He sat up and took stock.
Blue sky was now visible through gaps in the blind. Another day, another small life, another room to explore. R.D. could make out true outlines of the slumbering furniture, adorned with discarded clothes, heaped together and basking in the spreading warmth.
As with all female rooms there was the usual paraphernalia. A pin board filled with photographs, a shelf of assorted self-improving paperbacks, a sparse collection of disordered CDs and one truly hideous framed picture. In Maggie’s case it was a Hudson in a cheap gold frame, primary African stick figures clustered under a streaky orange sky, like a gaudy ethnic Lowry. The pillow smelled of New West and smoke.
R.D. rolled onto his stomach and squinted at photographs of varying size, date and quality plastered above his head. They gelled into a nameless jungle in which his companion peered with stubborn frequency, same face but differing ages and hairstyles. Maggie with the U.T. parachuting club, scared but smiling in a baggy blue jump-suit. On the beach in Greece or Spain with an oily tan and an impressive tower of mall hair. As a sixteen year old, capering with her childhood best friend, the one who moved to Petaluma or some such place. Stiff but smiling with her mum and dad. Relaxed with her Mum and stepdad. Or vice versa.
Maggie’s fat niece, a big pink blob of drooling lard with beady eyes.
R.D. reached up, pulled off the Sumo baby and stuck it back on the pin board upside down for a joke. He hoped the kid hadn’t died of some infant illness. Or Bulimia.
His young bed partner had put on weight too, but just a touch. He hadn’t noticed at first, but her ankles were thicker and she had a little more of a chin than he remembered. Nothing drastic, just a tiny pucker of flesh that hadn’t been evident last time they were together. And, when his arm slid across her, it took a little longer to get round than it used to. R.D. didn’t mind. She’d been too thin before.
And she still had those eyes.
Maggie had the most wonderful eyes R.D. had ever seen. Maybe it was just a chemical thing, but they set his heart pounding every time she looked at him. Angular, narrow and deepest brown. Behind these stretched lids, dark as the blackest thought, her pupils glittered like coins at the bottom of a well. These were peepers that used to make him leave a bar before closing time just to get her into bed.
He probably should never have let her go.
It broke his heart when they had parted all those years ago but, as usual, it was his fault. He’d broken a date with Maggie to take out another student. Suddenly she was busy whenever he phoned and this gave him the excuse to bed his younger paramour.
In return Maggie changed from being permanently busy to permanently out. R.D. took the hint. Relationships weren’t his strong suit anyway.
But he had kept her mother’s number all these years, just in case.
-46-
Alone in his office R.D. spooned three sugars into his coffee and practised horse noises. He puffed up his cheeks, exhaled air violently out the side of his mouth and threw in an explosive ‘heh!’ from the back of his throat. The result was a pleasing blubbery whinny, though he was only able to make that particular sound using the right cheek. Never mind. Most people couldn’t make a noise like that at all. He wondered if it was a genuine skill and tried to imagine a scenario where such a talent might one day come in handy.
The intercom made a sound similar to the one he’d just been perfecting. R.D. held the reply button down.
“Who durst parp me?” he enquired.
“There’s another chick here to see you,” crackled Beck. “No appointment, but she says you’ll want to talk to her. Her name’s Maggie Wood.”
His secretary sounded pissed off, but it might be the distorting effect of the aged communication system.
“She’s Japanese, I guess.”
Beck was pissed off. Too many strange women turning up, he supposed.
“She’s not Japanese!” R.D. hissed, hairs standing up on the nape of his neck.
“Japanese. Chinese. Like I can tell the difference.”
“Just show her in!”
The office door swung open and Maggie entered.
“Next time we meet?” she shot back over her shoulder. “I’ll show you how to fire ping pong balls out your…”
“Get in here!” R.D. swung the glass door shut before his secretary found a paperweight to throw.
“Stupid bitch,” Maggie fumed.
“Beck’s not at her best first thing in the morning.”
“Yeah, I bet you’d know.”
“She’s my secretary, that’s all.”
Maggie chose not to argue.
“Here. I brought you a present.” She unhooked a cheap tartan holdall from her shoulder and threw it. “I chose the bag with you in mind.”
“Oh aye!” R.D. admired his new possession. “It’s got stripes going in both directions. I like that in a design.”
“It’s the design inside you’re gonna be interested in.”
“Eh?”
“An Anti-Inductance Device. It’s finished. I’m calling it the AID for short. Like that? I think it’s clever.”
“You built it already?”
“It’s only a static electrical generator. Told you it wouldn’t be hard, but it might not be what you expect.”
R.D. wasn’t listening. He’d already unzipped the holdall and was pulling a strange object tentatively from the dark interior.
“Don’t worry, it won’t break.”
The psychologist needed no more urging. Yanking the AID free from its highland surroundings and onto his desk, he surveyed the dubious creation. And dubious it was.
The device had two curved prongs that obviously went over a person’s head, with a complex mishmash of fine filament wires wrapped round each spur. Another wire, insulated this time, led down to a square power pack, the size of a fist – with a clip that allowed it to be fastened to the wearer’s belt. R.D. placed the contrivance gingerly on his head and it perched on his hair-sprayed crop like an ill-fitting toupee.
He pointed forlornly at the window.
“What?” Maggie followed his gaze.
“R.D. phone home”
“You’re a dick, know that?”
“Well, come on Maggie. Justin’s going to stick out a bit wearing this anywhere except the Mondo-Doodah Club.”
The girl grabbed the AID back, yanking out a few reluctant hairs from her tormentor’s head in the process.
“Don’t be silly, R.D. It’s a prototype. We’ll see if it works before I make it look sexy.” She stuffed her creation back into the tartan bag. “I can build a more innocuous one, but it’s a waste of time going to all that effort unless I know it’ll function properly. We’ll have to go test it on him.”
“Fair enough.” R.D. rubbed his tingling scalp. “When do you want to do it?”
“Tomorrow.”
“You don’t waste any time!”
“No point hanging around.” Maggie tapped her watch. “I’ve got real work to do.” She motioned to the grubby white phone beside R.D.’s right elbow. “Call Justin up now and tell him.”
“Ah. That’s going to be a little bit difficult.”
“Why?” Maggie wasn’t putting up with any indecisiveness. “I’m sure Dr Jekyll and Mrs Moore have a telephone out there.”
“Yes. But it’s hanging from the roof.”
“Well of course it is.” She seemed determined to take this whole bizarre affair in her stride. “We’ll just have to surprise him.”
Then a genuine hitch occurred to her.
“What if he aint there?”
“Don’t be silly Maggie.” R.D. tried out that wonderful old phrase. “In his condition, where’s he going to go?”
She could see the sense in that.
“I tell you what,” the psychologist continued. “I’ll come over tonight. We can have dinner or something and leave from your place first thing in the morning.” He raised his eyebrow to what he hoped was a rakish angle. “If that�
�s OK with you.”
“Yeah, you do that, cowboy.” She leaned over the desk and R.D. stuck out his face to receive the expected kiss. But Maggie’s lips stopped millimetres short of his own, before carrying on up to his ear.
“The intercom’s still switched on,” she whispered. “That secretary can hear every word you’ve said.”
R.D. looked down at the metal box and groaned.
“Good job your relationship with her is just a working one.” The lips tasted his ear briefly and Maggie sprang back, her eyes bright with vengeful glee.
“I’ll… ehm, call you later today.” R.D. swiped back the holdall and covered the intercom with it. Maggie winked wickedly.
“Don’t forget your overnight bag,” she mouthed, fairly skipping from the office.
R.D. really didn’t have to offer an explanation to Beck. It wasn’t that kind of an association. Still, when he buzzed for tea later in the day, it was 15 minutes coming and didn’t have any milk in it.
He slid closer to the air conditioning unit and stared out his window. The glass monolith across the street blotted out most of the azure sky and even sunlight looked sinister, twinkling on its pokerfaced façade. He imagined a thousand fly like eyes inspecting him, hiding their judgement behind banks of mirrored monocles, as he sipped his mug of cold tea.
Another relationship over. Another begun. Same old story.
He clutched the tartan bag savagely to his chest, feeling the AID bend helplessly inside. Hot brown liquid splashed on his tie.
“Big, big day tomorrow,” be breathed so the intercom couldn’t hear.
Despite the lack of tangible audience, he tried to stab a thorn of happiness into his voice.
“Big, big day.”
-47-
R.D. hung from the window of Maggie’s Trans-Am, grinning like a junkyard dog and waving his camcorder haphazardly at the landscape. Maggie had experienced enough of her companion’s erratic driving and confined him to the passenger side for the duration of the journey. Left with minor navigational duties and the job of recording this momentous event for posterity, R.D. figured he might as well start right at the beginning.
The video record switch seemed to be connected in some causal way to his vocal chords. A picture might be worth a thousand words but R.D. wanted to be on the safe side.
“Our chauffeur for the day is the beautiful and talented Maggie Wood,” he gushed, swinging the camera round till a blob of nose and slice of cheekbone filled the lens.
“Hey! Watch out for my spots.”
“Maggie Wood, ladies and gentlemen. Raised in Nutfutter, New Jersey where she worked as a racetrack florist before landing a job as camerawoman in the Ed Wood epic The Electric Toothbrush from Space. Her true talents only came to light during a fight scene when she was forced to extricate a clapper board from the lead character’s buttocks using her teeth.”
The camera lurched away from the driver’s grinning countenance, blurring and unblurring, finally focusing on the flat hills of Dade County - brown scrub brush softened by the cool drapery of early morning haar.
“Oh... look at that. Look at that!” R.D. was genuinely moved. A Mobil sign rocketed past the viewfinder, and then jerked back into existence as he caught it again.
“When I was a young man living in Edinburgh I used to cycle past a sign every morning across from the Conference Centre. I remember it was an advert for Marlboro cigarettes. Showed a big picture of the Panhandle with a blurred car passing a sign for some radio station in the shape of a microphone. Underneath it said Good Morning Texas. Man, it looked so... fucking American. I knew I had to go there someday. Had to. And I did! Mind you, I can’t tell how much that’s a comment on the power of advertising because I never did switch to Marlboro cigarettes. I bought Silk Cut in Scotland and I smoke Winston Lights over here.”
“I am not going to listen to this drivel for the next four hours.”
R.D. wasn’t put off.
“Out of the swirling tendrils of morning fog rises one of the most wondrous sights in this land of milk and honey. Dennys! I have sighted that burger heaven with the same glee Columbus must have felt when first he set Spanish eyes on this bountiful shore. Or was it Portuguese? Hey, if you think I talk a lot now, wait until I get a couple of cups of Denny’s coffee into me. Wait, wait... Maggie. There’s the entrance! Maggie! Wait... hey... stop!”
Four hours later the couple were staring at Justin’s unflinching door. They’d rung, they’d knocked, they’d kicked. No answer.
R.D. waited for the inevitable dragon blast from his rear. Sure enough it came.
“Don’t be silly!” Maggie’s mocking Scots parody slid between his shoulder blades. “Where’s he gonna go?”
“Maybe he’s asleep.” The psychologist defended himself. “Or went for a walk.”
“We are here to record what is, potentially, one of the most important scientific experiments this decade.” Maggie’s lips tightened. “He’s got no right going for a fucking walk.”
R.D. kept his eyes fixed on the varnished white door. He struggled vainly with the consequences of his next statement but couldn’t resist it. Sometimes comic timing was more important than life itself.
“Och, I realised we couldn’t record it anyway. Justin would never let us. So I used up the camcorder batteries taping the scenery.”
He could feel Maggie fighting gamely not to erupt.
“Gee, well... don’t worry about it,” she seethed. “At least we captured four glorious hours of the most boring road in the northern hemisphere. We can sit and watch it when we get home. In another four fucking hours!”
“Oh, for God Sake!” R.D. huffed. “I’ll get us inside. He’s bound to be there somewhere. Probably jerking off.”
Bending over, he picked up Brighton Rock, sunbathing in its usual spot by the door. Maggie’s eyes widened.
“What you gonna do with that?”
R.D. felt like repeating the whole motion just to see those eyes shimmer.
“I’m going to chuck it through the sodding window.” He took up a dynamic baseball stance, though it didn’t look quite right when he was wearing a suit.
“Yeah, right.” Maggie had run out of patience.
“Have faith tootsie.” He tilted the Rock and a front door key fell into his hand.
“I guess you’re forgiven R.D.”
“At least we can go raid the bastard’s fridge. I’m dying for a coke.” R.D. clicked the latch and they stepped inside.
Justin’s hall was hot and dark. To the right and left short corridors flanked by identical doors slid into the murk.
“This place is huge.”
“Aye, but it’s falling apart.” R.D. took Maggie’s hand. “He’ll most likely be in his study.”
“Where is that exactly?”
“To be honest, I can’t really remember,” R.D. said softly. “Let’s try this way.”
“Why are we whispering? We’re trying to find your buddy, not hide from him.”
All the same, they set off down the gloomy passageway padding like criminals. The house seemed to wish it so. Rounding the first corner R.D. almost knocked over a rickety hat stand nestling next to a dusty bureau. Maggie ran her hand across the shadowy top and inspected thick white film on her fingers.
“Must’ve let the maid go, huh?” She turned and swiped the dust down the psychologist’s black lapel. “Maybe I should apply for the job. After all I look the type.”
“You’re never going to let me forget that Vietnamese comment,” R.D. patted away the dull flakes contemptuously. “I’m a Vietnam vet, that’s what I am.”
“You thought I was Chinese.” Maggie moved off. “You got a shit memory without Justin being around.”
The next corridor was darker than the last and longer. Not surprisingly, the light switch didn’t work. Another line of doors turned their backs on the less than intrepid explorers.
“The study. I’m sure it’s up this way somewhere.” He took the lead and reached
for Maggie’s hand again. “Wait till you see it. The inside looks like the engine of a giant Lada.”
“I’d like you to know the words Doctor Frankenstein keep popping into my head,” the girl mouthed.
“It’s creepy, eh? We get any deeper into this mansion and we’re going to bump into Arnie bloody Sacknoosen.”
“Ever see the cartoon where Bugs Bunny is in the mad professor’s house looking in all these rooms an finding a great big hairy...”
“Enough!” R.D. held up his hands. “He’s in there.”
The furthest door was open a crack, a ruler edge of light seaming the frame. R.D. sidled up, Maggie close behind, and raised his hand to knock. He froze. The woman tugged impatiently at his sleeve.
What is it? her eyes asked.
A thin papery noise rustled in study, so microscopic R.D. barely caught it. But he’d heard that sound from the wrong side of too many doors not to recognise it.
Justin was crying.
-48-
Maggie leaned round his shoulder and gave the wood a tentative rap. The sound vanished instantly.
“Justin?” R.D. whispered.
Silence.
“It’s me.”
There was a brief shuffling, and then Justin spoke.
“R.D.?”
The door was yanked open, so forcefully the psychologist jumped back, banging his shoulder against the side of Maggie’s head. Justin filled the opening, eyes wide, hand clutching dramatically at his chest.
“Jesus, Scotty! You got your own back, huh? Scared the shit out of me. How in hell did’ya get in the house?” He gave a nervous laugh, red faced and sweating.
He’d been caught bawling and was blustering to cover it up. To make matters worse, he suddenly realised his breakdown had been witnessed.
On cue, Maggie stepped out of the shadow. The scientist gave a curt bow, his eyes flicking to R.D. in search of an explanation.
“It’s Maggie Wood, Justin.”
“Oh yeah. We met at a party years ago.” His friend seemed unsure of which way to run. “Nice to see you again.”
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