Free Two Time by Chris Knopf

her lips.
    “Anyway” she said, rebounding, “he did his shit, I did mine, everybody was happy. Hard to believe, maybe, seeing this dump, but we were, you know, actually happy here in our little world.”
    The canned air in the office sat heavily for a few moments, then Jackie struck out on a new tack.
    “Are all his records still here?” she asked.
    Alena looked around the room, as if for an answer.
    “No, I don’t think so. After he got blown up the cops, serious cops in suits and earphones, came in here and swept everything away. All I got is the same administrative stuff I always had.”
    “Names of clients?”
    “I still got that. Names, addresses and phone numbers. I copied it all for the cops. Everything I had. Including stuff on Ivor, though they never asked me about him. They spent a lot of time messing with my computer, but finally gave it back to me. Good thing, since it’s all I had to settle everything out.”
    “Can you copy that for me?” I asked. “The names, addresses, phone numbers?”
    “And email addresses? You bet. Why the hell not.”
    Jackie jerked her head toward the other computers in the room.
    “What about those?”
    Alena shrugged.
    “If you want to anchor your boat, or need a doorstop. Cops took out the hard drives. You can knock, but nobody’s home.”
    “For good?” asked Jackie.
    “I don’t know. Ask the cops. I’m heading for the City. You can take it from here.” Alenas attention was back on to her computer screen. “Where should I send the information?”
    Jackie slid her business card across Alenas desk. She knew I didn’t have a computer.
    “What about phone records?” I asked, suddenly remembering my ostensible purpose for the visit. “Cell phone records? Calls to and from?”
    “Fascinating,” said Alena.
    “Really.”
    “Yeah. Nobody ever asked me for Jonathan’s personal phone records. I kept expecting it. You’d think.”
    “Probably didn’t need to. Get everything directly from the phone company.”
    “Probably,” said Alena, unconvinced.
    She opened a deep drawer and pulled out a stack of phone bills.
    “Good old paper. All in chronological order, of course, cross-tabbed to accounts payable and the general ledger. Just like Jonathan wanted them.”
    She used the stack of bills to point to a copier machine in a far corner. Jackie took the hint and went to make copies. While the machine whirred I sat there wondering whether to admire or be depressed by the drab orderliness of JonathanEldridge’s office, his profession and his life. I respected anyone who had a zeal for research and analysis—like Appolonia said, engineering and finance weren’t all that different when you thought about it. Lots of data, fundamental formulas, tricky little puzzles. Though never entirely controllable, both ultimately manageable pursuits. Maybe that was what troubled me about Jonathan. It seemed as if control was the prime objective. Financial analysis was merely the medium, the vehicle.
    I always knew my edge as an engineer was a taste for chaos, for the unruly aspects of problem solving, a prejudice toward intuition over methodology. I knew how to crunch numbers. I just didn’t like it very much. Made me edgy, irritable.
    “If you could sort those client names by friendly and unfriendly, it’d help,” said Jackie.
    Alena looked at me as if to validate the request. I nodded. She nodded back. Transaction complete. Jackie sighed.
    “That’ll take a little longer, but it’ll be in your email when you get back to the office,” said Alena. I sensed in her an air of poised competence. I wondered how Jonathan regarded the obvious. I wondered what he thought looking at her across the broad desktops. Did he recognize that appearance was irrelevant in a world run on email and voice messaging?
    “How’d Jonathan get along with his wife?” I asked, as abruptly as the question occurred to be. Alena pulled her eyes away from her screen.
    “Mad about her. Just mad.