by Jon McGoran
Annalisa jumped to her feet, the liquid sloshing up the glass sides of the vial. I took a step back, too.
The metal screens were vibrating, and as I looked closer I saw that the few bees that had been crawling about had been suddenly transformed into a dense mat of tiny bodies, thousands of them, grinding against the screen, tiny limbs poking through it.
“What is that stuff?” I said, raising my voice over the roar.
“It smells like alarm pheromone, bees release it when they sting or are killed, or feel threatened. It incites the other bees to attack. But I’ve … I’ve never seen that kind of reaction.”
As we looked down at the tube in her hand, a single droplet slid down the outside of it, just touching her finger. She moved her finger—too late—and jammed the cap back on. But whatever genie it was, it was out.
She put the tube back into the rack, her eyes wide in the dim light. She paused, staring at the wet spot on her finger. With her other hand, she reached out and flicked that same switch on the wall. Then she darted back to the middle of the room, as far from the sides as possible.
The wall panels slowly slid down, and I could see that the mesh screens were now glistening with moisture. Droplets were forming, dripping down to the bottom. I realized they weren’t limbs poking through the screen, they were stingers. Venom was collecting in tiny puddles at the bottom of the screen.
“Those are stingers,” I said. “That’s venom.”
She nodded.
“So are they all going to die now?”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t bees die after they sting?”
She shook her head. “Only when they sting soft flesh,” she said absently. “And not all of them. A lot of them get away.”
When the panels finally came down into place, Annalisa looked up at me with wide eyes. “We have to get out of here,” she said breathlessly. But then she looked down at her hand, the dim light reflecting off the moisture on her finger.
She went over to the small sink in the corner and started vigorously washing her hands. I noticed her shoulders were shaking.
I went over and put an arm around her, looking down at her hands as she frantically wrung them under the hot water.
“Hey,” I said, as softly as I could. “You okay?”
She turned off the water. “This doesn’t just wash off,” she said.
I didn’t say anything, and she turned to look up at me. “The alarm pheromone. I can rinse off most of it, and the rest will dissipate eventually, but meanwhile … I’m marked.” Her eyes widened as she looked over my shoulder toward the muffled buzzing coming from behind the partitions. “I’ve never seen bees behave like that. Not even Africanized bees. Imagine if those screens hadn’t been there.”
I tried not to picture it, but I already had.
“It’s nighttime, though, right? There shouldn’t be any bees out there.”
She shook her head. “No. But it woke these ones up, didn’t it?”
I couldn’t argue with that, or with any of it. This was her territory, not mine.
“We should get going,” she said, reading my mind. The bees were quieting down, just enough to let me worry about the armed guards outside.
“How about hand sanitizer, or something like that?” I said. “Could that break it down?”
She looked up at me and smiled, momentarily distracted by the cuteness of my scientific ignorance. Then she shook her head. “You can’t break it down, Doyle. The best you can do is try to mask it or cover it up, with something else, like…” Her eyes went unfocused, staring into space as she tried to think.
“Julie!” she said, yanking open a drawer under one of the workstations, rooting around in it with her unaffected hand. She pulled out a bandana, a hacky sack ball, a bag full of hair scrunchies, and a miniature Rubik’s cube before exclaiming a triumphant, “Aha!” and plucking out a small bottle with a white label. “Julie Patchouli,” she said by way of explanation, as she unscrewed the cap and dabbed a tiny drop onto her finger.
As she rubbed it over her hand, the enclosed space filled with the scent of earnest hippies.
“That’s powerful stuff,” I said, my eyes watering.
She smiled. “Here’s hoping. I actually don’t mind the smell, except that it reminds me of Julie, who’s annoying.” The relief on her face faded as once again she seemed to read my mind.
“We need to get going,” she said.
I nodded. “Yes, we do.”
She sat at the computer and with one hand started closing windows. When she finished shutting it down, she looked up at me. “Now what?”
“I’ll look out and see where the guards are. When I say the word, you get over to that other unit, open and close the door, and then ask them to let you out. While you’re going through the gate, I’ll go over the fence. Meet you back at your car, okay?”
She gave me a brave nod. Then she put her non-hippie hand behind my neck and pulled me down for a wet, lingering kiss that left my toes tingling.
I knew I should tell her not to do that, but I didn’t want to.
“Okay,” I said hoarsely. “You ready?”
She grabbed a couple of paper towels and wrapped them around her finger, then nodded. She stuffed the printouts in her bag, turned off the computer, and the lab went dark except for the faint red floor lights.
I took a few seconds to let my eyes adjust to the darkness, then I peeked out the door. The cool night air coming through the gap smelled clean and fresh.
The guards were once again leaning against their car, but this time on the front of it, facing away from us and toward the gate. In the dim light coming through the door, I nodded and Annalisa nodded back. She stepped forward, and I opened the door just enough for her to squeeze through. As she slowly descended the steps, I let the door ease back almost closed.
I could hear her footsteps as she scurried over to the other unit. The guards didn’t seem to notice.
When she reached the shadows by the entrance to the lab unit, I let out a breath I hadn’t known I’d been holding. She seemed to be doing the same, clinging to the wall, collecting herself. She opened the door to the other lab unit, making a big, loud production of it, shaking her keys, letting the door slam.
I pulled back from the doorway, watching through the crack as the guards turned toward the noise Annalisa was making. One of them got up, his hand resting on his holster, until Annalisa emerged from the shadows.
“All done?” he asked, friendly, probably happy to see a beautiful face in the middle of a boring assignment.
“Done for now,” she said cheerily. “Thanks for your help.”
“Our pleasure,” said the other guard, coming closer.
They both gestured for her to go first. Then they fell in behind her, checking out her butt as they walked toward the gate. She seemed to be giving it a little extra swing.
I slipped out the door and crept around the side of the unit, not clinging so close now that I knew there were a hundred thousand angry bees inside. I couldn’t hear them, but I could sense them, their power, just inches away.
I scrambled up the fence and swung myself over the top. I would have been in a hurry to get out of there anyway, but those bees helped provide a little extra motivation.
53
Pulling up in front of the Mansion House, I felt like a criminal returning to the scene of a crime. We had embraced briefly back at her lab, then got in the car and hightailed it over here as fast as we could. Annalisa sat for a moment, Julie Patchouli’s ID card in one hand, her patchouli on the other. She tucked the ID into her shirt pocket and slipped out of the car without a word.
As soon as she left, I slumped down in my seat, the need to appear strong having left with Annalisa. She startled me when she opened the car door just a few seconds later.
“She’s gone,” she said as she got in, the car filling with the faint but distinct smell of patchouli.
“What?”
“We�
��re too late. We missed her. She’s gone.”
“Did you leave the card anyway?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean did you leave the card there? She could have dropped it while she was getting dressed, right?”
She stared at me for a moment, thinking. Then she turned away. “I can’t go back in there now—they’re locking up. I’ll have to try to return the card tomorrow.” Her hands trembled as she fastened her seat belt.
“She could have lost it anywhere,” I told her. “It’ll be okay.”
She turned to look at me. “If she reports her card missing, they’ll check the activity on it. They’ll see someone used it. It won’t take them long to figure out I was there and put it together.”
“Does she wear it around her neck or carry it in her wallet?”
“She keeps it on a lanyard,” she said, holding up the card so I could see the orange tether dangling from it. “But she doesn’t wear it. She keeps it in her handbag.”
“Look, she’s not going to know it’s gone until morning. Probably not until she gets to the lab. We can go back right now and leave it at the gym. She’ll notice it’s gone in the morning, call the gym, and they’ll say, yes, here it is. She’s not going to tell anyone, risk getting in trouble, right? She’ll keep it to herself, so no one will know.”
“They’re already closed. I can’t get back in there.” She thought for a moment. “What about her house? We’re about to drive right past it.”
“What do you mean?”
“She lives on this street. Her house is coming up on the left.” She pointed and I followed her gaze to a small bungalow with a dark green SUV in the driveway. I took my foot off the gas but didn’t touch the brake. “Is that her car?”
“Yes. We could leave it next to her driver’s side door. As if she’d dropped it.”
Two women were standing next to the driveway, one of them holding a small dog on a leash. “Is that her standing there?” I asked.
Annalisa gasped and slid down in her seat. “That’s her,” she said in a hoarse whisper.
As my foot dropped back onto the gas pedal, the dog started barking at me and the two women looked over. I kept driving, eyes front, feeling them watching me. Annalisa waited a couple of hundred yards before popping back up and looking out the rear window. “What are we going to do?”
“It’s okay,” I told her. “We’ll go back to the gym in the morning. What time do they open?”
“Six, I think.”
“What time does Julie get to the lab?”
“Usually nine. Sometimes eight-thirty.”
“Okay, so we go back early, get there at six, go in, and drop the card. It will be fine.”
She looked doubtful but hopeful. “Do you think?”
I was maybe sixty-percent confident. “Absolutely,” I said.
* * *
Annalisa laid the papers out, covering the entire dining room table. Immediately, she began studying them with great intensity, staring at them, rearranging them, scribbling notes in her notebook.
I left her to it and went onto her back deck to call Nola. The phone rang for a while but she picked up before voice mail could.
“Hello, Doyle,” she said, sounding very sleepy.
“Hi,” I said quietly. “You in bed?”
“I am,” she replied with a yawn. “It’s been a long day.”
“Yes it has. You doing okay?”
“Just tired.”
“Is Teddy out of jail yet?” I asked.
“No.” She sighed. “Not as far as I know. Any word from Benjy?”
“No. Moose and I filed a report, but Jimmy thinks he probably just flaked off somewhere.”
“Probably so. Where have you been staying?”
“At the Wesley.”
She let out a soft laugh. “I heard it was full of paramilitary thugs.”
She sounded like she was falling asleep on the phone. I couldn’t tell if she was accusing me of being one of them. “I know,” I said. “It got very strange, so I moved out.”
“Where are you staying tonight?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s late.” She yawned again. “Where are you now?”
I paused. “I’m at Annalisa’s. I’m helping her…”
“Tell her I said goodnight.”
Then she was gone. For a moment, I thought maybe she had fallen asleep on the phone, but then the line went dead. She’d hung up on me.
54
I took a couple of deep breaths to settle myself down. Between the first one and the second one, a cloud of skunk drifted through. Not quite eye-wateringly close, but well within face-wrinkling range.
I called Jimmy, but he didn’t answer, probably up to his ears in chanting protesters. Moose didn’t answer, either. He was probably one of the chanting protesters.
By the time I went back inside, the day had caught up with Annalisa. Her shoulders sagged, and as I watched, she started to yawn. Once, then twice, then again and again. Tears formed at the corners of her eyes.
I was about to ask her if she needed to take a break when she sat back and rubbed her eyes. “I’m done.”
“Did you find anything?”
“Maybe,” she said, standing and stretching, then bending over and palming the floor. I don’t think it was for my benefit, but I benefited nonetheless. She came out of it a little quicker than I expected, but I managed to get my eyes back in place. “I’ll have to get back to it in the morning.”
She came up close and put a soft kiss on my cheek, letting it linger just a little longer than a peck. She pulled slowly away and paused, inches away from me, looking me in the eye. She didn’t give it anything more than that, but she seemed to be saying the offer still stood.
Then she yawned, and the moment was gone.
Fifteen minutes later, I was sprawled out on the sofa, listening to her gently snoring upstairs in bed.
I’m not the best sleeper, especially not on a sofa, especially not with a million thoughts spinning through my brain, but I must have been pretty tired, because shortly after I looked at the clock and saw that it was almost two, I fell asleep.
Some time after two, I awoke to a creaking sound and saw a figure at the bottom of the stairs. I was still wondering if and how strenuously I was going to tell Annalisa this was not a good idea, when I realized the figure was going up the stairs, not coming down. And that it was twice Annalisa’s size. And covered in black, including a black balaclava over its face.
Instantly, I was awake and taking in the scene.
My gun was close-by on the floor, but I didn’t want to risk fumbling for it in the dark, so I flipped over the back of the sofa and sprang at the intruder. I had the advantage of surprise, but it turned out he had the advantages of size, speed, and weaponry. And apparently hearing.
I was halfway there when he spun around. I sensed more than saw his leg coming at my face. I was saved from his kick by my own lack of momentum, but I landed hard on the stairs at his feet. Almost immediately, a bullet cut through the air right above my head.
The room was captured in a dull orange flash from the muzzle of his gun. The guy was massive. Between that and the gun, it already wasn’t a fair fight. So I felt okay about sending my fist and everything behind it up into his groinal area. The punch landed solid and hard. He seemed like the kind of guy who had a pretty thorough workout regimen, but he was going to have to skip the Kegels for a while. He made a soft whimpering noise that sounded like it wanted to be louder, but he immediately started firing again. Each shot lit up the room, and I kept moving, so he wouldn’t get a fix on me—I flattened myself against the banister, then the wall, then vaulted off the stair completely. With each flash, my silhouette appeared on a different expanse of wall, in a different pose. I could feel a part of my brain seizing up, and another part forcing through it.
The muzzle flashes were giving him a fix on me, but they also gave me a fix on him. As I landed on the floor, he
fired again and I grabbed at the gun, my fingers squeezing the hot steel barrel. I yanked it hard, flipping him over my head and onto what my memory and my ears told me was a small accent table with a vase full of daffodils.
By the time I realized I still had the gun in my hand, he had recovered and kicked it away. I stepped to the side. When the lights came on, he was swinging a knife upward in a brutal arc that started right about where my navel had been. For an instant I pictured myself split up the middle and spilling out onto the floor.
Annalisa screamed from the top of the stairs. “Doyle!”
“Stay back,” I yelled, aiming a kick at the knife in his hand. But he was much too fast. The tip of my shoelace flew up into the air, and then he was closing on me, the knife zipping back and forth, me retreating, trying to weave around it. When I felt the banister against my back, he came in fast, his arm a blur. I twisted and slid to the side as he brought the knife down hard and the blade sank deep into the wooden railing. For an instant, he paused, trying to yank it free, and I kicked him in the kidney, hard enough that he let go. It worked so well I did it twice more.
I spotted his gun, ten feet away, but before I could make a move for it, he turned and sprang. His hands were aimed at my throat. I got one hand under his chin while the other one raked his face. I hooked my fingers and clawed at him, trying to grab his mask and rip it off, at least see who I was fighting. Instead, my finger sank into something soft and wet.
Having already committed to the low road, I pushed my finger in, and at the same time lashed out with a savage kick that landed just south of his genitals.
He howled, stumbling backward and clutching his masked face. As he turned and lurched unevenly toward the door, I dove for the gun, grabbing it as I slid across the floor. But before I could level it at him, another figure appeared in the doorway from the kitchen, similarly masked and clad in black. He was shorter and heavier, and he was carrying an assault rifle.
