Internecine Read Online Free PDF Page A

thatgrinder, where all the product emerges the same? I didn’t think so; I kind of liked her. Talking with her, I was aware of being entertaining instead of forthright. My rule was never to discuss my past. There was only the
now
.
    Was this just standard-issue, middle-aged cynicism and boredom? The kind of joy two decades of white-collar skills can bring?
    Some other sainted wiseass once said that dramatic events accelerate your thinking. I’ll say . . . especially when your life is thrown into jeopardy.
    Like in the movies: The jeopardy is the turning point.
    Here was the jeopardy: gunfire and bloodshed. Suspense, too—I was tied up firmer than a tree engirded by killing vines.
    Like the weekend gambler, I had indulged a tempting little risk and lost my bucket of quarters. Would I moan about my superficial damage and retreat, having learned my lesson? Or would I take a bigger risk and chance learning something that could bust me out of the cage my life had become?
    There’s this guy I know—Katy had mentioned him back at the bar—who calls himself the Mole Man. He’s an information conduit for Kroeger and a total eccentric. Nobody knows anything about him, not really. Sometimes he tries to talk me into coaching him on fine wines. It is his sheer lack of background that makes him fascinating; he just
is,
in all his weirdness. He doesn’t care what’s hot and what’s not. He only cares about what’s interesting. He
knows
things; all kinds of obscure linkages and arcana. I imagine you could sit down with him, no preamble or conditions, and within five minutes be swept away into some place you never thought you’d find worthy of note.
    Once, when he brought up the topic of wine yet again, I thought:
He’s inviting me in
.
    But I didn’t pursue it. I had work to do.
    The Mole Man is a short bald guy—nobody would ever want to look like him. But to get inside the finely machined clockwork of his mind and live there awhile, that might be the key to making sense out of life. If not adventure, then at least answers, the kind that could liberate you from the dictates of mass manipulation.
    All we ever need is a key.

    An hour later, by the stereo clock, and I was still in my seat, needing more than anything to go to the bathroom, when I enjoyed another nighttime visitor. Another un-invitee. Celeste had not moved and was still breathing.
    To yell for help from some Samaritan from another of my unknown neighbors would have been in vain. One of the selling points of the building in which I live is the soundproof walls. I was nowhere near a telephone, and in no position to manipulate one. Given help of any sort, I would have to wrestle the challenge of explaining the bloody, maimed woman currently spoiling the resale value of my Stahls carpeting. The duct tape held me, powerless, viselike at all points.
    I wished I could backpedal; maybe ask Katy what was so goddamned
interesting
about this Alica Brandenberg person. I had plenty of time to wonder that myself. Ridiculously, the briefcase that might be hiding an answer, or five, was on the other side of the room, beyond the grab of some schmuck tied up in a chair.
    Some admen call them bullet points. Some call them action items. Others call them flags (a term which, interestingly enough, comes from the pharmaceutical industry). In the movie biz they’re called loglines. Their purpose is to boil away flowery filigree and get right to the steak. What did I know, right now, without the garni du jour?
    Somebody wants Alicia Brandenberg dead.
    Subterraneans are involved.
    Alicia Brandenberg may or may not be lying about her past, according to Katy. She might have more than one name, history, dossier.
    Best guess: Alicia Brandenberg was straddling the political fence, playing both candidates, Jenks and Ripkin. Or, she was a mole for Ripkin.
    The rest was conjecture, and I was still firmly immobilized.
    That’s how it remained until a new intruder came in via the sixth-floor