Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates (36 page)

Well, whatever, he certainly hadn’t
become “as one” of them, or “as one” of the witchman’s ilk, either. So, why was
he being punished? Instructed? Initiated? Eighty-sixed, at any rate, from the
garden of reason? The very terminology to which he was forced to resort in
order to consider these issues was suspect, being at once alien and shopworn,
the parlance having in recent decades been yanked from its arcane native
contexts and incorporated into the vocabularies of popularizers, charlatans,
and dilettantes. Ugh! Still, they were real issues, were they not, as
challenging to science, which preferred to sweep them under the rug, as to
Switters, who, for reasons personal and acute, lacked that timid luxury?

Thrilled by the strange implications
of such questions and at the same moment embarrassed by them, he examined them
repeatedly but sheepishly, like a forensic scientist sorting a collection of
crime-scene lingerie. These private musings occurred mainly in public—on
sun-smeared corners, in shadowed archways, or beneath the great cartoonish
market clock—where the murmuring of unsuspecting throngs washed over him, and
Florida grapefruit and Arizona melons, like the popped orbs of Buick-sized
frogs, watched him without blinking.

It was in one of those places, toying
with one of those riddles, that he was approached, too abruptly for his liking,
by a blue-chinned, dagger-nosed young man with an excess of glower behind his
spectacles and an excess of wrinkle in his suit.

If the fellow was Mayflower’s Joe,
coming out of the cold, something pretty serious must be up. At second glance,
though, Switters would have bet this sulky slubberdegullion couldn’t tail the
Statue of Liberty. He was no Joe. The company still had standards. Of course,
he might be a master of disguise. Lower lip like that could be a nice touch,
provided he didn’t trip over it.

“You Switters?”

“Who wants to know, pal?”

“I’m here to drive you to your
grandmother’s.”

“Don’t believe I rang for a car. My
chauffeur’s name is Abdulla, he’s been known to patronize a dry cleaner, he
calls me
Mr
. Switters, and unless I have him confused with the gardener,
this is
not
his day off.”

The man bristled, but any thought he
might have had to rummage in his repertoire of rude retorts was dispelled by a
look from Switters, hypnotic and fierce. Out of a jacket pocket unraveling at
its seams, he drew a card that identified him as a paralegal at a downtown law
firm that Switters remembered Maestra having mentioned once or twice in
connection with her will.

“Guess there’s some bad news,” he
said. “I’m parked around the corner on Pine.”

In Maestra’s foyer Switters was
greeted by a doctor and a lawyer. Does it get any worse than that? Assuming
that no decent person would allow a land developer in their home, only the
presence of a cop and a priest was required (the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse)
to complete this roll call of damnation.

The physician was courteous and kind.
He explained that Maestra had suffered a mild stroke, particularly mild when
one considered her age, from which there were indications she would fully
recover. There was no evidence of paralysis, although her speech was noticeably
slurred. She was lightly sedated, and a nurse had been engaged to watch over
her for the next seventy-two hours. Until she regained normal speech, she
wished to see no one. “Switters would try to take advantage of my vocal
impediment to win his first argument with me in thirty years.” The doctor
quoted her with a chuckle, gave Switters his phone number, and left the house.

It was now the lawyer’s turn. She,
too, was polite, though with her it seemed more a matter of professionalism
than compassion. Uncommonly tall, she was as black of skin as many of her
colleagues were of heart, and there was a trace of tradewind in her accent.
“Barbados,” she’d later explain. Her dignity, magnified by her height, might
have been daunting to a man less reckless than he. In any case, since Ms.
Foxweather had a couple of bombs to drop, her altitude was entirely
appropriate.

“I don’t suppose you’ve ever been
apprised of your grandmother’s indictment?” Foxweather inquired, opening the
hatch and letting a big one fall. “No, I thought as much. Well, she was charged
in January with computer trespass. Intrusion with mischievous intent. And it
was mischief, I should stress. There was no evidence of larceny or social activism,
per se. Nevertheless, it’s a serious charge at an inopportune time since the
government is attempting to clamp down in these cases before they get out of
hand. The feds aim to send a message.”

Whether in disbelief (though he
shouldn’t have been overly surprised), dismay, or a kind of admiration that was
not far from delight, Switters just kept shaking his head. Foxweather couldn’t
be faulted for imagining that it was palsy that had landed him in his chair.

“Because of your grandmother’s age,
prison was never really a possibility and because, as far as can be proven, she
didn’t capitalize financially on her intrusions, there was. . . . Well,
intentionally or unintentionally, she did bring down at least one computer
network and destroy a fair amount of intellectual property, and while I did my
best, the fine was steep. It was levied this morning, and I have to say, I’m
convinced the judgment is what caused her stroke.”

The attorney finally took a
seat—Switters was getting a crick in his neck—and cut to the nougat. Maestra,
even should she completely recover and suffer no further blockages, was going
to require care. She threatened to cane-whip the tightwad who might try to move
her into an efficiency apartment and gun down like a landfill rat the Nazi who
would plant her in a nursing home (Switters and Foxweather exchanged glances
that indicated they both knew the old lady wasn’t joking), and home care was
not inexpensive. The Magnolia manse was costly to keep up. Taxes were in
arrears. There was a six-figure fine to pay. And, of course, legal fees. When
all was said and done, Maestra, who’d donated generously over the years to some
rather kooky causes, was staring into the hungry eyeholes of the lean white dog
of bankruptcy.

“Now, I’ve agreed to accept her old
cabin up at Snoqualmie Pass in exchange for my services. So that helps some.
Ahem. Aside from this house, however, your granny has only one asset of any
great value.”

“The Matisse.”

“Precisely. And it would fetch more
than enough at auction to see her through. But she says she’s promised it to
you upon her demise and, therefore, doesn’t feel she has the moral right to
sell it.”

Switters wheeled himself to the
living room door and looked in. There it hung above the mantel, in all of its
sprawling, life-affirming effrontery. How could anything so flat be so rotund,
anything so still be so antic, anything so meaty be so spiritually
contemplative, anything so deliberately misshapen be so gratifying? Upon
patterned cushions that might have been honked, zig by zag, out of Ornette
Coleman’s horn, the odalisque exposed her flesh to a society that had grown
frightened again of flesh. Without fear, inhibition, egotism, monetary motive,
or, for that matter, prurience or desire, she loomed, she spread—as if she were
both metropolitan skyline and wilderness plain: woman as city, woman as
prairie, woman as the whole wide world. And yet, the longer he looked, the more
removed she became from womanliness and worldliness, for in essence, she was
but a song sung in color, a magnificently useless expanse of liberated paint.
Owing nothing to society, expecting nothing, the painting bumped against the
brain like a cloud against an oil derrick. It had the innocence and brute force
of a dream.

Switters turned to Ms. Foxweather.
“Matisse must not have had any damn heat in his studio. Woman went blue on
him.”

“Oh, but that’s the way—”

“Sell it!” he snapped. “I never liked
it anyhow.”

You can lie to God but not to the
Devil?

For at least two reasons, Switters
had been planning to move into the mountain cabin as soon as the snow melted.
First, he was ready for a sabbatical from the Pike Place Market, which, with
the advent of warm weather, was becoming almost South American in its vividity;
and second, if Maestra was staring the pale dog in its ciphers, Switters was
already under its paws. With his unemployment benefits about to expire and his
unsold condo facing foreclosure, he’d been steeling himself to approach Maestra
for a loan. Now . . .

A lawyer’s going to be weekending
in my sylvan cabin whilst, in the glow of my beloved Matisse, some ruthless
corporate raider will be plotting the hostile takeover of a pharmaceutical firm
noted for the manufacture of mood-elevating laxatives.
Along with appropriate
details and his concern about his grandmother, Switters e-mailed the preceding
to Bobby Case. When Bobby failed to respond right away, Switters figured he
must be off flying a hazardous recon mission over North Korea (for, presumably,
that’s what his new assignment entailed) or else up to his knees in Okinawan
pussy (Bad Bob was ecstatic to be in Asia again, boy howdy!).

In about twelve hours, however, the
e-bell rang.
Damn! Why do those yellow-bellied fates always gang up on the
elderly? How is she?

In the mind and the body, where it
counts, Maestra’s doing remarkably well,
Switters answered,
although,
for the moment, her voice is unsettlingly reminiscent of her dear departed
parrot. Financially, Sailor Boy may be the better off of the two. I had no
idea. Turns out she’s been donating large sums of cash to organizations whose
names and objectives are not well known.

Probably CIA fronts, every one of
them,
Bobby tapped.
But that Matisse, which a drifter like you never
deserved in the first place, ought to bring in millions.

Yes, millions. If it doesn’t set
off an alarm. Not only is its authenticity likely to be challenged, there’s a
possibility it could be stolen property. Maestra’s first husband acquired it
under somewhat foggy circumstances. In any event, I’m living by the temporary
graces of Mr. Plastic and in dire need of gainful employment. I have to keep
Maestra out of the nursing home, should it come to that, keep her in her own
house with her wicked computers. Also, I’ve decided to go back and confront
Today Is Tomorrow in the autumn. One year should just about suffice for
two-inch enlightenment. Wouldn’t want to overdo it. Wear out my welcome in
Nirvana.

Now you’re talking, son! I’ll get
back to you if I have any bright ideas. Meanwhile, give the old hacker my
affection and admiration.

The very next day, Bobby was on-line
with an intriguing proposal.

If you’re able and willing to
travel, You Know Who has got a speck of work for an ex-operative with your
particular experience. April 30. Hotel Gül. Antalya, Turkey. Sit in the lobby
and look innocuous—can you manage that?—until you hear somebody say, “Fuck the
Dallas Cowboys.” Pay: low. Risk: high. But you won’t turn it down because the
thrills are practically unlimited, and I know you’re aching to get back in the
game.

Was he?
Aching
(from the Old
High German
ach
!, an exclamation of pain) to get back in the
game
(from the Indo-European base
gwhemb
, “to leap merrily,” as in
gambol
)?
Certainly, he had always looked upon his activities, official and unofficial,
in the geopolitical arena as a game: a combination of rugby, chess, and liar’s
poker, with a little Russian roulette mixed in for good measure. While there
were no conclusive victories to be had in that game beyond simple survival, a
player scored whenever his acts of subversion thwarted or even delayed the
coalescing of power in any single camp. In a sense, one won by making it
difficult for others to win or, at least, to grow fat on the fruits of their
triumph.

Six months in a wheelchair, however,
had altered his overview slightly if significantly. When one was living two
inches off the ground, one remained close enough to the earth to experience its
tug, share its rhythms, recognize it as home, and not go floating off into some
ethereal ozone where one behaved as if one’s physical body was excess baggage
and one’s brain a weather balloon. On the other hand, one had just enough loft
so that one glided above the frantic strivings and petty discontents that
preoccupied the earthbound, circumnavigating those dreary miasmas that
threatened to bleach their hearts a single shade of gray. In short, one could
be keenly interested in worldly matters yet remain serenely detached from their
outcome.

Switters, if the truth be told, was
as enthusiastic about geopolitical monkey-wrenching as he’d ever been, but now,
two inches removed, was no more attached to the end results than he’d been to
the outcome of the rain-gutter boat races against the Art Girls. (Were he inclined—and
he decidedly was not—he probably could have drawn several parallels between his
passage through life and the careening of his unlikely little boats through the
market’s littery channels.) In fact, he’d reached the conclusion that the
inertia of the masses and the corruption of their manipulators had become so
ingrained, so immense, that nothing short of a literal miracle could effect a
happy ending to humanity’s planetary occupancy, let alone the kind of game in
which he played upon that slanted field. And yet, it was a game absolutely
worth playing. For its own sake. For the wahoo that was in it. For the chance
that it would enlarge one’s soul.