Parallelities

by Alan Dean Foster

  Disdaining fast food, he settled on a neighborhood coffee shop where the fries arrived cold but the hamburger wasn’t half bad. He wolfed them down in between bites of the sprout-addled salad. Not everyone in Southern California, he reflected as he idly scanned the rest of the menu, was happy to subsist on tofu and sushi.

  Satisfied with the preliminary draft of the story, he made sure it was saved to the laptop’s hard drive before packing up, paying, leaving the absolute minimal tip that would not have the waitress chasing after him with a butcher knife, and returning to his car. It had been quite a while since he’d driven to Malibu the back way. Since he might be arriving at Boles’s address in the dark, he wanted to be sure not to miss any of the right turnoffs.

  Malibu Canyon Road wound its way through dry mountains spotted with pockets of chaparral forest and million-dollar homes, the latter expensive retreats from the insanity of the city. The venerable road connected the San Fernando Valley with the Pacific Coast Highway. Once there, he turned north, grateful for the lack of traffic, the Pacific on his left and an unblinking diadem of lights pointing the way to points north.

  Boles’s place lay atop a ridge well back of Trancas Beach, at the very end of a convoluted, unhappy stretch of one-lane road. Max had no trouble with the guard at the gatehouse where the road met the highway. He’d been dealing with such people for several years and had learned that where bullshit failed, folding currency usually succeeded. Besides, he carried legitimate press credentials that were easily checked and his demeanor was clearly different from that of the average Southern California maniacal fan or mad bomber.

  The house was big (there were no small houses in this part of Southern California, unless one made allowance for separate servants’ quarters) but by no means overbearing. A two-story contemporary Mediterranean, it faced the Pacific and looked down upon the more extravagant homes below. Its stuccoed turrets and red tile roof were subdued compared with the grandiose architectural fantasies that marched in million-dollar rows down the hillside toward the coastline. Soft light from within illuminated several windows. He pulled into the circular drive that fronted the main entrance and, without any directives to the contrary, parked.

  A small, clean Toyota stood between him and the main house. Its engine idled uncertainly, stressed by the burden of the air-conditioner. The short, stout woman loading something into the trunk looked up as he walked over. She was Hispanic but not Mexican, he saw. Probably an economic refugee from Nicaragua or Honduras. L.A. had seen a jump in the number of immigrating Hondurans recently. Her English was surprisingly lightly accented.

  “May I help you, sir? I am Azulita, Señor Boles’s housekeeper. I was just leaving for the night.” Wary and protective, dark black eyes sized him up.

  Max looked past her, at the house. “Mr. Boles doesn’t have a live-in?”

  “No, sir.” She walked around from the back of the car and opened the driver’s-side door. “I asked him that myself, when I started to work for him. He says he likes to be alone at night.” She glanced up at the house. “Myself, I am glad. I would not want to stay here at night.”

  “Really? Why not?” Max’s mental recorder was already humming.

  “Too many funny noises.” She crossed herself.

  “You don’t say? What kind of funny noises?”

  She slipped behind the wheel. “If you stay, maybe you will hear them for yourself. I have to go.” She closed the door and reached for the key.

  “Wait a minute!” He leaned close. “Do you think Mr. Boles will see me? I don’t have an appointment.”

  She studied him silently for a moment, then smiled. “I don’t see why not. He is a very friendly man, Señor Boles. He likes people. But people treat him badly, I think. I have heard him talking, and sometimes his visitors laugh at him.” Her expression turned earnest. “You are not here to laugh at him, are you?”

  “Hey, not me. I promise.” At least, I won’t laugh at him in person, he added silently. Print’s another matter.

  The old compact coughed a couple of times before settling into gear. He followed its progress as it hummed down the driveway and out onto the main access road, a small metallic blue beetle disappearing into the gathering night. Then he turned and walked over the interlocking red paving bricks and up the concrete stoop to the front door. It was a plain, ordinary house door, not one of the garish amalgams of rare wood and stained glass—designed to intimidate visitors—that were so commonly encountered in the Brahman environs of power-conscious Los Angeles, where even the styling and construction of a front door were often construed as a sign of status.

  Similarly, the doorbell did not play Beethoven, tell jokes, or attempt an imitation of Big Ben on New Year’s Eve. Its chime was ingenuously normal.

  The man who opened the door was in his late fifties but remarkably fit. He wore Nikes, bright baggy multicolored weight lifter’s sweatpants, and a wrinkled T-shirt two sizes too big with the legend Keetmanshoop Hotel on it above a black-and-white drawing of a gemsbok at rest. Cut fashionably short, his gray-blond hair gave him the look of a retired Marine. From a slim gold chain around his neck dangled a gold charm in the shape of a bar code. The watch on his right wrist was a hard plastic multifunction Casio; nice, but hardly a Rolex or Patek Phillipe. Thick gray chest hair shoved its way out of the V neck of the tee, and more hair bristled on his exposed arms. He was six feet or so, muscular from years of chucking iron in the gym. Probably Boles’s bodyguard or senior manservant, Max decided.

  “Good evening. I’m looking for Barrington Boles.” Straining to see past the doorman, Max made out a normal-looking hallway. No skeletons hanging from the rafters, no cross-reflecting mirrors, no probing laser beams; just a few shelves lined with expensive but unpretentious objets d’art. Too bad. He’d been hoping for an immediate dose of weirdness.

  The man promptly extended a hand. “Pleasure to meet you, young man.”

  While his brain struggled to catch up, Max’s hand reacted instinctively and took the older man’s. In keeping with the rest of the tanned physique, the grip was powerful, but restrained. “You’re Barrington Boles? I expected …”

  The older man grinned as he cut him off. “Someone much older? Or a clone of Christopher Lloyd’s Doc character from the Back to the Future movies? Somebody with wild eyes, frizzing hair, and a colorfully stained white lab coat?”

  “Yeah, that would be about right,” Max replied, deciding to take a chance. “Your standard clichéd garden-variety-issue mad scientist.”

  The welcoming hand withdrew. The skin on the back was wrinkled from long hours spent immersed in seawater. “Sorry to disappoint you. I’m neither mad, nor a scientist. And my taste in lab clothing runs more to shorts and tank tops.” He beckoned as he stepped aside. “Won’t you come in, Mr. …?”

  “Parker. Maxwell.” As he entered, Boles shut the door behind them. Though it smelled of money, the house felt far more normal than Max had anticipated, based on what he’d been told. The initial edginess he tended to feel when entering the lair of the presumably deranged was rapidly slipping away.

  “Nice to meet you, Max.” Boles guided his visitor into a spacious den dominated by redwood burl furniture, the kind that tended to swallow you when you sat down in a couch or chair fashioned from the stuff. An entertainment center with large-screen TV was built into the wall off to the left, while cathedral-sized picture windows directly opposite provided a view of the now dark coast and the immeasurable blackness of ocean beyond. The other walls were lined with built-in book-shelves. All of these were filled, in some cases to overflowing. Dominating the Mexican tile floor were several large, elaborate Persian rugs of estimable vintage and, even to Max’s untrained eye, considerable value, and a startling coffee table that consisted of a thick slab of glass mounted atop the shiny brown skull of an allosaurus. Max gestured as he sat down across from it.

  “That’s one of those cast-resin reproductions, isn’t it?”

  Displaying an utter lack
of pretension, his host flopped into the chair opposite and shook his head, grinning proudly. “Nope. It’s an original. From Colorado. Nice, isn’t it?”

  “An original, huh? Okay, I’m impressed.” So that Boles could see what he was doing, he made a show of removing his recorder from his shirt pocket, but did not turn it on. “It’s pretty late in the day for this sort of thing, and I’m sure your time is as precious to you as mine is to me, so I won’t mince words with you, Mr. Boles.”

  “Please. Just call me Barry.” His host’s smile was as ingratiating as that of a head waiter at a trendy Japanese restaurant.

  “Okay—Barry.” Max refused to be drawn in or disarmed by his host’s evident charm. It was much too soon in their relationship to take a liking to the man. “I’m a junior science reporter for the L.A. Times and I …”

  “No you’re not,” Boles declared with his irrepressible good humor intact. It was the second time his host had interrupted him. “The Times would have called before sending somebody out. Besides, I’ve already had a couple of their people here. A writer and a photographer.” The smile diminished slightly. “We didn’t get along.”

  Max was not in the least nonplussed, switching conversational gears as easily as his Aurora. “I thought you might see through that. It’s just that it sounds more impressive if you say you’re from the Times instead of from the Orange County Register. Or the Free Press.” His follow-up grin was only half forced. “Saying that you’re the science columnist for the Free Press doesn’t carry much weight at, say, JPL.”

  Boles crossed one leg over the other, cocked his head sideways, and rested chin and cheek against one hand as he studied his guest. “You’re not from the Register, either. Or the Free Press, or the Valley Times, or the San Bernadino Sun, or any standard Southern California paper. I like you, Max, but don’t try my patience or insult my intelligence or this meeting will be a short one. Now, who do you represent? Really?”

  Max debated whether to confess he was a freelancer in search of a good story or a stringer for Reuters. The latter claim was sufficiently impressive and obscure enough to deceive most potential interviewees. But the longer he considered his subject the more he found himself thinking that there was more to Boles than there was to the usual fruitcake with a wild idea. The man had let him into his house without an appointment and had so far treated him in a fair and courteous manner. Why not try something different from the usual endless loop of subterfuges for a change and respond in kind? He took a deep breath.

  “Barry, I’m a reporter for the International Investigator.”

  Boles nodded and looked satisfied. “There now, doesn’t that feel better? You want to interview me, do you?”

  “Very much so. Are you familiar with the Investigator?”

  His host nodded once. “I’ve seen it around.”

  Max kept his tone casual. “And the thought of being reported in it doesn’t bother you?”

  Boles squirmed slightly, straightening in his chair. “Max, I’ve dealt with reporters from every legitimate newspaper and magazine in the country as well as a number from overseas. Not to mention writers for various documentary series, assorted sensationalist television shows, and a goodly number of respected and not-so-respected scientific journals. I doubt that you can treat me any worse than they have.

  “Besides, your paper deals in exposure as opposed to truth, and exposure is what I need now. Given sufficient exposure, the truth will follow of its own accord. What I don’t wish to be is ignored. It just so happens you have arrived at a propitious time. I’ll see to it that you get your story, and you will reciprocate by providing me with national exposure. Handed that, people can make up their own minds.” He nodded at the recorder. “By the way, I don’t mind that you’re recording this.”

  Max looked down at the compact device in mock surprise. “Oh, sorry. I guess I must have turned this on while we were talking.” He smiled wanly. “Reflex action. I meant to ask you if it was all right.”

  Boles’s grin returned. “No you didn’t, but it’s okay. I want our meeting recorded. Like everyone else on the planet I am at least passingly familiar with the tabloid style. I know that you probably intended from the start to embellish the consequences of this interview, but that doesn’t bother me either. After what I have to show you, you’ll find it won’t be necessary.”

  Ignoring his host’s observation, Max pressed on with a question. “I’m a little confused by something you said earlier. I was told by my source that you held some kind of radical scientific theories. But you say you’re not a scientist.”

  “That’s right. I don’t have the patience for theoretical work. I’m more of an inventor. A scientist would care deeply why something works. I just care that it works.”

  “That what works?” Max’s gaze kept straying to the vacant eye sockets of the fossilized theropod skull. It seemed to be staring back at him. Four-inch-long scimitar-like teeth wore dark stains. The colors of random mineralization, he told himself. Not blood. He found himself struggling to avoid looking at the coffee table. It persisted in looking back, across the floor as well as across the eons.

  Boles rose abruptly from his chair, his own eyes bright and alert. “My new dragon board, for one thing. But you didn’t come out here to go night surfing.” He turned to his right and winked. “Come with me and I’ll show you something. As I said, you’ve chosen a propitious time to pay a visit.”

  Max stood, holding the recorder out in front of him as he followed his enthusiastic host through a portal and down a hall lined with costly, beautifully framed signed and numbered prints of sea life and African big cats.

  “So you think it’s all right to share your secrets with me?”

  Boles looked back over his shoulder. “You had enough imagination to get past the road guard without an appointment. Anyone without imagination isn’t ready for what I’m about to show you.”

  They halted at the end of the hall and Max waited while Boles unlocked a door. A door, he noted, that had been fashioned from heavy steel. Recalling the maid’s comment about strange noises, he hesitated. Boles talked and acted as straight as a county lifeguard. But then, Hannibal Lecter had been a practicing psychiatrist.

  He wasn’t reassured when the open doorway revealed stairs leading down into darkness. “A basement? You’ve got a basement? In Southern California?”

  “It’s an architectural anomaly I’m rather proud of.” Boles started down. “Please close the door behind you.”

  Uh-huh. Max lingered at the top of the stairs. The hallway, the invitingly open den that now lay some distance behind him, and his car all beckoned. But there was no story in any of them. Any story lay ahead, and down. With a shrug he pulled the massive door shut behind him, surprised at how well balanced it was and how easily it moved. In his young career he’d already found himself in much worse places and confronted by far more candidly unstable types. He felt confident he could deal with any surprises Barrington Boles might spring.

  Well, reasonably confident.

  The basement was enormous, much more extensive than he had expected. Relieved to see that it was not done up in contemporary dungeon, he allowed his initial wariness to give way to something like reluctant astonishment. His feeling that he had made the right choice was enhanced, if not completely confirmed, by the numerous diplomas and awards, all seemingly genuine, that decorated the wall immediately on his right.

  Brightly lit by ranks of overhead fluorescents built into the twenty-foot-high ceiling, the single room was immaculately clean, so much so that it reminded him of the production rooms he had once visited while touring the plant of a major microprocessor manufacturer. Every device, every instrument, was as spotless as if it had just been unpacked from the original shipping materials.

  Everything appeared to be interconnected. Possessing the scientific sophistication of the average educated American, he recognized absolutely none of it. The impressive aggregation of gear was dominated by a fifteen-foot-t
all arch in the center of the room. Fashioned of some silvery metal, it hung heavy with coils, cables, and a fuzz of fine filaments that would have done an alien spider proud.

  Something snapped and he looked around sharply. Ignoring his guest, Boles was busy at a half-moon-shaped console, flipping switches and thumbing buttons. In sections, the impressive interconnected confabulation began to come alive. There was a sufficient surfeit of colored lights to put to shame the best outdoor Christmas display in Beverly Hills. No nomadic bolts of lightning, though, and no explosive bursts of elegiac electricity. Quite frankly, Max had seen better special effects in half a dozen recent films. The requisite slobbering, hunchbacked assistant with the terse Slavic name was missing as well. And Barrington Boles’s casual beach attire ruined any covert Gothic atmosphere completely.

  “I’m sorry, Barry, but I have to tell you: You don’t look the part at all.” Max had to raise his voice slightly to make himself heard above the rising electronic thrum of the machinery.

  Boles responded with a boyish, slightly lopsided grin. “Sorry. I spend most of my time in sweats and tees. I don’t even own a white lab coat.” He returned to his work.

  Max wandered over to watch, but the energized instrumentation that filled the underground chamber was much more interesting than his host’s methodical pushing of buttons and monitoring of readouts. Since he had not been ordered or instructed to do otherwise, he wandered freely, examining different bits and pieces of equipment, careful to touch nothing. It all looked brand-new and very expensive. He did not have a clue what it was for or what it was supposed to do, nor could he have offered even an educated guess, and the busy Boles was not being very forthcoming. Max did not think that the aged surfer was being evasive; he was clearly preoccupied.