“I’ll call one of the neighbors and see if I can borrow a car.”
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s probably a good idea.”
“Oh, and your father called. He wants you to call him back. Says it’s important.”
Like hell he was going to call back. It was Teddy’s fault he was in this mess. He’d gone to his father for help when Bellerophonics was tanking, and after the bare minimum amount of financial assistance, his father had cut him off. No, the great Teddy Telemachus only bet on cards, never his own children.
“Did Matty call?” he asked. That was the Telemachus he needed right now. But Loretta was gone. What time did she say it was? He should have paid attention. There were only so many hours to fill until his appointment with Nick Pusateri Senior.
The first time Frankie thought he was going to die was in 1991, in a small room on the bottom deck of the Alton Belle, right after getting his nose broke. The guy whose fist did the damage was a wiry white guy with rabbit teeth and sun-cracked skin like a vinyl chair left in the yard. He was dressed like a janitor, but it wasn’t clear if he was the official enforcer for the casino or just an employee whose job description included the line “Other duties as assigned.” He certainly seemed to enjoy the hitting-people duty.
The two other men in the room—a floor boss and a slick-headed man whom Frankie took to be the casino manager—evaluated the janitor’s work and found it good. “One more time,” said the manager. He was a nervous white guy whose oil-black widow’s peak made him look like a middle-aged Eddie Munster.
The floor boss, a black man in a shiny suit that looked more expensive than the manager’s, said, “Tell us what you did to my table.” Everyone seemed quite concerned about this. For the first half hour that Frankie had been held in the room, the men went over the video of the event using an ordinary VCR and small TV. They had declined to show the images to Frankie, but he picked up from their discussion of it that the tape showed from several angles that Frankie’s hands were inches away from the roulette table when the ball, turntable, and chips flew into the air.
“Was it magnets?” the manager asked.
Frankie was too busy gasping in pain to deny it immediately. He lay on his side, watching an alarming amount of blood run across his cheek and pool on the floor. Magnets? he thought. Still with the fucking magnets? It was their first and last theory.
Frankie lifted a hand to his smashed upper lip, afraid to touch his nose. His fingers came away red, as if dipped into a paint can. Jesus. Where the hell was Buddy? Why the fuck didn’t he see this coming in his vision of chips and riches?
A bad thought crossed his mind. What if Buddy had seen this, and didn’t bother to tell him?
“It wasn’t magnets,” Frankie said. “Or if it was, they weren’t mine.” His voice sounded whiny in his own ears, due to nasal blockage. Mostly.
“Who do you work for?”
“I’m—” He spit blood. “Self-employed.”
The janitor bent and gripped Frankie’s shirt. Frankie put his hands on the man’s forearms, smearing blood on one sleeve. He made protesting noises as he was jerked to his feet.
“Get him off the boat,” the head manager said.
Oh thank God, Frankie thought.
The janitor and the floor boss grabbed him under each arm and frog-marched him out of the room and down a hallway carpeted, inexplicably, with Astroturf. The manager scooted ahead and pulled open a heavy door.
Frankie was pushed out onto a small side deck close by the glittering water. The paddle wheel churned away to their left, but the sound was almost drowned out by laughter, buzzes, bells—the jangling roar of a crowded casino. A large red-and-white motor launch bedecked in Christmas lights idled at the lip of the deck in a cloud of gas fumes. At the wheel was a man in a white shirt and black vest who looked like he should have been dealing blackjack. Other duties as assigned.
“Get him to the garage,” the manager said. “And don’t let anyone see you.”
“Wait, garage?” Frankie said. They shoved him forward, and he stumbled into the boat and sat down hard on a bench. The janitor and the other man climbed in. “Where are you taking me?”
The janitor said, “Shut up or we gag you.”
Frankie shut up. A coldness filled his stomach. He held on to the bench as the motorboat surged around the back of the riverboat’s paddle wheel and pointed toward shore. They weren’t heading back to the brightly lit loading area where he and Buddy had boarded the boat, but south of that, where a sporadic line of streetlights marked the edge of the river.
They’re getting me away from the crowds, Frankie thought. Away from witnesses. In this “garage” they could do anything to him. All his life, Teddy had told stories about gangsters he’d known, mooks with knuckledusters, gun-carrying henchmen, molls with switchblades tucked into their garters. Movie characters. Teddy was the hero of these stories, a trickster with fast hands and a faster mouth. Frankie had longed to be that guy, the smooth-talking confidence man, but by the time he grew up, they weren’t making movies like that anymore. All that remained were secondhand tales, you-shoulda-seen-it stories, and badly edited highlight reels.
So here he was, a failed casino cheat, in a boatful of mobbed-up thugs…and he couldn’t think of a damn thing to say. He was going to die, whimpering, with his own blood smearing his shirt.
The boat charged toward a dimly lit pier. At the last moment the driver threw the boat into reverse, spun the wheel, and brought them alongside the wood with the slightest of thumps. Frankie decided that maybe he was a boatman first, blackjack dealer second.
The janitor gripped the back of Frankie’s neck, and leaned in to his ear. “You’re going to talk now, asshole.”
The floor boss climbed up on the pier, then turned to pull Frankie up. A pair of headlights snapped on, turning the casino employee into a silhouette. A loud voice said, “We’ll take it from here, boys.”
A huge figure appeared in the lights. He waved a badge in the general direction of the floor boss, and then looked down in the boat.
The janitor’s hand tightened on Frankie’s neck.
“Who the hell are you?” Frankie said.
The man laughed. “Are you really choosing them over me?”
That was a good point. Frankie knocked aside the arm of the janitor and levered himself out of the boat.
The big man said, “I’m Agent Destin Smalls,” and extended his hand.
The name rang a faint bell. Frankie shook the hand, and handcuffs appeared on his wrist like a magic trick.
“You’re under arrest,” Agent Smalls said.
He drove toward his father’s house with the air-conditioning blasting into his face. “Embrace life,” he said to himself. Embrace the fact that Matty had quit on him, forcing him to either give up on the heist or learn to do everything himself. Embrace the two weeks he’d spent trying to open locks with his mind, and failing to open a single one. Embrace his inability to get the safe dial to turn a centimeter.
Failure to accept reality led only to frustration, and frustration to rage. What did rage get you? A grown man picking up a safe in his arms and attempting to throw it down onto the concrete, before his back gave out. Rage got you a safe crashing into the hood of a Toyota Corolla that still had two years of payments.
Okay, forget about that. What’s done is done. That’s life. Embrace it.
But Frankie was after something more. And he very much needed to explain this to Matty.
At home the garage door was open and Teddy’s Buick wasn’t there, thank God. Irene’s car was gone, too. Frankie marched up to the front door and its ridiculously tiled front step. A new fire extinguisher had been installed next to the door, the bracket screwed right into the brick. Why put a fire extinguisher outside the house? Who the fuck knows. That was Buddy. After all the crazy projects, maybe he was planning on burning the place down. If this was Frankie’s house he would have kicked his brother out months ago.
It wa
s cooler inside the house, but only marginally so. Teddy, the cheap bastard, had never installed central air, and had put a window air conditioner in one room: his bedroom. “Matty?” he called. No one was in the living room or the kitchen. Then he heard a noise from downstairs.
The door to the basement had been removed, everything torn out down to the frame. Inside the room, metal panels hung above the windows, ready to swing down, like plate armor for a Civil War battleship. Bunk beds were in construction against the far wall, waiting for…crew members? Jesus Christ, if Buddy flooded the backyard he could re-create the battle of the Monitor and the Merrimack.
Matty, however, was engaged in an act of deconstruction. He knelt by the desk, pulling cords out of the back of the computer monitor.
“Matty, we gotta talk,” Frankie said.
“Oh! Uncle Frankie. Hi.” The kid looked miserable.
“What are you doing?” Frankie asked.
“Mom says I have to take it apart. Says she doesn’t even want it in the house.”
“I thought she loved that thing.”
“Yeah, well, she’s been pretty upset lately. Crying all the time. She broke up with Joshua.”
“Who the hell is Joshua?”
“Her boyfriend? In Phoenix? Anyway, it’s over, and she won’t let me use the computer.”
“Part of your grounding with the pot thing?”
Matty grimaced. “She told you?”
“Grandpa Teddy. And it’s totally hypocritical, if you ask me. Irene used to smoke pretty heavy back in high school. Probably because Lev was practically a dealer.”
“What?”
“That’s not important now. Forget about the computer. We need to talk, man to man.”
“Uncle Frankie, I’m sorry that I can’t—”
“I’m not here to convince you to come back to work on the thing.”
“You’re not?”
“Come here.” Frankie led him to the couch, which sat in a cluster of remaining normal furniture Buddy had pushed to the center of the room. “Sit with me, Matty.”
The boy sat hunched on the couch, staring at his feet.
Frankie said, “I’m here to apologize to you.” Matty started to protest and Frankie held up a hand. “No, no. I failed you. Something happened that made you turn away from me, and I want to know what it is—so I can make amends.”
“You didn’t do anything.”
“Did your mother find out? Is she punishing you for more than the pot?”
“No! I didn’t tell her anything. She has no idea about…our thing.”
“Then I’m at a loss,” Frankie said. “What happened to change your mind?”
Matty said nothing for a long moment. “I guess I got scared,” he said finally.
“Scared of what?”
The boy didn’t answer.
“Did you think you’d get caught?” Frankie asked.
Matty seemed to list away from him, which Frankie took for a nod.
“That’s impossible,” Frankie said. “You’re not doing anything. You’re just floating around, invisible. I’m doing all the work—and I’m the one taking the risk.” Jesus, was it hot in here. He was sweating just sitting down. “You have to know, if I got caught, I’d never, never ever, tell anyone you were involved.”
Matty looked up in surprise. Shit. That possibility had never occurred to the kid.
“What if there are people who can see me?” Matty asked.
“Who? What people?”
“I don’t know, like, the government?”
“Okay, I get it,” Frankie said. “This is my fault. I’ve been telling you all about Grandma Mo and her spy stuff. But what did I tell you? The Cold War’s over. The government’s done with that stuff.”
“Is it, though?”
“Of course it is. But that’s not what you’re really afraid of.”
Matty waited for it.
“You’re afraid of using your powers! You know I’m right. You can’t even say the word. P-O-W—”
Matty looked back at his feet.
“Say it. Try it out.”
“Powers,” Matty said quietly.
“Damn straight. You have powers, and you’re powerful. What do you have to be afraid of? You can’t go through life terrified of using what God gave you. You still want to help your mom, don’t you?”
He didn’t answer.
Frankie said, “She works at that shitty grocery store, wearing that shitty uniform, making shitty money. She can’t even afford to move out on her own! How the hell are you supposed to go to college? How’s she supposed to afford that? Because you’re smart, Matty. You want to go to college, you better go. Or not. Your kind of power, you don’t have to. The thing you don’t want is to end up working some dead-end job, with a bunch of kids you have no control over, wondering what the hell happened to your—”
Frankie waved his hand as if clearing a chalkboard. “Never mind all that. Focus up.”
“You want me to focus?” Matty asked.
Frankie wasn’t exactly sure. One of them needed to.
“I know you want to help your mom,” Frankie said, lowering his voice. “And I know you want to help me. But you’ve also got to think about what’s going to help you. This is not just about the—what we’ve been practicing for. That’s just the opportunity we have in front of us at this moment. Think of it as a first step. You’re going to take a lot of steps, Matty, so many steps I don’t even know where you’ll end up. The other side of the moon, maybe! However—” He put his arm around Matty’s shoulders. “You gotta think of who you are. You’re a Telemachus.”
“I know, but—”
“No buts. Do you know what today is?”
“Thursday?”
“The last Thursday of the month. Which comes right before the last Friday of the month. And you know what that is.”
“Um…”
“Payday, Matty. The big payday. And due to circumstances beyond my control, this is the last time I—we will ever get a shot at what’s in that safe.”
“What’s happening?”
“Too complicated to explain.” Frankie glanced at his watch, then saw that he’d forgotten to put on his watch this morning. He jumped up from the couch. “I gotta go see a guy. I’ll check in with you later. But while I’m gone, think about your future, Matty. Think about embracing who you are. You’ve got to embrace life.”
“The UltraLife,” Matty said quietly.
“Yes! Exactly! I knew I could count on you.”
Frankie spent the first hour of his arrest alone in a motel room, trying to open the handcuffs with his mind. Agent Smalls had deposited him in the room and told him to wait “until we get set up.” Frankie had no idea what he meant by that. Set up what, torture equipment?
He perched on the edge of the double bed closest to the door and stared at his wrists, willing the restraints to spring open. Or unlock. Or merely tremble. But all he could think of was chips flying into the air, and arms grabbing him. He doubted he could move a paper clip now.
His shirt was still damp, not from river spray, but from sweat. He’d been sure the casino operatives were taking him away to be beaten or killed. When Destin Smalls had shown up, Frankie had been relieved, but the longer the handcuffs stayed on, the longer he sat on this floral bedspread that smelled of industrial cleaner, the more he suspected that he’d made at best a lateral move: out of the frying pan and into the frying pan.
The door opened and Frankie jumped up. Agent Smalls filled the doorway. He was in his late sixties, but Frankie gave no thought to bum-rushing him. You could hurt yourself running into a wall, even an old one.
“I’d like to call my lawyer,” Frankie said.
“Sure,” the agent said, and grabbed him by the elbow.
It was near dawn, but there was no light in the sky except the small yellow face of the Super 8 sign. The parking lot was full of dark. Frankie felt another hope die. Not a person in sight to witness his illegal incarcerati
on.
“You don’t remember me, do you?” the agent said. “I came to your house dozens of times before your mother died.”
“To do what, harass my dad?”
“That was a side benefit.”
The trip was all of five feet, to the next motel room door. Smalls opened the door and nudged Frankie inside. “Do you remember him?” Smalls asked.
A bald gnome with a handlebar mustache sat behind a round table loaded with electrical equipment. The waxed, curlicued mustache had turned silver sometime in the past twenty years, but Frankie recognized him all right.
“Motherfucker,” Frankie said.
“It’s a pleasure to see you again as well, Franklin,” said the Astounding Archibald. “Please, have a seat.”
Agent Smalls unlocked the handcuffs and gestured toward the chair opposite Archibald. The devices on the table between them hummed and buzzed. Cables spilled onto the floor and snaked toward a stack of black metal cases. The air smelled of ozone and aftershave.
G. Randall Archibald lifted one of Frankie’s hands like a manicurist and began slipping rubber-tipped thimbles over the fingers. Each thimble sprouted a bundle of wires that led to one of the machines.
“What’s this?” Frankie asked. “Some kinda lie detector?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Archibald said. “The items before you comprise a torsion field detector, mobile version. With it, I can measure psionic potential within two point three taus.”
Frankie tried to snort derisively, but it came out a grunt. He had no idea what a tau was, but he was damn sure not going to admit it.
“I assure you,” Archibald said, “it’s quite accurate. Not as fine-tuned as the larger version in my lab, of course. That TFD prime is sensitive enough to pick up zero point three tau.” The gnome spoke in the clipped, precise diction of a nerd. “There should be no need for such a sensitive measurement in your case. I understand you’ve already had a pret-ty active night.”
“Whatever those guys said they saw, they’re lying.”
“Or,” Archibald said, “they don’t know what they saw. My job, tonight, is to determine whether that activity was truly psi-related, or mere flimflammery perpetrated by the son of a known cheat and fraud.”
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