Amoeba (The Experiments) (12 page)

Though she had spoken and corresponded with him, Cal had only seen him one time, and she feared the embarrassment of not recognizing Billy when she entered the bar portion of the small but nice restaurant. But as soon as he turned around from the bar and smiled, she knew it was him. Smiling back, she approached him. “Sorry I’m late.”

Billy sipped a cup of coffee and looked down
at this watch. “You’re okay.”

“How was your trip?”

“It was good. Wanna get a table now?”

“Yeah.”

Billy lightly laid his hand on Cal’s back and held his other hand out forward. She led the way to the hostess. “After you.”

“How long are you in town for?” Cal asked as they followed the hostess
to their table.

“Not long. I have that interview at one. Thanks so much for meeting me.”

“No problem.” Cal sat at the table and took the menu.

“Hey
, I got your e-mail last night. That joke was funny.”

“It was.” Cal snickered. “My friend Joyce sent it to me. It was a little dirty, but what the hell. You didn’t mind
, did you?”

“Who
, me?” Billy scoffed. “Please. Who sent who that dead person site?”

Cal pointed at him. “I loved it.”

“Thanks. Besides, we’ve become quite the e-mail buddies. I actually . . . I actually look forward to your letters at the end of the day.”

“I look forward to yours
, too. Of course, you’re the writer. Yours are always inventive.” Cal smiled and closed her menu. “I’m getting the hero burger.”

“I was looking at that. I think I will too.” Billy set his menu down. “You look good. How are things going?”

Cal bobbed her head side by side. “Going. The wedding is keeping me occupied and my mind off the experiment.”

“You haven’t told Jake about those dreams yet
, have you? What did I tell you?”

Cal shrugged. “He worries so much about me as it is. I can’t do that to him.”

“He deserves to know . . .” Billy paused when the waitress approached. He handed her the menus. “We’re both going to have the hero burger. And I’ll have coffee. Cal?”

“Same.”

Billy waited for the waitress to leave. “As I was saying, tell him. Talking about it will help. You can share more with him. He knows. He was there.”

Cal nodded. “I know. Then maybe I wouldn’t have to call you in the middle of the night.” In such disappointment
of herself, Cal shook her head. “I’m supposed to be helping you. Remember?”

“Hey, I don’t mind. I like helping you in return
, okay? Besides, how often do you dump it on me? We’ve only been talking for two weeks.” Billy smiled. “And I signed up for that shooting course.”

“Excellent. When I can explain why, you’ll understand why I keep telling you to think ‘mini arsenal’.” Cal folded her hands on the table. “I had another dream last night.”

“Watch your details when you tell me about it. You start to slip.”

Cal held up her hand. “I’ll watch. God, I’m just going to be an explosion of information to you when I can tell you this stuff. Anyhow . . .” Cal leaned
forward a little, looked up at the waitress when the coffees were set down, and then continued to talk. “I dreamt . . . I dreamt of your father last night.”

Billy took a deep breath and leaned back in his seat. His hand played with his coffee cup. “You know, I spent my entire adult life watching him from a distance. Going to every single one of his appeal hearings, and there were many. Begging them not to let him out. Recanting what he did. How he slaughtered those people. Keeping him in that institution so my mother wouldn’t face him again. And what happens? Caldwell has him released to go up there with you people. Cal, I . . .”

“Billy.” Cal stopped him. “Don’t. Don’t apologize again. What your father was is not your fault. Them making him part of the experiment was not your doing. You had no idea until he was already gone.”

“I knew what he was like
, Cal. And although you can’t tell me yet what or if he did anything, I know.” Billy dropped his voice. “I know.”

“You realize, like me, your father is going to play a role in you getting picked to go
,” Cal said, raising one eyebrow.

“
There’s a big difference, Cal. You’re father was a hero. He almost beat the experiment. My father was a homicidal maniac sent up to probably stir up the experiment.” Billy saw Cal’s head tilt and her mouth open. “Don’t say anything.”

“I won’t.” She held up her hand, grabbed her coffee and sipped.

“I like seeing you in person. At least I can stop you. On the phone I have to start singing.” Billy laughed. “Belinda heard me on the phone, she was over the other night.”

Cal cringed. “Ouch. What did she say?”

“Same old, same old.” Billy shrugged. “I told you what she’s like. I swear she’s the most jealous girlfriend I have ever had. I keep telling her we’re friends and if she’d see the size of your fiancé . . .” Billy stopped to whistle. “She shouldn’t worry. And, speaking of Jake.” Billy reached into his pocket. “I printed up the email he had his secretary send me. You can have it. I saved the file.”

Cal opened it and laughed. “He’s so funny. Look how official he sends his threatening e-mails.” Cal read it out loud, imitating Jake. “Bill, I can’t stop Cal from talking to you, but I will tell you
that the hundred grand comes out of your hide if I find myself writing a check to Caldwell.” Cal folded the letter, shaking her head. “He told me he’d kick my ass, too. I told him I’m not revealing anything and you won’t print it anyhow.” Cal reached down and grabbed her purse. “Okay.” She pulled out a sheet of paper. “You and I decided. Slow, right?”

“Right.” Billy smiled. “You got something for me. What?”

“Well, I spoke to Pete, Joyce’s boyfriend. He’s an attorney. He went over the confidentiality agreement with a fine tooth comb, and he says there’s nothing in there that prohibits me from telling the press, you, about the application process.” She handed Billy a sheet of paper. “Step one, the application. Fill it out with some of these answers. Then . . . before you send it, let me see it. I’m walking with you through this process.”

Billy read from the paper she handed him. He grinned at Cal. “Caleen Lambert-Reynolds, soon-to-be Graison
, you are vastly becoming one of my favorite people. And . . .” His eyes shifted up and he folded the paper when the waitress set down the food. “Burgers. Experiment is aside while we eat. Tell me about this Jake-style wedding.”

Cal rolled her eyes slightly with a chuckle, and as they both began to pick the same things off their burgers that they didn’t want, Cal proceeded to tell Billy about the nuptials Jake had planned.

The envelope from Caldwell was huge, and its contents were sprawled out all over Aldo’s desk. A look of debate was upon Aldo’s face as he smoked a cigarette, glancing up from the papers to his accountant, Hayward, who sat in the office.

“Financially
,” Hayward said, “you can withstand the loss if that happens.”

Aldo nodded.

“I mean, with the winnings, you’ll still be ahead . . . financially.”

“What about morally?” Aldo asked.

“I’m no priest,” Hayward said. “Or anyone to preach morals to you.”

“But you’re a person who is here right now. Morally
, will I suffer a loss?” Aldo asked, wanting someone to give him an answer.

“Like with the investment.” Hayward held up his hand. “It is a gamble. But . . . ultimately, it really isn’t your call, is it? I mean, you can say yes, but it’s a ‘no go’ if the Graisons say ‘no’. So realistically the outcome is out of your hands. The only choice that’s on your head is the financial one. And really, you have nothing to lose.”

Again, Aldo slowly nodded. His eyes moved to the telephone and to the blinking light that indicated a patient Dr. Gregory Haynes still on hold. Taking one more hit of his cigarette, Aldo picked up the phone. “Dr. Haynes, thank you for waiting. I uh . . . I like what I see. Count me in on that angle for Iso-Stasis Thirteen.”

Corporal Lancing stood above Jake’s desk.

Jake, in his hover
ing over his paper work, glanced upwards at him. “What is it?”

“Are you ready?”

“What?”

“You’re wife-to-be just called.”

Jake dropped his pen and sat back. “Don’t tell me she’s not coming to the closing.”

“That’s not what she wanted. She added to the guest list.”

“Not a problem.” Jake watched Corporal Lancing bounce from heel to toe. “What?”

“She added that reporter
, Billy Grifatitatowski.”

“Fuck.” Jake twitched his head. “Wait.”

“What?”

“Is that his last name?” Jake asked. “I thought it was something else.”

“That’s what she said on the phone.” Corporal Lancing shrugged.

“What was the name he sent his computerized electronic mail under?”

Corporal Lancing snickered at Jake’s description of e-mail. “Billy ‘G’. Sir, if I may?”

“Yes.”

“Not that you aren’t an observant man, you are. But this guy unnerves you. Just like I shut down whenever my wife mentions that soap opera guy’s name she likes, maybe you do the same. Like this thick fog seeps into your . . .”

“Corporal.”

“Yes.”

“I get the point. And . . .you’re probably right.”

“Thank you, sir.” Corporal Lancing began to leave. “Sir, if it is any consolation, he’s bringing a female guest.”

“Why would I care? I didn’t think the man was gay.”

“I was referencing that he was bringing a date. Just in case you were worried about any romantic entanglement between him and Cal.”

Jake’s mouth dropped open and his head ti
lted in disgust. “That never even crossed my mind until you said that, thank you very much. Now I’m gonna fuckin stew, Corporal.”

“Sorry sir.”

Jake grunted at him and picked up his pen again. “That’ll be all.”

“Yes, sir.” Corporal Lancing reached for the door.

“Lancing. When Rickie arrives send him right in. And don’t let him touch my plants again. He kills them.”

“That has got to be the weirdest thing.”

“You don’t know the half of it.” Jake returned to his paperwork as Corporal Lancing left.

^^^^

Basic simple instructions Rickie could follow well, if he could accomplish them, and he made sure he accomplished the task of looking nice when he went to see Jake per Jake’s orders. But since Cal hadn’t taken him out clothes shopping yet, he lacked in the ‘nice’ attire department. So he raided Cal’s closet and found something he felt was non-gender specific and snatched it up. Proudly he walked down the halls of the headquarters sporting the bright purple ‘If you want a job done right, hire a woman’ tee shirt, and he made his way into Jake’s office.

“Hey.” Rickie shut the door. “It’s you again
,” he said to Corporal Lancing.

“It’s me again.” Corporal Lancing worked on the computer.

“Like, why are you always here? I would think a big dude like the Sarge would have a bodacious secretary.”

“He does. Me.”

Rickie’s mouth opened and he shut it. “Dude, you are hot. Is he, like, in?”

“Yes,
and he’s,
like,
waiting for you.”

“Cool.” Rickie bobbed his head and walked across the office. He stopped and looked at the plant by the corporal’s desk. “Hey, you got a new one. Watch . . .”

“Rickie don’t . . .”

Rickie snickered when a dead spot on the leaf formed where his fingertip touched. “Cool huh?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“I went to Mel’s greenhouse and started
, like, pulling a little experimental action of my own. Dude, I don’t have the magic touch on all life forms.” Rickie scratched his head. “Bummed me out.”

“I bet.”

“Yeah. I’m a monster, you know, that’s why I do that.”

“I’m sure.”

“Okay, well, it was really cool having this conversation with you guy. But I have to hang with the Sarge now.” Rickie reached for the door.

“Rickie you should . . .” Corporal Lancing tossed up his hands when Rickie just walked in Jake’s office. “Knock.” Not worrying any more about it, Corporal Lancing picked off the dead leaf from the plant and went back to work.

Jake looked up when he heard the door to his office open and close.

“Hey
, Sarge.”

“Rickie, what the fuck are you wearing?”

“Cool huh?” Rickie pulled at the shirt. “I borrowed it off the Cal-babe. Don’t tell her. I don’t think she’ll know though. I like found it way, way, way, way, way back in her closet.”

“Yeah, I know. I put it back there for a reason.”

“Sarge, were you, like, wanting to wear it? I don’t think it will fit you.”

“Sit down
, Rickie.” Jake pointed to his chair.

“Whoa. Official
Army business.” Rickie sat down. “Did you know your secretary is a dude, dude?”

“Yes. Now what I . . .”

“He thinks he’s hot.”

“Rickie, I’m trying to talk to you.”

“Okay.” Rickie hunched. “Shoot. No, wait! Don’t!” Rickie laughed.

“Rickie. Cal was p
utting away your extensive laundry of four shirts yesterday, and she saw this.” Jake slid the three stapled pages to him.

“Are you
, like, taking my stuff?”

“Yes.”

“Just asking.” Rickie looked at it. “Oh, yeah. This is my employment contract.”

“Rickie
, did you read this?”

“The good parts.”

Jake reached over and snatched it from Rickie’s hand. “You signed a contract with Caldwell stating that you would willingly participate in any experiments they need you for.”

“Yeah.” Rickie smiled. “And they’ll pay me three hundred dollars a day.”

“Rickie, listen to me. For five years they can call upon you to test anything, even poison.”

“Yeah
, so?”

“Yeah
, so? If they tell you to go to the next Iso-Stasis experiment, you have to. Legally.”

“Cool.” Rickie gave a thumbs up. “Another hundred grand.”

“No, Rickie, three hundred dollars a day. When everyone else is getting a hundred grand, you get around sixty-three thousand.” Jake grew perturbed.

“I guess cause I’m salary they have to cap it. Oh well.”

Giving up, Jake shook his head. “I’m getting an attorney to see if we can get you out of this or at least renegotiate what you agreed to.”

“Sarge, you can’t do that. It’s my job.”

“No, Rickie, working at Pizza Hut is a job. This is not. Cal has a child connection attraction to you, and because of that, I’m taking it upon myself to watch out for you. They took total advantage of your naiveté, and I’m going to see they don’t make you adhere to this.”

“O
kay.”

“You weren’t listening.”

“No dude, I was.” Rickie held up his hand. “I just don’t know what you said.”

Jake tossed the contract into his open briefcase which was on this desk. “Let me see how I can put it.” He shut his briefcase. “Caldwell is screwing you.” Jake stood up. “And I have to go. I have a closing to be at in twenty minutes.”

“Can I go?”

“No.”

Rickie stood up and followed Jake from the office. “Sarge, speaking of screwing.”

Jake stopped cold and turned to face Rickie. Even Corporal Lancing stopped typing.

“Sarge, can I borrow the other car? I have a date tonight.”

Fear immediately struck Jake when the prospect of Rickie lunging after a fellow officer’s teenage daughter hit him. “Who . . . who . . . who . . .” Jake swallowed. “Who?”

“Es . . . Es . . . Es . . .” Rickie gulped and chuckled. “Estelle.”

The briefcase dropped from Jake’s hand. “Estelle
, our real estate agent?”

“Yeah.”

“Rickie.” Jake picked up his briefcase again. “She’s in her late forties.”

“Yeah, I know. Do you think I’ll get laid?”

“Probably.”

“Cool.”

Jake quickly gave a silencing look to Corporal Lancing who laughed. “No, Rickie, it is not cool.”

“It’s not?”

“No.”

“How come?” Rickie asked. “But before you answer that, keep in mind I’m still a teenager. And
, like, getting laid to us young guys is cool.”

“It’s cool to us old guys too
, but . . .”

“So no problem-o, Sarge. Thanks.” Rickie moved to the door. “Come to think about it
, she’s like a mom-type person, she should have her own wheels. I don’t need the car. She can pick me up.”

“Rickie.” Jake stopped him. “Really
, you should think about this date and the post-date physical activities you want to engage in with her.”

“Huh?” Rickie was confused.

Corporal Lancing decided to help out. “Getting laid.”

“Yeah, cool.” Rickie smiled and started to leave again.

“Rickie.” Jake tried again. “If I can? Please?”

“O
kau. Is this like Dad advice time?”

Jake cringed. “You can say that.” Placing himself in a mentor mode, Jake set down his briefcase, moving his hands about as he spoke. “I know right now gratification is most on your mind. I was there, I was your age once. But, closeness is important too. Feeling for someone is important. If you want to be intimate with someone, fine, but
you really should try to be intimate with someone you truly, truly care about.”

“Like you and Cal-babe.”

“Exactly.” Jake’s hands dropped in relief. “Find someone special.”

“No way
, dude. I don’t wanna end up being this thirty-five year old virgin who has to go on an isolation experiment in order to get laid. See ya.”

Before words could come from Jake’s wide open mouth, Rickie was out the door.