Alexander Jablokov - Brain Thief (19 page)

Yolanda knelt and dabbed at the puddle of spilled wine with a paper towel. She wore a toreador jacket and tight pants. Her pale blond hair was heavily processed into a lion’s mane.

“This isn’t going to do it.” She took a long pull on the open bottle, which proved to be a Saint-Estephe, though neither Yolanda nor Bernal proved able to determine whether it was a good year. “Go upstairs, will you, hon? Grab a couple of rolls from under the sink. And get me some ... let me think. Cheese crackers, something like that. I need something to go with these jammy notes here.”

“Cheese crackers?” He thought a moment. “How did you get in?”

“The security door has a code. Not a fancy one, but not one you’re likely to guess quick. But they didn’t think they’d remember it, so they wrote it on a piece of paper and put it under the cake of scented soap in the basement, over there past the Neptune washer and dryer. No one ever comes down here, so they figured that was safe enough. They got seven bathrooms in this place. I counted.”

“No, I meant the house.”

“I know this ’hood, Bernal. Used to have friends here, before I had all my unfortunate financial reverses, all that stuff that Uncle Solly could make good, if those idiots at Long Voyage would just see they were beaten. I do still come down here sometimes, drive around, see my old haunts. That beat-up red van of yours sticks out like a sore thumb. Around here, they have a big truck with a magnet to go along the curb and pick up crap like that. Must not be running today. So I stopped to see what you were up to. You know, Bernal, you really don’t know what the hell you’re doing. Nothing personal. I’m just saying.”

“Bad luck. It was just plain bad luck. Could happen to anyone.”

“Oh, sure. Any of us could end up getting locked in the basement by the appliance people. Get me those paper towels. And don’t forget the cheese crackers or whatever else you can scare up.” Yolanda winked and took another swig of wine.

“Um, are they—”

“Those scary women? They’re long gone. Go on up, say hi to the folks. Nice crowd.”

A handful of people sat around the giant coffee table in the living room. They nodded at Bernal, as if they knew him, but not well, and returned their attention to the TV. A woman on a talk show had just revealed that she’d been a cocaine mule on her honeymoon, while her husband sobbed and yanked at his long hair next to her and the audience hooted. Most of the people at the table looked like recent Hispanic immigrants, with a few other ethnicities thrown in. Four men, three women. Food littered the coffee table: chalupas, samosas, tomatillo salsa.

No cheese crackers.

It looked like most of the cleaning crews in this part of town took their break in the same place, the house of people known to be on an extended African vacation.

Bernal saw a row of plastic buckets with rubber gloves neatly hanging on their rims, a giant vacuum cleaner one step away from being a rider just beyond. Someone had vacuumed the thick pile carpeting into mathematically precise rows. The dishes on the coffee table were all disposable, and the table itself had been wrapped in a plastic sheet. When they were done with lunch, they would just pull up the sheet and throw the whole thing away, with not a sign being left.

Bernal went into the kitchen. The refrigerator was back in its place, humming gently. Two gardeners sat at the counter playing cards and drinking coffee out of delicate china cups. A plasma screen TV above the counter showed a jai alai game. The one with the do-rag yelled at someone on his phone—probably his bookie. The other one shook his head at the excessive enthusiasm and cut the cards. Bernal noted how he palmed a card and slid it onto the top of the deck. Bernal tried to smile at him in a conspiratorial way, but received a stony look in reply.

He opened a couple of cabinets, found a roll of paper towels and a box of Cheez-Its, and went back into the basement.

They crept past the corner of a garage. Bernal almost knocked over a garbage can but grabbed it just in time.

“Careful!” Yolanda slipped easily through a gap between two chain-link fences: neighbors who had not managed to cooperate. “Those people over there have some kind of vicious dog. It leaves gigantic turds. Though I hear some people get fake ones to throw around, to scare anyone who might want to break in. Come on, step on one, see if it’s real. Put my mind at rest.”

“Don’t be so grumpy with me, Yolanda. I had no idea those crackers would be stale.”

“Grumpy? I’ll show you grumpy. I’ll sic a vacuum cleaner salesman on you.”

“Harsh.”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

She sashayed ahead of him. She shook the Saint-Estephe bottle over her tongue, getting whatever drops remained, then pitched it over a fence into a neighboring yard. They both listened, but it hit nothing but soft grass and was absorbed into the spring night.

“Where the hell are we going?” They were somewhere near Spillvagen’s house, but she’d approached the neighborhood from an unfamiliar direction, and he wasn’t sure how close they were.

“Surveillance. It’s a hell of a job, but somebody’s got to do it. Somebody who wants to make her dear uncle’s death in some way meaningful, anyway.”

They stopped by a large oak tree.

“These things look dangerous, but it’s a fake.” Yolanda climbed the tree’s trunk. “Safety regulations, don’t you know.”

And, in fact, as he followed, Bernal saw that she was right. The steps looked like small boards nailed into the trunk in the traditional build-your-own-treehouse style, but were really a complete set in some weather-resistant composite, held up by two rubber-coated support bars sunk into the bark.

At the top was a treehouse, also composite made to look like mismatched plywood sections. All it lacked was a deliberately casual sign that said 
no girlz.

Yolanda collapsed on the floor, gasping for breath. “That’s it for my nightly workout. Should stick to yoga, like the rest of the girls. Or maybe just acupuncture.” Bernal peeped through the window and found himself looking at Spillvagen’s house. He caught sight of Honor stalking off to submit a formal complaint to her mother, while Clay danced apelike behind her, pirouetting and waving his arms.

“Here.” Yolanda handed him a pair of binoculars. “This makes it way easier. You can pretty much read the shopping lists on the refrigerator with these babies. The Spillvagens buy a lot of crap. Not good for the kids.” 

“What the hell are you doing?” Bernal said. “Where are we?”

“Surveillance, sweet thing. Surveillance. Don’t get no evidence without surveillance. And this is the hideout of the younger Ash Willingham. He’s getting a bit old for this place. Even easy girls don’t necessarily want to have sex in a kid’s treehouse; you have to be a bit older to find that kind of thing interesting. But he still comes up here. And thank God, ’cause I don’t have to haul my own molecules up here.” She pried up a section of flooring. “Clever boy, our Ash. Take a look.”

Bernal did. There was nothing under the flooring, just the bottom layer of the treehouse.

“Loose floorboards are one of those things parents do check. Think they’re real secret squirrels if they do. They were bad in high school, think they know the score. But Ash . . . Ash is my man.” She reached way underneath, feeling with her fingers. “The frame’s metal. Steel. I mean, this poor tree. .. . Ash got himself a few of those really strong magnets ... like 
strong
. I like ’em.”

“Neodymium-iron-boron,” Bernal said. “You can get them online.”

Magnets. When Ignacio had been yelling at Patricia behind Near Earth Orbit the night Bernal helped her lug the Freon up to the diner roof, Ignacio had asked her why she hadn’t attached the tanks under her truck with electromagnets. Why had that popped into his mind now? He jiggled the moment, shook it, turned it upside down, but nothing came out of it.

“Oh, what can’t you get online?” She grunted and tugged. Something finally came loose, and she pulled out a plastic box. The magnets were tiny dots on either end, glued onto the box. “Satisfaction. That’s what you can’t get online. He clicks this thing up under the support. Real smart. To find it you’d really have to look for it.”

“How’d you find it?”

“I really looked for it. Believe me, I know my teens. Still inside their heads. So I knew it was there. Great time of life, you gotta hang on to it.” Inside the box was a bag of marijuana, a small pipe smelling of burnt resin, and a few packs of rolling papers. “Hey, wow, this really takes me back. . . .”

“I can’t believe you steal this poor kid’s dope,” Bernal said.

“Yeah, poor frickin’ kid. Drives a new Mustang Shelby GT that takes a Saudi oil field to power and probably gets blow jobs in the hot tub from members of the school gymnastics team 
and
 from his dad’s accountant.” She already had the papers out and was nimbly rolling a joint. She crimped the ends between sharp red fingernails.

“Accountant? I must be missing out on the latest sexual fantasies.”

“Sit up here, you wouldn’t believe what you see,” Yolanda said darkly.

“What do you see?”

Her face was illuminated for an instant by the lighter. “Want a toke?”

“It’s been a long time . . .” Despite his better judgment Bernal inhaled a little. He held in his breath and felt swirling move from his lungs into the rest of his body. Magnets. There were a lot of different things that could hang on to things with magnets. “Spillvagen. You’re still watching him. Find anything out?”

Yolanda wriggled closer to Bernal, reached over, and delicately took the joint out of his mouth. She smiled at him. Her eyes looked big in the darkness. “I’ve found out that for a retired cryobank therapist, he’s a busy man. He’s like a whole kicked-over ant nest, all on his own. Your fault, I think, Bernal.”

“My fault?”

“Here. One more.” She put the joint up to Bernal’s mouth. He hadn’t wanted any more, but he pulled the I smoke in. “Can’t let our friend Ash get suspicious, so enough for you.” Her fingertips pressed gently against his lips as she took the joint away. “Our buddy Spillvagen’s gotten all active lately. I’ve been putting in some miles just keeping after him, and that’s expensive. Not even tax deductible, I think, even if I get that dough out of the trust. It’s a real change. He usually just sits in that damn garage of his, beating off to Internet porn. Isn’t that what men mostly do nowadays? I mean, those trendy ergonomic office chairs are just set up for that. I’m surprised they don’t come with a tissue dispenser in the arm.”

“So what has he been doing?” Yolanda’s observations were too close for comfort. As was she. He could feel her body heat as her hip pressed against him. “Since I talked to him.”

“Who?”

“Spillvagen!”

She giggled. “Don’t be so impatient.”

“Things are going on,” Bernal said. “I’m . .. worried. There’s a lot still I don’t understand, and I’m trying to.” 

“Don’t.” She slid her cool fingertips across his forehead. “Don’t wrinkle up so much. You look much better when you’re just looking thoughtful rather than worried. You’ve got a nice thoughtful look.”

“Okay. I’ll try not to worry. Swear.”

“‘No worries.’ Isn’t that what the Aussies say? That’s about all I know about Australians. Are there really Australians? Sometimes I think they’re just made up for movies and ads.”

She smelled surprisingly clean and floral, a note too pure for her jungle-cat persona. He sensed that she was matching him breath for breath. That was a technique he used. It was unfair to use it back at him. He felt his heart beating. He felt everything, the jittering in the big muscles of his thighs, a tingling in his shoulders, a stirring along his spine. It had been a while.

He had to figure out what she was talking about, before things went too far. “Spillvagen. What is he doing? What has he done?”

“You tell me something first.” Her breath was warm on his ear. “What went down, there at good old Long Voyage?”

“I don’t—”

“Oh, I’m sure he told you, finally. He wouldn’t tell me, but he told you. They had a fire. A breach of, like, 
containment
, right?”

“They had problems, he said. Yeah, sure, security wasn’t as tight as it might have been.”

“They lost him, didn’t they? Uncle Solly. They didn’t just, I don’t know, defrost him or give him freezer burn or something. They out-and-out lost him.”

“How do you suppose they lost him?” he said.

“Oh, Bernal.” She pouted. “I think you must have some idea. You’ve been thinking about it, haven’t you? And I’ll bet when you think about something, you figure it out.”

To get her to leave him alone, he kissed her. He felt her smile against his lips. As he pushed forward, she pulled back, just enough to keep him going. Her knee slid past his hip. His heart was pounding so hard he felt like throwing up.

“Oh, ow, just a second. . . .”

She turned and knelt, her body sharply curved beneath him. She snapped Ash’s stash closed and put it back into place underneath the steel support rail. The clank was surprisingly loud. Permanent magnets, even NdFeB, that were strong enough to hold something really heavy would be too strong to easily detach. For something heavier, you would use an electromagnet, preferably superconducting. ...

Yolanda turned back. She was a genius. His hand had ended up between her breasts, cloth over silk over lace, and the front snap, easy, pressed against his fingers.

“Oh, I..

Even as he fumbled with her bra, he sensed her attention directed elsewhere. Headlights streaked the rafters, and a pickup backed into Spillvagen’s driveway. The garage door rumbled up. The vehicle backed a bit farther and stopped.

She pressed the binoculars to her eyes. She was quite a picture, pursed red lips under black tubes, blond hair fluffed out above.

Spillvagen got out of his pickup. Bernal didn’t need magnification to recognize his squared-off pudgy shape. He seemed agitated. He glanced up at his house, where his family waited for him, then hurried into his garage. In the next few minutes he carried out a line of gym lockers, some hi-fi speakers almost as tall as he was, and half a dozen cardboard boxes that looked like they had been carried the last three times the Spillvagen family had moved, and never opened. With a cracking of branches, he shoved everything into the hedge that protected the neighbors from having to see a yawning pajama-clad Norbert walk out to his office in the morning, and backed his pickup in. The garage door, complaining louder now about being awoken from its ancient slumber, rumbled down .. . and bounced off the front bumper. It started to retract but stopped before getting all the way back up.

It whined mournfully. A dog barked in the next yard. Great, Bernal thought. Now that stupid German shepherd was out and whipped into a frenzy.

“What the hell does he have back there?” Yolanda laughed. “A case of Girl Scout Thin Mints? Or Girl Scouts? God, look at him! He’s desperate.”

Spillvagen had run out to stare in disbelief at his bumper. He pushed against it with his foot as if trying to compress his pickup, kicked it, then ran back in.

He bumped his head on the lowered garage door. He grabbed his forehead and bent over to go in, too frantic and demoralized to even swear. The truck pulled forward enough to push its windshield against the edge of the door, then clunked into reverse and slammed backwards into the garage. Something big and loaded with breakable items fell against the back wall with a crash. Bernal remembered the vast warren of shelves, boxes, and old gear back there.

Spillvagen waddled back out of the garage, remembering to duck this time. He jumped up, grabbed on to the garage door handle, and dangled there, feet flailing.

Yolanda was laughing so hard she couldn’t even sit up. She’d dropped the binoculars and was pounding her head on the windowsill. Spillvagen seemed to hear something and even in his anxiety to get the garage door back down again, glanced around.

She put her hands over her mouth and curled up, but Bernal could still see her back heaving.

The garage door suddenly gave up the unequal contest and rolled down. Spillvagen jumped aside just in time.

“Oh ...” Yolanda tried to get a breath. “Oh my God.” Yolanda slumped against the back wall and looked at Bernal. Her eyes glimmered with tears. She had never been more attractive than in that moment. “That was just what the doctor ordered.”

Bernal glanced back out the window. Spillvagen had come out of the garage carrying something like a small barrel. Moving carefully, he waddled into the yard and set it down.

It was his reflector telescope. With shaking fingers, he punched some sequence of coordinates into the computerized equatorial mount. He hadn’t brought a chair, so he kneeled by it like a man by a sick child’s crib. He put his eye to the eyepiece. The universe waited for his reaction.

Spillvagen’s shoulders relaxed. For a moment, he pulled his eye away and rested his forehead against the telescope’s belly. Then he put his eye back to the eyepiece anti looked up in perfect silence at the stars.

“Now, where were we?” Yolanda said.

Bernal wouldn’t just be touching her, much as he wanted to. He’d be allowing himself to be recruited and attached to her mission. He couldn’t allow his body to make that kind of decision for him.

“I’ll have to take a rain check,” Bernal said.

“Really.” Yolanda wasn’t surprised at all.

“Look, I’m sorry, but—”

She pressed her finger hard against his lips. He could feel both the sharpness of her fingernail and the softness of her finger. It was almost enough to excite him again.

“Nothing less erotic than an apology,” she said. “You can get things dry cleaned, repaired, replaced. Just don’t apologize.”

“I’m . . . okay, okay.”

“Goodnight, Bernal.”

“So, um . . . Keep an eye on Spillvagen. Call me if he goes anywhere . . . odd.”

“Odd.” Yolanda leaned back against the wall, closed her eyes. “That loser’s not doing anything odd. All of you guys are really boring. Might as well be frozen already.”