by Neil Mcmahon
“I’ve been practicing,” she said.
It was really sweet, seeing her like that.
I crouched down beside the pool with my arms clasped around my knees.
“Lisa, I don’t care about what happened or how. Only about what happens from here. If you want to keep going, I couldn’t be happier. But if this is just fess up and good-bye, tell me now.”
She shook her head in exasperation. “I have been telling you, you dope. What do I have to do, take out an ad in Variety? I admit, a couple of years ago, I’d have thought you were boring. But now I know you only pretend to be boring. You’re sneaky, Crandall.”
I exhaled quietly, breathing out my pent-up tension. Maybe it was still an act; maybe she knew a lot more than she was letting on, even about the nanotechnology; maybe she had been in on conning me every step of the way, and she still was. But I believed her, and I would for as long as I could.
“You just going to squat there like a big old frog, or you getting in?” Lisa demanded.
I got in.
She’d also been practicing her eggbeater kick, it turned out, and wanted to show that off, too. But after a minute or so her legs ended up slipping around my waist.
“That’s kind of cheating,” I pointed out. “Not that I’m complaining.”
Awhile later, lying in bed with her curled up beside me, I was sipping a drink and feeling like a new man when she nudged my shoulder with her chin.
“I just remembered something else I wanted to tell you,” she murmured.
I braced myself, abruptly afraid that this new revelation would, after all, bring my momentary contentment crashing down.
“One time—this was a year or so ago—I heard Gunnar and Cynthia talking when they didn’t think anyone else was around,” she said. “But they weren’t speaking English. And it seemed, like—natural to them, like what they’d fall into when they were alone.”
I was relieved, but here was a new puzzle. It made sense that Kelso would lapse into Swedish with another native speaker. But Cynthia seemed as American as apple pie, or more accurately, devil’s food cake.
“Could you tell what it was?” I said.
“Not for sure—I don’t know other languages. But actors are sponges. We pick up words, accents, just the general way things sound.
“What it sounded like to me was Russian.”
Fifty-Two
My cell phone rang at precisely six the next morning. I longed to ignore it, but a call that early would be important, especially lately, and even if it wasn’t I didn’t want the damned noise bothering Lisa on one of her rare chances to sleep in. I stumbled out of bed to her living room, where I’d left the phone, just managing to grab it before the voice mail kicked in.
“Tom, I’m sorry to bother you so early,” my mother said. Her voice was shaky with strain. “I made myself wait until now—I’ve been up most of the night.”
“It’s fine, Mom—what’s going on?” I tried to hide my alarm.
“Erica had a driving incident last night. Not a wreck, and she wasn’t hurt—she’s upstairs asleep now. But it scared her badly, and—and things just seem to be falling apart. I’m not feeling well, either. It would help if you were here.”
“I’ll come over right now. Easy on the coffee, and a Valium wouldn’t hurt.”
“No—no pills.”
What? Audrey had never abused drugs, but she sure wasn’t shy about sedatives when her nerves were on edge.
“Do you need to see a doctor?” I said.
“We’ll talk about it when you get here.”
“I’m on my way.”
Lisa had stirred at the phone’s ring but drifted back off to sleep again. I stifled my urge for a kiss and scribbled a note, then got my clothes mostly on and eased out the front door, tucking in my shirt as I strode to my rented car. I opened the door and started to swing in behind the wheel.
Then sprang violently back away, as spooked as if I’d seen a rattlesnake.
An open newspaper was lying on the front seat, neatly spread out for me to see. I had not left it there, or left a window open. The car had been locked up tight, and it had an antitheft system—not to mention that this was a high-end gated community patrolled by security guards.
I leaned down cautiously to look at the paper. It was the early edition of this morning’s L.A. Times, folded open, to the lead briefs of national news. My gaze stopped at a prominent subhead, right at the top of the page.
Stanford Physicist Blaustein Dead at 96
I straightened up again and stood there looking around helplessly, then forced myself to scan the article. Hans had gone into a coma two nights ago; he’d been alone at the time, and the speculation was that he’d fallen down and injured his head. Late last evening, he’d passed away.
Fallen down, hell. The paper hadn’t been put here to tell me that.
He’d been murdered, by someone skilled enough to disguise it.
Who would have reason to kill the gentle old genius?
Venner. Cynthia. The two of them working together. Hans was a threat because he knew about Kelso’s use of the nanos.
My skin was crawling with rage, fear, and guilt. If he hadn’t died because of me, it wouldn’t have happened except for me.
Ugly as that was, there was also a clear message attached—it could have been me instead, done as easily as they’d put the newspaper in this car. I was a child, playing a fool’s game. They knew I’d been following Cynthia, knew I was driving the rental, knew where I was and when.
I tossed the newspaper into the car’s trunk, got in, and started grimly negotiating my way toward my mother’s house in Pasadena. There was no straight shot from Hollywood Hills, just a hectic network of boulevards and freeway interchanges, with traffic brutal even at six thirty on a Saturday morning.
Along with all the other stuff seething around in my head, a thread kept running around like a song you can’t get rid of—that Lisa had overheard Kelso and Cynthia speaking a language she thought was Russian.
There was no mystery about why Kelso would be fluent in it; as Hans had pointed out, Sweden was practically next door, and he’d probably worked with Russian scientists.
But Cynthia? It was possible that she’d learned it in school, or by traveling or working there, and spoke it with Kelso to keep in practice.
But it seemed far more likely that she would lapse into it naturally because it was her native tongue—which turned up the scenario another big notch. She’d have been born when the Soviet Union was still firmly under Communist control and the Cold War was raging. For her to seem so utterly American, without a trace of accent, almost had to mean that she’d been trained intensively, probably from a very young age. Her identity was obviously solid enough for her to hobnob with powerful people, including in government circles—which almost had to mean that it had been very carefully established.
Those things taken together almost had to add up to espionage.
I’d read a history of modern Russia a few years back, and I remembered that the KGB trained female agents known as “swallows,” taking them very young from their homes or orphanages and immersing them in the world of international intrigue. Often—and especially with those of beauty and ability—the object was to plant them in foreign nations as moles, where they might make their way to high circles of government, finance and industry, intelligence—and scientific research.
Fifty-Three
My mother looked every bit like she’d had a sleepless night, with waxy skin and dark, bruiselike hollows under her eyes that she hadn’t even tried to disguise. She was still in her robe, sipping herbal tea. She’d made coffee for me; I poured some of that, then got her to stop fussing around and sat her down in the dining room, trying to focus on this new development.
“Erica went out with friends last night,” Audrey said. “She was on the Golden State, going home by herself, and somebody ran her off the road.”
“But she didn’t actually get hit, and s
he wasn’t hurt?” I’d looked Erica’s car over quickly as I came in, and it seemed intact.
“No. She skidded onto the shoulder, but she was able to stop all right.”
“Did she call the cops? Go to a hospital?”
Audrey shook her head unhappily. “She just came here instead.”
In other words, Erica had been drinking and probably had drugs with her. Her brush with the near disaster of her hot tub video didn’t seem to have slowed her down any.
“She still should see a doctor,” I said. “She might have whiplash or an internal injury she doesn’t know about.”
“I told her the same thing, but she wouldn’t listen. Maybe she will to you. I just checked on her, and she does seem fine; she’s even snoring a little.”
“I don’t suppose she got the other car’s license number?”
“No, she barely saw it. It came up behind her fast, bright lights in her mirror, then swung around and cut her off.”
It made my fingers tighten with the urge to get them around the asshole’s neck, but it was one of those things you just had to live with. There were plenty of those people out there pulling that kind of shit, and L.A. had more than its share. Thank God Erica had had the presence of mind—or sheer good luck—to keep her car under control.
“Let her sleep while we talk. Then we’ll see how she’s feeling,” I said. “Now, what about you?”
Audrey leaned forward with her elbows on the table, pressing her fingertips against her temples and closing her eyes.
“Just these past couple of days, I’ve been getting these blinding headaches,” she said. “Not really even headaches—they’re like sudden flashes. They only last a minute or two, but the feeling is so awful. I’ve never had migraines, and I don’t think this is like that, anyway. I’m starting to wonder if it’s a tumor. Or—after what happened with Nick, you know—if there’s some kind of genetic weakness in the family that’s suddenly showing up.”
She opened her eyes again. They widened when she saw my face.
“Tom—what’s the matter?” she said, reaching out quickly to clasp my hand. “You look like you’re about to fall over.”
Fifty-Four
I clamped down on myself and convinced her that I was fine, only concerned about her—the last thing she needed was for me to melt down—and I stayed there another hour and a half, putting on an acting performance that Lisa would have been proud of.
Eventually, Erica came downstairs, scantily clad as usual in a thin wrapper. She assured me that she’d been wearing her seat belt last night and hadn’t banged against the steering wheel or anything like that, and that her Audi had an excellent headrest. Still, I insisted that they both go in for medical checkups ASAP, and Audrey promised to make the appointments Monday. They both seemed steadier when I left, not because I’d actually helped but just from having someone else around.
I wasn’t doing any better. There was no doubt in my mind about what had happened—this was another warning message.
Audrey was getting headaches because somebody had slipped her a dose of those goddamned nanoparticles. They’d had plenty of time and opportunity to do it. She brought in fresh flowers from the garden almost every day, inhaling them deeply as she clipped them; she regularly went out to lunch with her women friends at restaurants where the air was filled with perfume and food aromas; the supplies of the weekly cleaning lady could have been spiked. They might have given Erica a noseful, too—God knew that would have been easy enough—but the threat to her was more direct, a way of driving it home that they could operate on that plane, too.
But with my mother, it meant straight out that Cynthia—or whoever she really was—did still have access to a transmitter that would activate the nanos.
Everyone who had inhaled them was at her mercy.
I could try going to authorities, but I was sure she was on the alert for that and ready to strike at the first sign of it. Drop out of sight, and persuade Audrey, Erica, and Lisa to come with me? Realistically, it would be almost impossible to pull off to begin with, and how long could we hide from Venner?
I even thought seriously about just flat killing her—staking her out with a deer rifle or shooting her point-blank with the unregistered snub-nosed .38 that my old man had half jokingly called his throw-down gun. But even if I could bring myself to do it, even if I got the chance, it was a near guarantee that I’d end up dead or in prison—and no guarantee that Venner or someone else from that shadow world wouldn’t retaliate against my family.
I was starting to feel like a character in a Greek tragedy—that I’d brought a curse on my entire line, and we were doomed to be hounded by furies until we were ground out of existence.
I was coming to the end of the long driveway at my mother’s house, about to turn onto the street, when my phone rang. The caller ID was Lisa’s.
“Hey, baby,” I said, trying to sound perky. “Sorry to bail on you—things seem settled down now.”
“I’m glad to hear that, Tom,” a woman’s voice answered.
It wasn’t Lisa. It was Cynthia.
My jaw clenched so tight I could hardly get more words out.
“Where’s Lisa?” I said.
“She’s not available right now. If you and I can come to terms, you’ll hear from her later.”
“What do you want?” I exploded. “I’ll do anything I can. Just leave my family alone.”
“You sound so much more reasonable than last time we met,” Cynthia said mockingly. “All right, you do have something I want. If I get it, I’ll consider the score even and I’ll never trouble you again. Go straight home and wait for another message. Don’t even think about doing anything stupid—no stops on the way, no phone calls, no nothing. If you do, I’ll know.”
The phone clicked off.
I drove on home, and for the rest of that interminable day, through the afternoon and into the evening, I waited.
Finally, with night settled in and the city again a vast grid of lights, my cell phone made the pinging sound of an incoming text message.
It was from Lisa’s phone again.
I’M ON FILM SET CANT EXPLAIN BUT THINGS VERY WEIRD
PLEASE COME
I opened my safe, got out my father’s old S&W .38 Terrier, and loaded it with five short thick rounds. Then I headed out the door.
Fifty-Five
Tonight, when I drove my Land Cruiser up onto the ridgetop overlooking the Lodge, the valley floor below was completely unlit. I could still see fairly well—the sky was clear, the moon edging toward half full, and I’d driven the last couple of miles with my headlights off to let my eyes adjust. But there was no hint of where Cynthia was or what to expect.
I’d gone through dozens of scenarios in my mind, and thought long and hard about sneaking in on foot. But in the end, I had to believe that she had surveillance set up to anticipate any move I could make, and that I’d only get somebody hurt—maybe Lisa and definitely me.
There was nothing to do but keep going. I eased the pistol out from under the seat and slipped it into my back pocket, then drove on down the last stretch of road, trying to keep my breathing slow and calm.
I was just starting across the meadow when a little red dot of light appeared on the dashboard in front of me. It moved from there to my chest, shoulder, then out of my field of vision. I could almost feel it crawling up my neck.
Cynthia’s voice came from the woods nearby through my open window.
“That’s just what you think it is, Tom. Nothing stupid, remember? Cut the engine, leave the keys, and get out.”
I couldn’t see her—she seemed to be off in the trees to my left. Her tone was as matter-of-fact as if she were a nurse telling me to make a fist while she probed for a vein to draw blood.
I did what she said. The red dot of the laser sight danced almost playfully around my upper body as I got out and stood up. The pistol felt like a lead brick in my pocket.
“Turn on the headlights and walk in
front of them,” she said. “Undress and put your clothes on the hood.”
I did. It was one thing to be at somebody’s mercy like that. It was another to be there naked.
“Not bad,” she said, with a mocking edge. “It’s a shame we don’t get along. Now walk forward ten steps, lie facedown, spread your arms and legs.”
I did that, too. With my face pressed against the cool, weedy earth, I watched her shape emerge from the shadows of the tree line. She was dressed entirely in black leather—boots, pants, and jacket, her motorcycle outfit—and carrying a wicked-looking, high-caliber Parabellum automatic pistol with a sound suppressor on the muzzle. She was also wearing latex surgical gloves. She went through the clothes with her left hand, keeping the gun trained on me with her right, all with practiced ease. It only took her a few seconds to find the .38.
“Really, Tom,” she said, shaking her head in exasperation. “If it wasn’t so pathetic, I’d be angry.”
I was finally jarred into speaking. “What did you expect—I’d gift-wrap myself?”
She walked over to me with unhurried, measured steps, and stopped between my outstretched legs. Then she moved her boot toe up against my ass and pressed it down on my testicles—not hard enough to crush them, but plenty hard enough. My lips peeled back from my teeth and my fingers dug into the ground.
“That should give you some idea of what a bullet there would feel like,” she said. “Any more surprises, you’ll get one—that’s a promise. So tell me now.”
“Nothing,” I said through clenched teeth.
“Nobody knows you’re here?”
“No.”
She stepped away. “Get dressed.”
I lurched to my feet and clumsily pulled my clothes on. While I did, Cynthia faded back toward the tree line.
“You know, Tom, I’ve really liked being in the film business,” she said. “The ordinary world can be so dull and predictable, but in movieland, anything can happen. This is your chance to be a hero and save a damsel in distress. You’ll find her at that little bridge over the stream, right where you first met her. Don’t keep her waiting.”
