Blind Lake (16 page)

“No, sir,” Chris said. “Not tonight, I’m afraid.”

He maintained eye contact with Ray as he slid behind the wheel. Tess began quietly crying in the backseat. Ray leaned against the car door, but whatever he was shouting was inaudible. Chris put the vehicle in drive and pulled away, not before Scutter aimed a kick at the rear bumper.

Marguerite soothed her daughter. Chris drove cautiously out of the clinic lot, wary of ice. Ray could have jumped in his own car and followed but apparently chose not to; last he saw of him in the rearview mirror, he was still standing in impotent rage.

“He hates for anyone to see him like that,” Marguerite said. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid you made an enemy tonight.”

No doubt. Chris understood the alchemy by which a man might be charming in public and brutal behind closed doors. Cruelty as the intimacy of last resort. Men generally didn’t like to be witnessed in the act.

She added, “I have to thank you again. I’m truly sorry about all this.”

“Not your fault.”

“If you want to find a new place to room, I understand.”

“The basement’s still warmer than the gym. If that’s okay with you.”

Tess snorted and coughed. Marguerite helped her blow her nose.

“I keep thinking,” Marguerite said, “what if it had been worse? What if we’d needed a real hospital? I’m so tired of this lockdown.”

Chris pulled into the driveway of the town house. “I expect we’ll survive,” he said. Clearly, Marguerite was a survivor.

Tess, exhausted, went to sleep on Marguerite’s bed. The house was cold, icy air rivering in through the broken window in Tessa’s room, the furnace struggling to keep up. Chris rummaged in the basement until he found a heavy plastic drop cloth and a wide piece of maplewood veneer. He duct-taped the plastic over the empty window frame in Tessa’s bedroom, then tacked up the veneer for good measure.

Marguerite was in the kitchen when he went downstairs. “Nightcap?” she said.

“Sure.”

She poured him fresh coffee laced with brandy. Chris checked his watch. After midnight. He didn’t feel remotely like sleeping.

“I guess you’re tired of hearing me apologize.”

“I grew up with a younger sister,” Chris said. “Things happen with kids. I know that.”

“Your sister. You mentioned Portia.”

“We all call her Porry.”

“Do you still see her? Before the siege, I mean.”

“Porry died a while back.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Now you
do
have to stop apologizing.”

“I’m—oh.”

“How much trouble do you expect Ray to make over this?”

She shrugged. “That’s a question and a half. As much as he can.”

“It’s none of my business. I’d just like some warning if you expect him to show up at the door with a shotgun.”

“It’s not like that. Ray is just… well, what can I say about Ray? He likes to be right. He hates to be contradicted. He’s eager to pick fights but he hates to lose them, and he’s been losing them most of his life. He doesn’t like sharing custody with me—he wouldn’t have signed the agreement, except his lawyer told him it was the best deal he was going to get—and he’s always threatening some new legal action to take Tess away. He’ll see tonight as more evidence that I’m an unfit parent. More ammunition.”

“Tonight wasn’t your fault.”

“It doesn’t matter to Ray what really happened. He’ll convince himself I was either responsible for it or at least grossly negligent.”

“How long were you married?”

“Nine years.”

“Was he abusive?”

“Not physically. Not quite. He’d shake his fist, but he never threw it. That wasn’t Ray’s style. But he made it clear he didn’t trust me and he sure as hell didn’t approve of me. I used to get calls from him every fifteen minutes, where was I and what was I doing and when would I be home and I’d better not be late. He didn’t like me, but he didn’t want my attention focused on anyone but him. At first I told myself it was just a quirk, a character flaw, something he’d get over.”

“You had friends, family?”

“My parents are charitable people. They accommodated Ray until it became obvious he didn’t want to be accommodated. He didn’t like me seeing them. Didn’t like me seeing friends, either. It was supposed to be just the two of us. No countervailing forces.”

“Good marriage to get out of,” Chris said.

“I’m not sure he believes it’s over.”

“People can get hurt in situations like that.”

“I know,” Marguerite said. “I’ve heard the stories. But Ray would never get physical.”

Chris let that pass. “How was Tess doing when you said good night?”

“She looked pretty sleepy. Worn out, poor thing.”

“How do you suppose she happened to break that window?”

Marguerite took a long sip of her coffee and seemed to inspect the tabletop. “I honestly don’t know. But Tess has had some problems in the past. She has a thing about shiny surfaces, mirrors and things like that. She must have seen something she didn’t like.”

And put her hand through the glass? Chris didn’t understand, but Marguerite was obviously uncomfortable talking about it and he didn’t want to press her. She’d been through enough tonight.

He said, “I wonder how the Subject is doing. Sleepless in Lobsterville.”

“I left everything running, didn’t I?” She stood up. “Want to have a look?”

He followed her upstairs to her office. They tiptoed past the room where Tess was sleeping.

Marguerite’s office was exactly as they had left it, lights burning, interfaces lit, the big wall screen still dutifully following the Subject. But Marguerite gasped when she saw the image.

It was morning again on Subject’s patch of UMa47/E. Subject had left the high balcony and made his way to a surface-level street. Last night’s winds had given every exposed surface a coating of fine white grit, fresh texture under the raking light of the sun.

Subject approached a stone arch five times his height, walking into the sunrise. Chris said, “Where’s he going?”

“I don’t know,” Marguerite said. “But unless he turns around, he’s leaving the city.”

“Charlie Grogan called,” Sue Sampel said as Ray passed through the outer office. “Also Dajit Gill, Julie Sook, and two other department heads. Oh, and you have Ari Weingart at ten and Shulgin at eleven, plus—”

“Forward the agenda to my desktop,” Ray said. “And any urgent messages. Hold calls.” He disappeared into his
sanctum sanctorum
and closed the door.

Bless silence, Sue thought. It beat the sound of Ray Scutter’s voice.

Sue had left a cup of hot coffee on his desk, a tribute to his punctuality. Very good, Ray thought. But he was facing a difficult day. Since the Subject had set out on his pilgrimage last week, the interpretive committees had been in a state of hysteria. Even the astrozoologists were divided: some of them wanted to keep the focus in Lobsterville and tag a new and more representative Subject; others (and Marguerite was one of these) were convinced the Subject’s behavior was significant and ought to be followed to its conclusion. The Technology and Artifacts people dreaded losing their urban context, but the astrogeologists and climatologists welcomed the prospect of a long detour into the deserts and mountains. The committees were squabbling like fishwives, and absent Blind Lake’s senior scientists or a line to Washington there was no obvious way to resolve the conflict.

Ultimately, these people would look to Ray for guidance. But he didn’t want to assume that responsibility without a great deal of consultation. Whatever decision he made, sooner or later he’d be forced to defend it. He wanted that defense to be airtight. He needed to be able to cite names and documents, and if some of the more hotheaded committee partisans thought he was “dodging the issue”—and he had heard those words bandied about—too bad. He had asked them all to prepare position papers.

Best to start the day in a positive mood. Ray unfolded a paper napkin and used his key to open the bottom drawer of the desk.

Since the lockdown began Ray had been keeping a stash of DingDongs locked in his desk drawer. It was embarrassing to acknowledge, but he happened to like baked goods and he especially liked DingDongs with his breakfast coffee, and he could live without the inevitable smart-ass commentary about Polysorbate 80 and “empty calories,” thank you very much. He liked peeling back the brittle wrapper; he liked the sugar-and-cornstarch smell that came wafting out; he liked the glutinous texture of the pastry and the way hot coffee flensed the slightly chemical aftertaste from his palate.

But DingDongs weren’t included in the weekly black truck deliveries. Ray had been canny enough to buy up the remaining inventory from the local grocer and the convenience shop in the Plaza lobby. He had started with a couple of cartons, but they’d be gone before long. The last six DingDongs in the entire quarantined community of Blind Lake, as far as Ray could determine, were currently residing in his desk drawer. After that, nothing. Cold turkey. Obviously, it wouldn’t kill him to do without. But he resented being forced into it by this ongoing bureaucratic fuck-up, this endless mute lockdown.

He pulled a DingDong out of the drawer. Take one away: that left five, a business-week’s-worth.

But all he could see were four packages lingering in the shadows.

Four. He counted again. Four. He searched the drawer with his hand. Four.

There should have been five. Had he miscalculated?

Impossible. He had recorded the count in his nightly journal.

He sat immobile for a moment, processing this unwelcome information, working up a solid righteous anger. Then he buzzed Sue Sampel and asked her to step inside.

“Sue,” he said when she appeared in the doorway. “Do you happen to have a key to my desk?”

“To your desk?” She was either surprised by the question or faking it very plausibly. “No, I don’t.”

“Because when I came here the support people told me I’d have the only key.”

“Did you lose it? They must have a master somewhere. Or they can replace the locks, I guess.”

“No, I didn’t
lose
it.” She flinched from his voice. “I have the key right here. Something’s been stolen.”

“Stolen? What was stolen?”

“It doesn’t matter
what
was stolen. As it happens, it was nothing very important. What matters is that somebody gained access to my desk without my knowledge. Surely even you can grasp the significance of that.”

She glanced at the desktop. Ray realized, too late, that he had left this morning’s DingDong lying unopened next to his coffee cup. She looked at it, then at Ray, with a you-must-be-kidding expression on her face. He felt blood rush to his cheeks.

“Maybe you could talk to the cleaning staff,” Sue said.

Now all he wanted was for her to disappear. “Well, all right, I suppose it doesn’t matter… I shouldn’t have mentioned it…”

“Or Security. You have Shulgin coming in later.”

Was she concealing a smile? Was she actually
laughing
at him? “Thank you,” he said tightly.

“Anything else?”

“No.”
Get the fuck out
. “Please close the door.”

She closed it gently. Ray imagined he could hear her laughter floating behind her like a bright red ribbon.

Ray considered himself a realist. He knew some of his behavior could be labeled misogynistic by anyone who wanted to smear him (and his enemies were legion). But he didn’t hate women. Quite the opposite: he gave them every opportunity to redeem themselves. The problem was not that he hated women but that he was so consistently disappointed by them. For instance, Marguerite. (Always Marguerite, forever Marguerite… )

Ari Weingart came in at ten with a series of morale-enhancing proposals. Cayti Lane from the PR department wanted to put together a local video ring for news and social updates—Blind Lake TV, in effect—which she would host. “I think it’s a good idea,” Ari said. “Cayti’s bright and photogenic. What I also want to do is pool the individual downloads people have residing in their house servers so we can rebroadcast them. No-choice scheduled television, very twentieth century, but it might help hold things together. Or at least give people something to talk about at the water cooler.”

Fine, all this was fine. Ari went on to propose a series of live debates and lectures Saturday nights at the community center. Also fine. Ari was trying to reconfigure the siege as a church social. Let him, Ray thought. Let him distract the whining inmates with dog-and-pony shows. But all this boosterism was ultimately tiresome, and it was a relief when Ari finally packed up his grin and left the room.

Ray counted his DingDongs again.

Of course, it could have been Sue who had broken into his desk. There was no sign that the mechanism had been tampered with—maybe he’d been careless about locking the drawer and she had taken advantage of his lapse of attention. Sue often worked later than Ray, especially when Tess was in his care; unlike Marguerite, he didn’t like leaving his daughter alone in the house after school. Sue was the prime suspect, Ray decided, though the cleaning staff weren’t entirely above suspicion.

Men were easier to deal with than women. With men it was a matter of barking loud enough to command attention. Women were slyer, Ray thought, overtly yielding but easily subverted. Their loyalties were tentative and too quickly revoked. (Marguerite, for instance… )

At least Tess wouldn’t grow up to be one of those kind of women.

Dimi Shulgin showed up at eleven, crisp in a gray tailored suit, a welcome distraction even though he was full of ominous news. Shulgin had mastered the art of Baltic inscrutability, his doughy face impassive as he described the mood prevailing among the day workers and salaried staff. “They’ve endured the siege this long,” Shulgin said, “with minimal problems, probably because of what happened to unfortunate Mr. Krafft when he tried to run the fence. That was a blessing in disguise, I think. It frightened people into acceptance. But discontent is growing. Casual and support staff outnumber the scientific and management people by five to one, you know. Many of them are demanding a voice in decision-making, and not a few of them would like to shut down the Eye and see what happens.”