Dallas gathered up the book bag. “It was good seeing you, Mom.”
She nodded and went back inside without another word. He wasn’t sure that bridge was burned, but he decided not to push it. He checked the book bag. A change of clothes, some fruit and a sandwich, and an envelope with $40 in small bills. He felt rich beyond expectations. Dallas inhaled the food, hoisted the bag strap over his shoulder, and headed down the sidewalk to the bus stop, feeling weirdly expectant. The first thing he intended to ask those Limbus people was how they did that thing with the card.
Dallas found the Limbus office without much trouble. It was on the second floor, down a very long hallway.
The company name was on a small plaque beside the door. He turned the knob and found himself in a waiting room that looked more like his dentist’s office than an employment agency. Institutional green paint, uncomfortable vinyl sofa along one wall, matching side chairs on opposite walls, an old-fashioned umbrella stand and coat rack beside the door. To his right, the built-in reception window allowed a glimpse of file cabinets, fax machines, and printers crowded into a small workroom. He went to the window, but saw no one. No business cards or company brochures on the narrow ledge under the window. No bell to ring to call anyone. An open hallway directly across from the door he’d come through revealed gray carpeting and rows of cubicles on either side, filled, he supposed, with workers hiring people like himself into jobs they could live on. The only flaw in this assumption was the utter stillness of the office — no voices, no phones ringing, no keyboard clatter.
He walked over to the sofa and took a quick look at the dozen or so books and magazines scatted over a low table. Brane Theory for Dummies. The Zoltron Dynasty Then and Now. Body Templates Catalog. Offworld Travel Tips. The hairs along the back of his neck prickled. He should walk away now and forget he’d ever heard of Limbus Employment Agency.
Turning, Dallas stared at the company sign affixed to the wall over the reception window. There was the turning globe, with its little pinpoints of light pulsing on every continent. The slogan below it read simply, We employ. Without a doubt, this company had the dumbest motivational slogans of anything he’d ever seen. They needed to fire their copywriter.
This was looking less and less like anything he wanted in on. He turned to leave when a short, squat man stepped out of the first cube in the row. With bald head and bulbous features and practically no neck, he looked to Dallas like a toad in an ill-fitting suit.
“Hello, I am Recruiter Rigel.” He beckoned to Dallas. “Please come have a seat.” He motioned toward two folding chairs in front of his desk.
Dallas entered the cube, still fighting the urge to bolt for the door. “Is there some company literature I could have a look at?”
Rigel sat down. “Literature?”
“Don’t you have any brochures? Every employment agency has brochures.”
“Did you want a job or not?”
“Well, yeah, why else would I be here?”
“We have one. Tailored for you.” Recruiter Rigel opened the central drawer of his desk and extracted a sheet of paper, an official looking document with very fine print, and pushed it toward him.
“Don’t you want me to fill out some kind of application? How can you tell if I’m suited to a job if you don’t even know anything about me?”
“This one was pre-selected for you. Please read it over carefully.”
Exasperated, Dallas snatched up the page. It looked like an ordinary job description, with sections labeled Tasks, Qualifications, Duration of Work, and Compensation. He started reading the bullets under the headers. It was at that point all similarity between any previous job description he’d ever seen and this one took a sharp detour.
The job title was Dog Walker. He scanned the Qualifications column:
Must like dogs
Must be nondescript and not stand out in a crowd
Must have a good sense of direction
Must be dependable and resourceful in life-threatening situations
Dallas snorted. Who were they kidding? And what kind of effing dog were they talking about here? He imagined a bloody-fanged junkyard mastiff with red glowing eyes.
"It’s a temp job, but the pay's high. They’ve had trouble keeping someone," Rigel was saying.
Dallas looked at the really fine print at the bottom of the page. “What’s this about a bonus?”
“If you complete the job successfully by the deadline, which you’ll notice is not far off, you will have earned a bonus.”
Dallas mulled this over. “How much?”
“That’s for you and the recruiter to decide.”
Dallas glared at Rigel. “I don’t see how you can run a business this way.”
“I don’t run the business. I am merely a recruiter.” Rigel tapped his badge. It said RECRUITER in bright red letters.
Dallas ground his teeth. “I can see that.” He consulted the Job Description again. That was a lot of money just to walk somebody’s dog around the block for ten days. He checked the end date of the contract. Just like the card had said, May 31st. “I’ll do it.”
Rigel took a pen from the desk drawer and handed it to Dallas. “Sign your name, there at the bottom. Today’s date is May 21.”
Dallas wrote his name and dated it. He handed the page back to Rigel. “Don’t I get a copy of it, for my files?” As if he had any such thing, but one should ask, shouldn’t one?
“Why would you need a copy?”
“Well, in case I had questions, you know, about the job. Like how to find the freaking place with the dog.” He’d given up being polite. This was clearly a fly-by-night operation and as soon as he got an actual payment from the owner of the dog, he was hitting the road.
“The address of the contractor is on the card,” Rigel said with a trace of contempt, as if Dallas truly deserved his status of college dropout.
Dallas pulled the Limbus card out of his pocket and indeed, the contractor’s name and address appeared in the spot where the spurious slogan had been entertaining itself. Her name was Marilyn Fairbanks and she lived at an address in Coconut Grove.
“I still want a copy.”
The recruiter got to his feet, took the signed contract, and walked around his desk and out into the hall, presumably heading for the tiny workroom Dallas had glimpsed from the reception window. He heard a copier warming up and, eventually, its gears grinding.
Rigel returned and took his seat at the desk. He put the original contract in the middle drawer and handed the copy to Dallas with a look that telegraphed every ounce of how much trouble it had cost him to make that unnecessary copy. Rigel straightened his too-tight jacket across his shoulders. “This is a new client, so try not to embarrass us.” He looked doubtful.
Infuriated, Dallas pushed back his chair and stood up. “I may be a failed academic, but you have no idea of the excellence with which I will be able to walk this dog.” He assumed irony was lost on this toad, but he couldn’t stop it from slipping out the side of his mouth.
Rigel’s expression revealed nothing. “Just try to complete the task before the expiration date.”
Dallas caught the Metro line to The Grove and walked to Marilyn’s address. He’d seen trendy places like this smallish but cool apartment complex where upwardly mobile singles gravitated. That gave him hope that Ms. Fairbanks was at least good for the promised compensation. People who lived in places like this were hip, mostly in their twenties and thirties, stylish. educated. Dallas banished the bile that threatened his meager lunch and focused instead on the contract fee. Two thousand dollars for ten days’ work came out to what… two hundred dollars a day for simple dog walking? There had to be a catch, but he intended to get his hands on the money before whatever it was kicked in.