Stone Junction

  ‘Yes. And I know I can trust Daniel as much as I trust you.’

  ‘Fine. You work it out with him. But absolutely don’t tell him when it’s going to happen or where until you’re on your way in the car. And don’t tell him what’s involved. Just that we’re going to need his help.’

  ‘Shamus, he’s been an outlaw his whole life. He forges papers every day. He understands how it is. When the theft hits the news, you think he won’t know who did it, what went down? And be hurt and pissed off he wasn’t trusted enough to be included – especially when he might have to suffer the consequences? You don’t think there’s going to be a shit-rain of heat?’

  ‘Obviously. But don’t forget, the plutonium is our umbrella. That’s why I have to pull it off. Because without the plutonium, there’s no leverage. They’re gutless, Annalee, not stupid. They won’t fire if they know we can fire back. And they’ll have the whole world watching, because I’m going to make sure it’s on every front page and television set in the world, and the first demand will be amnesty for everyone involved.’

  ‘And if they call the bluff? Won’t negotiate?’

  ‘I lose. I’ll surrender myself and the plutonium on the condition that everyone else involved, who I’d duped or forced into doing their tiny, innocent, unconnected parts, be granted amnesty. But even if it comes to that, it will be a success, because I’ll have held up a mirror to their madness, ripped off their masks.’

  ‘And they’ll lock you up forever as an example, maybe even execute you, and I’ll never see you again.’

  ‘Annalee,’ Shamus pleaded, ‘it’s beyond us. It cries to be done.’

  ‘I’ll cry, too,’ Annalee said.

  Shamus took her in his arms and embraced her, rocking her as he said, ‘Do you think I won’t?’

  When Annalee left for Shamus’s apartment the evening of the fourteenth, she hugged Daniel and said, ‘I’ll bring you a bomb for breakfast.’

  ‘Are you nervous?’ Daniel asked her.

  ‘About to fall to pieces. Are you?’

  ‘Yes. But excited, too.’

  ‘Right. Which is why you should go to bed early and get plenty of sleep so you’ll be rested and sharp, because tomorrow’s going to take the very best we’ve got. And remember to lock the doors.’

  ‘I will.’

  He didn’t.

  Daniel was undressed and in bed when he remembered the back door. He’d locked it earlier, but then, deciding to gather all the equipment together and have it ready for tomorrow, he’d gone out to the garage for the tent and couldn’t recall if he’d relocked it. He was reaching for his nightstand light when a woman’s voice said from the doorway, ‘I’ll look for you in the shadows.’

  Carefully, Daniel reached for his pants beside the bed and took out his pocket knife, opened it, and slipped it under the covers. When he set his pants back down on the floor some change in the pockets jingled.

  ‘I seek you in the dark by the jingle of silver and the sound of your breath.’ He could hear her hand patting along the wall and then the overhead light switched on. The woman standing in the doorway was young, pretty, and, as Daniel quickly judged from her eyes, very stoned.

  She peered at him intently. ‘Ha. I found you.’ She smiled at him. ‘But who have I found?’

  ‘My name’s Daniel,’ he said, too surprised not to answer.

  She giggled, ‘Then this must be the lion’s den.’ She walked into the room.

  ‘Not really. It’s my bedroom. Who are you?’

  But she was staring at the poster of the Horsehead Nebula on the wall over the bed. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘The Horsehead Nebula. It’s what’s called a dark nebula, because it doesn’t contain any bright stars. The dark nebulae block the light of the stars beyond them, so from here they look like dark patches in the sky. They’re like huge interstellar dust clouds. Some astronomers think they’ll eventually collapse into themselves and form new stars.’

  She stared at it intently for half a minute. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said, and began to cry.

  ‘I feel the same way sometimes,’ Daniel said.

  Sniffling, she sat down on the edge of the bed and, head cocked quizzically, looked at him. Though it was a cold night, she wore only a thin blouse, blue jeans, and sandals. ‘Nebula, nebulae; nebula, nebulae,’ she intoned. ‘You’re too young to be a scientist, aren’t you?’

  ‘Are you too young to be a burglar?’

  ‘Hey,’ she said sharply. ‘I’m not a burglar.’

  ‘Then why are you here in our house, late at night, without knocking?’

  ‘I lost the party,’ she said. ‘When you lose the party, you have to find something else. You have to look for an open door.’

  ‘Did you take something at the party?’

  She sniffled, shaking her head. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Tonight it’s Brigit Bardo. Like that old French actress.’

  ‘Are you an actress?’

  She peered at him closely. ‘I’m not anything.’

  ‘Do you need some help?’

  ‘No,’ she laughed suddenly, ‘it’s easy.’

  Daniel started to say something but she reached out and put a finger to his lips. ‘No more questions for awhile.’ She pressed harder with her finger. ‘All right?’

  Daniel barely nodded.

  She trailed her finger over his chin and throat and down his chest to the edge of the blanket that covered him.

  ‘What are you doing,’ Daniel asked uneasily.

  ‘Something you’ll never forget.’ She pushed the blankets down slowly. When she saw the knife, she reached over and folded the blade closed. Leaning down, she bit him lightly just below the ribs, then lifted back the blankets. When she took his cock in her mouth, Daniel shuddered and shut his eyes.

  Her mouth was unbearably warm, infinitely slow. As Daniel passed through the Horsehead Nebula he learned there are things beyond imagining that exist anyway.

  She left an hour later, locking the door behind her.

  When Annalee returned home in the late afternoon, Daniel was waiting to open the door. They looked at each other and asked, ‘Are you all right?’ and then laughed.

  ‘You look like you didn’t get much sleep,’ Annalee told him.

  ‘And you look jumpy and exhausted,’ Daniel said.

  ‘You’d be jumpy, too, driving around with a bomb.’ Noticing the camping equipment piled on the living room floor, she pointed. ‘What’s this? We taking to the hills?’

  ‘That’s our cover. We’re going camping in Yosemite.’

  ‘There’s a small flaw, isn’t there? Like the fact that it’s February?’

  Daniel reached into the pile and produced two pairs of snowshoes. ‘We’re going snow camping. I rented these at REI this morning. Out in the parking lot, a short, bearded man asked me where I was headed …’

  Annalee listened distractedly to the elaborate cover story Daniel had concocted in case they were pulled over with the bomb in the car. How the bearded man had given him a package to deliver to his sister in Livermore, some sort of illegal cancer treatment from Mexico. The story was well conceived, but wouldn’t make any difference if they were busted on the way, which she was sure Daniel understood. When she finally saw the point, she shook her head.

  ‘Daniel, bless you, but there’s no way you can protect me if we get popped.’

  ‘I’m a juvenile. I wouldn’t go to jail.’

  ‘You’re a sweetheart. And I’d go to jail for contributing to your delinquency on top of possession of an explosive device.’

  ‘We could try it.’

  Annalee didn’t want to argue. ‘Sure,’ she said, ‘but let’s hope we don’t have to.’

  Daniel pointed at the ceiling. ‘Something else. The paper upstairs. I put the blanks and seals in the safe, but if anything happens and they search here, they’ll find them.’

  ‘Yeah, well, AMO will just have to eat it.
’

  ‘I was thinking we could drop the incriminating stuff off at Jason’s. Tell him we decided to go camping and didn’t want to leave it around.’

  ‘But we’ve taken off before and just stashed it. He’ll know something’s weird. And we don’t have time.’

  Daniel considered this a moment, then shrugged. ‘Do you know where we’re going?’

  ‘Las Postas Avenue in Livermore. An alley between a machine shop that just went out of business and an empty warehouse.’

  ‘I can’t cover both ends of an alley.’

  ‘You don’t have to – it’s a blind alley, T-shaped. Just for deliveries and garbage pickup.’

  ‘What’s the bomb look like?’

  ‘A sealed black metal cube about a foot on each side. It’s in a paper shopping bag.’

  ‘What sort of bomb?’

  ‘I didn’t ask.’

  ‘I mean does it have a timer? Fuse? Remote control?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t care, either. What difference does it make?’

  ‘I just wondered if it was armed.’

  ‘No. I have to do that in the alley. There’s a button I push. A red light should come on. Whether it lights up or not, we leave immediately and call a number from a pay phone a half mile away.’

  ‘Probably a timer,’ Daniel said to himself.

  ‘Right, I guess it is. Shamus said it had a Mickey Mouse clock inside. He said the guy that put it together was in the avant garde of demolition.’

  ‘How is Shamus?’

  ‘Gone. Not there. Electric with purpose. The damn bomb was under the bed all night, if you can believe that.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Daniel said noncommitally. ‘How’s our time?’

  ‘Too much, not enough, and running out.’ She felt tears welling in her eyes and turned for the bathroom.

  Daniel caught her by the hand as she passed him and held her at arms’ length. ‘You sure you’re okay? We have to concentrate.’

  ‘If I concentrate any harder I’ll disappear.’ She took a deep breath to gather herself, slumping as she let it out. ‘This whole thing is stupid and impossible and pointless.’

  ‘We’ve got outs,’ Daniel said gently. ‘Call the number Shamus gave you and tell him the car broke down. I can dump some sugar in the tank.’

  Annalee hugged him fiercely. ‘I know, I know.’ She buried her face on his shoulder and squeezed him again. After a moment, she pushed herself away and gave him a weak smile. ‘I’m all right. I got shaky there for a minute, but I’ll make it.’

  ‘Then let’s go.’ Daniel smiled back. ‘You’ll be fine. You always are.’

  * * *

  A light rain was falling when they left Berkeley. As Shamus had planned, Daniel and Annalee were just in front of the heavy rush hour traffic on 580 through Castro Valley. It was almost dark as they left Dublin Canyon. Annalee glanced at her watch when they saw the Las Postas exit.

  ‘We doing good?’ Daniel asked. They’d hardly spoken since they’d left, but the silence was solid and comfortable.

  ‘We’re doing fine,’ Annalee said.

  When they passed a Texaco station she pointed out the rain-blurred window and told him, ‘That’s the pay phone we want, so we’re close now. Look for 4800.’

  When Daniel spotted it moments later, she turned right and circled the block. There were few cars on the wet streets, fewer pedestrians.

  ‘The rain’s a blessing,’ Daniel said. ‘It’s hard to see out the side windows, makes people concentrate on the road.’

  Annalee said absently, ‘Small blessings.’

  She stopped at the mouth of the alley. As she reached to switch off the ignition her hand stopped. She giggled, ‘Help! Do I turn it off or leave it running?’

  ‘Off,’ Daniel said. ‘Along with the headlights. And pull up the hood on your coat.’

  ‘Thanks.’ She smiled at him as she killed the engine. She glanced in the rearview mirror and then up the street.

  ‘Looks fine,’ Daniel said.

  ‘Well,’ she said, reaching over into the backseat for the shopping bag, ‘here we are.’

  ‘I’ll give two short honks if anything looks like trouble.’

  Annalee opened the door and slid out, pausing to tell him, ‘You’re special, Daniel.’ She shut the door with her knee, adjusted the bag in her arms, and walked briskly down the alley.

  Daniel could barely see her through the rain-smeared glass so he cranked the window down halfway. He caught a flash of headlights in the rearview mirror and turned to watch as a car hissed passed. The rain came down harder. He turned back to the alley just as Annalee disappeared around the left corner. He checked the streets quickly for pedestrians. Not a soul. He was just turning to check the alley when he heard Annalee scream, ‘Daniel! Run!’ and the bomb exploded, blowing the car fifteen feet sideways and hurling a shard of metal through his right temple. He staggered from the car, swayed, collapsed on the wet pavement. Shaking his head, he pushed himself up on his hands and knees, crawled toward the alley, and collapsed again. He lay still, blood and rain in his eyes. When he tried to blink them clear, they stayed closed.

  Far below, he saw a tiny point of light. He began sliding toward it, helplessly gathering momentum. As he plunged, the light slowly enlarged, gleaming so brilliantly he was blinded. Daniel was falling into the sun. Just as he was about to be consumed, he realized the light was being reflected from a mirror. He tried to raise his hands to protect his eyes but his hands wouldn’t move.

  They were lifting him into the ambulance when his heart stopped. The two attendants clamped a defibrillator to his chest, each jolt shooting a thin stream of blood from Daniel’s temple, flecking their white uniforms. Daniel’s heart fluttered briefly, faded, then weakly started beating again.

  Daniel was in a coma when Annalee was buried five days later. Only a few stunned friends from the Random Canyon Raiders attended the brief service. They were photographed from an unmarked car as they left the cemetery.

  That night, weeping, Shamus dug far down in the still-loose earth of the grave. He left his black glove, a large gold nugget nestled in its palm gleaming in the moonlight before he covered it over.

  Jessal Voltrano was a prodigy of the air. At fourteen, critics were hailing him as a master of the aerial arts, and perhaps the best trapezist who ever lived. For the next five years, he dazzled crowds from Paris to Budapest. He refused to perform or practice with a net. As he explained to one reporter, ‘Nets discourage concentration.’

  But two weeks before his twentieth birthday, during a solo performance in Prague, the empty concentration essential to exquisite timing failed him for an instant. He would never forget that disembodied moment when he saw himself open from the plummeting whirl of somersaults, never forget how softly the bar brushed his fingertips as he continued to fall.

  One of the clowns reached him first. Jessal was still conscious. ‘I can feel my skeleton,’ he whispered in amazement. ‘I can feel it.’

  No doubt. Except for his hands, he’d broken nearly every bone in his body. During his grueling convalescence, Chester Kane, an American intern, introduced him to sleight-of-hand magic. Jessal practiced the tricks with the same diligence he’d brought to the trapeze, absorbing the nuances of each grip, shuffle, slide, and turn. His therapy became his passion, and when he left the hospital nine months later, he was teaching Dr Kane.

  Jessal returned to the trapeze, but it wasn’t the same. His brilliant grace was lost forever to damaged nerves, knotted bone. He left the circus and never looked back.

  Changing his name to The Great Volta, he wandered through Europe, Africa, and Indonesia, walking by day, sleeping where night found him, performing his magic wherever people would gather to watch, surviving on the coins they tossed in his hat. As opportunity offered, he watched other magicians work, consulted with them, taught and learned; in every town, he scoured the library for useful texts. At the end of four devoted years, he was an accomplished practitioner of sleigh
t-of-hand magic. However, he began to feel an increasing dissatisfaction, as if his craft and knowledge had become a trap.

  One afternoon in Athens, as he performed for a crowd of pensioners and street urchins, Volta muffed a simple card trick, turning the queen of hearts instead of the ace. As the audience hooted at his blunder, Volta realized his magic was hollow, a magic of distraction and mechanical deceit, a manipulation of appearances that could never produce the substance he sought. Volta tossed the deck high in the air, laughing with the crowd as the cards fluttered down. He would remember that moment as his first great escape.

  His second occurred a month later, summer solstice 1955. He was sailing to America on a Greek freighter, watching the moon rise from the top deck, when a leaky fuel tank exploded, hurling him into the sea. Watching the moon rise saved his life, for another tank detonated a minute later, engulfing the ship in flames and screams. Volta saw a life raft hit the water and swam for it.

  Volta found only one other survivor, and he was badly burned. After attending to him as best he could from the meager first-aid kit, Volta propped him in the bow. He checked the raft’s provisions: a week of canned rations, five gallons of water, compass, flare gun, and a steel signal mirror. He set a westerly course and began to row.

  When the burned man died five days later, calling deliriously for his mother as Volta held him in his arms, Volta barely had the strength to slip him overboard. A day later he was too exhausted to row. Caught between the punishing sun and the icy moon, he let the raft drift.

  The food ran out first. The next night, his throat still aching with the last swallow of water, Volta fired the three flares in quick succession, blooding the sea. He dropped the compass over the side, the first-aid kit, then the flare gun. But when he picked up the signal mirror, he caught an image in the mirror. It wasn’t him. The face was swollen and peeled. In his exhausted delirium, he thought that to see his real face he would have to put his mind within the image in the mirror, look at himself through its burned eyes. With his last speck of concentration, he sent himself into the mirror, surrendered himself. When he opened his eyes, there was no one in the raft. He looked into the mirror. It was empty. As he started to fall, he could hear, distantly, a terrified scream wrenched from his lungs. Just as he returned to his body, Volta dropped the mirror into the sea. He was still following its sliver of light when he heard a woman singing. He listened, then opened his eyes.