Alternating Current: A Tesla Novel

by Agostino, John

  Lawson couldn’t believe what he heard. “He’s a fucking shyster, gimme the phone.”

  Arnold pushed him away. “Would you just drive? Head over to 95.”

  “So, Tevin, I need you to go up to the house and have the gentleman that lives there call us right away. You got that; don’t leave until he calls us. You understand . . . great. Hold on, Sally will give you the number to call us back. Sally you still there . . . okay good. Go right now Tevin.”

  “Why the fuck am I going to I-95?”

  “Because it’s the fastest way to Boston. We’re going to M.I.T.”

  Lawson slammed on the brakes and the Escalade fishtailed onto the shoulder. “The hell we are, are you crazy? We’re not leaving the city while Marco’s on the loose, not to mention those whackos in white sneakers.”

  “Okay, but that’s where she’s going.”

  “You really think so?”

  “Think about it. She has the missing page of the formula, but everyone who can help her is dead, except Professor Trump.”

  “Yeah and she killed most of them.” Lawson thought about what he just said. According to Carrie, Dr. Armaly confirmed that page of formula was the key, so why kill him. And even though he knew his partner was right, he couldn’t justify the time away. “Hey let’s do what we did in the Bahamas.”

  “You want to send Tevin to M.I.T?”

  “No, let’s just call the Boston P.D.”

  “Oh, I’m sure they’ll be happy to help after you lambasted them the last time we were there. Sure, give them a call.”

  “I think maybe you should call them.”

  Arnold gave him a stern look and picked up his phone. “Sally, hey, it’s Arnold . . . I need you to patch me through to the Boston P.D., the precinct closest to M.I.T.”

  ***

  Back at their office in Bloomingdales, Agent Arnold answered the phone. “Okay, put him through.” There was a short pause.

  Agent Lawson jumped up from the sofa. “Is it Tevin?”

  Arnold didn’t answer him. He put the phone on speaker. “Hello, Sergeant Murphy, I’m Special Agent Arnold with New York Central Intelligence.”

  “Okay, I’m impressed, what do you want?” Arnold didn’t answer right away. Glad that he made the call since the conversation would’ve ended right there had Lawson.

  “Hey, New York C.I.A., you still there?”

  “Yes, I’m here, Sergeant, I need a favor---the United States Government needs a favor.”

  “Listen, what did you say your name is?”

  “Arnold, Corey Arnold.”

  “Okay, Arnold, can you do me a favor, call back after four?”

  The request caught Arnold off guard. “Well, this is kind of important, why after four?”

  “Because I’m off at four, I got seven months till retirement and I’m not gonna blow my pension doing you a favor. Sergeant Rossi will be on at four.”

  Lawson suppressed his laughter.

  “I can appreciate your predicament Sergeant, but I really need you to send a cruiser over to M.I.T. to check on a professor.”

  “Oh, is that all? I thought you wanted me to do something shady. What’s the Professor’s name?”

  “Professor Trump. John G. Trump Jr.”

  “Professor Trump? Don’t you read the papers?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Professor Trump is missing. Has been for a few days now, his wife and kids, too.”

  Arnold realized he hadn’t looked at a newspaper in days, although a professor missing in Boston would hardly make the Times or the Post. “Sergeant, are you sure we’re talking about the same guy?” Arnold asked again, although he had already typed the professor’s name into Google. The headline read, “Prominent M.I.T. Professor and Family Missing.” Arnold thanked the Sergeant and hung up the phone. He read the article.

  “It says here that Trump disappeared right after the S.W.A.T. team arrested Armaly. He went home that night, packed up as much as they could fit into the family mini-van and no one has seen or heard from them since. There’s a video of one of his sisters begging them to call her. She’s a good looking brunette.”

  Lawson was halfway asleep on the sofa, but still heard every word Arnold said. He couldn’t resist a wisecrack. “Maybe it’s Mika in disguise, she’s a brunette.”

  The phone rang; luckily, Arnold didn’t have to respond. It was Sally. “Hang on there, Tevin, slow down.”

  Lawson soared off the sofa. “Let me talk to him.”

  Arnold pushed his partner away. “Then put it on speaker.”

  He did. “Tevin slow down and tell me what happened.

  Tevin panted. “I go to Adelaide like Meester ask, I drive up hill to house but it burned down.”

  “Burned down? The house was burned down?”

  “No, not house, other building. Big building burned to ground.”

  “The fucking lab.” Lawson slammed his hand on the desk. “Tevin did you find Aluna.”

  “Aluna, what Aluna?”

  “The girl, did you find the girl and the big redneck man.”

  “No, nobody here. House is open, I go inside nobody here.”

  “Holy shit, she killed them. She didn’t go to Boston. She went to The Bahamas and killed Armaly’s son and Aluna.”

  “Let’s not jump to conclusions, partner. Tevin did you look out back?”

  “Outback where?”

  “Behind the house, is the boat there?”

  “Boat? Tevin no see a boat.”

  “Okay Tevin, good job, get out of there and never go back. Do you understand me, never go back there.”

  “Tevin no want to come back here.”

  “Good, thanks again, Tevin.”

  “Meester no forget about fifty dollars, American---

  “I know, American Dollars. Stay on the phone, Sally is going to take care of that for me. Sally, give him a nice tip, too.” Arnold hung up the phone.

  “Shit! Shit! Shit!” Lawson’s face had reddened with anger. He grabbed a Mountain Dew and headed for the Men’s Department.

  “Where are you going?” Arnold asked.

  “I’m going to kill that bitch.” He left the door open and disappeared in the suits.

  Arnold had a hell of a time catching up with him before he made it to the Escalade. “Now partner, you know you can’t kill her.”

  “I don’t care, I’m gonna kill her.”

  “No, you’re not.” Arnold pushed him aside before he entered the vehicle. “Now give me the keys, you’re too upset to drive.”

  Lawson handed him the keys.

  They drove out of the parking deck and nearly four blocks before either spoke. “The boat’s gone, that means they probably got away.” Arnold told him.

  “Or the boat’s at the bottom of the ocean with them in the cabin.”

  “I like my theory better.”

  “Me too, but I’m still gonna kill her. And that fucking Marco, too. Where the hell is that bastard?”

  CHAPTER 55

  Cosmo tapped on the window of Carrie’s car and startled them. “Mr. Jansen’s on the phone, he needs to talk to you.” Cosmo went back into the shop.

  “C’mon Phillip, we better get going---

  “No, stay.” Turbo told them. “We need to make plans. Come inside. Just don’t talk about anything we discussed, not inside the shop.”

  Turbo rushed to the phone. “Hello, Mr. Jansen . . . you can call me Turbo . . . yes . . . are you sure . . . but I said 400,000. . . .”

  Carrie and Phillip came inside. Carrie said “Hello” to Cosmo, who shushed her up. He listened intently.

  “. . . that’s very generous, Mr. Jansen . . . what, there’s more?”

  The conversation turned one-sided. Turbo listened mostly; he nodded his head a few times and even gasped once. His friends watched intently.

  “That all sounds wonderful; I think we have a deal, thanks for calling.” He hung up the phone. They all stared at him with their mouths open. />
  Cosmo spoke first. “You took the $400,000.00?”

  “No, I took $500,000.00”

  “But yesterday you said you would take 400.”

  “I know, but Jansen is a nice man.”

  “He just gave you an extra hundred thousand?”

  Turbo explained that Mr. Jansen presented Con-Ed with the Five-Hundred-Thousand-Dollar counteroffer since he didn’t divulge them as the buyer. “He said the fact that Cosmo told me was irrelevant.”

  “That’s great, Turbo.” Carrie told him.

  “Yeah, congratulations,” Phillip added.

  “Thanks, but it gets better.”

  “What’s better than a half-million?” Cosmo asked.

  Turbo told them what Mr. Jansen had told him earlier. “Well, it seems that Con-Ed is planning a permanent tribute to my uncle in the lobby of the new building. Mr. Jansen said they decided to do it because of my devotion to my uncle.” Turbo’s voice cracked and a tear rolled down his face.

  Carrie comforted him.

  “This calls for a celebration.” Cosmo was out of his mind happy. “Let’s go to Tony O’s, it’s my treat.”

  “Oh, I don’t think we can.” Carrie said. “We have to---

  “That’s a great idea, Cosmo. Let’s go.” Turbo motioned with his head toward the door.

  “Oh, okay. C’mon Phillip.”

  Turbo suggested Cosmo ride with them. “I’ve been borrowing your car so much lately; you should give it a break.”

  Cosmo agreed. “Just let me get my coat.”

  While Cosmo was in the backroom, Carrie questioned Turbo. “Do we really have time to go out to eat?”

  “I’m hungry, besides we need to pump him full of wine if he’s gonna help us sneak Alex out of the hospital.”

  The ride to the restaurant was quiet. Although, Tony O’s was noisy as ever, they got the table in the back near the kitchen. The same one they had when Rudy was there.

  “This must be our favorite table,” Phillip teased.

  “All they had, we didn’t have a reservation,” Cosmo said.

  “It’s fine, Cosmo.” Carrie said. “Order us a bottle of wine.”

  Cosmo ordered his favorite Pinot Grigio.

  “You better bring two bottles.” Phillip told the waiter who looked at him funny. Phillip barely looked old enough to drink. “Hey, we’re celebrating here.”

  Turbo agreed. “Yes, waiter, bring two bottles.”

  Cosmo cheered. “Okay then. And some Calamari, bring some Calamari, too.”

  ***

  The waiter asked if they needed anything else before he set the check down and cleared the third empty wine bottle from the table. Cosmo had drunk the better part of two of them.

  “Dinner was wonderful, Cosmo. Thank you so much.” Carrie grabbed her purse from the chair.

  “Yes, thank you, Cosmo.” Phillip patted his stomach. “I’m stuffed.”

  “Wait, where are you going? The night is young. They started nighttime racing at Aquaduct. I’m feeling lucky tonight.”

  “Cosmo, didn’t I tell you, we have to visit a friend in the hospital.” Turbo didn’t say the friend’s name and thankfully, at that point, Cosmo couldn’t have cared less.

  “Visit him tomorrow, tonight we celebrate.” He knocked over a glass of water on the table.

  “No, we have to go tonight, come with us then we’ll go to Aquaduct.”

  Carrie agreed with Turbo. “That’s a good idea.”

  Easily persuaded, Cosmo headed for the door. Turbo grabbed his shirt before he busted out into the street. He steered him into the backseat of Carrie’s car and strapped the seatbelt around his inebriated friend. Turbo sat next to him and talked to him all the way to the hospital, not wanting him to fall asleep or begin to sober up.

  They parked near the emergency room entrance. That’s when he realized that they really didn’t have a plan. “So, what do we do now?” Phillip asked.

  Cosmo had fixated on a stray kitten that lurked near the entrance. “Here kitty, kitty, kitty.” He slurred and spritzed the car window with every “kitty.”

  “One thing’s for sure; we can’t all barge in there at once, especially not the cat whisperer.” Phillip pulled Cosmo away from the window and leaned him back against the seat.

  “I’ll go and find out what room he’s in.” Carrie told them. “Then I’ll find the cafeteria and let you all in through the loading dock.”

  Phillip, once again impressed with her resourcefulness, liked the idea. “Okay, we’ll wait for your call.”

  Carrie walked into the hospital and saw a line of people waiting to speak to the receptionist. She stood in line until she noticed a nurse sipping a cup of coffee in a room with the door open. “Excuse me, I’m not sick or anything, I’m just looking for my brother’s room.”

  The nurse went over to her desk to help her. “Okay, what’s your brother’s name?”

  “His name is Alex Gaye.”

  The nurse spilled her coffee. “Oh, my God.” She grabbed a towel from a nearby shelf and blotted the coffee up from the desk. “I’m sorry, did you say Alex Gaye?”

  Carrie nodded.

  The nurse typed the name in the computer. “Okay, here it is, he’s in room 3327, but I’m sorry, visiting hours are over.”

  “That’s okay. I’ll be back in the morning. Where are the restrooms?”

  “Down the corridor, through the double doors just before the elevators.” The nurse dropped the towel in the soiled linen hamper.

  “Thank you, so much.” Carrie looked at her nametag. “Shelley. Thank you so much, Shelley.” She headed down the hallway.

  Once through the double doors she bolted past the restrooms and the elevators and followed the signs to the cafeteria. The doors were locked, and the cafeteria was empty, except for a man inside mopping the floor of the dining room. She tapped a quarter on the glass to get his attention. “Hello, I’m sorry to do this.” Carrie took a twenty-dollar-bill from her purse and handed it to him.

  “What’s this for?”

  “For this.” She trounced across the still wet floor.

  “Wait! You can’t go in there.” The man screamed and then put the twenty in his pocket.

  She pushed open the door to the kitchen area and went straight back to the loading dock door. It had a panic bar attached and a notice that the alarm would sound plastered to the door. She pushed hard on the door without touching the panic bar. It opened. No alarm sounded. The janitor must have deactivated it. She called Phillip at once.

  Back in the dining room, the young man had almost finished mopping the area Carrie had soiled. He was unprepared for the stampede that followed. Four people trampled the again mopped dining room floor; one reeked of alcohol.

  On the third floor, only Carrie exited the elevator. She turned left and then hugged the corridor walls as she searched for room 3327, just up around the bend if the number order held up. She stopped suddenly, turned around and hurried back to the elevator. “There’s a cop guarding his room.”

  “What? Are you sure?” Turbo asked her.

  “Well, he looks like a cop or an F.B.I. agent.”

  “I’ll bet he’s one of Lawson’s buddies.” Phillip said.

  “We better go.” Carrie suggested.

  “No, we’ve come this far, we can still do this.” Turbo had a plan. “We brought Cosmo along to distract the nurses, now he’ll just have to distract the cop.”

  Phillip pointed out one flaw with Turbo’s plan. “That’s all well and good, but a nurse can’t arrest us, or worse, shoot us.”

  “He’ll be fine, besides it’s time for him to take one for the team.”

  “Yeah, but not a bullet.” Carrie had second thoughts about the whole idea.

  “Nobody’s gonna get shot.” Turbo laid out the rest of his plan. He told Carrie to take Cosmo down the right corridor and make a big stink about a hundred yards in front of the officer. “Have a fight, knock him down, whatever it takes to get the cop away from th
e door. Make sure you’re real loud.”

  Turbo and Phillip would take the left corridor and wait for the diversion to enter the room. “Don’t calm down until you see us enter the room. Then wait about three minutes and start the commotion again, nice and loud. Make sure the cop is facing toward you, because when we hear the second commotion we’re coming out with Alex. Give us five minutes after that and meet us on the loading dock.”

  Then turbo leaned in and whispered to Carrie. “If it comes to the point where you have to leave Cosmo behind, you leave him. Understand?”

  Carrie nodded.

  “Okay, wake up Cosmo and let’s go.

  They all left the elevator.

  Carrie screamed and slapped Cosmo hard across the face. “Get away from me you pervert. She ran down the corridor right into the officer’s arms. She screamed again. “Let me go, help, somebody, RAPE!”

  The officer covered her mouth with one hand and retrieved his badge with the other. Cosmo stumbled up from behind them.

  “Who the fuck are you?” The officer looked at Carrie who was suddenly calm. “And who’s this drunken bastard?”

  “Oh, he’s my boyfriend?”

  “Then why were you screaming and running?”

  Carrie put her finger to her cheekbone. “Hmmm.” She thought about it for a minute. “Let me see, let me see, why was I running? Oh, I remember.” She screamed hysterically. “Cause that mother fucker was French kissing my mother. Can you believe it?” She turned and wailed at Cosmo, screaming, crying, and acting her ass off.

  The officer had had enough. He told them to take it out of the hospital. Carrie kept screaming and crying, grabbing the officer’s coat to keep his attention.

  He pushed her away and warned them both. “You both need to get back in the elevator and get out of here or I’ll have you arrested. You got that?”

  “Okay, thank you.” They headed back to the elevator.

  The police officer went back to his post; the heel taps on his shoes clicked against the tile floor. He sat down in the chair. It took a second or two, but he jumped up, rushed into Alex’s room and then back out to the elevator. He pushed the button, but opted for the stairs.

  Carrie and Cosmo were almost to the cafeteria when they heard the click of heeltaps again. Harder and faster, each louder than the one previous. She yanked Cosmo’s arm, but he was still too drunk to run. She didn’t leave him. At least Turbo and Phillip had gotten away with Alex.