They're Watching (2010)

by Gregg Hurwitz

  I'd been standing across the street for several minutes, steeling myself for whatever waited behind the door to Apartment 11 and hoping that the acid at the back of my throat would dissipate. What was I stalling for? If they were monitoring the tracking device in my Nikes, they already knew I'd shown up to the party.

  The hum of an engine sent me, finally, into motion. A patrol car creeping up the block, each cop looking out his respective window, scanning the sidewalks and buildings. Turning away, I shouldered against a parked van and pretended to talk into my cell phone to bury my face. The sedan neared, tires crackling over asphalt, static-laced bursts from the scanner. I caught a glimpse of mirrored sunglasses, a muscular forearm resting on the open windowsill, and then the car coasted past aloofly. I exhaled the held breath burning my lungs. I felt like I was doing something illicit. Was I?

  I jogged across the street and confronted the security gate. A waffled metal door, housed in a frame that blocked the entrance to the courtyard. To my left, a speaker unit with a keypad. The instructions for dialing up to the apartments were soggy from rainwater, illegible beneath the cracked casing. A directory, under intact cover, paired owner names with apartments, but 11 and a number of others were blank. The yellowed form looked as if it hadn't been updated in years. Shrugging, I tried to call up to number 11, but a disconnected signal bleated from the speaker.

  I nodded to myself.

  Then I dug the Post-it from my pocket and smoothed it next to the keypad. I punched in those four numbers I'd written beneath the address--4783--and thumbed the pound symbol. A grating buzz released the gate, and with a stab of exhilaration I walked through.

  Maybe not Enemy of the State. Maybe I was living out The Game.

  Apartment 11 was at the back of the courtyard on the second floor. My unease mounted as I ascended the stairs. Ariana was right--this was foolhardy. I could be strolling into my own murder.

  The floating walkway serviced four apartments, each in worse shape than the last. I reached number 11. Those rusting numerals, loosely nailed to the door. No peephole. With its cracks and curling paint, the ancient door looked even worse than in the picture. The knob hung loose. A new dead bolt, the sole upgrade, had been installed high on the door, compensating for the old-fashioned keyhole assembly.

  I took out the DVD in its purple case, regarded it, tapped it against my thigh. Sucked in a breath, blew it out hard. Then I pushed the doorbell. Broken. Given the condition of the complex, I wasn't surprised. I pressed my ear to the wood, dry paint poking the side of my face. More nothing.

  I raised my hand but couldn't bring myself to knock. I don't know what stopped me. Dread, maybe. Or perhaps an early warning system, some heightened awareness my cells were registering even if my mind was not. I rethought my decision to wear the GPS Nikes. Did they rule out a retreat? I lowered my fist. Released a silent breath. Was that a muffled creak I heard from inside or merely the floor groaning beneath my own weight? Slowly, cautiously, I crouched to look through the old-fashioned assembly.

  Filling the keyhole, squirming to take in my nearing face, was an eye peering back at me.

  I yelped and leaped back as the door flew open, and then a stocky man in a tank top charged, shoving me into the railing.

  "Who are you?" he yelled. "Why are you doing this to me?"

  He pounced again, pushing me into the floor, as if unsure what to do with me. I flung him away and we squared off, but it quickly became clear neither of us wanted to fight.

  His breathing was ragged, more agitated than angry. At five foot nine, he was a few inches shorter than me, but thicker. Massy arms bulged from his worn undershirt. His curly hair, mussed high and paired with a receding hairline, added a comedic note to his otherwise tough-guy appearance.

  He pointed to the purple jewel case, lying cracked where I'd dropped it on his doorstep. "Why are you leaving those?"

  My mouth goldfished. "I . . . I'm not. Someone's been delivering discs to my house. Surveillance footage of me. They got that DVD to me, along with your address."

  Keeping his eyes on me, he picked up the case and flipped it open. Then he glanced down, quickly, at the disc. "These are the kind of DVDs you use, too?"

  "No. Mine are different. . . ." It took me a moment to register the "too." I said slowly, "They send you footage, recorded onto your own discs."

  "Yes. Through my mail slot. Under my windshield wiper. In my microwave." He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then swiped his thumb twice across the inside of his wrist, his movements quick, jittery. "Little movies of me walking to the park. Shopping for groceries. That kind of shit."

  "Did they call you? On a cell phone?"

  "No. Never talked to anyone. But my service got shut off--bills. And I don't have a landline."

  "Do you have the DVDs?"

  The thumb moved across his wrist again, a nervous tic. "No. I threw them out. Why would I keep them?"

  "How long have they been doing it?"

  "Two months."

  "Two months? Christ, it started five days ago for me, and I'm already . . ." Dread overtook me, and I paused to breathe.

  "Why me?" He tapped his chest with a fist. "Why film me? Filling up my fucking truck with gas?"

  "They got me taking a leak. Have you talked to the cops?"

  "I don't like cops. Besides, what are they gonna say?"

  "How were you contacted?" I asked.

  "I wasn't. Just the discs showing up. I don't know why . . ."

  "Why they're doing this to us."

  His expression shifted. We were comrades all of a sudden, patients with the same affliction. "Why they chose us," he said.

  I thought of that two-word directive at the end of the e-mail. GO ALONE, not COME ALONE. A mission, not a summons. We'd been put in touch to figure something out. Our gazes moved in concert to the DVD in his hands.

  He rushed inside the apartment, me at his heels. The dense reek of mold overwhelmed me two steps in, less a smell than an impression on my pores. I blinked into the drawn-curtain dimness to see him fumbling the disc into a player beneath a hefty TV. Dirty clothes and grocery bags were strewn across the patchy carpet, as well as a few discs in purple cases marked with TV-show names. No chairs, no couches, no table by the run of counter that passed for a kitchenette. The only items that couldn't be swept up were a twin mattress thrown in the corner, topped with a twisted fuss of sheets, and the TV denting a metal trunk.

  He shoved himself up and took a few steps back, standing shoulder to shoulder with me, facing the screen, his knee jackhammering.

  The picture came up. Basement, stairs, concrete floor.

  "It's nothing," I said. "It's--"

  He let out a creaking gasp. He fell to his knees. Crawling forward, he paused the image and put his face right up against the screen, scrutinizing something in the bottom-right corner. Then he sat back on his heels and swayed a little. It wasn't until a gut-wrenching moan filled the room that I realized he was crying. He lowered his face to the dank carpet and sobbed. I stood a few feet behind him, mystified, completely at a loss.

  He rocked and cried some more.

  "Are you . . . ?" I asked. "Can I . . . ?"

  Pulling himself to his feet, he fell into me, squeezing me hard. A tinge of soured sweat. "Thank you, thank you, God bless you."

  I raised an arm awkwardly from my side as if to pat his back, but my hand just hovered there. "I don't know what I did. I don't know what that is."

  "Please," he said, stepping away. He looked around, as if only now realizing he had nowhere for me to sit. "I'm sorry, I can't remember the last time I had someone . . ." He seemed disoriented.

  "It's fine." I sat on the floor.

  He followed suit. His hands moved in circular gestures, but he couldn't manage to speak. A square of yellow light from the window fell across him, filtered through thick, dusty curtains. A water stain in the far corner darkened the carpet, climbed the wall.

  "I was a custodian," he finally said. "At a
high school outside Pittsburgh. The water heater gave out, and we were tight, you know, budget cuts." His thumb skimmed across the inside of his wrist again, as if smoothing the skin. "A guy on the school board was in on some low-income housing deal, they were tearing down a complex, whatever. So he got a big water heater from there." He gestured at the screen, the water heater. "They delivered it for me to install. An older unit. I said I didn't like the looks of it. They told me it wasn't a beauty pageant, that it had been tested and met whatever qualifications. So I put it in. The thing is . . . the thing is, they'd prepped it for delivery. Drained it, I mean, and wired the pressure-relief valve so the leftover water wouldn't drip out during transport." He fell silent.

  "What happened?" I asked.

  "I drank back then. Not anymore. But I may have had a few nips that morning. The morning I installed it, I mean. Just to get going. Third of November."

  I glanced over at the date stamp on the screen: 11/3/05. My skin, tingling with anticipation.

  "Through that wall's a basement room. Shop class." He pointed, his hand shaking, and there on the inside of his wrist was a thin white ridge of scar tissue. His other hand lay in his lap, exposing a matching razor-blade remembrance. "When the wall blew apart, one kid got killed. Another got her face mostly burned off. That she lived . . . well, in some ways that's even worse." Again he thumbed the line of one of the scars, rocking a little. "During the investigation someone found the flask in my locker. There were liability issues, you know. And they said I forgot to remove the wire, so the pressure-relief valve couldn't open. Steam built up." His voice thickened. "They never found any part of the wire in the whaddayacallit."

  I managed to say, "Debris."

  "Right. No piece of anything big enough." He broke off. "I knew I never would've forgotten. But as the whole thing went on, the questions, I wasn't positive. Then I wasn't sure at all. I'd installed security cameras down there a few months before, and I asked to see footage, so I could know. I needed to know."

  "Why have security footage in a basement?"

  "Kids were sneaking down there smoking, having sex. They found a few condoms. So the principal pulled me aside at the beginning of the year, told me to put in a surveillance cam. I don't know who reviewed the tapes or anything, but kids got pulled out of class and spoken to, and then they stopped going down there. But when I asked about the footage after the explosion, all I got was, 'We would never spy on members of the student body.' I even went to the basement with the investigators, but the camera had been removed. So this footage, this footage"--he jabbed a finger at the TV--"never existed." His face broke, and he bowed his head but didn't make a noise. "A cop buddy of mine told me later that illegal monitoring like that's a real big deal. If they recorded students having sex, they could've been busted on kiddie-porn charges, even. So they hung me out. What they didn't take from me, I found a way to throw away myself."

  I did my best to keep my eyes from those slash lines on his wrists. Instead I looked at my hands, scuffed up with scabs and scar tissue of my own. Regret, and the marks it leaves on us. There I was, punching a dashboard over a shitty run of luck and my wife's transgression. It seemed so insignificant compared to the dead kid and the faceless girl riding his conscience, driving him to the razor's edge.

  "I been dead, mostly. Moving around in a haze, city to city. Can't hold down jobs too long. Can't look people in the eye. But look at that. Look at that." The paused screen again, the time stamp, that water heater--his eyes glistened taking it all in. "No wire on that water heater. No wire in the whole picture. It's the most beautiful goddamned thing I ever seen in my life." He shook his head, drew in a quavering breath, then refocused on me. "Listen, maybe we can figure out some overlap between us that explains why we were chosen."

  "Some way to trace the puppet strings back to whoever's holding them."

  "I'm a little . . . I'm not so good right now. A lot to take in, you know? Will you come back so we can do that? Coupla days, maybe?"

  "Yes. Of course."

  "Don't forget. I'd like to know. I'd like to thank them."

  We found our feet and shuffled, dazed in the half-light, to the door. "They didn't . . ." I licked my dry lips. "They didn't give you anything for me." I couldn't bring myself to phrase it like a question.

  "No," he said. "I'm sorry." His eyes moved across my face, seeming to read my disappointment. I could feel empathy coming off him in waves, how badly he wanted to reciprocate, to do for me something like what had been done for him. He offered his hand. "We never . . . I'm Doug Beeman."

  "Patrick Davis."

  We shook, and he clutched my forearm. "You changed my life. For the first time, I feel like . . ." He bobbed his head slightly. "You changed my life. I'm so appreciative you did this for me."

  I thought of what the voice had told me: This is nothing like what you imagine. I'd taken it, wrongly, as a warning. I said quietly, "I didn't do anything."

  "Yes," he said, stepping back and drawing the door closed. "You were the instrument."

  Chapter 26

  My head still thrumming from my encounter with Beeman, I stepped from the garage into our quiet downstairs. After dispatching with the shrieking alarm, I could hear the shower running on the second floor, the rush of the water pipes the sole sound of life. With the lights off down here, the house felt desolate.

  I clicked on the kitchen overheads and noticed that the caller ID screen on the kitchen telephone showed a missed call. I checked the message, my back going rigid when I heard my lawyer's voice, asking me to call him. On a Sunday?

  I reached him at the home number he'd left.

  "Hello, Patrick. I got a call from opposing counsel today. The studio is hinting at a willingness to resolve all issues quickly and quietly if you'd agree that the entire matter be made confidential as a stipulation of the settlement. They indicated that the terms would be favorable to us, though they were unwilling, yet, to spell out the specifics. I was told we can expect paperwork early this week."

  My mouth moved, but no sound was being produced.

  "Did they mention why they had the sudden change of heart?" I asked after my tape-delay pause.

  "They didn't. I agree--it seems odd in view of the signals they were sending. We'll wait and see what they spell out for us, but judging from the tenor of the conversation, I'm feeling cautiously optimistic."

  I found myself checking the clock, a habit I'd grown accustomed to, given the heft of even a narrow slice of my attorney's billable hour.

  As if reading my mind, he said, "You've been having a bit of trouble keeping my evergreen retainer . . . well, evergreen. After this push to untangle matters next week, would you like someone from Billing to call so you can work out a payment plan?"

  I mumbled a half apology and an affirmative, then hung up. But even considering my sheepishness, the news--combined with the exhilaration from my experience with Beeman--left our house feeling a little less desolate.

  It seemed a hell of a coincidence to get home from Beeman's to this good news. Were my omnipotent stalkers scripting this plot thread of my life, too? The whole intrigue with the DVDs seemed to be conducted on a tit-for-tat basis; I follow their instructions, and obstacles in my life fall away. Even the thought of that seven-figure lawsuit dissolving made me weak with relief. If they could do that, what else might they do for me?

  The thrill, I realized, was the same one that came with the anticipation before a movie deal. All-play-and-less-work Hollywood, get rich in the snap of a studio head's fingers, take a shortcut to page one of Variety and a Bel Air mansion.

  Heading upstairs to bring Ariana the news of the past few hours, I couldn't help but wonder if my life was, at long last, finally coming back together.

  "This guy, Beeman, was being held hostage by this stuff." I put my hand on the small of Ariana's back, guiding her over the rush of rainwater in the gutter. We passed Bel Air Foods, strolling down the hill, the air dense with humidity, the rain so faint it only came
visible passing through the streetlights' glow. Cars shot by, gleaming with beads of water. "And to walk in there, and just . . . just liberate him."

  I blew out a breath, which steamed and dissipated. I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt so alive. Instead of The Game, it seemed I'd found myself inside Pay It Forward.

  "I mean, if this is the first e-mail," I said, "what the hell is the next one gonna be?"

  Ariana stuffed her hands in the pockets of her parka; she refused to wear the coat with the bug stitched into the lining. "Aren't you cold?"

  "What? No."

  "Why would CIA agents care about helping a guy like Doug Beeman?" she asked.

  "I can't think of any reason they would."

  "Which means it's probably not them. Which is good." A frown. "Or bad." She chewed her worn thumbnail. "So, seeing as how these guys were stalking you before, what's with the new charity angle?"

  "I have a theory."

  "I feared as much."

  She tugged me off course, and we splashed through a puddle together. Ahead, crowding its too-small lot, loomed the McMansion she and I liked to marvel at, with its solemn portico and gables and Tudorbethan mock battlements. Beyond the stucco facade, cheap vinyl siding composed the non-street-facing walls. Neighborhood rumor had it that the hodgepodge construction was built by a film distributor, and the design gave every indication it was a Hollywood-inspired fantasy. Thrown up like a peacock's tail, part enticement, part aggression. All that money, and still not enough. Cheaper the farther you wade in. I recalled the first time I walked behind a set on the lot at Summit, how those great Norman Rockwell exteriors gave way to scaffolding and two-by-fours, and how it felt like catching Santa Claus, beardless and undershirted, in the department-store locker room.

  Ariana said flatly, "They need more pillars," and I laughed. Across the way, the Myerses sat in the warm glow of a dated chandelier, talking over glasses of wine. Bernie raised a hand in greeting, and we waved back. It had been months since Ariana and I had gone for an evening stroll, and I realized how much I missed it. Out in the open, breathing crisp air--for once not on top of each other, smothered by our disappointments or pinned down by a hidden lens. And later we were going to pick up an order of pho from our favorite Vietnamese place and we were going to sit on the couch and eat and talk, the coming evening as familiar and safe as an old sweatshirt.