Undeliverable (9 page)

The manager stopped scribbling on his clipboard and stared at Ben. “You want to do what?”

Ben had lost count of the number of times he had explained himself; managers, police, and belligerent citizens all demanded he explain himself multiple times before they would decide he wasn’t some scam artist. “Hand out flyers about my son. He went missing last year.”

“Here, show me one.” The manager dropped his clipboard and held out a hand.

Ben gave over one of the flyers from his bag and waited, shifting his weight in the small plastic chair. The manager took entirely too long to study the simple image and three lines of text.

“You want to hand this out to our patrons?”

He wouldn’t have asked, three times, if he didn’t want to. “Yes, please.”

“As they come into the park? Forget it. Maybe as they exit. Maybe.” The manager flipped the paper back to Ben and he had to stretch to reach it before it hit the floor.

He was irritated by the way the man was treating him, but he still thought this was a good venue. “I will take what I can.”

The manager nodded, pleased, and picked up his clipboard again. “Alright, you can stand by the exit. No hassling people as they come into the park, and if they ignore you, you ignore them, got it?”

“Sure thing, thanks. If I may, though, why only as they exit the park?”

“Stuff like this makes people sad. Sad people don’t spend money. Wait until they’re tired and irritable and their wallets are already empty.” It seemed like the man was reading off of a script in his head, already starting to ignore Ben.

“That’s…industrious of you.”

“Thanks. That’s why I run this place and you don’t. Now get going. I have a ride with a retainer stuck in the tracks to take care of before the crowd kills us all.”

For six hours, Ben manned the exit turnstiles, handing out the flyer to any of the worn and tired families that would take it. As the day wore on, clouds started gathering. At first he was grateful for the shade, but it started raining about five o’clock. Not a nice refreshing rain, but the kind of sticky misting rain that just increases the humidity level and leaves everyone miserable. The families started pouring out of the park, unwilling to deal with the weather on top of each other. Few people would stop to take the flyer. No one had anything to add to his search. As he was getting ready to leave, Ben asked one of the anonymous-looking ticket clerks if he could speak with the manager again.

“If I can find him.” He started muttering into the walkie-talkie in his booth, listening absently to the reply.

“The man says he’s busy. Can’t see you again.”

“I just wanted to thank him, ask if I could leave some flyers at the ticket booths.”

The young man muttered again into the talkie.

“The man says you’re welcome, but you can’t leave those flyers at the kiosk. They make people sad.”

“Yeah, yeah, they make people sad. That’s the fucking point, to get people thinking.” Ben started sneezing, then muttered, “Thanks anyway.” He turned and strode to his car, digging through his bag for his keys. He fumbled them and slammed his hands against his car in frustration. A whole day lost to idiot managers who had no humanity and families who couldn’t feel empathy for a fellow father in pain. You can bet that if they lost one of their squalling spoiled brats they’d be the first to demand that people pay attention. But they couldn’t spare one iota of attention for his pain.

Once in the car, he noticed that he was down to just ten flyers in his bag and he knew he had less than fifty left at his apartment. He wondered when he was going to have time, or money, to make more copies.

Ben spent the rest of the night shifting through his copies of the tip line, the police reports, and interviews and started compiling a list of things he might be able to double-check in his new databases at work. He had lists of vehicles, addresses, names, blurry photos, and multiple suggested timelines. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do with all of it, but the whiskey had suggested that the more lists he put together, the better his chances were of finding something significant.

He fell asleep at his desk, head thrown over the back of his chair and an empty whiskey glass tipped over in front of him, along with a mostly empty bottle. When he woke, he frowned, thinking the bottle had been almost full yesterday, then carried it and the glass into the kitchen. His head felt fuzzy and thick, his sinuses ached, and he wondered if he hadn’t had just a little too much to drink.

It quickly became apparent that this was not a simple hangover. In fact, he had come down with a nasty cold, and he did not have anything at all that would make him feel better. Even the orange juice container was empty, yet still in the fridge.

Sighing, he drank several glasses of water and munched on toast spread with peanut butter while trying to gear himself up to go to the store. He finally managed a shower and a change of clothes and stumbled out to his car, determined to make it to the Publix nearby before going back to bed. He pulled into the parking lot without incident and stood outside his car for a moment as his equilibrium stabilized.

“Ben?”

His name pulled his attention to the neighboring row of cars and a short pixie-cut lady. Sylvia. That was the name.

“Boy, you don’t look so hot.” She put her laden canvas shopping bag into her backseat, locked her car, and came over to him.

His smile even felt sloppy to him and it took an effort to stand up straight in front of her. “Actually, I feel quite warm, thank you. I think it may be the fever.”

“Hm, might possibly. Do you need some help getting stuff? Carry anything for you?”

“No, no, I’m fine, absolutely.” A thought came swimming up from beneath the fog in his brain. “Wait, why are you here? You live nearby?”

“Yes, yes I do.” Sylvia was fighting hard to keep a smile off her face. “Just down Cascade, at the edge of the historic district.”

“I live on Cascade too, just closer to work.” As he stood there, his sinuses draining, he couldn’t help but think how pretty she looked when she wasn’t harassing him with stories or questions. He blamed his slightly lecherous thoughts on the fever, since he couldn’t yet blame them on cold medicine. “Isn’t the historic district a bit pricey for someone with your job?”

“Gee, how tactful you are today.” She took him by the arm and started walking him to the store. “If you must know, I live in my grandmother’s house.”

Even though he was sick, Ben could tell there was something a little vague about her reply. “You live with your grandmother?”

“No. She’s…not living there now, but I live in her house and sort of watch over things and everything.”

“That’s quite decent of you.” He absently patted her hand on his arm, thankful for her support. “You know, I’m not as sick as I may seem. I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it,” she muttered under her breath. “Men can’t ever take care of themselves.”

He shook off her arm when they reached the doorway and made shooing motions. “Go. Can’t have two of us sick at work, so you stay away. I am going to blitz this stupid virus with every possible item in the cold war arsenal. So, shoo.” He wavered a bit at the loss of the extra stability she had provided but managed to stay standing.

She backed away with her hands up. “Fine, fine, but call me if you need anything, okay? Or if you need to take Monday off, that’s fine. I can cover things.”

He considered this a moment, clinging to the handle of a cart. “I would if I had your number, but the only number I know is work.”

“Well, that won’t reach me at all. Here.” She rummaged in the pockets of her pants and vest until she came up with a receipt and a pen. “This is my cell phone. Seriously, if you need anything. Chicken soup, a movie, ginger ale, please don’t hesitate.”

Ben took the proffered slip of paper and stuck it in his back pocket next to his wallet. “Thank you. I didn’t realize how much I relied on, well,” he paused, thinking of Jeannie, “other people when I was sick to have this kind of stuff around.”

She smiled and reached up to cup his face in her hand. “You’ll get through it.” She straightened up and flung one hand imperiously at the automatic doors, causing them to whoosh open. “I now charge you to launch the nukes.”

The laugh Ben managed to dredge up was halfhearted, but Sylvia bowed and waited for him to get into the store before returning to her car.

The checkout clerk just snorted knowingly when Ben unloaded his basket onto the checkout counter. Three kinds of cold medicine, a large container of orange juice, six cans of chicken soup, and a small can of Vick’s Vapo Rub. His mother had used it on him when he was a child, but Jeannie had banned it from the house, claiming the scent of it burned her nose.

He dragged himself home and sank onto his bed with a pile of notes and his laptop computer. He opened one of the packets of pills, took the recommended dosage, and then tried to start organizing the lists he had made yesterday and identify which facts fit which program. It wasn’t more than five minutes before he was out cold, the laptop sliding from his lap to the coverlet, the notes spilling onto the floor. He woke again around four, microwaved an instant serving of Campbell’s chicken noodle soup, sipped at it while he tidied the papers on the floor, then returned to bed with another dose of meds.

The next time he woke was as his alarm went off for work. He felt remarkably better, though he still had a very stuffy nose and a sore throat. He took some decongestant and managed to get to work without incident, walking into his office in time to meet Sylvia bringing in the first cart of the day.

“Well someone is looking much better today. The drugs worked?”

Ben had to clear his throat twice before answering. “Frankly, I think it was more the sleep. I don’t think I was awake more than four hours total yesterday.”

“That sounds lovely. I love days in bed like that; they do wonders for you.” She rattled into the warehouse. “Unfortunately I don’t get much of that. I spend so much time here that the weekends are the only time I can do all my errands, visit my grandmother, stuff like that.”

“You know, that’s so wonderful of you. Too few people visit their incarcerated loved ones.” Ben slumped in his chair while he waited for his computer to boot up.

Sylvia paused before replying much more cautiously than usual. “She is not incarcerated. She asked to be moved to the nursing home after the hip replacement didn’t really work out. She felt she was going to be too much of a burden.”

“Sweet of her. The both of you, too sweet for words.” Ben dodged the stuffed piglet that came sailing through the air at him. “What?” He leaned over to retrieve it from the floor and sent it back to her.

“You’re just in an impossible mood this morning, aren’t you?” Sylvia had to leap to catch the pig on its return flight.

“Just sick. I have often been told I’m quite the ass when I’m sick. Is it true?” He did his best to give her puppy eyes, not hard since they were watery from all the sneezing.

“Humph. We’ll have to see. I haven’t decided yet.” Sylvia dropped the forms from the new items on his desk and wheeled the cart back out of the warehouse as Ben started entering all their information.

He felt progressively better throughout the day and at lunch he stopped at the copy machine to print off another fifty copies of the missing flyer. He felt a faint twinge of guilt when he pressed the Start key, but the heft of the flyers soon calmed him down.

At about four o’clock, Sylvia came skipping back into the room, brandishing a claims form. “We’ve got a live one!”

Ben stood from his desk. “What is it this time?”

“Looks like it’s a photograph. Oh cool! It’s from long-term storage, too!” She ran down the hall and skidded to a stop in front of the filing cabinet for older photographs.

“Okay, let’s see. It arrived in 2002 and apparently it’s a set of wedding photos.” Ben came over to help her look for the correct ID tag in the file of photos from 2002.

“Wedding photos? And it took them eight years to realize they were missing?”

Sylvia shrugged. “Any number of reasons, probably. Could you print off the claim form?”

“Sure thing.” Ben slipped back behind his desk and hit print while Sylvia hovered over the printer.

“Whoops, out of paper.”

Ben continued to enter the claim information into the appropriate logs. “Should be more sitting beside the printer.”

Sylvia put paper into the printer from the stack on the left and the printer started to spit out the forms. “Oops. Ben, I think I grabbed from the wrong pile.”

He turned around and saw that the forms she was brandishing all had his son’s missing flyer on the back. He sat there blinking for a couple moments, then held out his hand for Sylvia to pass him the flyers.

“Maybe not.” He flipped the papers over and back, and he started to smile. “This could work.” He handed the forms back to Sylvia and started drumming his fingers on the desk. “We could print the flyer on the back of each form we send out, see if we can’t get the readers in on it, put it on all of the mail they return, on the damaged mail forms, everything. How many forms do you think we send out in a day?”

“I don’t know, maybe two or three hundred?”

“That’s two or three hundred people who would then know about Benny.” He slapped his palms down on the desktop. “This could really work. What do you think?”

“I think you’re the one that’s crazy. And I know crazy. You know you still haven’t even told me what this is all about.” Sylvia snatched the forms back from him. “Besides, we’d totally get in trouble.”

“Says who? We’re the only ones who see those forms. Get one or two select readers in on it; who’s to say it would cause any sort of problem?”

“Fine, we can try and see if they’ll go for it, but only, only, if you’ll tell me what is actually going on with you.” She picked up the forms and carried them off.

That evening as Ben was getting ready to go, he stopped by the copier to make up for the flyers that Sylvia had printed on. He paused as he heard someone walking down the hallway. Celine, a reader, came into view and started to brush past him. Instead she paused and backed up.