Maker Messiah

by Ed Miracle

  “Do you have all your clothes on, General? We are getting looks.”

  General grunted as he braked for a stoplight. “Gawkers,” he said.

  “Must be the Pod we’re towing. Probably wondering where they can get one.”

  “Beggar’s eyes,” General said. “Never thought I’d see that up here.”

  The light changed, and General drove the remaining blocks in silence.

  Once they rolled the new Powerpod into the lady’s backyard and finished hooking it up, Alonso thanked them by pressing small gifts into their hands. Everett opened his while General drove them back to Oakland. Crystalline teardrops on a bed of cotton. Probably worth a thousand dollars, before last weekend. Until now, he’d never had much use for diamond earrings, though he couldn’t spring them on Marcy just any old time. It would have to be an occasion.

  Back at Shoes-for-You, a dozen people queued at the showroom door. As General pulled into the driveway, the crowd rushed to surround the van.

  “You have Powerpods? We need Powerpods.”

  “Please, sir, I will buy your Powerpod. How much do you want?”

  General opened his door to block them.

  Everett got out on the other side, made downward sweeps of his hands. “Okay,” he said. “Calm down. We have a couple of Pods, all right?”

  “Only two? I will buy one.” The man waved his checkbook.

  “Two is not enough. What about the rest of us?”

  “This is a shoe store,” General groused, and he bulled his way through them.

  “We seen you haul that Powerpod. You got one of them Makers in there, don’t you? The kind that copies theirselves? It don’t cost you nothing to make copies, mister.”

  “We will pay you.”

  “Okay, okay,” Everett said. “Go around front, and we will meet you there, one at a time.”

  “What’s your price?”

  General shouted, “Man said go to the front,” and the crowd backed. He frosted the glare he gave Everett. As he unlocked the service door, a woman broke clear and rushed him.

  “We need to get a Pod, Mister General, so our lights don’t go out, like last night.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” General softened. “Just go to the front.” Then he pulled Everett inside and bolted the steel door.

  “The hell are you doing, Aboud? We can’t be selling Powerpods.”

  “Hey, you saw those people. What could I say? No, we don’t have any. Now go away. That’s lame, General. They know it, and you know it.”

  “So what? This is a shoe store.”

  “Yeah, well.” Everett bobbed his head. “It’s a shoe store, and maybe it’s also a place you can get a Powerpod.” He rubbed his sore neck.

  “What are you going to do, General? Those people live around here, don’t they? That’s why they came. ‘Cause they live here, and the power went out, and they saw that Pod we copied for Alonso. I don’t know about economic terrorism, but it seems to me you can’t shun your neighbors if you want them to be there when you need them. You can’t eat shoes, you know.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “You’re worried we might be helping Philip Machen? Hurting the country, like those faces say on TV? Well, I say screw Philip Machen, and screw those birds that squawk about stuff they can’t control.

  “This is our country, and this neighborhood has got to be the most important part of it, right? So how does it hurt anyone if you help your neighbors? What good is a person who won’t help the folks next door, or up the street?” He licked his lips. “Especially if he can make a few bucks.”

  General bore into him. “What do you plan to charge them, smart guy?”

  Everett led the way to the sales room and strode to the counter.

  “About time you two got back.” Charlene squatted nearby, fitting shoes for a little girl and her mother. “I had to lock them out. Been waiting on shoe customers, one at a time. The rest want Powerpods.”

  General grabbed Everett’s arm. “If we copy more Pods, we are doing exactly what that starry-eyed idealist wants us to do.”

  “You did it for Alonso.”

  General didn’t offer an excuse but said, “From a legal standpoint, we could be slitting our throats.”

  Everett shrugged. “Maybe the point where the law stands should move a little.”

  General’s eyes widened. “Where did that come from?”

  Everett didn’t know either, but the words kept coming.

  “Don’t you get it? They’ll just call you stingy and find their Pods someplace else. But they won’t forget you refused to help them. All you can offer people now is your goodwill and a pile of shoes they can get elsewhere. So what business are you really in?”

  Everett was shouting. He didn’t know why except it pissed him off that the whole world had changed and nobody was altering course.

  General stared, open-mouthed until someone rapped on the glass door. “All right. All right,” he said.

  Everett waited for General’s nod, then keyed the register to make it ring. He smiled at Charlene and bestowed a flourish on her customers.

  “Attention Shoes-For-You shoppers. We are no longer a shoe store. From now on, we are a footwear and Powerpods emporium. No cash, please. Credit subject to approval.”

  Outside, the crowd was pressing against the windows, peering and grumbling.

  “What are we going to charge them?” General whispered.

  “Whatever they want,” Everett said. “If they set the price, they won’t feel cheated. Anything we get is pure profit. What do we care if one of them lays out big bucks and the next one wants to swap for a case of motor oil? Either way, we’re ahead, and the customer gets what she paid for.”

  “Better keep the price down,” General warned. “Better keep it even too. Soreheads carry guns in this town.”

  “Two hundred bucks,” Everett declared. “That’s way less than Powerpods Company was charging.” This came to him so easily, so clearly. Could it also melt some of his cosmic inertia? He tipped his chin toward the crowd outside. “What do you say?”

  General palmed his keys and went to the door. He loosed the bolt and stepped back.

  “You’re right, Everett. I believe you’re right. We need their business, and we don’t want to start a riot. But I still feel like a dope dealer.”

  Everett cracked a smile then reeled it back.

  “It ain’t dope, General.”

  The first customer rushed in.

  “You guys take Visa?”

  FIFTEEN

  Oakland, California. Still Friday, April 24

  Day Seven

  Agent Parker’s duty phone rattled on the kitchen counter. It displayed the dour face of his boss, Special Agent in Charge, Derek Majers.

  “What are you doing, Parker?” Majers wasn’t asking. He was clearing the decks. “Did Ms. Lavery give you anything worth a damn?”

  Parker massaged his forehead. All week, facts and notes from the case file had wandered aimlessly through his mind, soldiers without a map, while Philip Machen’s diary, stuffed with equations and technical jargon, had yielded only confusing glimpses of the man who wrote them. Parker could not deflect the judgment in Derek’s voice, so he said nothing.

  “Okay, Les. Nice try. Get some lunch, then report to the office. I’m reassigning you.”

  The connection dropped, confirming the new assignment could only be bad; that it had already been decided; and that no appeals would be considered.

  You couldn’t tell me over the phone, could you, Derek? You’re going to shame me in front of the troops, aren’t you? Parker smacked the counter with the butt of the phone. Then he called his erstwhile partner, Nedra Gaffin.

  “It’s robbery,” she said, meaning he was reassigned to that division.

  Worse than stupid. Every moron knew cash was trash, that there weren’t going to be any more bank heists. And that solving old bank jobs should not be a priority while free drugs and firearms were celebrated nightly
in the streets. Capturing Philip Machen was everyone’s top priority, yet Derek was pulling him off the case.

  “It was Nick Brayley, wasn’t it?” He kicked his stool.

  “Would that please you?”

  “Okay, listen. I’ll be taking lunch. First alarm that rings in, you call me.”

  Nedra told him to stop feeling sorry for himself, so he disconnected her. She wasn’t the one being slammed.

  If they were taking him off the case, there was only one reasonable response: put himself back on it. Track the bastard, no matter what they said. If he couldn’t decrypt this guy, get inside his head, they might never find him. He needed a frequency or a channel to which the suspect attuned himself. Which brought him back to the case file and the suspect’s diary.

  Philip Machen had not blundered into Powerpods and Makers. He’d planned from the beginning to yoke matter and energy to his personal agenda. And hidden within the mathematics and the personal notes of his diary was a most unscientific term, a religious word. Which impelled Parker, now that he thought about it, to dig into a drawer and retrieve his Cambiar net phone, the one with encryption. He searched its directory for Dr. Harpreet Sugand and called the number. If the priest was also using a Cambiar, it could mean he was a Machen sympathizer. Or it could mean he just liked free phones.

  “Sugand comma Harry,” said a familiar voice. “Please leave your message.”

  “Dr. Sugand, please call Les Parker at your earliest convenience. Thank you.” He linked his own number.

  Ten minutes later, Harry’s reply saved him from returning to the office.

  They met at the food bank Harry ran in Emeryville, near the bay, off the East Shore Freeway. Wedged like a gym locker between an auto body shop and a tire emporium, the Fellowship Food Bank presented itself as a steel roll-up door, currently shut, and a dented man-door, currently open. Garlands of rusty razor wire had stained the flat roofline and streaked the yellow walls.

  Harry came to the door wearing his trademark look of repressed amusement. In a baseball cap and scuffed sneakers, he resembled a convenience store clerk rather than a doctor of divinity. No doubt his vein of natural goofiness was why Harry worked here instead of uptown with the bishop, but he had once proved invaluable on a kidnapping case.

  “Lester, good day. How are you?”

  “Hello, Harry. It’s Leslie, but I’m pleased to see you.”

  “Leslie. Sorry. So many names.” He tapped his head. “But I have kept your face.”

  Cartons of food piled to the skylights reminded Parker that he had skipped lunch. Between the door and Harry’s tiny office stood a small Maker, not a Maker Maker, its garden hose sagging from the upper cone like a limp noodle. So this was what the fuss was all about, the sheet metal Gorgon that held the world in thrall. Parker had never actually touched one.

  Harry noted his interest.

  “We don’t stock-out anymore,” he said, “but donations used to come by the truckload. Now we get a box or two from the back seat. No more vans or semis. Mostly, our clients don’t have Makers, so we are running extra deliveries until we must stop. After that, I don’t know. The Lord will provide.”

  He ushered Parker into his cluttered office. They sat on folding chairs, faced each other across a wooden, tea-stained desk.

  “What brings you, Leslie? Not our Maker, I hope. Not another kidnapping.”

  “Nothing like that. It’s personal this time, Harry, so please keep this confidential.” He laid an old USB memory stick on the desk. “I would appreciate your professional opinion.”

  “Truly?” Harry doffed his cap. “A priest’s opinion won’t buy you much in a courtroom, I am thinking.” He folded his arms. “Sure, why not? I sit all day. Brains and buttocks need exercise.”

  Parker’s chuckle drifted back to the subject before them. “I want to know what sort of man wrote this,” he said. “Who does he think he is? What drives him? What does he want?”

  “He is your suspect?”

  “A fugitive.”

  “But not the common criminal. Nobody cares what a hooligan thinks. What did he do?”

  Parker nodded at the stick. “Better if he tells you.”

  “Okay then, what did he give us?”

  “It’s a ten-year diary, beginning fifteen years ago. Thirty-one hundred pages.”

  “Then you have him.” Harry tapped the stick. “He’s in here.”

  Parker nodded and made his plea.

  “Our people scanned it. They analyzed it. Decided he’s a fish, by golly, and they are fishermen. So they are casting nets. They don’t appreciate that a rare species might not feed like a mackerel or swim like a salmon. I tried to warn them, but they are busy, casting nets.”

  “Fishers of men. You are teasing me, Leslie.” Harry dropped the chip into the pocket of his polo shirt. “You have read it?”

  Parker nodded. “Most of it.”

  “Then I’m flattered. Cops don’t care what I think, usually.”

  Parker shrugged. “Taking the measure of someone’s character is what we do, isn’t it, you and I? If a cop or a priest can’t read people, we are useless to our professions.”

  “Suppose we disagree?” Harry’s lip curled toward mischief.

  “Then one of us is a baboon-faced fraud.”

  Harry’s guffaw made his day. If this guy couldn’t help him, no one could.

  “I can’t afford to be mistaken about this, Harry. I’m betting the farm on this one.”

  The convenience store cleric nodded solemnly and donned his ball cap. He reached behind his desk and came up with two bottles of Belgian beer, Hoegaarden, slick and icy. He opened them with a flourish and stood for a toast.

  “To fishers of men.”

  Parker rose and clinked on it.

  “To fishers of wayward men.”

  SIXTEEN

  Oakland, California. Still Friday, April 24

  Day Seven

  Woozy from the beer, Parker drove home mechanically, suppress­ing all but the mundane thoughts and motions he needed to arrive and park safely. He unlocked his ninth-floor condo and carried in the box containing his Gaggia machine. All week he’d endured paper-cup coffee and looked forward to a fresh cappuccino in the morning after a full night’s rest. This was the plan, so far, for his one-day weekend, starting tonight. A plan he affirmed by switching on the lights.

  He unclipped his service pistol, laid it on the counter, then retrieved a tall, black can from the fridge. Barley-colored suds soon flowed into a glass that he raised to eyelevel. Guinness never tasted quite so cold as the can felt. Did the froth insulate the ale, or was it a trick of the senses? A physicist would know the answer, a wiz like Philip Machen.

  The broken doorbell thunked and hummed, as it had for a year, whenever someone pressed the button. He checked his watch. Friday, 7:56 p.m. Damn. He’d forgotten.

  He turned on the wall screen and selected his security camera. The expected swathe of white hair appeared over a chalky forehead and a lens-distorted nose. He switched the screen to a news channel before answering the door.

  “Mrs. P, I’m so sorry. I just—”

  “Leslie, may I come in, please?”

  Lucille Petzold, well into her seventies, did not seem angry. She clutched a cardboard box to her bosom and beamed like a proud six-year-old, the sparkle in her eyes overpowering the pallor of her cheeks. He’d never seen his neighbor so excited.

  “Of course.” He drew open the door.

  “You are forgiven,” she said, “but not off the hook. I just have to tell you the good news. You remember my sclero-friend, Jimmy? The one with three months to live? He got his Swiss Treatments yesterday, and—” She jostled the carton. “He sent Maker copies to the whole darn group.” She put down the carton, raised her gloved hands, and wiggled her blue woolen fingers.

  “No more scleroderma. This stuff sells for ten-thousand a bottle, though you can’t buy it around here, even if you have the moolah. Not approved. But our group studied
the data. It’s definitely a cure. Doesn’t just treat symptoms. It knocks the disease right into remission. So the scars and the thickening heal up as soon as your immune system stops attacking your tissues.”

  Parker shut the door and followed her to the yellow chintz sofa his ex-wife had once adored.

  “I only have these skin things,” Mrs. P said, “which is bad enough. Jimmy’s disease went straight to his lungs and kidneys. It was killing him. This stuff is saving his life.”

  She rattled the box, and her joy made him smile.

  “Are you sure it’s safe?” he said.

  She looked hurt.

  “The website tells you the doses, Leslie. Jimmy takes one-hundred milligrams. I’ll take ten. Ever since the chemotherapy triggered it, I’ve had these cold hands and awful skin. I want to stop wearing gloves all the time. I want to wash in cold water without firing up the pains. I want to go swimming. And now I can.” She dog-paddled the air but stopped. “You’re not going to report me, are you?”

  “Where did I put those handcuffs?” He patted his trousers. “No . . .” He grinned and gently took her hands. “Prescriptions are not my jurisdiction.” He danced her in a circle until she dimpled up a fresh smile. “Unless you start selling that stuff,” he warned.

  She broke free, scooped the box, and cradled it. To her left, the wall screen displayed a familiar face, toward which she nodded.

  “I should send her some Swiss Treatments, for her little girl.”

  On screen, Senator Selena Gilmar, in a trim, dark suit, was addressing reporters on the steps of a courthouse. Recent polls had given her a slight lead over the other Democrats running for president. The chyron crawling below her waist said, Gilmar Opposes Powerpods Ban. Parker reached for his remote control.

  “I didn’t know her daughter had scleroderma,” he said, and he turned up the sound.

  “Who says the American people can’t be trusted to produce their own electricity?” Senator Gilmar glowed with well-dressed confidence. “If we trust our citizens with automobiles and handguns, we ought to trust them with electric generators too. I say we can’t afford to shut down millions of Powerpods in the middle of a recession. I say we should put covers on them, so they can’t be used as Makers, then lock those covers. Confiscation and blackouts are not the American way.”