by Lydia Millet
—The rich, the mighty, and every slave and free man hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains.
—So what are you saying, Dave? asked Larry.
—Revelation 6:15.
—Dave man, I just need the info, OK? Where is he?
But David shook his head and shrugged. They walked past him and continued their aimless search at the outskirts of the camp.
—Where did he get that cut? asked Ann. —I mean it, Larry. Was it Big Glen?
—Glen will not lift a hand in anger, said Larry.
A dirty little girl in jelly sandals drove a purple ORV in circles around a yelping dog tied to a yucca tree.
Atmospheric tests were halted in 1963 by the global Limited Test Ban Treaty. From then on they went underground.
Underground tests continued for decades, until 1992 when they were stopped. Then in 1997 the underground tests resumed, having gone even further underground by becoming “subcritical.”
Subcritical tests do not involve a completed nuclear chain reaction; rather they use chemical explosives and a small amount of fissile material. Like conventional nuclear tests, they are conducted underground to contain radioactive byproducts.
—Kidnapped, said Szilard. They were huddled inside the bus with the cell phone lying on the table between them. Big Glen paced in the cramped kitchen with his hands in balled fists and his face crumpled into a scowl. —They left a message on my cell phone.
—Should I call the cops, then? asked Larry.
—Are you fucking kidding? said Clint. —Give the pigs another opportunity to persecute us?
—Chill out, man, said Larry. —They got better shit to do. You’re kind of paranoid.
—Yeah. After that massive DEA raid, I’m really paranoid.
—Clint? Did you ever consider using, like, a non-aluminum herbal deodorant? asked Tamika, who was standing near his left armpit. —There’s an oil that works really good. Tea tree.
—I’m not putting a corporation on my body, said Clint, and pulled the wrapper off a Twinkie.
—Leo, I need to talk to you, said Ann. —Now.
Alone outside she slid one of Oppenheimer’s cigarettes out of a crumpled pack.
—So is it them? she asked Szilard. —The military?
—I don’t know yet.
—But what do you think?
—I’m waiting to hear right now.
—Leo! What could they do to him?
His phone beeped and he raised a cautionary finger.
—Szilard. Uh huh. Really.
He turned around and paced while he listened, saying finally, —I think we can do that.
She watched closely, shifting her weight from one foot to the other.
When he flipped the phone closed again the muscles of his face were looser. He was clearly relieved.
—It’s just kids!
Larry leaned out the door of the bus.
—What is it with you guys?
—Coming, said Szilard.
She followed him into the bus again.
—I do not want to see them, but they are my only friends, said Fermi. Ben fixed his eyes on the lane divider ahead of him, the dash-dash-dash of white that was so hypnotic.
—From the old world, I mean, went on Fermi gently. —My only friends from the world that I knew.
—The good news, announced Szilard, —is it’s only a bunch of juvenile delinquents.
—What do they want? asked Larry impatiently.
—Fifty thousand dollars.
—Whew! said Larry, and grinned. —No problem.
—They’re going to text-message me saying where and when, said Szilard. —In a few minutes, they said.
—It’ll be cool, said Clint. —No sweat. I’ll beat the shit out of them.
—Won’t be necessary, friend, said Larry. —All we gotta do is pony up the money.
—Still, we need more security, said Leslie. —No offense to Big Glen.
—No offense taken, growled Glen, and twisted a wet dishrag until Ann thought she could hear it tearing.
—Now that we’re in the media spotlight? said Tamika. —We’re targets!
—I got Frank to call a private company with an office in Vegas, said Larry. —They’re going to meet us when we get to the city. We got eight guys lined up.
—Did you talk to Robert, Leo? asked Ann.
—They put him on for about ten seconds.
—What did he say? Is he OK?
—He said he was out of cigarettes.
—I got kidnapped once, said Larry. —Back when I was a kid. They just want the money. It’s no big deal. I ate Tootsie Rolls the whole time.
The bus door swung open. It was Ben and Fermi.
Neither of them spoke until Ann broke the ice.
—Hi, honey, she said. —Some kids have kidnapped Robert.
The motorcycles led the way, two abreast in more rows than Ann could count from the front of the bus. Flags rippled off their back seats, stars and stripes, black-and-white banners for MIAs/POWs, and several skulls-and-crossbones. On the shoulders of the road were the ATVs, bringing up dirt. Behind the Harleys and Yamahas came the trucks with their outsize camper shells and the cars towing their Airstreams and ATVs behind them, the Vanagons and VW buses and clunkers decorated with political graffiti and banners, the ragged open jeeps and gleaming SUVs.
In her sockfeet she padded to the back to look out the rear window and saw the hulking charter buses behind them.
—I can’t believe the kids agreed to meet us at the casino, said Ben under his breath to her when she got to the front again, leaning in close to her on the bench. —They must be morons.
Behind them at the kitchen table Szilard was typing on his laptop, listening to the BBC World Service on a loud radio and talking on his cell phone at the same time. Fermi was sleeping in a sleeping bag in the corner and Big Glen, Larry, and Tamika were hunched over a card table playing gin rummy.
—Did Larry call the cops?
—Szilard convinced him not to. They’re just going to pay the ransom. Larry doesn’t care.
—And after that?
—Szilard wants to drive to Washington D.C.
—What is that, three thousand miles? What’s the point?
—What do you think? Campaign publicity. They’ll be holding protests and media events along the way.
—When Fermi asked him about the exhumation Szilard barely listened. He’s turned into a megalomaniac.
—What he is is a child, she said.
—Ann? What he is is an asshole.
Larry packed up his marijuana and lay with his head on Tamika’s bare stomach, sucking on a grape popsicle. Ben watched Big Glen lay out a game of solitaire on a card table beside them, a task he performed slowly and with great care. He was wearing a kerchief tied around his head.
Ann had said he was a pacifist, but Ben did not believe it. The guy had scabs on his knuckles.
—Wackenhut, Larry? You gotta be kidding, said Szilard, hanging up his cell phone.
—What do you mean? asked Larry.
—That’s who you hired to take care of us? Those people are the enemy!
—Not when we’re paying them.
—Isn’t it a conflict of interest or anything?
—I don’t think so, said Larry. —I mean, they do what they’re told. They’re security.
—They’re thugs. We should not support that corporation. Or while we’re at it, Larry, why don’t we just go ahead and send Raytheon a fruit basket.
—OK Leo. If you want to book security yourself, feel free. Just call 411.
—I don’t have time for those details, grumbled Szilard. —Ann. Can you do it?
—No she can’t, said Ben, and then quietly to Ann, —Let’s just take the car off the trailer hitch and get the hell out of here. Fermi’s begging me. Don’t you want to go?
—That’s not what I meant by save me, she whispered back. —Oppenheimer’s been kidnapped—
—By teen
agers!
—and you want me to leave? You know that’s not what I meant! I need to be here, I have to see it through.
—What is through? Follow these idiots around for the rest of our lives like groupies with nothing better to do?
—Don’t be like that, OK? I just don’t want to be useless. I want something to do.
He looked at her for a few seconds, her blandly stubborn face.
—Now you’re pissing me off, he said, and got up and walked to the back of the bus, to where Fermi was sitting fumbling with his shaving kit.
When Ben sat down beside him he pulled out a bottle of Ibuprofen and struggled with the childproof lid.
—It is very annoying, he grumbled.
—I’ll get it, said Ben. As he lifted the lid off the bus turned sharply and pills flew onto the carpet. —Damn!
—Look there! said Fermi. —It is a truck stop named Love.
Ben knelt on the carpet gathering pills as the bus pulled jerkily up to the gas pump. Motorcyclists putted around them, a jagged frenzy of noise.
In the truck stop convenience store Ann found Dory puzzling over a dazzling array of beef jerky. Her hair was greasy and there was a pen stuck behind her ear. Without her laptop or microphone she looked lost.
—I wouldn’t get the Spicy Hot Texan BBQ if I were you.
—Ann! Do you think they’re hurting him?
—I think he’s going to be fine.
Dory flushed behind her glasses.
—He’s just, you know. Such an intellect.
They browsed beside each other along the rows of gum and novelty candy, edible necklaces, gummy bears, gummy fish, gummy worms. Behind them Clint and Ken stocked up on caffeine-loaded energy drinks and planned for their rendezvous with the kidnappers.
—Should we take tasers with us?
—What are those, like stun guns?
—Non-lethal weaponry. In case the kids try something.
—You’re kidding, right? said Ann, glaring at them. When they ignored her she turned back to Dory. —I didn’t know you were coming with us.
—I decided at the last minute. I have to admit I was, you know, worried about Robert. I mean he really misses his wife. Kitty? I’m so sorry for him.
—So then—you believe he is who he claims to be?
—I’m not here to make judgments, said Dory. —I’m a social scientist! I’m just here to observe and record.
—So you’re sorry he lost his wife but you don’t believe he lost his wife?
—I’m sure that he lost something. He’s lonely.
Ann stared at her from the side as she placed her items on the counter and lined them up carefully. There were strands of gray in her hair at the temples, and the fake-tortoiseshell arm of her glasses was deeply scratched.
—Lonely, she said softly. —He probably is.
She looked down at her hands, realized she had nothing in them to buy, and left Dory standing there.
Outside the bus Ben was standing talking to a biker chick, a woman in her fifties with a stumplike torso and flyaway dyed-black hair. As Ann approached them the woman handed him a cigarette.
—Do you think I could have one too? asked Ann, but the woman stared at her without blinking or smiling. —I’d be happy to pay for it.
—My wife Ann, said Ben. —You probably already met? She doesn’t smoke either.
—Why dontcha just buy a pack.
Back at the Luxor she left Ben in the shower and went down to the lobby with Larry and Szilard to put the ransom money in a hotel safe deposit box.
—We’re supposed to meet them in Pharaoh’s Pheast, said Larry.
—What’s that? asked Szilard.
—It’s a buffet, said Ann, and pointed. —Over there.
—Do you think the food there is actually Egyptian? asked Szilard eagerly.
—Sure, said Larry. —Egyptian hamburgers, Egyptian Coke.
They found the two felons lounging at a booth near the back. They wore baggy jeans and flimsy gray witch masks with long hooked noses. One of them was sipping soda through a straw inserted into his mouth hole. His T-shirt said in large block letters FUCK OFF YOU FUCKING FUCK.
—So you are kids. Just like we expected, said Szilard, as he and Larry slipped into the booth beside them. Ann stood at the end of the table with her arms folded on her chest, waiting.
—And you fat.
—Pardon me?
—Let’s skip the small talk, said Larry. —Where is he?
—First I gotta go get the money, said the first witch.
—I stay here with lardass, said witch number two, and then elbowed Larry. —Hey, hippie. Got the key for the box?
When the first witch had gone off in the direction of the safe deposit box, Ann swiveling to watch him as he wove across the floor between rows of slot machines, Szilard reached out and grabbed his untouched soda.
—I’ll have this, he said to witch two, and then sneezed on it.
—Gross, said the witch.
Fermi knocked on the door and when Ben let him in he was wearing a suit with loosened tie and carrying a bucket of ice.
—Where did you get that?
—Leo made me wear it. He says we have to do a press conference later.
—And you agreed to do that for him?
—I just move when somebody pushes me, said Fermi, and sat down heavily in a chair. —The tap water tastes dusty.
—You go get him, said Szilard. —It’s the women’s rest room. When she knocked on the first stall a woman shrilled Occupied! at the top of her lungs, as though facing an inquisition.
—Robert? Are you here?
The next stall was empty so she knocked on the handicapped stall at the end. A body bumped against the door. She shook the handle but the door was bolted so she got down on all fours. Luckily the tiles were clean, and she smelled only disinfectant when she wriggled underneath.
Anyone else would have looked like humiliation, but Oppenheimer leaned gracefully against the wall as though he had been daydreaming. Except for the gray duct tape across his mouth he was as usual.
—Don’t worry, she said, and scrambled upright to face the duct tape. —This may hurt a bit, though, and she began to peel it off.
—Quickly, not slowly, said Oppenheimer through stretched lips, when she was halfway through.
—Sorry, she said, and ripped off the rest. —You OK?
—I just need a cigarette. The hands, please, said Oppenheimer, and turned so she could unwrap him, his hands together at the small of his back, duct-taped lavishly.
—At least they left you in the handicapped, she said.
—Roomy.
She finished unwinding the tape from his hands and he touched his wrists gingerly. Then they exited the stall together, surprising only an over-tanned young woman in pumps and a white suit. When they walked up behind her she was leaning forward over the sinks to apply purple lipstick, pouting at the mirror.
—Oh! Is this unisex? she squeaked as they passed her, and Ann shook her head.
—They took my cigarettes away, said Oppenheimer. —Those pipsqueaks smoked joint after joint the whole afternoon and then had the temerity to lecture me on the evils of tobacco.
Ben and Fermi lay on the double beds in the hotel room, watching the news. Ben drank Japanese beer.
One of the local stations was running footage from the peace protest, and watching it he had to admit he almost wished he had been there. It seemed stupid and grandiose, a rock concert from a bygone era with its wild throng of hippies, bikers, longhairs, and disgruntled off-road vehicle guys. Occasionally a peace-loving priest or nun stumbled in front of the camera, apparently lost.
—Shouldn’t we tell them it’s on? asked Fermi.
Ben said nothing and both of them stayed where they were. Fermi had removed his shoes and set them neatly beside his bed; he had removed the bedspread and folded it neatly.
The camera panned across tacky posters of the three scientists, looking like the
Three Tenors, and then a reporter stepped into frame beside a teenager wearing a T-shirt with a line drawing of Oppenheimer in his porkpie hat.
—This is Ron Stubac, a tenth-grader from Reno. So Ron. What brings you to this Peace Camp protest party?
—Oppie! My main man!
—Tell me, Ron. Do you believe the man calling himself Dr. Robert Oppenheimer is actually the famous scientist from World War Two?
—Totally! Time travel! I mean I read Stephen Hawking. Do you?
—Well thanks Ron, that’s quite a vote of confidence, said the reporter, and smiled terminally. He turned away from Ron and gave a different smile to the camera. —We certainly have some fans here!
—Apocalypse! yelled Ron Stubac, popping back into frame.
—Don’t you wish he was wearing a T-shirt with your face on it? Ben asked Fermi.
Fermi turned and picked up his water cup carefully, not spilling a drop as he lifted it to sip.
—I am not a T-shirt.
The witch got up from the table and took off running as soon as he saw Ann and Oppenheimer heading over. He passed them at a jog and Ann could hear the fft-fft-fft of his baggy jeans rubbing together. She turned to watch as he knocked a plate off an old man’s table with the tail of his heavy plaid shirt and then was out of view among the slot machines.
At the table sat Ted the lawyer, between Larry and Szilard, penning into a palm pilot.
—Think he thought we were going to try to have him arrested, said Larry when she and Oppenheimer sat down, and clapped Oppenheimer on the back heartily. —How you doing, brother?
—I am fine. Thank you for paying the ransom.
—Please! said Larry, and raised his hands. —Of course!
—If you hadn’t obliged I’d have been forced to watch them play Grand Theft Auto until I slipped into a coma.
—That one kid was a dick, said Larry.
Oppenheimer raised his eyebrows slightly, signaling his assent. —I did not warm to him.
Szilard was reading a legal brief, his arm in its cast on the table beside him, and spooning an ice cream sundae out of a parfait glass with the other hand.
—Grand Theft Auto?
—I thought you were the expert on teen culture, Leo, said Ann.
—Lar, said Szilard, —are the Wackenhut guys starting today? Because from now on they’re on both of us twenty-four seven. Oh, and there’s Enrico too. Put two of them on him. I think he’s in the room with Ben.