The Wrong Dead Guy

Lupinsky stood on the equivalent of his toes and did a kind of short, metallic soft-shoe routine. When it was over, Woolrich, Giselle, and Morty clapped. Coop shook his head.

  “He can’t come with us.”

  Morty leaned forward. “I think what Coop means is that while we’re grateful for the doctor’s expertise . . .”

  Purrrrrrr, appeared on the television.

  Morty went on: “As a member of the team, he isn’t what you’d call ‘low profile.’”

  Woolrich gestured to Giselle. “That’s why you have a Marilyn.”

  “I’ll handle it,” she said. “Don’t worry.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “What about video surveillance?” said Coop. “Giselle can mess with people’s heads, but she can’t fool cameras.”

  “We’ve already tapped into their system. It will conveniently go down when you’re inside.” Woolrich reached under his desk and pulled out a small backpack. “You won’t want to forget this.”

  “What is it?”

  “The doctor’s batteries. Do you think that’s a nuclear television? No. It’s old. And it takes D batteries.”

  Coop took the pack off the desk and weighed it in his hand. It felt like a cinder block. “Why can’t the cat carry his own batteries?”

  A tinny growl came from the television speakers. A subtitle appeared.

  Grrrrrrrr.

  “Dr. Lupinsky isn’t a pack mule,” said Woolrich.

  “I’m pretty sure we can agree that ‘mule’ isn’t the word anyone is thinking when they look at him,” said Morty.

  Hisssssss.

  “Which isn’t a value judgment,” Morty added quickly. “In fact, we’re all very fond of cats around here. Right, Coop?”

  “I’m not,” said Coop. “The neighbor’s cat ate my hamster when I was a kid.”

  “You had a hamster?” said Giselle.

  “It was my brother’s. He abandoned it and I took care of it. Then the cat got in.”

  “Your poor hamster,” said Giselle. “You never told me about it.”

  “It probably choked him up too much. That childhood stuff sticks with you,” said Morty.

  “I wasn’t choked up. I just don’t trust cats.”

  “He’s not a cat!” shouted Woolrich. “He studied at the Sorbonne. He has a doctorate from Harvard. Right, Doctor?”

  “He’s gone,” said Coop.

  It was true. The only thing on the television screen was a grainy black-and-white test pattern.

  “Look what you’ve done. Dr. Lupinsky?” called Woolrich. He looked at Coop. “Apologize.”

  “To an octopus?”

  Morty frowned. “A minute ago you said cat.”

  “Woolrich said he isn’t a cat.”

  Woolrich stood up. “Apologize now or you’re fired and we both know what that means.”

  “I’m off the badminton team?”

  “Jail.”

  “Do it, Coop,” said Morty.

  “Right now,” said Giselle through gritted teeth.

  Coop held up his hands. “Fine. Sorry, doc. Here, kitty kitty.”

  “Stop that,” said Woolrich.

  Coop looked around. He was outnumbered and the door was too far to run to and, anyway, he’d get lost and Giselle would never speak to him again.

  “Hey, doc,” he said. “Listen. Why don’t you come along and help us case the museum? It can’t hurt to have an extra pair of eyes.”

  The cat came back onto the television screen. It sat down and began cleaning its paws.

  Coop looked at Woolrich. “What is that?”

  “I think it means he accepts your apology,” said Gisele.

  “I wasn’t apolo—”

  Giselle shifted in her seat, discreetly kicking Coop in the leg before settling down again.

  Coop looked Lupinsky over. “Do we have to take all of him? Can’t we just wheel in the television?”

  “You’ll want all of him. Would you show them why, Doctor?” said Woolrich.

  Lupinsky walked to the wall and kept going, strolling up it and across the ceiling. When he was directly above Coop, he reached down with a couple of tentacles and picked him up.

  “Um,” said Coop.

  Woolrich sat back contentedly. “While Dr. Lupinsky’s current situation can be problematic, it also gives him certain advantages. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Definitely,” said Coop, dangling several feet off the floor. “Welcome to the team, doc. Can I get down now?”

  Lupinsky set Coop gently on the floor and walked back down the wall.

  “Thanks,” said Coop.

  The cat opened its mouth.

  Meow.

  “That will be all for now, Doctor. We’ll coordinate a rendezvous time so you can all go to the museum together.”

  As Lupinsky went to the door, the cat stood up and stretched.

  It was nice meeting you all. Especially you, Mr. Cooper.

  “Coop,” he said. “Coop is fine.”

  See you soon, Coop.

  With that, Lupinsky left, quietly closing the door behind him.

  “That’s it for now,” Woolrich said. “You’ll need some time to look over the plans and check out the museum. Let me know when you’re ready to go and we’ll bring Dr. Lupinsky back into the loop.”

  “Swell,” said Coop. Morty picked up the backpack with the batteries and the three of them headed for the door. Just before they went out, Woolrich called after them.

  “And Cooper. No more office-supply heists, all right?”

  Coop turned white. Giselle pulled him out into the hall.

  “You steal office supplies?” said Morty.

  “It was a onetime thing,” said Coop.

  They walked back to the elevators, Giselle in the lead.

  “I thought that thing was going to eat you,” said Morty.

  “So did I,” said Coop.

  “He’s not a thing,” said Giselle. “Dr. Lupinsky is a person.”

  “A very scary person,” said Morty. “I wonder what kind of toys cats like?”

  “You’re not serious,” said Coop.

  Morty shrugged. “Why make enemies when you can make friends?”

  Coop thought about it. “Okay. Put me down for one of those feather things on a string.”

  “Aw. You forgive him for your hamster,” said Giselle.

  “Never.”

  5

  If money wanted to take a few weeks off, kick back, and catch some rays, it would do it in Carrwood, a pretty little private community in the verdant hills of north Los Angeles. Carrwood had more security than the Kremlin. Invading rats and squirrels found inside the gates weren’t poisoned, but trapped, packaged, and shipped to a small, but well-staffed rodent retirement community outside Palms Springs. To say that Carrwood was affluent was like saying the sinking of the Titanic was a bit of a whoopsie.

  The community was named for its developer, Joseph Pitney Carr, who made his fortune in real estate and timber, but started out running whiskey from Mexico during Prohibition. In fact, Carrwood itself began as a small vaguely “orientalist” speakeasy called Báichī De Pìyǎn, which Carr had been told meant the Devil’s Boudoir.

  In reality it meant the Idiot’s Asshole.

  Carr hid his illicit hooch from the prying eyes of local cops and federal snoops by stashing it in a large cave he had dug out of a local hillside. In 1927, in order to clear land for a new housing project, a real estate developer dynamited a small grove of trees directly above Carr’s cave. It cleared the land all right, as the high-octane Mexican gin and bourbon sent a good portion of the developer’s real estate investment into the stratosphere. The company promptly went bust and Carr began buying up the land.

  He used his speakeasy earnings to build the first mansions in what would come to be called Carrwood. And didn’t sell a single one. Frustrated with the real estate racket, Carr put up an ornate fence around the property while contemplating his next move. To his astonishment, people immediately f
locked to Carrwood for the chance to live somewhere so exclusive that buyers weren’t even allowed inside. Without realizing it, Carr had mistakenly invented the first gated community in Southern California.

  After that, Carr went a little fence crazy. Unfortunately, none of those investments worked out. His Riviera-themed pet resort went bust in a year and his gated duck pond was a complete disaster. People couldn’t get close enough to the ducks to toss them small bits of bread, so they’d hurl whole loaves over the fence. By most Sunday afternoons, entire flocks of mallards would be laid out with concussions or pinned under piles of sourdough along the shore. Carr discreetly removed the fence and went back to selling inflated real estate to local high rollers. To this day, no duck will land in Carrwood. They’ll fly over and shit there, but not a single one will land.

  That afternoon in the heart of Carrwood, in a sprawling ranch home on Vieux Carré Lane, six stalwart agents of change had secretly gathered around a marble-topped kitchen island plotting revolution.

  The home was owned by the parents of Heather and Dylan Barker. They and the other members of the cabal drank beer and orange juice waiting for Consuela, the housekeeper, to go into the backyard to visit the gardener.

  Dylan watched her leave and turned to his sister. “Do you think they’re getting it on?”

  “Of course they are,” said Heather.

  “Hot.”

  “They’re married, you moron.” Heather rolled her eyes. “You’d know that if you ever talked to them.”

  “I don’t speak Spanish.”

  “They speak English.”

  “Huh,” Dylan said. “No one ever told me.”

  Heather pointed a can of locally sourced microbrew at her brother. “That’s pure class privilege is what that is,” she said.

  “Says the girl with the new Mercedes.”

  “It’s a hybrid!”

  “With heated leather seats,” said Dylan. “You’re a vegetarian.”

  “Vinyl seats have a huge carbon footprint,” said Heather.

  “Not as huge as your big mouth,” mumbled her brother.

  Heather threw a handful of imported wasabi peanuts at her brother, but he ducked out of the way.

  Tyler, the group’s leader, picked up a stray peanut from the counter and put it back in the bowl. “Now that the house is secure, can we get down to business? I think Brad had something to say.”

  Brad wasn’t from Carrwood and found the place both frightening and bewildering. He drove a hand-me-down Honda Civic that was older than most of his fellow revolutionaries. He didn’t resent Heather and Dylan’s wealth; it’s just that it was as alien to him as moon rocks. He was afraid to come into contact with any object or surface in the house in case he accidently marred it. His glass of orange juice sat untouched a good six inches from his hand.

  “It’s about our last operation,” he said. “I think it’s great that we liberated all the mice from that medical lab, but they’d all been hand-raised. Remember when we tried to release them into the wild? They just stood there and followed us home to my place. Now I have an apartment full of mice with ears on their backs. I mean, they’re friendly enough, but I feel like I have to whisper all the time.”

  “You know the ears don’t work, right?” said Warren, a heavyset young man with a beard that Rasputin would consider unruly.

  “Yeah, but it’s like they’re judging me.”

  Linda, seated next to Dylan said, “You need to get out more, man.”

  “You try dating with an apartment full of Frankenmice,” said Brad.

  “I have a garage full of glow-in-the-dark guinea pigs, so stop whining,” said Warren.

  “I’m not whining. My voice just gets high when I’m upset.”

  “That’s pretty much the definition of whining,” said Sarah, Tyler’s girlfriend. Heather hated her.

  “What was your point, Brad?” said Tyler.

  “My point is that maybe we need to rethink our procedures.”

  “Do you have any suggestions?”

  Brad squirmed in his seat. He hated being put on the spot in front of Sarah, who had about as much interest in him as she did in the way toilets worked in space. “Yeah. Can’t we just liberate, you know, normal animals for a while? One of the mice got out the other day and I thought my landlord was going to call the cops.”

  “Lucky for us she didn’t,” said Sarah.

  Brad shook his head gravely. “She totally freaked out, though. Started yelling at me in some foreign language that had, like, no vowels. Then she called a priest who did an exorcism. Now the hall outside my apartment is covered in prayer beads and crucifixes. Everyone in the building thinks I’m Dracula. I mean, I don’t even eat dairy.”

  “Fine. Regular animals for a while,” said Tyler.

  “Don’t say ‘animals.’ They’re beings like us,” said Linda.

  “Won’t that get a little confusing?” said Heather. “‘Liberating beings’ sounds like I want to liberate Warren.”

  “I’m cool right here,” Warren said.

  “See? Warren is cool where he is,” said Dylan.

  Linda looked out the window to the backyard. “Still. It doesn’t seem right.”

  “Let’s vote on it,” said Tyler.

  Hands went up around the kitchen island.

  “The motion is carried,” he said. “From now on animals will be known as beings.”

  Sarah cocked her head to the side. “That leaves Warren out. He’s definitely an animal.”

  Warren grinned. “It’s true.”

  Heather stared at Tyler’s perfect hands as he sipped his beer.

  “Back to our original question,” he said. “Does anyone have any suggestions for animals . . . beings we can liberate?”

  “What about the zoo?” said Dylan.

  Sarah raised her eyebrows. “Are you kidding? Those animals—beings—eat better than some of us do.”

  “But they should be back home.”

  “Good luck driving a load of anacondas to the Amazon,” said Warren. “When one of them swallows you, I’m not going in to get you out.”

  “What about bats?” said Brad.

  “Too creepy,” said Sarah.

  “Penguins?” said Linda.

  Heather looked at her. “They live in Antarctica.”

  “My boyfriend works at a 7-Eleven. They have a big freezer in the back.”

  “Is it three thousand miles wide?” said Warren. “’Cause if it isn’t, it’s not the same thing.”

  “I don’t think so, but I can ask.”

  Tyler looked back to Brad. “Since you started this line of inquiry, do you have any other suggestions?”

  Brad gnawed on a thumbnail. Finally, he said, “I don’t know. I say we lay low for a while, figure out what to do with the mice and guinea pigs, and just keep our eyes open.”

  “Anyone have any other ideas?” said Tyler. “No? Then let’s take a vote. Who’s for taking a break and reassessing our methodology?”

  Hands went up. Tyler counted.

  “That’s it, then. We sit tight and look for the right target.”

  “Do we have to use the word ‘target’?” said Linda.

  “What do you suggest?” said Dylan.

  “‘Beingeration.’”

  “What?” said Heather.

  “‘Beingeration.’ Like liberating beings.”

  “I’m not voting on that,” Warren said.

  “Can we table that discussion for another time?” said Tyler.

  Linda crossed her arms and pouted. “Fine.”

  “If that’s all the business for today, let’s order a pizza.”

  “Cool,” said Dylan. “What should we get?”

  “‘Friendmancipate,’” said Linda.

  “I was thinking more like mushrooms.”

  “Like ‘friend’ and ‘emancipate,’” Linda explained.

  “We decided no more business tonight,” said Sarah.

  “How about pineapple?” said H
eather.

  “On pizza? I live with mutant mice. I’m not going to eat mutant food,” said Brad.

  Warren nodded. “Yeah. No one wants your freaky fruit pie.”

  “Besides, pineapples are an invasive species,” said Dylan.

  Brad made a face. “No, they’re not. They grow wild all over Hawaii.”

  “Then what am I thinking of?”

  “We have mushrooms,” said Tyler. “Do we want anything else on it?”

  “Kudzu,” said Dylan.

  “They make kudzu pizza?” said Sarah.

  “No. That’s the invasive species.”

  “No one wants that,” said Linda.

  “I know.”

  “Then why did you say it?”

  “I was trying to make a point about invasive species,” said Dylan.

  “I think it’s clear that no one wants to support an invasive species,” Linda said.

  “I do,” said Warren. “I vote for kudzu.”

  “Don’t start,” said Tyler.

  Warren pounded a fist on the counter top. “I want to friendmancipate the kudzu!”

  Tyler turned to Linda. “See what you started?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Can I just order a separate pineapple pizza?” said Heather.

  Warren shook his head. “Pizza is an invasive food. I want a corn dog.”

  “Shut up, Warren,” said Sarah.

  He wrapped his arms around himself. “I’m feeling pretty mopressed right now. That’s ‘mocked’ and ‘oppressed.’”

  “The pizza place doesn’t have corn dogs,” said Tyler.

  “Then I’ll eat your imperialist flatbread, but only because I wish to liberate it and all the baby pizzas into my stomach.”

  “How about olives to go with the mushrooms?” said Tyler. “And if anyone says that olives are an invasive species or a despotic vegetable, I’m burning this place down.”

  “Technically, olives are a fruit, not a vegetable,” said Linda.

  “That’s it. Someone give me a match.”

  Heather finished her beer. “This is my parents’ summer home. You can’t burn it.”

  “Yeah. Burning a whole house is a bigger carbon footprint than vinyl seats,” said Dylan.

  Heather glared at him.

  “I guess it’s mushrooms and nothing else, then,” said Tyler.

  “How about burritos?” said Warren.