Dark Silence

22 days (3)

Darnell smiled looking at Madeleine. This girl really became his small companion, dragging along with him, participating in anything he did whether it was connected with his job or not. Maybe everyone was right, and he always missed at least one real friend, even if this is a little girl. He put his palm on her shoulder and looked up at him. He bent to her:

“I bet that guy will turn out to be some typical office nerd,” Darnell whispered to Madeleine. The girl shook her head questioningly, and the man smiled: he even started to understand her even without words. She asked him to explain his assumption. “A normal person will not be called Hilbert.” Darnell laughed at his joke followed by Madeleine's disapproving gaze and waved his hand. “Have you ever met at least one person with common sense, whose name would begin with the letter  “H"? Henry? Hugo? Hector? Especially Hector. I have not come across any.”

Madeleine sighed and rolled her eyes. Darnell chuckled as he stopped in front of an office with a metal plate that said  “Inventory Manager H. Winerson," and opened a door to let the girl in. The small office space contained a desk, behind which a hunched, lean man in a crisp white shirt with a blue tie and horn-rimmed glasses was busily fidgeting, and many dark wood filing cabinets that stood around the perimeter of the room. The manager raised his head, topped with a shiny bald spot, looking up from his papers, and stared at the newcomers.

“May I help you?” He nervously jabbed his finger into the bridge of his nose, rearranging his glasses, and twitched his right shoulder. Darnell thought that in his past life this person had surely been some kind of a rodent.

“I’m the representative of the ADA Agency, Darnell O'Dell,” he said, walking up to the table and holding out his hand, palm down, in greeting.

“Hilbert Winerson,” the man coughed nervously and held out his hand in return. “Manager of the special inventory.”

Hilbert gave his hand, holding the palm up, not even trying to turn Darnell's arm, and acknowledging his superiority. In addition, the grip was sluggish and almost insensible. Looked like a real wuss was sitting in front of Darnell. He decided to watch his behavior further. The guest pulled up a chair that was standing near one of the cabinets and sat down in front of the manager. Madeleine stepped away disinterestedly, examining the words written on the drawers.

“I'd like to ask you a couple of questions,” Darnell began.

“Yes, sure. Did something happen?” Hilbert grabbed his glasses off his nose, took a rag from his chest pocket, and began to wipe them down, staring at them.

“Tell me, didn’t it happen so that approximately three years ago one of  your memory vessels disappeared?”

Unexpectedly for Darnell, Hilbert chuckled softly and poked the glasses back on his nose.

“Oh, of course not, what are you talking about. Nothing ever gets lost or disappears from me, everything is given out and received on record, and the warehouse is carefully locked. Only I have the keys, no one will steal anything.”

Darnell found it odd that his interlocutor gave such a detailed answer to a simple question. Besides, he didn't ask if anything had been stolen.

“Well, maybe someone asked you for several vessels? After all, no one will notice that a couple of bottles are missing, right?” Darnell moved closer to the table and put his elbow on it. Hilbert took off his glasses again and put them aside. He rubbed the bridge of his nose and answered.

“Mister O'Dell, I'm sorry, but I don't understand what these questions are about. I've been checking and taking care of everything here for almost 10 years now, and never let anything get lost.” He took his glasses off the table again and put them back on.

“Tell me, do you have cameras in your warehouse?” Darnell asked. He saw that Hilbert was clearly nervous about his questions. Sure, no one would ever think about coming to him and asking about such a specific item as a memory vessel.

“No, unfortunately, not. The room is large and spacious, they are only at the entrance. The heads of the company do not give me funding to install cameras inside too.”

Darnell nodded with understanding, watching as Hilbert ran a hand over his tie a couple of times, carefully smoothing it, then poked a finger at the bridge of his nose again. At this rate, the manager would soon drive these poor glasses right into his skull. Darnell sighed. He couldn't get anything out of this neurotic character with the common questions. He clearly knew something.

“Are there cameras in here?” He gestured around the room. Hilbert coughed, twitching his head slightly.

“No, why would anyone watch me?” He gave out a nervous laugh. “Have I answered all your questions?” It was noticeable that he really wanted his guests to get out of the office as soon as possible.

“No cameras, you say,” Darnell repeated after him. He turned to the girl, who was looking at another closet with a bored look, not knowing how else to occupy herself. “Madeleine,” she turned at his voice, waving her golden ponytails, “wait for me outside for a minute, please. Just don't go anywhere, okay?”

The girl nodded in surprise and left the office. When the door closed behind her, Darnell turned back to his interlocutor.

“Well, now you’ll tell me everything you know.”

He jumped up from his chair and leaned rapidly towards Hilbert, grabbing his neck from behind. Darnell pulled him hard and banged his head on the table. Glasses flew to the side, and the manager waved his hands awkwardly, giving out a shout. Darnell pressed on his neck with his hand, leaning against the table, and asked:

“So, don't you remember who borrowed the bottles from you?”

“That’s an outrage! I'll report this to the authority! You will be kicked out of the Agency and go to jail!” Hilbert screeched, waving his hands in the air and hardly trying to tear the hands of the enemy away from himself.

“What makes you feel so sure that I will let you out of here?” Darnell growled, leaning towards him. “I have some reputation at the Agency, they think I’m a psycho. I got away with so much that you can’t even imagine. And no one will even lift a finger for the sake of such a rat like you. Who came to you, answer!” Darnell slightly released Hilbert, and when the manager tried to get up in vain, he hit his head heavily again. He hit the table and whimpered beggarly.

“A lot of people come to me every day, I don't remember each and every in the world!”

Darnell grabbed a pen from the table and brought it to Hilbert's eyes.

“Have you ever heard that there are many uses for any object? With this pen, I can, let’s say, write on your bald spot that you are the scum who broke the life of an innocent girl. Or I can stick it in your eye.” He jerked his hand, and Hilbert tried to crawl away, giving a whimper. “Who did you give the bottles to, who came to you?!”

“A man! Some man came three years ago, I gave him one bottle, just one! There are hundreds of them in the warehouse, and no one uses them! No one noticed that I carried the vessel out! Let go of me, let go!”

“So a man, you say?” Darnell asked. “What do you remember about him? Name, features, clothing, signs, tattoos: was there anything that caught your eye?”

“I don’t remember,” Hilbert moaned. Darnell elbowed him down and he squealed again. “Dark hair, common typical face! The amulet was around his neck, some kind of weird thing with an eye! I do not know what it was, I do not understand this devilry, I'm just a storekeeper! I do not know anything, he did not give a name, he offered a huge sum, I needed money!”

“Fine, now I do believe you.” Darnell let go of Hilbert and straightened up.

The manager jumped up from his seat and ran behind the chair, covering himself with its back, like a shield, and stared at his offender. Hilbert squinted, shivering greatly with tension and fear. Darnell gave him a scornful look.

“Boo!” he stomped his foot and jerked towards the manager. Hilbert cowered abruptly in fright, but slipped up and sat down on the floor, gasping. “You’re a weenie,” Darnell shook his head, tossing a pen onto the table carelessly. “If I were that person, I wouldn't even pay you.”

“I will report you anyway!” Hilbert replied in a trembling voice from somewhere under the table. He wasn’t hurrying much to get up and face his offender again.

“Oh, come on, really?” Darnell put his hands on his hips. “But maybe you don't want to lose your comfortable working place because of the theft of a bottle? Or what if you even organized a shadowy trade of the vessels of memories in here?”

“I didn’t do anything like that,” Hilbert replied weakly.

“Then you hit a closet today. So clumsy. Right?”

“Yes, a closet, I suppose,” Hilbert risked to crawl out from under the table, and carefully sat down in his chair, feeling that Darnell didn't need anything else from him. The bruise on Hilbert's cheek had already begun to turn the dark-read color.

"Well, then we understood each other clearly," Darnell held out his hand for a farewell shake. When Hilbert unsurely offered a shaking hand in response, he waved his hand and pulled it away. “Oops, just joking. Gotcha.” He pointed a finger at Hilbert. “And put some ice on your face.”

Darnell left the office, immediately finding Madeleine. Fortunately, she obeyed him and remained standing at the door.

“No disapproving glances or head shakings,” he threatened the girl. She sighed. “And don't roll your eyes too. I got some information, well, some kind of at least. Now we can finally leave this shitty place and go home. Tomorrow I’ll have something to tell Ewing.” Darnell gave a chuckle. “I will manage to write a nice report to him, and he will not think that I have a good slack all day long.”

Madeleine angrily slapped her hands on her thighs, still showing her disapproval of his approach, and followed him out into the street.