by Matt Richtel
That’s so romantic, Lane.
Irving was my husband.
Are you crying, Lane?
Irving was my husband. Irving was my husband. Irving drove a blue Chevrolet. I heard about Pearl Harbor on the black radio. My mother used a butter churn and our neighbors slaughtered their own chickens in a barn.
Lane, why don’t we stop for the day.
You can play games, you know that?
Chapter 39
TRANSCRIPT FROM THE HUMAN MEMORY CRUSADE.
JULY 23, 2010
I AM BETTY LOU, I AM WITH LANE IDLE, AND I AM READING FROM LANEY’S NOTEBOOK. I AM READING NOW:
After the accident in Irving’s car, I went into the back of the bakery, and I cleaned up, and this next part is funny, or certainly telling about my personality. I put on my brother’s black overcoat. I’d brought it to the bakery that morning. I had this idea that I would somehow be camouflaged in it—like maybe the shape of my body would be drowned out, or that I might look like a young man (I was hyper aware as a young woman that I had nice bosoms and that this attribute separated me from men). I also wore a cap that belonged to my brother. I was walking out of the bakery through the alley door when my father happened to walk into the back to throw something into the trash. He hardly noticed me at first, and then he saw how I was dressed. I thought he’d be curious or furious, but he said: “It’s smart for a girl to dress warmly and keep herself covered up.” I’d have had a big laugh as I was leaving if I wasn’t so nervous and excited about where I was going. I’m this 17-year-old girl, almost 18, and I’m feeling like a spy, dressed like a boy, and my imagination is galloping. I hired a taxi to get to the meeting. Even so, I was nearly late. I guess I hadn’t accounted for traffic. I gave the driver a quarter, which was a pretty big tip. He asked if I was sure that I wanted to be dropped off there; it was getting a little bit dark. But I told him I was meeting my fiancé. That made sense. There were lots of people around, and many couples walking. This was a place you could come for courtship, and not have your parents or friends feel like you were being loose, or easy. I can’t remember exactly now, but I’d guess there were a couple of dozen people walking around the entrance to the gardens. There was a food stand near the entrance. I don’t remember what it was selling, but it must have been hot dogs or caramel apples. A sign described all the garden’s activities and locations of those activities, including riding boats on the lake, pond fishing, the botanical garden, the picnicking area, and things like that. I was looking at the sign, trying to figure out where I might discover the secret meeting place. I didn’t have the slightest idea. I looked at a pocket watch I’d borrowed from my brother. I could see that I was late by 10 minutes. Maybe I’d missed the meeting. What was I looking for, anyway? Or whom. It was getting dark. I was wondering what in the world I was doing. And that’s when I heard the footsteps behind me.
This is a good story, Betty Lou.
(Laughter) You should like it. You wrote it.
When did I write it?
There’s a date here, on the front. It looks like 1974.
What?
You wrote the story in 1974.
Okay. You know this is the story of how my life changed. Everything in the world changed. I kept it a secret for so long.
Do you want me to keep going?
Okay.
So, you heard footsteps behind you. Now, I’m reading again: As you might imagine (dear reader), I nearly jumped to the moon. I started to turn around, and the first thing I saw were the boots. I wasn’t looking at the ground, but I caught them in the lower part of my vision. I could see the tops of them, maybe. Thinking back, I must have been hoping he’d be there, and I definitely associated him with the tough, leathery, work boots and the slightly pigeon-toed feet. That’s why they called him Pigeon. He was nearly a foot taller than me. I noticed that he was a lot less grimy or gritty than I expected or remembered. His face was clean shaven and I could see a spot of dried blood right under his chin where he must have nicked himself. His hair was parted and combed to the side, and he could have passed for a movie actor. For a moment, neither of us spoke. Then I said, “I’m sorry that I opened your envelope.” And he smiled, and I thought he’d laugh. But he just smiled, kindly, and he said: “I knew you wouldn’t be able to help yourself, Lane.” I said: “You know my name?” I was kind of alarmed then, and he could tell. He said (I can’t remember his exact words): “There’s something I want to show you. There’s something I need to show you.” I think any normal young woman would’ve started running, or screaming, or AT LEAST politely excused herself, and gotten in a cab, and gone home. I mean, who knew what this guy could be about. Could he have been a murderer, or a rapist? (I’m sorry to use such blunt language.) There was still light, but it was getting near dusk. There were a lot of people around, so I felt mostly safe. But I did start to come to my senses. I told Pigeon that I didn’t know what he was up to, or involved with, but that I needed to get into a taxi and go home. I told him that whatever he was involved with that it was his business, and I wasn’t going to tell anyone. I wouldn’t try to stop him. I just wanted to go my own way. I said something frightened and melodramatic like that. He told me that he understood my concern. He seemed nervous too. He must have been shifting back and forth on his feet, or maybe I just remember it that way now. And then he reached behind him—I suppose into his back pocket. I flinched a little, wondering what he was grabbing. Well, I shouldn’t have—flinched. What he was grabbing was a rose. It was a beautiful, fully bloomed red rose. He held it up to me, and he said: “I make concrete pipes.” I was surprised, and confused. My heart was racing, if I’m to be honest. I asked him what he meant. He wasn’t embarrassed in his response, which I think belied the words. He said: “I work in a concrete yard. I make a dollar a week and give most of it to my family. I don’t have a car. I dropped out after the 10th grade. But I’d like to take you on a picnic, or for a pistachio ice cream. Or whatever flavor you like.” I couldn’t get a sense of whether he was being genuine, or manipulative. I mean, I’d opened this secret envelope, and found a secret book. I said to him: “You’re a spy, right? Do you work for a foreign government, and you’re trying to get me involved with something?” And, earnestly, he responded: “Yes, a foreign government that has a terrible plan to get everyone addicted to pistachio ice cream.” Well, then it hit me. This was just a romantic gesture, a wild romantic gesture. As you might imagine, I almost died from relief, and some fluttering of my heart. He said: “I came last Friday and I figured I’d come here every Friday until you showed up.” I said: “Pigeon, I would prefer ice cream. I know where the ice cream shop is. I don’t have the energy to follow a treasure map to discover a lost book, to find the location of the picnic spot.” I took his rose, and both of us stood there in silence, but I think we were smiling. That’s how I remember it. And I thought everything was going to be just fine. But, Lord knows (and I’m not religious) that was really just the beginning. I was hooked, and being reeled in, and so was he. . . . Lane?
Lane? Computer, she’s fallen asleep.
YOU HAVEN’T SPOKEN FOR A MINUTE. WOULD YOU LIKE TO CONTINUE?
Lane has fallen asleep.
I’M NOT SURE I UNDERSTAND. WOULD YOU LIKE TO CONTINUE WITH YOUR STORY?
I think we’re going to have to do this another time. Our heroine has fallen asleep.
Chapter 40
HUMAN MEMORY CRUSADE INTERNAL REPORT.
JULY 30, 2010
Subject: Lane Eliza Idle.
Priority: One.
Wildfire.
Chapter 41
Butterflies. A pigeon. Secrets.
Wildfire.
Puke.
I open the Cadillac door and spill chunky vomit onto the sidewalk. My head feels like it played concrete to someone’s jackhammer. My mouth tastes of salty onion and felt.
The clock reads 7:45. For the last hour, I’ve been reading Grandma’s Human Memory Crusade transcripts on my laptop, the transcrip
ts that Bullseye decrypted. I was hoping they’d help me find Grandma. I’m more lost than ever.
I look out the front windshield at a half-pint goblin holding the hand of a heads-taller Scooby-Doo. Each costumed tyke carries an orange plastic pumpkin. Not hallucination, Halloween.
I try to focus and reflect on what has happened over the last two hours of my life. I remember taking Lane to see Betty Lou. We sat down on the bench. Betty Lou wore a red scarf and a long jacket. She suddenly looked horrified. Then I was attacked.
I woke up an hour ago in my car. Whoever attacked me drugged me, dragged me, and left me here. But not Grandma. Grandma’s gone.
Grandma’s been taken.
When I came to, I called the police. I reported my grandmother missing. An emergency operator who sounded like she was sucking on a lozenge told me I couldn’t file a report until Lane’s been missing twenty-four hours. I told her I’d been mugged.
“Was anything taken?” she asked.
“My grandmother.”
“I can send a patrol car out. It’s Halloween. Could take a couple of hours.”
I called the main police line and asked for Officer Everly, the mustached cop who first came to our aid in Golden Gate Park. On his voice mail, I left a message telling him I needed immediate help.
From my backpack, I pulled out my laptop. I opened the transcripts from the Human Memory Crusade—the ones from the mysterious memory stick I hadn’t yet read in full. Would they offer me insight into who took Lane—or why?
Butterflies, a pigeon, old secrets.
It’s a fascinating if unfinished tale from Grandma’s past—and as interesting in style as substance. The computer seems to be testing her memory and probing it.
I am not a computer expert, but the software powering the conversation with Grandma feels extremely sophisticated and artificially intelligent. Oh, and evil. It is assessing her. It deems her “priority one,” and “wildfire.” What the hell is that?
But the transcript offers no obvious answers or clues about the kidnapping. Have we come to be haunted by some secret from Lane’s past?
I close the laptop. I wince at the pulsing pain squeezing my head. I feel dull pain under both armpits, maybe where someone dragged me away from the park bench. I slam my hand onto the steering wheel. I fall forward, woozy. I reorient and look at myself in the rearview mirror. There’s white residue in the corners of my mouth, my eyes bloodshot, a red mark near my right temple, maybe where I fell or otherwise hit my head. I touch it and feel little pain.
I look around the car. I see the edge of a manila-colored folder. It’s sticking out from under the edge of the passenger seat.
I yank it out, recognizing it immediately. It’s the same folder that Betty Lou was holding on the park bench—right before someone chloroformed me.
Whoever dragged me here must have left this. On purpose?
I open the folder. Inside, six sheets of paper. They look like medical documents or schedules. Each one is titled Neuro Exam Schedule. Each one has a name, date of birth, and, beneath that, a series of dates written in script.
I recognize two of the names: Lane Idle and Victoria Xavier, the lonely romance novelist who is Grandma’s suite mate. The other names include two men and two women. Each in their eighties, except one man, named Terrence Lymon, who is ninety years old.
According to Grandma’s document, she had nine neurological visits. Nine! How had I missed all of those? Who took her there? What happened when she got there? Were these the visits to the fake dental office?
I call Magnolia Manor. I ask for Betty Lou. I am transferred to the nursing station and told Betty Lou is unavailable. The nurse is not someone I know. Sotto voce, I explain the situation is urgent, and dire. The nurse is unsympathetic. “Goodbye,” she says and hangs up.
And at just that moment, my stolen phone goes dead. Of course. Its real owner has finally had it turned off.
I start the Cadillac to drive the three blocks to Magnolia Manor.
As I near the home gates, I hear sirens—fast approaching. Behind me speed two cherry tops. They cruise past me and on to the Manor grounds.
I park on the street and stand at the gates.
Vince appears on the front stairs. The police cruisers pull up to the front. The driver of the first car gets out and ambles toward Vince. They shake hands—the friendly shake of people who know one another.
The cop walks inside with Vince. The second cruiser remains parked outside, a cop still inside it.
Time to rethink Plan A. An hour ago, I wanted to contact the police. Now I’m not sure. Is Vince somehow involved with the memory crusade? As are the cops? Is he in with Grandma’s neurologist? I know Pete Laramer is one of the bad guys, don’t I? Do I have a clue whom to trust? I honestly don’t know if I could tell the difference right now between Gandhi and a bowl of dried fruit.
It’s 8:05.
I’m desperate.
Plan B.
Chuck.
Twenty minutes later, I park in Noe Valley, a swanky neighborhood with million-dollar two-bedroom flats where I’m supposed to meet the suspiciously informed venture capitalist.
He stands in front of Coq Au San Francisco. He’s wearing a sport coat, slacks, his neck wrapped in a dark scarf.
I’m half a block from him, closing fast, when a man steps in front of me wearing an angel’s wing protruding from the right side of his back. He holds a Bible. He reads a passage about sinners smoldering in purgatory. I step around him.
“Guess who I am and get a Snickers,” he says.
“Some other time.”
I see Chuck pull out his cell phone. I pause to watch him.
“You’re the Right Wing,” I say.
“Candy for you,” the man says gleefully.
Next to him stands a man wearing a rubber gorilla mask. The man removes his mask.
“This fucking thing is giving me heat stroke.”
Chuck talks on the phone. He looks around him—up and down the street. I duck behind the Right Wing so Chuck can’t see me.
Chuck has information I need. But so much about Chuck seems uncomfortably coincidental—the timing of his appearance in my life, and his sudden breadth of knowledge about Adrianna, Biogen, the Human Memory Crusade.
I look at the guy who removed the gorilla mask. He’s sweating profusely.
“Five bucks for the gorilla mask.”
“Are you serious?”
“As a gorilla with a heart attack, or heat stroke.”
We make the trade.
Chuck hangs up his phone. He starts walking in my direction. I pull on the sweaty mask, and sidle up against the wall next to a guy playing guitar, singing Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run.”
Seconds later, Chuck walks past. I wait a few seconds, and I turn and follow.
Chapter 42
G.I. Chuck snakes past a drag queen on stilts, a three-headed dog, and a throng of not-costumed but drunken revelers, albeit polite ones. Noe Valley is the upscale, label-conscious neighborhood adjacent to the Castro, where the revelers generally are more unruly, and less dressed.
I’d like at this moment to cultivate Grandma’s two skills: the ability to stay calm and, if necessary, do karate. Screw Pauline’s admonitions that I’m melodramatic. I’m feeling entitled.
When we’re four blocks off the main drag, Chuck takes a sharp right, and disappears from view. I pick up speed. Moments later, I’m at the spot where Chuck disappeared from view. It’s the entrance to an alley, more like a narrow one-way street that bisects a handful of million-dollar attached row-houses. Light from the back door of one flat that is halfway down the block provides me meager vision. I can make out the trash and recycling bins parked neatly behind each residence, but no Chuck.
Maybe he made it to the other side of the alley/street. I start hustling to follow his tracks. I make it two steps when I’m pulled violently backwards.
My mask is knocked off, and I feel something soft but tight around my neck
.
“I didn’t spend a lifetime in the military without learning how to tell when I’m being followed by a gorilla,” my attacker says in my ear. Chuck.
He loosens his grip on what I’m guessing is his scarf, now around my neck, not his.
“Mr. Idle, whom do you work for?”
“Medblog. Eventually, you,” I manage to squeak out.
“No one else?”
“I do some other freelance work.”
This conversation is ridiculous.
“Why are you following me? I agreed to meet you,” he says.
“My grandmother’s been taken.”
“What?” Alarm.
“Let go of my neck.”
He doesn’t. “What did you say about your grandmother?”
“Someone took her. Knocked me out and kidnapped her. Does it seem all that unlikely, given how easily you subdued me with cashmere?”
He pulls the scarf away. I crane my neck to look at him.
“I think they’d teach journalists better surveillance techniques.”
“Look, I don’t trust anyone at this point. No offense. On the bright side, you got the better of me.”
“You look green,” he says.
I turn my head to the side and throw up. It’s the result of being drugged on an empty stomach, and then having my body jolted by whiplash.
“Jesus, Idle.”
Bent at the waist, I wipe my mouth on my sleeve. I take a deep breath and taste the flavor of soured milk. I turn my head and spit. I stand upright, and get a shot of light-headedness.
“I need your help finding my grandmother,” I say. “But, frankly, your story doesn’t add up. I think you’re involved with Biogen, and Adrianna. And . . .” I pause.
“What?” he says.
“You’re not injured.”
“What?”
“You supposedly were shot outside my house. Now you’re evading and flattening me like an Olympic sprinter and wrestler.”
