Part V
Winston
Zeddemore
I
walked in the door a little after five and was immediately swarmed by kids. I
picked out two “Hi, Dads!” in the mass chorus of “Hi, Mr. Zeddemore!”s
thrown out by the migrating pack of pre-schoolers on their way from one end of
the house to the other. I knew from experience that attempting to fight my way
across was near impossible, so I waited until the way was clear and followed my
nose into the kitchen, lured by an old fashioned pot roast and the knowledge the
most beautiful woman in the world was with it.
Sure
enough, Winifred Zeddemore was sitting at the kitchen table, a miracle of
organizational patience. Her long, black hair was off her neck in a head tie,
and her kanzu was the gold and blue one that set off her café-au-lait skin and
made her eyes glow. She threw me one of her incredible “welcome home” smiles
without interrupting her phone call. I dodged under the stretched cord, stepped
over the “hello” thump of Freckle’s tail where it peeked out from under
the table, and maneuvered to drop a kiss on Winnie’s neck. From the sound of
the conversation she was talking to her sister in Colorado, so I snuck a handful
of carrot pieces from the pile in front of her and waved towards our bedroom,
waiting for her wave and nod back. She set down the peeler she’d been using to
punctuate her conversation and waved an acknowledgement, then held up her spread
fingers and mouthed, “five minutes.” Still munching I waved back and
disappeared around the corner into our end of the house.
True
to her word as ever, five minutes later Winnie came sailing into the bedroom,
catching me pulling off my work boots and tossing them into the closet. She
settled down on the bed with a sigh, and I helped her lean back onto the pile of
pillows on her side of it. Her feet looked a little swollen to me, so I started
massaging them while she wiggled around to get comfortable. The doctor was
saying any minute now, but Winnie was saying not for another week. To me that
sounded like the same thing, but Winnie assured me there was plenty of time, and
since she’d been right on the money with the other two, as well as those of
her three sisters, and the wife of my oldest brother, I thought there was a good
chance she was right about herself.
“Why
don’t you start with the bad news first,” she said a minute later.
I
kept massaging, gently tugging on the toes of first one foot, then the other
while I organized my thoughts. I started on her ankles before I said anything,
though. “Egon’s in love.” It wasn’t where I wanted to start, but it
seemed to sum up the problem in the fewest words possible.
“If
that’s the bad news, I can’t wait for the good.”
I
sighed and frowned. “Normally I’d say you’re right, but I can’t see
anything but some serious hurt for the man here, for all that Ray’s up about
it, and I think Janine agrees with me.”
“Okay,
Zeddemore, spill it all for me.”
So
I did, and at the end of it all Winnie just smiled at me and patted my arm.
“I
think there’s a couple of possibilities that you’ve overlooked, but before
we go anywhere with anything, we’re going to need some more information.”
Oh,
how I hated that look in her eyes. “Winnie.”
“Where’s
your alumni directory?”
Like
Dorothy before the tornado I bowed before the force of nature I'd married; I'd
give in eventually anyways, better to do it gracefully. Freckles looked up at me
from her rug by the bed and woofed.
*******
According
to the incredibly annoying dj on the radio it was 8:22 when I pulled into the
parking garage under Dr. Peter Venkman's Manhattan residence. Zeddemore
Construction held the maintenance contract for the place, not a surprise since
we held it on probably thirty percent of the high-rise complexes on the island.
I was the one that had started the maintenance end of the business, looking for
a way to steady out the company income during building slumps. I regularly
toured the accounts on surprise inspections, so I usually knew the guard on duty
by sight if not by name.
It
wasn't the first time I'd gone head to head with the President of the company,
but it was the first time I'd faced Dad down on a business issue. If the idea
hadn't worked I doubt I would've ever regained any credibility, but like my wife
says, what ifs pay double on nothing. If the maintenance end wasn't quite as
profitable as the rest, at least it covered its expenses and made a little.
The
guard waved at me from his shack when I pulled up, then checked my ID.
"Winston,
what brings the head man out tonight?"
"Hey,
Syd," I said, tucking my ID back in my shirt pocket. "Got a report of
a cockroach on 23."
"Yeah,
right. Any roaches in this building have leases. Try again."
We
both grinned at the old joke. If anybody saw so much as a roach antenna the
whole place would be fumigated. The people in this building paid top dollar for
luxury and privacy, and the owners saw to it they got it.
"Just
a quick walkthrough tonight. Had a new guy out here a couple of days ago, wanted
to check up on his work and this was the first spot I had. Can you check the log
and make sure he was here? It was Wednesday."
"Sure,
what's the name?"
"Vlad
Wastron."
"Okay,
go park and I'll pull the log." Syd raised the arm and waved me through, so
I swung around and pulled into the maintenance slot near the entrance.
By
the time I parked and locked the truck, Syd had the log out and verified the
name. I took careful note of the times in and out, as well as the service order
number, just as I had every other time I'd been to the building.
"Thanks,
Syd. See you in a few."
I
was very, very careful to follow my usual routine, going so far as to actually
check the environmental system repair that Vlad had made. Not that I expected
anything to be wrong, since Vlad had been with the company for 15 years and done
the work as a favor to me, the regular guy having no experience with this
particular kind of system. He was due to spend a couple of weeks with Vlad for
training on the older systems we handle, but I hadn't found time to schedule it
yet.
After
checking the work on 16, I took the service elevator back down to 15 then up to
17, checking the systems there to make sure there hadn't been additional damage,
then went up to 23. Twenty-three was not just the penthouse floor, but also
housed the main maintenance room for the building. In less than two minutes I'd
keyed open the lock and was doing a quick status check of all the boards. Sure
this was a routine I followed on all the checks I did, and all the people in my
department were supposed to do the same, but if shortcuts were taken anywhere,
it was in the Shandor Building. The place gave me the creeps and I knew I wasn't
the only one; Vlad, himself, had mentioned on Wednesday that the place was
cursed. Dad laughed off that kind of talk, but I don't think even a stubborn
realist like him would laugh off this place. Relocking the maintenance access
door behind me, I made a mental note to mention the place to Ray the next time I
saw him.
Which
was a thought that stopped me dead in my tracks. I knew I'd had that thought
before but had never followed up on it and there were some very, very strange
things about the way the place was designed and built.
This
time I pulled out my notepad and wrote myself a note: Tell Ray about Shandor
Building. I started to put it back in my pocket, then pulled it out and added:
Weird Materials and Feelings. Hopefully that would be enough to remind me to
explain it to him, and why.
Cover
story established, I started da-da-ing the Mission: Impossible theme and set out
on the job Black-Ops Commander Winnie had sent me here to do: 1) Infiltrate
Behind Enemy Lines, 2) Reconnoiter the Layout of the Territory and 3) Collect
Information on Enemy Personnel.
Sometimes
I wonder which of us was in the Army.
So
far I had achieved the first objective, now I was about to enter the Enemy
Stronghold, as Winnie referred to it, and strongly regretting ever mentioning
the conversation Ray, Janine and I had had about Egon; nothing was going to stop
my wife from making sure Dr. Spengler got Somebody Deserving Of Him. What Winnie
thought she could do about it if things proved out otherwise I not only didn't
know, I refused to even think about it.
Passkeys
are wonderful things, so getting into Venkman's apartment was not a problem, but
I paused just inside the door to check the number because the place looked like
nobody lived there. The living room
was all smoke and steel ultramodern, broken by a couple of throw pillows and
antique pieces, the kind of decor you find in a display model, right down to the
curtains on the picture windows and the copper bottoms of the hanging pots above
the stove.
Glancing
at my watch I saw it was a few minutes after nine, and I knew the shindig
Venkman was at was supposed to run until ten or so, but there was always the
chance he'd leave early. I knew I would've, given a choice.
So
I threw a quick glance at the kitchen, not even a dirty glass in the sink, and
headed for the two bedrooms off the short hallway.
The
one on the left was the guest bedroom on the floor plan, and I'd half thought it
might be his home office. Instead it was an actual guestroom; complete with more
of the gun-and-metal gray with touches of blue and white that had been in the
living room. What bothered me was the total lack of anything personal anywhere
in the room. Most guestrooms that I'd been in tended to collect the bric-a-brac
and maybe-useful-laters of any household's life. Here everything was empty;
every drawer in the dresser and nightstands, both sides of the closet, even
under the bed was clean. There was something that bothered me deeply about a man
who valued so little that he wouldn't hold onto anything.
The
master bedroom door was locked, but it took me less than a minute to open it.
The lock was the kind found on any household interior door, and there were only
a handful of different tricks to try. With four brothers, three sisters, and one
bathroom growing up I’d learned a lot of tricks to make my life easier. Found
out later Dad taught all of us in turn, just as soon as we were old enough to
figure it out on our own. I opened the door, expecting, I don’t know what;
more of the same, I guess. By then I didn’t have really any kind of impression
of the man.
No,
that’s a lie. I expected more of the same. I expected to find the same slick,
superficial ultra-modern furniture, with personal items to match. I expected
suits in dry cleaning bags, matching ties neatly folded on a steel rack, black
socks folded and stacked, boxers starched and artfully arranged. Maybe a built
in radio alarm clock in the glass and metal nightstand, mate to the one in the
guestroom. You get the idea, something by an interior designer with the soul of
a CPA.
The
only thing gray in the bedroom was the carpet.
The
sudden burst of color and contrast made me blink and step back. The room was
dominated by a huge old four-poster queen sized bed, with a half dozen pillows
covered in a half dozen colors, matching the half dozen blankets piled at the
end of the messily unmade bed, like they’d been thrown on the floor then
picked up and thrown back on the bed. To my left was a matching dresser, with a
stack of books on one end, and one of those little triple-frame pictures on the
other. To my right was a bookshelf, stacked and overflowing onto the floor next
to a ratty, red, over-stuffed and over-worn lounge chair and ottoman, a hand
made quilt tossed on the seat. Beyond the bed was the closet, both sides closed.
I
shivered, realizing the temperature in the bedroom was several degrees higher
than in the rest of the place. The bed itself was warm to the touch, and I found
the control for the electric blanket turned on and stuck behind a hula girl
lamp. Hula girl lamp! I snorted and made a quick scan of the bookshelf; Rand,
LeGuin, and Tolkein were mixed with Aristotle and Socrates. In a pile behind the
chair looked to be a stack of professional magazines but I didn't stop to check.
The
dresser was free of dust and clutter except for the stack of books by the door
and the pictures. The pictures were photos of the same two people whom I took to
be Venkman and his mother, or else the man was much, much older than anybody had
led me to expect, and it was his son and wife. The first showed a young boy,
maybe five or six, holding hands with a young woman in her early to
mid-twenties, the jaw and eyes giving away their close kinship. The second was
the same woman, older now, one arm around the waist of the boy-turned-man at
what was most likely his high school graduation. The last was also a graduation
photo, and I knew from the colors the young man wore it had to be Columbia. In
this one the man stood with his arm around the woman, who looked very fragile
but with the same smile of contentment she showed in the other two.
I
looked, but didn't find a fourth one.
Sliding
open the left side of the closet, I found the wardrobe that went with the rest
of the apartment; a huge number of suits, shirts, ties and shoes, all neatly
lined up, tied up, hung up and covered up. Not a one of the suits was under a
thousand easy. Just looking at them seemed to suck up the heat in the room. I
shut that side and checked the other; here were the clothes that went with the
bedroom. Jeans and t-shirts, casual slacks and sweaters, a couple of pairs of
boots and tennis shoes. In one corner there was an old gym bag, a plain white
towel neatly folded on top.
Here
was a puzzle. Which side was trying to squeeze out which, and did Venkman even
realize it.
I
shut the closet door and started to head out, keenly aware I was running out of
time when I saw it. Behind the bedroom door, neatly framed and hung, was a
Doctorate from Columbia University. I studied it closely and was even more
confused, seeing it was a Doctorate in Parapsychology.
Was
the man a true split personality, complete with two doctorates to go with the
two bedrooms, two wardrobes, two...what? Lifestyles?
It
was that not so pleasant thought that made me shudder, more so than passing from
the warm bedroom, locking it carefully behind me, back into the coldness both
physical and mental of the rest of the apartment.
I
locked the outside door and glanced at my watch; 10:15, my tour had taken longer
than I'd expected, and I hurried to the service elevator at the other end of the
corridor. I was halfway down the hall when the floor chime on the main bank
dinged, and out stepped a brown haired man in a black tuxedo. We walked towards
each other and passed, making the brief eye contact of any two strangers, but I
knew this one; I'd just been in his apartment.
He
nodded in a friendly enough manner, but the cock-eyed grin didn't reach his
startling green eyes. The pictures I'd seen in no way showed me the force of
personality there; I could easily see that getting on the wrong side of this one
would be a mistake. I made myself nod back and keep on walking.
I
didn't look back, but I knew he was watching me. Not running was one of the
hardest things I'd ever done, and when the doors to the service elevator closed
behind me, I felt my body break out into a cold sweat.
Lord
Almighty, Egon, what have you done now?
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