Val shrugged. The silence stretched.
“And you assume your father will be home in the middle of the day?” Leonard finally said. His voice was not completely steady.
“The Old Man’s a flashback addict,” snapped Val. “Flashers are almost always home—unless they’re in a flashcave somewhere.”
“If he is there, and if they don’t detain me and call the police, what do you want me to tell your father?”
“Tell him I’m here and that he should come out to talk to me. Tell him to bring two hundred bucks in cash—old bucks. If he doesn’t have that much in cash, we can go to an ATM together. There are still a few of those things left.”
Leonard didn’t know whether hearing this made him want to laugh or weep. “That’s what this is about? Getting money from your father? So you can get that forged Teamsters NICC and be a trucker?”
“Yeah.”
“What about your anger at him, Val?”
“Well, fuck that. It doesn’t matter anymore. I don’t know what went down between him and Mom and I don’t really care anymore. If he’s there—if he hasn’t spent every last cent he has on flashback—have him come out to meet me and bring the two hundred old bucks in cash. You can tell him that I’ll never bother him again after I get the money. I figure that after sending me into exile for five fucking years, he owes me at least that much.”
Leonard shook his head. He paused, then said: “I may have the password to the encrypted text on your mother’s phone, Val. I’ve thought of several possibilities.”
The boy’s head snapped up. “Does that matter now?”
“It might.” Leonard didn’t know if it mattered or not. And even though he’d known his darling daughter well when they’d lived together, odds were against him actually guessing the password she’d chosen. Dara had been extremely intelligent: she’d have known that a near-random mixture of letters and numerals would have been the most secure password she could have chosen. Leonard was almost certainly being sentimental and foolish when he thought he might have guessed the five-letter word.
“I’m not thinking anymore that the Old Man actually had her killed,” muttered the boy. “I just hated it when he didn’t cry when she died. He didn’t cry at the funeral or when we cleaned out her stuff. The sonofabitch never showed the slightest bit of emotion. Then he shipped me off and… well, I guess I was a little nuts for a while. I just want whatever money he’ll give me and then I’ll go somewhere where I never have to see him again as long as I live.”
Leonard began to speak but bit his lip instead. “Will you give me my daughter’s phone then? I want to read her text diary.”
“If you get the Old Man out here and he brings money so I can find the card guy, you can have the goddamned phone, Grandpa. Now go on.”
THE CONDOMINIUM LOBBY WHERE Leonard’s son-in-law lived was a bulletproof, blastproof vault. Surveillance cameras watched. Inner doors were metal and multilayered. One was supposed to speak to a microphone and video camera next to a screen that showed a 3DHD video loop of flowered meadows, grazing deer, and eagles floating in a blue sky, all these images laid over inspirational music that would kill a diabetic.
A man’s voice came from the grill: “Welcome to the Cherry Creek Mall Condominiums. Can we help you?”
Leonard said that he wanted to talk to Mr. Nick Bottom.
There was a hesitation and the voice said, “Please stay where you are. Someone will be right down.”
Leonard panicked. They were calling the cops. They’d called building security and someone was coming to grab him until the police arrived.
Leonard moved quickly to the heavy outer doors and tried one. It opened. He knew the people watching him on video could lock it from their control center, so they weren’t holding him prisoner, which they certainly would have done if the goal was to arrest him. Looking out the door, he couldn’t see Val across the street but traffic moved up and down First Avenue.
Leonard closed the door and waited, his old heart pounding and the constant flower of pain in his chest unfolding to something the size of a fist. It wasn’t his heart, he knew. It was something growing—and becoming more painful—in his left lung. George Leonard Fox felt mortality press down on his shoulders like a lead collar.
The inner door opened and a stolid, heavily muscled older man in a simple black security uniform came through. He carried a radio and other paraphernalia on his belt, but no gun.
“You’re Dr. Fox?” said the man, offering his hand. “I’m Gunny G., the head of security for Cherry Creek Mall Condominiums.”
Leonard shook the offered hand. The man’s fingers were short, blunt, and wide, but shaking the man’s broad callused palm was like grasping a relatively smooth-barked tree.
“Mr. Bottom asked me to watch for you and your grandson,” said Gunny G.
We’re under arrest, thought Leonard.
“… and to escort you both to his quarters and make sure you’re comfortable,” finished the security man. Leonard noticed that this Gunny G. person’s face was a lunar-terrain map of subtle white scars under the permanent tan.
“When did my son-in-law talk to you about us?”
“This morning, sir. Before he left.”
“So he’s out right now?” Leonard said stupidly. If one of his students had responded this way, he would have put a tiny “n”—for “nullwit”—next to the student’s name in his attendance book, just to save time when the grading period came around.
Gunny G. nodded. “But Mr. Bottom said that he’d be back this afternoon or early evening and asked me personally to make sure you and your grandson were comfortable.”
“How did you recognize me?” asked Leonard, his voice not quite feeble but certainly sounding lost.
“Mr. Bottom showed me photos, sir,” said the security chief with a smile. “Do you have luggage? I’ll be happy to carry it as we head upstairs.”
Upstairs to the holding cell, thought Leonard. He was so frightened that it was almost funny.
“My grandson has our luggage,” he murmured, almost as if the real world still existed. “Perhaps we’ll come back later.”
Could they outrun the authorities? Leonard knew that he couldn’t. He couldn’t even outhobble them.
Gunny G.—what kind of name was that?—reached into his shirt pocket, removed a slip of paper, and said, “I’m sorry, Dr. Fox. I forgot that Mr. Bottom asked me to give you this.”
The note read—Leonard and Val—I’m glad you’re safe. Please trust this man. He’ll let you into my cubie. I’ll be home later today—Saturday. It’s imperative that I see you. I’ve left cafeteria chits on the table in my room if you’re hungry or thirsty. See you soon.—Nick.”
There was a hastily scribbled postscript: “Gunny G. will phone to inform me that you’ve arrived.”
Leonard had no idea if it was his son-in-law’s handwriting since he’d never seen Nick’s handwriting. He put the note in his pocket, more confused than ever.
“I’ll go get my grandson and the luggage,” he said at last. His words echoed in the blastproof tomb of an entry box.
“Very good, Dr. Fox,” said the square-faced security chief. “I’ll wait here for you.”
Val wasn’t waiting for him across the street where he’d left him, but at the west end of the condo building. Leonard told him the situation.
The boy frowned at the huge structure. “It sounds fishy to me, Grandpa.”
“Yes,” agreed Leonard. “But they let me leave to get you.”
“They want me, Grandpa. Maybe there’s a reward for me. Omura might have offered one.”
“Yes, but…” Leonard showed him the note again. “Is this your father’s handwriting, Val?”
The boy frowned. “I think so. I’m not sure. It’s been so long since…” He squinted up at the afternoon sun, crumpled the note, and tossed it away. “They’ll want to take my gun away.”
“Yes, I’m sure building security will demand that,” said Leo
nard. “There was a notice next to the TV screen that…”
“They can’t have my gun,” said Val.
“I’m sure they will return it when we leave.”
Val smiled. “Come with me, Grandpa.”
To the west of the huge mall building and beyond the private drive that paralleled the parking garage, an old paved bicycle path ran down to the river, where a small bridge had once crossed Cherry Creek. The bike and pedestrian path resumed on the south side of the river, but someone had blown up the narrow span. Val led his grandfather to the west side of the ruined bridge where they were out of sight of the condo’s many cameras. The creek was too high under this bridge to allow for the homeless to huddle or camp there.
Leonard watched as Val took two rocks, using one as a hammer and one as a sort of chisel, and pounded at the rusted cap on an old pipe extruding from the riverbank. The cap popped off with a screech of rusted metal. Whatever had once flowed through the small pipe flowed no more. The inside was dirt and cobwebs. Val reached into his duffel, pulled out one of his T-shirts, removed the Beretta pistol from his belt, and wrapped it and several magazines of ammunition with it. After stuffing the bundle wrist deep into the pipe, he used the two stones to pound the pipe lid back into place.
“Let’s go,” he said.
LEONARD WAS AMAZED AT how tiny Nick Bottom’s cubie was and how loud the neighbors in the former storefront were. There was room only for the bed, a tiny desk and cheap chair, a small bathroom with toilet and shower, and an even smaller closet.
Leonard lay back on the bed, breathing shallowly, while Val paced like a predator in an undersized cage.
“The chits are there,” said Leonard. “We could go back to that cafeteria the Gunner person showed us and have some lunch. It’s been a long time since that breakfast with the convoy.”
Val said nothing as he looked through his father’s small desk. The single drawer was empty except for a remote and flexible generic keyboard mat for the TV. Normally, Leonard knew, the resident’s phone would operate the TV and its computer functions.
Val then looked through the closet, going through his father’s hanging shirts, trousers, and sport coats. He pulled a mass of rope and webbing out of the corner. “What the hell’s this stuff?”
“Your father must have taken up climbing as a sport,” said Leonard, noting the metal-clip carabiners and ascender-handgrips that had been called jumars back in the last century.
“Like hell,” said Val. “I’ll bet you anything that this is the Old Man’s way off the roof if something goes bad in here. See this?” He held up a small rectangular bundle of orange-and-black nylon.
“What is it, Val?”
“Some sort of flotation device,” said his grandson. “Maybe a belly boat like fishermen use. The Old Man rappels down off the roof into that grassy area, inflates this thing, and paddles his ass across the river.”
“It’s wise to take precautions in case of fire…,” began Leonard.
Val barked a laugh and started going through the built-in wall drawers.
“Your father won’t like it that you’re invading his privacy,” said Leonard.
“My… father… can kiss my serene ass on my couch of many colors,” said the boy. “If I find the money, I’m out of here.” He tossed some flashback vials onto the bed from where they’d been tucked under clean underwear.
“You wouldn’t even wait to say hello to your father?”
“No.”
Val looked under the bed, behind the big flatscreen, in the toilet tank and shower. He came back into the room, looked at the cubie’s rifled-through drawers, and muttered, “Wait. I remember when they used to try to hide stuff from me in the house…”
Val pulled out the drawers and dumped their contents on the floor. He flipped the upside-down drawers onto the bed, waving Leonard aside. There were stacks of colored folders attached by duct tape to the underside of each drawer.
“Hey,” said the boy.
“It doesn’t look like money,” said Leonard. “And your father will be furious when he comes home and finds…”
Val had torn away the tape and was stacking the many dossiers on the nearby desk. First he flipped through the pages—obviously hunting for cash—but then sorted through the files, arranged them in some order, and began reading.
“Jesus Christ,” breathed the boy.
“What is it?”
Without speaking, Val tossed the folder he’d just read through to his grandfather. He did not look up from reading the second one. “Jesus Christ,” he said again.
Leonard began reading with perhaps the worst sinking feeling he’d ever had outside of the day his wife Carol had come home to tell him she had ovarian cancer.
These were photocopies of some sort of grand jury report. All the evidence, photostats, phone records, and other information led to one conclusion—that five and a half years ago, Major Crimes Unit Detective First Grade Nick Bottom had learned that his wife was having an affair with a Denver assistant district attorney named Harvey Cohen and had arranged to have them both killed in what would appear to be a highway accident.
“Jesus Christ,” whispered Dr. George Leonard Fox.
Val finished speed-reading through the last dossier, stood up, pulled the coiled climbing rope from his father’s closet, and dumped it on the floor. He opened his own duffel bag and started pulling things out even while he emptied the pockets of his own jacket.
Leonard realized that the boy was stuffing his pockets with magazines for the pistol and with handfuls of bullets.
Then Val threw the coils of climbing rope and carabiners over his shoulder, walked out the door, and disappeared into the warren of cubies in the former Baby Gap.
“Val!” Leonard ran to the outer door of the store and shouted after the boy, but his grandson was out of sight, probably down the frozen escalator or around the bend in the mall mezzanine.
Leonard pivoted in helpless circles. What could he do? He could phone the Gunny G. security person and tell him to stop Val from leaving, but of course there was no phone in Nick Bottom’s mess of a cubie. Leonard’s chest hurt from his short run from the cubie; he could never catch Val in time.
The old man went to the railing and looked down to the first level of what had once been a bright and upscale shopping mall. Garbage bags were stacked outside of all the grimy-windowed and grubby-tiled former storefronts, and the place stank. If it hadn’t been for the little light coming through dirt-crusted skylights—a few of them propped open above—the mall would have been dark and airless.
“My God, my God,” whispered Leonard. He felt almost certain that Val had gone out to retrieve his pistol and that his grandson would be stalking around outside, waiting for his father to return. Whether on foot or in a car, Nick Bottom would be a target.
Leonard was almost back to the cubie when he heard thuds and the sound of breaking glass. Oh my God, they’ve hurt Val! He ran back out onto the mezzanine, but there was still no one in sight and everything looked normal. Leonard would have stayed there until someone came out to explain what the noise had been, but his chest simply hurt too much.
Gasping for air, Leonard returned to Nick Bottom’s cubie, shoved aside the empty drawers, and sat on the bed. His chest hurt so much that he thought he might faint.
He forced himself up and walked to the desk, looking down at the heap of dossiers.
Val had emptied his pockets of everyday things—penknife, a notebook, other detritus—to make room for the pistol magazines and loose ammunition he’d taken with him. There on the desk was Leonard’s daughter Dara’s cell phone, set down and forgotten by Val in his hurry. With shaking hands, he sat on the bed and activated the few functions that still worked on the phone, clicking to the private text and massive video files.
The demand for the five-letter-digit password came up.
Remembering his lovely, elfin daughter telling her Shakespeare-scholar father why she’d fallen in love with a man with t
he absurd name of Nick Bottom, Leonard thumbed in the letters—d-r-e-a-m.
The encryption fell away. Leonard opened the video files first but this wasn’t a video diary by his daughter: people whom Leonard could not identify were staring into a camera, obviously a much higher-quality camera than the one on Dara’s phone, and talking about their use of flashback. The video files were huge, but skipping around in them just showed more men and women speaking into the camera. There was no sight of Dara, and Leonard couldn’t imagine why this stuff was on her phone.
One hand massaging his aching chest, Leonard closed the video files and opened the encrypted text files. This was by his daughter—a private diary kept by Dara between the late spring and early autumn of her last full year of life. It was password-protected but Leonard guessed Kildare—the name of Dara’s parakeet when she was eight years old—and the file opened. He read quickly, keying the daily entries faster and faster until he reached the last one, recorded just one day before her death.
“My God, my God,” Leonard said again, his voice filled with infinitely more terror and astonishment.
This changed everything. It made the hundreds of pages of the grand jury indictment information in the dossiers accusing Nick of murder nothing more than a sad joke. It changed everything.
He had to get to a phone and call Nick no matter what the consequences of the police tracing the call. He had to find and stop Val. He had to…
Leonard felt the sudden pain in his chest expand, a pain much more intense than the mere flower-fist of discomfort he was used to, until the pain became a widening cloak of darkness that first fluttered about him like a black bat and then settled tight around him, cutting off his vision and breathing.
I have to stay conscious, thought Leonard. I have to tell Nick. I have to tell Val. I have to tell everyone…
He did not feel himself fall.
1.15
Santa Ana and Airborne—Fri., Sept. 24
JOHN WAYNE AIRPORT was outside the area of the battle that had raged around Los Angeles for six or seven days, but the heavy amount of National Guard and other military traffic rumbling by on the 405 San Diego Freeway crossing the airport grounds just beyond the northeast end of Runway 1L/19R had been constant for days. No military air traffic was using John Wayne, only the usual commercial freight and occasional passenger traffic that regularly used the small field in unincorporated Orange County. Noise-abatement restrictions that had once made large aircraft takeoff from Runway 19R somewhat problematic for passengers with the required steep climbs and hard banks over Newport Beach had been eliminated in recent years.