01:12
Episode 1: The Original Blueprints
Part 12
It filtered even into Violet’s semi-inebriate mind, the thumping, braying funky-punk-jazz-juke-joint bass-beat rhythm coming up through the floor from the neo-geek bar below. When she concentrated long enough on the still surface of her third double-double vodka she saw rings pulse outward from center in sympathy with the aural sacrifice down below. She took a sip and felt the dark eyes of the bar tender on her neck.
Not judging, Violet thought. She doesn’t know. Not judging.
When she looked up the bartender’s brown on brown eyes bore down on her. Violet looked away.
Patronage in the upper bar-room was light.. Two couples sat together at a table near the bank of windows and a fat man with curly grey hair sat at another table near the bar. Violet was the bar’s only occupant. This is what she wanted. Behind her, on a big screen hung against the buff brick wall, a young Harrison Ford stalked Rutger Hauer across a dripping, noir Los Angeles. Violet was aware of gunshots, the stilted, monotone dialogue and a pronounced sense of irony. She ignored all three.
A man sat down on the stool next to Violet. He wore a long, dark cloth coat closed with wooden buttons. There was a black knit cap on his head and tight, black leather gloves on his hands. violet looked at him out of the corner of her eye but did not move her head.
“You are drinking.” the man told Violet. “Why?”
“I’m over twenty-one and I want to. What’s it to you?”
The man made a mocking face and signaled the bartender. He turned his attention to the woman who, with earnest efficiency, waited on him. When he had his drink the man nodded to the bartender, turned to Violet and sipped a little.
“I will drink too,” he announced.
“It’s a free bar,” Violet told him.
The bartender rang her bell.
“Last call, ladies and gentlemen,” she announced in a loud, clear voice. “Private party.”
The other patrons of the bar rose from their tables and made their way to the door, the fat man with a backwards glance at the man next to Violet. When Violet and the man were the only two remaining the bartender followed the departing patrons out.
“Or maybe it isn’t a free bar,” Violet said.
“Now we can talk. This is better.”
Violet shook her head but still did not face the man. “I can’t do this any longer. I can’t”
“You have done this before,” he told her. “This sort of thing.”
“I know. I – believe me I know. But no more.”
The man turned away from Violet and towards the bar. In the mirror in the bar back he could see Violet’s face without turning towards her.
“You’ve been doing the work a long time. You need a rest. You got something tucked away?”
“On what you pay me?”
“Violet,” the man warned her
Violet smiled. “I have enough.”
“Niece of mine better put something by,” he said and sipped his drink. “You should get away. Go to Cabo or Baja. Take a break.”
Violet looked at the man’s reflection in the mirror. The look became a glare.
“You want me to leave the cities, don’t you?”
“Violet – wait….”
Violet was standing now. She pushed the stool out behind her and it scraped across the wood floor with a low shriek.
“He’s put out a hit on me, hasn’t he?”
The man stayed where he was as Violet walked to his stool. She stopped when her body pressed against his. Her face contorted in a snarl of anger a finger-width from his face.
“You tell that son of a bitch,” she hissed into the man’s ear. “You tell him to watch his back.”
The man spun around to face her.
“That’s enough, Violet. Do you hear me? That is enough!”
Violet stumbled back to her stool and sat down. She stared at the man with black eyes.
“You listen to me you little punk. I am your uncle. I took you in when Guido disowned you and I gave you a position in the family. You listen to me.”
“Carlos, I…”
“Shut up. Do you hear me?”
Carlos turned back to the bar and lifted his drink. He held it against his lips for a moment and then slowly placed it on the bar top once again.
“He is your father,” Carlos told her.
“He’s a bastard!” shouted Violet.
“He is your father and my brother. You will treat him with respect.”
“Guido Capagio is not my father,” hissed Violet. “He disowned me.”
“He cares. He asks about you.”
“He put out a contract on me!”
“You – you embarrassed him,” Carlos shouted. “The client had to come and save your ass. Go away. I will talk to him. Go away Cece, and let him cool down.”
Violet cringed at her childhood nick-name. She lifted her vodka to her lips. Behind her Rutger Hauer stood on the roof of a building in Los Angeles holding a dove. Violet heard him say something about attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. With one smooth motion she finished her drink and turned towards her uncle.
“Tell my fath – tell Guido that I’m staying put.”
“He will want money.” Carlos replied without missing a beat. He stared down at his hands folded on the bar.
“How much?”
“Four hundred thousand.”
Violet nodded silently. She turned towards the door and stood staring into the room beyond it. Another man in a leather jacket stood there, his big hands crossed in front of his hips, staring back at Violet.
“Tonight,” she told Carlos. It came out as a hoarse whisper. “I’ll get it to you tonight.”
She staggered off towards the door while Carlos stared at his hands. The man in the leather jacket made to grab Violet until Carlos, without turning, raised one hand and he let her pass. She disappeared down the stairs.
Carlos sat at the bar. Behind him Harrison Ford took Sean Young away from an apartment decorated with Frank Loyd Wright’s Usonion concrete blocks and they drove away into a green world leaving a unicorn behind. Carlos finished his drink.
“Shit,” he said under his breath.
Laurel sat on a steel-framed bed in a room where the bed was the only piece of furniture. Above her were plain fluorescent bulbs in a bare industrial fixture. Around her were bare concrete-block walls painted too thick in glossy, white paint and below her the mass-produced gray-streaked white linoleum tile found throughout North America. Laurel sat on a clean blue blanket tucked in around the mattress in tight hospital corners and showing crisp white sheets folded down over the blue fabric. She did not move. She did not breath, she did not fidget. Laurel was as still as the bed beneath her, as the floor beneath the bed.
The room was not large. Even though Laurel was under five foot six she could have touched the walls at the narrowest width with her fingers fully extended. Inside her digital brain she knew the width depth and height of the room, how many lumens the fluorescent bulbs produced and how long they could last. She knew the make, model, production date, and probable serial number of the bed as well as the make and manufacturer of the paint on the walls, the fiberglass tiles in the ceiling and the linoleum tile on the floor. She even knew the tensile strength of the steel door half-opened to the hallway and that, if she wanted, she could tear the door from the hinges.
Laurel heard the footsteps long before any human would have detected the noise. She remained motionless on the bed. The footsteps grew closer. Finally they came to the door itself. It swung all the way open. Lynda stood outside. Two tall women flanked her, both in dark grey jumpsuits and both carrying Heckler and Koch MP5 rifles.
“There’s no need for all that,” Laurel told Lynda. “I’ll behave.”
Lynda smiled.
“I know you will, dear. These are to protect you. Please believe me. You are free to come and go inside the premises.”
Laurel did not look at the diminutive red-head but remained staring at the wall.
“Of course. I’m free – for a given value of free.”
Lynda smiled at the allusion to Pratchett and shook her head.
“Do as you wish,” the redhead said. “We won’t stop you.”
Laurel smiled and, without looking at Lynda began to recite.
“The first Heckler and Koch MP5 models used a double-column straight box magazine, but since 1977, slightly curved, steel magazines are used with a fifteen-round capacity – weighing point twelve kilogram – or a thirty-round capacity – point one seven kilogram empty. The sighting arrangement on the MP5 takes advantage of the natural ability of the eye and brain to easily align concentric circles….”
Lynda smiled. “That’s enough,” she told Laurel. “You have an internet connection. Congratulations. I’ll need to secure that.”
“Is that what you came here for?” Laurel asked. “To test me?”
Lynda shook her head. “I’m on your side, Laurel. Outside this facility there are people who aren’t as patient as we are. They think you can be dissected. I want only to protect you.”
Laurel didn’t respond. She went back to staring silently at the wall before her. Lynda shook her head.
“She did turn you over to me. You understand that, don’t you?”
Laurel remained still.
“When she found out what you were – that you were the package she was to deliver – that girl gave you to me and left.”
“If you say so,” Laurel told her.
For a moment Lynda stared at Laurel trying to read her emotions from her stone-like face. Finally she gave up.
“You will be transferred tomorrow morning. Your father’s funeral will be held this Sunday. He will be buried in Ohio, near Cincinnati. His sister made the arrangements.” Lynda said. “I thought you’d like to know.”
Laurel did not respond.
“Did you know her?” Asked Lynda.
Laurel shook her head.
“She seemed to know that you … existed, but she didn’t know you were …. She said he didn’t have a daughter.”
Laurel didn’t respond.
“For what it’s worth I’m sorry. He was an extraordinary man.”
Lynda and her two escorts exited the tiny room. Laurel remained on the bed. and using a weak frequency continued her scanning for the multiple instances of humans on the police scanners and hoping for the name ‘Violet’ to appear.
It would be a long night.
