I close my eyes. The words are right there.Your father was clean. The Rot is built on stolen money. I’ve known for over a week.Three sentences. I could say them right now with my forehead against hers and it would be over. I open my mouth.
Nothing.
The words don’t come. They’re stuck in my throat and I wish they would just choke me to death. Vi is waiting, giving me room and more grace than I deserve.
I step back and drop my hand, the loss of contact visceral. She feels it too, I can see from the way her body leans toward me before she catches herself.
She looks at me and I can see her deciding something. Whether to push. Whether to grab me and shake me. Whether to walk away. She turns back to the filing cabinet and picks up where she left off, shoving papers into drawers. “Don’t take too long,” she says, not looking at me.
I stand there for another few seconds, watching her file papers and wanting to cross the distance between us. Like a fucking asshole, I leave instead.
47
STING
I tookVi’s papers when she wasn’t around and now they’re spread across my floor. I had to look at them one more time.
I told myself I wouldn’t do this. I’ve already read all this. Already accepted what they say. Already spent a week being an asshole to everyone around me because I couldn’t figure out what it meant for me, the life I’ve built, and all the people I share it with.
Going through these papers again isn’t going to change a damn thing.
And yet.
Here I am, on the floor at midnight with Mayor Renner’s handwriting in front of me, because my brain won’t stop chewing on another name.
L. Fischer.City development officer, whatever the hell that is. The person’s signature on the shell company contracts, the property transfers, the audit denial. The name Renner underlined twice in his notes. Fischer, who had his hands in every layer of the operation, signing documents on both sides,blocking investigations from above while funneling money from below.
I’ve been staring at Fischer’s signature for ten minutes. Not the name itself but the way it’s written. The way the L leans hard to the right. The way the F has an exaggerated crossbar. The way the numbers in the attached financial documents are formed, the sevens with a horizontal slash through them, European-style. Strange fours.
It’s specific. Most people don’t notice handwriting, but I do. It’s the same part of my brain that notices when a supply count is off by twelve units.
I set Fischer’s documents aside and pick up the property transfer records. Same handwriting on the approval lines. Same slashed sevens. Same fours. Same aggressive lean to the right on every capital letter. The man wrote like he was in a hurry even when he wasn’t with unhesitating, confident strokes.
I’ve seen this handwriting before, somewhere else. Recently.
My brain does what it does. Runs through the possibilities. Where have I seen slashed sevens lately? Trade logs. Requisition forms. Inventory sheets. The daily paperwork of running the Rot, most of it written by hand because we don’t have a functioning office and never will.
I get up, go to the shelf where I keep the current month’s trade records, pull the binder, and sit back down on the floor with it open next to Fischer’s documents.
I start flipping pages. Intake logs from the north corridor traders. Supply counts from the distribution hub. Forms for medical supplies, food stores, building materials. Dozens of entries in dozens of different hands. I’m scanning fast, not reading the content, just looking at the handwriting. The shape of the numbers. The lean of the letters.
Page fourteen.
A requisition for goods received through the west entrance. Standard format. Dated last week. The quantities are listed in neat columns. The sevens have horizontal slashes through them. The fours are strange. The capital letters lean hard to the right.
I stop, pull the page out of the binder, and set it next to Fischer’s property transfer. Side by side on my floor, twelve inches apart. The handwriting is the same.
Not similar. Exactly the same. The sevens. The fours. The lean. The confident, unhesitating strokes. I’m looking at two documents written years apart, one signed by a city development officer approving a property transfer with stolen money, the other a routine trade requisition from last Tuesday. All written by the same hand.
I check the name on the requisition form. Bottom right corner, where the receiving clerk signs.
Tommy. Just Tommy, no last name. Nobody uses last names in the Rot.
I sit on my floor and I don’t move.
Tommy. I know him.
Tommy, who I’ve seen chatting up Mara in the neutral zone with focused, engaged attention, like any man talking to an attractive woman.
