“LET’S GO TO the Bat Cave.”
The Bat Cave was the spare bedroom in Patrice’s basement apartment. The moment after Apollo separated from William Wheeler, he called Patrice and asked to come by. Again, it took almost two hours to get to the apartment. Dana let Apollo in. She seemed skittish, wouldn’t meet his eyes.
“I’m glad you called my mom,” Apollo told her. “I know you were trying to help.”
As soon as he said this, she relaxed and offered to warm up some dinner for him, but Apollo had no appetite. Dana stared into Apollo’s face—his furiously vibrant eyes—and understood something had come up, much bigger than a rare book. Then Patrice led them both to the Bat Cave.
Such a small room, this spare bedroom. It seemed even smaller because of the wood paneling. The dull walls ate the light, leaving the room in gloom. The shaggy brown carpeting didn’t help. It was like being inside a Wookiee’s armpit. And poor Patrice, the ceiling couldn’t have been more than six and a half feet high. If he went on his tiptoes, his head would go through the ceiling panels. With Patrice, Dana, and Apollo all together in here, it felt like they were stuck in a broom closet.
Not to mention the other behemoth lined up against one wall.
“I give you Titan,” Patrice said, with the reverence of a rabbi opening his synagogue’s ark to reveal the Torah scrolls.
“Thirty-two gigabytes of DDR3-1866 RAM, 4.7 gigahertz processing speed, an Intel Core i7-3970x processor, storage capacity of two terabytes, a 16x Asus DVD-RW drive, three 27-inch display monitors, and I even got a mouse that’s shaped like a grenade.”
Dana went to a corner, under the room’s one small window, where they had a space heater. She turned a knob on the edge, and the heater buzzed faintly, and then the coils inside glowed orange.
When Patrice turned the computer on, the three—three!—large monitors burned bright blue for just a moment as the system booted up. It felt as if Apollo was standing behind a military jet and its three engines were about to spit fire. He actually stepped backward.
Dana put one arm out and stopped him from moving any farther. “You don’t want to set your pants on fire, do you?” she asked, pointing down at the space heater, the glowing coils. Then she reached out and took Apollo’s left hand in hers. “What’s this?” She touched his middle finger. A piece of red string had been tied around it.
“It was Emma’s,” Apollo said. “I had time after I called Patrice. I went home. I found this.”
“And you put it on?” Dana asked.
“I tied it on and made a wish,” Apollo told her. “Just one wish.”
Dana scanned up from the finger to Apollo’s eyes. “I don’t want to know what you wished for.”
“No,” Apollo said, pulling his hand free. “You don’t.”
Patrice cleared his throat theatrically so Apollo would turn back to him and his computer.
“You and me are old enough to remember that War Games movie, right? Ferris Bueller was in it. This rack right here is more powerful than that whole fucking supercomputer. That shit was so big, they had to hide it in a mountain! Mine fits in the spare bedroom of a basement apartment in Queens.”
On the center screen, a small box demanded a passcode. Patrice leaned over to type, but before he did, he blocked the keyboard from Apollo and Dana’s view.
Apollo looked to Dana. She leaned close. “I know the password anyway.”
“No you don’t,” Patrice snapped back. “I change it once a week.”
Dana slapped him gently on the head. “But then you have to write it in your phone because you can’t remember it because you change it every week.”
Patrice sat up straight in his chair. “So you saying you go through my phone?”
Dana patted Apollo’s arm. “Let’s stay on topic here. Apollo needs our help.”
Patrice sighed and turned back to the computer. This incredibly powerful system sat on a silver-powder-coated metal computer desk that cost $78.89 at Lowe’s.
Dana got to her feet, holding a serving tray in one hand. She went to Patrice and touched his shoulder gently. He leaned back and puckered his lips; she leaned close and kissed him.
Patrice cleared his throat. “Now, did this dude have any actual proof Emma was alive?” He gestured to a metal folding chair leaning against a wall.
“He sent me a video,” Apollo said, slipping his phone out of his pocket. “But my phone can’t play it.”
Patrice looked at the device with a grimace. “It’s in Flash, I guess. You could download a Puffin Browser to get around that. Or you could just jailbreak your phone.”
While Apollo knew that Patrice had just spoken three sentences in English, there was very little chance he’d understood even one of them. He lifted the phone higher, closer to Patrice’s face. “My phone won’t play it,” he repeated.
“Just forward it to me.”
Patrice watched as Apollo did this. Meanwhile Dana slipped the serving tray under the space heater, a fireguard between the machine and the cheap carpet.
“The good news is that I did my due diligence on William Wheeler before we sold him the book.”
Apollo looked up from his phone. “Like a background check?”
“We were about to sell him the most expensive book either of us will probably ever come across. Damn right I wanted to be sure he was at least using his real name!”
Apollo hit send on the phone. “And?”
“William Webster Wheeler. Owns a house in Forest Hills, on 86th Road. He served in the air force as a programming specialist for two years in the early eighties. After that he worked in Charleston for the Medical University of South Carolina until 1996. Then he started making his way back to the Northeast. He was born in Levittown. And he’s been working as an application developer for a financial services company.”
“Damn,” Apollo said. “You really did snoop.”
Patrice patted his belly with pride. “Want to know how much money he’s got in his checking account?”
“You know that, too?”
“I’m just bullshitting. But if I wanted to find out, I could. Me and the Titan.” He patted his keyboard as if it were a lion’s paw. “But at least the dude is who he says he is. That means something these days. You sent me that video yet?”
Patrice didn’t wait for an answer, just opened his browser.
“He’ll get a boat for tomorrow night,” Apollo said. “Promised to drive me out on the river and drop me off if we can find the right island. There are only nine in the East River, and I’ve already spent two months on one of them. So that leaves eight.”
“But why is this guy helping you?” Dana asked, leaning against Patrice’s shoulder. “What does it matter to him?”
The space heater’s coiled rods glowed so brightly now, they almost looked red.
“That’s why I wanted to come to Patrice before I went. Maybe Wheeler’s sympathetic. Maybe he’s out of his mind. Maybe he’s planning to shoot me and dump my body in the water.”
“Maybe all three,” Dana said.
“But it doesn’t matter. If she’s alive, I want to find her.” He held up his hand and brushed the red string with his thumb again. “I want to find her.”
“And you’ll bring her to the police?” Dana asked.
“No,” Apollo said. “That’s not what I’ll do.”
Patrice flashed a look at Apollo, then turned back, clicked on the email.
“This looks like camera footage from off the street,” Patrice said. “Like NYPD surveillance shit. CCTV type of stuff. This dude’s friends did some serious digging.”
Patrice clicked play. He expanded the box until it filled about a quarter of the screen. The same screen played on all three monitors. Patrice, Dana, and Apollo crowded close to each other and watched.
APOLLO WATCHED A ghost on Patrice Green’s computer screen. Three months since he’d last seen her alive, and now here she was.
The ghost of Emma Valentine walked freely down some
Manhattan avenue. Hard to say exactly where, much farther downtown than Washington Heights, in the valley of skyscrapers, close to Wall Street. She moved amid the foot traffic. If people saw her, they didn’t act like it. They moved around her as if she was a cloud of bad atmosphere. Apollo could see people actually turning away as she moved by them. Looking anywhere but at her. People pulled out their phones rather than putting their eyes on her. Was this purposeful or just some natural allergy to Emma’s haunted presence? In this way she walked unseen.
She wore a long winter jacket that came all the way down to her ankles. It really looked as though she glided down the sidewalks, across the streets.
Was it the same day that she’d killed Brian?
When one camera lost her, another kicked in, from a new angle, farther down the block. This wasn’t a continuous shot but a series of them, cut together by William Wheeler and his hundred friends. At times Emma had just left the shot, at times she hadn’t quite entered. This gave the feeling that Apollo was stalking after her now. Like she might be walking this route, in downtown New York City, right this minute. Only the time stamp in the corner of the screen reminded him this was old news.
The skyscrapers fell away as Emma approached open water. Now Apollo knew where she was. South Street Seaport. She walked to Pier 16, location of the New York Water Taxi. The location of their last date night as a happy couple. Apollo had been the one to take her there. Was this how she’d known where to find it, and how late at night it still ran? He felt punched in the throat. This was how she had escaped Manhattan Island? For the cost of an access pass? Thirty dollars to disappear.
But where would she even get the money? When she slammed a hammer into the side of his face, she hadn’t seemed in the right mind to remember her wallet.
Emma waited on the pier. A mass of others, tourists, kids in their twenties, crowded the line for the next trip. And from out of the crowd appeared one woman. This woman walked up to Emma directly and put her arms around her, though Emma remained stiff in the embrace. When the water taxi arrived, the woman let go of Emma and led her to the end of the long line. They waited patiently until they reached the taxi. The woman flashed two passes, and then the pair climbed on board.
Apollo watched in awed humiliation as the water taxi pulled away from the pier.
Of course, he’d recognized the woman who helped Emma escape. He’d just been with her in Chinatown. That morning he’d given her a check for ten thousand dollars.
Patrice and Dana recognized Kim, too. Neither one of them would look at Apollo—they only dropped their heads.
Meanwhile Apollo took out his phone. He texted William.
I need that boat.
I want your help.
BRIAN WEST WAS at the front door. Apollo heard him knocking from the living room. Apollo walked to the door, and the knocking only grew louder. He reached his hand in the air and turned all three locks of the apartment door. A man stood in the hallway. It wasn’t Brian West yet. This man’s face looked blue. He had no nose or mouth, only eyes. He pushed his way inside. The man knelt down in front of Apollo and pulled off his blue skin. Underneath it was his daddy’s face. Apollo smiled and hugged Brian West. Brian West held his son tight. Brian West shut the door and locked it. Brian West walked through the apartment calling Lillian Kagwa’s name. Brian West went into the bathroom and turned on the shower. Hot water ran in the tub. Apollo sat with his father on the couch in the living room and together they watched TV. The Smurfs.
On the television, an old man in a long black cloak cackled in his laboratory; a maroon cat perched on a tabletop snickered along. What were their names again? Gargamel and Azrael. They wanted to destroy the Smurfs.
The hot water ran in the bathroom for so long that steam filled the room. Soon the steam crept down the hallway. A fog filled the living room.
On the television the Smurfs sang together. They didn’t see Gargamel and Azrael were hiding in the woods waiting to pounce.
Brian West stood and picked Apollo up. He held the boy tightly. He said, “You’re coming with me.”
He walked into the mist.
CHILD’S PLAY WAS docked at the Locust Point Yacht Club in the Bronx. Why was it in the Bronx instead of Long Island? Well, a round-trip rental turned into a one way, and then the card used for billing turned out to be a card reported stolen, and things only got messier from there. William didn’t sound too pleased, but still he agreed to help Apollo. William thought they’d better travel under cover of night because their route might be too conspicuous to Coast Guard or NYPD boats during the day. William texted an address and meeting time and a smiley face emoji.
Apollo spent that whole day inside his place, and only a near-mythic level of self-restraint kept him from traveling out to Brooklyn to find Kim Valentine and burn her building to the ground. But if Kim could squirrel her sister away from the city just hours after Emma murdered her own child, then why wouldn’t she warn Emma now? Even if he showed up with a phalanx of FBI agents and police, what would stop Kim from sending one last message to her sister? RUN. Apollo had to weigh the short-term satisfaction of confronting his sister-in-law against the chance of finding Emma on that island. Really there was no contest. So he stayed away from Kim. The only revenge he took was to call his bank and cancel the check he’d written her. Small consolation.
He tried watching movies, but he couldn’t watch movies. He tried to eat but couldn’t taste a damn thing. He checked online to find the next Survivors meeting—it would be at the JCC of Staten Island. He marked that he’d be attending. He’d claim there’d been some mix-up if his PO asked, but at least he’d have shown the intent to go. But being online, and with hours to wait until he met William, only led Apollo back to the “Tribute to Baby Brian” page. As soon as he got there, he told himself to log off. As he scrolled through the comments, he told himself to log off. He did not log off.
Which is how he came across a comment, posted just the day before, by a prolific poster who used the name Kinder Garten. Another obviously fake account. Really only Kinder Garten and Green Hair Harry posted with any regularity anymore. Kinder Garten wrote terrible shit. Cruel. The newest post might’ve been the worst one yet:
“Dinner plans tonight. A meal inspired by Baby Brian. BOILED VEGETABLES!”
That was it. That was enough.
Apollo logged off.
—
Locust Point Yacht Club sounds pretty damn fancy, but its members were not what some might expect. Mechanics and truck drivers; building supers and nurse technicians. The club sat behind a tall, rusted gate. The words LOCUST POINT YACHT CLUB were painted in red letters on the side of a gray railing just inside the fence line. The clubhouse looked like a crab shack. Weeds grew up through a boat hull that had been abandoned in the dirt. A series of old fishing boats bobbed and bopped in the water. William Wheeler stood on the deck of the Child’s Play. He waved his cellphone, and in the dark the bright display glowed like a lantern. William helped Apollo onboard, and then he turned on the engines.
“There’s a life jacket on top of the livewell,” William said. When Apollo only watched him quietly, he pointed to the stern. “There at the back.”
Apollo grabbed his life jacket, and the boat’s engine guzzled and chugged. Apparently this was a good sound.
William returned to the console. “Now you’re going to cast off the bow and stern lines. There and there. Untie them from the dock. Current’s pushing us away from the dock, so that should be all we need to do.”
William said it and it was so. The boat drifted as the engine idled. Once the boat had floated an arm’s length from the dock, William shifted and slowly left the shoreline.
“You made that seem pretty easy,” Apollo said.
William looked back and laughed softly. “You remember how hard it is for me to lie? Come here.”
Apollo joined him at the console, an iPad perched beside the gauges. William let go of the throttle and tapped the screen. A video began
. Silly synthesizer music played, then a woman in a striped black and white shirt appeared.
“Welcome and congratulations on joining the wonderful world of boating,” she said. “I’m going to take you through the steps of casting off from a dock. First be sure…”
William tapped the screen, and the woman stopped midsentence. “I’ve been here since about noon,” he said. “Teaching myself how to drive a boat.”
“Thank you,” Apollo said quietly. “Really. Thank you.”
William waved off the words, half sheepish and half proud. He guided the sloop into Hammond Creek. They’d have to ride out past SUNY Maritime College, on the tip of the Bronx, then come back around, under the Throgs Neck Bridge to enter the East River. The lights of the Bronx receded behind them, and in the far distance Long Island’s low-slung landmass appeared as a far shadow in the night. Apollo scanned that distance and thought he saw, for an instant, a green light, but he turned away from it, dismissing it as an illusion. He faced forward instead. The sound of their engine emptied into the dark, open sky.
“We could still turn back,” William said. He sounded as if he hoped Apollo would say yes.
Apollo didn’t speak to William. That’s all the answer he would get. As they chugged forward, Apollo raised his left hand. He wore the red string on his middle finger and his wedding ring on the next. He turned his wedding ring twice, and then, with a twist, he pulled it off. He casually tossed the ring into the river. The red string his only vow now.
THE THROGS NECK Bridge lit up like a constellation, it loomed like a god. Both Apollo and William held their breath as they approached it. William cut the motor low. Apollo felt, viscerally, why ancient people stood in awe before mountains and glaciers. To strain your neck, looking up that high, and realize you weren’t seeing all of it, couldn’t see all of it. The instinct to worship overcame him, and he lowered his head until they’d passed under the bridge. Once they did, William kicked the motor higher, and they continued.
The Changeling Page 20
