He walked up to the microphone. Fog drifted off his dirty green coverall. He put a cigarette in his mouth and lit it with a zippo. He smiled.
"Here's my story for the night..."
My name is Kay Smith. I work for Mortimer Exterminators. The motto is ‘We Exterminate Anything.' My partner is Jim Jones.
We got a call for a rat job. An apartment building was infested according to the log sheet. We see it a lot.
One rat moves in. Then more move in. Then you have a flock of them. They chew through anything to get food. They can chew through concrete.
We loaded up Old 42 with the standard gear. Jim got the assignment sheet, a piece of paper from a memo pad, with the address on it from Ellen. She smiled as he waved goodbye.
They seemed to be trying to date. I didn't ask. What they did on their own time wasn't any of my business.
Jim drove. He likes it. I let him. Driving is just something to get me where I have to go. It's an end to itself for Jim.
He once told me he didn't get to drive that much when he was a civilian. I can believe that from riding with him.
Headquarters is a gym the boss took over and remodeled. It sits on the western edge of the city. The address for the job was the other side of the city.
Jim grinned like a little kid.
"Don't get too excited." I settled in my chair and buckled the harness. "I want to make it there in one piece."
"Don't worry about that, Smitty." Jim hit the lights on the lightbar on the top of 42. "I'll get us there."
He stomped the gas pedal. The panel truck jumped forward. The blue and red lights on the cab revolved. I settled back and closed my eyes.
I imagined the scenery going by slower than what it actually did as Jim rolled toward the nearby highway.
Honking horns heralded our arrival from the on ramp to the highway proper. I didn't open my eyes. I could hear the screeching of brakes as Old 42 barreled along.
Jim laughed as he pulled on his racing shades.
I don't know why he called them racing shades.
We pulled up in a parking space in front of the office of the apartment complex. The management had named it Seaview Place. Poetic names kill me. There was no sea in sight. They got the place right.
"How big a rat problem do you think they have?" Jim got out his side. He looked around. The shades went in his breast pocket.
I got out. I lit a cigarette. I looked at the complex. It had five buildings around the office which was a separate building. All of it was beige and dark green. I shrugged.
"Let's talk to the manager." I nodded at the office. "If it's big, we'll have to clear the people out so we can fumigate."
Sometimes we use gas in a building to drive out anything that's not supposed to be there. If we do that, we have to clear anything living out so we don't kill them by accident.
"More money for us." Jim smiled as we walked toward the office. "We could get a bonus for this job."
"Flat fee only." His face fell. I noted the no smoking sign on the wall next to the office door. I finished my cigarette before dropping the stub in the ashtray provided for that purpose.
"No bonus?" Jim shook his head. "That sucks."
"Contract." I pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The office was built in a basic octagon shape. The inner part consisted of two offices and a waiting room. Green carpet covered the floor. A chandelier hung from the ceiling with fake candles. A rack with real estate promises rested on a table next to the door.
A woman came out of the office on the left. She frowned, then smiled when she saw us.
"Exterminators?" She seemed surprised to see us.
I read the assignment page again. The contact said ‘marzi'.
"A Miss Marzi called our office." I wondered if it was prank call. We got those sometimes. "She said you had a rat problem."
"That's one of our tenants." The woman frowned. "Exterminators are supposed to go through the main office."
"We would like to look around before we go in case there is a problem." Jim smiled at her with his round face. "That way we can assure this Marzi that everything is okay."
"I guess there wouldn't be any harm in that." She smiled. "My name is April Ledbetter."
"I'm Jim Jones." He turned up the smile. "My partner is Kay Smith."
"The address is 5026." I wanted to spare myself any more flirting. "Would you like to show us which one it is?"
She looked at Jim. He shrugged.
She went to the office door and stepped out in the lot. She paused when she saw Old 42 in a slot with its lights and Mortimer Exterminators decals. She turned and walked down the sidewalk.
We followed.
Miss Ledbetter pointed at a building behind the office. The sign was green numbers on a white background. I walked over, checking for the apartment number on the contact sheet, then over the doors.
"Thank you, Miss Ledbetter." Jim gave her a warm smile and his hand to hold for a second. He followed me to the door.
I knocked on the door belonging to the address given to dispatch. I listened inside. I didn't hear movement.
Maybe she wasn't at home. Maybe the rats had eaten her before we could start trying to fix her problem.
I knocked again. She might be the sacrifice for the beginning of the end.
Footsteps walked across the hall behind the closed door.
The door cracked open. A thin face looked out. She gave me the onceover. I thought she didn't know that she called the company.
"Exterminators." I didn't have the gift of gab Jones had.
"Good. I have some big rats I need to get rid of right now." She opened the door. The dress was from the fifties, the hairdo barely there, and the rest from the stone age.
"Can you show us where you first saw these rats?" I stepped inside. Everything was neat and tidy. It looked almost like a museum. I scratched my head.
It looked like a stage, not a living space.
"This way." She led the way to a small kitchenette. She pointed to a hole in the wall. It looked like a rat hole to me.
"Big rat." Jim didn't sound happy then.
"We're going to need you to leave for a few minutes, Mrs. Marzi." I scratched my head again. I agreed with Jim. Whatever rat made that hole was a giant of the species. "If you and Miss Ledbetter could step outside, we're going to see what we can do about your problem."
"The snake?" My partner knelt by the hole. He sniffed. "Stinks."
"That was my first thought." I put an unlit cigarette in my mouth. "We run the camera down as far as it will reach and see if there is an exit hole somewhere. We plug both holes and gas him. Job's done."
"The job won't be that easy." Jim laughed and shook his head. "It never is."
"Don't ruin my hopes." I went out to the truck and pulled the camera and cable system called the snake off its holder. I toted it back into the apartment.
"Let's see what we see." Jim started setting up.