Chapter 4

TimK — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 01:00:00 -0700

Another hard thing is forcing yourself to wait until after church, all hot and horny, after the sermon, after the concluding prayer, after pushing a cursory goodbye at anyone you meet in the hall, on the way from the pew to the coat rack, from the coat rack to the car, after the seemingly interminable drive home. For Clydene and Ted, it was like you see in the movies, the two lovers plastered all over each other, faces rubbing together, stumbling up the walkway, fumbling with the keys, thrusting open the door, pushing each other’s jacket to the floor, unbuttoning her top, unzipping his pants, hands where they don’t belong in polite company.

“Oh shit!” Ted shouted.

“What? What did I do?” Clydene asked. She thought she must have accidentally pinched him in the wrong place.

Ted quickly zipped up his pants. This baffled her, until he motioned to the living room behind her. She turned around to see a black-haired woman reclined on the couch, holding a book, her sleek, compact purse resting on the coffee table.

Clyde felt her face flush. That must mean it was as red as a beet, because she usually didn’t feel embarrassed, even when she was. She usually just got nervous instead. But this time, she felt red hot, as if she had just committed some sort of unspeakable act for which she was now bearing the ultimate humiliation.

“I’m sorry?” Mira said tentatively, with that facial expression that says: Yeah, if you think you’re embarrassed, you should be where I’m sitting, because I’m positively freaked out; and yeah, maybe I should have called first, and it’s so my fault, but I couldn’t call you, because you were at church, and you did give me a key; besides, I really need a friend right now.

Suddenly, Clyde felt sympathy. “Oh no. I’m sorry. I just— I didn’t know you were there.” She re-buttoned her blouse as she walked into the living room. “Are you okay?”

Ted sighed.

Clyde was suddenly divided between her friend and her husband. “Oh— Uh… Ted— Ted and I were just, uh…“ Her gaze darted from Mira to Ted and back again.

Mira broke in. “I know. It’s okay. I should have known— Uh, I should have called first. I’ll go.” She sat up and started stuffing the book into her purse. She looked sad.

“Isn’t that the same outfit you were wearing yesterday?” Ted asked.

Mira paused a moment. “Yeah, it is.”

“Hey, you,” Clyde said tenderly, sitting down next to her friend, resting a hand on Mira’s shoulder. “Did something happen?”

“Well, I kind of spent the night at Ike’s.”

Clyde didn’t know what to say to that.

“And…” Ted prompted.

Mira continued. “And we had breakfast this morning, and then I drove around for a little while, and then I came over here.”

“And what’s wrong? What happened last night?” Ted asked.

“Nothing,” she answered. “I mean, nothing happened. We just hung out last night, watched a couple movies, ate some popcorn, that sort of thing. It was late, and I crashed on his couch. Nothing bad happened. We hung out. It’s fun, that’s all.”

Clyde said, “Yeah, okay. Well, you two have been hanging out together for a while now. If it’s so much fun, why do look like a puppy just died?”

Mira stared at the blank screen of the TV for a minute, as if she were watching a gut-wrenching scene from a sad movie.

Ted asked, “Has he even kissed you yet?”

“No,” Mira eked out.

“Held your hand?”

No response.

“Made a pass at you? Bumped into you? Tried to feel you up? Anything?”

Clyde turned to him in horror.

“You know, Mira, maybe he’s just not interested,” Ted continued, apparently oblivious.

“Okay,” Clyde said to him, scowling. “You said you needed to call Michael this afternoon. Why don’t you go upstairs, change into something more comfortable, and make your phone call?”

He agreed, then kissed her, sneaking a hand in to pat her butt.

“We have company!” she whispered.

Now that Ted was gone, Clyde got down to business. “Okay, Girlfriend, now that the children have left the room: What’s really going on?”

“See? Is that too much to ask?” Mira said.

“What?”

“That’s all I really want. Someone who will pat me on the behind once in a while.”

Clyde thought about this. Or rather, she already knew exactly what she thought, but she had not yet worked up the courage to say it. She hated to see Mira sad, and as much as she loved her friend, she was getting frustrated. So she decided to out with her thoughts. But before Clyde could put her thoughts into words, Mira interjected something new.

“The thing is,” Mira said, “I think he’s actually interested. But he’s…” Her voice trailed off.

“Maybe you should just tell him how you feel.”

Mira shook her head, terrified. “No, no. I can’t do that.”

“But if he’s into you, maybe he just doesn’t know how you feel.”

“No. It’s more complicated than that.”

“I don’t understand.” Clyde shook her head. “Please explain it to me.”

Mira just stared at the floor.

Clyde decided to take another approach. “How about some piping hot chocolat?” she asked. “Good for what ails the soul.”

Mira smiled a little and nodded. She followed Clyde into the kitchen. Clyde made homemade hot cocoa with just a pinch of red pepper, while the two girls chatted about the weather, Clyde’s Sunday outfit, makeup, and other mundane things. Finally, they were seated at the kitchen table, a steaming cup of dark, brown cocoa, with a puff of whipped cream on top, between each pair of hands.

Clyde sipped from her cup, breathing in the rich aroma, sensing the tang of the pepper on her tongue. She closed her eyes and basked in the full experience.

Mira said, “I’m thinking of giving up work on the Committee.”

Clyde almost spewed hot cocoa out her nose. But because this would have been such a horrifying experience, her body instead opted to choke on what was in her throat. She began to cough, managed to set her cup back on the table, spilling some in the process. She clapped her hand to her chest, as if to dislodge a stuck piece of food. Red-faced, she finally was able to breathe again.

“Are you alright?” Mira asked, clearly concerned.

“Am I alright?!” Clyde almost screamed. She felt like screaming. “What have you done with my friend, Mira?”

Mira looked and sounded hurt. “I’m not your friend anymore if I don’t want to be an activist anymore?”

Clyde rolled her eyes. “No, of course you’re my friend. You’ll always be my friend. But this is your— thing. This is your baby. You got into it because you couldn’t stand— I’ve never known you to do anything else. I’ve never known you to be anyone else.” She was exaggerating, she knew, but she still meant every word. She stared at Mira, awestruck, not knowing what to say, not knowing what to think.

“It was just an idea,” Mira said. “I probably won’t.”

Clyde was still flabbergasted. “Why would you even consider it?”

Mira seemed to have trouble putting her thoughts into words. “I’m— I’m just tired. I’m tired.”

Clyde rubbed her eyes, as if she was just waking up from a bizarre dream. “Well, then… I’m floored.”

“Don’t tell anyone else, okay?”

“Our secret,” Clyde intoned somberly.

But Clyde couldn’t get it out of her mind. Mira’s heart was one of those few brilliant filled with a burning passion for what mattered. “Tired” might cause her to slow down. It causes everyone to slow down once in a while. But to give up what she loved? Even in Mira’s full-time job as a counselor, she didn’t show the same passion that she did for her political activism. They had discussed it many times before. Mira had often raved at the idea of quitting counseling and devoting herself full-time to the Committee. The only reason she didn’t is that she couldn’t afford it. Like everyone, she needed to pay the bills. But the message was clear. Yes, her job made her happy. She got to help people and achieve real accomplishments that mattered. But the Committee was something Mira believed in. This was her destiny, and she knew it. So what, Clyde wondered, had happened to make Mira suddenly question her own destiny?

“Mira, what’s going on?”

Mira just sat and stared.

“Is this about Ike?”

Nothing.

“Is this about what happened last month?”

Still nothing.

“You know, what happened wasn’t your fault. And you not being there isn’t going to make anything any better.”

Mira’s eyes began to water, and her voice cracked. “But my being there can make things a lot worse.”

“Okay, now that’s just crazy.”

“It’s not crazy,” Mira choked out. “Baedes has a personal vendetta against me and against anyone who dares to associate with me. You know that.”

Clyde dwelled on that thought, during the pause before Mira continued.

“When you believe in something, you think you can change the world.” Mira waxed philosophic. “You think nothing can stop you, that you can overcome any obstacle, find a way over it, under it, around it, or through it, whatever. But then you run into reality. Because no one can change the world, Clydene. The world is too big and too powerful. The world is always going to do exactly what it wants, and it doesn’t care what you believe in. The world always wins.”

Clyde knew Mira was talking to herself, about herself. And she had a feeling if Mira continued in this vein, she would depress herself into psychosis. But Clyde didn’t know how to respond, so she changed the subject.

Clyde sighed and said, “How do you think your new friends from yesterday might like a world-famous chicken-mushroom casserole?”

Mira wiped her eyes. “Yeah, I think they might. Is that complicated to make?”

“Nope. I was going to make one for dinner. It takes less than an hour. We should make two, one for here, one to deliver.”

“Bastards!”

“Now, Michael, not all of them are the epitome of evil,” Ted replied to the speakerphone.

He had untied his tie, carefully unknotting it using exactly the opposite motions he had originally used in tying it. Now he hung it in the closet and began to unbutton his shirt.

“That’s bull, and you know it!” the speakerphone continued. “They humiliated that man, right in front of his wife and kids! The sleaze oozes from the top.”

Even through the phone, Ted could feel Michael’s eyes like blue flames burning a hole through time and space, staring right into his. That’s one thing about Michael. He always looked you straight in the eye. And despite the fact that they weren’t face-to-face, Ted knew Michael was even now looking him straight in the eye. Yes, for all of Michael’s faults, at least he always gave you that much.

Ted said, “Okay, I understand that you’re upset—“

“Puleeze! You have no idea how I feel!”

That was true enough.

“Okay, so explain it to me,” Ted replied. “If you’re not upset, why do you keep yelling at me?”

Michael paused a moment. Then he spoke more calmly. “You just don’t understand, Ted. You’ll probably never understand. It’s just how you are. You’re an excellent logician, but…”

“But what?” Ted smiled. He really wanted to hear what came next.

“We work better as a team.”

Ted stared for a moment out the window. “So you’re saying I’m a lousy activist.”

“I wouldn’t put it that way.”

Ted looked back at phone. “Please, do.”

Michael nodded. “Okay. You’re a lousy activist. But we need your skills and talents.”

Ted sighed. “I’m too old for this.”

Michael finished a sip of something and gulped.

“How old are you, anyhow?” Michael asked. Then he quickly added, “If you don’t mind my asking.”

“Ted doesn’t talk about his age,” Clydene said from the bedroom doorway.

“How long have you been eavesdropping?” Michael asked.

“Eavesdropping?” Clyde said. “The way Michael was hollering, they could hear him in Texas.”

“Sorry,” Michael said. “It’s just that Beady-eyes really gets my goat.”

Ted found himself staring hotly at his wife, and ignoring his friend on the other end of the line. He said, “Michael, I’ll call you a little later.”

“Are you kidding? Is that the end of the story? What happened to the poor guy? You can’t just leave me hanging.”

Clyde talked at the phone, “Why don’t you come over and join us for dinner? We’re having a chicken casserole.”

“Well, I kind of have a guest of my own.”

Ted continued. “There’s more to the story, Michael, but I have something I have to take care of.”

After a second, Michael said, “Oh. I’ll expect your call in a half-hour or so. Bye!” And he hung up.

Clydene had her mouth open. “Do you tell him everything about our personal business?”

“You tell Mira everything.”

“But that’s just girl talk,” she said.

Ted never understood what “girl talk” actually was, and he uncharacteristically didn’t want to argue the point. So he segued into a different subject.

“Talking about girls…” He swept his eyes up her figure and breathed deeply. “Oh my God, you’re sexy.” He stepped up to kiss her, but as he approached, she turned her head, and he ended up sucking at her neck. He didn’t care one way or the other.

“Uh…” Clyde said. “That’s not girl talk. And Mira’s still downstairs.”

“That’s nice,” Ted said.

“We want to make a casserole for the Hashims. And for dinner. One for dinner and another for the Hashims.”

“Uh huh.” Ted kept going. His hands had been caressing her back. Now he moved them up her sides.

“I invited her to stay and eat with us.”

“Fine with me,” he said, only having half heard her.

“I need to get back downstairs to make dinner.”

“You have time for a quickie.” He sucked on her ear.

“She’ll wonder where I am.”

“Tell her you had to use the bathroom.” Ted knew that Mira would figure out the truth anyhow.

“She’ll hear us.”

He whispered softly into her ear, “Not if we’re very, very quiet.”

She whispered back, “Sometimes a quickie can be fun.”

“Bing bang boom,” he replied.

“No way. Forget the bing and the bang!” Suddenly, she shoved him onto the bed and was straddling him like a tiger.

The two friends approached the front door of the house on Linden Street, where only yesterday Mira had felt angered, helpless, stunned. Since then, the sky had cleared, and the wind had died, and now the rays of the setting sun cast elongated shadows across the ground and onto the buildings. Mira no longer felt stunned or helpless. She felt a trepidation, though, and she didn’t know why or about what. With each step, the clear Pyrex cover jiggled on the casserole dish Clyde carried, small, square, and white, with flowers painted on the sides. Mira held her purse more tightly. She stepped up to the door and rang the bell.

“Did you have any special plans for Halloween?” Mira asked her friend. Maybe engaging in small talk would clear her head.

“No. Ted and I have both been busy. Plus, we’re not really party animals. We’ll probably just spend a quiet Wednesday at home.”

“Right, Wednesday.” Mira knew Wednesdays Ted and Clyde got romantic. Every Sunday afternoon and Wednesday night. For a moment, she wondered what it would be like to have regularly scheduled sex with someone she deeply loved.

“Do you have any plans?” Clyde’s words interrupted Mira’s thoughts.

“What’s that?”

“Going to any parties?”

“No. I don’t think so—“ Mira wondered whether Ike was doing anything Wednesday and why he hadn’t asked her to come along. Then she remembered that he might take someone else, assuming he’s planning anything. He had no obligation to Mira. “I don’t know,” she said.

Clyde seemed to become concerned. “What is it? What’s the matter?”

Mira shook her head. “Nothing.”

“Ike again?”

“I don’t want to talk about it right now.” She stared at the door jamb.

“Okay.”

“There’s nothing new to say anyhow.” Mira felt a lump in her throat.

“You really have to talk to him, Mira.”

Mira rang the doorbell again. She needed to find some way to distract her thoughts, to focus them on something else. “I wonder why no one’s answered the door. Maybe they’re not home?”

A voice came from a distance to their left. “They’re home. But they haven’t been answering.”

Mira looked over. It was the next-door neighbor, calling from her front porch.

“Hi, Jane,” Mira called back, smiling. Mira didn’t know how she knew the woman’s name, but it turned out to be the correct name. She remembered meeting Jane Mooney, but the whole incident was a blur. If you had asked her to recall specific details, she wouldn’t be able to, but somehow the right words came out when she wasn’t really thinking.

“Ever since Hashim got back last night, the whole family has gone into hiding. The kids haven’t been out to play. No one has answered the door, and they haven’t been returning calls.”

The woman looked like a stay-at-home mom with plain features and an ordinary, medium-length haircut. She looked like a soccer mom, now a concerned soccer mom; no, a worried soccer mom.

“I wonder what happened,” Clyde said. “He seemed pretty scared when we went to pick him up from the police station. Wouldn’t talk to us at all. I mean, sometimes Ted can be a little intimidating. But this time, he was actually personable.”

Mira chuckled. And so did Mrs. Mooney.

Since no one was coming to the door, Jane invited the two over for tea. Her husband Marvin had taken the kids to the park, and that gave Jane ample opportunity to tidy up the house. It was a perfect time to have company over. As it turned out, Jane was not a stay-at-home mom, but a working mom. Still, she had motherly tendencies, as most working moms do, as Mira had often discovered. And even a fair number of working dads, for that matter. However, the few hours each day the kids spent at home were enough for them to leave a trail of destruction in their wake, and that irked Jane Mooney.

Mira nodded. “I can sympathize,” she said.

“Oh, do you have kids?” Jane asked.

“Uh, no. But— What I mean is…” What she meant was that she sympathized with the kids. She was the one who always left a trail of destruction in her wake. But this was not a subject she wanted to get into with an almost-stranger.

“Mira’s a certified personal counselor by profession,” Clyde interjected. “She’s always cleaning up other people’s messes.”

“Yeah,” Mira said. “I guess that’s one way to put it.”

Clyde was a virtual pack rat. She was always starting new projects, finishing them halfway or using them once, then abandoning them on her computer’s hard drive, folders upon folders full of files she just could not bear to delete, because she was sure she would need them again someday. She couldn’t even archive them to disc, because when she needed them, she wouldn’t be able to find the disc on which she had put the files.

She did the same with the dozens of half-abandoned web accounts she had all over the Internet. Each seemed useful at the time. And in each case, Clyde kept the account active, just in case. She filed away the login information in a file on her computer so she could come back to it later if she needed to. She almost never needed to.

So it was with Pyx. Pyx was a small program, a virus Clyde had created to target Baedes and to protect Mira from him. It didn’t do anything malicious or disruptive. But it did surreptitiously infiltrate his computer and siphon off files, which it then transmitted securely and anonymously to Clyde’s computer. Clyde had set it up over a month ago, used it once, and then kept it going, just in case she needed it again.

In keeping Pyx around, Clyde took a risk. She should have disabled the virus as soon as she was done using it, because if Baedes or his minions were to discover that their computers were transmitting information to the Internet, they could investigate. And if they suspected, for whatever reason, that Clyde was involved, a properly trained investigator could link her computer to the purloined data.

But unlike most viruses, as it turned out, Pyx did nothing to tip its hand. It did not cause unwanted advertisements to pop up on the user’s screen. It did not delete files or display cryptic messages. And it was well designed and well tested, so it did not produce unwanted side-effects, like slowing down the computer or its network connection. Additionally, it was specifically targeted at only certain computers, certain government computers. It was designed not to spread outside of that network. It was caged, not out in the wild. That meant it was unlikely to be detected by the experts, those who hunt down viruses for a living, because virus hunters don’t generally hunt caged viruses.

Pyx was basically invisible. And for the past month and a half, Pyx had been quietly collecting information, encrypting it, and posting it anonymously in public forums, disguised as “test” posts, lost amongst the countless myriad of test posts floating around the Internet. Then on her computer, Clyde had set up an automated program to go out to these public forums, look for the information Pyx had posted, and download it. All this happened automatically. Clyde didn’t even have to think about it, once she started the process.

Now, however, she had a reason to peek into these files that her computer had been downloading from the department’s computers. She wanted to know what had happened to Hashim Osama to turn his family to sudden recluse. The official records showed that he was arrested for armed robbery and that he claimed an alibi. This was all information readily available to Ted, or to whomever ended up defending him. Baedes’s unofficial records, however, showed something more startling.

As usual, Baedes was a prolific note-taker. Clyde gathered it must be in his nature, because she knew no one else who so anally recorded significant facts. Clyde found on Baedes’s computer a file all about Hashim, a recent file. Baedes had created it only the day before. It recorded only one entry, a long one, in which Baedes referenced the official record. But the chief also noted that it was doubtful that Hashim was the gunman. Then a long series of admissions and denials, of a most peculiar nature. Hashim apparently “admitted” that he knew Ted and Mira, but “denied” that Ted was his lawyer. He “admitted” that they were “friends,” but “failed to provide any additional information.”

Funny, Clyde thought, since she thought that none of her friends knew anything about this guy, especially Mira, who said she had just met his family and neighbors. Mira also seemed to know very little about Hashim himself. Furthermore, Jane was close to Hashim’s wife, and their kids were all close, and she had just met Ted and Mira, too. Unless he meant, “friends” as opposed to “lawyer and client.” Or unless he was stretching the truth.

But there was much more. Hashim apparently “denied” knowing a number of names, including several that Clyde recognized as being connected with the Committee. Finally, there was a note that he “had no knowledge of any plot against the government of Abe’s Turn.” Not that he denied having such knowledge, Clyde noted, but that he specifically had no such knowledge. The difference, Clydene noticed seemed significant when it came to Baedes’s notes. This statement stood in stark contrast to the others in the file. And being married to a lawyer, she recognized the difference. This was a conclusion, not a statement of fact as were the other notes in the file. But how had Baedes drawn such a conclusion? And why had he not recorded the facts leading up to that conclusion, as he consistently did elsewhere?

Hashim was also referenced in another document, a list of names of people, with a summary of each person’s association to Mira Jayson. Some of these names also had files of their own. Some Clyde recognized, but others she didn’t.

Clydene herself had a file, she was mortified to discover. Her file mentioned her work as a software development contractor, a personal friend of Mira, and a “low-level volunteer” for the Committee. But it did not mention her connection with government contracts or her work on the QX project. The final note concluded that she was “quasi-political, with high ideals, but unwilling to get hands dirty. Possible source of information, but tread carefully.”

It became clear to Clyde that Baedes was on an unofficial witch hunt. He clearly didn’t have access to the Committee’s mailing list, or else he would be targeting everyone on it, and Clyde would have heard about it. In fact, it puzzled Clyde as to why she had not heard of him targeting anyone before now. Ted surely would have heard, as would every other criminal defense lawyer in the county. Looking deeper into the files revealed why, at least partially.

Take the case of Howard Crane. Everyone called him Hal. Clyde was only acquainted with him and only recognized his name because she had met him several times at envelope-stuffing parties and other volunteer events. Baedes had known Hal volunteered for the Committee when Hal was picked up on a DUI a couple weeks ago. It was a stupid thing for Hal to do, and he knew better. Clyde remembered the event, because of Hal’s good luck in the matter. She remembered thinking that if he were guilty, then yeah, they should throw the book at him. And she remembered thinking that she did not want to be associated with reckless individuals who would endanger other peoples’ lives with their drunk driving. And she remembered being incensed that, even though he was clearly guilty, his lawyer got the charge thrown out for insufficient evidence.

In Hal’s file, Baedes had a summary of all this, plus a note that the DUI charge was “dismissed without prejudice,” fancy legal jargon that meant that they could bring the charge again if new evidence surfaced. Then there was the name and address of a witness. A quick check confirmed Clyde’s suspicion, that this name was not in the official files. It represented new evidence that had not yet officially surfaced. Maybe not enough for a conviction, but probably enough to bring a little hell to Hal’s life.

Also in Hal’s file, page upon page of names, dates, observations, reports, all connected with Mira.

Baedes was buying secret informants with botched would-be convictions. Or maybe he was extorting information. It depended on how you looked at it. And the information he was seeking was not about the Committee, but about Mira, including her personal life.

This didn’t explain how he got away with it without the lawyers finding out. Or maybe they were finding out. Hal’s lawyer, Clydene knew, was obligated ethically to keep secret the details of Hal’s case, unless Hal wanted him to tell, and Clyde was sure Hal wouldn’t. But what happens when the squeeze play doesn’t work? What happens when Baedes threatens someone who has too much pride to give in? Clyde clearly didn’t have all the pieces to the puzzle. She put the thought to the side, promising to take note of anything that might explain what’s happening.

For a moment, Clyde wondered how far Baedes would go in his quest. His beachhead had always been the law and his position as an enforcer of it. But if he were willing to step outside the law in order to get information about Mira, how far outside the law would he be willing to go to hurt her? How far would he be willing to go in general? Or a better question: How much could he get away with?

It was then that Clyde realized the one thing that would explain Hashim’s inconsistent testimony, why it was unofficial, and why he clammed up. And she realized why it had taken so long to process his bail, something she had not thought too hard about at the time. And why it was so important to Hashim that she and Ted had been sitting there, counting the minutes, waiting for him to be released, important in a way Ted himself did not realize.

The Conscience of Abe’s Turn - Chapter 4 - Comments

Chapter 4