Can I speak to Dedmond Walking?
The return pallets were stacked in a clearly forgotten section of the warehouse, between rows of cubicles and workstations and the trash compactor. A marked forklift path led directly from the pallets to a bay door which also looked exceptionally mistreated. He had broken open the first pallet, sifted through the boxes looking for the small “something” Cooper had slipped into them. Apparently the camera quality had been shitty even for a small time retail outlet, and EP’s best guess was “either like a small envelope, or maybe a box, maybe for some headphones.”
So far, he had only managed to coat himself in a thin layer of cardboard dust, rendering his probably carefully thought-out camo useless. He was considering swiping some of Lindsey’s explosives to make the chore more interesting, when the phone rang. He thought about answering it, but decided that Philip would throw him in the trash compactor if he did, so he went back to cutting open the second pallet.
“Alan, answer the Phone,” EP said. For a second he thought he imagined it.
“What?”
“Answer the phone.”
“Are you serious?”
“Answer the phone!”
He sat the box cutter on the second pallet and jogged to the desk.
“What should I—”
“Act like you work here! Receiving desk!”
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He picked up the thirty-year-old flesh colored phone and held it to his ear as his earbud clicked off.
“Uh, regional Distribution, this is receiving.”
“That’s weird, I called the extension for returns.” The voice was cold and mocking.
“Oh, they might have changed the extensions. You wanna call back? I don’t know how to transfer.”
There was a dusty silence.
“No. Hey, now that I think of it, aren’t yall closed? Why are you still there?”
“Back orders. You know how it is. Gotta go that extra mile, what with Amazon and—"
“You know, your boss is playing with fire, pissing off GSK like that. Can’t he tell this is an off-the-books union job? Your whole outfit is one bad step from being thrown into Nightmare.”
“Uh, sir, I am but a humble warehouse worker—”
“Are you the new hire? We can tell. Saw you shitting yourself behind that SUV.”
“Well, when you gotta go—”
“You don’t even know what Nightmare is do you?”
Gradie tried to think of another witty retort, but the question bred a curiosity that got in the way.
“It’s a place for those who don’t play nice, or don’t play by the rules, in your case. Those who become a nuisance to the big shakers. And despite what you may have heard on the ball, it’s not like hell. Oh no, it’s much worse. You know that really bad day you had when you were a kid, maybe six years old, thinking your dad was gonna kill you or something? They’ll trap you in it forever. Fire and brimstone don’t have shit on the misery of a helpless child.”
“Sir, this is a Wendy’s…distribution center—”
“Get ready boy. Won’t be any meth heads on go-carts this time. I’ve watched presidents die.”
The line clicked off. The desks and racks watched him through dust that ate up the word “die” like they had been waiting on it.
“So, did you trace the call?” he asked, in as much a cadence of a joke as he could manage.
“Get back to work. Like your life is in those boxes.” EP beeped off.
*****
Across the city, on a wide empty parking lot next to the rising web of the Mixmaster, a pack of armored vehicles stood waiting. Someone inside a sedan got a call and the engines started up. A few moments later they were tearing up the sword blade curve of an on-ramp. As their engines faded into the night, they spread out and blended among the stream of cars on the highway, but even the trash stuck in the shoulders knew they didn’t belong.