Page 53 of The Botanist's Assistant
“And what I kept coming back to was this: Why would I want a job where people wind up dead because of me? What byline would be worth that?
“When I told my editor that I was going to quit for a while, he said that the guy had a target on his back long before me and the fact he died wasn’t my fault. My reporter friends said the same thing, but that’s a little hard to swallow when you watch a guy go up in flames in front of you. When I got out of the hospital, I moved out of my apartment, stored my stuff and vagabonded for a while. I was as messed up inside as I was out. I lived in my truck, backpacked, visited every national park from California to Colorado.”
“Did it help?”
“Sort of. A little. Then I ran out of money. Bobby, the guy who owns this house, kept in touch with me and when he heard I was down and out in Hurricane, Utah, he sent me a hundred bucks, said he had an extra bedroom, and told me to ‘hurricane’ my butt here.”
“In other words, take a quick and direct path.”
“Yes. I told him I wasn’t going to freeload, and he said he had just the job for me. That his uncle was a custodian and was about to retire from Roosevelt. He could pull a few strings.”
Margaret doesn’t mention the state of the breakroomcoffeemaker and the unemptied trash cans she sometimes had to haul to the dumpster. Even she knows it’s not polite to insult the uncle of a homeowner in whose kitchen you’re eating curry and enjoying the burgeoning blossoms on his apricot tree.
“Turns out, it’s the perfect job for right now. It’s physical, simple, nine-to-five—actually four-to-midnight—and nobody gets hurt. I clean, which, weirdly, has kind of cleared my mind too. Wax on, wax off, you know.”
Margaret frowns slightly.
“Karate Kid.Nineteen eighty-four. It’s this movie about learning karate but there’s this part about something simple teaching complex lessons. You’d have to see it to understand. Also, it was kind of a cleaning joke.”
He lifts an eyebrow.
“Oh yes. I see it now.”
“Anyway, who knows what will happen, but it’s good for the moment.”
He gestures his fork toward Margaret’s bowl.
“You should eat before it gets cold.”
Which Margaret does. He’s right about cleaning. It does soothe the soul.
She scrapes her bowl empty.
“Shall we get down to it, then?” Joe asks. “Tell me exactly what you want me to do.”
—
The woman onthe phone from Windsor Compounding Pharmacy is helpful. “Of course, Dr. Blackstone. I can check that order for you,” she says.
“I don’t have all day,” Joe says to the representative. He winks at Margaret.
She admires the smoothness with which Joe impersonates a man he’s never met. He’s got just the right amount of arrogance in his voice.
“Of course,” the woman says. There is the sound of fingers against keyboard. “Is it the 1.0 percent atropine?”
“That’s it,” Joe says.
Margaret feels the slight rush of adrenaline. How can Joe stay so calm? Blackstone had, indeed, ordered a shipment of the poisonous liquid.
“It looks like we can’t send you another supply until April 30. I’m sorry.”
Joe frowns at Margaret. She lifts her shoulders. Blackstone regularly orders atropine?
“And can we say again how sorry we are that we sent your order to your office instead of your home,” the woman continues. “We here at WCP appreciate your business and are doing all we can to fix our processing system to avoid further errors.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear that,” Joe says. “It certainly was upsetting.” He raises his eyebrows at Margaret in a question. She has no answer.
“Again, thank you for your business, Dr. Blackstone. We appreciate it. We’re also glad we can help your son through this difficult situation.”
