Devil's Plaything

by Matt Richtel

  Grandma and Pauline simultaneously say: “Just enjoy it.”

  Grandma breaks into a grin, takes Pauline’s hand in hers, squeezes.

  Pauline looks at me, shakes her head, bemused, then excuses herself. She returns a moment later and hands me a martini with a sunken green olive. I sip and feel its warmth.

  “Does this house have a computer?” Grandma asks. “I like to play the game with the falling blocks.”

  Pauline holds Lane’s arm as she takes us down a metal staircase with a polished red wood railing to a floor with a wide-open living room. It’s scattered with painstaking design with more eclectic art and furniture, including a statuesque grandfather clock but with Martian ears on its sides and an antenna, and a beanbag chair that looks like a wading pool.

  I follow the pair of women to the far side of the room, where a doorway leads to a home office. This is relatively Spartan, a single multicolored weaving hanging on a wall behind and above a metallic desk. On the desk, a sleek Macintosh.

  Pauline snags the mouse, bringing the monitor to life, makes a few clicks, and calls up Tetris. “Is this the game you like?”

  “No,” Grandma says, looking intently at the screen. “No, no, no!”

  Pauline looks at me.

  “Where are all the messages?” Grandma asks.

  “Messages?”

  “I like that one,” Grandma says, more calmly. She is pointing at the screen’s top right corner, where there’s a logo for “super Tetris.”

  Pauline clicks on it, prompting the program to appear on the full screen. Without a word, Grandma places herself on Pauline’s ergonomic wonder of a black work chair, and practically pulls the mouse from our host’s hand.

  We watch as Grandma starts playing, sort of. The blocks are falling, and she’s in a trance, watching, sometimes clicking.

  “Is this fun?” I ask after a minute.

  “I’m busy now,” Grandma responds.

  “Yowza,” Pauline says to me. “Eerie.”

  “Grandma, I’m going to go in the other room for a little while.”

  In the living room, Pauline and I sit on a soft brown couch. I slug the remains of my martini and place it on the glass table or, rather, on a round coaster covered with green felt made to look like a putting green. My host refills it from a silver shaker.

  I’m immediately buzzed. I find myself staring at an oil painting of a French café, where a young woman holds a poodle in one hand and a baguette in the other. I can’t remember the last time I ate.

  “So . . . the mysterious thumb drive. Tell me!” she says.

  I want to tell her. I want to untangle the last few days. Does she advise going to the cops? Does she know anything about Biogen? Does she have sources who can help?

  Can she tell me about Chuck? Can I trust him?

  But I’m just locked up, beyond fatigued.

  “Martini got your tongue?” she asks.

  “Huh?”

  “You’re not speaking. It’s like we’re an old married couple that I never plan to become.”

  “Well, we are babysitting—an eighty-five-year-old. So we’ve been married a long, long time.”

  She’s inched closer to me—now only a half a foot away. She curls a strand of hair behind her right ear. A silver chain hangs around her neck, holding a pendant that rests just above her cleavage.

  “Polly,” she says.

  “Pardon?”

  “You have got to start calling me Polly. The only people who call me Pauline are my mother and the Internal Revenue Service.”

  “Polly,” I say, “Who is in your locket?”

  She fingers the silver jewelry.

  “I’ll make you a trade: You tell me about the thumb drive and I’ll tell you about the locket.”

  I clear my throat, trying not to sound defensive. “What’s so interesting to you about the drive?”

  “Easy. I won’t Bogart your scoop. I’m just curious.”

  “Just curious.”

  “It’s a habit of mine.”

  I shake my head. My energy to discuss the topic feels sapped; and I’m feeling a remote sense of suspicion about her curiosity—without any basis that I can name.

  “Dead end.”

  “You’re blinking a lot—quickly. Whenever I see that in negotiations, it means someone is holding something back.”

  “Are we negotiating?”

  She laughs. “You win.”

  I haven’t even told her all I’ve learned today. Chuck’s visit, the drive-by shooting, the emptied dental office, Adrianna.

  She runs a manicured finger along the locket’s outer edge, then slips it open. Inside, a headshot of a handsome man with an angular face and closely cropped hair.

  “My brother. Philip.”

  “The one . . .”

  “The addict who likes to steal from his sister.”

  “Steal? Like what?”

  “Stuff I leave out,” she says. “When he shows up out of the blue, I leave out cash or jewelry he can easily take and sell. Then I convince myself he’s using it for food and shelter.”

  The room has fallen so quiet that I can hear Grandma muttering to herself in the other room. I raise my near empty glass.

  “People change on their own terms,” Pauline says.

  “To recovery,” I say.

  We touch martini glasses and I slug the remains of mine. She pours lemon-flavored seltzer water into a glass, brings it to her lips and sips.

  “You’re getting me drunk,” I say.

  She bites the inside of her lip.

  “You’re flushed. Are you sick?” I ask.

  She shakes her head.

  “What’s stressing you, Polly? What aren’t you telling me?”

  “Bad patch at work.”

  “Care to elaborate?”

  “Nathaniel, I’m not who you think I am.”

  I shiver.

  “This place isn’t me,” she says.

  “This house?”

  “This role. My life. It’s just an iteration of me. I grew up in Albuquerque, on rice and beans. We got our health care at a free clinic. My brother served in the National Guard to pay for college.”

  “That’s your confession?”

  “I love to get invested in the world. I do it more easily than most, through various professional pursuits. I’ve made money to take care of myself and other people. But if all this stuff went away, if I lost this all, I’d be no different.”

  She pauses.

  “Polly?”

  “Does my success intimidate you?”

  “C’mon.” I’m surprised to feel a hint of defensiveness I hope I don’t betray.

  “Nathaniel, I know you can’t buy real emotional connection at an auction.”

  I can’t tell if we’re having a relationship conversation or something else.

  “You’re an adult and I’m treating you that way. I just want you to know all this stuff about me before you decide,” she says.

  “Decide what?”

  She looks at me at length, shakes her head. She stands and sashays away. She walks to a wooden cabinet sitting beside the enormous TV. She kneels, causing her skirt to inch above her thigh. She clicks buttons on the stereo, and Jamaican music fills the room. Sultry seaside drums.

  She saunters back. She takes the napkin that is wrapping the base of her glass and dabs spilled liquid from the couch. Then she moves the napkin to my knee, where a droplet has begun to sink into my jeans. My neurons jerk awake, delivering me a sensation of craving.

  Without withdrawing her hand, she looks up at me.

  “My brother and I had the same genetics. He took one path and I another.”

  Before I can ask what she means, she says: “We all have the power to choose.”

  Cryptic, I think, or maybe I’m too drunk to follow. She leans forward—into me. I feel her breath getting closer. I open my mouth to greet her. And then we hear a violent crashing noise.

  It has come from the home office. />
  Clumsily, hurriedly, I extricate myself from the couch. I hustle into the home office.

  Grandma stands beside the metallic desk. The Macintosh computer lies on the ground beside the desk, as if it has been swept there.

  “I lied,” Grandma says.

  Alcohol is dimming my capacity to make sense of this. “Did the computer fall on you?” I ask. It’s an inane question. Grandma has tossed the computer to the ground, or pushed it from the side of the desk.

  “I lied. I lied. I lied. I lied.”

  She’s shaking. Now her head is hung. She’s not looking at me.

  “Grandma, what did you lie about?”

  “I have two sons. You know that. That’s the truth. My father drove a Chevrolet. Irving did not wear a uniform to our wedding. I know these things to be true.”

  “Okay.”

  I put my arms around her and she drops a head to my shoulder.

  I feel Pauline standing behind me. “I’m sorry. I’ll pay for the computer.”

  “Don’t be silly,” our host responds.

  “We should go, Polly.”

  She considers this. “You can’t drive.”

  She’s right. I can’t drive, or think, or make sense of Grandma’s outburst.

  “If you have a bed or couch Lane can lie down on, I’ll take the floor. I need to be near her.”

  “Sure.”

  “We’ll finish the conversation later,” I say.

  She smiles thinly. “Maybe.”

  She leads us to a guest room on the third floor. Grandma takes the bed, I curl up in a heavy blue comforter at her feet on the carpeted floor.

  I wake up nine hours later to find that I’ve crawled onto the bed. And I’m cold. I’ve slept on the edge, uncovered by a blanket, while Grandma nestles next to the wall.

  I wake to see Grandma looking at me. “Bugs in a rug,” she says.

  “Peas in a pod.”

  “Pigs in a blanket.”

  “You’re the only one with a blanket.”

  We both laugh. She’s always most lucid when she’s rested.

  I stand and stretch.

  My cell phone buzzes. I extract it from my pocket, and discover two missed calls. One is from G.I. Chuck, asking me to call. He wonders if I’m okay and says he tried the phone I’d given him but I didn’t answer.

  A second voice mail is from Betty Lou.

  “I have the file,” says Betty Lou, whispering her message. She tells me to meet her at the same time as yesterday in a park near the home.

  “Is it the right time of day for pancakes?” Grandma asks.

  “Exactly the right time.”

  “Okay.”

  “It’s Halloween.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “It sure is. Because we’re going to wear costumes,” I say.

  That’s how we’re going to sneak into Biogen.

  Chapter 27

  I catch a quick shower, and find that Polly has left me an XL T-shirt from a web promotion she did earlier this year. It hangs loose but at least it’s clean.

  Draped over a leather recliner in the bedroom, Polly has left Grandma a short-sleeve yellow blouse and a beige cashmere sweater that buttons up the front. Grandma, professing enthusiasm for her “new clothes,” needs only the slightest help from me with the buttons.

  In the kitchen, on a yellow pad lying on the black slate countertop, there’s a note: “Help yourself. Drink fluids. Regret nothing. File three blog posts.”

  It is signed “Polly.”

  Below her name, it reads: “PS: CHANGEME.”

  I haven’t the foggiest idea what she means and make a note to ask her about it.

  I pour myself dark coffee from one of Polly’s mildly eccentric amenities, a drip coffeemaker she found on eBay that ostensibly was used by the forward generals in Europe in World War II. Grandma drinks grapefruit juice and looks at pictures of dresses in a recent issue of Vogue.

  I turn gumshoe.

  I call Biogen and ask for Lulu Pederson. Again, I get her voice mail: “You’ve reached Adrianna Pederson in Biogen’s Advanced Life Computing department. I’m not available right now; leave a message and I’ll get back to you.”

  I call the company again and ask to be transferred to the Advanced Life Computing department. The operator transfers me to Adrianna’s voice mail.

  Adrianna seems to be the sole employee of the Life Computing department. Adrianna tried to contact me with a titillating secret note, and then disappeared. Grandma said Adrianna can’t breathe. What could Adrianna or Biogen possibly have to do with Grandma?

  I find my backpack near the front door, where I’d left it on our arrival.

  I open the laptop and look for a wireless Internet connection. There are several in range in the building but all of them are secured by password. One of them is called “BrotherPhilip,” which must be Polly’s network. I call it up and then ponder blankly the password possibilities.

  Then it hits me. I return to the note Polly left me on the countertop. She’d left me, without explanation, the letters “CHANGEME.” I type them into the password line. It works. Cute. Password: CHANGEME.

  Into Google, I type: “Biogen Advanced Life Computing.” There are no meaningful hits.

  I look at Biogen’s web site. It is a public company with $25 billion in annual sales, primarily in cancer drugs. The company also spends $2 billion annually in research and development on treatments for a range of diseases, including degenerative conditions like muscular dystrophy, AIDS and illnesses related to aging, like Alzheimer’s. There is nothing on the web site related to “Advanced Life Computing.”

  I search for recent news on Biogen. It is rumored to be an acquisition candidate of Falcon Corporation, a Swiss biotech giant; Biogen is a jewel because of its sterling drug pipeline. Biogen’s stock price has been swinging wildly thanks to the acquisition rumors.

  I call Biogen again. When I get an operator, I explain I’m a receptionist at a Berkeley lab charged with sending a FedEx to Lulu Pederson in Advanced Life Computing. I ask which building and floor I should use for an address. She’s located in Building 12, third floor.

  Then I say I’ve got a second package for Jack Johnson. It’s a name I’ve made up. The operator says there’s no such person.

  “Maybe he goes by James,” I say.

  “We have a John Johnson, and a Jerry James,” the operator says.

  “John Johnson—that must be the guy,” I say. The operator says that John Johnson works in the Bio-genetics division, Building 5, second floor.

  “Grandma, I’ve got a plan, but it’s a major long shot in the extreme.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “You’re going to dress up like an old person. Think you can pull it off?”

  “You don’t look so young yourself anymore.”

  She grins.

  I do one last Internet search—for the medical group of Brown & Morrow, the disappearing dental company.

  The web site for the medical group does little to enlighten. It’s a region-wide collection of hundreds of doctors, dentists, and other medical practitioners—a very common business setup. I find an administrative number that goes directly to an automated voice service. Dead end.

  Our next stop is a diner where Grandma and I order pancakes. She eats voraciously. She tells me the plot of one of her favorite movies, The Sting. She’s regaled me with this story before, but I love to see her eyes light up when she talks about Newman and Redford pulling off the impossible caper.

  We walk to the car.

  Across the street, a man in a gray hooded sweatshirt stands out of the mouth of an alley looking our direction. He is well over six feet tall and well built. When he sees me look in his direction, he disappears into the alley.

  En route to Biogen, I check in the rearview mirror for a Prius. None materializes. I’ve been wondering if there’s a tracking device on my car. Paranoia is a lovely feeling.

  I call Chuck. He answers and says he’ll call
me back shortly from a “secure line.”

  “The guy is a complete loon,” I mutter.

  I hang up and I remember a dream I had last night. Polly and I stand on opposite sides of a narrow but deep gorge. She wears tight jeans, a leather vest, and a wedding veil. She stands in front of a microphone. She starts making precise and beautiful bird calls, prompting from around us the roar of applause. I feel myself walking closer to the edge of the gorge. I begin to flap my arms, propelling myself into the air. I elevate over the gorge. I wake up, sweat on my chest and neck, still drunk and pasty, stomach knotted.

  Biogen is located just south of San Francisco in an industrial park that might become the place where scientists discover the key to immortality. At the biotech companies here, the best and the brightest combine high math, computing, engineering, and molecular chemistry and biology; in short, they are tinkering with the building blocks of life. They are using test tubes and super computers to dissect our genetic code and look for ways to strengthen it. And they are probing the structures of diseases, looking for weaknesses in their defenses that might be exploited by sophisticated, directed treatments.

  This is the northern tip of Silicon Valley—and the region at its most advanced, exciting, and riskiest. The weight and potential of the entire computing revolution brought to bear on our quest for immortality; the fountain of youth sought not by rugged explorers with pickaxes, but by brainiacs wielding algorithms. The companies they work for are investing billions of dollars in support of the cause, often losing that money in the gambit.

  And my gut tells me something has gone wrong—specifically on the Biogen campus, Building 12, third floor. In Lulu Adrianna Pederson’s office.

  We park in Biogen’s lot. The company buildings are sleek but not tall, less than ten floors. And virtually impregnable.

  I know from experience that it’s tough for an outsider to get into these buildings. At the counter of each building invariably sits a twenty-something who looks harmless enough, but whose singular purpose is allowing entrance only to those with the proper badge.

  But I’ve two secret weapons: a demented grandmother and a costume.

  I open the hatchback, dig through the umbrellas, baseball caps, old tennis balls, and press releases, and I discover a Warren Zevon CD I thought I’d long since lost, and find what I’d hoped to: a lanyard from a biotech conference I attended. The credential says: “Nathaniel Idle, freelance writer.” I remove the credential, and stuff the plastic rectangle on a string into my pocket.