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Authors: Ridley Pearson
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grate, allowing him to clamp and duct-tape a battery-operated fan into its rectangular hole, allowing the fan to evacuate the soon-to-be-toxin-ridden air more quickly. He lit both of the Coleman’s burners and began to hum quietly.
He inspected his various purchases. He’d bought no more than two items from a single store. Untraceable. Undetectable. Unbelievably easy. To the left of the sink he found the bottle of bleach. He broke its seal and filled a Pyrex bowl, then, with the fan running, brought it to a boil. He weighed out the table salt substitute and added it to the bleach and continued boiling until the battery tester registered FULL CHARGE. Full charge, indeed. He removed the bowl and set it to cool in the ice-filled sink. He then filtered out the crystals, recovering the bleach to boil it again. An hour later he was heating distilled water with the crystals and filtering this as well. At the end of this process of fractional crystallization, he had relatively pure potassium chlorate, which he ground to the consistency of face powder.
He melted equal parts Vaseline and wax, dissolved it over the camp stove, and then poured it over the potassium chlorate in a large Tupperware bowl. Wearing a pair of rubber gloves, he kneaded this until thoroughly mixed and set the bowl outside, in the corner of the balcony, pulling a potted plant over to conceal it.
He double-checked that the PRIVACY PLEASE tag was on the door and the dead bolt was still engaged. As a finishing touch, he angled the desk chair beneath the inside doorknob. Ensured no one could enter the Meisner room without a battering ram, he then cleaned up the bathroom, grouping the various ingredients in a brown paper bag beneath the sink.
He entered Nagler’s room, closed and locked the connecting door, pausing only briefly to once again reconsider each and every step. Lightheaded with excitement—or was it the fumes?—he proceeded to the mirror in Nagler’s bathroom and resolved himself to the patient application of the facial hair, the clothing, and finally the milky contact lenses that made him blind.
He had a party to attend.
Seventeen
W hat have I gotten myself into?” Liz Shaler asked Jenna, her plain-faced executive secretary who’d worked with her for nearly ten years. Liz was putting the finishing touches on her face, in front of a mirror in what had once been her parents’ bedroom.
“You’ll be fine,” Jenna assured her.
“I’m whoring, and we both know it. I might as well just spread my legs and get it over with.”
“Just don’t let the tabloids see you.”
“I’ll bet I’ve had a half dozen of these very people, or at least their companies, under some form of investigation or inquiry in the past six years. And now I’m asking them for money? How hypocritical is that?”
“You’re not asking anyone for money.”
“Give me a break.”
“You’re going to make your positions clear, and if some of these people choose to support those positions, then fine.”
“It is so much more complicated than that, and you know it. We’re tricking the system, Patrick Cutter and I, and I should know better. This kind of thing always backfires.”
“You’re doing nothing wrong, nothing illegal. We’ve vetted this six ways to Sunday. Your job is to have fun. It’s only a couple days.”
“You mean it’s my last couple of days. Feels like some kind of sentence. Everything changes Sunday morning. Don’t kid yourself about that, Jenna: everything. ” She dabbed a cotton ball at the edge of her eyes. “We will not have a moment’s rest for the next fifteen months and twelve days. We are going way out on a limb here.”
“Since when have we not been out on a limb?”
“I’m comfortable as a whore? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Beats working for a living.”
The women exchanged smiles in the mirror, though Liz Shaler’s sank into a grimace. “I hope I’m not making a mistake.”
“Of course you are. But
He inspected his various purchases. He’d bought no more than two items from a single store. Untraceable. Undetectable. Unbelievably easy. To the left of the sink he found the bottle of bleach. He broke its seal and filled a Pyrex bowl, then, with the fan running, brought it to a boil. He weighed out the table salt substitute and added it to the bleach and continued boiling until the battery tester registered FULL CHARGE. Full charge, indeed. He removed the bowl and set it to cool in the ice-filled sink. He then filtered out the crystals, recovering the bleach to boil it again. An hour later he was heating distilled water with the crystals and filtering this as well. At the end of this process of fractional crystallization, he had relatively pure potassium chlorate, which he ground to the consistency of face powder.
He melted equal parts Vaseline and wax, dissolved it over the camp stove, and then poured it over the potassium chlorate in a large Tupperware bowl. Wearing a pair of rubber gloves, he kneaded this until thoroughly mixed and set the bowl outside, in the corner of the balcony, pulling a potted plant over to conceal it.
He double-checked that the PRIVACY PLEASE tag was on the door and the dead bolt was still engaged. As a finishing touch, he angled the desk chair beneath the inside doorknob. Ensured no one could enter the Meisner room without a battering ram, he then cleaned up the bathroom, grouping the various ingredients in a brown paper bag beneath the sink.
He entered Nagler’s room, closed and locked the connecting door, pausing only briefly to once again reconsider each and every step. Lightheaded with excitement—or was it the fumes?—he proceeded to the mirror in Nagler’s bathroom and resolved himself to the patient application of the facial hair, the clothing, and finally the milky contact lenses that made him blind.
He had a party to attend.
Seventeen
W hat have I gotten myself into?” Liz Shaler asked Jenna, her plain-faced executive secretary who’d worked with her for nearly ten years. Liz was putting the finishing touches on her face, in front of a mirror in what had once been her parents’ bedroom.
“You’ll be fine,” Jenna assured her.
“I’m whoring, and we both know it. I might as well just spread my legs and get it over with.”
“Just don’t let the tabloids see you.”
“I’ll bet I’ve had a half dozen of these very people, or at least their companies, under some form of investigation or inquiry in the past six years. And now I’m asking them for money? How hypocritical is that?”
“You’re not asking anyone for money.”
“Give me a break.”
“You’re going to make your positions clear, and if some of these people choose to support those positions, then fine.”
“It is so much more complicated than that, and you know it. We’re tricking the system, Patrick Cutter and I, and I should know better. This kind of thing always backfires.”
“You’re doing nothing wrong, nothing illegal. We’ve vetted this six ways to Sunday. Your job is to have fun. It’s only a couple days.”
“You mean it’s my last couple of days. Feels like some kind of sentence. Everything changes Sunday morning. Don’t kid yourself about that, Jenna: everything. ” She dabbed a cotton ball at the edge of her eyes. “We will not have a moment’s rest for the next fifteen months and twelve days. We are going way out on a limb here.”
“Since when have we not been out on a limb?”
“I’m comfortable as a whore? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Beats working for a living.”
The women exchanged smiles in the mirror, though Liz Shaler’s sank into a grimace. “I hope I’m not making a mistake.”
“Of course you are. But
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