Black Swan

by Chris Knopf

  "No. Impossible. They don't call it code for nothing," said Fey. He turned to me. "You didn't tell us you had experience with N-Spock. I probably sounded quite haughty."

  "I'm a private person, Mr. Fey," I told him. "What you might have said to me is my problem, not yours."

  126 BLACK SWAN

  It was my turn to sit back in my chair and take a sip of tea, but I could barely get the stuff down my throat.

  "What's the Swan's policy on coffee?" I asked Anika.

  She smirked at me, and left for the kitchen.

  "Is that why they were all here, Hammon and 't Hooft, and Sanderfreud? To pressure you to solve the problem?" I asked.

  Fey sat in the chair with his elbows resting on his knees, his eyes staring down at the carpet.

  "Hammon and I had a fundamental disagreement on how to migrate to 5.0. He had this notion we could fasttrack the development process, his terms, leaving out crucial testing and documentation phases. He based this foolishness on our prior transitions from 1.0 to 4.0, not appreciating that these were refinements of our base code, not the ground-up creation of a new application, which needed all new underlying systems, hardware, servers and networks— the technological superstructure people like Hammon disdain, not understanding the challenge in coordinating such vast complexity and still making it look preordained."

  "I thought he helped create the original N-Spock."

  Fey huffed.

  "He had the good sense or good luck to support my ideas, which were unproven in those days. And the chutzpah to convince people like Myron to come aboard and help sell investors. His reputation for technical prowess was a creation of the media, which Hammon never disavowed. I didn't care, as long as I was given the resources needed to establish proof of concept. Which I did with C-Scale, our first commercially viable program. That paved the way for N-Spock."

  "So are they blaming problems with 5.0 on you?" I asked.

  His smile held little humor.

  "Who else can they blame? It's my program at the core. Except that they didn't let me design it the way I wanted

  Chris Knopf 127

  to. Now they think I can wave a magic wand and make the problem go away. Can't be done."

  As I listened to him, a certain perverse pleasure competed with an anxious twist in my guts, a genuine reaction to phantoms of my past. I knew exactly what he meant and its significance. I'd lived the experience daily, battling people with power over me who had no grasp of the sensitive interdependence of millions of variables, the most important of which was the arch of time. Certain things have to be done thoroughly and in the right order. I knew now what Fey had been arguing, and why his position was anathema to Hammon. The only solution to curing N-Spock was to start at the beginning and essentially rewrite the code, this time applying the proper testing protocols at each stage before moving on to the next. Not going to happen in the next three months.

  I shared with Fey what I was thinking, including a few examples from my own experience. He nodded, his posture softening, aware now that I was part of the brotherhood.

  "So you know. Speaking truth to power is child's play compared to speaking common sense to the willfully ignorant," he said.

  Anika came out of the kitchen with a mug and a small carafe of coffee, her face creased with worry. I was reminded of how I came to be sitting there.

  "Had Axel been acting strangely in any way in the last few days?" I asked her.

  She shook her head.

  "No, but he might have been thinking strangely. Thinking and acting are two different things with Axel. I also hadn't spoken with him very much since our guests showed up. There was so much going on, I was distracted."

  I'd never been a cop myself, but I knew a few of them, for better or worse. One of them was even a friend, of sorts, a guy named Joe Sullivan of the Southampton Town police.

  128 BLACK SWAN

  I knew what he would do when he had to find someone without a single clue as to where they were. He'd get off his ass and start looking.

  "Do you folks have a VHF radio?" I asked.

  "Of course," said Fey.

  "Monitor channel sixteen, if you can," I said. "Can I borrow your car?"

  Fey put the keys to the Mercedes in my palm. Anika took my bag and gave me a key to one of the rooms. I went out into the wind, which might have calmed, but it didn't feel like it. The sky was a deep blue, with the only clouds a few puffballs racing overhead.

  I walked over to the gas station on the other side of the yacht club. Track was in the grimy office, his feet up on the desk and his nose stuck in a soft-core men's magazine. The walls surrounding him were covered in calendars, notices, self-made ads for local services, ferry schedules going back to the prior century, and posters supporting products that were once new, but now largely forgotten.

  "Ever clean this place up?" I asked. "It stinks in here."

  He looked up from the magazine, but kept his feet on the desk.

  "Maybe I could use your face as a mop."

  "When was the last time you saw Axel Fey?"

  "Who wants to know?"

  "He's missing. His family is worried. It wouldn't kill you to do a favor."

  "Wouldn't help me, neither. They'll be gone by next season," he said.

  "Okay, why not pretend you're a regular human being and help them find an innocent kid."

  "A whack-job kid. I haven't seen him since that guy was hanging in the shower. The kid don't come outside much. Afraid of the sun. Not like his sister, who's out all the time,

  Chris Knopf 129

  which is the only good thing about having those foreigners around."

  "Who owns this gas station?" I asked. "Can't be you."

  This disturbed him.

  "None of your business."

  "I can find out in five minutes once the power comes back on. Why not just tell me?"

  "Fuck you," he said, almost cheerfully.

  I thanked him for his valuable time, and went across the street to where a pair of houses sharing a common driveway were built into a hill. One had a car in the driveway, so I picked that one to knock on the door. A tall, thin, stately looking guy answered. This impression was enhanced by where he stood on his screened-in front porch, a tall riserheight above me.

  "Yes?" he said.

  "Do you know Axel Fey, the teenaged kid who lives in the Swan?" I asked, jerking my head in the direction of the hotel.

  "Not personally," he said, "but I know who the people are."

  "He's gone missing. You didn't happen to see him last night or this morning outside the hotel, maybe walking down the street?"

  "I did," the guy said, "early this morning, about six, walking down the street. I was eating breakfast here on the porch."

  "No kidding. Which way did he go?"

  He pointed toward the east, away from the public end of the island toward the private country club.

  "As you can see, the road curves right after the Black Swan, so I have no idea where he went from there."

  Ah, I thought. This is why Sullivan keeps harping on the value of routine police work. All you have to do is ask and people will just give you the information.

  130 BLACK SWAN

  "What was he wearing? Was he carrying anything?"

  The guy thought about it.

  "He wore a backpack, I think, though I may be wrong since all young people wear backpacks. You're the one with the dog and the custom sloop. Has a lovely sheer. I race little boats myself. Hereshoff Bullseyes. Too lazy to cruise. Where have you put her?" he added, looking out across the Inner Harbor, much of which you could see from his elevated location, though not past the breakwater to my secret lagoon, much to my relief.

  "My girlfriend took her back to the mainland. Had to get home and the ferry's not running."

  "Must have been a rather raucous voyage."

  "Not for her. She loves that stuff."

  I was about to leave him, when I had another thought.

  "Do you kn
ow who owns the gas station across the street?"

  "That would be Desi Arness. Of course, there isn't much on the island he doesn't own."

  "Really. Does Lucy know about this?"

  He spelled Desi's name.

  "The Arness family has had an estate here since the mid-1800's. With a first name like Luther, the nickname was inevitable. Damn fine sailor. He bought the fuel dock to prevent development next to the yacht club. Would have bought the Swan if the prior owners hadn't detested him, unfairly I might add. That donnybrook in the bar was not his fault, inebriated though he was. I told them that myself, though my own condition during the occasion might not have served my credibility."

  "Do you think Desi might be around?" I asked.

  "He's never not around. He's lived on the island his whole life. Third generation to do so. Though you won't get to see him unless he wants to see you. Very friendly chap, but keen on his privacy."

  Chris Knopf 131

  He used the British pronunciation of the word 'privacy'— a pretension so effortlessly delivered that it felt entirely sincere.

  "So you, too?" I asked. "Year-'rounder?"

  "Since retirement. Wharton, professor of economics. This was my parents' home. I don't go as far back as Desi, so as you can see, my privacy is of less concern."

  I got the feeling the professor was actually a little lonely, comfortable as he seemed standing there in the doorway being interrogated by a complete stranger. He had wavy, dark-grey hair that spread from a hairline starting about mid-scalp, and a weather-beaten face. It wasn't hard to see him bending to the pull of a long-handled tiller, or standing in front of a classroom full of über-capitalists.

  "Sam Acquillo," I said, sticking out my hand.

  "John Featherstone," he said, accepting the hand-shake. "If I see the young chap again, I'll let you know. You're a friend of the Feys?"

  "I'd like to think so."

  After leaving Featherstone, I drove down the road to the next house and knocked on the door. No answer. The same was true of the next three houses. At the fourth house, a young mother said through a crack in the door and over screeching children that she hadn't seen anyone go by her house that morning.

  I realized I hadn't thought to bring along a photograph of Axel Fey. Some cop I'd make. I thought about going back to the Swan to get one, but decided to press on. Despite my reverence for disciplined methodology, backtracking was something I was never any good at.

  The next two hours of door-to-door activity yielded nothing. Most of the houses were empty, and the people in the others were no help. As I reached various intersections, I chose a route that took me in the direction of Gwyneth

  132 BLACK SWAN

  Jones' place. When I got there she was in the yard with her bulldog, looking up at the sky.

  "What's your prediction?" I asked.

  "Clear for a day or two, then there's another wingdinger headed this way."

  "Do you see the signs?"

  "No, I hear the marine forecast from those dunderheads at NOAA. But I think this time they're right."

  "How come?" I asked.

  "I see the signs."

  I asked her if she'd seen Axel Fey, describing him as best I could. She regretted telling me no.

  "Tell me more about him," she said. So I did, in detail, not sparing his family's privacy. She listened carefully, then shook her head.

  "I'm thinking runaway, and I'm thinking there're a few dozen houses within easy walking distance that're empty and at least somewhat stocked with things you can eat."

  "That's what I'm thinking," I said. "Axel's no survivalist, so forget the woods. He'd be one to find a comfortable location and hole up. Without a cop on the island, we can hardly search house-to-house."

  "What do you mean, no cop?"

  I told her about Trooper Poole and my efforts to secure a replacement. She looked very unhappy.

  "This doesn't happen here," she said. "No matter how ornery or mental we can get over the winter, the state cop is untouchable. I like that woman. Reminds me of my mother. No nonsense. What happened to your pretty girlfriend?"

  "She had to go. Took the boat over to New London and caught the big ferry home."

  She seemed to ponder that for a moment.

  "Lovely hands for a rough-water sailor," she said.

  "It's all in the gloves."

  Chris Knopf 133

  I asked her to keep her eyes out for Axel and to tell her friends and neighbors to do the same. I was about to continue on when Hammon's Town Car pulled up behind me. He and 't Hooft both got out.

  "Fey just told us about Axel," said Hammon. "Any luck?"

  He looked genuinely concerned, though I didn't know him well enough to judge how genuine.

  "Not so far. All I know is he headed east after leaving the Swan at about six this morning."

  "Helluva thing. Kooky kid," said Hammon, more exasperated than angry. "We need to call the cops."

  "Cop," I said. "Can't do that now. She's indisposed."

  "Fine time for that," said Hammon. "So what do we do now?"

  "Drive around and look," I said. "I'll go east, you go west. The odds are just as good that he went that way after hitting the first intersection. I'm banging on doors and looking for witnesses, but that's a personal decision. You do what you want."

  Hammon nodded and looked around Gwyneth's front yard, trying to make sense of the buoyant eccentricity.

  "Interesting," he said.

  "Not to the enlightened," she said.

  "Of course," said Hammon, as he and 't Hooft climbed back into the big, black Ford and swooped off down the narrow, light-dappled street.

  "Hoodlums?" she asked.

  "Entrepreneurs," I said. "Close enough."

  chapter

  12

  I drove around, knocked on doors, refined my presentation till I was bored with it, and got nowhere. When I started hearing from people that two other strangers in a Town Car had already asked the same questions, I gained some confidence that Hammon meant what he portrayed—the legitimate concern of a family friend.

  I soldiered on until dusk, after which it seemed imprudent to further test the xenophobia of the island's residents. As I drove back to the Swan, I was cheered by the sight of lighted windows, however sparsely distributed. The Swan itself was lit up from stem to stern, as if celebrating the return to normalcy. I parked the Mercedes out front next to Hammon's Lincoln. The hood was hot to the touch, so he'd only beaten me home by a few minutes.

  Inside the hotel there was no one to be found until I checked the rear patio, where everyone had assembled. The evening was cool, but after the stormy mess of the last few days, I could understand the impulse to get outside. Strings of white Christmas lights hung above the tables helped the atmosphere, though the main work was done by the floods up under the eaves. A rolling tray had been filled with cold

  134

  Chris Knopf 135

  snacks and another held beverages, among which I was delighted to count a bottle of Absolut.

  Expectant faces turned toward me as I walked between the tables, but I quickly shook my head.

  "No dice," I said. "How 'bout you guys?" I asked Hammon.

  "Nothing," he said. "A few people in town reported seeing a teenager or two, but they were likely locals. Tomorrow we need to pass out copies of his photograph."

  Two great minds, same thought.

  "Do you think he's still on the island?" asked Del Rey. "I mean, he could've grabbed a boat and gone ashore."

  "That's certainly true," said Hammon. "As I could have grabbed a rocket and flown to the moon."

  "Axel can't swim," said Fey. "He's afraid of the water.

  "Oh, yeah," said Del Rey. "I forgot that."

  I helped myself to the vodka and sat down next to Hammon. His slight, spidery frame looked ill at ease in repose, as if anything less than soaring flight was inherently unnatural. His long fingers rotated his cocktail glass in quarter turns. He looked over at me wi
th a look both curious and bored.

  "Fey tells us you're an N-Spock aficionado," he said.