‘You mean Clark?’
‘No, Spider.’
‘Spider?’
‘Chimeno.’
‘I didn’t hear about it.’
‘It looked like someone punched him.’
Rem made it halfway back to the cabins when he realized that Kiprowski wanted to say something about Chimeno but hadn’t quite managed. As he passed by the tent he avoided looking at the men, and they quietened in any case when they saw him approach.
* * *
Cathy arrived late at work to find the store closed, the aisles empty except for the four clerks standing hands on hips or arms folded, nonplussed, an accusatory pitch in the way they leaned back to watch her. She greeted the guard as he unlocked the door and thought he also had some problem, something she couldn’t guess.
‘She’s at the back taking stock.’
Cathy hitched her bag higher on her shoulder as she walked through the store.
‘Maggie wants a word.’ The first of four girls pointed to the loading dock. Chewed black fingernails. And she handles food.
What was it with these people, anyway? Voices sharp as pickle-juice, first jobs, more or less, hair dyed whore-black, punched-face make-up, all younger by a good fifteen years, and the attitude. What was it with the attitude?
‘She’s in the back.’
Cathy walked through Produce, through the soft rubber slats to the loading dock to find Maggie with a man in a short-sleeved shirt and glasses, George stitched in orange on the pocket. The man counted while two boys emptied a van, their arms loaded with white and pink boxes. On every surface the same pretty boxes: stacked on pallets, blocking the freight elevator, the firedoor, falling back from the dock to the open back of the truck. Maggie’s gesture, hands held in flat-out refusal, pushing, indicating she wanted everything gone, out of here, now, and when she saw Cathy she hurried forward, relieved.
‘Tell him to take them back. We can’t store these. It’s a mistake. Tell him he has to take them back.’
The man set his feet wide apart, folded his arms, leaned back, stubborn, a stance that might have appeared manly, except the girls in the store stood in the exact same way. He did not instruct his men to stop.
‘What’s going on, George?’ Cathy conspicuously read the name on his shirt. He didn’t look much like a George. With a tattoo edging under his shirt-sleeve she guessed he’d have a nickname.
‘Insanity. Mouthwash!’ Maggie waved, exasperated, at the boxes.
Mouthwash. Cathy asked to see the order-sheet. She still had Roscoe’s receipt in her pocket. ‘We don’t have any orders for mouthwash, George, and we don’t sell this brand.’
‘I told him.’ Maggie held out a docket, shook it. ‘Look at the name on the delivery. It’s yours.’
Cathy opened the paper, looked to the top and found her name, Cathy M. Gunnersen, underneath the name of the store.
‘I didn’t place this order. We can’t accept these.’
The man folded his arms, a finite no.
‘I’m serious. You have to take these back. We won’t pay for them.’
‘No one’s being asked to pay. They’re yours. I’m paid to deliver. That’s all I know.’
Maggie looked down to her feet. ‘This is the wrong day for this.’
Cathy looked over the invoice, searched for a name, a number to call. ‘You’ve come all the way from Connecticut? Who’s PrimeCut? I’ve never heard of them. Says here that the order has come from PrimeCut Supply.’
The man nodded. Now they all had their arms folded.
‘Let me make a call.’
Cathy strode back through the store determined not to show her confusion. She ignored the sales clerks who turned, magnetized, to watch her. She paused at the checkout and turned slowly about to face the shop.
‘Why are you all standing around? Get those doors open.’ She turned her back as she placed the call, not wanting the see the girls disobey her, but feeling better in any case to have said something decisive.
* * *
After an hour speaking with different people at PrimeCut Supply in Connecticut, Cathy finally convinced them to cancel the order and take back the goods.
The woman, a clerk called Martina with a summer voice, explained that the order to deliver ninety-five boxes of mouthwash had come to them via a third party. It wasn’t an error.
‘I don’t understand why you have my name?’
The woman couldn’t explain. There was one shipment of ninety-five boxes to Cathy M. Gunnersen placed through this one third-party order.
‘Third party? I don’t understand what that means.’
‘It means the order is coming from a customer who wants the goods to be shipped to another party, someplace else.’
‘And what address do you have?’
The clerk read out the address for Happy Shopper, then the address for Clark Street.
Cathy looked out of the window at a small line of shoppers, all static, lost, because the store was closed but the lights were on, and they could see the staff standing about, useless, and it was already one hour and twenty minutes into trading time and the girls had not done what she’d asked. Zombies, she told herself. Undead. Slow. Soul-less. Zombies. In a film they would invent ways to dispatch them one by one.
And why mouthwash?
* * *
Sutler brought beer to Rem’s cabin and asked if he could have a word. Rem pointed to Kiprowski’s cot.
‘I have a little scotch left,’ he said, ‘if you’d prefer.’
Rem paused from writing. ‘You manage to get your hands pretty much on anything.’
‘What was that earlier today?’
‘A man died. An accident. Before you arrived.’ Rem paused and closed his eyes for a moment. ‘His name was Amer Hassan, and he had two sons. His wife is now a widow, and she’s barely in her twenties. She’s in another country and doesn’t speak the language, and there won’t be insurance or compensation from HOSCO. He comes from Yemen, and has family, who came with him to Iraq who will be in danger once the word gets out that he was working for us.’
‘You’re not responsible.’ Sutler offered the beer. Rem did not accept.
‘This isn’t about me. This is about a deep and meaningless fuck-up.’ Rem looked hard at Sutler. Was he asking because he was interested, or because it was information? ‘Look. I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m tired of trying to figure you out.’
Sutler set the beer on the floor.
‘This whole thing? It doesn’t look like you know anything about cities. Why are you talking with people from HOSCO? What business do you have with Paul Geezler?’
Sutler nodded as if there wasn’t anything to explain. His arrival came down to a simple fact: he had the skills the company needed. Skills and availability. Right place, right time.
‘So how long are you here?’
Sutler didn’t know. ‘If they pick Camp Liberty — and I’m confident they will — I could be here for the duration. I don’t know. If the company has some other notion of what they want me for I could be somewhere else tomorrow. That’s how it works. Until then, I collect the information, work on the timetable and costs, and submit the bids. That, in a nutshell, is what I do.’
‘Why are you talking with Paul Geezler?’
‘I’m talking with HOSCO. He was involved in a minor capacity. You keep mentioning this man. What’s your business with him?’
Rem looked up to the ceiling. ‘Geezler organized some work he had an interest in, and I guess he’s done with it now. I don’t know. We haven’t spoken.’ Rem decided to accept the beer. ‘Next time you have a little chat ask him why I’ve not heard from him.’