“Yeah,” Remy said, holding it up again.
“I wanted you to see the original before the probability companies started fighting over it.”
“The probability companies?”
“Yeah. We’re getting bids already.”
“Bids?”
“You know, to study the burn patterns?” Markham just kept going, as if all Remy needed was a little more information and then the whole thing would click. “Applying models of randomness and linear motion probability to the patterns in paper burns?”
“I don’t-”
“You didn’t see the story in the Times? The whole booming randomness industry… partial documentation recovery and interpretation… the old thought experiment about the drunkard’s walk?… Inevitability and random patterns, assuming unreversed trajectories and nonpreferred directionality? Applying that to burn patterns? You know.”
“No, I guess… I don’t-”
“The whole partials pedagogy… Jesus on a Fish Stick?”
Remy was afraid this would go on forever, and so he said, “Oh. Jesus on a Fish Stick. Sure. Look, do you need me to do anything with this?”
“No, I just wanted you to see it, that’s all. We got everything else handled. We’re on al-Zamil right now – should be ready to work him tonight.”
Something in Markham’s voice made Remy uneasy. “Work him?”
Markham laughed. “Would you relax. We’re following the protocols you wrote. We adopted ’em. No more sloppiness, I promise.”
“Wait. What protocols?”
Markham laughed again. “Come on, don’t test me. I swear: no more screwups.” Over the phone, Remy could hear a man saying something in Markham’s car, perhaps He’s moving. “Hey, I gotta go,” Markham said. “I’ll call you when we’re ready.”
“Wait!” Remy said, but Markham was gone. He dialed the operator again, but after a moment she came back on the phone and said that Markham was unavailable.
Remy hung up and looked down at his desk again. Had he written protocols? He tried the desk drawers but they were empty except for some blank paper, a letter opener, and a few pens. The big bottom file drawer was still locked. Remy yanked on it, then looked around the office for something to pry it open with. He tried the letter opener, but it just bent the metal blade. Wait – this was his office. Remy pulled his keys from his pocket, and separated a small one he didn’t remember having. The key turned the lock and he pulled the drawer back.
The files were alphabetized and primary color-coded under different titles, which were typed on the tabs. Some of the tabs (AGENCY, BUREAU, FLORIDA, ICEMAN) were intriguing to Remy, but he was worried about losing the moment, so he skipped ahead to the file called PROTOCOLS, and was about to open it when he saw the titles of the next two files, RECIPES, and the one that really intrigued him, near the end of the drawer, a tab marked SUBJECT A.
It could be anything.
He pulled out the file. It was thin, just two dated reports four months apart, each no more than a few short sentences. The first read, simply: “Made contact with Subject A. Continuing deep cover.” It was signed with his initials – BR. Remy read the second report, which was slightly longer:
Subject A remains reticent, possibly suspicious, could be deep grief… too early to determine if subject is concealing information… Recommendation: continued recon, deep cover and intel gathering.
Again, the document was initialed by Remy. He swallowed. This wasn’t necessarily April. Subject A could be anything.
Or anyone. He turned the report over. There was a handwritten note on the back, dated what he thought was just a few days earlier.
Took Subject A to attorney to file claim on dec. husband. Continuing to gain trust – recomm. extend cover…
Remy’s head slumped. He opened the top drawer and found a pen. He scribbled across the top of this second short report: Cancel. Then he thought better of it, balled up the two reports, and threw them in the garbage. He tossed the empty folder away, for good measure. He felt breathless. He had convinced himself that that if he just abandoned himself to this skidding, lurching life, without questioning it, things would turn out okay. Once you started down a road, what good did it do to question the road? But maybe that only worked, he thought now, if you can trust yourself in the moments between bouts of consciousness. What am I doing in those moments I don’t remember? He fell back in his chair, closed his eyes, and felt the moment leak away.
HE FOUND notes like this sometimes, notes written to himself, pointed questions on index cards that he’d unearth in his briefcase or his pocket: “What did you do today?” and “Where did you go?” But he never seemed to answer the notes, or if he did, it was such a cryptic response – a partial number or an acronym or some other obscure piece of work product – that it almost seemed like a taunt. He stared at this particular note, written in his normal block letters on the back of a business card that he found in his wallet behind his credit card. It said, simply: “Don’t Hurt Anyone.” He looked up.
A bartender was staring at him.
“Did you say something?” Remy asked.
“I just asked if you want the usual, Brian?”
“Oh. Okay.”
Don’t hurt anyone. Remy slid the card back in his wallet and looked around. It was late afternoon and he was sitting in another downtown hotel lounge. He often found himself like this in the afternoons, sitting in some hotel lounge or restaurant bar. He tried to differentiate in his mind between these lounges but they all seemed vaguely similar, like this one, and it was only when he saw their odd, one-word names on his credit card bill later – Affair and Hedge and Nine and Chain, as if the words had been chosen at random in a dictionary – that the places became different in his mind. And even though the names were all different, he couldn’t help imagining them as one lounge that changed its name and its décor every few days. All of the bartenders in these places seemed to know him intimately, and he seemed to have a usual in each place – generous pours of scotch or bourbon or gin that arrived magically on paper coasters before he even had time to take off his suit coat. He could usually get in two or three drinks before April showed up, and then they had dinner. They ate quietly, without feeling the need to chatter. He appreciated this. Sometimes she’d ask about his day and he’d say it was good, or that he couldn’t remember, or that it had simply flown by. When he asked about the real estate business, she rolled her eyes and took so long to chew the food in her mouth that he often forgot the question. At dinner, he found himself ordering the same thing whenever it appeared on the menu, duck marinated in a red wine sauce and spiced with wasabi, and since he seemed to find it at so many restaurants, he thought it must be the recipe of the moment. He’d find himself wondering how the duck tasted, and so he’d order, forgetting each time what it had tasted like the last time.
How’s the wasabi duck? April would always ask.
He’d shift the bite to the other side of his mouth. Mm. But he seemed to forget after each bite what it had tasted like.
Remy thought about April as he looked around tonight’s version of the lounge, with its high ceilings and spinning fans, its smoke-mirrored walls. He picked up the restaurant’s menu; wasabi duck marinated in red wine, never failed. Twenty-eight bucks. The hostess smiled at him as she walked past. “Hi, Brian. Meeting April tonight?”
“I sure hope so.”
The bartender reappeared. “Looks like you’re ready for another, Bri.”