He sloshed up to Domino and slurred something incomprehensible. It might have been a question. When Domino didn’t respond, other than to look amused, Calavera clearly said “Well?” and sounded very angry. Domino gave an exaggerated, weary sigh and turned to put his drink down. When he turned again, Calavera was drawing back his right arm as if readying for a punch. But instead of taking a swing at Domino, he toppled over backwards… passed out. Eva and a couple other friends carried him away.
Domino loved every second of it. He figured he’d seen the last of Manny Calavera, but the next day he was back in the office with an atomic hangover and no memory of the previous evening. Domino decided he needed a bigger push, so he began lobbying Copal for Calavera’s office. At first Copal resisted, not wanting to deal with that kind of a hassle. And it wasn’t as if Domino’s office was any worse than Calavera’s. But not long after Domino began his campaign for the switch, Copal started to get pressure from downtown to replace the reaper Domino had thrashed. In the end, Domino got what he wanted. The new agent was put in Domino’s old office and the storeroom was reconverted into an office for Calavera. But despite this humiliation, one he couldn’t black out on, he still showed no sign of skipping town.
However, Domino felt he had come out ahead. Along with his new office, he finally got a new computer. He scanned all his sensitive documents and encrypted the digital copies. He decided against destroying the documents—he couldn’t destroy the deed to the island in any case—and moved them to a safe deposit box in El Marrow’s largest bank. Finally, he could ‘breathe’ easy.
Months went by, and Calavera still gave no indication that he was going to run away from his troubles. Domino resigned himself to the possibility that he never would, telling himself that Calavera was now so demoralized that it hardly mattered any more whether he stayed or went.
One day, the Day of the Dead in fact, Domino was reading the paper in his office. He had more than met his official sales quotas, so he could have taken the day off like most, but he preferred to stay on top of the game even if it was going to be a slow day. He was reading the obituaries, which serve as birth notices in the Land of the Dead. Domino hoped someday to spot old associates he thought might be useful in the racket. Next to where his feet rested on his desk lay a half-crumpled memo from Copal about a poisoning. Domino saw no reason to go scrambling for cases when the best were handed to him on a platter.