Hallow

  *

  It was a quiet day at the police station and Walt felt like he had the place almost to himself. There was a hobo sitting on one of the long wooden benches, rambling about some global calamity or other, a hooker who had seen better days sitting on the same bench and, behind them, a shifty-eyed gangster whose legs barely reached the ground, making Walt wonder if there were any dwarf gangs operating in the city that he should worry about.

  Apart from him, the only other person being interviewed was a drunk guy with handcuffs on and a cut over his left eyebrow.

  "Walter Jenkins," said the policeman sitting on the other side of the desk, reading the computer screen.

  "Walt."

  "Hmm?"

  He was a burly guy with a unibrow and a neck so thick his collar seemed about to burst. He looked at him, then at the screen.

  "It says Walter here. Is this a mistake?"

  "No, not a mistake. My name is Walter, but I go by Walt."

  "Ah. So Walt is what your friends call you. Is that it?"

  "Not exactly. Everyone calls me Walt. Not just friends. It's my moniker."

  He stared at him, raising his unibrow dramatically.

  "Your what?"

  Walt started to feel oppressed.

  "Look, never mind that," he said. "I'd like to call my lawyer now."

  "Why? You're not being prosecuted. This is routine."

  It sounded very suspicious and Walt wasn't taking chances.

  "Can I go to jail because of routine?"

  "Hmm... well... no... Unless... Do you have a record?"

  "I'm not sure. Do I?"

  "You don't know?"

  "That depends. Can I be prosecuted for not knowing?"

  "Look. It's perfectly simple." The policeman, Officer James Thompson according to his nametag, said it like it was far from being simple. Truth be told, he didn't look too smart. "Have you ever had trouble with the law?"

  "What do you mean?" asked Walt. "Like philosophical objections to the concept? Stuff like that?"

  Officer Thompson didn't appreciate that remark. He could be a bit slow in the head, but his hands were big enough to discourage making him angry on purpose.

  "No! Are you being funny?"

  "I don't think so. You're not laughing."

  "That's right," he said. "I'm not. Have you ever been arrested?"

  "I'm not sure. Doesn't it say there?" he asked, pointing at the computer screen.

  "It's in another database. This computer is not connected to it," he explained. "Long story. Don't force me to go in the other room to look it up."

  There was no denying that he looked like someone who didn't enjoy getting up without good reason. Walt decided to make an effort.

  "Well," he started. "There was something when I was a kid, but I'm not sure it counts."

  "How old were you?" asked Thompson.

  "Twelve, thirteen? Not sure."

  "A minor. What did you do?"

  "Shoplifting."

  "Figures. What was it? What did you take?"

  It was embarrassing. Perhaps it was embarrassing enough to solicit some sympathy from the policeman.

  "I was caught sneaking out of the store with literature stuck down my pants."

  "Literature? You were stealing books?"

  "More or less. Not exactly books."

  Officer Thompson looked even less knowledgeable about different types of literature than Walt. And Walt didn't really care about books. The last time he had read a book, if he made an effort to recall, happened long enough to obscure all recollection of plot, author or even genre. Or maybe his mind was playing tricks on him and he had never read a book in his life. That was also a possibility. Even restaurant menus started boring him when they had more than two pages.

  "Well?" Officer Thompson was still waiting for an explanation.

  "Literature of a more graphic nature."

  "Huh? Picture books? Comics?"

  "It was a dirty magazine, okay?" he blurted. "There, I said it."

  The policeman's lips formed a vaguely lascivious smile.

  "A kid had to learn the ways of the world, somehow," he said. "I remember those days before the internet. We're around the same age, you and me. Now it's all so easy. You turn a computer on and bang! More tits and ass than you can handle." Who could have guessed that a poet was hiding under that gorilla-like physique? "Were you taken to court for that?"

  "No. The police came and took me to the station. They called my parents and my father came to take me home after I promised never to do it again."

  "Did they allow you to keep the magazine?" There was the sneaky smile again.

  "Nah. It was returned to the shop," Walt explained. "But I was too busy taking a beating to think about tits. I had more than enough time for that in the month I spent grounded, though."

  Thompson raised his hands in the air.

  "There you go, then. Your record is clean."

  "Will it stop being clean after today?" Walt asked. Having an immaculate record sounded so proper. It would be a shame to spoil it.

  "The guy you headbutted wanted to press charges, but he didn't."

  "Did he see I was right, after all? Did he accept his well-deserved punishment?"

  "No. You were very lucky."

  "Why is that?"

  He lifted a piece of paper on his desk and looked at it.

  "Joseph Gonzetti is his name. There was a warrant for his arrest."

  Walt felt his violent indiscretion acquire undertones of heroism.

  "I headbutted a jerk and helped capture a wanted criminal?"

  "Yes. Apparently you did."

  "Wow."

  Who would have known? That was quite a story. Maybe he could use it to advertize his tours. Visit the sites of infamous crimes guided by Walt Jenkins, renowned crime-fighter.

  "What did he do? Murder someone? Armed robbery?"

  "Software piracy."

  How disappointing.

  "What?"

  "He made copies of commercial computer programs in his house and sold them to people all over the world through discussion forums." International software piracy sounded slightly better than simple software piracy, but it still wasn't impressive enough. He could always replace the word 'software' with 'high-caliber weapons' in his retellings of the story.

  "So you have him?"

  "In custody, yes."

  "Will he go to jail for a long time?"

  "I don't know. Doesn't seem likely."

  "Too bad. That guy is a bad apple. I knew it from the start."

  "That's why you hit him, huh?"

  Walt liked the sound of that.

  "Yeah. I guess it was."

  "And not because he was complaining about your phony crime tour?"

  He felt offended. All the hours he spent preparing the tour. It took real work to compile all the facts, move them around and make up believable and juicy stories with occasional bits and pieces of truth peeking from behind the baloney.

  "There is nothing phony about Urban-Mythic Crime Tours," he said, feeling very serious about the matter.

  "Apart from the fact that you make stuff up and sell it to people like it's the truth?" asked Thompson. Some people simply refused to see things for what they were and always required a lot of convincing.

  "Look," said Walt, willing to educate the man. "It's all in the name. Urban-Mythic Crime Tours. The Crime Tours bit is self-explanatory. Urban because it takes place in a city. Get it?"

  "I do." He didn't look like someone who got it. Walt continued.

  "The rest falls inside the Mythic side of the matter. So what if not everything is factual—"

  "Or most of it," offered Thompson, not being very helpful. He would humor him.

  "If you insist. Sure. So what if most of it isn't factual? Our society is obsessed with facts and truth. What happened to our common sense of wonder? As a species, we used to be able to let ourselves be amazed by things that weren't exactly true, but which served
a purpose, all the same. Like religion." Where did he get all that from? Things of the kind just came naturally to him.

  "Wow," said Thompson. "Soon you'll be telling me you did it because the neighbor's dog commanded you. Or the Virgin Mary floating over a potted geranium."

  Trying to explain things to certain people was just a waste of breath. Walt gave up.

  "Whatever," he said.

  "You said things that aren't exactly true may serve a purpose."

  At least, it looked like he was paying attention.

  "I did."

  "What purpose did your tours serve? Getting poor schmucks to give you money?"

  Walt thought about it. Yes, that was exactly the purpose they served.

  "Look, when can I go? I have things to do," he said.

  "And places to go, I bet," said Thompson, openly mocking him. "You can go whenever you want. Try not to headbutt people from now on."

  Walt started getting up.

  "I'll do that. Thank you, officer."

  "As for the tours... it's not exactly legal, but it would be hard to prosecute you on that basis alone. Murky legal waters and all that." That sounded like an expression he had heard somewhere else and was merely repeating like a well-trained parrot.

  "So we're done?"

  "We're done."

  He smiled at the officer, the officer didn't smile back, and Walt walked to the exit. Just when he thought he had reached salvation, a mysterious invisible force stopped him from reaching the door. Looking down, the mystery faded and the force holding him back manifested in all its visibleness. It was a hand. A bony, liver-spotted hand, grabbing his pant leg. Attached to the hand was an arm wrapped inside the dirty cloth of an old tweed jacket. Attached to the arm was an old man. The hobo, looking up at him with scary eyes, wide as saucers, and a gaping mouth where teeth had become a rare commodity. He had kneeled on the floor and seemed willing to be dragged after Walt on his way out of the police station. Both the old hooker and the dwarf gangster stared at the scene, trying to figure out what was going on. Walt couldn't contribute to their enlightenment.

  "Hey! What do you want?"

  The old man maintained his gaping stare and said nothing, although his lips were moving.

  "Looks like you made a new friend there," said the hooker. "Do us a favor and take him with you. He's stinking up the place."

  He did smell terribly. That was a fact. The bouquet mixed piss, shit, vomit in equal parts with slight hints of hopelessness and despair.

  "Let go," asked Walt, doing his best to sound vehement. He moved his hands to the hobo's fingers, wanting to force them open, but saw how filthy they were and had second thoughts. "A little help here?" he said, looking at Officer Thompson, who had just noticed what was happening and was right in the middle of an effort to pretend he hadn't seen a thing. Walt didn't want to force him to get up, but perhaps he could handle it from his seat, by throwing his stapler at the hobo and knocking him unconscious, for example. He was on the verge of suggesting just that when sound finally came out of the old man's toothless mouth.

  "Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarh," he yelled. The drunk handcuffed guy and the policeman interviewing him looked over and the hooker slid away on the bench. The hobo's free hand rose and a thin trembling index finger was pointed right at Walt, with the long blackened nail aimed at the middle of his chest.

  "What?" Walt asked, starting to feel somewhat apprehensive.

  "It is you!" the hobo said, loudly. "You are him. Finally! You are here!"

  "Yeah, I'm here, but I'd like to change that very soon if you'd let me. Now let go."

  He took another step towards the door, dragging the man along with him.

  Seeing no alternative, Officer Thompson finally decided to get up and deal with the situation. It wouldn't look good if one of his superiors would walk in and saw all that ruckus during his shift.

  "Hey!" he said, walking around his desk and approaching the source of the commotion. "Cut it out, pop!"

  The old man's finger remained pointed.

  "It is you! I knew it!" he was saying, sounding as deranged as he looked. "I finally found you! The location data was right!"

  "What was right?" asked the dwarf gangster, sitting far enough to feel secure.

  "Don't encourage him!" said the hooker.

  "Yeah, don't encourage him!" agreed Walt. "Look, mister, I don't know who you think I am or how many giant roaches you're seeing doing a little dance on my face, but I assure you it's all in your mind. Now let me go and ask someone to bring you a treat. How about a nice bowl of crack?"

  Walt dragged him along further, still unable to free his leg from the man's vicious claws.

  "I must come with you," he said. "I must come with you and register everything. So they will know the truth! So they will stop denying that which cannot be denied!"

  "Sure," Walt said, overcoming his disgust and trying to pull the man's fingers away. "Sure you can come with me. But later, okay? Don't you want a new jacket? Maybe someone can bring you one that you haven't used as toilet paper. A nice, clean jacket with sleeves that can be tied around your back."

  "You are found!" the old man continued, deciding he wasn't being disturbing enough and hugging his leg. "Praise Creation! You are found!"

  Walt was about to punch him right on the head, when Officer Thompson and the other policeman managed to pull the old man away and restrain him. He started screaming like he was being butchered.

  "Just go!" Thompson said.

  And Walt didn't wait for him to say it twice.

  1.1

  "Stop here," the woman said, looking at the phone-like apparatus in her hand.

  "Are you sure?" asked the driver, turning around to look at her.

  "Yes." She looked at the meter and counted the adequate number of replicated bills to prevent any protest about the location she had chosen. "Keep the change," she said.

  The man seemed delighted and pocketed the money while she got out. Then, the car pulled away, leaving her alone.

  On one side of the road, there was a storage facility for obsolete automobiles. She remembered from her training that they were called 'junkyards'. The variety of models on display was fascinating, but there was no time for sightseeing. She raised her marker and followed the direction it pointed, walking along the road. Soon, she came to a rusty door on a tall concrete wall by the road. The marker pointed inside and she tested the door. It didn't take much effort to open, using only one hand. The tunnel inside was dark, with the only light coming through the open door. She took a flashlight from her pouch, switched it on and looked around. Writing on the walls on each side. Letters large and small, readable or not so much, proclaiming the identity of the author or directing pointless insults. The smell of urine needed no light to be perceived. The stench alone deserved a dedicated anthropological report, but she was no academic.

  According to the coordinates, the drop site was straight ahead. She moved with caution but kept her resolve. Soon, the tunnel opened into a wider chamber with light coming in through a hole on the ceiling and illuminating a round area of floor near a corner. The marker pointed that way. She approached and pointed the flashlight to the area around the patch of light. Flattened cardboard, dirty blankets, some equally dirty clothes. A pile of books and newspapers with varying degrees of intactness. Some of them were away from the rest and, judging by the blackened pages and by the pile of ash in which they sat, they had been used as fuel in a fire.

  The drop site was near the corner, away from the light. There was nothing on the floor apart from dirt, concrete fragments and torn bits of paper and cardboard. But it had to be there, somewhere. She examined the wall and found it. The slate was hidden in a crevice and she needed to use two fingers to pull it out. It looked worn and scratched, showing signs of intensive use over several years. She read the hidden message.

  Target located. Finally. 92% cert. Initiating contact. Drop 3771.

  There it was. Could it be true? Most o
f the pioneers became mentally unstable after years away from their own time and their drops became completely useless, filled with the nonsensical drivel of their demented minds. She didn't know what had lead Command to treat that particular drop as trustworthy, but it was not her job to discuss the orders she received. Although nothing could keep her from recalling it was not the first drop reporting a positive location. Many had been investigated and those had all been attempts of the old-timers to get a trip back. They couldn't believe things still weren't advanced enough to allow it.

  She held the flashlight with her teeth, took out her stylus, pointed the eraser at the slate and deleted the message, replacing with:

  On location site drop 3771. Agent not present. Await further develop. Drop 2.

  She returned the stylus to the pouch, slid the slate back in the crevice and turned around when she heard a noise, dropping the flashlight and bending over to pick it up, cursing her clumsiness. She moved the flashlight in the direction the noise had come from and relaxed when she saw a pair of minute glowing eyes. Just a rat. Much smaller than the ones she was used to.

  "That's a big fellow," said a voice.

  She almost dropped the flashlight again, but managed to hold on to it while turning around. On the opposite corner, there was an old man sitting down, watching her. He was alone and didn't get up.

  "Who are you?" she asked. He was lifting a hand to shield his eyes from the light. His shirt looked like a large plastic bag with holes for his arms and head and, after further examination, she realized that was precisely what it was. His right leg ended mid-thigh, which explained the pair of crutches leaning against the wall, next to him.

  "Relax, lady," he said. "I won't hurt you." He jerked his head at the crutches. "Not like I can run after you or anything." He gave a brief laugh that turned into cavernous cough. When it subsided, he asked: "Could you point the flashlight away?"

  She pointed it downwards, but close enough to keep the old man's face visible.

  "Are you an agent?" she asked.

  "Oh boy," said the old man. "You sound just like Terry. I knew you had to be his friend when I saw you reading his diary. And writing on it too."

  "Diary?" she repeated.

  The man pointed at the crevice on the wall.

  "Don't worry. I won't tell him. Not a bad guy, Terry. But when he starts speaking peculiar, it's best to leave him alone. He's always going on about agents too. That and targets, drops and... what does he call that old black box he carries around? His marker, he calls it."

  He was talking about the old-timer who had made drop 3771. Command had no record of his name.

  "Is that his name? Terry?" she asked.

  "He never told me his name!" the old man said. "And I asked plenty of times. Had to call him something if we were going to be roommates. I'm Jack, by the way. What's your name?"

  Making up a name would serve no purpose, so she told him the truth.

  "Margrit."

  "Margaret?" he said.

  "Close enough."

  "I was married to a Margaret once... I think... Almost positive I was. But it doesn't matter anymore. She's either dead or left me for someone else. That's usually how it went with my love life." He laughed again.

  "Where is Terry?" she asked.

  "No idea. Haven't seen him since yesterday. He's been talking more about those crazy things of his. Maybe he got picked up by the police again. That happened before. He goes around yelling things at people and they take him away."

  "Where to?" she asked.

  "The police station. The one downtown. He's also been writing more often on his diary. Say... Am I crazy or is it just a stone slab without any letters on it?"

  "You're not crazy," said Margrit.

  "Thought so," said Jack. "Don't tell him I looked, ok?"

  "Don't worry."

  "What are you to him? Family? I see you're also into mock-writing," he pointed out. "Maybe that's in the genes."

  "We..." she started, not knowing the best way of putting it. "We're old acquaintances."

  He didn't look convinced.

  "Sure you are," he said. "I bet you went to school together."

  Margrit didn't comment on that.

  "I'll go now," she said. "I may come back."

  "Anytime," Jack said. "Anytime at all. An acquaintance of Terry's is an acquaintance of mine. I hope he's all right. I liked the old boy's company. If he doesn't come back, I'll have to give his name to that rat over there." He looked to the corner where the rat had been. It could still be heard moving around. "Would you like that, Terry?" he asked. The rat gave no reply. "Oh, well. Hey, before you go, do you have a dime?"

  "A dime?" asked Margrit, unfamiliar with the word.

  "Yeah. Some money to spare," he explained. "But I'll be honest. I'll use it to buy booze."

  She knew about begging. There were a lot of poor people where she came from, but they normally asked for food and clothes, since people had stopped carrying palpable money around.

  "How much should I give you?" she asked.

  He seemed perplexed.

  "That's up to you," he answered. "As much as you think your pal Terry's friend here deserves. I may even share some of the booze with him if he comes back. Though he's not much of a drinker."

  Before leaving, she took a bill out and gave it to him. From the look on his face, she saw that it was too much. It was too late to take it back. He thanked her and said something about 'an early Christmas'. She recognized the name of the archaic religious festival, but failed to see how it related to the situation.

  2

  Walt had once been accused of being a misogynist and he thought the accusation was unfair. Sure, it was true that contempt was the feeling he most often felt towards women, but it also applied to men.

  If Rosie thought he was a misogynist, she never said it. But it was possible that she didn't know what a misogynist was and couldn't pronounce the word without a long rehearsal. Whatever the case, Walt was pretty sure he treated her better than most of the men that had joined forces to build the train wreck she got used to see as her life.

  He was still in bed, lying over the sheets, stark naked, watching her dry herself after a shower and get dressed. Her smile was still the same she had donned when he invited her to spend the weekend at his place because he had a rare weekend off from his very important job with the government. She had asked once or twice what the job was, but he got away with saying it was (a) confidential, and (b) very complicated. She never asked again, settling with occasional meetings when he was free. He envied her, in a way. So oblivious to everything. So completely incapable of identifying bullshit when it presented itself right to her face.

  "I'm hungry," she said with that high-pitched voice of hers, so much like the chirping of a small bird. Her breasts were hidden by a pink bra and a pink top soon followed. Another reason to admire her, besides her adorable daftness, was the fact that the woman never thought there was such a thing as 'too much pink'. It suited her mood, for sure, but it was surprising that bees didn't start following the gigantic pink blur around.

  "Pizza should be almost here," Walt said, pointing at the phone on the nightstand. They had fallen asleep late and it was already lunchtime when they woke up. "I ordered while you were in the shower."

  She gave him one of her adorable smiles and jumped on top of him, still pantless.

  "My sweet Boogy-boo thinks of everything, doesn't he?"

  Boogy-boo. She had a thing with overly sweet nicknames. That one was a recent addition to her vast collection. They annoyed Walt to no end, but at least she got over them quickly and into new ones. They never lingered long enough to make him snap. Boogy-boo was one of the worst.

  "Of course. Are you happy with your Walt?" asked Walt, stressing his name as a hint that she should use it. "Did your Walt do good?"

  "Yes, he did." She grabbed his face in her hands and kissed him noisily on the lips. "Oh yes, he did."

  "Do you think he
deserves a reward?"

  "Oh! But he already got a big reward last night. More than once." She giggled, sounding almost as young as her mental age.

  "It's tuna and mushrooms. Your favorite."

  "Ooooh!" Another kiss. She turned her face around and looked at the large mirrored closet next to the wall. Just when things were looking decent, she had to venture again into the only subject he couldn't make her forget, no matter how much he tried and no matter how persuasively creative his lies were. "When will you let me leave some clothes here? I don't like having to pack and unpack every time I come stay with you."

  He gave her his usual annoyed face while she sat on the bed with her legs entwined.

  "I promise I wouldn't take much space," she insisted.

  "I told you already," Walt started, seeing himself reflected on the mirror covering the locked doors of the closet. "I keep my work things in there with my clothes. They're... They're for my eyes only. Those are the rules. I don't make them. You don't want me to be fired, do you?"

  "No," she said, looking guilty. It always ended that way. It was amazing how she kept insisting, hoping against all logic that one day it would be different. "Okay, then."

  She got up again and picked her jeans from the floor, starting to slide her legs into them. She was almost done when the bell rang.

  "The pizza's here," Walt said. "Do you want me to get it?" he asked, without any intention of actually getting out of bed to answer.

  "No, I'll get it, Boogy-boo," Rosie replied. "You stay right there, nice and comfy."

  She zipped her pants and went out of the room, raising her voice to say:

  "Coooming!"

  Walt looked out the window. He'd have to rethink the whole Crime Tour thing, but that could wait. First, there was a pizza to be eaten. With maybe some more horizontal fun with Rosie for dessert, before she was finally sent on her way. After all, 'he had some work to finish'.

  "Walt?" Rosie asked from the hallway. He ignored her. There was money on the table next to the door. It was perfectly visible on a small bowl of painted clay he had gotten as a souvenir from some place he had forgotten. "Walt?" she called again.

  Why couldn't she just look around and see the bowl full of change?

  "There's money right there," he hollered, looking at the fluffy, white clouds slowly crawling through the small square of sky he could see. "In that bowl."

  "The one we bought in Peru?" asked an unexpected voice.

  He startled and pulled a sheet over him.

  "I'm naked!" he said. That was a useless remark

  "I can see that," Sarah said, dropping her bag on the carpet, still wearing her flight attendant's uniform.

  Rosie stood next to her, looking baffled. Even if baffling her was no difficult task.

  "Who is this, Boogy-boo?" she asked.

  "This is... huh... well..." There was nothing Walt could say to leave them both satisfied with the explanation.

  "I am Boogy-boo's wife," said Sarah. "Who are you?"

  "Rosie," said Rosie, with an automatic smile and offering her hand. It was a reflex. Whenever someone asked her name, she would react the same way. Even when, as was the case, it was completely out of place. "Nice to meet you."

  But Sarah played along. There was that vague, sarcastic smile on her face that Walt disliked so much. The two women shook hands.

  "Nice to meet you, Rosie," she said. "Didn't Boogy-boo let you know that I was coming back today?"

  "Hmm... No?" Rosie looked towards Walt, waiting for the words that would make everything right again.

  "You said you were coming back tomorrow," said Walt, sounding almost outraged with the change of plans.

  "Then you should read your emails more often, shouldn't you?" she said. Not getting a reply, she turned to Rosie. "Shouldn't he?"

  She shrugged. Then, after looking at Walt and back at Sarah, Rosie said:

  "Yeah... guess so." And added, in an unexpected display of brilliance: "Maybe I should leave."

  "Maybe you should", said Sarah, still smiling.

  Rosie came into the room, picked up the rest of her things and went out again. She looked one last time at Walt and seemed on the verge of saying something really hurtful. But the only thing that came out was:

  "Bye."

  Walt waved and watched her leave. The door closed soon after. Sarah undid the knot keeping the bright blue scarf around her neck and walked around the bed. Walt expected her to strangle him with it and cringed. Instead, she bent over the nightstand on her side of bed and opened a drawer.

  "Where are my things?" she asked.

  Walt's eyes betrayed him and moved to the closet doors. Sarah straightened and tried them.

  "Locked. Classy. Should I expect all my personal belongings to be locked in here?"

  Walt nodded. There was nothing he could do besides coming clean. His carefully laid out plan had served him well for months, but it was over. He was expecting a pizza and, instead, he got the destruction of his marriage. It was no great loss. The thing had been half dead anyway.

  "Have you eaten?" he asked. "I'm expecting a pizza."

  Sarah looked angry for the first time since her arrival.

  "We're through, Walt," she said.

  He thought about it for a second.

  "Yeah. I guess we are."

  "How long has this been going on?"

  "Couple of months," he said. Actually, it had been going on for exactly seven months, taking advantage of Sarah's frequent travels abroad. But she didn't need the whole truth.

  "I want you to know that it's mutual," she said.

  "What is?" asked Walt.

  "This." She pointed at the unmade bed. "I've been screwing around with a pilot for months." She looked at the sheet he was pulling up to cover himself. "He's huge."

  Walt almost felt offended.

  "Are you talking about his personality?"

  "I'm not."

  "I see."

  "You wish."

  He almost said 'not really', but decided against it.

  "And it's true what they say," Sarah said. "Men with jobs really are better in bed."

  Walt didn't know that was a thing they said.

  "So, you want to do this the easy way or the hard way?" she asked.

  "What's the difference?"

  "Well, the easy way goes like this: I have a lawyer draw up some papers, you sign them and we both go our separate ways. I keep the apartment, since I paid for it, anyway. You keep your junk. The hard way is almost the same, but you refuse to sign and we go battle it out in court. You lose because you can't afford a proper lawyer and, in the end, I keep the apartment, you have to sell your junk and hope to get enough money to pay court expenses."

  It wasn't a hard decision to make.

  "I'll go with the easy way."

  "Good." She went out of the room and grabbed her bag. "I'll go stay with Monica. Make sure you're out of here by tomorrow."

  Being evicted and forced to look for a place to stay wasn't nice, but, all things considered, it was going surprisingly well.

  "And see if you can do something about the crazy old men gathering in front of the building," she added.

  Walt tried to find the subtle way in which those words chastised him for his infidelity. He couldn't.

  He tried again.

  Nothing.

  He decided it was intriguing enough to make him leave the bed and put on a t-shirt and a pair of running pants which had never been used for anything more athletic than running downstairs to get the mail.

  Sarah had left and, to her credit, she managed not to bang the door on the way out. Walt discarded his original plan to ask her for further clarification and, instead, went to the bedroom window, opening it and looking down.

  He saw three bald patches on top of what could, from the third floor, be classified without doubt as 'three crazy old men'. The 'old' part was pretty obvious, judging by the grey hair and beards, but the 'crazy' bit took some observation. Would
a 'sane old man' move around in circles in front of a random building's door? And, most importantly, would he do it while wailing and blathering? Sarah's judgment hit the mark. But she had failed to add their disheveled looks to the equation. Even from three stories up, the old suits they were wearing looked filthy. And they probably stank too. Walt felt glad that he wasn't closer, until he remembered what his future ex-wife had said before leaving his soon-to-be former apartment. She expected him to do something about them.

  He saw the old men looking towards the door when Sarah came out, giving them a wide berth and walking away with hurried steps, but not before raising her eyes one last time and giving him the look she used when she wanted something done.

  Walt waited until Sarah had gone around a corner and was no longer visible before closing the window and deciding he would ignore the problem and expect it to go away on its own. Besides, more people lived in that building. Someone else would see the insane elders picketing in front of the door and deal with them.

  He put on his shoes, left the apartment and took the elevator down.

  The smell hit him as soon as he pulled the door open. It smelled like they had died weeks before and still hadn't come to terms with the fact. If they were three literal old farts, there would have been an improvement in their stench.

  When they saw him coming, they stopped walking around and shut up, staring wide-eyed.

  The old men looked pretty fragile, but there were three of them and Walt started having second thoughts. It was all Sarah's fault. He would be torn apart by those three deranged relics and probably eaten, judging by that avid glow he saw in their eyes and by their starved appearances. Maybe she would learn to appreciate him more, then, and regret her intention of divorcing him simply because of a slight infidelity.

  "He is found!" said the one dressed in a filthy pinstripe suit. "At last! He is here!"

  Walt took a step backward.

  The two other old men, one wearing a tuxedo and the other a grey business suit, both equally grimy and torn, moved closer.

  "He is here!" said one.

  "We must follow him and register everything!" said the other.

  Walt kept walking backwards until he felt the building door behind him.

  "Settle down, please," he said, doing his best not to anger them. "What's all this about? Who are you?"

  "We are those who seek!" said the old man in the business suit.

  Walt tried to see something in his toothless, wrinkled expression besides pure insanity. He couldn't.

  "Sure you are," he said. "And what do you want from here?"

  "We must register and transmit!" said the one in the tuxedo.

  "You are here and may not be lost again!" said the one in the pinstripe suit, raising one hand in his direction.

  Walt hurried back inside and closed the door, seeing their panicked looks as their faces flattened against the glass panels. They kept moving their mouths and babbling inanely.

  There was something familiar in their words and behavior. The hobo in the police station had said pretty much the same things as he held on to his leg. And hadn't he also been wearing some kind of suit?

  "Did your friend put you up to this?" he asked, safe inside the glass doors. "How did he know where I lived?"

  But they either didn't hear him over their wails or weren't interested in a conversation. That policeman probably had something to do with it. Officer something. Johnson? He kept asking him if he was being funny and probably gave the hobo his address to get even.

  He took the elevator back to his apartment, put on proper clothes and got most of his things in a large canvas bag. It was mostly clothes and a couple of minor decorative items which didn't belong to him but would be missed by Sarah when she came back. He closed the apartment door without looking back and took his key with him. He could always pretend later that he had done it out of habit. This time, he took the stairs, avoided the front door and exited through a smaller door leading to the garages. From there, he passed through a door in the back of the building and walked away after making sure there were no old men in dirty suits waiting for him on that side.