The Arrest

by Jonathan Lethem

  Journeyman smelled, he could swear, coffee.

  Todbaum sat in a low bucket seat in front of the console that operated the car: blinking meters and sonar search screens, camera feeds showing the road and the horsemen and bikers in bug-lensed panorama, any number of mysterious bright-lit buttons and levers. Power. Electricity. Juice.

  Using Time Averaging, Journeyman made the skinny, lined face into that of Peter Todbaum. The last time Journeyman had seen him, Todbaum had been fat. Like so many others, he’d gone on the Arrest diet.

  Like no others anymore, he sat in a grotesque and intoxicating electrical machine, the power source of which was as yet unknown.

  Like no one ever before on Earth, he was Todbaum. And so, seated high in his grotesque machine, steeping in the luxuriant absurdity of their reunion, and oblivious of the hostile men that surrounded his vehicle, Todbaum grinned at Journeyman and said, “I can read your mind, Sandman. You don’t even have to speak.”

  “What am I thinking?” Journeyman replied, helplessly.

  He pressed two fingers against one temple, miming ESP. “You want an espresso,” he said. “You want it like nobody ever wanted a coffee before.”

  “You really have coffee?”

  Todbaum showed Journeyman his demitasse. Empty, but with a fresh grime that made Journeyman’s mouth instantly water. “Just a sec.” He pushed it into a designated niche and pressed a button. A nozzle steamed and guttered. The cup filled. “Hope you don’t mind sharing.”

  15.

  Things Todbaum Told Journeyman About the Blue Streak

  LATER JOURNEYMAN TOOK NOTES FOR his file, collecting things he heard Todbaum say that first day. Not all of them in the fifteen or twenty minutes that he spent nursing the espresso. Some Todbaum told him once they began moving down the road.

  That, yes, Todbaum drove the thing from his home in Malibu. That he set out not quite a full year ago. Ten months.

  That before embarking he’d survived the first three years of the Arrest without leaving Malibu. There, he and several others had for a time employed a private security force and survived as a kind of armed compound.

  That nevertheless, through that time, he’d had the car already prepared, secretly waiting. “When every other fucking paranoid billionaire was sinking it all into private islands or safe houses or private islands with safe houses or underground Dr. Strangelove spider holes, I said to myself, why be a sitting duck? Who in God’s name wants to sit around in meetings, with people you didn’t even like when they had money, deciding what to do the day the last sack of rice runs out?”

  That, as he claimed to have predicted, the private mercenaries had in greed and desperation turned on the Malibu consortium. That only he had gotten out alive.

  That the car could go almost seventy miles per hour on open highway, but that very little open highway was to be found between there and here anymore. That he’d had to go many times deep off-road, across fenced prairie and open desert and into forested mountain passes, all of which the car was equipped to traverse but at minimal speeds.

  That at other times he’d sequestered in a simpatico community for a period of days or even weeks—in Boulder, Colorado; in Bloomington, Indiana; by a rural lake near Oberlin College in Ohio—and shared the benefits of the car with those who by dint of kindness he’d felt deserved it, but that invariably he’d grow rightly paranoid as plots began to encircle him, and so he’d hotfoot it out and on his way.

  That he’d always, no matter the situation he’d discovered in his travels—and “hoo boy were there some stories” he’d tell—had Spodosol Ridge Farm in mind as an ultimate destination. That he’d known, somehow, that he’d find Journeyman and Madeleine intact there, “riding out the Arrest in style.”

  That it was called “the Blue Streak.” That Todbaum had named it after a car in a story that his father used to tell him serially at bedtime. That the bedtime story was obviously extemporaneous—i.e., in Todbaum’s phrase, a “bullshit shaggy-dog thing where he didn’t have a fucking clue about where it was going, day to day.”

  That the Blue Streak was powered by a self-contained nuclear reactor. That it was retrofitted into the exoskeletal structure of a machine that had earlier been used to bore tunnels under the ocean. That it never needed fuel, and had not once needed repair. (“I wouldn’t know the first thing about it. I’d probably just hit self-destruct and call it a wrap, game over, stick a fork in me.”) That it was impossible to shut it off once it had been fired up. That Todbaum had been influential in the inception of the supercar project, suggesting it to its designer, based on a favorite film of his childhood called Damnation Alley. (Journeyman remembered he’d seen it, once Todbaum mentioned it. It starred George Peppard.) That its designer had built only three such machines before being kidnapped and never heard from again. (“Russia, gotta be.”) That it cost Todbaum fourteen million dollars. That he didn’t know who owned the other two.

  That when he situated the machine in what he’d judged as a safe place, he could trigger a drill that sought groundwater to replenish his reserves. That before disengagement for travel it would by the same method bury his stored waste deep underground so that like prey it left no traceable spoor for anyone tracking. (Journeyman didn’t point out that it sounded as though this meant he went everywhere contaminating potable aquifers that others might rely on.) The image of the Blue Streak planting its sucking tube where it landed made Journeyman see it, briefly, as a gigantic mosquito.

  That his cockpit and sleeping cubicle were lead-lined, like a dentist’s X-ray offices, to protect him from the risk of seeping radiation. (There was no mention of whether some radiated exhaust or contaminated expelled coolant posed a danger to those outside the vehicle.)

  That the vacuum-sealed capsules of freeze-dried coffee stored deep in the Blue Streak’s bowels actually had a gauge of their own on Todbaum’s dashboard, and it showed that at the current rate he still had five months’ worth of espresso. (He’d however polished off all the Macallan scotch before crossing the Susquehanna River.)

  That the portal through which he’d admitted Journeyman was designed as a bladed trap, if necessary. It could cinch closed and murder someone who’d been lured up inside. Had Todbaum ever had to use it? “No, but I did crush a couple of jerks under the treads one night out around Santa Fe.”

  That the Blue Streak had endured numerous attacks. Those scuffed and singed places Journeyman had noted: each marked some assault, by medieval-style catapult or trebuchet, flaming arrow, or, before the guns had quit working, an Uzi or Glock. Todbaum indicated a place where a tracer bullet had lodged partway through the dual-layer safety glass of his windshield. The bullet was a perfect brass souvenir, its tip just through the glass to make a sharp little nipple. The glass was sealed tight around it, and uncracked.

  That the only other person he’d admitted into his safe space, before Journeyman just now, was a woman he’d met in Pittsburgh who’d traveled with him as his companion as far as the outskirts of New York City, a locality into which Todbaum had refused to enter. She was looking for someone in Manhattan. She continued on foot. He, needless to say, had no idea what had become of her, but it wasn’t likely to be good.

  At some point in this initial telling, long after Journeyman had drained the tiny coffee, they found themselves interrupted. One of the Cordon men below—Eke, perhaps—began a loud rapping at the flügelhorn speaker, a sound that made its way up and drew their attention to the situation on the road. The rapping wasn’t Morse code, but their message was clear. They wanted negotiations to resume.

  16.

  Founder’s Park

  TODBAUM SHOWED JOURNEYMAN HOW HE opened the channel to listen and speak.

  “You need our help, Mr. Duplessis?”

  Todbaum grinned, and offered the microphone to Journeyman.

  “Help?” said Journeyman.

  “Just wanted to see if you’re okay. Sounds like it.” To Journeyman, Eke sounded stunned now, in the face of th
e supercar. Stunned or spooked, and seeking to tamp his anxieties down into the range of the normal.

  Or it might be Journeyman who felt this way. “I’m fine,” he said. “We’re—old friends.”

  “Like the fellow said.”

  “Like he said, yes.”

  “Well, I guess if you want to consider him remanded into your custody or suchlike, me and these others will probably get going.” Remanded into custody? Had Eke turned Default Cop back in the other direction now? The system of powers on this road felt unstable, perhaps booby-trapped. Was Journeyman meant to certify Todbaum as his prisoner? If Journeyman refused, might he instead be considered Todbaum’s co-captive?

  Todbaum leaned in, shouldering Journeyman aside. “Gobble a plate of dicks, Harley-Davidson Man. I’ve never been in your custody for one minute and you know it. I guess you might be a custodian in the sense of the guy who swabs the halls and changes light bulbs at the junior high. That’s obviously the kind of career you got cheated out of by the end of the world. The toilet attendant. Or suchlike.”

  “Mr. Duplessis?”

  “Yes?” Journeyman said.

  “Would you mind telling the other fellow that we’re through talking with him for now?” Eke seemed to be restraining himself from harsher speech.

  “Oh, sure.”

  “The elders just wanted me to be clear I’d passed him along to you. He’s not to come back our way, least not unless some arrangement’s made. If you don’t want to climb down, I guess I can take your word that he hasn’t got a gun to your head or—” Here Journeyman detected Eke restricting a final utterance: suchlike. Todbaum had gotten under Eke’s skin, into his head. In this Eke stood in celebrated company. If only he knew.

  “No,” Journeyman said. “No gun to my head. So, you’ll just go?”

  “As I said at the start, there’s interest in the operation of this car, Mr. Duplessis. At some point a contingent will want to come see what use could be made of it.”

  “Okay,” said Journeyman. “Meanwhile we’ll see your people at the usual time, then?” Journeyman meant for the food drops, the ordinary tribute.

  “Imagine so.”

  “We’re always glad to see you, Eke.”

  “Good day now, Mr. Duplessis.”

  At that, the Cordon horses and the two motorcycles unsurrounded the Blue Streak and retreated up the road. Todbaum and Journeyman watched. Journeyman noted again the puzzle of their bandages, their recent injuries: had Todbaum, and his Blue Streak, inflicted these? At a certain distance the Cordon men stopped and turned. Perhaps they wished to see the supercar begin to progress deeper into Journeyman’s territory, and farther from theirs. Then they were gone from sight. Todbaum was Journeyman’s problem now.

  What should Journeyman propose? The only answer was to pilot south into Tinderwick. There were no other directions. A mad impulse seized Journeyman then, to turn Todbaum right, onto the road to the Lake of Tiredness. Could he hide him there, with Jerome Kormentz? Persuade him this was the entirety of the survivor’s community? What would they make of one another? But this was idiotic. Todbaum knew of the towns, of Maddy’s farm. He’d had confirmation from the Cordon.

  Now Todbaum set out, in any event. The whirring and seething of the machine was accompanied again by the grinding sound of the treads, that grim hum Journeyman had detected when the thing was still out of sight. Over his shoulder, too, Journeyman saw that it had a mapping capacity. Journeyman hadn’t seen a working GPS since the Arrest. Did satellites still orbit the Earth? Anyone with a good telescope could know, but if Journeyman knew anyone with a good telescope, he wasn’t aware of it.

  The line representing the road to Tinderwick throbbed blue as the supercar’s transit resumed. Journeyman was a mere passenger. Yet, no matter Todbaum’s expectation, Journeyman wouldn’t be party to bringing Todbaum’s Blue Streak to Spodosol Ridge Farm, to implant its feeding and pooping tubes in his sister’s precious soil. Todbaum’s map already indicated the turn, east off Main, toward East Tinderwick.

  So Journeyman formed his intention: to steer Todbaum and his craft toward a mooring by the water, near the boat landing behind the old post office, at the center of the smaller town, on the acre of land they called Founder’s Park.

  17.

  Island and Lighthouse

  THE BLUE STREAK RUMBLED INTO Tinderwick, carrying Todbaum and Journeyman. The settlements on the road thickened, as they passed Brenda’s Folly Farm and Proscenium Farm, until suddenly revealing the high street of the old village—the Presbyterian church, the bookstore, the music conservatory. Tinderwick was tumbleweed-quiet at midday. Farmers in their fields. Tinkerers and canners in their barns or summer kitchens. Children up at the old school. Journeyman felt sealed in doom, atop the Blue Streak. Unable to hear the crows or bees, the blue-spangled canopy of trees mediated by the cockpit’s bubble, revealing not a whisper of wind. They hit Main Street. Todbaum piloted leftward, toward East Tinderwick, without any help from Journeyman. Soon, past the old cemetery, the Civil War monument, they’d returned to forested road, the supercar brushing silently through branch tops. No one had tried to halt them in town. No one had seen them at all.

  So, they ground on, in the direction of Spodosol.

  It was as though Journeyman had been sucked up not into Todbaum’s car but into his old friend and employer’s devilish brain. Or not sucked up. Journeyman had ascended voluntarily. Stepped off his frost-heaved asphalt, out of that routine which now seemed miraculous for its calm, and squeezed through Todbaum’s murderous porthole, to accept a nuclear-fueled espresso and to hitch a ride aboard this ticking bomb. They moved toward East Tinderwick. Journeyman needed to execute his thin plan, his stalling maneuver.

  “When did you last see the ocean?” Journeyman asked.

  “Good question!” said Todbaum. Was he mocking? “Not since I blew town.”

  Journeyman plowed on. “So, I’m thinking of where you ought to, uh, put down stakes to begin with. There’s a good spot for this . . . thing of yours . . . by the water. Sort of the town commons. Nobody will feel you’re sneaking up on them.”

  “Ocean view? Sounds deluxe.”

  “Well, water view, I should specify. There’s an island between our harbor and the ocean.”

  Founder’s Park looked onto a narrow strip of land called Quarry Island. The uninhabited island’s length blocked any view of the open horizon. A hundred and two hundred years earlier its bedrock had been heavily worked, produced blocks of raw granite shipped on barges, to be polished and fitted into the lobbies of big-city municipal buildings. At the peak of the work dozens of men overnighted there. Their collapsed shacks were a desolate remnant, hemmed by new-growth trees. One titanic hunk of quarried granite stood like a windowless building on the island’s south edge, atop its ocean-facing cliffs. Whether abandoned because of some internal flaw or left as a monument, no one knew.

  Journeyman heard himself babbling out bits and pieces, as if trying to keep Todbaum entertained during a pitch. “. . . some people say the island’s stone even went into the pilings for the Brooklyn Bridge—”

  “Of course it did. It’s perfect, Sandman. I’ll sleep to the lapping of the waves, knowing I and I alone crossed from sea to shining fucking sea.”

  Journeyman thought of the French boat, a mystery Todbaum would appreciate.

  It had crashed on Quarry Island the winter before, on a night when fog obscured the moon and the island and coast were crusted in a new snow. The French crew had likely failed to distinguish Quarry Island from the more distant mainland; between lay coastal shelf, slimy barnacle-covered granite that made low tide a peril for the most local sailors even in daylight. Their boat ran three sails. If the two men found dead had been the sole occupants for an ocean journey from Europe, they’d had their hands full. The boat was shattered, the men drowned, or frozen before they could drown. There’d been no chance to ask what form the Arrest had taken in France.

  Journeyman told Todbaum how the boat ha
d been torn across the hacksaw barnacles by the action of the tides. The bodies too. Journeyman had been part of the cleanup crew. Not utterly unlike his work for Augustus the butcher.

  “Saved your people offing those frogs, I guess!”

  Offing them? Journeyman was nearly embarrassed to say that the three towns hadn’t killed anyone since the Arrest, not that he was aware of. He’d disappoint Todbaum’s appetite for Armageddon. “We didn’t find any weapons . . . We can’t know what they were thinking, of course . . .”

  “I’m kidding, Sandman! You’re good people! You leave that unsavory shit to the Cordon folks, don’t you?”

  “We’ve never asked the Cordon to kill anyone.”

  “They’d have cracked me open like a bone and sucked the marrow if they’d figured how.”

  Perhaps if you’d treated them as more than skunks or porcupines on the road—but this, Journeyman didn’t say. Todbaum might be right. Who knew what he’d endured? There was that windshield bullet. Journeyman would hardly be the only one eager to hear Todbaum’s account of his journey. The towns had argued for weeks whether the French sailors had fled danger or brought news of a distant reorganization.

  It was then that the towns had begun talk of constructing a lighthouse on Quarry Island. A tower, at least, with a standing flare, to ignite on nights like that which had lured the French boat to ruin in their death-trap harbor.

  “Some of us have a theory that there’ll be another French boat,” Journeyman told Todbaum now. “The chance to know what it’s like over there, over the ocean . . . it’s tantalizing, don’t you think?”

  “Oh, there’ll be another French boat. The French always do things in threes, isn’t that the formula?”

  Journeyman didn’t know that formula. “There’s been talk of a lighthouse, if we could find a way . . .”

  By now the supercar had cruised through the village center of East Tinderwick—the old Grange Hall, the post office, the boatyard. The town center was tiny, and still. The vibrant part of East Tinderwick, thanks to the homesteading followers of Seldon and Margot Stevedore, was out at the end of long dirt roads, on the organic farms. Journeyman wouldn’t lead Todbaum to any of those, let alone Spodosol. He pointed him leftward, past the P.O., into Founder’s Park.