The buzzing noise begins to sound. When did phones trade in the ring for the buzz? He takes a deep breath, holds it, and watches the phone, a cordless black science-fiction prop, ring from on top of the mantel. Then he starts to walk toward it in slow motion. He makes foolish, time-distorted, exaggerated motions. He pretends he’s an Olympic sprinter, shown on television from a distant country, crossing the finish line in a slowed-down instant replay, all arms and legs pumping.
He lifts the phone off the mantel as he exhales.
“Cortez,” he says, all gasp and wheeze … “Yes, sorry, time got away. I was at the other end, ran the whole way … I’m sorry, could you speak one at a time? The connection … I understand. I thought it might be best to have my driver hand-deliver it … Yes. Yes. I see. Very well, I’ll see to it. I’ll just mention again that we do have the testing facilities here and we could fax— … Yes, of course. Certainly. The matter has had my utmost concern … Well, he tried to say the sample went light on my end … My feeling is that we’re dealing with a first-time middleman, a broker with too much ambition and not enough experience. I would— … Yes, of course, I know. And I have. Very traditional message. He can’t mistake our intentions. The first box is a warning. The next step is his … Well, the problem, as I see it, is we have no alternate sources. This is a prototype. There is no competition. I’ve looked at the most recent reports from all the relevant networks. The Triangle isn’t even aware. General Gow in Burma hasn’t even heard rumors yet. I think it’s safe to say one hundred percent domestic. Hard to believe— … Uh-huh, uh-huh, that’s right. An accidental by-product. All the great products arrive this way … Oh, please, must we? Must you insult me this way each time? That’s a legitimate expense. My car is the purest sign of my stature in the community. And I wouldn’t have those neighborhood monkeys fill the gas tank. They couldn’t tell a Jaguar from a Volkswagen … We agreed on this … All right, fine. Fine. I don’t wish to argue … Yes, I’ll be here … Yes. Yes. Goodbye.”
He looks down at the face of the phone, all the small, rubbery, yet illuminated buttons. He presses down on the Off button as if it were a detonator. As if this simple, solid touch could demolish the whole of the Hotel Penumbra, the walls crumbling inward and down, like an ancient yellowing newsreel of a firestorm in a long-forgotten war.
Peirce gets dizzy standing in line at the Burger Bonanza. She actually has to step to the side and lean against the stainless-steel shelving where big plastic tanks of mustard and ketchup, molded into the shapes of frontier water towers, sit dripping condiment from their spouts.
She doesn’t know what’s wrong with her. She makes herself get back in line, then she starts to suspect that this morning’s briefing has affected her somehow. Not the photos of the murdered Swanns. And not the prospect of wartime in Bangkok Park. Those are standard elements in her work.
No, it was the unusual event, the presence of Dr. Woo and all his talk, his attempts to be funny and simple when nothing he was talking about was either. Parts of the brain being villages. How we make words. Why we understand them.
She’s never really thought about this before and she still doesn’t see a need to. But now, in line waiting to order lunch, it’s as if just hearing this Woo guy, just being exposed to him, has somehow affected her. And so, when she takes in the whole scene here around her, it’s suddenly too much.
All these teenage or elderly clerks, dressed in cowboy gear, polyester vests and chaps, and kerchiefs around their necks, lined up before their computerized cash registers that are made to look like covered wagons. Everyone talks at once in the same mechanizedpolite voice. The clerks’ hands push buttons on the computers as the customers speak. The fry-persons and assemblers behind the front row all wear mini-headsets with curved wire microphones that twist to the corners of their mouths. Voices issue from hidden speakers somewhere, lists of food and beverage orders coming from drive-through lines outside.
It suddenly strikes Peirce as an immaculate beehive customized for the production of processed circles of beef and moving faster than anything should.
She can barely stand giving her order to the geriatric cowgirl before her, and when it comes she grabs the bag and runs out to her car.
Once inside she locks all her doors and begins to take deep breaths. After a moment, her panic subsides. She punches a straw through the lid of her soft drink and starts to unpack her burger. Once she’s set up, she grabs the tape recorder from under the seat and hits the On switch.
Yo, boss, I’m back. It’s Charlotte, the light of your life. I hope the chewing noises don’t disgust you too much. I’m sitting in the parking lot of a Burger Bonanza over on Turnstein Boulevard. Any chance I might be reimbursed for a Rodeo Cheese Melt, large fries, and a medium Diet Coke? I mean, I’m still working and all. [Pause] The Institute was a trip, boss. I realized, walking into the place, that I’d been there once before. Are you ready? Seventh-grade field trip out of Brown Street Public School. Mr. Zamenhof. My science teacher. First crush. They took us on a tour. Some people in white lab coats. They brought us into a room, showed us pond water under a microscope. I was so impressed. We got to keep the slide. [Pause] Excuse me. [Pause] Oh, I’m going to pay for this thing. I’m getting too old. The body can’t handle the grease. I’ve got indigestion already. Anyway, I flashed my badge to the front desk, this woman with a real attitude. She made a comment about phoning first, but she buzzed a manager and directed me down to his office. A Mr. Weston. First name, Booth, can you believe it? He’s about thirty-five. A real smoldering yuppie type. Grey pinstripe, flaming red tie. Hair short but moussed. Body of an eighteen-year-old marathoner, not that I noticed, Victor. The office was small but immaculate. Not a speck of dust. All grey and, what’s that color, mauve? You know what I mean. The guy is not a scientist. More like an M.B.A. type. His official title is Director of Communications, but basically I think it’s the public relations job. He keeps on top of the Institute’s image. Takes all the weird crap they work on in the labs and translates it into nice Sunday newspaper feature stuff. “We’re about to crack leukemia” crap. He makes sure we hear about the Nobel Prize winner they’ve got on the payroll. He coordinates the dinners where the banks give plaques to some guy who cloned a tomato, you know what I’m saying? He invites me into the office, all controlled smile and calculated handshake. I’m doing my best back at him. He starts off in his friendly but professional voice about how he’s already spoken to both the police and the FBI and the DEA and even some of my own people. I liked that last part, like the local cops were lepers or something. He’s all nods and chuckles about how it’s all in their notes already. So I’m smiling and nodding right back, mimicking his whole act, and I say, “Yes, but it’s not in my notes.” Just to let him know I can be a bitch if that’s what he wants. Which we both know I can, right, Victor? So basically, he runs it down just like I expected from the briefing. Except that he keeps throwing in that the Institute has had no dealings with the Swanns since they left to form their own consulting firm, Synaboost, a good nine months ago. He says he knew the Swanns only slightly. He interviewed them, separately, when they first signed on board, that’s how this guy said it, right, “signed on board,” like he’s a cruise director. He interviews everyone, makes a file on them for any future press releases, or that kind of thing. I asked to see the files, which were basically just what he said. Black-and-white studio glossies of each, good-looking folks, Victor. Leo, he’s like a gracefully maturing surf Nazi, all blond hair and ten-inch teeth and tiny, gold-rimmed round granny glasses. Sort of a cross between William Hurt and Warren Zevon, if that helps. Forget it. I forgot, you wouldn’t know either of those names, would you, Victor? Inez is another looker, but just the opposite of her husband. Darker, Old World look, big deep brown eyes, sort of a Spanish look to her. A Natalie Wood type. That’s got to be a name we intersect on. I hope. The profiles were basically fill-in-the-blank stuff. They came to the Institute last year. Came as a team. One package, all or n
othing. They’d both just finished up a two-year grant at someplace called Teller Labs Limited in Jemez Springs, New Mexico. According to the paperwork, this Teller place is a workshop under the direction of Uncle Sam, and the Swanns’ grant was one hundred percent Federal money. Their project down there was listed as—[pause]. Hold it. I took notes. Yeah, here, ‘Pinpoint Stimulation of the Anterior Speech Cortex Through Linguavoxide-Two Therapy.’ [Pause] And you wonder where your tax dollars go, Victor. Anyway, the Swanns left New Mexico halfway through their two-year stay. The P.R. man said it was by mutual consent. Something like they got tired of the Southwest, and the army got tired of their pet project. But our own little Institute back here was all hot for it and made them an offer. Now, most projects at the place are worked on by teams of five to seven researchers. But the Swanns work alone. Just the Mr. and Mrs. Touching, huh? I guess it was one of their requirements before they’d take the position. [Pause] Oh, God, I feel awful. Why do I eat food like this? Why do I do this to myself? Jesus, Victor, you know I live on Zantac these days. You feel responsible for that at all? I’m done, that’s it. I can’t eat the rest of this. [Pause] Anyway, another requirement was no progress reports. The Institute has this hierarchy system where each project team has a group leader, just like chem lab in high school, you know. The first of each month the group leader is supposed to file a progress report to the board of directors. How the work is going, any breakthroughs, any setbacks. The Swanns said thumbs down on this. There was a note in the files that quoted Herr Leo as saying that this type of thing wastes his time and inhibits his imagination. I get the feeling this was a cheeky couple, you know? The Institute said okay, I guess they wanted these two. There was a small compromise. Leo and Inez said they’d let the BOD know whenever they “turned a corner.” Those are Mr. P.R.’s words. But whether they turned any corners or not, in the whole time they were at the Institute they never wrote up a report. At least there’s nothing in their files. They were very reclusive during their whole stay. They nodded hello in the morning and goodbye at night. They made no friends among the other researchers. No one ever socialized with them, was ever invited out to their home. These bastards even brought their own coffee in this huge thermos so they didn’t have to go into the cafeteria. Fun couple, huh? Regular Rob and Laura Petrie. How ’bout that one? Did you get that one, Victor? Weston said that a few months into their work, the Swanns started staying late at the lab, and he’s spoken to people who say that there were occasions when they worked all night. I’ve got to figure something was up. According to him, it was around this time that they made the request for some extra cash for an outside consultant. The boys with the checkbook weren’t crazy about this. As a rule the Institute likes to work internally. They’ve got a farm team at various universities around the country. They like to bring people along, tap the bench. But the Swanns had a very specific request. Dr. Frederick Woo, a language theory expert right across the city at St. Ignatius. I guess there was a little tug-of-war, but as usual the Swanns got their way. Woo came on board in a limited capacity, just for a short period of time. I guess they wanted to bounce some ideas off him. But you know more about this guy than I do, boss. He’s on your team now. And I’m not here to look into the technical crap. I could barely cut up a frog as a teenager. I’m just here to find connections and to do you a favor. [Pause] I’ll be back soon. I feel like I could barf. God.
So’d ya bring it?” Little Max says, making a halfhearted, unambitious grab for Lenore’s breast. She swats his hand away, tired, but tied into the ritual that Max loves.
“I brought it,” Lenore says.
They’re sitting in the Barracuda in the parking lot of the old Quinsigamond airport. The airport is deserted and abandoned, a mini ghost town of aviation. Weeds have grown up in the middle of both runways. Windows are smashed in and doors missing from the old wooden, Colonial-style terminal.
There’s a new, modern airport a few towns outside of the city. Lenore hates the new airport, though she’s never been there. She made a small vow to herself never to fly out of that “abomination in the name of progress.” The old airport sits on the very top of one of the city’s seven hills, and though this made it ridiculously susceptible to dense fog, it also gave it a strong quaintness and a view that extends for miles and, on some autumn days, all the way to Boston.
Woo has relinquished the front seat to Max and sits silent in the back, his hands folded and resting in his lap like a monk at prayer.
“So c’mon, c’mon,” Max says, “let’s see.”
Lenore reaches under her seat and pulls out an oversized black leather portfolio. She unzips the top, reaches in, and pulls halfway out what looks like a stiff piece of drawing paper or posterboard. It’s filled with colorful cartoons framed in square panels with inked-in dialogue balloons. Woo leans forward to take a look. Max mumbles, “Jesus,” with a real and humble reverence.
“What strips?” he asks quietly, his voice suddenly sounding much younger, even prepubescent.
Lenore suppresses a need to grin, a feeling of triumph. She acts bored and says slowly, as if attempting to remember bothersome facts, “Two Ripped-Up Man and a Prince Natema, I think.”
“Oh, Christ,” Max says, and he sinks back into his seat, then snaps forward and says, “Lemme see,” and tries to grab the drawings.
Lenore stuffs them back into the valet and holds it at her side.
“You’re forgetting your manners, Maxie.”
Max breathes out a lungful of air and his head bobs fast and loose.
“How’d you get ’em?” he asks. He can’t help himself.
“C’mon, you dink,” Lenore says to him. “You know better than that. I ask the questions. That’s how it works. My game from here on in.”
Max starts to drum on his legs with the palms of his hands and Lenore says, “Look, Max, I own these now, okay? You want, you can get out of the car, and I can go home and burn them in my fireplace. They’re mine. I possess them. I can do what I want. So don’t waste my time and don’t piss me off. You want some original Menlos, great. Tremendous. Start talking to Lenore.”
“Just one thing,” Max says. “I really need this, okay? Do you know Menlo?”
Lenore says, “I know people who know Menlo.”
She waits a beat while he digests this, then says, “Now, your turn.”
Max nods, trying to be adult about the situation he’s put himself in. He takes a breath and begins.
“Some shit is definitely up. Cortez is acting like a freakin’ loon, okay? He can’t sleep for shit. We hear him all night, me and Mingo and Wyatt. We hear him above us, in the library, I guess, pacing all night, walking around in big circles all freakin’ night long. It’d drive you nuts.”
“He’s expecting some merchandise?”
“That’s what we figure. He’s always uptight before a big delivery, but never like this. He’s got us all running these dipshit errands, anytime at all. Three A.M. and he’s buzzing on the intercom in this high-pitched voice, telling Mingo to go get ten cloves of fresh garlic. Yeah, you tell me, you know. Where do you get ten cloves of garlic at three A.M.? Mingo busted in the back door of this bodega down on Billings and cleaned them out. This isn’t good shit for the neighborhood, you know?”
“Any visitors? Any phone calls?”
“Nobody new’s come around. Phone calls, who knows? Cortez has got a dozen private lines up there. It’s like the freakin’ White House or something …”
“What kind of shipment are we talking? We seem to be saying this isn’t any normal smack deal.”
“I’m just telling you the guy’s on the edge, okay? I mean, you want me to guess, then okay, yeah, I’d say you’re right. This is something new. This is something different.”
“But no sign of the Aliens …”
“Look, lady, I don’t know the Aliens from shit. You think there’s somebody over Cortez, but I’m telling you, no one else thinks so. He’s gone big for a while now. He’s got his own
pipe to the Southland and the Triangle. Maybe there’s some generals in Colombia or some big-time slants in Burma or somewhere that he’s got to rely on. But here in the U.S., I mean, I’m telling you again, Cortez is no one’s errand boy. He’s independent. You give the guy ten more years and he’ll own the whole East Coast. That’s what Mingo says anyway.”
“Any weird shit at Club 62?”
Max lets out a wild, child’s laugh.
“Stupid question,” Lenore admits. “I mean anything weirder than normal?”
“Well, I’m not down the Club much, you know, except in the mornings when I help out with the cleanup. But Wyatt was telling me, I mean, you know, signing to me, how there was some crap last week.”
“Shooting?”
Max nods. “Bad news, according to Wyatt. Two guys went apeshit. Started as this regular men’s room brawl, two dorks all twitchy on speed. But they went at it like they couldn’t die. Knuckles, then knives, finally they pull pieces. Now, this is from Wyatt, and usually he’s okay, he’s on the money, not like Mingo, you know. Wyatt says they each had like four or five bullets. In the arms, legs, in the freakin’ neck, okay? And they kept goin’. Wyatt says like this was beyond like a coked-out numb or something. He says it was like you could see fire coming off their backs, whatever that means. He says they were fucked up in a way he’s never seen and he says he’s seen them all. You gotta remember, this is a guy who lived in Korea for a while …”
Max pauses, turns toward the backseat, and says in a lowered voice, “No offense to your friend here.”
“I’m not Korean,” Woo whispers.
Max turns back toward Lenore. “Wyatt says you couldn’t even understand these guys. That this weird fuckin’ clickin’ and buzzin’ sound was like comin’ from their throats.”
Box Nine Page 12
