Louse Read Free Page B

didn’t care about his fate, he could threaten Poppy’s sanity with a simple pitcher of rain water. I have learned that it isn’t so much the blood, although it is the blood, but more that blood is liquid. He fears most forms of liquids—to see them, drink them, touch them, be in their presence. He is convinced that liquids in general, especially water, and even water purified by the staff, is contaminated. He has a similar aversion to fresh fruits, meats, and vegetables. He says, “the grit of the earth, the dew of the morning, the fertilizers, are full of infectious bacteria, bacteria imperceptible to the eye, deadly and unspeakably unfriendly.”
    Poppy’s personal clerical staff sit in fish bowl cubicles under white fluorescent rods. A labyrinth of small offices and passages recesses into the northern-most quadrant of the building. Fingers type furiously. Telephone receivers simultaneously lift and fall.
    I enter a door that leads to an interoffice elevator and swipe my identification card through an electronic eye, then punch in my code. The elevator’s reflective silver doors open into a reflective silver interior. I press B1. The doors close. The elevator drops, and I can feel the rapid descent in the core of my stomach. I ride down thirty-three floors and exit through Accounting, which, like the offices in the penthouse, recesses deep into the back of the building, only deeper. Large stacks of bundled greenbacks meticulously line the desks of the swing shift money managers, the ones who work through all hours of the night to take advantage of the international markets. I pass through a glass-encased corridor and watch the faces of the men and women as their lips incessantly mutter indistinguishable syllables. They thrust them into the air in a verystrategic and deadly serious manner characterized by pursed lips and indented brows.
    A small group of men and women dressed in our standard uniform of gray suits, gray vests, blue ties, black belts, black shoes, huddle together in the passageway. They are huddled so tightly I can’t make out a single face. Their voices remain compressed within their circle.
    â€œHave you been implicated?”
    â€œI couldn’t say. What about you?”
    â€œI’m not sure. But I wouldn’t rule it out.”
    â€œWe can never rule it out.”
    â€œGuilty by design.”
    â€œYes, guilty by design.”
    â€œIt’s just hard to say what may come of it.”
    â€œEspecially when they’re still making assessments.”
    â€œThe future is in the hands of the present.”
    â€œSo they say.”
    â€œIt will come out soon enough.”
    â€œOf course.”
    â€œOf course.”
    â€œHe will…”
    â€œThey say…”
    â€œâ€¦forget…”
    â€œâ€¦go.”
    â€œâ€¦us…”
    And the voices drift as I reach the end of the hall.
    The hallway ends.
    I open a door that leads to a narrow glass-paned hall identical to the one I just left. Lights illuminate the money counters sortingthrough crane-loads of coins laid out in mounds on glass tables. I take a corridor to the right, then the left, through a double security door guarded by an individual behind dark tinted glass, and then down another flight of stairs, which deposits me into a large subterranean warehouse where the noise of forklifts and other heavy machinery begins to make itself known to my ears. Beside the door is a row of chairs. A line of teenagers looking approximately the same age sit in demure silence. The one closest to the door stands to attention.
    â€œYes, sir!” he says to me with a stiff upper lip. He recognizes that I am a domestic from my shaved head and arms. His hand starts to shake a little—he knows who I work for.
    â€œPlease retrieve the following,” I say to the boy as I hand him a prewritten list of items I need.
    â€œYes, sir!” he says. His youthful legs sprint down the