Black Cat Weekly #25

HERE ON SEVENTEEN, by Joseph S. Walker

HERE ON SEVENTEEN,

by Joseph S. Walker“I’m not going to tell you we’re family,” June Fletcher said. “It’s insulting. To our families, if not us. If you feel the same way about your coworkers and your family, something’s gone wrong. Right?”

It was plain she didn’t really want a response. She didn’t even turn to be sure that Alex Dawson was still behind her, toting the box of stuff from his old desk.

“We’re not a family,” she went on, with no more pause than breath demanded. “What we are, here on seventeen, is a neighborhood.” She gestured to each side, keeping up her brisk pace. “Open plan for the entire floor. The paired desks promote both team building spirit and autonomy, because you’re kind of working alone and you kind of have a partner. Everybody keeps an eye out for each one another. Keeps their grass mowed and a fresh coat of paint on the porch, so to speak, like good neighbors used to do. Everybody knows everybody. Everybody works together to keep things humming.”

“Nice,” Dawson said.

“You’re coming from where?”

“Nine.”

“All cubicles on nine,” Fletcher said. “Old thinking. Tired thinking. Here on seventeen, we’ve gotten past all that. You have a problem, a question, anything at all, you come to me. Do not go to Mr. Ellis. Everything goes through me before it gets to Mr. Ellis, if it ever does. That’s clear?”

“Clear.”

“You have good timing.” She gave no sign of hearing him. “When Len Rose transferred in, all I had open was the desk nearest the restrooms. You’re doing a little better.” She stopped, so abruptly Dawson almost ran into her, and gestured. “Corner space. Just look at those windows!”

The windows looked out over the city to the north and east. A tall corner shelving unit between them held a few books and samples of company products. Two desks, set at angles carefully chosen to seem random, filled most of the corner space, separated from the other nearby workers by border zones with armchairs and coffee tables and printing stations.

One of the desks was empty. The man sitting at the other looked up and nodded. The sleek laptop he worked on was perfectly squared with the sides of the desk, and entirely out of step with his old-fashioned office equipment. Actual in and out trays made from slabs of gray metal. Thick silver pens with caps that screwed on and off. A stapler made from enough industrial steel to forge an anchor for a small boat.

“Ben Grauman,” the man at the desk said.

“Ben, this is Alex Dawson, your new neighbor,” Fletcher said, before Dawson could introduce himself. “Up from nine. Make him feel at home.”

“Sure thing.”

Already turning to go, Fletcher nodded at Dawson. “You saw my desk, near the elevator. Remember, everything comes to me before it goes to Mr. Ellis.” She headed back the way they had come.

Dawson set his box on the empty desk. “I’m starting to wonder if Mr. Ellis exists.”

“He exists,” Grauman said. “You’ll see him at the holiday party.”

“Good to have something to look forward to.” Dawson took a bright yellow coffee mug from the box. He glanced around, considering, then took it to the shelves and placed it at eye level.

* * * *

“You have to do something about Dawson’s damned coffee mugs,” Grauman told June Fletcher a week later.

They were alone together in the little kitchenette near Fletcher’s desk. She liked to keep an eye on who used it, and how often.

“Personal items are permissible, unless sexually explicit, racially insensitive, or otherwise disruptive,” Fletcher said.

“Well, I feel disrupted.”

“By coffee mugs?”

“Twenty-seven coffee mugs. Mostly swag from conferences, with institutional logos. I thought everyone just left that junk in hotel rooms, but he keeps them.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“He put them on the shelves so the logos are visible. But eleven of them have their handles facing left, and sixteen have their handles pointed right.”

“This bothers you?”

“It’s all I can think about,” he said. He was holding a coffee cup himself, and he tapped it against the counter in a staccato rhythm. “It eats at me. Like hearing some little buzzing noise and not being able to figure out what it is. I’ll be sitting with my hands on the keyboard and realize I’ve been staring at the damn cups for fifteen minutes.”

“You’re exaggerating.”

“It’s affecting my productivity. Which means it’s affecting the floor’s productivity. I’d hate for that to come to Mr. Ellis’s attention.”

June Fletcher sighed. “I’ll speak to Dawson.”

* * * *

Dawson came to her before she could go to him.

“Tell Grauman not to touch my things,” he said.

Fletcher took off her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Your coffee cups?”

“Mugs. While I was at lunch, he turned a bunch of them around so all the handles face the same way. Who cares about the handles? I want to see what they say. They represent happy memories.”

“Of industry conferences?”

“Professional milestones,” he said. “Mutually rewarding personal connections.”

“Please don’t elaborate.” Fletcher stood up. “Come with me.”

Grauman looked up from his work as she walked briskly to the corner shelves. Dawson, trailing in her wake, stopped and leaned against his desk to watch her. She stood for a moment with her fists on her hips, looking at the cups, then began to move them. When she was done there were eleven cups on the left-hand arm of the shelves, their handles facing left, and sixteen on the right arm, their handles facing right. She nodded and turned.

“Now you can see what they say, but they’re in an order,” she said. “All right?”

Neither man looked entirely happy, but both nodded.

“Good. So that’s over. I expect you two will be a good team now, yes? You’re both young bachelors. Why don’t you go out tonight? Have a drink. Get to know each other.”

Dawson and Grauman looked at each other doubtfully.

“I can’t actually order you to socialize,” she said. “So let’s pretend I’m not doing that, and Mr. Ellis will never have to hear about any of this. We can all just be good neighbors here on seventeen.”

* * * *

“The man is a colossal bore,” Dawson told Fletcher Monday morning.

They were waiting for the elevator in the parking garage beneath the building.

“I’ve always found Ben quite personable.”

“He collects and paints lead soldiers. Civil War lead soldiers. He explained why he only does the Civil War, but I glazed over fifteen minutes in.”

“Everybody needs a hobby. Ben likes old things, solid things. It’s why he uses those ancient office supplies.”

“He has pictures of the soldiers on his phone. Multiple angles of every one, and I forget how many hundred he has.”

“Very attentive to detail. It makes him a good worker.”

“It makes him a God-awful drinking buddy.”

The elevator finally, mercifully, arrived.

“You don’t have to be his best friend,” Fletcher said as they stepped on. “I said we’re a neighborhood, not a fraternity. Just work with the man.”

* * * *

“I can’t work with the man,” Grauman told her later in the day. “He’s vulgar to an inconceivable degree.”

They were back in the kitchenette. Fletcher was sorting through the recycling bin, making sure everything in it belonged there. “What do you mean?”

“Listen, I like women.” Grauman sniffed. “Whatever some people may think. But I don’t feel the need to ogle every female who walks into a place and make crude remarks about them. After a few drinks he started ranking them, trying to get me to pick which ones I’d want to take home. It was mortifying.”

“He’s young.”

“Young is different than immature. We’re professionals, not frat boys. Doesn’t this company have a strict s****l harassment policy?”

“It obviously doesn’t apply to after-hours socializing. It’s not as though he’s pinning up centerfolds by his desk.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me.”

“I won’t ask you to see him outside work again,” Fletcher said. “Just work with him. Please. For the good of seventeen.”

* * * *

“I can’t be the only one who’s noticed the smell,” Dawson said to her a few days later, in the short hallway outside the floor’s restrooms.

She didn’t have to ask what he meant. “I think you’ll find that after a while you don’t notice.”

“Only if I take acid to my olfactory nerves. I swear it’s stronger every day.”

“We are legally obligated to permit Ben his smoking breaks. He only takes two a day. At least he doesn’t smoke cigarettes.”

“Oh, I know. I’ve seen him out there, puffing away on his pipe. He might as well have leather patches on his elbows. God knows who he’s trying to impress.”

“I actually find the scent pleasantly nostalgic. My father smoked pipes. I used to love going to the tobacco shop with him.”

“You probably didn’t spend the whole day sitting five feet away from him. What about my rights? What if I was allergic?”

“Are you?”

“No.”

“Put a dab of menthol rub under your nostrils. I believe that’s what the last person at your desk did.”

* * * *

“You have to move him,” Grauman hissed. It was the end of another day and June Fletcher had just stepped out of the elevator, her car keys in hand.

“There’s nowhere to move him to,” she said. “What happened now?”

“The O’Shea report. I spent months on it. He sent it up to twenty-five with his name on the envelope. Claims it landed on his desk accidentally.” Grauman snorted.

“It’s possible. Anyway, just let twenty-five know it’s your work.”

“You have to do that,” he said. “If it comes from me, I look desperate and petty.”

“Fine.” Fletcher walked toward her car. “First thing tomorrow.”

Grauman kept pace. “And you have to move him.”

“I told you, that’s not an option. There isn’t a free desk anywhere on seventeen.”

“So kick him off seventeen.”

“I’d look like an i***t for requesting him in the first place. I don’t need a headache with HR.”

“Break us up.”

“To do that I’d have to break up another pairing, and everybody else is happy.”

“This is not a tenable situation, June.”

She slid behind the wheel of her car. “You’re both good at your jobs and you’re both paid well, Ben. Make it tenable.”

* * * *

For the next few weeks, the tension in the air of the northeast corner was like the feeling before lightning begins to flicker across the sky. Grauman and Dawson mostly sat with their backs to each other. Fletcher found reasons to drift by a couple of times a day in fruitless efforts to draw them into friendly chats, but the men would barely speak in each other’s presence. Worse, the pairs sitting nearest them were also getting quieter, less likely to come in early or stay late.

She had promised Mr. Ellis this scheme of loose partnerships in an open office would work. She didn’t tell him the idea came not from a TED talk or a business journal, but from her seventh-grade teacher. As long as it kept working on seventeen as well as it had back at Cothern Elementary, she looked like a genius.

Seventeen’s September numbers were down. Not enough to alarm anyone, or even likely to be noticed. But down.

* * * *

Grauman stepped off the elevator and put a brown paper grocery bag on her desk with a heavy thump.

“What’s this?” Fletcher asked.

Grauman crossed his arms. “Just look.”

The bag was filled with magazines. She looked through the first layer of them. Hunting magazines, bridal magazines, fashion magazines, travel magazines. All of them heavy, all of them slick, all of them with Ben Grauman’s name on the address label.

“They started showing up last week,” he said. “I didn’t think anything of it at first. Some clerical error. But then I started getting bills for the subscriptions. And they keep coming. I received thirty-seven different magazines just on Saturday. You should see the looks my mailman is giving me.”

“Why are you showing them to me?”

“He did this. Dawson. I know he did. He went to a bookstore or something and got subscription cards from all the magazines and filled them out with my name.”

“You can’t possibly prove that. Maybe it is a computer glitch.”

“I’m going to dump these on his desk.”

“You most certainly are not.” She set the bag by her feet. “I’ll put them in the recycling bin later, and you will not say a word.”

Grauman folded his arms. “I may have to go to Mr. Ellis about this.”

“Mr. Ellis doesn’t need to hear about playground squabbles. Please. Leave it to me.”

* * * *

“He’s stealing from me,” Dawson told her.

Fletcher rubbed her temple with two fingers. “I find that difficult to credit.”

“The cup from the Midwest Regional convention three years ago. Bright yellow. Handle faced right, as if that matters. It was there yesterday.”

“Cleaning staff. Accidental breakage. Or somebody thought they were for communal use.”

“Or Ben Grauman stole it.”

“I assure you Ben Grauman can afford his own coffee cups.”

“You know that’s not it. He’s trying to get back at me.”

Fletcher’s eyes narrowed. “Get back at you for what?”

Dawson backed away a step. “Who knows? Something he imagines I’ve done. Just please deal with it.”

* * * *

October’s numbers were down a shade more.

* * * *

The mood on seventeen was hushed and somber when Mr. Ellis stepped off the elevator. It was late in the morning, almost time for lunch, but the autumn fog shrouding the city pressed in close against the windows, turning the floor into a dim gray cave. Clusters of people talked in quiet voices.

June Fletcher broke away from one group and hurried over to clasp her boss’s hand in both of hers. “Mr. Ellis,” she said. “It’s kind of you to come by.”

“Of course,” he murmured. “Such a difficult day. I’m sorry we can’t just send everyone home this afternoon, but the police are insisting.”

“I know,” Fletcher said. “They’ve been talking to people one at a time in the kitchenette.” Her eyes slid to the door, usually kept propped open, now firmly closed. “That’s after they went over his work area, of course.”

Ellis put a hand on her shoulder and turned her away from the nearest set of people, all of whom seemed to have simultaneously fallen silent. “Dawson’s been removed from the parking garage,” he said, in a voice pitched just above a whisper. “They say people can have access to their cars again in a few hours.”

“That’s good,” Fletcher said. “Have they told you anything?”

Ellis sighed. “Their working theory is that someone was hiding in the back seat of his car when he left last night. As soon as Mr. Dawson got in, he was attacked. Apparently the weapon was a pair of scissors. The poor man was there until they found him this morning.”

“Horrible.”

The kitchenette door opened. The detective handling the case, a young man named Costa, came out, leading two uniformed officers. Ben Grauman was between them. His face was stone and his hands were cuffed behind his back. A wave of gasps and quiet exclamations rippled across the floor.

Costa gestured the officers toward the elevator and went to Ellis and Fletcher. “I’m sorry to do this so publicly,” he said. “We should be able to let the rest of you folks go about your business very soon now.”

June Fletcher’s hand was clasped over her mouth. She lowered it slowly. “I can’t believe Ben Grauman did this,” she said. “You’ve made some mistake.”

“I’m sure the officers have evidence,” Mr. Ellis said.

“We do,” Costa said. “I obviously can’t discuss it right now, but we’re satisfied. You’ll find out more soon.” The elevator dinged. Costa glanced over his shoulder as his men took Grauman into the car. He held out his hand to shake Fletcher’s and then Ellis’s. “We appreciate your cooperation,” he said. He joined his men.

As the elevator doors closed, Fletcher had a last glimpse of Grauman’s face, pale and immobile.

When they were gone, Ellis turned to Fletcher and spoke quietly. “Let everyone know they can have the rest of the week off,” he said. “Paid, of course. And I’ll see that we have someone here on Monday to talk with anyone who needs that. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Nothing immediate,” Fletcher said. “My head is spinning. I suppose I’ll have two desks to fill.”

“We’ll take care of that,” Ellis said. “You’ll have free choice of anyone in the building, as far as I’m concerned. But that’s a discussion for another day.”

“Of course.”

Ellis shook her hand again. He made a vague gesture of comfort and solidarity to everyone watching and went back to the elevator. Important calls to make, no doubt. Markets opening soon in Asia. Rumblings of supply disruptions in western Europe. It was kind of him to descend for a few minutes to check in on them, here on seventeen, before returning to the lordly heights of thirty-two.

June Fletcher thought that people were frequently kinder than you might expect them to be. Often, they were kind in ways they weren’t even conscious of. It was kind of Alex Dawson to habitually leave his car keys in his desk over lunch. It was kind of Ben Grauman to stock his desk with outdated, easily identified supplies, including those weighty iron scissors, so unlike the light, plastic, modern ones everyone else in the building used. It was kind when people provided such convenient, practical solutions to the problems they themselves had created.

It was a shame to lose the rest of the week, and of course it would take some time to break in a new pair in the northeast corner—a pair she would closely screen for compatibility. By the start of the new year, though, June Fletcher was confident that the numbers would be back where they belonged, with seventeen humming along in well-tuned harmony, everyone taking care of themselves and taking care of one another. Like neighborhoods ought to be.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Joseph S. Walker lives in Indiana and teaches college literature and composition courses. His short fiction has appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Mystery Weekly, Tough, and a number of other magazines and anthologies. He has been nominated for the Edgar Award and the Derringer Award and has won the Bill Crider Prize for Short Fiction. He also won the Al Blanchard Award in 2019 and 2021. Follow him on Twitter @JSWalkerAuthor and visit his website at https://jsw47408.wixsite.com/website.