Unmanned

by Lois Greiman

  “From the Geek God?”

  The name made me feel stronger. “I’ve just gotten so I don’t gag when I hear your voice, Solberg. Don’t blow it now.”

  He laughed, sounding more like the scrawny dweeb I’d met a thousand years ago at the Warthog, where the urine smelled like beer and vice versa. “What can I do you for?”

  “I need information.”

  “Excellent.”

  I scowled. “Are you feeling okay?” Usually, he whines like a spanked mule when I ask him for favors. At which time I threaten him with unspeakable tortures and he concedes.

  “Been a long night. What do you need info about?”

  “They’re whos,” I explained.

  “Even better.”

  I rattled off the names of the three men most likely to kill me.

  “Wait a minute,” he said. I could hear him shuffle around in the background. “I gotta get my Mini Rex fired up.”

  “Do I want to know what you’re talking about?”

  “A new system I’m working on. Powerful as a dinosaur, but tiny as a cricket. Get it? You can wear it in your ear. Say the words you want to look up. It checks its database, then reads back what it finds.

  “Bored, Solberg?” I asked.

  “I’ve had some free time in the past couple months,” he admitted. “Say the names again.”

  I did.

  “What do you want to know about them?”

  “Anything you can find out. But mostly their current whereabouts.”

  “Anything else?”

  I scowled, thinking back. “Whether they’re right-handed or left-handed.”

  He didn’t skip a beat. “And?”

  “How much time do you have?”

  “Twenty-seven days, six hours, forty-two minutes and…four seconds.”

  Till Elaine came home. “You’re one sick puppy, Solberg,” I said.

  “Don’t tell her, okay?”

  I agreed, but I was pretty sure she already knew. Knew, and loved him anyway. I stifled a girly sigh and trudged on.

  “There’s also a Joseph Petras and a William Springer.”

  “Okay…”

  He waited for me to go on, and I thought, Oh, what the hell. “Peter John McMullen,” I added.

  I could hear him pause. “Your brother?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s going on, Chrissy?”

  “Nothing I want Laney to worry about.”

  I thought I could hear his face scrunch into a frown. “I’m not real comfortable about keeping secrets from her,” he said.

  I thought about that for a second. “Laney’s not the kind to stay safely in Idaho if she thinks I’m in trouble, Solberg.”

  “What do you want to know about Pete?”

  “Everything,” I said. “Everything you can find out.”

  22

  A person without regrets is called a corpse.

  —Doris Blanchard, the liveliest octogenarian in the three-state area

  I WENT BACK TO BED after that, but gifted though I am in the sleep department, even I couldn’t relax.

  At six-fifty I gave up and stumbled into the shower. It was the smartest thing I’d done in days. By the time I stepped out of the steam I felt almost human.

  Everything was going to be okay. I wasn’t going to let these goons scare me. Well, okay, they were going to scare me whether I liked it or not, but I wasn’t going to become paralyzed with fear. Even Solberg, oddball extraordinaire, had managed to be productive under stress. In fact, he’d created some kind of ear-sized contraption that would probably net him a couple zillion dollars in profits during the next few years. If he could manage that, maybe I shouldn’t be cowering under my bed. True, Rivera had been rather emphatic about my staying home, but Micky Goldenstone had gone out on a limb to get me a visitation to Lancaster’s state prison and I could no longer afford to pass it up.

  Still, the thought of visiting my former mentor made me feel cold and a little nauseated. I considered hiding behind sloppy blue jeans and a baggy sweatshirt, but after my visit to Lancaster I would be going straight to the office.

  I’d worked my ass off to build my practice, and I wasn’t about to let Mandy scare off my clients at this late date.

  On the other hand, I didn’t particularly want to get stabbed to death while getting out of my car, either.

  Pattering barefoot to where my purse lay on the counter, I dipped inside and pulled out the Glock, then scowled at the back of Peter John’s tousled head where it lay on a pillow on my faded plaid couch.

  In a second I was beside him. “Pete.”

  “Mffmf.”

  “Wake up,” I said, and nudged him with the gun.

  He rolled over, scrubbed his face with his left hand, opened his eyes, and froze. “Oh, hell!” He let his head drop back against the rumbled pillow. “Not again.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” I said, knowing it was a long shot. “I just want to know how to use this thing.”

  He sat up slowly, looking wary and a little like his hair had had a run-in with an industrial Wet Vac. “On who?”

  “Whom?” I corrected. “I’m not sure yet.”

  He was scowling. “When you figure it out, will you let me know?”

  “This is the trigger, huh?” I said, fingering the doo-hickey.

  “Shit!” he said, awake now and slurping all the way upright. “Be careful.”

  “That’s my plan.”

  He squinted at me, then out the window. The sun was just now making its appearance. Lazy-ass sun. “What the hell are you doing up?”

  I considered getting on my high horse and telling him that some people had to work for a living, but I remembered him promising to keep me home. Rivera could scare a turnip. Pete’s not as bright as a turnip, but still, he may have planned to follow the good lieutenant’s orders.

  “Couldn’t sleep,” I said, “but I’m sure I’ll do better with this thing under my pillow.”

  Pete swung his bare feet onto the floor. His legs were bare, too. What is it with men and clothes? You’d think they were allergic to fabric. “If you blow your damn head off, it’s not my fault.”

  “I’ll make sure Mom is notified,” I said, examining the cool, brushed metal.

  He made some sort of hmmfffing noise. “You were always her favorite, you know.”

  “What?” I stopped cold.

  He took the pistol. “You know it’s true.”

  “Her favorite what?”

  He pushed a button and a rectangular piece snapped out of the handle and into his hand. “I think all that schooling actually made you dumber, Christopher.”

  “I was not her favorite.”

  He stared at me, jaw set. “Who was, then?”

  Now, that was a stumper. “I always assumed she hated us all equally.”

  He snorted and lifted the rectangular thing. “This is the magazine. See the bullets?” I did. They made me feel a little sick. “You keep the magazine separate from the gun if you want to be safe.”

  “But I can’t shoot anyone that way.”

  “I guess it depends on your definition of safe.” He shoved the magazine back into the handle with a sharp snap and yanked back the slidey thing at the top of the pistol like they do in the movies. Then he tilted the gun so I could see in the open space. A deadly little cylinder was cradled there, cold and ready. “Now it’s loaded.”

  I swallowed, but managed to nod.

  “Push this button,” he said, and did so. The slider snapped noisily back into place. I jumped and was surprised when he didn’t laugh. “Now it’s ready. Long as you leave the magazine in there, you don’t have to rack it back again. Just aim and fire.”

  “What about a safety?”

  “There ain’t one. Not really. See this little lever in the middle of the trigger?”

  I did.

  “Long as you have your finger firm on that thing when you fire, it’ll discharge.”

  “That’s it?” I asked final
ly.

  “Pretty much. There’s a site at the top. You point and shoot. Just like a camera.”

  “I never was any good at photography,” I said distractedly, and rose to my feet.

  There was a moment of silence in which I expected Pete to fall back into unconsciousness. I’m not the only McMullen with the much-revered sleep gift. “She expected more from you.”

  “What?” I asked, staring at the deadly little piece in my hand. If I didn’t know its capabilities, it would be kind of cute.

  “That’s why Mom was so hard on you,” he said. When I turned my befuddled frown on him, his expression was somber, almost sad. “The rest of us…There wasn’t much hope.” He was silent for a moment. “But you’re special, Christina.”

  I stared at him, mind free-falling in my cranium as a thousand errant thoughts tumbled about like underwear in an oversize dryer. Could it be true? Had Mom liked me best? Did she expect more? Did she think—But Pete’s unusual silence caught me in a sudden stranglehold. This was my ninny-hammer brother talking.

  “You’re full of crap,” I said finally, and he laughed as he swung his feet back onto the couch.

  “Shit,” he said, still laughing. “I knew the ‘you’re special’ part was over the top, but I had you going for a minute, didn’t I?”

  I stared at him, trying desperately to think of something caustic to say, but my efforts would have been wasted anyway, because he was already snoring. It took all my considerable maturity to keep from stuffing corks up his nostrils. Peeved, I tromped into my bedroom and shut the door behind me. Harlequin rolled onto his back, showing his bald belly. I sat down beside him and rubbed him absently as my mind did funny things in my head. It might be called thinking.

  True, Peter John was a troglodyte, but could he, this once, this singular time…be correct? Maybe my parents truly had seen potential in me. Maybe they’d really cared. Wanted the best for me. They simply hadn’t known how to show it. It’s often the case. Sometimes the offspring in question turns out relatively normal, but sometimes the collateral damage is devastating. According to Rivera, Will Swanson’s mother had been a drug addict. Undoubtedly that had had some bearing on Swanson’s subsequent life of crime. On the other hand, Julio Manderos had been orphaned, neglected, and abused, yet he’d fought the odds and become a kind and caring individual.

  What about the man who had accosted me? Who was he? A dangerous man, certainly. An angry man. But controlled. Disciplined. I remembered the feel of his hand on my mouth. He had had a goal in mind. A mission. And he would see that through. Yet…what had he said exactly? “It’s hard to get blood out of clothing.” No, linen. “It’s hard to get blood out of linen.”

  My spice orange dress was linen. Had he known that? What kind of man would have that kind of information in his head? An educated man, probably. A well-dressed…

  Senator Rivera! The name popped into my head. The senator dressed immaculately and…

  Crazy! This was crazy! His son had put insane ideas in my head. But why had Julio stopped by my office the day after Will’s death? And why the gun? He was well dressed, too. Well dressed and charming. Too charming to be interested in me. Unless he had ulterior motives. Just as Dr. David Hawkins had.

  My phone rang.

  I jumped, heart pounding, and reached for it with quivery fingers. “Hello?”

  “Chrissy?”

  “Mom?” My relief was almost palpable.

  “Have you heard from your brother?”

  “Wh—”

  “Your brother!” Mom’s voice sounds like an early-morning James Earl Jones. “Peter John. Did you tell him not to go through with the wedding or something?”

  “No. Why would I—”

  “Why? How would I know? You tried to convince Holly not to marry him. Remember?”

  “I didn’t try to convince her not to marry him. I simply said she should think things through so that—”

  “What? The last thing we need is for that girl to start thinking.”

  “Ummm…”

  “What in the world is wrong with you, missy? Don’t you want your brother to be happy?”

  It hadn’t even taken a full minute and I was feeling like a four-year-old. “He makes people eat excrement.”

  There was a moment of silence, then, “What on earth are you talking about?”

  Good question. I’d never told Mom about the droppings. In the McMullen clan, tattling was tantamount to high treason. And besides, I had no desire for my brothers to spout off about the things I had done or the things I planned to do in the near future. Turnaround was more than fair play; it was smart.

  “Besides, he’s been married a dozen times,” I said. “What makes you think he’ll be happy this time?”

  “There’s a baby.”

  “That doesn’t necessarily mean—”

  “He’s not supposed to be happy. He’s supposed to be a parent.”

  “But you just said—”

  “You don’t want to make no more trouble for Holly, do you?”

  “What are you talking about? What trouble?”

  “This is family, Chrissy. You don’t go messing with family.”

  My head was spinning.

  “She’s going to be a mother, you know.”

  “Yes, I—”

  “You think it’s so simple, but it ain’t.” Her voice was deepening. I felt that giddy combination of fear and guilt. “You’ll find out someday when you have a ten-ounce baby trying to squeeze out of your—”

  “Listen, Mom, I’d love to chat, but I have to get to—”

  “Have you been knocking marriage again?”

  “What are you talking about? I don’t knock marriage.”

  “It’s a holy sacrament, ordained by the Church.”

  “I know that.”

  “And, by God, this baby will have the McMullen name.”

  “Why do you think she won’t?”

  There was a prolonged moment of silence. In the McMullen clan that’s more than significant. It generally precedes something humiliating and possibly lethal. “Because Peter John isn’t here. And I think you know where he is.”

  “How would I—”

  “You two was always so chummy. You and him.”

  “What?”

  “Thick as thieves, you two.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “You call me first thing if you hear from him.”

  I felt limp, shell-shocked. “Sure.”

  “I mean it, missy.”

  “If he calls, I’ll let you know.”

  “See that you do,” she said, and hung up.

  I stared at the phone like it was a hand grenade—which, come to think of it, might come in handy. Then I blinked a few times and shook my head, checked my recently dialed calls, and rang Solberg.

  “She called,” he said after the first ring.

  “What?”

  “Angel.” His voice sounded dreamy. For a moment I wondered if he was high, but then I remembered that he calls Elaine “Angel,” and that he’d never get high because it would make Laney sad. “She called.”

  “Everything okay?”

  “She does love me,” he said.

  I relaxed a little but made my voice firm, even though I’d never be able to match’s Mom’s terrifying baritone. “I told you never to repeat that.”

  “She loves me,” he said, and laughed giddily.

  “I need more help,” I said.

  He was silent a second, then, “I draw the line at murder.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. I have another name for you.”

  “Shoot.” He brayed a laugh at his self-supposed wit. He was less irritating when he was depressed. “Metaphorically speaking.”

  “Her name’s Holly,” I said. “Holly Oldman.”

  23

  Sometimes it’s nice to have a man around the house. But a dog will clean the dishes.

  —Tricia Vandercourt, Lieutenant Rivera’s ex-wife, a lover of peace an
d golden retrievers

  I THOUGHT OF a thousand reasons to change my mind, to stay home, to go straight to work, to hide under my covers like a prepubescent Girl Scout. But in the end I headed north and west, taking the 210 to Highway 14 and trundling along toward Lancaster.

  I had bought cherry turnovers the night before and left them in my car for breakfast, but my stomach was more interested in churning.

  I’d done everything I could think of to bolster myself for the confrontation with my old mentor. Reminded myself that it was not my fault that he’d tried to kill me. Taking comfort in the fact that he was locked behind bars. I’d pulled my hair back into a smooth knot at the base of my neck. My suit was tobacco brown, brightened with a lacy cami under the short, double-breasted jacket. My shoes were a pair of peek-toe leather pumps with three-inch heels. I looked serious, confident, and successful. Not at all like I was going to puke on my shoes.

  By the time I reached the prison, or CSP, as it was called, I was sweating like a sailor. It was 9:48 when I arrived at the outer perimeter. I stopped by the gatehouse and was allowed in by a woman who was probably in her forties but looked as if she’d worked there for a couple lifetimes.

  According to the Internet site, the compound covered more than two hundred acres. It took me a full five minutes to find the visitors’ parking lot. Turning off the Saturn, I got out and smoothed down my skirt. My hands rustled erratically against the wilted silk that had seemed crisp and professional when I had left home.

  “Can I help you, ma’am?”

  I jumped, turned, my back pressed against the driver’s door.

  A young man in a brown uniform was watching me cautiously.

  “Yes! Yes,” I said, and peeled myself from my car. “I’m…” I cleared my throat. “I’m here to see Dr. Hawkins.”

  “Dr.—”

  “He’s a murder—an inmate.”

  His expression was dubious. “I’m sorry, ma’am, visiting days are Saturdays and Sundays. They should have told you that at the front gate.”

  “Oh, yes.” I stood a little straighter, remembering to look confident, or at least sane. “I am well aware of that, but this is a special case. I’m a…I’m a therapist. I have a ten o’clock appointment.”

  He still looked uncertain, but finally he said, “All right,” and turned away. “Follow me, please.”