The Tolerance Wars - 19
lift-and-push
upper and lowercase
begin at the beginning—Chapter 1
The Tolerance Wars
19.
lift-and-push
“I don’t know why I even went to look for it.”
We were walking. Early afternoon sun, not too hot, last night’s humidity pretty much gone. Though you wouldn’t be surprised if there was more coming again in the evening. I’d watched the morning parade on my own, failed to make sense of anything that had happened last night, wondered if some homemade toast and another coffee would help, it didn’t, felt the sun move a little past halfway, scraped the crumbs into the sink, grabbed the keys and a light jacket in case we were still out later, tumbled down the stairs and out the door, turned and locked it. And there she was coming around the corner heading my way. Which was the sound of me getting into orbit with someone. Usually a good thing.
We passed on brunch and headed out to the park, falling naturally into moving together. It would be easy to get used to this. If there was an after. Right now we were walking. And she was telling me how her night had ended.
“I hadn’t been thinking about it specifically. Not since our conversation with Tony. I was still wondering about the end of the night, how we’d maybe stumbled into someone’s game of chicken. I found myself standing in front of my bedroom dresser. And just happened to look down. One of the top drawers was slightly open. For some reason that caught my attention. It sticks slightly. So I usually give it a little lift-and-push to finish closing it. And once I start the habit of a physical move like that I tend to continue it. My experience suggests that if I don’t I’m either distracted or quite possibly coming down with something. So I keep a loose track of moves like that. As a general indication of how I’m doing. I gave the drawer a lift-and-push, thinking of several things that have been a distraction lately. Then, for no particular reason, I opened the drawer.” She shook her head at the memory. “Gone.”
When she’d called last night we’d covered the obvious. No, she wasn’t going to call the police, mostly because then she’d have to explain what was missing. No, she didn’t feel she was in danger of any kind, at least no more than usual. Lately. And no, she didn’t need me to come over. She just needed to say it out loud to someone. If only to convince herself that it had really happened.
Which was probably why she was saying it again now. “Why would anyone steal something so useless?”
In conversations like this with other people I’d long ago understood that it wasn’t my job to try and fix things. Maybe ask a question here and there, if I thought one of us wasn’t too clear about something. And frankly I was still back at anyone even possibly choosing to keep The Hat of Awesomeness in a sock drawer. When clearly one would expect it to go in with accessories.
But I found myself saying out loud, without really meaning to, “Maybe it’s not useless. To them.”
I could see that made her pause in mid thought. Still walking. But realising she had quite possibly committed the smart-person error. The main one anyway. “Ah.” Which I’d come to learn was the sound of her having truly clicked a new understanding into place. Then she tried it on for size. “Who on earth would think it would be useful?”
Which really wasn’t a question I could answer. Although, “I suppose you could start by asking what someone could use a Hair—”
“—it’s a Hat.”
“Glad that’s settled.” I continued, “—by asking what someone could use it for. Which might suggest who would want it.” I looked over at her as we continued walking. “Maybe?” No sense of big revelation, just using the same set of problem-solving tools you’d bring to a studio setting. Why is this complex chain of gear not working? Dunno. Start with the basics. Is it all plugged in? In the proper order? With power? And switched on? It was somehow heartening that my friend didn’t have a problem with sometimes using that approach. Honestly it made me uncomfortable to work with anyone who was going to be insulted when asked to please perform a check of the basics we’d maybe breezed through earlier. While, by the way, I would also do the same myself on my end. It was mostly amateurs and part-timers. And their ‘of course I plugged it in’ ego would be the death of me. Maybe literally if two-twenty was involved. Which was why I tended to check high-voltage connections myself. As did most professionals I knew. Reviewing the basics gets you not-killed.
I could tell she was rolling the thought around. Separate from what it was designed for, what did it do? Or maybe better, in addition to why it was made, how might it be useful? Not always easy to get yourself out of your settled way of understanding. Not comfortable, either. I waited, making it clear that I was paying attention. That there was no hurry here. In most creative activities new thoughts always came out first in words and short phrases. We’d make the thoughts beautiful later. Finally, she said, “A feeling…” We walked on a bit further. Then, “A symbol…” She looked over at me. Not so much asking for help. No, I recognized this look from when I was recording Tony. Mostly about confirming that her thoughts might be taking her in a useful direction. I said nothing. Only nodded that these were maybe good words. Helpful words. Then suddenly she stopped walking. Not expecting it, I found myself a half-step ahead of her. Without thinking I turned around slightly. We ended up facing one another on the sidewalk. Gentle wind in the trees on the boulevard. Rise and fall of afternoon cicadas, traffic in the distance. Not moving. Deep brown eyes looking straight at me.
“They think it works.”
“Well, it does… doesn’t it?” I could’ve sworn she’d said it worked. Or at least that it did… something. That she had set out to prove.
“I made it. And it does what it was designed to do. And the effect it has suggests that we appear to be hard-wired to believe in something… greater than ourselves.”
“So someone out there thinks your Hat proves god exists? Wouldn’t that be like suggesting we’re hard-wired for humour, then proving it by tickling someone?”
“Something like that.” She started moving again. Suddenly. And fast enough I had to get a serious hustle on to keep up. She was talking to herself now. By the time I was walking beside her again, I think I missed the first part of what she was saying. I heard, “…assuming they even know about it, they had no reason to steal it. They funded it. They own it. If they thought it does more than advertised, they’d only have to wait for my report. Containing a full description of exactly how it was made. And the results of exactly what it does.” She’d slowed again to a normal walking pace, but her thoughts were still at speed. “And if somehow they heard about it, and thought I was trying to keep it a secret from them—”
“—which you wouldn’t do. Because that would be illegal.”
“Which I wouldn’t do because that would be stupid. The first thing they’d do would be to send someone to ask for it. Probably a lawyer.” Which was somehow all said without the slightest sense of telling me not to interrupt her by being so dumb. Another significant skill. I was gonna put that over there. Right beside capable of decking. “And if that didn’t work, they’d send someone else.”
“Probably not a lawyer.”
“Definitely not,” she shook her head. “No, I’m going to suggest it wasn’t them.”
“So, the bomber. Uncle Alex. His gang?”
“I’m not sure we’ve understood what was going on there.” She had her doing physics face back again. “What if…” Then she ceased external communication. For a while. And just as suddenly she stopped walking. And looked over at me, her eyes open wide from a fresh thought. And then again, with another. Finally, she said, “I don’t think uncle Alex was being honest with us.” Then something else occurred to her. “No. I don’t think he was being honest. And I don’t think there was a bomb.”
“There was definitely an explosion.”
“He was trying to warn me off. Wanted me to stop my work. I don’t think he needed an actual bomb to do that. And the official report called it a gas leak.”
“So he came back later to—”
“Certainly something, or someone, caused an explosion. Or it may have actually been a for-real gas leak. But it almost doesn’t matter how it happened.”
“Almost doesn’t…” No, I definitely wasn’t following yet. My face must’ve shown it. She tried to help me get there.
“Someone killed him.” She seemed to be waiting for me to respond.
“Yes.” Pretty sure I’d got that right.
“But first someone shot him.”
“Ye-es.” Though it felt like a trick question. “Your company?”
She shook her head, still not impatient. Just persistent. “Probably perfectly capable of murder. But gunning down people in the street is not their style.”
“Styles change.”
“Usually not without good reason. And why would they want him dead? I was still filing reports. So he clearly hadn’t interrupted my work in any meaningful way. Shooting someone on my behalf for being a fairly minor inconvenience is sheer lunacy. And I just don’t think my work is that important to the company. No, I think there’s something else going on.”
“So who shot him?”
“I don’t know, exactly. But I do wonder who he was working for.”
“You think they shot him. The people he was working for?”
“I wonder. Who was he working for?”
“No idea.”
“Me neither.”
“You intend to find out.”
“Yes.” And her face made it clear she was serious. “Yes, I do.”
NEXT