Staying Dead - Laura Anne Gilman [8]
Okay, so maybe the neighbors weren’t all they could be, in terms of minding their own business. The five flights of stairs were murder, especially in the summer. And the sounds of traffic from over on Houston Street could be pretty bad. Wren didn’t care. Two years ago she had walked in the door half a step behind the real estate broker, a hyperkinetic woman glued to her cell phone, and had felt a sense of comfort soak into her bones, like walking onto a ley line, those semi-legendary sources of power. This was home. This was her sanctuary. The moment the building went co-op, as every decent apartment building seemed to, sooner or later, she was going to buy her apartment. That’s where all of her money went, right into the savings account that was not ever, on pain of pain, touched. No vacations, no expensive toys or impulse splurges.
Well, maybe a few. Mostly, though, she stole what she really wanted. Just to keep her hand in, of course.
Wren was a pragmatist. She was very good at what she did, but no career goes on forever. Especially not one with risks like hers. So she planned. And prepared. And kept praying that human nature would maintain a demand for her particular skills.
So far, no problem on that front. Someone always wants what they’re not supposed to have, and someone’s always equally willing to pay to get that something back.
Setting the volume level to where she could hear the music throughout the apartment, Wren grabbed the mail off the counter, sorting it as she walked down the hallway into the bedroom that was set up as her office. “Phone bill, credit card, junk junk junk, more junk, political junk.” She tossed all but the bills into the recycling bin next to the desk, and thumbed through the flyers that had been stuck in the doorjamb, setting aside one menu and tossing the rest into the bin. That was the third flyer she’d gotten for pest removal. At this point, they were more annoying than her nonexistent cockroaches, current being a great and totally—in her mind—underutilized way to keep a location insect-free.
“If I could only market that little side effect right,” she told the photo of her mother tacked to the board on the wall in front of her, “I’d be able to make us both filthy rich overnight. And Sergei, too.”
The office was the largest of the three bedrooms, but barely managed to hold the small dark wood desk where her computer and a headset phone reigned, a comfortably upholstered office chair, and a tall potted plant against one wall. The corkboard hung on the wall over the desk was cluttered with papers, takeout menus, and the one posed photo of her mother. Five two-drawer file cabinets marched along the opposite wall, pulling double-duty as a table for an assortment of odd but useful objects she didn’t know where else to put. That wall also held a closet. Its door had been removed, and half a dozen shelves installed, to serve as a makeshift bookcase. The window was covered by a rice paper shade, allowing light during the day, but keeping prying eyes out 24/7.
She sat down at the desk and turned on the computer. While it hummed to life, she reached over to the phone, dialing a number from memory while she hooked the wireless headset up, pulling her hair clear where it tangled with the mouthpiece with a mutter of disgust. She hated using the thing, but the phone—like her computer—had been rigged with so many surge protectors to make it safe for her to use on a regular basis that you couldn’t move the damn thing without creating disaster.
One ring, and then a crisp, efficient “Yes?”
“It’s me.”
Sergei’s raspy tenor voice changed, so subtly it would have taken someone paying close attention to recognize the new, softer tone for affection.
“You looked at the job site?”
“Yeah, for whatever that was worth.” Wren leaned back and swung her feet up on the desk. Her loafers needed