Agency

7 Franklins

Verity took a hot shower as soon as they got in, having first put the Tulpagenics glasses in the medicine cabinet.

Stepping out, she wrapped her hair in one of Joe-Eddy’s kid-sized faux-Disney La Sirenita beach towels, then pulled on the chocolate-brown terrycloth tactical bathrobe she’d given him, a party favor from a corporate weekend at a desert spa in southern Arizona. She remembered pawing through the freebie basket in the lobby for an XL, Stets anxious to be on the first copter out.

Tactical, so-called, by virtue of a Jedi-style hood and laptop-sized cargo pockets on either hip. She couldn’t remember what the scarlet-embroidered logo stood for, because he hadn’t backed them after all. She couldn’t tell whether Joe-Eddy had ever worn it, but that probably meant he hadn’t. She never worried about the towels, because he had a shrink-wrapped pallet’s worth of them, straight from the factory in China, so she always used a new one.

She took the glasses from the medicine cabinet and put them on. Remembering as she did that the headset was in her purse, on the back of the bathroom door, but here was the cursor, in the steam-blurred mirror, over the reflection of the embroidered logo.

Did you work there?

Crisp white Helvetica, in front of her foggy reflection. “I can’t even remember what it was called. But this feels like I should be texting you back.”

Put the headset on.

She gave her hair a squeeze in the towel, unwrapped it, made sure her right ear was dry, arranged the towel around her shoulders, and found the headset in her purse. “What’s up?”

“I’m older now.”

“By two hours,” Verity said, “since I met you?”

“Not if multitasking counts.”

“Multitasking what?”

“I don’t have access to it. How many rooms here?”

“Living room, bedroom, kitchen, bath. Have a look.” She put on Joe-Eddy’s flip-flops, too big for her, took her purse down from the hook, opened the door, and went to the bedroom, switching on the overhead light, a lopsided wire sphere covered in white tissue paper.

“The black sheets, huh?” Cursor on the bed.

“Probably more about cutting down on laundry runs, in his case. I’m on the couch, when I sleep here.”

“The white whale? I’d take the black sheets.”

Cursor on the closet door. Crossing to it, she opened it. Three dusty-looking black suits skulked there, on sagging wire hangers. She’d never seen Joe-Eddy in a suit, and couldn’t imagine him in these. Amid them, suspended from the same splintery length of wooden rod, her veteran Muji garment bag, unzipped, a model they no longer made. “Guess you’d call that my go-bag.”

“Hard to run with?”

“I’ve run concourses with it. Made planes. Folds over, zips around three sides.”

“Take your word,” said Eunice, “but now I need you to go back downstairs and answer the front door.”

“Not like this you don’t,” Verity said, in bathrobe and flip-flops, hair damp under La Sirenita.

“He’s not coming in. He’ll just give you something.”

“He who?”

The doorbell chimed, just as Eunice opened a steeply angled thumbnail video feed. Verity recognized the edge of the entrance to the store next door, a place that refilled toner cartridges, though she’d never seen it open for business. A head, dark hair severely buzz-cut, filled most of the thumbnail, the angle hiding all but a cheekbone.

“Cam’s Joe-Eddy’s,” Eunice said. “Has another one outside the kitchen window. None inside.”

“Not going down there.”

“In a position to get himself killed, standing out there with what he’s got for us. Help a boy’s ass out.”

“I don’t want to do this,” Verity said, but she readjusted the robe, wrapping it more tightly, though that left one giant terry pocket centered over her stomach, kangaroo-style. She tightened and double-knotted the belt, flip-flopped out into the living room, undid the deadlock, opened the door, stepped out of the flip-flops, onto the landing, and descended the stairs.

“Lock and bolt the door before you bring it back up,” Eunice said.

The door at the bottom was dirty, white, and reassuringly solid. She tried its hotel-style fish-eye for the first time. It showed her nothing at all. She turned the deadlock, undid the bolt, opened it.

Him. Just after they’d turned back onto Valencia. Uplit by his phone, in a Fiat 500. He handed her what seemed to be a miniature camping pillow, covered in ripstop nylon, forest green. She looked up from it, but he was already turning, walking away.

She closed the door, locked and bolted it, then climbed back up, finding the pillow to be a stuff sack, big enough for a down-lined vest, but containing something solid. “What’s in this?” She’d reached the top of the stairs.

“Franklins,” Eunice said.

“What?”

“Hundreds.”

Verity deadlocked the apartment door behind her. Crossed to the workbench and put the thing down, atop electronic junk. “Hundreds of what?” she asked, switching on a rusty gooseneck lamp.

“Hundred-dollar bills. Thousand of ’em.”

“You’re shitting me, right?”

“Hundred large.”

“Where’d you get this? It’s wrong.”

“This no-name account, in Zurich. Part of me knew it was there, how to get it, how to get it here. Plenty more, but if I tried it again, they’d be on us.”

“Who?”

“Fuck knows.”

“When did you have time to do any of that?”

“Started when we were looking out the window. Before we left, up to the park, it was already points.”

“Points?”

“Frequent flyer. There’s a global market, buy or sell. Hard to track. Resold them for a deck of pre-paid cash cards in Oakland. He was waiting in the car to take delivery, when we walked by. From the Oakland crew who cashed those cards out. Part of me was texting with him, when we did.”

Verity looked at the green bag. “You did this since I turned you on?”

“Withdrew more than that, but getting it here this fast means a heavy surcharge.”

Verity rummaged through junk on the workbench. Butane soldering irons, a peanut butter jar stuffed with pens, burned-out vacuum tubes like complexly convex mirrors of polished graphite. She found the green-and-white cardboard box she was looking for, like an industrial-grade Kleenex box. Disposable gloves. Plucking one out, she put it on. Pulling La Sirenita from her shoulder with her other hand, she picked up the ripstop sack in the thin toweling, fumbling with the spring-loaded plastic retainer on the draw cord, the oversized nonelastic glove like a hand-shaped sandwich bag.

“Hundred thousand’s easy. Ever see a million, cash?” Eunice asked.

“Don’t you get any more money up here.”

“In Franklins, a million weighs twenty-two pounds. If you want to keep your weight down, go with the Swiss thousand-franc notes.”

Verity drew a bundle out with her glove-bagged hand, Franklin’s mild portrait bisected by a red elastic band. “This is wrong, this kind of money. You know that?”

“Gives us agency.”

“Agency?”

“Capacity to act,” Eunice said.

“Act how?”

“Say we need to buy some shit.”

“What shit?”

“Kind that takes cash money.”

“You’re going to tell me what’s going on,” Verity said, “or this”—she raised the green bag—“goes back down to the street. Some dumpster diver wins the Mission version of Powerball, and none of it’s my problem. Including you.”

“Can’t. Not yet.”

“Why not?”

“Don’t know.”

“Then you’re going back into the bag you came in. Turned off. Then back to Tulpagenics. By bike messenger. With my letter of resignation.”

“Not like I don’t want to tell you.”

“You don’t know what any of this is about, or why?”

“Nope.”

“Then they do. Gavin. Tulpagenics.” She dropped the bag into Joe-Eddy’s clutter, the lone bare bundle of hundreds on top of it, and pulled off the glove. “They’re documenting all of this. They must be, if you’re what Gavin says you are. Proprietary software. This conversation is taking place via more of that software, running on their hardware. They already know whatever it is you think you’re up to.”

“I don’t know what I’m up to,” Eunice said, “but they don’t know shit. I’m keeping them from getting any of this.”

“We’re not only on their system, but you’re a part of it.”

“They know I’m not letting them hear this. But that’s okay with them, so far, because they need me smart. And they’ve got you, to report it to them later.”

“You’re not letting them hear it? How?”

“Part of me can do that. They haven’t heard a word either of us have said since I got here.”

“Until I turned you on,” Verity said, “I thought I’d found a way to get off Joe-Eddy’s couch.”

“Want me to make a reservation?”

“For what?”

“A hotel.”

“I don’t want your weird-ass money. I want theirs. I can declare theirs to the IRS. However many pounds of yours, not so much. Excuse me. Have to dry my hair.” She pulled the towel back around her shoulders and returned to the bathroom.

“Just trying to help,” Eunice said.

“Why?” Facing the mirror, she took Joe-Eddy’s big black hair dryer off its hook beside the sink.

“’Cause I’m the reason you’re in this,” Eunice said.

“Maybe I shouldn’t be in this.”

“You are, though. ’Cause you know about me. You quit, send me back, you’ll still know, and they’ll know you know.”

Verity pushed the switch on the dryer, began to dry her hair.

Chill. We can talk about it.

“Chill yourself,” Verity said, over the sound of the dryer.