heard that the epidemic had reached the shores of the United States.
He could hardly see as he drove home that night.
He had died early the next morning.
The document he was looking for now was exactly where he had left it, behind the files in the top drawer of his desk. It was a list of ten names, the ten people who had been present at the meeting with the IAS officers and thus knew about Coca-Cola's liability with regard to the virus, followed by a statement promising that those people would not reveal this knowledge to anyone else, including the many other Coca-Cola employees who were present in the monument district. Six of the ten had signed the document, the six who had so far completed the crossing – which was to say the six who presumably knew this Laura Byrd woman, though for the life of him Lindell couldn't remember her. The other four had yet to appear in the city, and enough time had passed for the six of them who had appeared to conclude that they probably wouldn't be coming.
It was the CEO's opinion, and Lindell agreed, that since the document was the only hard evidence of the whole situation, it would be wise to destroy it.
And though no one had plainly directed him to do so, he was fairly certain – more certain than not – that none of the others would mind if he went ahead and took the initiative.
So it was that in the darkness of his office, lit only by the desk lamp, he ran the little fucker through the shredder and watched as the strips of paper fell as a single loose curtain onto the plastic lining of the trash can. There was so much air trapped beneath the lining that the opening had tightened into a sort of sphincter, and the pieces rested on the surface like cheap flakes of goldfish food floating in the water of an aquarium. He had to swat at the bag, pressing the air out, to make them drop to the bottom. A few stray threads of shredded paper drifted onto the floor during all the commotion. He could make out a Lind and a soev and an ola. He was picking them up when he heard a shuffling noise behind him.
'Unusual to see anybody here on a Saturday.'
A current ran through Lindell’s back, and he straightened up. It was the building's custodian.
'Yeah, sometimes the work just follows you home,' Lindell extemporized. He was holding the trash can in the crook of his arm, pressing it close to his body like a large bird whose wings he was trying to keep from beating. 'You know how it is,' he added.
'I can't say as I do,' the custodian said.
'Well, no.' Shut up and go away. 'I guess you wouldn't, would you?'
The custodian gestured at the trash can. 'So do you want me to empty that for you?'
'Oh, no, no. No, I'll do it,' Lindell said. 'I can do it. But thank you. Thank you very much,' and without thinking he brushed past the custodian's cleaning-supply carriage and went down the hall, where he waited for the elevator to carry him to the lobby.
So it was that two minutes later he found himself standing outside with a small metal trash can in his hands. What the hell was he supposed to do with it? He couldn't just leave it sitting on the street, where anybody with the curiosity, the patience, and a good bottle of adhesive could scoop it up and paste the document back together. And he was afraid to toss it into one of the city's hundred-some-odd Dumpsters for the same reason: who knew what kind of person might find it? If he brought it home with him, he would have to carry it past the doorman who wore the silver cross around his neck and always asked a thousand questions – How's life treating you today? Can you believe all this snow we got last night? What's that you're holding there, Mr. Trimble? That trash can with the shredded paper? What's the writing on it say? Something about Coca-Cola? And if he went back to the office, there was the custodian to deal with.
Perhaps it was only paranoia on his part, but in his experience there was never any shortage of people waiting for the opportunity to fuck someone else over, and he had decided long ago that he would do everything in his power – walk any mile, tell any lie – to ensure that he was always the person who did the fucking and never the person who got fucked.
He was standing in the middle of the sidewalk, which was still slick with ice from the freezing weather. He watched as one, two, three different people lost their footing and fell to the pavement trying to maneuver around him. It was as though he were participating in some kind of effortless carnival game. Ding! Ding! Ding! and one after another they went down.
Sooner or later somebody was bound to ask him about the trash can, and so he made his way gingerly onto the strip of snow at the curb and began walking. The cabs were not running. It was useless to try to drive under such conditions. The ice was still hard on the ground and the sun had not come out from behind the clouds all morning. What a totally shit day. Maybe later on, after the foot traffic and the rising temperatures and the first few daredevil drivers had pounded a lane of slush down the middle of the road, the cabbies would clock in for the afternoon and begin patrolling the city. But until then he would just have to hoof it, trash can or no trash can.
He remembered what it was like when he was growing up and the salt trucks would invariably roll out to blanket the streets after the first couple of inches of snow had fallen. He wished that they were still around, those massive trucks with their massive drivers. But of course not. They were just another one of the millions of things that had been relinquished to the other world. He blamed Laura Byrd. She had never known any salt truck drivers, and so there were no salt truck drivers in the city. She had never known any software designers, and so there were no software designers. She had known plenty of petty little customer service types, and street people, and dirty screaming kids. But she had never known Lindell's wife or his girlfriend or his poor dead mother, and so he had to make do without his family.
Instead, look what he was left with – what they were all left with. There across the street from him, for instance, a woman had taken up a slumping posture on a cracked bus bench, where she was playing with a red rubber ball. Behind the window of her apartment, another woman was singing to herself as she slipped her arms into the kind of orange nylon vest worn by school safety officers. Inside a restaurant, a man was using a white plastic fork to eat what looked like a plate of tuna salad on iceberg lettuce, a paper napkin tucked into his collar like a bib. What a sorry lot.
Of the whole group of them, he was the only one who had had the good sense to muster everyone together in one place after the city emptied out.
What do you do when the world has dropped out from under you and you want to attract attention? You take a gun, and you fire it.
You would think that somebody else would have been bright enough to figure that out, but no.
Some guy was standing on the corner of the street handing out newspapers. Lindell tried to duck him, but the man stepped into his path.
'Some weather we're having lately, isn't it?' Oh great, he thought. A weather conversation. 'Yes, it is.' 'So can I ask what you're carrying in the trash can?' 'Nothing important. Nothing unusual.'
The man grinned and passed his hand through the air. 'Headline: Man Lugs Trash Can Through the Snow, Refuses to Explain.'
Just then, a woman came up beside the newspaperman with a couple of styrofoam cups in her hands. She kissed him on the cheek. 'All they had was decaf, so I brought us some hot chocolate instead,' she said.
Lindell chose this moment to make his escape. The newspaperman and his girlfriend didn't try to stop him. He crossed Park Street and climbed carefully into the snow-heaped clearing above the sidewalks, where a few scattered trees stood alongside the monument. It was surprisingly difficult to keep his balance carrying the trash can. Ordinarily, when he felt himself slipping, he would have thrown his arms out as a counterweight, but with the trash can in his hands he had to use his elbows and shoulders instead, jerking them this way and that. He must have looked like a complete fool. When he reached the top of the stairs, he ventured off the walkway into the grass. He could hear the satisfying crunch of fresh snow beneath his feet. The monument, rising above the white field and the black footpaths, looked like a pin stuck through a giant map – which in a way, he supposed, it was.
There were a few dozen other people in the clearing, including a guy who was trying to ride his bicycle through the snow, a couple of bird-watchers, and a ring of those parapsychology fanatics he had been noticing more and more often around the city recently, six deluded nitwits linking their hands together and attempting to beam their thoughts out to Laura Byrd. He managed to avoid them by skirting along the outside row of benches
