Page 38 of Snow Blind

"You eat meat, don't you, Bryan? We can't get the body of a vegetarian and say it's you by simply placing your ID on the body," Helen said.

Passion Fruit leaned back into the oversized chair. This is what she wanted to hear from Cranberry. She needed to hear her thoughts on the steps required to make Bryan no longer be a part of the world.

Helen continued, "Bryan also has nice, well-maintained teeth, so there are dental records. Yeah, no fingerprints are one thing, but are you going to find a man with no teeth who is the same blood type with thick skin on his feet? "

"I have resources," Passion Fruit stated.

"Resources? And what the hell does that mean? You're going to call up Johnny J at Cadavers are Us to get a dead white man who has been decomposing for the past three weeks?" Helen asked.

Passion Fruit actually laughed. She liked Cranberry and her irreverent way of approaching a matter, and the questions were relevant. Today would be a learning exercise for them all.

"There are contracts I receive that aid and assist a person with getting a new life, which means I have to put an end to the old one," Passion Fruit explained. "Bryan's situation is no different. I have to put an end to his old life."

Bryan didn't like where the conversation was headed. "And I am simply supposed to start a new life? I have a book contract...my bank accounts...my life?'

"What life?" Passion Fruit asked. "You merely existed, grading papers, regurgitating information semester after semester to fresh faced ingenues who found you mildly attractive, and wiping drool from your aunt’s lip. No one is going to miss you because you never really existed to begin with, if we're honest."

Helen was surprised at the harshness in her tone. "There is no need to be cruel, Passion Fruit. He's already scared, his world has been turned upside down, and now you're going to erase him. Let’s find a center lane here."

"There is no center lane! He lived a shit life, thinking he was God's gift to women and didn't feel he needed to settle down with one and start a family, but hang out with his miscreant adult male pals in strip clubs getting dick rides from broken, trafficked women," Passion Fruit said. "Don't try to paint this fucker as a victim. Me saving his life is an opportunity for him to be better. Either he wants to be better, or we can finish the job."

Bryan hung his head. "Finish the job. I see no need to go on even trying. End me and toss me over the cliff, since you find no value in me."

Helen didn't care for the pity party. She didn't appreciate Passion Fruit's hard line towards Bryan either. Some men simply did the best they could with what they were given. Him taking care of his aunt was a sign he wasn't a bad human, just maybe selfish.

Helen wanted to know. "Bryan? Why are you single and have no kids? Do you have kids?"

"No, I don't. I never wanted them because the world is such a shit place," he said. "Each semester, I stand in front of the class and tell the young ladies the dos and don'ts of campus life, explaining that the men on campus have plans for them already and not to get caught in the traps. I say the same to the young men, that if she's not looking you in the eye saying yes, she wants you, then don't ruin your life for three minutes of release. Yet, they never listen. I teach kids. I don't want them. The world is shitty. Bringing kids into this defunct society is selfish, which is why I never married or had any of my own."

Helen continued, "And your aunt that you were caring for?"

"Her kids never come to visit their mother," he said. "She was there all alone. People had broken into her home, stolen things, and still, her kids couldn't seem to be bothered. I grew up with her. It wasn't as if she was a bad mother. My Aunt is kind and loving, so I took care of her until it got to the point where she was beyond what I could do."

Helen listened carefully, and she asked a question, "Her retirement checks, are they still going into her accounts?"

"No, I had everything stopped and transferred to the memory care facility to take care of her," Bryan said, touching the gauze on his face. "You don't think my cousins...nah, no way?"

"If one or all of them were siphoning off her accounts, and you cut off the access to that free money, then possibly," Helen said, shifting her focus. "Now, what do we do, Passion Fruit?"

"I need to make a couple of calls, then you and I will need to go to work," she replied.

"I don't like this. For some reason, I feel like I'm going to regret all of this," Helen said.

At the end of the day, Helen not only questioned her desire to be a Technician, but also her understanding of the world she lived in and the people she never knew existed. There was an entire universe of networks of magical fairies that supported the Conclave of Angels where people made phone calls to change lives, and she was stepping inside of the veil. Passion Fruit made a call which would forever change hers.

****

HELEN BROUGHT WORKclothes, just in case a job came up where she needed to provide an assist to Passion Fruit. She just didn't think it would be this soon. Dressed in black cargo pants, she thought of the Bushmaster's father and the pants he wore with the blades in them. A mental note was made to reach out to the Bushmaster and ask who his father's tailor was to make such delightful pants; it was nothing more than a distraction of riding shotgun in the black Ford F-150. They were going to get a body to stage an accident to kill off Elliot Parker. In her pocket were the man's ID cards they would leave on the body. She even had his shoes in the back of the truck.

The drive from Antioch to Chicago was roughly about an hour. Passion Fruit pulled up to a nondescript warehouse. Helen stood close behind her, the 9mm in her pocket and a blade in her right hand inside of her black pea coat. She said nothing as the door opened and a man, who was the epitome of every mad scientist of a warehouse troll, bade them to enter.

Goosebumps went up and down Helen's arms at the chill of the warehouse. Passion Fruit calmly followed the man into a freezer. Helen didn't want to enter, but she followed behind. In the freezer were slabs of bodies in varying states of decomposition.

"Three weeks’ worth of decomp, white male, six feet," Passion Fruit said.

"Got two. Barney here has a bullet wound like you asked, and this guy, Chet, who had his junk cut off in an alley by a night worker, but he doesn't have a bullet wound," the troll of a man said.

"Barney it is," Passion Fruit said. "Roll him out so we can get started."

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