Death's Excellent Vacation (12 page)

Palgrave stopped reading and looked at me expectantly. “Well? This did not meet with your approval?”

“It’s perfect,” I said. “Very concise and informative. But I need a source for the phrase
worm castles
.”

“A source?”

“I’ve checked every source in the packets you were given. Furgurson, Foote, Livermore—all of them. I’ve found any number of slang terms for hardtack.
Tooth dullers. Dog biscuits. Sheet iron. Jaw breakers. Ammo reserves.
But I can’t find
worm castles
.”

“I don’t see the problem.”

“I need a citation. It may be just a formality, but I need it. My job, as I understand it, is to check the facts—even the trivial ones. If somebody says that Grant’s first name was Ulysses, I have to check it. You can’t just say that Civil War soldiers walked around using the phrase
worm castles
without a source. What if they didn’t?”

“They did.”

“I’m sure they did. I just need you to tell me where you got it.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Mr. Clarke, I have worked here for thirteen years.”

“I appreciate that. And I’ve only worked here for a few weeks. So I’m asking you to help me do my job.”

“You may rest assured that my facts are in order.”

“With respect, I can’t take it on faith. I need a source.”

“I am the source.”

“But how do you know it’s right?”

“It just is.” He closed the folder and stared at me for a long moment.
“Per aspera ad astra,”
he said, walking away.

I recognized that one. Through hardship to the stars.

PALGRAVE began weaving a single unverifiable fact into every page of his work. Again and again I went to him asking for sources. Each time he looked me square in the face and said, “It just is.” The red check marks continued to bloom in the margins of his copy, creating a logjam in the production chain. The burden of breaking the jam rested entirely with me.

One day Peter Albamarle appeared in the doorway of my office. It was rare to see him moving among the drones, so I had a pretty good idea of what was coming. “I understand you and Thaddeus have been at odds,” he said.

I looked at his face and knew my job was on the line. My first job. The job that was supposed to be my entrée into big-time journalism. “Not at all, Mr. Albamarle,” I said.

He folded his hands. “Thaddeus . . . can be something of a challenge,” he said slowly.

“I’m sure we’ll iron this out. I’m still learning the lay of the land.”

“Perhaps.” Albemarle stepped into my office and closed the door. This can’t be good, I thought. “It’s no reflection on you,” he said, “but not everyone is cut out for this job. If you like, we can reassign you to
Imagination Station
and pass Thaddeus off to a more seasoned researcher.”

Imagination Station.
The kiddie series. The Siberia of LifeSpan Books. “I’m sure that won’t be necessary,” I said.

“It’s not a reflection on you,” Albamarle repeated. “Thaddeus takes a certain pleasure in being difficult. This office is his entire world. He has never once in thirteen years taken a vacation. Not once. I’ve tried to speak with him, but . . .” He raised his palms and shrugged.

“I understand,” I said. Actually, I had no clue, but I understood that he was prepared to throw me under the bus.

“It’s just—it’s just that if you can’t resolve your issues, we won’t be able to meet the drop date. That’s ten days from now.”

“So I have to find a source for each of the red checks in Mr. Palgrave’s work.”

Albamarle gave a tight nod. “Exactly,” he said.

“Without his cooperation.”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Somewhere among all the tens of thousands of books and references we have available on the Civil War.” I flipped the pages of the book I was holding. “A needle in a haystack—only the haystack is the Library of Congress.”

Albamarle had the decency to look abashed. “I’m afraid that’s the situation precisely,” he said.

AND the strange thing was, I began to think I could do it. I wanted to prove to Palgrave that I could take whatever he threw at me. It became my only goal in life to erase every single red check. I came in early to get first crack at the 128 volumes of
The Official Records of the War of the Rebellion
. I dipped into the memoirs of officers and enlisted men—
Company Aytch
by Sam Watkins and
Following the Greek Cross
by Thomas Worcester Hyde. I made a special study of Major General John D. Sedgwick, the highest-ranking Union casualty of the war, who fell to a sharpshooter’s bullet at Spotsylvania. His last words: “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance.”

Brian and Kate watched with mounting horror. “You can’t learn everything there is to know about the Civil War in ten days,” Brian told me. “It takes three weeks, minimum.” But I wouldn’t be deterred. I began refusing to go out for lunch, preferring to stay at my desk with a tuna and avocado pita pocket, skimming through regimental histories. If a call of nature pulled me away from my desk, I hummed “I Cannot Mind My Wheel, Mother” on my way down the hall. After five days, I had erased seven check marks. By the eighth day only three remained. And by the last day I had whittled the list down to a single red check mark—the one that had started it all. Worm castles.

On the night before my deadline, Brian and Kate returned to the office after dinner and found me dozing over a copy of
Advance and Retreat
. “Right,” Brian said. “This is not healthy. We’re going out for a drink.”

They pulled me out of the building, all but dragging me by the ear, and hustled me to the Irish pub. Kate refused to speak until we were settled in a corner booth with beer and nachos. “This has to stop,” she said at last. “You’re turning into him.”

“Look, I’m the newest member of the staff. I’m just trying to save my job. If I have to put in a little extra time, so be it.”

“Extra time? You no longer leave your office. You no longer sleep. You have become careless in certain areas of dress and personal hygiene.”

“My hygiene is fine, thank you.”

“Why are you doing this, exactly?”

“I told you. I want to—”

“No,” Kate said firmly. “It’s not about your job. You’re doing it because you think you’re going to crack the big mystery.”

“What mystery?

“The mystery of Thaddeus Palgrave. You think there’s some kind of pot of gold waiting at the end of the rainbow. You think he’s going to take you under his wing or something. You want him to sponsor you for membership in the League of Pompous Dickwads.”

“Mr. Clarke,” said Brian, imitating Palgrave’s vaguely British accent, “the packet of clippings and scrap material you have gathered on the Union fortifications at City Point has been deemed sufficiently anal by our board of directors. It is my pleasure to present you with a Pompous Dickwad badge and decoder ring.”

“Asinus asinum fricat,”
Kate said. “The ass rubs the ass.”

I sipped my beer. “You two have issues,” I said.

“Yeah,” said Brian. “We’re the problem.”

“Look, I appreciate that you’re looking out for me, but the deadline is tomorrow and I have to get back.”

“Not a chance, New Guy. This is an intervention. We’re deprogramming you.”

“But tomorrow—”

Kate reached across the table and grabbed both of my hands. “I’m going to tell you a story,” she said. “Three years ago, I took my sister’s kids off her hands for a weekend. By Sunday afternoon, I’m going nuts. I’m desperate. So I take them to a Renaissance fair in Wheaton. It’s pretty grim. Jesters. Minstrels. Guys in funny hats playing flutes. So there I am, drinking a flagon of Diet Coke and watching a beanbag toss, and who do I see standing nearby, waiting for the royal joust to begin? None other than Thaddeus Palgrave. Wearing a white shirt and a bow tie. Holding a tankard of mead. And that, New Guy, is the road you’re on. One day you, too, will be a man who attends Renaissance fairs in his work clothes.”

I considered this. “I have a life outside the office, you know. I have other things going on. Maybe I’m just gathering material.” I regretted it as soon as I said it.

“Ah! The novel!” Kate clasped her hands together. “How’s that going? Does it feature a recent college graduate nursing a broken heart? Does he struggle, with quiet dignity, to build his life anew?”

“No,” said Brian. “It’s about a promising young journalist learning his craft, with quiet dignity, as he makes his way in a cold, unfeeling world.”

I reached for the pitcher and refilled my glass. “How did the two of you manage to fill your time before I got here?”

Brian leaned back. “In later years, it was recalled that young Jeff Clarke never spoke of his novel, giving no hint of the epic struggle playing out in the fiery crucible of his genius. Whenever the topic was raised, he gave a boyish grin and pushed the subject aside.”

“With quiet dignity,” Kate added.

I never made it back to the office. We ordered another pitcher of beer and just talked. Brian talked about his band. Kate talked about her family. I talked about my romantic woes and had the good grace to laugh at myself just a bit. At one point Kate reached across and ran her fingers along Brian’s arm, answering a question that had been in my mind for some time.

We closed down the bar at two A.M. I left them outside the parking garage on Cameron Street, pretending not to take an interest in whether they left in one car or two. There was a light dusting of snow on the cobblestones, and I had my hands in my pockets as I trudged toward my apartment, occasionally turning my face up to the falling snow.

I’m still not sure what made me turn up Prince Street to walk past the LifeSpan building, but as I looked up at the third-floor windows, I was only mildly surprised to see a light in Palgrave’s office. As I drew nearer, I could see a shadow move across the window.

I kept walking. That wasn’t me anymore, working away in the middle of the night. I was a young man who knew how to enjoy life. I was a man with friends and ambitions and a half-written manuscript. I glanced up again. The light flickered as the shadow passed again.

THE guard at the security desk was sleeping, and I took care not to wake him. I rode the elevator to the third floor and buzzed myself in with my entry card. Everything felt dim and empty. My shoes made a peculiar crackling sound on the industrial carpet.

It’s important to understand that I never intended to speak to Palgrave. I just wanted to spend a few minutes in my office. I knew now that I wasn’t going to be able to erase that last check mark. I think I may have been planning to write a note of explanation to Mr. Albamarle. If Palgrave happened to see me and register that I was working every bit as hard as he was, well, so be it. I settled behind my desk and took the cover off my typewriter, leaning back in the chair to compose my thoughts.

When I woke up three hours later, Palgrave was sitting opposite me in the folding chair. It took a few moments for it to sink in. I can’t say I was startled—somehow his presence struck me as familiar and almost reassuring—but I knew at once that we had turned a strange corner. For one thing, he was smiling.

He waited a few moments while I came around. “You sleep here?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “No, I just came in to do a little work. I didn’t mean—”

He waved it off. “I sleep here. Most of the time. I have an apartment, but it’s just for show.”

“What?”

He was rubbing his chin, staring at me appraisingly as if trying to guess my age and weight. “You’re very persistent, Mr. Clarke,” he said.

“It’s the job.”

“The job, yes, but more than that. You’re curious. Always asking people about their hobbies, their interests.”

“Look, I never meant to be nosy, I just—”

“No, it’s good. I should do more of that sort of thing. I forget to do it. There’s so little point, in the circumstances. The time is so short, it scarcely seems worth the trouble. People like you are gone in the blink of an eye.”

I bristled. “No, you’re wrong. I’m committed to this job. I’m going to stay at least five years. If you drive me off this series, I’ll do my time on
Imagination Station
and work my way back. I’m in for the long haul.”

“The long haul!” he cried. “Five years!” He clapped his hands. I had never seen him so animated. “Five whole years! As long as that? Do you know how long I’ve been here?”

“Thirteen years.”

“Well, yes, I suppose. Thirteen years in this particular building. But do you know how long I’ve been . . .
here
? In the larger sense?”

“I’m not quite sure I—”

“Twelve hundred and sixty-seven years. But my relationship to time isn’t quite linear.”

“Pardon me?”

“So you’ll forgive me if your five-year commitment fails to impress. You must excuse me if I haven’t troubled to get to know you, to stand at the water cooler and make inquiries about your life and your interests and your football team. Would you take the trouble to get to know a fruit fly? Would you pause to exchange pleasantries with a falling leaf or a raindrop running down a windowpane?”

I struggled for a foothold. “I have no idea—”

“Shall I tell you my source for that troublesome information in my latest chapter? Worm castles? Mr. Clarke, I was there. At Chancellorsville. In 1863. I heard it firsthand. I tried to tell you: I’m the source.” He reached past me to a bookshelf and pulled down one of the early volumes of the series.
Mustering the Troops.
He flipped it open to a section of regimental photographs, showing rows and rows of grim-faced young men posing with their units before they mobilized. “There I am in the third row, Second Connecticut Light Artillery. No one could understand why I insisted on using this particular photo in the book. Just my idea of a little joke. And they say I have no sense of humor.”

I peered down at the face he had indicated. It was grainy and nondescript. “Mr. Palgrave . . . Thaddeus . . . I don’t understand any of this. You’re telling me that you’re some sort of supernatural creature? Is that what you’re trying to say?” I thought about Kate and her Mexican bare skulls and
strigoi
. “You’re a vampire of some kind?”