Temporary Monsters (2 page)

Chapter Two

Lenny clicked off the alarm as soon as it started to beep. He hadn't really been sleeping. The reality of Monday morning and a brand-new job filled his head. But what kind of a job? And what was with that temp agency?

Lenny sat up and sighed. The initial excitement of someone actually wanting to hire him was long gone. Instead, the weekend had left him with an awful lot of questions.

Not that he hadn't looked for answers. But Terrifitemps didn't even have a website. His next step was to google their name—but even then the citations were rare and sparse. Apparently a few people had found some well-paying short-term employment from the agency, and only regretted there hadn't been more. Most of the comments were complaints about waiting in the Terrifitemps lobbies for hours. (They at least had some other offices, apparently in Cleveland and Boca Raton.) Lenny couldn't find a single blog or bulletin board that mentioned skipping past the wait and getting hired on the spot. Or any further details about someone who actually worked there. In fact, all the entries, both pro and con, lacked detail. Everything about Terrifitemps was sort of vague. As vague as the way the agency had hired him.

People blogged about everything—getting stuck in a line at the registry, breaking up with your boyfriend, eating a ham sandwich—everything but Terrifitemps. Was there some sort of nondisclosure thing at work here? Lenny shook his head. Nondisclosure for a temp agency?

So what had happened to the others like him, who had breezed right through the system? It might be rare, but he couldn't be the only one. Were the others too busy to blog? Or had something else happened to them?

Because that wasn't the weirdest thing about last week's interview. He had never told them anything about himself, hadn't filled in a form, hadn't given them any information at all. Yet Ms. Siggenbottom knew at least his name and maybe even more. It was as if she had been expecting him.

Lenny took a deep breath. This was crazy talk. Terrifitemps had offered him work. He was just having a super case of new-job jitters. Not surprising, since it had been months since he had gotten a paycheck for anything.

This was the part Lenny didn't like to think about. His job history was—a little strange. And his love life? You needed money to have a love life. He thought about Sheila and the last time he had managed to have a steady girlfriend. They had met briefly the summer before, when he had gone back home to visit his mother. They talked about all the fun they'd had together their senior year of high school, and when they had reconnected that summer between semesters of college. At times, he'd thought there might still be something between them—but that was another life, before he had been thrown out into the world, living in a threadbare apartment, unable to hold a job.

He rolled out of bed. Think positive. A job is a job is a job. Maybe they'd actually give him something long-term. Maybe he could meet someone like Sheila and start dating again.

What could happen in an office like that, after all? It was a temp agency, and an out-of-date one at that. What was the worst-case scenario? They offer him a job cleaning elephant cages? It was better than sitting around his apartment with no money. If it was too awful—hey, he could always turn the job down.

Right now he needed coffee—the cheaper stuff he made himself. He rubbed his eyes and pulled on a pair of pants, just in case his roommate had company. He walked into the living room of their shared two-bedroom apartment, decorated, as he liked to call it in “early poverty.” Bare wood floor, free posters tacked to the wall, a lumpy thing that might once have been called a sofa under the window.

A job is a job is a job, he thought again. So what if he hadn't worked in months and months? Why was he so worried?

On Friday, he had decided he only had one recourse. He had set up the card table next to the couch, so that he could do the one thing that always helped him when he was stressed—work on his stamp collection. His grandmother had helped him start it when he was eight, and he had kept it with him for close to twenty years, hauling it out whenever he needed to cool down—like the day Sheila had walked out of their relationship, or the eternal waiting to see if he had gotten into his favorite college, or especially after a couple of those bizarre, job-ending accidents that he'd suffered through—who knew those scientists had developed a penguin that could actually fly?

This whole Terrifitemps experience, as happy as he was to get the job, had brought his stress levels up again. So he had brought out his stamp albums one by one and puttered through them for an hour here and there until he was calm enough to do something else. Well, on Saturday, he had needed a couple hours at a time to center himself. Sunday, he worked from about 11:00
A.M.
until—oh, about 11:00
P.M.
By about 10:30 on Sunday night, he had even looked at the prize of his collection, the Moldavian 3 slotznic first day cover, although he hadn't taken it out of its Mylar sleeve.

But that was all over now. Today he had a job. He'd have to put his stamps away—as soon as he made some coffee.

Somebody rang the doorbell.

At quarter of eight in the morning?

“Bruce?” Lenny called, hoping against hope that his roommate was actually here for a change. As usual, no one answered. Bruce and Denise must be at her place. Bruce and Lenny had met each other in college, been friends ever since, shared their ups and downs—except Bruce seemed to be able to keep
his
jobs. Not to mention a steady girlfriend. Lenny felt a sudden panic. He hardly saw the two of them anymore. What if Bruce decided to move out?

All the more reason to take this job.

It must be one of the neighbors. Not that Lenny and his roommate knew much of anything about the other people in the building, but—Lenny decided to go see who it was. He stepped up to the door to look through the spyhole, and looked at someone he had never expected to see again.

He slid back the chain and unlocked the two deadbolts as quickly as possible.

“Sheila?” he asked as he opened the door.

His college high school girlfriend smiled back at him from the hall. She looked much the same as the last time he had seen her this past summer. Her long, blonde hair was shorter now, cut just shy of her shoulders, and her cream-colored business suit spoke of a life in business rather than summers down at the beach. But her lightly freckled skin, her eyes that looked blue in some light and green in others, the warmth of her smile—none of those had changed at all.

“Hi!” she said brightly, as if showing up at your ex-boyfriend's door at eight in the morning was the most natural thing possible.

“Uh, hi,” Lenny replied. He had trouble coming up with what to say next. After standing there for a moment, he decided to try. “Uh, do you want to come in for a minute?”

She walked past him into the apartment before he had finished the sentence. By the time he closed the door, Sheila was staring down at the card table in the middle of the living room.

“You still collect stamps!” she called over her shoulder. “That's wonderful!”

It was? He seemed to remember, back when they were dating, that Sheila had found the whole stamp thing boring, or annoying, or maybe both.

“Uh, yeah,” he replied as he walked over behind her. “Listen, I've got to go out in a few minutes.”

She turned and smiled again, looking straight into his eyes. “Here I go and show up without calling. I was in the neighborhood and—impulsive me—I just wanted to see you.”

“Uh, well, it's nice to see you, too.” Lenny smiled back. How did she know where he lived? Lenny's mother, most likely. She was always trying to get the two of them back together. And right now, Lenny realized, he was glad his mother had interfered.

“I'm glad you think so,” Sheila said, stepping closer. “I know, all those years ago, we said a lot of foolish things to each other. We were too young, really. Now that we've both seen a bit more of the world, it got me to wondering.”

Her face was only a few inches from his. Lenny had forgotten how much he liked to be this close. He just had to lean forward, and they could kiss.

“And, uh,” he said softly, “just what were you wondering?”

Her oh-so-kissable lips curled up into the slightest of smiles. She leaned forward.

Bum-bum-bum.

Someone knocked on the front door.

“Somebody you know?” Lenny asked Sheila.

She frowned. “I have no idea. I came up here alone.”

Bum-bum-bum.
The person outside knocked a second time. “Maybe I can get them to go away,” Lenny said.

He looked through the spyhole in the door and saw only shadows. The light in the hall must have gone out again.

Bam-bam-bam!
The knock was getting louder.

“Just a minute!” Lenny unlocked the deadbolts and opened the door as far as the security chain would allow.

Two men in trench coats stood outside. At least, Lenny thought they were both male. They were tall with broad shoulders beneath the coats. But with the light out in the hallway, their faces were lost in shadow.

“Mr. Mumblemumble?” they both asked together.

“Pardon?” Lenny asked.

“Mumblemumble?” They repeated. Or maybe they had mumbled something entirely new. It was hard to tell.

“There's nobody with that name living here,” Lenny answered, hoping it had something to do with what they just said.

The second one stepped forward, but didn't leave the shadows.

“Mr. Mumblemumble. Do you, by any chance, have a stamp collection?”

“Who are you?” Lenny demanded. This was an invasion of his private life. Especially now, with Sheila—well, that moment was probably lost forever. And how did they know about his stamps? It was just like Terrifitemps. Did everybody know
everything
about him now? “What do you want from me?”

The two stood there for a long moment, staring at him. At least he thought they were staring. It was pretty hard to tell what was going on with their faces lost in the gloom.

“Sorry,” the one on the left finally spoke. “We must have the wrong place.”

“Yeah,” the one on the right echoed. “Wrong.”

They both pivoted away at the same moment and, with only a step or two, vanished down the hall into the gloom. Lenny had never seen the hallway so dark before.

He stood there for a long moment, gazing into the gloom. The lightbulb above his doorway sputtered back to life. A couple more flickered back on farther down the corridor, then over the stairwell at the end of the corridor. All the lights that had been out flared back to life. The hallway seemed almost painfully bright. And completely empty.

Even though he hadn't heard them go down the stairs, Lenny saw no sign of the two who had stood there only a moment before.

Lenny stared at the silent hallway, then turned and closed the door. Who were those guys? Why had they shown up now? This could have absolutely nothing to do with the job. How could it?

“Uh, Sheila? I'm sorry about that. Who knows who those guys—”

He walked back into his apartment.

And froze.

He had left the loose-leaf notebooks in two neat piles. Now the half dozen notebooks had been scattered across the table. His pulse racing, he opened the notebook containing the heart of his collection, and quickly flipped the pages. He stopped and stared at the empty Mylar sleeve. Someone had taken his misprinted Moldavian first day cover! He could still see his missing treasure; an envelope issued on the day the stamp was made public, with the blue and red ink plates reversed, so that half the image was upside down!

Someone had been working with those strange people at the door, on the morning he was about to start a new job. He felt his right hand curl into a fist. His life might have been filled with poverty, boredom, and lack of female companionship, but, until now, he had his stamps!

And where was his ex-girlfriend? Had the strangers done something to her? Lenny stopped mid-room, his every sense alert.

He heard snoring. He looked to his right, and saw Sheila sound asleep on the couch.

He gently shook her shoulder.

“What?” She opened her eyes. “Lenny? You answered the door. Everything got foggy . . .” She leaped to her feet. “This is another one of those—things, isn't it? Like that rain of frogs at our Fourth of July picnic? Or the time that sinkhole swallowed my Toyota?” She looked straight at him, tears in her eyes. “I hoped you had outgrown that sort of thing! Now I remember why it all ended.” She turned and grabbed her purse from the couch. “Good-bye, Lenny. I'm sorry I bothered you!”

She swept by him, out of his living room, out his front door, and out of his life.

Lenny found himself very much awake. In a matter of minutes, he had lost both his most valuable stamp and the girl he thought he'd lost years ago! Should he call the police? After what had happened, Lenny wasn't sure he could be coherent. And he couldn't be late on his first day of work! The call could wait, along with the coffee. He decided to get dressed and out of his apartment before anything else happened.

***

Lenny hadn't been out of his apartment this early in a long time.

The sun was bright, the air was crisp. And the subway was packed. Lenny grabbed one of the straps and did his best not to fall into anybody's lap as the train barreled down the tracks.

He tried his best not to think of Sheila. Her visit felt more like a dream than anything real. So he thought about that missing first day cover instead.

Something that rare would be hard to sell. Once he'd reported it, every legitimate dealer in town would be on the lookout. Who were those strange people? Why had they stolen something that only really meant something to Lenny? How had they even known about his stamps? And why had they stolen it now?

Did it have anything to do with the new job? That was crazy talk. But why did he keep thinking that sort of thing over and over? Was he trying to sabotage himself before he even got started?