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Black Eyes
Current mood:  artistic
Category: Writing and Poetry
So I'm starting a fiction blog. I might as well start with a blast from the past. This is part one. I'm rewriting the ending, it'll show up sometime no doubt.
I really need this job, David thought to himself. The offer from Vargas Corporation was a good one, for a starting MBA; full medical care, enough money to keep him going long enough. A respectable title too; Assistant Director of Internal Services. Maybe it might help him forget about Karen, too. Keep him really, really busy, and he wouldn't have time to think. Karen had left him three years ago, took the kids, moved to some small town in Colorado. Left him behind, back in Philadelphia. Well. He was going to show her. He was wired for the interview. He was supposed to meet Carlos Augustine, his interviewer, by a table outside, at the Café du Neant. Augustine was a tall, burly fellow, wearing a dark suit and mirrorshades. What little showed of his flesh seemed rather swarthy. "Hello. You must be David Jeffries. Sit down." After the formalities had been dealt with, he proceeded to ask David about his previous employers, and a host of other questions. A battery of questions: Augustine talked so very fast, and jumped from topic to topic at whim. Augustine kept a notepad on his lap. Always, always, he referred back to it, scribbling things down. David began to feel as if he was being interviewed by a rather menacing stenographer. Then, out of the blue... Augustine said, "We know about your divorce. What about your relationship with Karen? Are you likely to patch things up?" Karen? What did she have to do with this? Immediately David began to worry. Did Karen have some kind of in with Vargas? Better not lie, though. "No. It's over." In that same, steady, machine-gun delivery: "Are you romantically involved with any other women?" David blinked. "No." What was this? But he could almost swear he saw a little smile for a moment on Augustine's face. Had they had some kind of problem with Karen in the past? "Very good. There is an office party tonight. We would be happy to see you there. It starts at 7." This was good, David thought. An invitation to a party. This meant he had a very good chance of getting the job. "I'll be sure to be there."
He was wired again. He had made his way to the office party without getting so much as a single speck of dust on his new suit. It was 7:15. He was at the Vargas Tower. Now, he had to find the party. The security guard by the front door seemed clueless, except that he apparently recognized David, and let him in. But: "The party is in the usual place." What kind of help was that? David couldn't help noticing that the guard was armed with an AK-47. The Vargas Tower was really, really big. It might take him all night to find his way to the party. He began to think. Where might the usual place be? Try the top. Yeah. He found his way through the maze to the elevator. Got in. Pressed the button for the top floor. Hmmm... The button for the basement had a keyhole beside it. Odd. The door opened, he got out. Another security guard, also armed, stood there. "Can you tell me the way to the party?" he asked. The guard grunted, and gestured him down the hall: he could hear a little sound coming from that direction, and walked down. There was a door, slightly ajar. He walked in. As he walked in, he could feel the silence settling over the room. All the people in there were looking at him. It was very unnerving; then, a thin, blond man said to him, "Hello. You must be David," and smiled. David shook his hand. "Yes. Yes, I am." The man grinned, catching David off guard. "I'm Antonio Vargas." The legendary,
never-seen head of the Vargas Corporation. There were many stories about him; all that most people knew was that he consistently refused interviews, and insisted on stringent security over all transactions. He never signed contracts himself; always, he acted through intermediaries. He was known as one of the hardest men in business, anywhere; when Vargas started talking the talk of making takeover bids, everybody ran for cover, wherever it could be found. David was more than a little surprised to see him with a genial smile, charm oozing out of his pores. All he had the ability to say was, "Uh, hello, sir." And resist the sudden urge to prostrate himself on the ground. Vargas shook his hand. "Well, welcome to the Vargas family, then. What do you say, men?" And as one, they all raised their glasses in the air, smiles everywhere. David felt more than a little bit overwhelmed. The ice was evidently broken. The men (and, they were all men - David found that a little disconcerting, but Vargas was supposed to be fairly old-fashioned) now started to talk to David, welcoming him in. "You'll like it here... Welcome to the family... You look like a good trooper... Great stuff, boy... Congratulations... I think Antonio likes you..." And there was more champagne than David had ever seen before in his life.
David woke up the next morning euphoric. He'd never felt this wonderful. Not even when he'd married Karen. He was dizzy the next few days. This luck was unbelievable... it took a little while to sink in. He went to work, felt like he was floating on a cloud. Got to know all his coworkers, started hanging out with the guys. Guys. It wasn't until his first paycheck arrived (and, that surely did make him euphoric) that he began to wonder about that. All the secretaries were men. All the executives were men. All the members of the Vargas golf club were men. In fact, he hadn't even seen a woman since before he'd started working for Vargas. This, simply, would not do. He asked one of the other executives about it, but got a simple puzzled glance. "Women never apply to Vargas. I guess they've heard about its traditions, and don't want to interfere." He had to meet women somehow, though. He was getting lonely. (Well, horny, but he didn't really want to think about it in those terms.) So, he decided to try to get a few people together, go out to some bars, maybe meet (he didn't think of it as pick up) some women. It didn't work. Nobody was interested. Strange. So he went alone... and was, actually, quite successful on the third try. He met a beautiful, black-haired girl with very nice green eyes named Melinda. But, on the way back to her place, Melinda said, "Who's that man?" "What man?" he said. She pointed. "He's been following us for three blocks." He looked. She was right, in fact; a man wearing a dark trenchcoat was following them, on foot. He brushed it off. "Oh, he's probably just going the same way as we are, I think. He doesn't look like a mugger or anything." She nodded, and they continued on. The next morning, he didn't wake up until eleven. The alarm clock wasn't set. And he felt really... groggy... and he was sure he'd set the clock. She was gone. No sign of her anywhere. Oh, well... never mind. He felt better anyway. He didn't think about her much for a while. He met quite a few more women along the way, but they often seemed to disappear. Not always... but it didn't really matter to him, either way.
Three weeks later, there was a knocking at his door. It was the police. They wanted to ask him some questions. "Have you seen Melinda Ferguson?" He thought back. "Uh... yeah. Why?" Ferguson had been that girl's last name, the first one he'd picked up since he moved here. He remembered now. The cop didn't answer. "When did you last see her?" He told them the truth... The cop said, "Well. She's been missing since that night. You were probably the last one to see her. Do you know where she went?" He shook his head. "She left while I was asleep." The cop snorted, and nodded."Okay. Don't leave the area without letting us know." He tried to nod, and look cooperative. "Goodbye, officer." Strange... wonder what had happened to her? She'd seemed like a nice enough girl, pretty ordinary.
Over the next week or so, there were about a dozen visits to his door, all about women that had gone missing. It looked like the authorities were preparing to lay charges. However, one day at work, he was called in for a meeting with Antonio Vargas. "We've heard that you've been having some problems with police harassment. We might be able to help." They offered him a contract. He looked at it. Well, he had to sign it. The police were thinking about charging him for a dozen or so counts of kidnapping. His back was against the wall. And the only provision in it was that he avoid women, presumably because the higher-ups thought that he had been kidnapping them, selling them into white slavery or something.
Another two months later, the strangest thing happened to David. On his desk one Monday morning, there was a letter. He opened the envelope. Inside, written in blood-red ink was the message, "Traitor." He felt threatened. He took it to his secretary. He said, "Oh, don't worry. Everybody gets that from time to time. Somebody out there doesn't like Vargas much." David kept the letter anyway. He took it to a handwriting specialist two days later, partially because he thought he recognized it from somewhere. The specialist told him it was written by a woman in a severe state of emotional upset. David thought that was interesting. A woman. Hmm... Maybe he should try to figure out who it was. He hadn't seen a woman since he signed the contract, and he was getting lonely again. Another letter arrived, the following Monday. It said "The Curse cannot be avoided." He thought this was pretty creepy, but he didn't show it to anyone. He reorganized his room that night, to try and deal with the stress. Work was pretty hectic, and these letters didn't help. He wanted a woman pretty bad, too. Then he found something... A notebook that Ferguson girl had accidentally left behind. He was absentmindedly flipping through it when he realized something. The handwriting in it was the same as the one in the notes. This was really, really creepy. Maybe they were some kind of code. In any case, he thought maybe he would try to catch whoever was leaving them. Next Monday.
4:06 AM
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mellow
silly
