8 Remote Women

8 Remote Women

8 Stories • 1 Novella

by Mel Nicolai

Copyright © 2012 by Mel Nicolai

Smashwords Edition

Contents

The Case of the Nihilist's Daughter

The Case of the Candy Aisle Smile

The Case that Wasn't

The Case of the Low-Temperature Et Cetera

The Case of the Blowfish Exit

X-pek d'Laze

8 Remote Women

The Coinage of the Brain

The Case: A Novella

The Case of the Nihilist's Daughter

1

It was one of those days when you feel like burning all your paintings. Still, it was better than religion. At least that's what I was telling myself when I heard the tinkling of the little bell on the outer door. It was 10:30 on a Thursday morning. I imagined someone coming into my laughably tiny reception room, then standing in front of the receptionist's desk, reading the sign: Out. Back Later. I was wondering what the odds were they'd wait, when the doorknob began to turn and my office door slowly opened.

Normally, I'd be a little miffed about someone waltzing in without even knocking. But, what the hell, it was one of those days. I fixed what I imagined to be a friendly smile on my otherwise stony countenance and waited for the door to open far enough to reveal my visitor.

2

A few hours later, I was at my favorite bar, Meme Disposal, nursing my second beer. I was replaying the conversation of a few hours earlier with, as she called herself, Ms. S, when Laura slid onto the stool next to me.

Koji, she said, with her usual salty street smarts.

Laura.

She drummed her hands on the bar as she ordered a beer. You like to travel?

It's all right, I guess, as an exercise in recreational agnosia.

Agnosia?

The inability to recognize everyday objects, usually as a result of brain damage.

You're a very funny man, Koji Remote.

Laura's smile was easily the brightest thing in Meme Disposal. You planning on going somewhere? I asked.

Not me. One, she said, extending a finger, insufficient interest, and two, extending another finger, as if I might have trouble counting that high, insufficient funds.

That seemed to exhaust the topic of travel and we both sat quietly, sipping our beers. It wasn't long before my thoughts drifted back to Ms. S. I'd been a P.I. for a long time. I wasn't easily surprised by anything that might crawl out of the pileup we call civilization, but I had to admit, Ms. S's request was one of those crypto-absurdities that didn't lend itself to conventional cataloging.

My reverie was interrupted when the bartender placed a fresh beer in front of me. Laura had already picked hers up and nodded to me before taking a sip.

You look troubled, Koji. Let me guess. You're not pondering the doctrine of primary and secondary qualities?

It's amazing, Laura. You always know exactly what I'm not thinking.

Uncanny, isn't it?, she said, with mock seriousness. It's like reverse ESP.

You're definitely a woman of rare talents, Laura. Although I'm not sure how useful it is reading people's minds to find out what they're not thinking.

That's because you always think there's something interesting going on in people's heads. You're generous that way. You give people the benefit of the doubt. Of course, you're also paranoid. But the fact is, the really interesting stuff isn't being thought about.

I had to admit, most of the interesting stuff I'd ever come across wasn't inside my own head. You might be right, Laura.

Of course I am, she said. This is my third beer.

I didn't feel like pursuing the logic of that, so I changed the subject. You know what a nihilist is?

Sure. Life is meaningless. Nothing has intrinsic value. Good and evil are fabrications. Why, you having a bad day, Koji?

Not exactly.

"You ever see the movie, The Big Lebowski?"

Not that I recall.

No? Well, there are some nihilists in that movie.

What do they look like?

Skinny Germans, kind of punk-gothic. They say shit like 'I believe in nothing!' and 'I fuck you in the ass!' They have a pet ferret they use to terrorize people and one of them likes to smash shit with a cricket bat. You should check it out.

For some fragmented reason, I found this encouraging. It sounds like a nihilist might be pretty easy to spot.

Spot?

Yeah, you know, if I was doing surveillance and a nihilist showed up.

Laura was giving me the dubious eyeball. "I'm not sure the Lebowski nihilists are all that representative. And why in God's pink tissues would you be doing surveillance on nihilists?"

Outside, an ambulance went by, its siren ping-ponging as it passed.

It's for a client, for a case I'm working on.

Laura's expression suggested a certain cautious curiosity. Divorce?

From reality, possibly. The client wants me to find out if her father has become a nihilist.

Laura stared at me with studied stupefaction.

I was hoping it would be a straightforward surveillance job, I added, by way of explanation. You know, stake out his house. See if he does anything nihilistic.

Like what, Koji? Take a piss in the yard?

3

Two weeks later, I was pretty sure I'd taken some things I shouldn't have on faith. At precisely 2:00 p.m., as we'd arranged at the first meeting, Ms. S jingled the little bell as she opened the outer office door. I'd left the inner door open and Ms. S entered and sat down. My head felt like it was stuffed with something bristly and non-cranial. I got up and walked over to the window, stalling for time. When I turned, Ms. S had her head tilted back, forcing herself to swallow a pill of some kind. She had a very elegant throat. I found myself fantasizing about licking something off her neck — strawberry jam, maybe — then her cell phone rang. I returned to my desk as she fished the phone from her purse. She didn't answer it, just looked to see who was calling, then hit the mute and dropped it back into her bag.

Well, Mr. Remote, what do you think? How concerned do I need to be?

Most people's motivations are fairly transparent. Someone's spouse is cheating on them. Someone has disappeared. They might be embarrassed to talk about it, but it's always clear enough why they're in my office and what they want from me.

Even if your father is a nihilist, I said, I'm not sure why you would need to be concerned.

Ms. S didn't say anything, but her chin dropped slightly and she started to turn red.

All I mean, I clarified, is that you haven't told me why you want to know if he's a nihilist, so I don't know what difference it might make. I can't tell you how concerned you should be. Under the circumstances, the most I could do is tell you if it looks like he's gone nihilistic.

Ms. S's brow furrowed as she stared into the distance. Then her forehead smoothed and her eyes refocused. Does it? Look like he's gone nihilistic?

I was thinking how much easier this would be if she thought her dad had joined the Moonies or the Republicans. At least then he'd dress funny or pin doofy buttons on his lapels.

I'm not a simpleton, Mr. Remote. I realize surveillance isn't the easiest way to identify someone's belief system. But I need your objectivity. I'm too close to him to trust my own feelings. And I really need to know what's going on with him.

I've been watching him for two weeks, I said, and as far as I can tell, there isn't much of anything going on. Nothing that would make me think you should be concerned.

She seemed to take this a little more calmly than I thought she might. The last couple of years, she said, he's been getting harder and harder to talk to. At first I thought he was just getting senile. Even though he's only sixty-seven. But then my fiancé said something that made me start thinking. If Dad has become a nihilist, maybe he no longer believes in the possibility of human communication.

Your fiancé?

Yes, Mr. Remote. I'm getting married in two weeks, and I need to know if I can invite my father to the wedding. If it's safe to invite him.

And your fiancé thinks that if your father is a nihilist you shouldn't invite him?

Well, Mr. Remote, a wedding ceremony is hardly the place for someone who denies the existence of absolutes. What about my vows? Those are very abstract concepts. Won't he feel the same way about the institution of marriage as he feels about the institutions of government? If my fiancé is right, won't Dad want to destroy them all?

Your fiancé?

Yes, goddamnit! My fiancé. He's not comfortable around radicals.

Your fiancé?

Ms. S sighed with exasperation. Mr. Remote, please. I need to feel like I'm making some progress here.

Sorry. Right. Nihilism.

If my father is a nihilist, then he'll do everything he can to promote subversion, destruction, anarchy. I don't want to find myself twenty years down the road looking at my wedding memorabilia and seeing a free-for-all of clandestine terror groups and random assassination.

Aside from the fact that I felt like a brain-dead cucumber, I also felt like I was beginning to get a handle on things.

Do you really think he would go that far? I asked.

Just give me your report, she said.

This was going to take a few minutes, so I leaned back and put my feet up on my desk. Nothing significant happened at his house, I began. I planted a couple of bugs, but after two weeks of surveillance, the only conclusion I can reach is decidedly inconclusive.

Ms. S sagged visibly. I was afraid of that.

If I were to describe your father's life in one short phrase, I'd say something like, 'predictable routines, punctuated by seemingly random blips of benign chaos.'

Ms. S perked up at the word 'chaos.'

Benign chaos, I stressed. Emphasis on benign. For example, he gets up most mornings at precisely 7:00 a.m. and begins his day by watering the potted plants on his porch. Except on the fourth day, Tuesday, when he didn't get up until 9:30 a.m., and instead of watering the plants, he just stood on the porch in his pajama bottoms, staring into the distance for half an hour.

"What did it look like he was doing?

It looked like he was staring into the distance.

Yes, but did he seem to be in a state of despair? Did he look like he was suffering some kind of epistemological failure? Was he resisting an impulse to destroy? Jesus! Can't you be more specific?

Well, I said, giving it some more thought, as if that might lead somewhere, he doesn't talk to his neighbors. In fact, they seem to have a working agreement to ignore one another. I suppose this could be due to a nihilistic rejection of the possibility of meaningful communication. But it could also be they just don't like each other.

I didn't expect Ms. S to be mollified by this, so I was surprised when she responded. That's more like it, Mr. Remote. That's what I'm looking for. That's evidence of something, don't you think?

It could be, I agreed, not knowing what else to say.

So what else did you find out?

Well, he has satellite TV, so he isn't a Luddite, but he never watches anything but the Golf Channel, though as far as I could tell, he doesn't play the game. He spends most of his time puttering around the house and yard, acting like he's an ordinary suburban retiree.

Maybe it's a cover, she said. Or maybe it's just an expression of cosmic purposelessness.

I was wondering if her fiancé had made some suggestion about that, too. I was going to ask her, but she beat me to it.

My fiancé says that if he's a nihilist, he won't have any loyalties and he's probably even rejected his spiritual essence.

I wanted to ask if her fiancé was a member of the Malevolent Pinheads, but I wasn't sure how much of a smart-ass I could be and still get paid. So instead, I got back to the report.

"He went to the supermarket twice, both Thursdays at 1:30 p.m., and returned both times within five minutes of 2:30. On both Fridays at 2:00 p.m., he went to the library where he read magazines (Art in America, Business Week, Wired, Scientific American) until 5:00, when he returned home."

Ms. S repeated the magazine names at a whisper, as if trying to extract some significance.

He did have one visitor, I added.

A man or a woman? she asked, snapping to attention.

Woman. Maybe in her early-to-mid fifties. She arrived on the ninth day, a Sunday, around three in the afternoon, and stayed until shortly after midnight. He addressed her as 'Highmark.' Does that name mean anything to you?

Ms. S shook her head. Never heard of her.

She called your father 'Danny' or 'Big D.' After brief hellos, they turned on the television and watched a couple hours of golf. The only sounds punctuating the TV commentary were Highmark's occasional groans. I wondered at first if they were having sex, but then noticed that each of her groans was followed by a comment from your father: 'tough luck,' 'a shame,' 'close,' things like that. I think Highmark's groans were just gut responses to missed putts.

That's good, in a way. I mean, an interest in sports is good, isn't it? Games have rules. The players follow the rules. You can't be a nihilist golfer, can you?

I wonder?

So what'd they do after the golf?

They turned off the TV at 5:00 and made dinner.

Together?

That's what it sounded like.

That's good, too. Teamwork. Really, Mr. Remote, I'm starting to feel better about this whole thing.

I'd originally had the impression Ms. S wouldn't have been all that upset if her father was a nihilist. Now it seemed like she was hoping he wasn't.

My job is just to give you the facts, I said. You have to decide what they mean. I didn't have much else to report. I got up and walked back to the window. There was a line of people queued up at the hot dog stand across the street. It had been two days since I'd had one. They were good hot dogs. I wanted one. When I looked back at Ms. S, her face was in her hands and her shoulders were shaking rhythmically as she cried. Several minutes passed before she regained control of herself.

My fiancé can be such a twerp! she said. I'm only marrying him for his money. He's worth millions. Still, I want my marriage to mean something. I need to go through all the motions, have a proper wedding. Otherwise, what's the point?

Under the circumstances, I wasn't sure what the point might be. Your fiancé...

Jesus! Ms. S said, slapping her forehead. Don't start that again.

I wasn't too sure what I'd been about to say, but whatever it was, I'd lost my train of thought.

You know what, Mr. Remote, she said, raising her hand to her forehead, not to slap it this time, but as if she were saluting me, I've had it up to here with all this negative shit!

Again, I didn't know where she was going, so I kept my mouth shut.

I don't actually give a rat's ass if my father is a nihilist. Nothingness? Incoherence? Absurdity? Why should any of that bother me? They're about the only things that make sense anymore.

Was I, I wondered, an inmate in some kind of experimental asylum?

Fuck it! Ms. S spat, standing up. "Let him come to the fucking wedding if he wants to, and he can bring his goddamn meaningless universe with him, for all I