Bad Move

by Linwood Barclay

  I'm aware that it may not be normal for men in their forties to collect such toys, but then again I don't make my living in a normal way. Being an author of more conventional fiction would be unusual enough, but writing SF puts you in a different category altogether. Science fiction writers don't find their books reviewed in Time or Newsweek or The New York Times, although the latter has its token science fiction column in the book section every couple of weeks. I've never understood the ghettoization. Science fiction offers cutting-edge social commentary, inventive allegory, a grand vision of where our current social and political trends are taking us, an exploration of the human condition told through high-tech metaphor. And, of course, little monsters with razor-sharp teeth bursting out of people's chests.

  I'd been putting the finishing touches on my fourth book, and had hopes, as all authors do, that this would be the one that would once again earn me some critical attention, even if only in the cozy SF community, but in the pit of my stomach knew it wouldn't be. The novel would be published to little fanfare. There would be virtually no publicity. The author tour would consist of two magazine interviews by phone. It would be ordered by the major book chains in such disappointing numbers as to make it impossible to create an impressive display of copies near the front of the store. Instead, it would be put back in the regular stacks, spine out, on a shelf reachable only by NBA stars, thereby guaranteeing that no one would ever find it. The publisher would arrange one book signing, not at one of the big chain bookstores, but at a mall store, where I would be seated behind a table in view of passing shoppers weighed down with Gap and Banana Republic bags and carrying containers of vinegar-soaked New York Fries, who would wonder who I was but not care enough to stop and ask, and I would smile and nod as they passed, and then, miracle of miracles, a middle-aged couple would slow as they walked by, pause and look at the display of my books, turn, and approach, and my heart would begin to swell, that someone was actually going to talk to me, and maybe even buy a book, which I would be delighted to sign, to make out personally, even. And the woman would say to me, “Do you know where the washrooms are?”

  I actually thought this new book might have a chance. It was a sequel to my first novel, Missionary, a title my publisher really liked because it would make people think that, at some level, it was about fucking, but which was actually about missionaries of the future. Or more precisely, reverse missionaries. The time is several hundred years from now, and religion has been outlawed on Earth. Faith has been overtaken by technology. Computers are God. The missionaries decide to take their message to other worlds, to persuade civilizations deemed more primitive than ours to abandon their beliefs in supernatural beings and embrace the computer chip. Things go badly when our know-it-all Earthlings, in the act of setting ablaze a house of worship on the planet Endar, have the life crushed out of them by a huge hand reaching down from the clouds.

  I'm not a particularly religious person, but this book found its way into Christian bookstores as well as the mainstream ones, did reasonably well, and it was that book's success that has kept me going since. It seemed odd to see Missionary in the window of a religious bookshop, displayed alongside God Is My Anchorman, by a noted network news executive, and the collected scripts of Touched by an Angel. The book probably never would have made it there if the shop owners knew my editor thought its title would make people think about fucking. He's not a particularly religious person either, but it was his irreverence that prompted me to tentatively call my new book Position. My second and third books tanked (number two, Slime, was about nasty sewer creatures that pass among us by disguising themselves as cable company executives; and number three, Blown Through Time, about a guy who goes back in time to keep the inventor of the hot-air hand dryer from being born, had real potential, I thought, but went absolutely nowhere), so my decision to revisit my missionaries was an easy one. They seemed my best hope of coming up with another modest hit.

  I was in the newspaper business when Missionary came out. I'd started out as a two-way, a reporter-photographer, which meant that most out-of-town assignments went to me. No need to buy two airline tickets for a reporter and a photographer—one seat would do. Although I liked shooting pictures, I grew weary of being on the road so much, and when a position became available at the city hall bureau, I applied. This, as it turned out, was a mistake. I became an expert in everything municipal. I knew all there was to know about planning acts and planning boards and official plans and amendments and amendments to amendments and zoning restrictions and parking enforcement and snow removal and zero-based budgeting, and there were times when I thought I'd like to take a copy of the city's collected bylaws, tie it around my neck, and throw myself off the pier at the foot of Majesty Street. I began to wonder if maybe journalism just wasn't my thing, and I plotted an exit strategy. My first book, written late at night and on weekends, became my way out.

  The money from Missionary didn't go as far as I'd hoped, which meant taking the odd freelance assignment. I'd written articles for The Metropolitan (some futurist stuff, where the city would be in fifty years, that kind of thing), some magazine pieces. But with a nonexistent mortgage on the new house, we figured we could manage fairly well on Sarah's income until my next ship came in.

  So I worked from home, was there when the kids left for school and when they got home, and could be counted on most days to give Sarah a kiss goodbye before she left for the paper. It didn't look as though that particular service would be required this day. All Sarah said as she headed out the door to the car was a simple “See ya.” Enough to let me know, officially, that she was out of the house, and that she wasn't interested in any precommute snuggling. I watched from behind the curtain as she got out her keys, opened up the Camry, backed down the drive, and disappeared down the street.

  writer's block arrived before noon, so around eleven, on the way back from my walk along Willow Creek, I swung by the sales office for Valley Forest Estates. Phone calls hadn't worked. Maybe a face-to-face encounter would be more effective where honoring a new-home warranty was involved.

  The office was just as you drove into the neighborhood, a couple of mobile homes stitched together with an elegant front built around it as a disguise. I had a feeling that once the development was complete, they would pack up their fancy desks and high-tech photocopying machines and architectural models of the subdivision, rip out the trailers, and build one last shoddy house on the lot where it stood.

  Okay, maybe that's unfair. We'd had some problems with the house, but surely they could be fixed. I would turn on the charm with these dickheads.

  As I entered the sales office, I glanced at the wood-paneled wall, where pictures of the various sales staff and company executives hung. I was looking for the guy who sold us the house. There he was. Don Greenway. The man our street was named for. Every day we basked in his celebrity. It was like living on Tom Cruise Boulevard and meeting Tom Cruise.

  I approached the reception desk.

  “Hello,” said a perky blonde woman in a white blouse, her hair falling down around her shoulders. “Welcome to Valley Forest Estates.”

  “Hi,” I said. “I wonder, is Mr. Greenway in?”

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  “No. I was just hoping I might be able to catch him. I was passing by.”

  “Were you thinking of purchasing a Valley Forest home? Did you want to see some of our brochures or take a look at our model homes?” She smiled the whole time she was talking, like an Entertainment Tonight reporter.

  “No, we already own a home here,” I said. And the receptionist's smile instantly vanished.

  “Oh, I see. And what did you want?”

  “Well, we've had a couple of problems and I wanted to see about getting them fixed.”

  “Oh.” I had the sense that I was not the first person to come in here with a complaint. “Well, Mr. Greenway is very busy today, but if you'd like to leave your phone number with me, I'll make sure that he gets b
ack to you at his earliest possible convenience.”

  “Well, that sounds great, but we had some trouble before, when we first moved in, with water seeping into the basement? And I had to drop by here several times before anyone came to take a look at it. And I've been in here before about our upstairs window, how I have to caulk it outside all the time, but the wind and the rain still manage to come through, and now our leaky shower has caused part of our kitchen ceiling to discolor, so there's this big stain, you know? If it's all right with you, I'll just wait around awhile until Mr. Greenway becomes available.”

  “Well, Mr.— What is your name, sir?”

  “Walker. Zack Walker.”

  “Mr. Walker, I assure you, Valley Forest Estates takes any problems you might have very seriously, and I will convey to Mr. Greenway your concerns and—”

  The door to the office where Sarah and I had signed the deal to buy our house opened and out stepped Don Greenway, all five-foot-six of him, about forty-five, a bit of a paunch held back nicely by keeping the jacket of his expensive suit buttoned.

  “Stef,” he said to the receptionist, “I wonder if you could get me the papers for—”

  “Mr. Greenway,” I said cordially, extending my hand. “I'm so glad I was able to catch you.”

  Stef said, “Yes, this gentleman, Mr. Walker, was waiting to see you. I explained to him that you were quite busy today but that we could set something up.”

  “It'll only take a minute,” I said.

  “You look familiar to me,” Greenway said. “You're on my street, at the corner of Chancery Park.”

  “That's right,” I said. “My wife Sarah and I.”

  “You went for the upgraded carpet underpadding.”

  Whoa. He was good. “That was us,” I said. “I wonder if you have two seconds.”

  “I'm really on my way to a showing, but sure, go ahead.”

  I told him about our most recent problem, the stained ceiling in the kitchen, caused by, I believed, water leaking from an improperly tiled and caulked shower stall on the floor above. “I think someone needs to come in and redo the shower, and once that's done, fix the hole in the drywall in the kitchen. I understand these things are still covered for two years, if I remember the contract we signed and all.”

  Greenway considered what I'd said. “You sure you've been using the shower properly?” he asked. “Because if you're not, that could be your problem.”

  “Using it improperly? We turn it on, stand in there, and shower. If there's a wrong way to do that, we haven't figured it out yet.”

  Greenway shook his head, suggesting I didn't understand. “Pretty long showers?” he asked. “I seem to recall you saying you have teenagers? You know how they can be, letting the water run and run and run.”

  “Look,” I said, starting to bristle, “I don't see what that has to do with anything. Water's leaking out and wrecking the ceiling in the kitchen. And I think you guys should do something about it. This isn't the first time we've had a problem, you know, and I don't exactly think we're the only ones in the neighborhood who've been having problems.” I thought of Earl, whose windows were often fogged up with condensation. I'd been meaning to ask whether he'd launched a complaint of his own. “My neighbor across the street, for example, all his windows, they've got moisture or something trapped between the panes, you can't see through them, and—”

  “I don't have to listen to this. By your own admission, you've acknowledged that your teenagers are running that shower virtually twenty-four hours a day, so it's no wonder some water may have spilled over the sill and that's why you're having the problem you've described.”

  “By my own admission? I never said that. You just said that. What's the deal here?”

  Greenway's cheeks were starting to get red, and a vein in his forehead was swelling. He was raising a finger to me, about to say something else, when he saw someone over my shoulder coming through the front doors. Now the finger was moving away from me and pointing to the newcomer.

  “You get the hell out of here!” Greenway said.

  I whirled around to see who he was talking to. I recognized him instantly as Samuel Spender, still dressed in his jeans and hiking boots, but this time wearing a white cotton shirt. He glared angrily at Greenway.

  “I know what you're up to, you son of a bitch,” Spender said. “You think you can buy them off but you can't.”

  “Get out! Get the hell out!”

  Stef, the receptionist, was on her feet. “Mr. Spender, I'm going to have to ask you to leave or we'll have to call the police.”

  “Go ahead and call them,” Spender said. “I got lots to tell them.”

  “You have nothing but rumor and lies,” Greenway spat at him. The vein on his forehead was a garden hose now, ready to blow. “You're out to ruin people's jobs, to end their livelihoods, to save a few fucking tadpoles, you fucking moron.”

  “It's salamanders, not tadpoles, you jackass, but you wouldn't give a shit either way, would you?”

  Greenway started to lunge for Spender, and instinctively I stepped in to hold him back. He broke free of my grasp, which really didn't amount to much, but my brief interference seemed to have been enough to make him reconsider any sort of physical attack.

  Spender hadn't stepped back when Greenway appeared ready to attack. He looked ready to fight if he had to, and if those hiking boots were any clue, he got a lot more exercise than Greenway and could probably clean his clock.

  “You can't buy me,” Spender said. “I'm not for sale.” And then he left, kicking the trailer door wide open on his way out. Greenway stuck an index finger down between his neck and shirt collar, moved it around in a futile attempt to let in some air. He reached inside his jacket for a handkerchief and blotted his cheeks and forehead.

  “You should sit down,” Stef told him.

  “Get me Carpington, and then Mr. Benedetto,” he said, went back into his office, and closed his door. Stef got back in position behind her desk and picked up the receiver, then noticed I was still standing there.

  “What about my shower?” I asked.

  She looked at me for only a second, then started making calls for Greenway.

  back home, i plunked myself down in the computer chair, and sat, staring at the screen, for a full ten minutes, working up my nerve. Then I called Sarah.

  “City. Sarah here.”

  “Hi. It's me.”

  It was like I'd placed a long-distance call to the North Pole. You could feel the chill coming through the line.

  “What,” Sarah said.

  “I just wanted to say again that I'm sorry.”

  Nothing.

  “Did I tell you about that guy who was going around the neighborhood with a petition?”

  “What guy?”

  “Okay, then I didn't. Some guy, his name's Spender, he's trying to keep Valley Forest from building homes near Willow Creek.”

  “Oh.”

  “Anyway, I ran into him when I was over at the sales office today.”

  “You told them about the mark on the kitchen ceiling?” Now, she was talking.

  “Well, I brought it to their attention, anyway. They might need to be reminded again. They seem to have a lot on their minds over there. It's not that big a job. I might be able to do it myself.”

  “You're joking.”

  “I could take a shot at it. I've got the caulking gun. I could put some stuff in the corners of the shower, see if that took care of the problem.”

  “I've seen what you can do with a caulking gun. There should be a three-day waiting period before people like you are allowed to own one.”

  “Anyway, what I wanted to ask you was, do the names Benedetto and Carpington mean anything to you?”

  “What?” Annoyed again.

  “Benedetto and Carpington. They came up when I was over at the Valley Forest office. Greenway, you know, the guy we bought from? He got in a bit of a discussion with this Spender guy, and those names came up.”

/>   “Well, Carpington, I think, is the councilman for our area,” Sarah said. “In the city, I always used to know the name of my alderman and the school board members, but since we moved I don't keep track as well. But I think that's the guy.”

  “And Benedetto?”

  “That sounds familiar. Hang on—” big sigh “—let me do a library search.” I heard her hitting several more keystrokes, muttering “Come on, come on” under her breath. “Okay, it's Tony Bennett's real name, but that's probably not the guy you're looking for. There's two other hits for this year, four for last, then, like thirty, the year before. Just a sec.” More waiting. “Yeah, here's why I remembered the name. He's some developer-wheeler-dealer guy, government department that was unloading tracts of land had a guy who allegedly, hang on, I'm trying to get another screenload here, okay, allegedly took kickbacks from this Benedetto guy so that his bid for the lands would be accepted. Of course, the bids were ridiculously low, then Benedetto resold the land in parcels and made ten times the money back.”

  “So what happened?”

  “I'm just looking ahead here. Looks like not much. There was some sort of government investigation launched, but you know how those things can go. People forget about it, it never gets wrapped up, who knows. That's it.”

  “Thanks,” I said, paused. “What time you think you'll be home tonight?”

  “Gosh,” Sarah said, “it could be late. I misplaced my keys, so the car's probably stolen, so I could be late.” And she hung up.