Page 74 - Effable Encounters

The Formic Solution
(Fantastic Transactions 2, 1997)

Addicted in later life to sticky sweets and syrupy sodas, Phibian
Gill rarely strayed more than a few feet from the bug-infested kitchen
of his small apartment. His sarcastic assistant, Ann Teeter, had
considered changing the wording on the little brass plate below the
great man’s call button in the lobby from ‘Consulting Detective’ to
‘Insulting Defective.’ Her boss, she figured, would never see it.
One morning, entering that lobby with hands almost frozen to a
shopping bag containing two gallons of strawberries-and-cream
gelato, she came upon a well-dressed elderly woman with one gloved
finger pressed firmly upon that button. Either a client or a misguided
proselytizer, Ann figured, taking in the woman’s large handbag and
practical shoes.
Just as Gill’s reedy tones came clarinetting over the intercom’s
cracked speaker cone, inviting his visitor to hazard a trip on the pre-
war elevator, Ann approached her.
“I work for him, which means I don’t have to pay for his advice. I
will be more than happy to take you up there so you support his
bizarre habits for as long you like. Just let me pick up the mail.”
The old lady fussed with her garments and accessories while Ann
extricated mail-order confectionery catalogues from Gill’s mail slot
and picked up a large flat parcel leaning against the chipped faux
marble wall below it. Now she had something upon which to rest the
sack of frigid dessert.
“Press five, please,” she directed her guest, after they had, between
them, pulled open the massive outer elevator door and yanked aside
the rusting steel accordion gate. Their conveyance lurched upwards,
almost buckling the older woman’s knees; Ann, habituated to the
building’s idiosyncrasies, had already braced herself, but failed to add
her barely balanced load into the kinesthetic equation.
Disembarking in disarray, Ann led the way to 5G. Arms
miraculously still full, she kicked at the door. Phibian Gill opened it.
“Do come in, madam,” he began, then stopped when he perceived
his laden assistant on the lintel; then resumed upon the appearance of
a second smaller silhouette behind the first. “I am Phibian Gill.
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