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Time to trace this thing. He wished he were a computer genius. Sitting back down again, he checked his in-box. Gone, of course. He had deleted the messages. But they would be in the delete file.
He clicked on the delete file. Oddly, the messages weren’t there. Could he have emptied the file? Well, he certainly didn’t remember doing so, and there was the deleted message from Sandy. And besides, he would have had to answer “Yes” when the program asked whether he was sure he wanted to permanently delete the messages, and then he would have had to return to his in-box, because that had been up on the screen when he got back from the bathroom.
And he certainly had not done all that and been unaware of it. There had been no mental blackout. He was angry, not insane.
What was the name the first message had come in under? Something about an oil company? He couldn’t remember.
Of course! He was so rattled he wasn’t thinking. Look in sent items! The first message would be there, attached to his response.
But it wasn’t. It and his response were gone.
The phone rang. He was trembling so much he could hardly answer.
“Hi, hon. Get my e-mail? Let’s do di
“ Sandy, I don’t think I’m up for di
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m not feeling very well.”
“You sound fu
“No, honey. I think I’d better just hunker down. I’ll call if I need you.”
She was ringing his doorbell twenty minutes later.
He had loved Sandy when he first heard her speak. Her voice summed her up so well-gentle, willing to listen but willing to speak her mind, too. There was a trace of sadness in Sandy, which he thought was the result of her divorce. She had the air of a person who had made a mistake and grown as a result.
The first time she visited his apartment, he’d cooked for her. She’d had a hard day at her job as a paralegal. The lawyers had kept her working through lunch. Without thinking much about it, he’d taken a carton of eggs from the refrigerator. He cracked six into a bowl, whisked them with a fork, and poured them gently into a pan where butter was bubbling on low heat. While they were scrambling, he took lox and a red onion out of the refrigerator. He sliced two bagels and lowered them into the toaster.
Sandy said, “Now I know you’re not a computer nerd.”
“What?”
“You cook.”
“Oh, yeah. You mean I don’t send out for pizza and have empty pizza boxes and Mountain Dew cans all over the floor.”
“Exactly.”
Tonight, she had not only hurried over, she had brought a large shopping bag that emitted the odors of Thai curry beef and coconut milk soup.
“Now I’ll go to the kitchen and dish out, and then we’ll eat, and you’ll tell me what’s wrong.”
While she was in the kitchen-a very tiny space with one work counter and room for a two-foot-diameter round table and two chairs, Neal edged cautiously to his computer. He touched the keyboard gingerly and looked at the monitor.
Another message. “Ah, much of sadness, more of sin, Inky. I’m going to get even.”
“ Sandy! Come here quick! I’ll show you.”
“What?”
“Look at this!”
She peered over his shoulder. “What, Neal? A message from your boss?”
Sandy said, “You’d better call Beetlejuice.”
He explained what was happening, the vanishing messages, but not the underlying reason. And certainly not the horrible thing he had done that caused all this. He knew he had to tell her eventually, but he had to work up to it. What would she think of him, once she knew? He didn’t want to lose her.
BEETLEJUICE Thomas said he’d come right over.
The man had been named by a mother with an antic imagination. But he thought his name was pretty fu
When he burst in the door, he shouted, “You lucky folk, it’s me!”
But seeing Neal’s face, he sobered up.
Neal explained, just as he had to Sandy, what was happening, but not the story behind it.
Beetlejuice sat at Neal’s desk, flexed his fingers dramatically, and said, “Got any Jolt?”
“No. Sorry.”
“Mountain Dew?”
“I think so.”
Beetlejuice clicked keys for several minutes and began to look a
Neal said, “No luck?”
“Not yet. Why don’t you go get a soda for yourself and let me work?”
“Have you ever seen a problem like this before?”
Hearing Neal’s tacit criticism, he said, “Yes, actually, I have.”
“Did you fix it?”
“I’m researching it.”
“So when was this?”
“A couple of weeks ago.”
“Did you find the problem?”
“I haven’t yet.”
“How is the person who has the problem dealing with it?”
“I haven’t heard from him recently. I’ll have to check.”
Neal paced back and forth. Sandy brought him a glass of grape drink, but he just held it. He felt queasy. He peered over Beetlejuice’s shoulder. Which wasn’t appreciated.
“Go away! Just let me work. I’m restoring the backup of your e-mail data.”
Suddenly, Neal was hit by a thought. “Um-Beetle? When you get the e-mail, do you see it?”
“What?”
“Will you see the actual e-mail?”
“Yeah. Duh. You’re saying if I just find the messages, I shouldn’t open them?”
“Uh, yes.”
Beetlejuice and Sandy exchanged glances.
After a few minutes, Beetlejuice pushed the chair back and worked his shoulders.
“Got it?” Neal said.
“Well, no.”
“Now what?”
“Will you just let me do this? Now I’m going to run a data-recovery utility.”
Sandy sat on the sofa with her hands folded and her back stiff. Neal paced. A couple of times he thought he caught Sandy looking at him speculatively.
Finally Beetlejuice said, “It just doesn’t find them.”
“You mean we can’t tell whether the e-mails were ever sent?”
“Dude, I don’t think they ever came in.”
“But they did. I saw them!”
“Come on, Neal, man. Everybody gets times when they’re overstressed.”
“I did not imagine this!”
“Maybe that crappy boss is getting on your nerves.”
“No,” Neal said. He was not going to get mad at Beetle. After all, the man had come over here to help. Or at least he wasn’t going to show that he was mad. “Yeah-well,” he said.
“You know, Hofstra, there’s no such thing as a ghost in a machine.”
WHEN Beetle left, Neal knew it was time to be honest.
“ Sandy -listen.”
“What?”
“The e-mails are talking about something I did. Four years ago, I was out at a bar with a friend. His name was Berko. We came out later-maybe midnight-and we were halfway down the block when these four guys jumped us.”
“Oh, my God!”
“They said the wanted money, and we gave them our wallets, but they started beating us anyway with crowbars, or tire irons, I don’t know. I pulled out my cell phone, but they stomped on it, and I ran.”
“And you survived.”
“Yes. But Berko didn’t. If I’d stayed there and fought back, he might have.”
“Why wouldn’t you have been killed, too?”
“Uh-I might have been.”
“Honey, it was their fault, their evil, not yours.”
“What I did was my fault-”
“Everybody has something like that in their lives. Guilt is a terrible thing to go on feeling.”
“But I am guilty.”
“These things eat away at you. I know.”
He didn’t answer.
“I’ve had personal experience with this, Neal.”
“Well, you told me about your divorce. But I don’t think that’s the same, no matter how much you may blame yourself.”
“I didn’t tell you all of it. I didn’t tell you the reason for our divorce.”
“People are allowed to have differences-”
“No! Neal, we had a daughter.”
Neal shifted uncomfortably.
“She was four years old. Patricia. We called her Tishy.”
“If it hurts you too much, don’t tell me.”