in his time, and they tended to get soft and waxy, which this one hadn’t been. So; a week, maybe? Two weeks?
It was over a month since Pieter had died. He cast his mind back. The box had been covered with a fine layer of dust, he remembered brushing it off his hands. Strange, he thought. For a start, why would anyone keep a perfectly ordinary apple in his safe deposit box? By the same token, why would the bank have gone to the trouble of putting an apple in there a day or so before Pieter’s heir was due to arrive? No, they couldn’t have done that; the box needed two keys to open it. Pieter must’ve put the apple in the box.
Pieter, now he came to think of it, hated apples.
Beyond all question, there was a perfectly simple, logical explanation for all of it. Bound to be. Just because he couldn’t think of one right now didn’t mean to say there wasn’t one, just as the fact you can’t see the Moon doesn’t mean it’s not still there. If he really applied his mind, no doubt he could come up with a unified theory of everything which would account for the apple, Mr A B not-my-real-name Negative, the beautiful Matasuntha, the empty five-star hotel with the wrecked cars out front, and the empty bottle in Pieter’s safe deposit box. But figuring out united theories of everything; that was the sort of stuff scientists do, and Theo was through with science. Other people, laymen, mundanes, don’t bother with the deep thinking, they just accept stuff and get on with their lives. They don’t ask questions. They don’t read the small print.
So he went down to the lobby, which was deserted, and looked in the drawers of the beautiful walnut desk. Rather to his surprise, he found what he’d been looking for: a magnifying glass. He looked round to see if anyone was watching, then quickly slipped the glass in his trouser pocket and dashed back up the stairs to his room.
Matasuntha was waiting for him when he got there, with a jacket and trousers over her arm. “Your uniform,” she said.
He’d forgotten all about that. “Thanks,” he said. “That’s great. I’ll, um, try them on in a minute.”
She nodded. “What’s your name?” she asked.
“Theo Bernstein.”
“The Theo Bernstein?”
Oh God, he thought. “Yes,” he said. “It was me who—”
“Theo Bernstein who used to do the morning weather on KPXE Kansas City? Oh wow.”
“Um.” He frowned. “No.”
“Oh.” She pulled a sad face. “Sorry,” she said. “I thought you were him.” She laughed. “Stupid of me. I mean, if you were someone famous, what’d you be doing working here?” She leaned past him and looked at the bed. “What’s that bottle?”
It was lying on the pillow. When he’d left the room, it had been under the bed. “That? Nothing. Just an empty bottle.”
She moved forward. “I’ll put it in the trash for you on my way down.”
“No, really.”
“It’s no bother.”
“I recycle.”
A look of deep suspicion settled on her face, like rooks on a cornfield. “That’s really public spirited of you.”
“Green to the core, me.” He moved slightly, so that she’d have to make a serious detour to get past him to the bed. “Do you have any idea what volume of non-biodegradable material gets dumped in landfill every year? It’s enough to keep you awake at night.”
“Quite.” She was trying to peer round his shoulder. “Well, in that case I’ll leave you in peace. Bill will let you know when you’re due for your first shift.”
“Right. Thanks.”
“Meanwhile.” One last peek, which he blocked with a slight repositioning of his shoulder. “Settle in, make yourself at home. Welcome to the team.”
“It’s great to be on board. Do we get baseball caps?”
“What?”
“To help foster a shared-goals mentality and a sense of common purpose, going forward?”
“No.”
“Shucks. Well, thanks again. Bye.”
There hadn’t been many occasions in his life, he reflected as he closed the door behind her, when he’d put so much effort into persuading a beautiful girl to leave his hotel room. Maybe if he had, he wouldn’t be in this particular hotel room right now; no way of telling, of course, because the sea-anemone strands of causality wave and sway in the currents of the timestream, and any damn thing could happen. The main thing was, she’d gone, and he was alone with his bottle. He grabbed it and held it up to the light. Still empty. Well.