Set This House in Order (8 page)

Mouse shook her head. She opened her mouth, intending to say that she was sorry if she had somehow given Julie the wrong impression, but she wasn't looking for a second job, and besides—

Her chair slid back abruptly from the table. Julie didn't seem to notice: she was leaning forward now, studying the laptop's screen.

“Huh,” Julie said, rubbing her chin. “I don't think this is the same fix Dennis came up with…” She dug through a sheaf of papers that lay on the table, pulling out one page and comparing it with what was on the screen. “No, it isn't the same.” She extracted a second page from the pile. “Shit…I think your solution might be better…It's
simpler,
anyway…” Julie put the pages back down, and turned to Mouse with a look of new respect. “So how happy are you, working for Rudy?”

Mouse shrugged, not sure how to answer that question. She worked for Rudy so she could pay her bills, and because it was on the list; what did being happy have to do with it?

“It can't be a very interesting job,” Julie suggested. “Sitting in that back room all day, replacing bad circuit cards…”

“I don't mind it.”

“You should let me tell you more about my company,” Julie said. She waved a hand at Mouse's empty cup. “Why don't I get you some more tea, and we'll chat?”

“I don't really like tea,” said Mouse.

“Oh-
kay
…something else to drink, then? A beer, maybe, or a glass of wine?”

“Wine,” said Mouse. “Some red wine would be OK.”

—and she was home, in her apartment kitchen, the clock above the stove reading 11:55. She had a bad headache and she was starving. After a quick stop at the refrigerator—she found a slab of turkey roast and a brick of cheddar cheese and devoured them both standing up, chasing them with half a carton of milk—Mouse staggered into bed, too tired even to check her list to make sure she'd completed all her chores.

The next day at work, Rudy started treating her differently. Not right away; when Mouse first came into the shop he said good morning the same as he always did. But after she came back from lunch (she didn't remember going out), Rudy seemed tense, and that evening he didn't reply when she wished him good night.

That was Tuesday; and every day after that, Rudy's mood seemed to get worse. On Wednesday morning he yelled at her for the first time ever, complaining that the workroom was “a complete mess” and that “I'll never be able to find anything back here, the way you've let it go.”

“What are you looking for?” asked Mouse, alarmed. “I'll help you find it.” But this offer of assistance only seemed to anger Rudy further; he told
her to have the workroom straightened out by closing time Friday and stalked out.

On Friday, the moment she'd been dreading for eight months finally arrived. It happened as Mouse was preparing to leave. As ordered, she'd straightened up the workroom; she'd also finished the last two pending repair jobs. “All done,” she announced, coming out front shortly before six.

Rudy, who sat reading a copy of
The Drifters
with a sullen expression on his face, wouldn't acknowledge her.

“OK, then,” Mouse said. “If there's nothing else you need me to do today…”

No response.

“OK,” Mouse said. “I'll be going, then. I'll see you on Monday, Rudy.”

Her hand was on the door when Rudy said: “No you won't.”

Mouse turned around. Rudy was glaring at her over the top of his book. “I won't?” Mouse said.

“No,” said Rudy. “Don't you remember?” He snorted. “Hell, maybe you don't. Maybe the ‘numbing boredom' of working for me numbed your memory, too.” He set down his book and took a deep breath. “I've got something to say to you before you go. If you don't like your job, whatever the reason, that's fine—I don't want anybody working here against their will. But you've got no right to shit on me personally. Maybe this place
is
just ‘a hole in the wall,' but I've got pride in it just the same—I worked for it, I built it up, I kept it going for years without any help from anybody, and you've got
no right
to shit on that. It may not be much, but it's more than
you've
got, as far as I can tell…”

Mouse felt her lower lip quivering. She wanted to cry; she wanted to beg Rudy's forgiveness for whatever she'd done. But she was terrified that if she did either of those things, made any sound or interrupted Rudy in any way, he'd come out from behind the counter and start hitting her. So she stayed mute and still by the door, while Rudy continued to berate her. He went on for a long time.

“…so that's it,” he concluded, when his rage was finally spent. By this point his eyes were rimmed with red, as if he too were on the verge of crying. “That's all I've got to say to you. Now get the hell out of my shop.”

“Rudy…” Mouse tried to say, but the word came out as a meaningless twitter. Then Rudy stood up, shoving his stool back with a loud screech, and Mouse bolted.

She ran from the Quick Fix so swiftly that she was all the way to her car before the tears started. She slid into the driver's seat, slapped down the
door locks, and then hunched over the steering wheel blubbering for almost twenty minutes. She kept hoping she would lose time, lose this moment, this day, and so find herself beyond it. But time stayed with her, and eventually the crying fit tapered off. She drove home.

A red light blinked in the darkness of her apartment as she let herself in: there was a message on her answering machine. After switching on the living-room lights, Mouse hit the playback button, and heard Julie Sivik's voice: “Hey Mouse! It's Friday afternoon, around four, and I'm calling to confirm that we're all set for Monday…”

The top of the stand on which the answering machine rested was glass-inlaid wood; as the message continued—with Julie expressing concern about how Rudy had “taken the news”—Mouse caught sight of her reflection in the glass. Holding her own gaze, Mouse wondered:
What have you done?

But even though she already knew she was crazy, she didn't dare ask that question aloud.

Today's list includes a set of directions for finding the Reality Factory, but even so, and even going there directly without stopping off home, Mouse arrives several minutes late. Distracted by a tailgating semi-truck, she misses the turnoff for Autumn Creek and is forced to backtrack from the next exit; and having found her way into the town, she doesn't recognize the Factory at first.
Across 2nd bridge, quarter mile beyond on left side,
the directions read, but during a phone conversation over the weekend, Julie Sivik described the Factory as being “just a little rundown,” so Mouse is not expecting a ruin. She drives right past it, and goes another mile down the road before realizing her mistake.

“Oh God,” Mouse exclaims as she drives in the Factory gate, having backtracked once more. The property isn't just rundown; it looks abandoned. But there is an old Cadillac with new bodywork parked on the lot, and Mouse remembers Julie mentioning on the phone that her car was a fixed-up Caddy. So this really must be it: this is where she works now. Mouse parks her Buick just inside the gate, pointed outward, ready for a quick getaway. And even though she is late, she sits for a moment after shutting off the engine, gathering her courage before stepping out.

Enter main building through side door,
the directions read. The main building must be the long, low warehouse-like structure at the center of the lot. Mouse walks around it to the left (a mountain of old tires enclosed by a chain-link fence blocks passage on the right), turning frequently to check that nothing is creeping towards her out of the thickets of weeds and bushes that encircle the property. At the door she pauses to adjust her sweater; she tugs at both the collar and the hem, making sure it covers the tank top completely.

The wording of the directions implies that she should let herself in, but
Mouse knocks anyway. No one answers. Reluctantly she tries the doorknob, which turns easily. She opens the door and steps inside.

Oh God.
The building is just a shell, concrete walls and a patchwork roof sheltering a collection of…
tents?

“This is the place,” a woman's voice calls to her. Mouse squeaks. “Sorry, sorry,” the voice apologizes, and Mouse sees that it isn't a woman after all: the voice belongs to a boyish-looking man with a tousle of sandy hair. He darts towards her with startling swiftness, and Mouse, frightened, backs up against the door.

Mouse is relieved when Julie Sivik appears. But her relief is short-lived: Julie tells the boyish man to call Mouse by her nickname, and another man—a fat, ugly man, like a chubby troll—pops out of a nearby tent shouting “Hi, Mouse!” He too darts towards her, his speed belying his size, and engulfs her hand in a damp doughy two-fisted grip.

Mouse is overwhelmed. The morning starts to fragment, bits of time dropping out, shuddering the smooth flow of events. “Let's go try out the system,” Julie says, and they walk towards a big tent at one end of the building: Julie and Mouse, the boyish man, the fat man, and a third man, a skinny glum guy who doesn't talk. Mouse feels as though she ought to know the men's names by now, but she doesn't.

Julie holds open the tent flap for her, elbowing aside the troll, who is attempting to perform the same service. Mouse enters; she has a brief impression of the tent's interior, a musty, mildewy smelling space filled with all sorts of electronic equipment.

—and then she is standing in the middle of the tent with the three nameless men staring at her while Julie tries to pull her sweater off—

—and something heavy is being forced down over her head, covering her eyes—

—and she is caught up in a hallucination of a giant checkerboard floating in space. A fluorescent ghost glides towards her over the surface of black and white squares, and the voice of the troll speaks in her ear, commanding her to dance.

Too much. Too much. Mouse disappears. Drone comes, Drone who does what she is told and feels nothing. “Dance, Mouse,” the troll says, and Drone rocks obediently from side to side. Then the music changes—Drone is not even aware of the music until it changes, but it changes—and Loins takes over, recognizing a song she loves. Loins actually
enjoys
dancing; it was she who went out last night to the Rain Dancers roadhouse, she who met up with George Lamb, the stranger, and agreed to follow him home. She would have
fucked him, too, but by the time they got to George's trailer, she'd realized it wasn't going to be any fun, so she pushed
that
chore off on Drone.

Loins dances until the music stops, until the dream-world is switched off and the virtual-reality headset is lifted from her brow. Then she gives way to the Brain, who fixes PCs and writes code…

By the time Mouse comes back, the morning is over. She returns to find herself inside another, smaller tent. She sits in a wooden folding chair, while Julie speaks to her from behind a beat-up desk. A digital clock on the desktop informs her that it is now 12:12. Mouse has a headache but is not tired, and the Navigator surmises that it is 12:12
P.M.
, not
A.M.

“—have a sit-down with Dennis after lunch and hash out exactly what you'll be working on,” Julie is saying. Mouse doesn't really pay attention to the words. Instead, as discreetly as she can, she checks herself: she looks down and sees that she is wearing the sweater, that her tank top is once again covered, if in fact it was ever uncovered. That brief flash she had of Julie trying to strip the sweater off her—maybe
that
was a hallucination too, like the floating checkerboard.

But if she did hallucinate, if she had some kind of psychotic episode, what did she actually
do
while it was happening? Did anybody else notice? Mouse observes Julie for a moment, and decides that the way Julie is talking to her—calm, relaxed—is not the way she would talk to someone she had seen acting crazy a little while ago. Still, Mouse thinks, 12:12—that's three and a half hours since she got here. What
happened?

“—hungry?” Julie asks.

“What?” says Mouse. Julie smiles indulgently at her. “I'm sorry,” Mouse says. “I…I drifted off for a second…”

“It's all right,” says Julie. “I asked whether you were hungry. I was thinking, maybe I'll dip into petty cash, round up the guys, and take everybody out to lunch on the company. How's that sound?”

“OK,” Mouse says. What Mouse would really like to do is go home, call up Rudy Krenzel, and plead for her old job back. But that doesn't appear to be an option—it's not on her list.

Mouse stays close as Julie goes to get the others. By paying careful attention, she is finally able to put names to two of the men. The boyish man is called Andrew; the troll—whose shirt is hanging wide open when they find him, earning him a sharp rebuke from Julie—is Dennis. Mouse still can't catch the name of the third man, but he is so quiet that she decides it doesn't matter; you don't need to know what to call someone if they don't talk to you.

They go outside, where Julie expresses concern that they will not all fit comfortably in her car, due to unspecified problems with the backseat cushions. “That's OK,” Mouse tells her, not unhappy with this development. “I can follow you in my car.”

“I volunteer to ride with Mouse!” Dennis shouts, and Mouse cringes. But Julie comes to her rescue: “No, Dennis,” she says, “you ride with me. I need to talk to you about something.”

“What, right now? We can talk at the diner.”

“No, Dennis,” repeats Julie. “Andrew, why don't
you
ride with Mouse? Make sure she doesn't get lost.”

“Get
lost?
” Dennis exclaims. “What the fuck, Commodore? The diner is on Bridge Street. All she's got to do is turn right out the gate and drive straight.”

“Just get in the damn car, Dennis.” Grumbling, Dennis stomps around to the passenger side of the Cadillac, where the quiet man is already waiting for Julie to unlock the doors. “You ride in back!” Dennis bellows, shoving the quiet man aside.

As soon as they are seated in the Caddy, Julie and Dennis start arguing with each other again, but the car's windows are rolled up and Mouse can't make out the words. She turns to Andrew, who is mumbling to himself and seems lost in thought. After a moment he snaps out of it, looks at Mouse and shrugs apologetically. “When Julie makes up her mind to do something in a certain way,” he says, “there's not much point in fighting it.” He nods his head in the direction of Mouse's Centurion. “Want to go?”

Andrew makes polite small talk on the way to the diner. It's a good effort, but not good enough to hide the fact that he is uncomfortable being alone with her. Mouse wonders if he saw something that Julie missed.
What was I doing this morning between nine and twelve?
she thinks of asking him, but of course she doesn't say that. Wounded by his apprehension, Mouse decides that she doesn't like Andrew.

Soon enough they are at the Harvest Moon, a Fifties-style malt shop with lots of chrome and neon. Mouse follows Julie's Cadillac into the lot behind the diner. She barely has time to set the parking brake before Andrew exits the car. “Cocksucker,” Maledicta grumbles at his back.

Inside the diner, Dennis tries to sit next to Mouse, but once again Julie Sivik intervenes; she takes the seat to Mouse's left for herself and insists that Andrew, not Dennis, sit on Mouse's right.

“What the hell is this, Dial-a-Date?” Dennis complains loudly. “What do you keep putting
him
next to her for?”

“Here Dennis,” says Julie, handing him a menu. “You'll feel better once you've got food in front of you.”

A waitress takes their orders, and while they wait for their lunches to arrive, Julie tries unsuccessfully to get a conversation going. More specifically, she tries to get Andrew and Mouse to have a conversation; she does this by asking Andrew a series of set-up questions, like “So Andrew, did you know that Mouse once worked at Bit Warehouse, same as you did?” But Andrew won't follow her lead, and between his obvious discomfort, and Dennis's jibes about Dial-a-Date, Julie is soon forced to give up. No one says anything else until the food comes.

It is while they are eating that the thing happens that changes Mouse's mind about disliking Andrew. Within sight of their table is a booth in which a man sits with a young girl of four or five. The man saws mechanically at a large T-bone steak, forking one piece of meat after another into his mouth. The girl isn't hungry; there is a plateful of peas and mashed potatoes in front of her, but rather than eat any of it, she just uses a spoon to push the peas around and trace patterns in the gravy. Eventually she grows bored with this; as an experiment, she taps the rim of the plate with the bowl of her spoon. Pleased with the sound it makes, she begins striking it repeatedly, like a gong.

The man sets his fork down. He grabs the girl's spoon hand, stilling it; he doesn't speak, but his eyes flash a warning. The girl, momentarily chastened, goes back to pushing peas. The man returns to his steak. Then the girl, growing bored again, clinks her spoon against the side of a water glass.

This time the man doesn't bother to put his fork down; he just hauls off and backhands her across the face. It is a powerful blow: the girl is knocked sideways in her seat and nearly falls out of the booth. Her face turns purple and she begins to cry, softly. A few of the other diner patrons look around at the sound, and look away again.

Then Andrew stands up. (“Oh Jesus,” says Dennis, “here we go,” but Andrew ignores him.) He walks over to the booth, positioning himself on the girl's side of the table, and stares at the man, who has gone back to sawing at his steak.

“Excuse me,” Andrew says.

The man in the booth takes a moment to finish chewing a bit of gristle. “What do
you
want?” he finally asks.

“Is this your daughter?” asks Andrew.

“Yes, it's my daughter,” the man in the booth says. “What do you
want
?”

“You could have broken her eardrum, hitting her like that,” Andrew
informs him. “Or her jaw. Or”—he points to the fork clutched in the man's fist—“you could have put her eye out.”

The man drops the fork into his plate and brushes his hands together. He sighs impatiently. “Get out of my face, asshole.”

“Don't call me an asshole,” Andrew says.

The man in the booth seems amazed to hear these words coming out of Andrew's mouth. He is bigger than Andrew by a fair margin, and much meaner-looking; he wears a suit, but it is rumpled and worn, as if he spends a lot of time engaged in hard physical labor…or administering beatings to people who annoy him. “Would you like me to poke
your
eye out?” he says. “Or rip out your fucking—”

“Don't threaten me,” says Andrew, his own voice not threatening but firm, the voice a father—a
good
father—might use to dissuade a child from pursuing a dangerous course of action:
Don't play with those matches, honey!

And the man in the booth hesitates, confused by Andrew's lack of fear. He studies Andrew's face for a moment, then looks down—checking Andrew's hands, Mouse realizes, to see if he is holding a weapon. He isn't. And though Andrew is physically fit, he doesn't carry himself like a fighter. It is a conundrum.

“What are you, crazy?” the man in the booth asks. Andrew lets the question hang there, and the man in the booth continues, wary now: “How I treat my kid is none of your business, pal.”

“A grown man beating up a little girl is everybody's business,” Andrew tells him; he says this in a loud voice, and once more heads begin to turn. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“A
shamed
of myself!” the man guffaws. He looks out of the booth, seeking a confederate among the diner patrons who are staring at him. His gaze settles on Julie. “Do you believe this guy?” he asks her. “He thinks he's my goddamn conscience!”