No answer.
I run my hand along the inside of the cool, smooth wall to my right. I find the light switch, and I flip it on.
Along the wall opposite me is a doorway to back rooms flanked by built-in floor-to-ceiling shelves made of dark-stained wood, covered with books, mostly medical texts and how-to-succeed business tomes. Along the left wall sits a beautifully refinished antique oak desk, topped by neatly stacked papers and a sleek metallic iMac computer. The screensaver shows a mother chimp cuddling a baby, a photo Pauline took a couple of years ago in Tanzania.
A second desk stands along the right wall. Hardwood floors stretch between the desks, partly covered by a handsome area rug woven with orange, brown, red, and yellow squares. I detect a manufactured crisp scent, lemonish, doubtless a tribute to Pauline’s slightly obsessive commitment to having the place cleaned regularly.
All-in-all, this modestly appointed office is the 21st-century newsroom. And it is the bane of the traditional newspaper and magazine empire, which have relatively gargantuan cost structures and things like printing presses and full-time employees with health-care benefits.
And it is devoid of Pauline.
I close the door and walk to the back rooms. I find no Pauline in the bathroom, nor in the data closet filled with racks of servers and hard drives that process and store Medblog’s data.
I return to the main room and pull out my phone. I call Pauline. I get voice mail. I text her: “Where r u?”
I balance a prickling of panic with a reality check. The fact that the door of the office was left unlocked could well mean that Pauline has gone for a moment to get something from her car. Or that she’s gotten us a drink or had some other fanciful impulse. That would be more like her than not.
Or, after the events of the day in Golden Gate Park, it is not too much to think more conspiratorial forces are at play.
What if something’s happened to the first woman I’ve met in years who doesn’t think my worldview needs to be realigned by a shrink or shaman? She says she wouldn’t change a thing about me except the part where I use wanderlust as an excuse not to go on a second date. And she seems to help keep my brain in check. Once when Pauline and I were sitting at a downtown cafe, a woman plopped at the table next to ours, Giants baseball cap pulled down low, clutching to her chest a big purse made of black fabric. A surgical scar ran from the woman’s wrist to her triceps, dotted around its edges with other tiny pink scars. They were textbook shrapnel wounds. Through careful straining, I could make out that the bag contained a heavy, thick battery, something that might power a small generator. I’d once survived a bombing at a cafe and I whispered my concerns to Pauline, trying to sound like I was making a joke. She introduced herself to the woman, who turned out to be a mechanic, injured once by an exploding combustion engine that spewed debris and hot oil. Pauline hired her to maintain her BMW, and to remind me, as she put it, “to err on the side of not being crazy.”
That’s what she’d tell me now, with a smile and a gentler prod of her index finger to my ribs, as I look around the empty office. I’m sure she’ll return shortly from whatever errand she’s on, and I can go back to keeping the perfect package at arm’s length.
I shrug off my backpack, pull out her swiveling ergonomic chair and sit to take stock.
On her desk sits a pile of manila file folders. The folder’s tabs have headings like “Q1 financials” and “Competitive analysis.”
Also on the desk, in an elegant silver frame, is a black-and-white 4-by-6 photo of a twenty-something guy, smiling, hollow-cheeked, bowl haircut. Pauline’s brother, Philip, an addict who battles fiercely against the lure of crystal meth.
Beside the frame is a calendar filled in neat script with daily meeting reminders. I’d not have noticed except that it’s turned to September — last month. September 27 stands out. It’s circled in thick red pen.
What I notice most on her desk is what I don’t see: an envelope addressed to me, with the heading “for your eyes only.”
I wonder if I should call the police. And say what? My boss is late to meet me for drinks?
I call her again. I get voice mail.
I gaze blankly at Pauline’s computer. Next to it stands a veritable squirt-tub of hand sanitizer. Hardly a sign of a hypochondriac, this is standard office furniture these days. In yesteryear, proper office decorum might have included offering a visitor a taste of alcohol. Now it entails offering them a squirt. I push down on the dispenser and wind up with an excessive gob in my right palm. I rub it into my hands and start to swivel in her chair, turning a circle, contemplating my next move.
I see the envelope.
Its edge juts out haphazardly from between two thick medical dictionaries on the bookshelf. In this otherwise neat office, it looks like someone stuck the envelope there in a hurry.
I walk over and pull it out. As Pauline described, the address is written in scribbled hand. It reads: “Nathaniel Idle, Highly Evolved World Traveler.” Pauline hadn’t mentioned the traveler part.
No return address or postage graces the envelope.
Inside it, I find the thumb drive. I pop it into her computer.
Onto the monitor appears a login screen. At the top of the screen, it says: “password protected.” The user name is filled in “Nathaniel Idle.” The password is empty. All just as Pauline described it.
Into the password line, I type: “Annie.” For years, I used my ex as a password like a secret I was keeping with my computer about the power Annie still held over me. It fails.
I then try HippocratEATs. Hippocrates is my incurably hungry cat. No luck.
I try variations on my own name, then “LaneIdle,” and “W1tch” a password I remember once using. It fails too. And I’m not sure why I’d think any of them would succeed, given that I have no reason to believe anyone knows my passwords.
I wonder at the significance of “Highly Evolved World Traveler.” Is this some gimmick sent by a butt-kissing overseas company or public relations firm?
“Even from behind you look frustrated,” a voice says.
It belongs to a man who speaks in deep tones.
I turn. The visitor is short and bulky with a thick jaw.
He is dressed to kill. Except for his shoes.
Chapter 6
“Frustrated,” he adds. “And definitely not Polly.”
He wears a smooth brown suit that costs more than I care to guess, but on his feet are flip-flops that I know for certain from personal experience go for $6 at Walgreens. His hands and face seem rugged. His accessories — a short but carefully shaped hairstyle and expensive suit — scream refinement. I place him in his late thirties.
“That makes two of us who aren’t Pauline,” I say.
He chuckles. “Is she around?” he asks. He’s pointedly relaxed, aggressively nonchalant, like his footwear.
“I’m wondering the same thing.”
He steps in and extends a hand.
“Chuck Taylor, just like your high-tops.”
I stand and extend mine. He shakes with a strong grip that he lets linger an extra beat.
“Nat Idle.” I pause, and feel a need to explain myself. “I’m a freelance writer here.”
“I know who you are.”
Our eyes briefly meet. There’s a mild sty beneath his left eyelid that undercuts his aura of perfection.
He sees my gaze fall on the small blue words tattooed at the edge of his neckline, just above the line of his crisp white shirt. They read: “Semper Fi.”
“Grandpa was at Anzio, Dad at Quang Tri City,” he says. “I sat at a desk in Kuwait when the smart Bush ran things.”
He smiles, revealing whitened teeth.
