Major S’pense exhaled, sending a series of consecutive smoke rings in the direction of the slowly rotating ceiling fan. As they were caught in the swirling vortex it created, each perfect hoop was torn to shreds that quickly dispersed to join the nebulous mass of fumes that had already begun to obscure the religious paintings that adorned the ceiling of his room. S’pense tugged with absent fingers at the hair surrounding his navel, rolled off the bed and began to sort for the fourth time through the papers in his wastebasket.
It had been years since the ghost of Wanda Ases had come to nibble on his ear and, dream or not, he didn’t need that kind of distraction. Not now, on the eve of an international panic. But here she’d come, dragging up from deliberate oblivion the hundred and fourteen separate pains and regrets of a youth he now could ill afford to recall. In a dream she’d called him; called him with a tenderness and a need like she’d never shown him in their life together.
In unspoken, but unanimous consensus, the SPIES group had disbanded; simply stopped meeting at all. The murder of Reggie Prong was eventually pinned on a small-time methamphetamine dealer and loan shark named Vinnie Tasco. He went to the electric chair protesting his innocence. For a while, the letters continued to arrive in their customary fashion, but, while all those involved continued to assimilate the data provided them—just in case—none dared act on any of the orders they received.
Shlemmer tried to force them to act by detailing how A’s or B’s inaction had made the precise execution of steps C, D, and E, absolutely imperative. The tactic failed, however, to penetrate anyone’s defensive inertia and before very long, his communications ceased altogether. The last letter he sent S’pense contained only the name of Wanda Ases’ favorite perfume.
S’pense and Wanda moved into an apartment together and lived quite happily for a while. They moved with a startling amount of grace in completely different, but interlocking circles. They fought at times, traded clothes, and even met each other’s families. S’pense won numerous gymnastic awards and Wanda took a co-op job with an accounting firm. Neither of them ever brought up the names of Prong or Shlemmer.
Then one May, Wanda graduated. S’pense had taken a term off to train full time for the Olympics and still needed seventeen credits toward his degree. He came home one night, expecting dinner and found her packing. “Zack Lippincott offered me the office in Brussels!” she said. S’pense already knew that that was where Lippincott himself had secured a vice-presidency. A storm front of suspicion that had been building for months suddenly thundered to the fore and in the aftermath, nothing remained but a shattered floor lamp and a useless lease, paid up til September.
On the day that he entered the Army, S’pense received a flimsy envelope that was postmarked Brussels, Belgium. He crammed it into his suitcase and went to get his head shaved. It was two weeks into boot camp, before he was lonely and desperate enough to risk reading it. It read:
“Everything going smoothly and according to plan. Will be needing your services again, soon. In three months you’ll be reassigned to Bangkok, Thailand. You’ll meet a man named Reese. Show him this letter. C.S.”
Image composite courtesy Wikimedia Commons. Ceiling fan: Vikramdeep Sidhu from Jhajjar, India; Lettenreuth Kirche Decke-20190505-RM-171633.jpg ceiling art, attribution: Reinhold Möller
