Friend Me (3 page)

Getz raised an eyebrow in query as he lifted a bread stick to his mouth.

“Suppose a person wants to come up with a virtual representation of himself. A virtual clone. He works through a battery of questions. We get his or her history, psych profile, everything. We do it all on a secure website so the person's privacy is protected. When it's all complete, the person can put it to work on Facebook or any other venue he chooses.”

He put his tongue against the inside of his cheek. “Hmmm, maybe, I see what you mean. Instead of us building out celebrities on our own, the celeb himself may wish to take ownership of his virtual clone for his own purposes? Frankly, we had not considered that. Well done!”

“Not just that. Not just celebrities. I'm thinking far out now. You tell me if I'm going too far. What about a father? He's got cancer, and he wants to leave something of himself for his family. Someone who'll be here when he is actually gone? And maybe a mother wants a clone of her sixteen-year-old daughter, so she'll always have her the way she remembers her?”

“Hey, you
are
thinking.” He tapped his finger against the tabletop. “I knew hiring you was going to be a good move for us.” He sat back, turned his head and waved toward the server, who was setting up a nearby table. “Hey, can we get a couple of cappuccinos?”

Minutes later, two of the Italian coffees arrived with a small biscotto on the side. When the dinner plates were cleared away, he gave her that look again. Familiar, conspiratorial. “We anticipate there will be a dark side to this too. What's to stop a man from coming up with a virtual girlfriend? Or a lonely housewife conjuring up the man of her dreams? The truth of the matter is, there is nothing to stop that.”

“True. I've considered that. This sort of thing is open to all sorts of abuse. I don't know how we could avoid it.”

A hint of a smile played on his lips. “Nor would we want to. We're running a business, not a church. The philosophy of VirtualFriendMe is, if you're not hurting someone else, then we are not going to interfere.” He leaned forward. “What do you think, Melissa? I like the philosophy. I mean, if you're not hurting anyone, what's the harm? People can do what they want.”

“I suppose so.”

“We just need to keep enough safeguards in place to keep it out of the newspapers.”

He dropped his eyes, looked back up at Melissa, and smiled. A sort of smile that spoke condescension and power at the same time.

“Like you and me, Melissa. I think it's important we get along well, don't you? Even more than just in the professional sense, we need to know we are—well—compatible.”

She nodded, knowing what was coming next.
Compatible
. That word was growing more and more distasteful to her ears.

He looked at Melissa, his brow furrowed. “Do you think we're going to get along well, Melissa?”

“Yes, Aaron. I think we are going to get along very, very well,” she said, unsmiling.

“There's a place I like to go sometimes, not too far from here. Last place in the world anyone would ever look for two people.” The words seemed to hang in the air.

“Yes?”

“Well,” he said, “I thought that, you know . . .”

“We could go there? Is that what you mean? That you want me to go there with you?”

He nodded, head bobbing like a plaster figure. “Yes, when we're done with dinner . . .”

“Sure, Aaron. Let's go there. Let's see what your world is really like.”

•  •  •

THE TOWN CENTER MOTEL
had lost its luster. Perhaps there had been a time when it catered to a straight business clientele, but the flight of the middle class to the suburbs back in the seventies had taken its toll. The large outer wall of the motel was finished in rough concrete, painted over with crude lettering advertising rooms by the day, the week, and the month. A smaller sign hung under a bare bulb by the office advertising the $25 hourly rate.

Getz pulled the SUV into a space at the far end of the building, hidden in the shadow of a balcony overhang. “Wait here, I'll take care of this.” He fumbled in his pockets and came up with a small roll of cash. Another smile.

Melissa watched from inside the SUV as he walked to the office. It was a walkup window where he pushed his money through a metal drawer. The clerk was hidden somewhere behind a wall of thick glass. She shivered, and clutched her handbag.
Stay calm. Don't start shaking
.

He returned with a key on a large ring. He walked to the door in front of the car and used the key to open it.
He's been here before. He knew where to park where we wouldn't be noticed
. Standing in the open doorway, he beckoned to her.

Melissa opened the car door and stepped onto the decaying asphalt. The car chirped as the door locked behind her. He must have used his key fob to lock it. Only one way to go now.
She walked from behind the SUV to the door of the motel room, where the dim yellow light from inside seemed to puddle on the walkway in front of it.

The motel office sign was visible from this end of the building, but not the window. They would not see who Getz had brought this time. A block wall hid their faces from any pedestrian that dared to walk these streets at night.

She stepped in, stopped short. The room felt sticky and had a strong scent of industrial disinfectant. A faded shag rug covered the floor, and a television with an artificial wood cabinet sat on a glossy veneered table. The table, like the television on it, was marked by burns from cigarettes.

Getz walked to the bed and turned it down. “This place isn't much, but the sheets are clean. That's enough, right?”

“It's all that matters.” Melissa fingered the zipper of her pantsuit jacket, making sure Getz saw what she did. “Aaron, pull the top sheet all the way down, will you? Why don't you lie down and let me rub your back for a while, okay? We can talk for a few minutes. I'm a little nervous. It will help me relax.”

Like I could relax in this slime pit
.

Getz complied, lying down on his stomach with his face on the pillow. “How's this?” His voice sounded muffled.

“Great. Now close your eyes. Start thinking about us working together.”

“Oh, yeah. I'm feeling more comfortable all the time.”

Melissa set her handbag softly on the bed as she sat down next to the prone man. With her left hand she rubbed his shoulder in a circular motion. With her right she reached into the bag and withdrew the scissors. Light flashed on the blades as they
came silently out of the cloth bag. “Are you ready to check out our compatibility?”

“Mmmmmmm.”

With her left thumb Melissa felt along the base of Getz's skull until she touched the concave area where the two tendons meet under the base of his skull. “Feel good?”

“Mmmmmmm.”

“Let's get rid of that tension.” She began rubbing in the depression, making sure of the spot.

“Good-bye, Mr. Getz.”

Getz's eyes opened. Too late.

Melissa shoved the scissor handles with the butt of her hand into the spot she'd located on his neck. The sharp blades passed through the epidermal layer and into the muscle layer beneath. She leaned in and pushed harder as the flesh crunched and tore with the passage of the stainless steel tips. At the end, there was a soft
pop
as the brain stem parted into two useless pieces.

Getz's legs stiffened and kicked one time as she listened to the final rush of air leaving his lungs.

“For compatibility's sake, Mr. Getz.” White-knuckled, she gripped the handles and moved them around in a wide arc inside Getz's skull before withdrawing them.

There was very little blood. Just a stain at the top of the polo's collar. She wiped the scissors off on the back of his shirt, and rinsed them clean in the bathroom sink. Then, from her purse she took out a plastic bag, sealed the scissors inside, and tucked the bag back into the purse.

Stay calm, Melissa
.

She removed the sealed wet-wipe envelope she'd brought,
tore off the edge, and extracted the alcohol-soaked fabric. Her thin fingers trembled slightly as she wiped down the table, the doorknobs, everything she had touched. No one had seen her enter, she was sure of that. The SUV was still parked in the shadow of the building, the passenger side invisible to the motel office. She could walk in the direction away from the office without being seen.

Melissa turned out the light in the room. Only a soft, muted glow from inside the plastic case of the television remained. Eyes closed softly, she accustomed herself to the absence of light.

She gave Getz no more than a glance as she left, turning the knob with the stiffening wet wipe. She would dispose of that somewhere on the way back.

She looked left, right. No cameras, no strange people with their prying eyes.

No one had seen her face at the restaurant. Hadn't she even made sure they walked in separately? Darkness had shrouded her time at the motel. There wouldn't even be any DNA evidence. No taxi records. Nothing.

Confident, she stepped into the darkness for the long walk back to her home.

Much later, she made out the pale glare of lights from a convenience store near her home where they spilled out onto the parking lot on a young man who was pumping gasoline. She wondered absently why her hands felt so dry, then went inside the store and bought a tube of hand lotion. As she walked the final few blocks to her home, she rubbed the lotion into her skin.

Her eyes surveyed the dark sky. It was such a pleasant, pretty night.

Unfulfilled

Four Years Later

A
September mist fell across the fields and the evening fog glittered on the Taurus's windshield. Scott Douglas leaned forward toward the glass. There were always deer, raccoons, or something just waiting by the side of the road to jump out and cause an accident.

I'm late again. What is Rachel going to think?

A quick glance at the car clock: 8:03. Maybe the kids would still be up, but for the third time this week he had missed dinner. A pair of green eyes winked luminous in the darkness on the side of the road.

The houses were familiar now. The blue glow of their wall-sized television screens poured out of the windows to diffuse in the darkness. Ahead, the blue and white reflectors on his mailbox caught the beams of his headlights.
Home
.

Scott turned the car into the driveway, the sound of the gravel popping under his tires as they bit into the surface. He pressed the button clipped to his visor and the garage door began to lift and spill bright light out onto the drive.

Home. Finally
.

He walked into the dark kitchen. Tapping sounds were coming from the living room. The sound of a keyboard. “Rachel? Are you in there?”

Rachel swiveled in her chair and smiled at her husband. “Oh, you're home already. I thought you'd be later.” She stood to face him. “I put the kids to bed about fifteen minutes ago. We didn't know when you'd get here.”

“I got tired and left early. I'll go in a little early tomorrow and finish up before everyone gets there.” He half-smiled and turned his head toward the stairway. “I really wanted to see Scotty and Angela before they went to bed. Is Scotty excited about his birthday?”

“Oh, yeah. He's super excited. It's all he can talk about. Mom and Dad are coming up, you remember.”

“Did you already tell me that? Where's my head? But yes, that's great. I'll be there if I don't get stuck at work.”

“Do you want something to eat? We got pizza from The Great Santini tonight after I took the kids to the mall. Scotty needed some things for preschool.”

Scott tried not to show his disappointment. He missed some real home cooking, but he tried not to blame Rachel. She was probably doing her best. She never knew when he'd be home anymore, and that made it hard for her to plan any nice meals. Plus, she had the kids to take care of, and probably a million other things. Somehow his mother had always managed to have a hot dinner on the table, though.

He worked too much. That was for sure. Four years at Castle Investments had taught him one thing—that work was never done. If he worked sixteen hours a day he still wouldn't be able to keep up with all his accounts. He managed retirement portfolios for serious people, and they expected him to be on top of
every market trend and shift twenty-four hours a day. Sometimes it seemed like the harder he worked, the more he had left to do at the end of the day and he was wearing out.

“Sure, pizza's fine.” The resignation in his voice must have been apparent, because Rachel set her jaw as she walked into the kitchen and flipped on the light switch.

“I mean it, Rachel. Pizza's fine. I'm just tired tonight.”

•  •  •

RACHEL'S EYES NARROWED
, her body stiffened. “You know what, Scott? I'm sorry. I'm sorry all I have is pizza. I'm sure your mother would have done better.”

She turned her back to him as she opened the refrigerator door. “But I didn't know when you'd come home, did I? Last night it was almost ten o'clock before you got here, and you never even called to tell me where you were.”

“Where I was?” Scott sighed. “You didn't know where I was? Where would I be except at work? Where am I
ever
except at work?”

Rachel felt the heat rise into her face. It seemed to radiate as the discouragement flowed from her. “Well, isn't that just the question? You're right. Where are you ever except at work? At least you say that's where you are.”

Her conscience stabbed at her. Why had she said that to him? She knew he was at work. He was a good man, a faithful man. But didn't he know she and the children deserved some time with him too?