Spoonbenders

by Daryl Gregory

  A big change to her routine came when she filled a tumbler of water to make a drink that wasn’t coffee. She opened up a canister of Goji Go! that was sitting on the floor and stirred in a healthy portion of powder. The canister wasn’t here yesterday. Embrace life! was written in marker on the lid. Frankie, evidently, could sell this stuff to anyone, even his worst enemy.

  Another man came in and paid. Matty again tried to see past Mitzi’s hands, and again saw nothing. He felt his body—his real body—cramping up from sitting too long in one position. The pot was wearing off.

  He was glad he hadn’t told Frankie he was trying again. Another failure would kill the man. He’d seemed so sad last night. Loretta had gotten mad at him, thrown him out of the house. He didn’t talk about it in front of Matty, but it clearly had to do with his money problems. Which sent Matty to bed feeling worse for his betrayal.

  Then came the letter, and the means to help. What choice did he have.

  Mitzi got up from the desk and walked down to the bathroom. This was her third visit in a half hour. He never followed her into there, no way. When she came back, she looked pale. She sat behind the desk just as another client, an old white guy with spiky gray hair, handed over his payment for the week. Mitzi barely seemed to be paying attention as he talked, and didn’t even bother to put the envelope into the drawer. When he left, she bent toward the safe.

  Matty edged forward, eager to try a new idea. He thought of his body growing thinner. He spread out like Mr. Fantastic, thin as a slip of paper, and slid his transparent self between Mitzi and the safe. He was less than an inch from her hand when it touched the dial.

  She turned the dial, and stopped. She’d never paused like this before, but he wasn’t going to question it. He counted the hash marks and saw that the first number was definitely 28. One down! Then she turned the dial again, and paused. Her hand slipped down. A moment later, a red goo spattered the front of the safe.

  Matty drew back in alarm. The rest of the room became visible to him. Mitzi had slipped off her chair, and was lying on the floor. Goji-vomit was everywhere. She’d stopped throwing up, but her mouth was still moving, calling out, though he couldn’t hear what she was saying.

  He moved beside her. “Are you okay?” he asked her, but of course she couldn’t hear him. He couldn’t yell for help, couldn’t help her to her feet. He had nothing but a ghost voice and a pair of ghost hands. Useless! He’d have to go back to his body and call 911. But what then? Hi, I know I’m several miles away, but I know for a fact there’s an old woman who’s real sick in a bar.

  The office door opened. The bartender, an old man with a huge, multi-chinned face like Jabba the Hutt, walked in, bent down, and helped Mitzi to her feet. He escorted her to the bathroom, and he and Matty waited ten, then fifteen minutes until she reappeared. She still looked horrible. Eventually the bartender guided her out the back door, to a car, and they drove away.

  What was he supposed to do now? Mitzi had left without even putting away the last envelope. He knew exactly one digit of the combination. The only person left in the bar was the waitress, and he was pretty sure she wasn’t going to open the safe.

  He’d failed.

  —

  He found Frankie in the basement, interrogating Buddy about the damage he was doing to the house. Then Frankie finally noticed him standing on the stairs, and said, “What?”

  “It’s about our thing,” Matty said.

  His uncle’s face lit up, and that made Matty cringe inside. They went to the kitchen, out of Buddy’s earshot, and Matty said, “I started again. Visiting Mitzi’s. I was just there.”

  “Oh my God! That’s fantastic! Did you get the combination?”

  “That’s what I want to tell you. I didn’t get it. And I won’t be able to. Payday’s been canceled.”

  The telephone rang. Frankie ignored it. “What are you talking about?”

  “There was a problem,” Matty said. “Mitzi got sick, and she left.”

  “Sick? Sick? Mitzi’s never sick.”

  “It was pretty bad. A lot of vomit.” The telephone wouldn’t stop. “Maybe I should get that.”

  “Don’t pick that up. Could be anybody,” Frankie said. “Just tell me what happened.”

  Matty didn’t want to say what Mitzi had been drinking when she threw up. Instead, he said, “I don’t think she’s coming back. There’s nobody there now but a waitress.”

  “Payday is never canceled,” Frankie said. “It’d be like canceling—” He made a sputtering sound, looking for the word. “—gravity. Not possible in the realm of physics.”

  Buddy appeared at the kitchen entrance. He pointed toward the front door.

  “What?” Frankie said.

  The doorbell rang.

  “Well, get it, dummy!” Frankie said.

  Buddy slowly shook his head. Frankie stormed past him, heading for the door. Matty took advantage of the distraction and picked up the phone. Anything beat being yelled at. “Hello?”

  A pause, and then a man said, “Oh! Hi. Is this Matty?” Matty didn’t recognize the voice.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s nice to meet you. Your mom’s told me a lot about you.”

  “Uh…”

  “I was wondering if she was home?”

  “Can I say who’s calling?”

  “It’s Joshua. Joshua Lee.”

  The boyfriend. Or, as Matty had started to think of him, the Penis from Phoenix. “She’s not home right now. She’s at work.”

  “She’s hard to catch. Do you know when she’ll be back? Or if there’s a better time to call?”

  “It’s kind of busy here,” Matty said.

  “Right. Okay. I’ll call back tonight.” He sounded desperate. No, like a desperate guy pretending not to be. “If you see her, tell her—wait. No, that’s okay. I’ll just call back.”

  Matty hung up. Buddy was looking at him. “Has he been calling a lot?” Matty asked.

  Buddy nodded.

  “Is that Malice? I mean, Mary Alice?” He thought he’d heard her voice. Matty went outside, and Frankie was standing on the front lawn, saying, “Come on, Loretta. Please get out of the car!” Malice stood nearby, holding a lumpily full garbage bag. She saw Matty and walked up to him.

  “Would you take this?” she asked. “He won’t.”

  “What is it?”

  “Clothes. Some other stuff he’d need.”

  “Wow, your mom’s pretty mad.” Matty didn’t recognize the car, or the woman behind the wheel. One of Loretta’s friends, it looked like. Loretta sat in the passenger’s side, staring straight ahead, window firmly up. “What happened?”

  “He didn’t tell you? We have to sell the house. Like, today.”

  “What? That’s crazy. Why?”

  Malice gave him a half-lidded stare. “Like you have no clue. You want to tell me what you two have been working on?”

  “I…I can’t.” He felt so embarrassed. “I wish I could.”

  Loretta had finally rolled down the window—but only to yell for Mary Alice.

  “Wait,” Matty said. He leaned close to Malice and dropped his voice to a whisper. “Do you have any, uh, pot on you?”

  Malice stepped back. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “I wouldn’t ask, but I’m down to half a joint, and it’s really—”

  “Mary Alice!” Loretta yelled. “In the car!”

  —

  Matty held the stub of joint between his finger and thumb, flicked the lighter, and puffed to bring it to light. His last bit of rocket fuel…

  —

  He flew back to Mitzi’s Tavern, wasting no time in transit. Inside, it was more crowded than it had been all afternoon, but it was Bomb Squad Silent. A dozen men of various ages sat at the bar or at the round, pockmarked tables, staring at their drinks as if trying to decide whether to cut the green wire or the red one.

  Matty skirted and skittered around the edge of the room, anxious to leave, but knowing he
couldn’t face Frankie unless he at least figured out if payday was in progress. Jabba the Bartender had returned, but he wasn’t talking to anyone, either.

  Matty could feel the tug of his body back at the house. He’d made Uncle Frankie promise to keep his mom away from the backyard when she came home from work. He’d started to ask why, and then abruptly said, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll handle it. You do what you do.”

  The bar was depressing him. Mitzi’s door was closed, and no one was making a move to walk in. He decided to take one quick pass through, just to make sure the safe wasn’t hanging open, and then head home to face Frankie’s wrath. He was drifting toward the door when the bartender pointed at a customer, and the man got up and started walking toward Mitzi’s office. Was Frankie right after all, and payday was on?

  Matty slipped through the wall into Mitzi’s office and was surprised to see somebody new behind the desk. The man was at least as old as Mitzi and Grandpa Teddy, but looked like an Elvis left too long in the sun: gray pompadour, white teeth, beef-jerky arms. His clothing was period, too. His black short-sleeve shirt had flames on it, as if he were ready not so much to hop into a ’57 Chevy but to become one.

  The guy from the bar didn’t sit down. He handed over an envelope, and Ancient Elvis pulled out the cash, sorted it in front of him, slapping the bills onto the desk as if sure he was going to catch the guy stiffing him.

  Mitzi wasn’t like that. She would barely glance at the money, just run her finger across it while it was still in the envelope, and then talk politely to the client. Sometimes everybody was all smiles. Sometimes the client had to start explaining.

  Evidently the money added up. Elvis waved the customer away and turned toward the safe before the guy was out of the room. Then he picked up a scrap of paper, and started dialing.

  Matty zipped forward.

  Elvis pulled open the safe, still holding the scrap of paper. Matty stretched himself, willing his invisible eyeballs closer.

  28. 11. And—thumb. Elvis’s fat, grease-stained digit covered the only digit Matty cared about.

  “Thumb, thumb, thumb…” Matty chanted.

  The man swung his head toward the door—maybe someone had knocked?—and then dropped the paper. Matty swooped down, tried to focus on the digits, and the man snatched it off the floor.

  “Oh come on!” Matty yelled. What he wouldn’t do for a pair of spirit tongs. Anything.

  The door opened, and Mr. Pompadour started talking to the next client. Matty looked forlornly at the safe—and then realized the door was still open.

  Still open.

  Matty flew a few feet and turned until he could see the face of the door. The dial was still resting at the last number:

  33.

  “Twenty-eight, eleven, thirty-three,” Matty said.

  He spun, held up his ghost hands. “Twenty-eight, eleven, thirty-three!” Pompadour and the new guest talked on, oblivious.

  Matty zipped through the roof, chanting the digits to himself so he wouldn’t forget. He stretched out his arms like Superman and headed for home. God, he loved flying. And now, he knew Grandma Mo had loved it, too. Screw Destin Smalls. Let the evil government agents come for him. He was going to save Frankie! Save his mom!

  Two blocks from home, he zoomed low over rooftops, buzzed a series of parked cars. Something about one of the vehicles pinged on his cannabis-fogged brain. He hovered in the air, turned back.

  A silver van was parked under a tree. Then the driver’s side door opened, and a gray-haired black man stepped out. Cliff Turner. He put his hands on his hips, looked up at the tree, then turned—and locked eyes with Matty.

  Turner nodded slowly, and then saluted.

  Matty, in a panic, was snapped back into his body like a yo-yo. He shouted and opened his eyes and saw—

  —Grandpa Teddy.

  He sat in a lawn chair, legs crossed, hat on his knee.

  Matty jumped up. “Grandpa!”

  His grandfather held up a hand. “Settle down. You’re not—”

  Matty spun around. The silver van was so close. He could be here any minute.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Grandpa Teddy asked.

  Matty tried to calm himself. “Nothing,” he said.

  “You know, marijuana can cause paranoia.” Grandpa Teddy held the nub of the joint between two fingers. “I had to pinch it out. You don’t want to waste it. It’s expensive.”

  “I’m sorry. I know!” There were no sirens. No squeal of tires in the driveway. Just a quiet backyard, a couple of empty hammocks, and his grandfather. How long had he been watching? Long enough to pull out a chair at least. Thank God Matty hadn’t been using his original travel method.

  “Easy now, you’re not in trouble,” Grandpa Teddy said. “How long have you been at this?”

  “I just tried it a couple times.”

  He chuckled. “Not talking about the smoke. I’ve seen that look before, Matty.”

  That look. Of course Grandpa Teddy would recognize a trance. He’d been married to the greatest clairvoyant and astral traveler of all time. He may have been the one to deliver her letter.

  “You seemed pretty deep,” his grandfather said. “How far away were you?”

  “Not far.” Matty didn’t know what to do with his hands. Should he sit down? Lean nonchalantly against the garage? No. No way could he pull off nonchalant. Chalant was the best he could do.

  Grandpa Teddy, though, seemed perfectly relaxed. “What’s the farthest you’ve gone?”

  “Uh…” Matty was having trouble concentrating. Were Turner and Smalls driving here, right now?

  “Just estimate,” Grandpa Teddy said.

  “How far is the lake?”

  “That’s pretty good.”

  “Is it?”

  “For a thirteen-year-old it’s God damn amazing.”

  Amazing. He was amazing. He didn’t even bother to mention that he was fourteen now.

  “So tell me,” Grandpa Teddy said. “Why are you still shaking like a leaf?”

  Matty didn’t want to say. But he was too terrified not to. “The government. They just spotted me. While I was, you know.”

  “The government? Who?”

  “His name’s Clifford Turner. He works with Destin Smalls? He looked straight at me. He saw me.”

  “Well I’ll be damned. Cliff actually has some talent.”

  “You know him?”

  “Oh, I know him. Good guy. Just didn’t think he had it in him.” Grandpa Teddy did not seem as shocked as he should have been. But wasn’t he the master of the poker face? “And how did you catch their names? Did he talk to you?”

  “Not this time.”

  “This time? This has happened before?”

  “No, not like that.” Matty quickly told him about meeting Smalls and Turner weeks ago, when they stopped him on the sidewalk. He talked fast, imagining SWAT teams converging on this location.

  “Did Smalls threaten you?” Grandpa Teddy asked.

  “No! I mean, not physically. He just said he could turn me off. Turn my power off. Like a light switch, he said.”

  “Jesus,” Teddy said. “The God damn micro-lepton gun.”

  “What’s a micro—?”

  “A million-dollar boondoggle. Don’t you worry about it. Does anybody else know what you can do?”

  “Uncle Frankie.”

  “You went to Frankie with this? Your mother I could understand, but—”

  “I could never tell Mom. But Frankie, I knew he would be…excited.”

  Teddy grunted in agreement. “Probably right about your mother, too.” He looked at the joint in his hand. “And this helps, does it?”

  Matty nodded.

  “Someone should do some research into that.”

  “What do we do?”

  Teddy smiled. Was it the “we”? He said, “Your cover’s blown, kid. Destin Smalls is going to use you as his ticket back into the game.”

  “What game?”


  “The only one men my age care about—relevance. But don’t worry. I’ll deal with him. Right after I go see a friend of mine.” He handed Matty the joint. “Better hide that.” Then he stood and brushed out the creases from his pants. “Meanwhile, you better get inside and change into fresh clothes—your mother’s coming home.”

  Oh, right. Better take a shower, too.

  Teddy left in his car. Matty went into the house and was stopped before he made it to the bathroom.

  “Well?” Frankie said.

  “Twenty-eight, eleven, thirty-three,” Matty said.

  18

  Teddy

  Somehow, without noticing it, he’d stopped throwing himself into love with a new woman every day. He’d forgotten his habit like an umbrella left behind in a restaurant, unmissed because the rain had stopped. It was absurdly late—late in summer, late in life—to realize that he’d abandoned his quest for a daily fix. Yet here he was, alone in a gleaming fortress of a kitchen on a Sunday morning, feeling like he was sitting in sunlight. All because of a random encounter with a woman in a grocery store.

  Since Maureen had died he’d felt no need to get to know a woman, only to love her, briefly and intensely, and move on. And it was clear, after entering this house, that even if Graciella managed to love him, she wouldn’t be happy sharing his ramshackle life. Just look at this room! A quarry’s worth of granite, interrupted only by hunks of stainless steel, set on a plain of ceramic tile. His coffee cup rested on a slab of teak as big as a drawbridge. In these modern mansions, the kitchen served as both factory and showroom, like one of those Toyota plants staffed by robots. Even the phone he was talking on felt more expensive than one of his watches.

  “That’s my final offer,” he said. “One test.”

  “I’m bringing in Archibald,” Destin Smalls replied. “That’s nonnegotiable.”

  A child ran into the room, yelling something about batteries, and stopped dead when he saw Teddy. It was the smallest one, about eight years old, the one he’d seen at the soccer game. Alex? No, Adrian. Teddy hadn’t seen or heard the other two boys since entering the house. He doubted he could find them if he went looking for them; the estate spanned time zones.