Elinor
By
Karen Singer
Prologue
He looked at his daughter and said, “I know you don’t
realize it, but not only has almost nobody ever heard of her, but she’s been
such a recluse that very few people in the world have seen her in many, many
years. Despite that, she’s become one of
the most powerful people in the world.
The fact that she asked you to come is a great honor. So just answer all her questions as well as
you can. And remember…be polite!”
“Daddy! You know I’m
always polite.”
He looked at her skeptically.
“Okay, most of the time.
So what’s her name again?”
“You don’t need to know her name. In fact, it’s better if you don’t know. Just remember that her decisions affect
literally billions of people in the world, even though nobody knows it. Your answers could very well affect what she
does in the future.”
“Me?”
“Yes dear. You! Now, are you ready?”
“Sure. I guess. Why not?”
Remember, just be…polite.”
“Dad, don’t worry.”
He nodded towards the man guarding the door. The guard opened the door and let the woman
walk through, then he closed the door behind her.
The last place she expected to find herself was in a
bedroom. Further examination showed her
that the woman she had come to meet was by far the last person she ever
expected to find.
“Come,” the voice said so softly, she could barely hear
it. She saw the woman wave her hand,
motioning her over.
The woman wasn’t just old, she was very old. And she was holding an oxygen mask against
her face to help her breathe. She was
sitting in a cushioned chair with blankets covering her body. Another chair was directly in front of
her. A small table with a collection of
drinks was next to the empty chair.
“Sit, my dear,” the woman said, motioning toward the chair
opposite her.
She sat, unable to take her eyes off the elderly woman. This old lady controlled the lives of
billions?
The old woman motioned toward the small table next to the
chair. “Forgive my breathing,” the old
woman said before taking a breath. “I’m
due for one of my treatments.” She took
a breath. “And it’s always much worse
until I get it.” She motioned toward the
table. “There’s hot tea there for
you…” She took another breath. “Or tequila, or a very good red or white
wine.” She breathed. “Whatever you wish.”
The younger woman watched as the old woman continued to
struggle to breathe. “I’m good,” she
said, waving off the offered drinks.
“What can I do for you?”
“I understand that you know more about someone than anyone
else.” She immediately held the oxygen
mask tightly against her face and breathed again.
The young woman was surprised and unsure how to answer. “I know a lot about a lot of people.”
The old woman waved her comment aside. “I only want to know about one.”
“Who?”
The old woman leaned forward to answer. She removed the oxygen mask from her face and
said, “Elinor.”
The young woman was shocked.
“Elinor!”
The old woman leaned back in her chair again and pressed the
mask to her face. “Tell me about her.”
“Elinor,” the young woman repeated.
“Tell me everything,” the old woman requested.
They young woman shook her head. “Where do I start?”
“The beginning. All
of it.”
“Yeah but…still,” she replied as she tried to figure out
what to say. And then the starting point
made itself clear. She focused her eyes
on the old woman in front of her and said, “The first time Elinor ever killed a
man, the man had laughed at her and called her a bitch. Elinor raised her gun and shot him dead. I understand that was the first time she had
ever fired a gun, but she fired it and killed him without hesitation. And then she said, I’m not woman enough for
him to call me a bitch yet. But I’m
getting there. And that of course, is
the one thing that very few people know about Elinor. She may look like a woman, and she even acts
like a woman, but she’s not a woman. Not
at all. In fact, she never wanted
to be a woman. She still doesn’t
want to be a woman. But she’s simply
stuck having to be one with no way out.
She’s…trapped. And then of
course, I’m sure you know that what she became after that was really something,
because it was an absolute bitch.”
The old woman’s eyes were almost maniacal now as she again
pulled the mask from in front of her face and leaned forward. “Tell me…everything!”
Chapter 1
I moved around the shelves of my Albuquerque computer store
adjusting any little thing that looked out of place. There wasn’t anything, but I had little else
to do, and my store had only been open for a week now. So far, since opening the store, I had sold a
grand total of three computers, and a small assortment of peripheral items to
go with them. Not much business for an
entire week’s work. But the store was
still new, and despite the advertisements I paid for, the store was
unknown. Hopefully, things would get
better soon. Hopefully!
The door suddenly opened and I looked up to see a woman
enter along with a large man. “Can I
help you?” I asked hopefully.
“You’re new,” the woman said.
“Just opened last week,” I told her proudly, looking the
woman over. I placed her as probably in
her early fifties. Was it my
imagination, or did it look like something was bothering her? “I’m Rowan,” I told her. “The owner of this store. What can I do for you?”
“I’m Elinor, Mr. Germo’s personal assistant,” she
replied. “I’ve finally convinced Mr.
Germo that our current computer is outdated and needs replacing. I’m looking for someone who can make
recommendations on everything, an entire new setup. We need multiple computers, someone to
install them and maintain it all, including security. And just so you know up front, security is of
utmost importance to us.”
“Oh,” I said happily, realizing that this sounded like a
business account. “I can certainly do
all that. I’m kind of a specialist with
systems of all kinds.”
“So why should we hire you instead of just going to one of
the big brand stores?”
I shrugged. “I can do
it all. And I guarantee my work. I can also offer better personal service than
those other places.”
The woman seemed to take that in. “Fine!” she declared. “Mr. Germo likes personal service. But be warned, he will hold you accountable
for all of it.”
“Ready and willing,” I told her happily, already seeing the
dollar signs this could bring in. “Can I
show you some information on a couple of systems I prefer dealing with?”
“Fine,” she said again.
Was it my imagination, or did her face look a bit paler than
it had a moment ago? Possibly
distressed. Definitely my
imagination. “I’ll be right back,” I
told her. I hurried to my office in the
back room and started searching through the advertising brochures I had in
there. I stopped though when there was a
large crash from out front. I hurried
back out to where the customer was. When
I got there, I stopped and stared in horror.
“What happened?” I asked the man.
The man didn’t answer, instead he seemed to be staring in
disbelief. One of the display shelves
had somehow fallen over and had landed on top of the woman. She appeared to be unconscious. I ran to her to find out if she was hurt, but
I was quickly stopped by the man when he suddenly pulled a gun on me. “No!” he growled, acting like he was ready to
shoot me.
I watched as the man knelt down to check on the unconscious
woman. A moment later, he placed two
fingers on the side of her neck feeling for a pulse. “Shit!” he cursed softly.
“Is she…is she…dead?” I asked.
There was seething anger on his face as he pointed the gun
at me again. I could see that the man
really wanted to kill me, but something seemed to be holding him back. I was simply scared for my life. The man finally stood up, still pointing the
gun at me. He reached out and grabbed me
by my arm and pulled hard, then pushed me toward the door. “Out!” he ordered.
I didn’t understand what was happening. “What do you mean? We have to call the police. Or an ambulance at least.”
“Out!” he ordered again, but his order was immediately
followed by him swinging the gun at my head.
I suddenly felt a horrendous pain and saw stars. A moment later, I blacked out as I fell to
the floor.
---
§§§§§§§§§§ ---
The pain in my skull was sharp and horrible. It was finally enough to bring me out of my
unconscious state to…blackness and confusion.
Oww! It took me a moment to put
everything together enough to fully realize I was in the trunk of a car, and
the car was moving. What? What was going on? In desperation, I pounded on the wall of the
trunk that I realized had to be the back of the rear seat, but it didn’t seem
to do much. I kicked at the trunk lid over
top of me, but no matter how much I kicked it didn’t seem to do anything
either. Try as I might, I could find no
way to either open the trunk or push through into the back seat. The car just kept moving. What was happening?
I remembered that woman coming into the shop with the big
man. I had gone to get some information
to show her, and somehow one of his shelves had fallen over on top of her. How?
That should have been impossible!
But the fallen shelf had killed her.
And now, suddenly, I was here in the trunk of this car, travelling to
who-knows-where. Why?
Nothing made any sense!
With little choice, I stopped kicking and just laid there,
holding my aching head.
The car seemed to keep going and going and going. A long time.
I felt every time the car turned or stopped. Finally, it seemed to stop again, and I felt
the faint vibration from the engine cease.
I was guessing we were there, wherever there was. I heard a car door open and then heard the
door close again. A moment later, the
trunk opened and bright light blinded me.
I saw the big man there. “Out!”
he ordered, just before he reached in and grabbed me by my shirt. With one gigantic pull, my entire body was
pulled from the trunk of the car. The
man turned me around and grabbed me by the back of my neck and the back of my
shirt. “March!” he ordered as he
literally pushed me toward a junky looking concrete building.
Something caught my attention though as I was being forced
toward the building. I looked into the
car. There, in the back seat, the woman
who had died in my shop appeared to be just sitting there. Was she indeed dead? She wasn’t moving.
The man opened the door and pushed me inside. In the middle of the room was a metal chair
that I noticed was bolted to the concrete floor. I was pushed into it, and the man quickly
grabbed my arms and pulled them around behind the chair. Faster than I could believe, I felt the man
putting something on my wrists, binding my arms behind the chair. “No!
No!” I shouted as I struggled, but my struggling and pleas did no
good. After that, the man knelt down in
front of me and tied my ankles to the front legs of the chair. “Stop!
Please!” I pleaded. But again,
the man didn’t seem to care. “Why?” I
asked. But I got no answer at all.
And then the man walked out, leaving me there. Totally confused, I had no choice but to sit
there and wait a very, very long time.
The spot where the man had hit me with the gun still hurt
horribly, but now my entire body seemed to hurt from being tied to the chair
for so long. I was scared out of my
wits, and I didn’t know what to do about it.
I no longer even cared about anyone telling me why, I simply wanted to
be set free so I could go home. And I’d
walk whatever distance we had come if I had to.
The door opening caught my full attention, and I saw three
men come in, then close the door behind them.
One of those men was the man who had hit me with his gun. As the men got closer, I noticed that all
three of them had guns.
“This is the man?” one of them asked as he looked me over.
“That’s him, Mr. Germo” the big man confirmed.
“Now what exactly happened Stan?”
“I’m not totally sure,” the big man replied. “He had said he could handle the whole
computer business and then went off to the back room to get some stuff for her
to look at. Elinor wandered over to look
at some of the stuff on one of the shelves, when she suddenly reached out and
grabbed it like… Mr. Germo, something
suddenly just seemed to hit her.
Something physically inside, I think.
I was worried just before we walked into the store that there might be
something bothering her, but I didn’t know what. And when I asked earlier if she was okay, she
just said yes, she was fine. But when
whatever it was suddenly hit her in the store, she grabbed the shelf and pulled
hard enough that the whole thing came crashing down on top of her.”
“And she died,” Germo said.
“I’m sorry,” Stan told him.
“But sir, I’m not sure how that shelf fell like it did. It looked like it was plenty stable
enough. I wouldn’t have thought it would
fall like that.”
“I don’t care. But
you are right, no matter what, it shouldn’t have fallen. And it especially shouldn’t have fallen on
her!”
“True,” Stan agreed.
The third man there asked, “Do you think she may have had a
heart attack or something?”
“I think it may have been something like that. But still, no matter how hard she grabbed
that shelf, it shouldn’t have fallen on her like it did.”
The third man nodded.
“No. It shouldn’t have.”
“Either way, Mateo,” Germo told him, “someone has to pay.”
“I agree,” Mateo, the third man told him.
“Absolutely!” Stan agreed.
“And it was his shop.”
“Which makes him responsible,” Germo finished.
“You’re talking about the woman who died,” I said. “But it wasn’t…” Faster than I thought possible, the man’s
fist lashed out, and I received a jaw dropping punch to the side of my
head. It took me a moment to get my wits
even halfway back again.
“If I want you to say something, I’ll ask!” Germo told me
sternly.
I was still reeling from the punch.
“Your shelf fell on top of my personal assistant,” he
said. “That shouldn’t have happened!”
I shook my head. “I
don’t know how it happened. It shouldn’t
have been able to fall.”
“Which is exactly right!” he told me. “It shouldn’t have been able to fall! But it did, right on top of her. And now she’s dead. And the only person I can blame, is you!”
“But…” And then his
fist lashed out again and it seemed like my entire head exploded in pain.
“What do you do?” he asked before I could fully make sense
of the question.
“I was just…looking for stuff to show her….”
This time he slapped my face. “No!
What do you do? What kind
of work?”
“I’m…I’m a computer guy.
I just opened a store where I sell computers. I’m a systems specialist.”
“I have no idea what that is, and I don’t care,” he told me.
I wondered why he had asked.
“Where do you come from?”
“Chicago,” I told him.
“Chicago! What the
hell are you doing down here?”
“Chicago is cold. And
miserable. And just plain awful! I wanted better weather and someplace not as
packed with people.”
“So you chose Albuquerque?”
“Yes,” I admitted.
“Where it’s boiling hot and miserable?”
“At least it doesn’t rain or snow ninety percent of the
time,” I countered.
“No. It rarely rains
at all. So tell me mister computer guy,
what the hell is a…” He looked over at
Mateo. “What did he say he did?”
“A system something,” Mateo replied.
“Systems specialist,” I supplied.
“Yeah. What the hell
is that?” he asked.
“I look at computer systems.
The entire setup from start to finish, including the business that’s
using them. I make sure the systems
match the business’s needs, and that it all works the way it’s supposed
to. And then I also try to figure out
how to improve it all.”
“You look at the way things are supposed to work?” Germo
asked, thinking about that.
“Yes,” I confirmed.
“And you make things work better, including the business?”
“That’s the general idea,” I told him.
“Just computers? Or
other things too?”
“I mostly know computer systems, but I guess I’ve always
been pretty good at realizing how everything works. It’s kind of a job requirement so I know how
to configure the computers.”
“I see,” Germo said.
He suddenly pulled his gun from the waist of his pants and pointed it at
my head. “Too bad mister computer guy,
but someone has to be punished for Elinor’s death. And lucky you, you’re it.”
To my horror, I could literally see the man’s finger
squeezing the trigger on his gun…when a cellphone rang and everyone turned
toward Mateo, including Germo who had been about to shoot me.
“Yeah?” Mateo said into the cellphone. He listened a moment then looked up at
Germo. “It’s Ramerez boss. You’re supposed to be there for lunch right
now, but you’re not.”
“Shit!” Germo cursed loudly.
“Why did it have to be Elinor?”
“Don’t know boss.
What do you want me to tell Ramerez?”
“Tell him I’ll be there as fast as I can. I’ve got business to attend to and
everything’s out of whack today.”
“Damn!” Germo swore again while Mateo talked on the
phone. “Elinor practically runs this
place. Why did she have to die?”
“She’s going to be difficult to replace,” Stan noted.
Despite my situation, I couldn’t help but snort a soft
chuckle. “Big man,” I muttered. “Can’t even keep your own schedule straight.”
“What did you say?” Germo yelled as he pointed his gun right
at my head again.
“Nothing!” I replied quickly, once again frightened out of
my wits.
“You know so much about schedules?”
“No,” Rowan replied.
“Then why should you criticize me?” he asked threateningly
as he pressed the barrel of his gun hard against my forehead.
“I’m sorry,” I pleaded, suddenly close to crying since I
knew I was about to die.
“My life is busy.
It’s one thing after another.
Don’t criticize what you don’t know!”
“No,” I agreed.
“Shit!” Germo cursed as he looked over at Mateo and
Stan. “Why the hell am I arguing with
this piece of shit. I only came out here
to kill him.”
“That was the plan boss,” Mateo agreed.
“Shit!” Germo said again, then turned his gun back toward my
head. “Tell me mister schedule system
expert. How would you fix all my
business problems?”
I was surprised by the question, but I’d do anything to stay
alive a moment longer. “I…don’t know
anything about your business, but I guess I’d try to put everything together as
much as possible so that a computer program can keep track of it all.”
“A computer program!”
“Yes. That’s what
they do. That’s what computers are best
at.”
“And you can do that?”
“Uh…yeah,” I agreed, hoping for any chance to stay
alive. “I’m guessing it’s why that woman
came to me in the first place.”
Germo stood there with his gun pointed at my head for a few
moments while he considered things.
“Elinor came to you!” he said, thinking about that. Then suddenly he pulled the gun away and
turned to Stan. “Stan, take Elinor
here to her office. I’ve got to go to
lunch with Ramerez. When I get back,
we’ll see if she can at least keep my schedule straight for the rest of the
day.”
Stan looked at him like he was crazy. “Elinor?”
“That’s what I said Stan.
Elinor. Come on Mateo. I’m late for lunch.”