There's Only One Quantum (7 page)

Coe cleared his throat. “That’s right. A bit of a shooting. Clearly a random act. Something no one’s immune to in city life. I’m certain it was a case of mistaken identity. Maybe meant for the prior tenant even. The police seemed to think so—” Coe realized he had been rambling and so he stopped, mid-sentence. “It’ll all be back to as good as new by this evening.”

“The alleged Revis suicide,” Lyme said, “and then his replacement’s apt gets turned to swiss cheese on the very same evening.”

“Funny coincidence, I’d say—” It took a moment for it to register. “You said alleged suicide?”

Lyme stood. He looked out the window. He said, “Out there, coincidences happen all of the time.” He turned and faced Coe. “This is Quantum. If you learn anything in your career as an auditor, it’s that simply, there are no coincidences. If either of yesterday’s events happened without the other, then maybe you can chalk it up to the random misfortune that plagues the everyman. But together?” He smiled.

“Look for the clues,” Mitchell said.

“The links,” Lyme said. “The common denominators.”

“You both worked for Quantum,” Mitchell said. “You’re both Auditors.”

“You’ve replaced Revis...have taken over his job,” Lyme said.

“Ms. Hunter,” Ms. Davenport said, addressing Coe for the first time. “You both are serviced by our Ms. Hunter.”

“Ms. Hunter’s involved?” Coe said. He was suddenly reminded of her insistence that he report the suspicious call, not to Mitchell or Lyme, but to the mysterious Mr. Hanover. Likewise, she urged him not to inform Mitchell of the subsequent call, as well.

Lyme put up his hand, palm out as if to halt him. “All we’re trying to say, Mr. Coe, is that you’re an auditor now, and so you need to begin to think like one. Auditors are detectives. You can’t think dismissively anymore.”

“But the police—”

“Have their job to do,” Lyme said, “and we have ours. Theirs is to close cases; ours is to get to the truth.”

“You can start by getting to know the staff,” Mitchell said. “Befriend them. You’re the new guy in town. Ask them out, one at a time, for a beer.”

“It’s the perfect cover,” Lyme said.

“One of them is the mole,” Mitchell said.

“But by all means,” Ms. Davenport said, “Be discreet.” She scribbled something onto the pad, ripped it violently from the spine, and extended it toward Coe.

He took it in his hands and looked at it. A number.

“My private line,” she said.

“She will assist you with any intel you need,” Lyme said.

“Day or night,” she said in a low voice.

Spoken by any other woman, it would have seemed suggestive—seductive, even. Coe folded the paper neatly and placed inside the breast pocket of his coat.

“Meeting with Mr. Mitchell?” Ms. Hunter asked when he returned to his desk.

Coe gave her a surprised look , mostly genuine, at discovering her waiting for him at his desk.

“I saw you go into the Adirondack Conference Room,” she said.

It no longer struck him as strange that all of the conference rooms at Quantum were named after North American mountain ranges. He’d initially met with Lyme in the Berkshires Conference Room on his first day in the office.

“That’s right,” he said. “He wanted to see how things were going...you know...check the new guy’s temperature...”

“Mr. Lyme, too?” she asked.

“Yes, Mr. Lyme was in there, as well.”

She smiled. “And was Ms. Davenport concerned with how you’re getting on in your new surroundings, too?”

Coe forced a smile. “Ms. Davenport?”

“I saw her go in with Lyme.”

“Yes, of course,” Coe said. “No...you know Ms. Davenport better than I. She has little interest in my acclimation. None, I’d wager—”

“Was Mr. Revis discussed?” She fidgeted with her hands, first folding them, and then pulling on her thumbs.

“He was mentioned. Yes.”

“Oh?”

Coe sat down at his desk, booted up his CRT. She had begun to make him nervous. “His death has obviously upset many people—”

“Not Davenport...I can assure you of that.” It was the first time she had failed to reference a fellow Quantum employee in a formal manner while in his presence.

“She’s a rather stoic woman—”

“What is it you’re not telling me, Mr. Coe?” Her whole manner had suddenly changed, had become more menacing. He wondered if she had ever taken a similar tone with Revis.

“Nothing of any importance or interest to you, I’m sure,” he said.

“I’ll be the judge—”

She must have realized the tone she had taken. She took a deep breath, flashed a weak smile. “Mr. Coe,” she said, her voice softer now. “The relationship between an auditor and his clerk is a unique, complicated—one might even say fragile—bond, not unlike husband and wife. We rely on each other, complement each others strengths, compensate for the others deficiencies, trust one another and trust
in
one another. We’re a smooth, two-person business unit; mutual, symbiotic, and sharing—”

“What are you trying to say, Ms. Hunter?”

“I confided in you this morning—trusted in you—very private information—”

“It’s safe with me,” he said.

She exhaled. “Good. I—”

She broke down and began to weep. Coe was concerned that her sobbing could be overheard.

“Ms. Hunter—”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Coe...please forgive my behavior. Of course, I can trust you. You must think I’m one of those women...”

“Those women?”

She wiped the tears from her eyes with her pinky finger and in the process, left a trail of dark eyeliner smeared across her cheek. “It’s just when I saw you go into the conference room...and Ms. Davenport was there...Oh! I thought for certain you were telling them about Mr. Revis and me! You can understand how it must have looked...”

“Of course,” he said.

“We can be strong,” she said quietly as she composed herself. “We can have as strong a clerk-auditor relationship as Mr. Revis and I...stronger, even. You can’t be corrupted like him. I see that now. If you can forgive me this one time, I promise you I’ll be loyal—”

“That won’t be necessary,” Coe said.

“But it is, Mr. Coe...it is,” she said, straightening her skirt. “You’ll see...you’ll see.”

Coe requested a copy of the auditor roster from Ms. Davenport. The first auditor in his charade of going about the internal investigation of auditors was a senior man by the name of Chutney. He was middle-aged, overweight, balding, and tired. Coe found him lazily reading the morning edition of
The Intelligencer
at his desk, a windowless cubicle framed by a pair of fake ferns near a bank of copiers. He did not look up right away when Coe addressed him, extended his hand, and announced quite cheerily that he was, “the new guy from Philadelphia.”

After a prolonged moment of staring down at the sports screen—a matrix of box scores from various leagues flickered on the news reader—he turned off the device and directed his sleepy eyes on Coe.

“Chutney,” he said. He didn’t bother to shake Coe’s hand.

“I understand you’re the most senior member of the department,” Coe said.

“The whole section.” Chutney’s mouth hardly moved when he spoke.

“Being the new guy, I was wondering if you might take me under your wing...perhaps show me the ropes?” It was Coe’s hope to appeal to his ego.

“You’re looking for a mentor?”

“That’s right.”

“You seem like a nice enough fellow,” Chutney said. “Bright, too, or Lyme wouldn’t have promoted you from Philly. Trouble is, I’m out of the mentoring business, so to speak.”

“I see,” Coe said, trying his best to feign disappointment.

“Now then, there’s plenty of capable people right here in the department who can see you straight to a long successful snooping career. I’ve got six weeks until retirement. I’m no longer getting new files. I’m burning off the remaining paper I’ve got to work through. It would be a disservice to us both if I took you on now—”

“Please, Mr. Chutney. There’s no need for an explanation. I understand perfectly. I won’t bother you further. Please accept my fondest wishes on a happy retirement, sir.”

“I’ll do that,” he said.

Coe had begun to walk away when he stopped and looked back at him. “Let me at least buy you lunch,” he said.

“I don’t take lunch,” he said, switching the news reader back on. He looked up. “I should say I don’t eat lunch...normally.” He looked at his watch. “Tell you what. Come by here in an hour and we’ll go out. I know a place I think you would like.”

“Mr. Coe?”

He looked up from his desk to find Ms. Hunter standing at the threshold of his cubicle.

“Do you find me acceptable?” she asked.

He had been going over the roster once more. It was apparently old since it didn’t include his name and still listed Revis, Collin right before Reynolds, Harry.

“I regard you very highly,” he said.

She smiled. “You would recommend me for a post should one become available?”

“Without hesitation, Ms. Hunter,” he said.

“If you found a fly trapped between a window screen and the glass, you would raise the window and allow it to fly away? You would, wouldn’t you? It would be senseless to allow something to die when the act of setting it free was so simple, right?”

“Ms. Hunter...I don’t understand...”

“Will you need to stay one more night at my apt?”

While he was at Chutney’s desk, the property manager had left a message advising his apt had been restored to prior condition. He told her so.

“That’s wonderful news,” she said, without enthusiasm.

She started to leave but he called after her.

“Yes, Mr. Coe?”

“You stood over me,” he said, quietly. “During the night. I woke up and found you standing over me. I wasn’t dreaming?”

“You weren’t dreaming,” she said. “At least, I don’t think you were.”

“Did you want something?” he asked.

She looked at him blankly.

He said, “What I mean is...did you want something to happen?” He swallowed. “Between us?”

“I should have warned you,” she said, quickly. “I suffer from somnambulism.”

“Somnam—”

“Sleepwalking, Mr. Coe. It’s plagued me since I was a child. I’ve been treated with Benzodiazepines and tricyclic antidepressants—to limited results. I’ve been restrained and even locked inside my bedroom. Even more alarming,” she said. “I often have no memory of the episodes.”

“I suspected it was something like that.”

“I’m embarrassed.”

“Don’t be,” he said.

“I hope I didn’t make a fool of myself.”

He smiled at the beautiful memory of her. “There was nothing foolish about you.”

She blushed then and left.

When he had introduced himself to Chutney earlier in the day, he could not have predicted that he would see him shirtless and wrapped only in a towel. For that matter, he did not anticipate that Chutney would see him in a similar state of undress.

“Isn’t there a massage therapist in the Quantum building?” Coe asked.

They were laying on their stomachs on separate tables, parallel to each other.

Chutney groaned softly as the slight Asian woman who identified herself as Ling (But who Coe overheard addressed as the more Anglo, Patty), worked her slender fingers into the doughy flesh of Chutney’s upper back. “There is...but...there’s only one Ling...”

They were in a Chinese massage parlor—or at least what Coe assumed was a massage parlor, since there were no signs outside marking it as such. In fact, he and Chutney entered through a nondescript green door with a mailbox bearing the name CHEUNG that made it seem as though it were simply a private residence.

The Asian female massaging the tightness out of Coe’s bare shoulders went by the name of Miss Chu. The name strangely evoked an admittedly insensitive image of an attractive, angular Chinese woman with a page boy style haircut, seductively reposed on a chaise lounge, drawing on the end of a cigarette holder. In this stock image Coe called up from his subconscious, the woman was clad in black satin pajamas and hidden behind a rice paper screen. The actual Miss Chu was far less mysterious in her blue jeans, Ale House T-shirt, and running shoes. She said, “You are very stressed out.”

Chutney laughed.

“I’ve just recently started a new job,” Coe said.

“This much stress will kill you. Are you trying to commit suicide?” she said.

“Welcome to the world of auditing,” Chutney said. “Speaking of suicide, I hear they found your predecessor hanging from a tree.”

“I think I heard something about that,” Coe said.

To Miss Chu, Chutney said, “Mr. Revis.”

“Mr. Revis is dead?” she said, briefly stopping Coe’s massage to reflect. “Poor Mr. Revis...He was tight like you,” she said to Coe.

“Mr. Coe here is his replacement,” Chutney said with a laugh.

“I take it Revis accompanied you here?” Coe said.

“On occasion.”

Miss Chu said, “This is a very dangerous job. Very dangerous for the health.”

“You and Revis were friends?” Coe asked Chutney.

“Work friends,” he said, his eyes closed.

“There’s a difference?”

“We didn’t socialize outside of work,” he said. He opened one eye and stared at Coe. “I didn’t know he was involved in what he was involved in.”

“Steele?”

“Whoever,” he said, closing his eyes again and emitting a soft groan.

“You don’t like?” Miss Chu asked.

“Huh?”

She asked Coe again, “You don’t like?” In response to what must have been his blank stare, she added, “The massage.”

“No,” he said. “I mean, yes. Yes, I do. It’s terrific.”

Chutney laughed.

“You’re not here,” she said to Coe. “Your body is here, but the head...it’s somewhere far away.”

She rubbed his lower back, pushing her thumbs into his lumbar. It was not enjoyable. He tried not to let it show.

“Why do you think he did it?” Coe asked Chutney.

“Who?”

“Revis. Why do you think he killed himself?”

Chutney’s eyes remained closed. Coe could not tell if he was even considering his question. Finally he said, “Who knows? Shame, maybe? Hard to tell with a guy like Revis. He kept things inside. Hell, no one would ever have guessed he’d turn to Steele. Some people in the organization still can’t believe it was him. But it was old Davvy that turned him in.”