Love,
Margo
P.S. I love you.
P.P.S. Shut up.
I looked for more, but that seemed to be the last of the correspondence, and then, even though the water was still running, I heard the bathroom door open. Margo entered the room in a towel and found me standing beside her open luggage.
“Burke just told Gladstone’s dollar-store story on TV,” I said.
“You’ve been through my luggage,” she said.
“How does Burke know Gladstone’s story?”
“I don’t know. Why don’t you ask Gladstone?” she asked, securing her towel, and looking to see if anything had been taken.
“I’d like to,” I said. “That’s why I’m looking for him, instead of running off to Australia,” I said.
Margo pulled back on the netting of her case, where I’d hastily shoved the letters.
“You read my letters,” she said. “Who do you think you are? The NET Recovery Act’s over, Agent Rowsdower.”
“Oh, you know who I am. I haven’t hidden anything. You’re the one who’s a mystery. That’s the problem. I let you into my investigation, into my apartment, and I don’t know a thing about you.”
“And that gives you the right to go through my shit?” I didn’t answer, and she grabbed some clothes from her suitcase with her left hand while she kept the right tight at the top of the towel.
“I needed to know if I was being played,” I said.
“And that’s how you went about it? Fuck you.”
She headed back to the bathroom but stopped after a few steps. “Tell me. How am I playing you? What did you discover besides what kind of underwear I own?”
“That you’re in love.”
“Is that a crime?”
“No, it’s not a crime,” I said, and tried to soften my tone. “Look, I get it. From everything I know and everything I’ve seen, I’m the asshole.”
“Oh, good, so it’s agreed!”
“But I also know you haven’t told me everything. I still believe that. So tell me what I don’t know.”
“I have no idea how Burke knows Gladstone’s dollar-store thing, but instead of putting your paws on my love letters and panties, you might want to accuse Neville? We told him days ago.”
“Let me ask you another question.”
“What?”
“Why is the water still running?”
“Because I’ve been living out of a suitcase for days, and I’m steaming my dress. Now, if the interrogation is over, I’ll be going,” she said, and she did.
It was the second time Margo had left me in anger, and even though I’d been wrong on both occasions, I also knew each departure was preceded by my attempts to pierce beyond the surface. Sure, I was jealous, but not all of this was schoolboy bullshit. There were things I hadn’t discovered. Things she hid with what she offered: jokes, information … she even hid with kindness. I couldn’t see everything I needed. Some things had to be felt.
The good news is the new Internet came back the day she left. With no job, no Margo, and no idea what to do next, I saddled up to my crappy Dell so I could click, refresh, and “investigate” without leaving my chair. I had an email from my cable provider explaining the additional governmental fee I’d be seeing on my bill. It gave estimates of the kind of expenses we could expect, and the downloading of content was monetized like in the old AOL days. Simply being online carried only a small charge, but that amount times all of America was a hell of a lot of money.
The next few days went quickly, filled with Chinese takeout, pizza delivery, and periodic 7-Eleven beer runs. For the first time in literally years, I went four days without shaving, and my stubble came in gray at the sideburns and the tip of my chin. I wondered how long it had been waiting beneath my skin, and when I would have first noticed it if I hadn’t faithfully shaved every morning. I even shaved on weekends so I wouldn’t be slowed down Monday mornings with that snagging two-day growth.
Now that I was no longer keeping FBI hours, I decided to get a laptop so I could take my investigation to bed. Soon after, I woke to a story on Anonymous. They were back in business. Mission accomplished. Not only had they hacked into the Hollywood sign’s surveillance server and obtained the footage of the explosion, they’d put it online. Multiple cameras playing at once showed Gladstone, Jeeves, and Tobey hiding from the spotlight of a black helicopter before splitting up. An incredibly disheveled Gladstone, wearing the hat I now owned, ran down the hill with a metal box while Tobey and Jeeves headed in the opposite direction. And then the most compelling part, some sort of charge fired from the helicopter, exploding the D in “HOLLYWOOD.” A helicopter and fire from above, just like the neighbor reports on the murder of Gladstone’s ex, Romaya Petralia.
The footage ended with a man in a Guy Fawkes mask—possibly the guy from the Bowery Club, although the voice had been distorted—saying, “The three men in this video are Wayne Gladstone, Brendan Tobey, and Dan ‘Jeeves’ McCall. Right now, Tobey and Jeeves sit in a detention center for this act of vandalism they clearly did not commit. They have not been charged for these crimes under any valid form of due process, but are merely being held, indefinitely and without legal counsel, at the Veterans’ Affairs Building in Los Angeles, under this government’s NET Recovery Act. The whereabouts of Gladstone, also known as the Internet Messiah, are unknown, likely in hiding for this crime he clearly did not commit. Anonymous does not know the affiliation of that black helicopter responsible for the destruction, but we will. Anonymous is not directly affiliated with Mr. Gladstone, but we hope he is safe, and we want him to come home.”
I wanted to talk to Margo. I wanted to talk to Gladstone, but I had no way of speaking to either, so I just kept refreshing the news, watching the story get bigger and bigger. I thought about paying a second visit to Tobey and Jeeves, but now that I had no connection to the FBI, there’d be no way to do that. Also, there was no reason to think that would be helpful. While Tobey had been obstinate, Jeeves struck me as somewhat unhinged.
I had paid him a visit on my way back from LAX, Gladstone’s bloody hat still in hand. I wanted information. I wanted to know where Gladstone was and why he ran. I thought a bloody hat might shake Jeeves up, and it did, but not exactly the way I wanted. I entered his cell, which was just a converted office at the Veterans’ Affairs Building with the windows boarded up. He was sitting on his cot with his eyes closed, his prison blues mostly covering his gut.
“Daniel McCall,” I said, deliberately rough.
“Just Dan McCall,” he said. “My name is Dan. But please, call me Jeeves.” He kept his eyes closed, and that really pissed me off, so I threw Gladstone’s hat onto his lap. It startled him. Twice. Not just the impact of the landing, but the sense impression he seemed to catch off it.
“Gladstone?” he asked, eyes suddenly fully open.
“Not quite,” I said, and pulled a seat up to his cot before sitting down on it backwards. “I’m Special Agent Rowsdower.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“But your teeth—”
“I know,” I said. “Your boy Gladstone did a number on me in his little book.”
“Is he all right?” Jeeves asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Is this his blood?” he asked, holding up the hat.
“Look, I didn’t come here to answer your questions, I—”
Just then, Jeeves reached forward quicker than I thought he could and grabbed my right hand. My training brought me to my feet with my left fist cocked. It wasn’t as solid as my right, but I was pretty sure it could stop a librarian. I’d jab his cheek. No reason to break his nose, I thought, but then he spoke.
“You’re having it tested,” he said, and I dropped my fist. “You think it’s Romaya’s. Someone’s killed Gladstone’s ex-wife.”
I sat down, taking my hand back from Jeeves. “Now, Mr. McCall, how would you possibly know that unless Gladstone told you he was going to do
it or … you did it?”
Jeeves wanted to laugh, but he looked like he was seeing Romaya’s dead body as I had, so it ended in kind of a choked cough and left something distasteful in his mouth. “You don’t really believe that,” he said.
“How else?” I asked.
“Well, for one, I’m a psychic, remember? And two, please don’t pull that G-man stuff on me. I’ve held your hand. You don’t believe I’ve hurt anyone. You don’t believe Gladstone’s hurt anyone, and you’re not hunting him like a criminal. You want to know who killed his wife. You want to know what’s going on. And you want something more.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“I’m not sure,” he said, “but would you do me a favor, please, Special Agent Rowsdower?”
“Get you out of this holding cell and into some form of due process?” I asked.
“Well, that will be nice,” he said with a real smile this time, “but something else first. Would you please put this hat on for me?”
“Why?”
“Please?”
I took Gladstone’s fedora and placed it on my head. Jeeves smiled the way men do when their hope is rescued before spoiling.
“What?” I asked.
“I think you will get me out of here, Agent Rowsdower,” he said. “Not today. But you will.”
* * *
And now, months later, it was in motion. In the days that followed Anonymous’s release of the footage, scores of its members, along with Internet Reclamation Movement members, showed up to protest outside the Veterans’ Affairs Building. The Net was back, but the people were still united, and there seemed to be more of them than ever, because Gladstone’s book continued to spread. It was hard to tell who was who. There were guys in black with Guy Fawkes masks and there were lots of people in Gladstone masks too, Margo’s soft launch was certainly helping the cause. There was no way to say who was who, and of course there were people with no costumes and some just in fedoras and jackets. There was also new graffiti on the wall outside the building. Right where Gladstone’s Wi-Fi symbol once stood, there were calls to FREE TOBEY AND JEEVES and BRING GLADSTONE HOME.
The next day, I made a point of staying out of my apartment. Aside from some runs to the local CVS, 7-Eleven, and liquor store, I’d barely been out for weeks. I had told myself this was my vacation. My time to make up for all those personal days I never took over a twenty-year career. But I’d grown a beard. I’d put on at least five pounds. I didn’t look like me, and it was enough. I used to wake up refreshed at six a.m. on seven hours’ sleep, but now it took all my strength to get out the door by ten. My khakis were getting tight, and I traded them for a looser pair of old jeans.
I started my day with a shave and haircut at the barber I’d gone to once a month for the last ten years. Even after I got fired, I still kept going on weekends like a workingman so I didn’t have to talk about why I wasn’t at the office. Today was Tuesday, and I hadn’t seen Vincent in about two months.
“Aaron! Come in,” he said, swatting at his chair with the white towel he kept over his left shoulder. “I barely recognize you. No work today?”
“Morning, Vinnie,” I said, taking the chair. “I’m on vacation.”
Vinnie took good care of me. Hot towel, straight razor, the whole deal. He ran his knife like a pro, and then he buzzed the sides and back really tight. All those new gray hairs fell away into little geriatric tumbleweeds, or were now so short they disappeared. I stared at myself in the mirror as Vinnie combed my hair up top, readying it for cutting. The weight I’d gained had softened my face. I looked less hungry.
“OK,” Vinnie said. “What about the top? Same as usual?” he said, making a part. My hair was only about an inch longer than usual, but it was the longest it had ever been, and with the buzzed sides and back it looked even longer.
“Leave it,” I said.
“Leave it?” Vinnie asked, flipping the length back and forth with his comb so it flopped around like basset-hound ears.
“Yeah, I think so,” I said.
“You’ll look like one of the hipster douchebag kids,” he said, and I laughed.
“Yeah, let’s go for that,” I said. “Time for a change.”
I left Vinnie’s holding Gladstone’s fedora in my hand so I could sport my new cut as I walked Bell Boulevard in my sports jacket and jeans. The only thing keeping me from falling down a Gladstone hole was that I didn’t have a flask on me. I headed north to the shopping center, watching the world work again. The traffic lights were humming, and kids in the stores were on their phones walking with their heads down.
The shopping-center bookstore was now selling a version of Gladstone’s journal for a dollar. They’d dressed it up nicely with a strategically lo-fi cardstock cover. I bought one and noticed no publisher was listed. I doubted this was another part of Margo’s soft launch. More likely she had a lawsuit on her hands, considering she now owned the rights. I wanted to tell her, but had no way to reach her. We met when the Net was down, and given the state of her departure, we didn’t stop to trade emails. I didn’t even have her cell. And even if I did, would I really want to hear the sounds of some Aussie asshole shifting around in the background?
So I walked back down Bell Boulevard. The important thing, it seemed, was to keep moving. That’s what they say, right? This too shall pass, and all of that. I put my hat back on and walked until I hit some miserable sports bar near Northern. It seemed a good choice. On a Tuesday afternoon, a dive bar would be filled with vagrant drunks, but a sports bar had a better chance of housing workingmen. Guys in construction or non-9-to-5 office jobs like my dad used to have. I needed to surround myself with men who wouldn’t be a depressing mirror. So I sat at the bar, ordered a Bud, and watched the Mets. Or at least looked at the TV like I was watching the Mets. My Bronx father had wanted me to be a Yankee fan. I put my fedora on the bar, and remembered it wasn’t mine. It wasn’t even Gladstone’s. It was his grandfather’s. I did a little math, factored in Gladstone’s Judaism, and concluded the owner of the hat was probably a Brooklyn Dodgers fan. Great. The gang was all here.
As I predicted, the bar was filled with construction workers who’d just gotten off a shift. They were dirty and tired, and, as far as I could tell, they were happy. Why not? They’d finished the day’s work, and they probably all knew what tomorrow held. The senior guys, at least, had guaranteed spots, but the younger guys would get there too. If they kept their mouths shut and did what they were told. They’d secure spots. Get the sweet gigs where they’d just watch for an incoming rogue train while two other men soldered a new bolt to the tracks. They noticed the hat. They noticed my hair. They didn’t say anything.
I finished my Bud and ordered another because it seemed more productive than going back home. And then channel 9 went to a commercial and some local news anchor I’d never seen teased the evening news: “The Hollywood sign bombers go free. News at six!” It went back to the game, but I wasn’t waiting.
“Turn it to CNN, please?” I asked the bartender, a late-thirties single mom, sporting chipped red nail polish, dyed blond hair, and an official bar T-shirt tied in a cleavage-sporting knot. (She also wore an open-heart locket around her neck with a pic of her and another one of her son cut and taped to each side. Plus no wedding ring. I was still on the job.) She reached for the remote reflexively in response to my directive, but then turned to the construction workers. They were regulars.
“We’re watching the game, buddy,” the oldest one said. He was about my age. Thirty extra pounds, but slathered on top of a muscled interior developed over years of hauling drywall and cable.
If I were still who I used to be, I would have flashed a badge and declared the television part of official business. Or maybe I would have moved in such a way that my jacket would pull back and reveal my gun. But I didn’t have those options. “This will just take a second,” I said. “It’s important.”
The bartender looked back at him for his ruling, but it wasn�
��t going well so I just took the remote from her hand and changed the channel myself. “Sorry,” I said. “Just a second,” I repeated to her, and I was right. CNN was already deep into the story.
“Today, the NSA released Brendan Tobey and Dan ‘Jeeves’ McCall from detention. The two had been held under the NET Recovery Act since last December as suspects in the bombing of the famous Hollywood sign in Los Angeles.”
The camera cut to footage of Tobey and Jeeves both being escorted out of the Veteran’s Affairs Building. They were thinner than when I’d seen them last, but they were happy. Jeeves had an almost Zen-like contentment as he was pushed through a huge crowd of protesters cheering his release. There was every kind of person in the crowd: Anonymous, Messiah Movement devotees, fans of Gladstone’s book, and, of course, normal people too.
Tobey, flanked by NSA on both sides, searched the crowd so intently I wondered if he was looking for an assassin. Then he shouted, “Come to Santa Monica tonight! I’ll be on Tinder! God bless the Internet!”
My burly friend had had enough. “That’s enough,” he said. “I’m giving you one chance to put the game back on.”
I raised the “one second” finger of my left hand while continuing to hold the remote. I was intent on catching the final words of this story. I even tilted the remote toward the bar TV, indicating the story’s importance. My old L.A. supervisor, Patrick Dunican, was onscreen wearing a black suit and aviator sunglasses while giving a statement. Dunican was from New York like me. NSA had tapped him first and he was only too happy to go out there. L.A. weather afforded more opportunities to wear his sunglasses, no doubt. And then he tapped me to follow him—faithful employee I was.
My construction-worker friend wasn’t impressed with the news, and moved in even closer until our eyes were inches apart. His left shoulder dug into the right side of my chest as he positioned his body for a right hook.
“I’d shove that remote right up your ass,” he said, “but I think you’d like it too much, ya half a fag.”
Reports on the Internet Apocalypse Page 8
