by Alan Brudner
"That's just a precaution, Katie. As you know, we need to maintain absolute secrecy to keep our competitive edge."
The woman took a deep audible breath before responding. She shook her head as she spoke. "Why can't we just wait and see if the prototype affects those programming students out in San Francisco?"
"The ones whose surveys indicated negative feelings about Cybronics? Not strong enough."
"Why not? I used it on a class of twenty. That's a pretty large pool. They all now have the prototype software in their laptops. They're seeing subliminal messages even as we speak. So six or eight months from now we'll take another survey. They're scattered, they work at different companies, they're not friends with each other anyway, they don't compare notes. So they won't have a clue we're behind any of this. Industry surveys get circulated all the time. If their feelings change, we'll know it was a success."
"You mean if a bunch of them say they'd buy Cybronics software or apply for a job here or something? Big deal, Katie. That's no real test. I'll never know if the program really worked or if their moods just changed. There's no way to tell how long it'll take, either. And even if it works, it's not exactly a coup to convince people to take a liking to Cybronics or me. Christ, I'm paying enough for public relations—"
"Listen to reason, Avery!" The woman raised her voice, but Kord didn't let up.
"I hate to bring up a delicate subject," he said, his words slower and more deliberate. "Like that night down in Florida. Some types of encounters obviously don't pose enough of a test of will."
"You're a bastard, Avery."
"Perhaps, Katie. But that's all under the bridge anyway. At this point, you'll do what I want."
"But I didn't have life or death situations in mind when I got involved in designing the program, Avery! I just wanted to develop it so we could devise a way to stop NanoSoft or somebody else from using it. So we could block it. Not so we could go off and test it with somebody's life. And the Saddam Hussein thing would be icing on the cake. Why not just test it on him? We have the capability right now to infiltrate his military computers. Why not just use him as a Guinea pig?"
"Because if it fails, he might find out about it. That would obviously be disastrous. It could start a war. We can't take the chance until it's perfect." He paused for a few moments. His voice seemed to pick up steam when he started talking again. "Look, let's not argue about it. I can't possibly let you stop now, when we're so close. The future is at your fingertips. You can be rich beyond your wildest imagination. Like I told you, you finish this program and give me the final code sequences so I can use it myself. If it works, you'll get a share of every cent that comes my way because of it. I made many, many billions of dollars over the last decade; if this program works, someday a mere million will look like train fare to you."
"But you're planning to sacrifice somebody's life with it!" She was screaming so loud I wondered whether she startled anyone in the building.
"Katie, you finalize it and give me the code. Then you forget all about it. Don't worry about what I choose to do with it, okay?"
"What about the guy who's defending against me? Doesn't he know the program just about as well as I do?"
"He's got to understand it to fight it, sure," Kord said. I pressed my ear so tight against the grate I thought it might be permanently waffle-ized. "But you're ahead of him. Lately, I've had my doubts about whether anybody can defend against it successfully. You're just too good a programmer, Katie. But he's good, too. Excellent, in fact. That's why he's the perfect test subject."
"Avery, you're not making a lot of sense. You're talking about murder." Her last word dangled as if from a noose.
"No, actually, I'm talking about suicide."
"Convincing a person against his will to commit suicide is murder."
"You can't convince someone who isn't predisposed. The subliminal messages won't work."
"How do you know? It's never been tried before."
"Look, Kate, you just finish creating the program and I'll test it my own way. Have I ever misled you?" A two-second pause answered his question. "And remember, you still owe me a few months of your internship, Katherine, or I can take back everything. Your mother's condo. Her Mercedes. Everything you and she own. Whatever you've got in the bank. And you'll get none of your stock options. It was all part of the deal, remember? You think your arthritic old mom can go back to wearing a Donald Duck suit in hundred-and-ten degree weather to pay her bills?"
There was silence.
The tension in my spine and arms and shoulders was becoming unbearable; my muscles wanted to punch the wall or break something right then and there, primarily Kord's neck. Rather than get more aggressive in her self-defense, though, the woman sounded resigned.
"You wouldn't really do this to me, Avery, would you?"
"You'd better believe I would. You made some promises before college. You sure weren't taken advantage of; I fronted your mother more money than most people see in a lifetime. You owe me a couple more months of service, that's all. And the completion of this one little program. Don't forget your stock options, either."
"I hear you," the woman said, her voice now a plaintive whisper.
"And you know I'm right," Kord said.
She didn't reply.
"Hey Kate," Kord said in a jovial tone. "At Cybronics, we make life worth living."
The room went silent except for the clapffff of a laptop being folded shut. I decided I'd head the woman off outside and tell her what I'd heard and help her come up with a plan, a way to save herself and my son. Surely on my end, Kord could take back all his stuff. I had no need for a house or a fake Picasso or a fancy computer anyway.
I stood up and dusted myself off, but before I could run outside to catch her, there were three large muscular men in front of me, arms folded; a fourth came up behind me and encircled my arms tightly from the back with his own.
"Hold it right there," the tallest one, standing in the middle, said in a husky baritone. "You're not going anywhere."
"I can explain," I said.
"Maybe you should start. And it better be good."
"Okay, Father," I said.
•
The priests were easy, when it came right down to it. It didn't take too much explication on my part. But they also didn't have much light to shed, beyond telling me that they were paid a handsome anonymous donation for the two-week rental of their church basement. They let me search around down there, too, with the lights turned up bright. There was nothing left but an unopened bottle of Five Fingers Chardonnay from the Hudson Valley. The priests insisted I take it. I left them my business card and my home phone number. The one who called himself Father MacMillan promised he'd call me if they learned anything new.
Before leaving the quiet church, I deposited ten bucks in a scarred oak box and lit an electric candle in a red glass holder twenty feet below a stained glass Madonna and Child. I sat in the rear pew just in front of the bright red glimmer of the multi-candle votive display. I closed my eyes and let my thoughts run freely. I didn't know how much time passed and I didn't care. When I finally walked outside, the air had turned brisk; the glass neck of the wine bottle in my hand cooled my fingers as the first light snowflakes of winter dusted my face and my hair and my jacket.
Chapter 12
There had been a snowstorm, the deepest and ugliest Nor'easter in decades. Cars were buried in white piles, the doors of houses were forced shut by windy drifts, and many homeless were dying a cold white death.
Schuyler was in his junior year at Yale. The first two years had been a breeze, but the third one had become a blizzard of clinical depression. The doctors couldn't quite determine why, the Prozac was proving to be just a short-term fix, and his bouts of anxiety were relentless.
"He's drunk and he's down and he's acting like I've never seen him," Scarlett had said that night when she called, her voice breaking. "I don't know what to do." She had been his girlfriend for only a few
months, but she had known him since they started college together, they were close, and from a distance she was the best gauge we had.
"Dad," Sky said on the phone, slurring his words, "I feel like my mind's outside, watching my body in a slow-motion movie. Wearing 3-D glasses. It seems inevitable that I'm going to pick up a blade and cut something, wrists or ankles or something...I just can't get myself back to normal."
"Go to the infirmary right now," I begged my son. I planned to place a call there, to talk to Doctor Wigman, to make sure he was ready with something, anything, the same stuff as last time only more of it, to take the edge off until I could get up there.
"I'll try, Dad, if I can get up and move," he promised. "I'll have to pretend I've got a remote control for my legs or something."
"I'll get him dressed and take him over there," Scarlett reassured me.
"I'm coming up right away," Eliza mouthed into the extension phone. "I love you, Sky."
"I know, Mom. This just isn't about that."
After we hung up the phone, she ran to the closet and put on her coat.
"There are two feet of snow out there, Lize," I said. "There's no way to get up to Yale. Wait 'til it's cleared."
"That could take three days or a week," she said. "He's our son."
"He's going to the infirmary."
"Cliff, I'd never forgive myself if—"
I grabbed her as she took her keys out of her coat pocket. I yelled with so much force I think I damaged my vocal cords.
"Be reasonable, Eliza! There is a fucking blizzard out there!"
She just stared at me with narrowing eyes. During our worst arguments, which rarely occurred, I'd scream and curse and she'd stay silent or walk out, which would only frustrate me and raise my decibel level even higher.
"Please!"
She stood there. I let go, and I let her open the door leading from inside the house to the garage. She got into the Ford Explorer and started the ignition. I walked next to the driver side door and motioned for her to roll down the window. Instead, she opened the main garage door with the remote control.
A razorsharp cold engulfed the garage as the windy white-streamed air swept through it. Before I could stop her, before the clouds of my hurried breath could dissipate, the Explorer was on its way. It was elevated and had four-wheel drive, a heavy muscular vehicle, and Eliza must have felt in control. I know she wouldn't have gone if she believed otherwise.
I was frozen in more ways than one. I had no shoes on and my toes felt as if they were buried in ice; my coatless body shivered in the chill of the air.
I closed the garage door and walked back inside the house. I thought briefly. I decided first to ensure that Schuyler made it over to the Yale infirmary, that Dr. Wigman was treating him; then I'd go after my wife.
I called Sky's number. No answer. I tried again. No answer.
I called New Haven information, but there was no number for the infirmary. I got Yale's general number and reached a recording stating that due to the inclement weather, the staff had been relieved for the day.
I went to the basement and tossed the books off the shelves until I found the prior year's Yale catalog. I leafed through it and found the number I needed. Before I could dial it, my phone rang.
It was Scarlett calling from the infirmary. Schuyler had gotten there and was being sedated. He'd be okay until the next day. Dr. Wigman wasn't there, but he'd call in.
I put on heavy woolen socks, my boots, a sweater and a down parka. I quickly tossed some extra clothes and supplies into a duffel bag, along with some chocolate kisses and a can of Coke. I turned off all the houselights and went back to the garage. Driving the Camry in this weather would be a lot tougher than the Explorer, but I had no choice.
I'd like to explain about turning on the ignition, putting my gloves on the seat next to me, listening to the Beatles sing A Day In The Life on 102.7, gripping the steering wheel so hard with my cold sweaty palms that they froze in place and I thought they'd have to be chipped off with an icepick; about how I got out every ten minutes to clear the windshield with a chamois cloth; about the traffic light blown off its pole by the whipping gusts, left to dangle limply from its wires; about how no other humans were outside in the evening darkness on the white streets, and how the only animal I saw was a stray dog that seemed to be stuck so deeply in the snow it couldn't walk or move. But if I went into too much detail I'd be lying, because they're all a faint blur on the bleak screen of my memory.
All I can recall clearly is that I reached I-95 in three hours, usually a twenty-minute ride, and when I was finally able to push the speedometer to a respectable 30 mph for the hundred mile drive to Yale, I proceeded no more than half an hour when I started seeing a red light, turning, again and again illuminating the snow. There were no warning flares on the road, no safety triangles. Just the round red light atop a police car turning, repetitively, bathing the white snow in an eerie red glow with each revolution. Two cars in front of me had stopped—in that storm a traffic jam—and as I inched closer to the scene, a sick phlegmatic feeling crawled into the pit of my stomach because I knew.
In the distance I could hear sirens: ambulance sirens, firetruck sirens, police sirens. I had never learned to distinguish. They got fainter and I knew they were moving away, to a hospital or, I prayed, toward the consciousness of my waking day and out of this horrible nightmare.
But I wasn't asleep. They had already cut her out of the Explorer; its wheels now spun freely in the windy air. Viscous brake fluid and brown oil and blue coolant formed a dotted trail in the white snow, but were quickly being covered by a renewed white dusting. The steel road divider still stood, but no longer straight; it formed a shallow letter "V" where the Explorer slammed into it. Thirty miles per hour is too fast in two feet of ice and snow. I couldn't see any blood, which I took as a good sign; but as it turned out, I had an obstructed view of the crushed dashboard and the windshield that had been laced into a spider web. The airbag had deployed, but the weight and the spinning and the sport-utility's unexpected cartwheel were too much for a flimsy piece of inflatable cloth to mitigate against.
I was called in to identify the body, and later to toss in the first shovelful of dirt—which was weighed down with heavy wet snow—and I led the first prayer. I think I may have said a few words by way of a eulogy, and introduced Schuyler to do the same. I know I did these things because my boss complimented me on how well I had handled them, how well I seemed to be taking it all. I know I did them because it is unlike me not to have done them. But I don't really have a recollection of those first few hours or days or weeks. It is locked away, helpless, on a cold white stretch of drift along Interstate 95 on the way up to New Haven.
Chapter 13
I'd never felt so much like a fool until I assembled a group of a hundred assorted short people at 6:45 in the morning in front of It's A Small World to ask whether any of them knew a Donald Duck a few years back who had a very smart daughter named Kate or Katie or Katherine, spelled with either a K or a C. Since Disney World's records reflected no such information, it was gracious of the management to indulge my little experiment in investigation. As a sign of appreciation, I spent far too much on a fancy gold pen for Lucille that had a pair of prominent round black ears attached to the top. But Mickey and Daffy are transient positions, memories can be short or selective, and I got nowhere. I left them my room and telephone numbers at the Sawgrass Suites Hotel.
Avery Kord had referred to the mother's condo, so I figured I'd try all the condo complexes next. I got a list from a realtor. There are fifty thousand such places in Orlando, with names like the Pelican Beak Apartments and the Heron's Nest Suites and the Flamingo Neck Estates, and many of the owners sublet. I could have spent the rest of my life interviewing the residents or becoming an ornithologist. I had read Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, had seen all the old Bogart movies, so I knew that private eyes would start knocking on doors, maybe breaking them down; but it really see
med like too big a task. And I didn't have a lot of time: although it took almost all week to arrange the trip, I managed to wangle only a couple of days off from work.
I didn't want Sky to know what I had overheard at the church. He'd guess I had been spying or eavesdropping, and before I confronted him I wanted to learn more. I didn't know if Sky was in the same predicament as Kate or Katie or Katherine—perhaps worse—and I could already feel the loud tick-tick-tick of the clock. But my round-trip ticket to Orlando was beginning to feel like a waste of four hundred and forty bucks.
The other thing private eyes do is drink. Since the Gulping Gator was in the lobby of the Sawgrass Suites, I figured I might as well accomplish something. I walked past the sharp teeth of a huge plastic reptile wearing a tilted gold foil crown. Past a group of teenagers in a small arcade, trying to beat video games with body English. Turns out there was a bar, but it was in the main room of a family restaurant filled with loud kids in high chairs eating chicken nuggets. All I really wanted was a Dewar's, but despite the noise level I managed to down three.
I was getting up to leave, just a little lightheaded, when Barney the Dinosaur appeared. He walked over to a long table filled with children wearing birthday hats. They bubbled with obvious delight as he danced and sang and laughed his silly annoying laugh.
Then one of the older kids stood up on his chair and yelled, "He's not really Barney!"
"YES HE IS!," cried the little birthday boy.
"Isn't!"
"Is!"
"You idiot, we SAW Barney the real dinosaur at Universal Studios this afternoon! And he was purpler!"
"Was not!"
"Was too!"
"This Barney's rented," sniped one of the other children. They quickly divided into two camps, and two choruses, true believers versus skeptics, Skins versus Shirts.
I didn't want to watch the war, which seemed to be headed for some form of parental intervention. I paid my check and left.
On the way upstairs, it hit me.