The Music of the Machine (The Book of Terwilliger 2)

by Michael Stiles

  “You’re not supposed to tell anybody about him,” Joy said. This elicited a series of violent twitches from Jorge. “And he’s the one who wants you to hurt people? Does Cruller work for President Nixon?”

  No no no. Cruller is el jefe. Not nixon. Cruller do this to me. Cruller plan to hurt Bismuth. Cruller make me a slav. As soon as he wrote this, he went back over it with the pen, scribbling over all of it.

  “Does he―”

  But Jorge was writing again, more urgently this time. You go now go now now NOW.

  Rayfield was pulling on her sleeve. “Bunnykins, it’s time to go.”

  Now here he come now.

  “Rayfield,” she said in annoyance, “I just need―”

  But Rayfield was not listening. He was looking at a man who was hurrying across the room toward them. This was the other one she had seen outside the doctor’s office, and he did not look pleased to see her. He was bumping into people and tables in his haste, ignoring the angry looks from the people around him. Joy slipped the sheet of paper into her purse and got to her feet just as he reached their table.

  “Garcia,” said the other man, his thick mustache quivering in fury, “who are these people?” Then he looked at Joy again, and she could tell that he recognized her. His expression grew even darker. “How did you track us here?”

  “Hello,” said Joy with a smile, but her smile had no effect on the man. This was unusual, and it made her glad to have Rayfield next to her.

  “My friend has not been feeling well,” the man with the mustache said. “Whatever he told you is nonsense.”

  “We just stopped over because Joy remembered seeing him the other day,” said Rayfield.

  “I wanted to know how your sightseeing went,” Joy added.

  “It was fine,” said the man through a tightly clenched jaw.

  “Did you ever find Hollywood Boulevard?”

  She could hear him grinding his teeth. He started to reach for something in his pocket, then changed his mind as he glanced around the crowded restaurant. Joy thought she knew what he had in that pocket. “We found it,” he said. “It was very nice, very wide. My friend and I have to catch a flight now. Please excuse us.” He beckoned to Jorge, who quickly got up out of his chair.

  “Good seeing you again,” said Joy, no longer smiling. The mustachioed man narrowed his eyes at her. Then his gaze dropped to her chest, which she instinctively covered up by folding her arms. Why did men always have to stare at them?

  “Bismuth,” he said.

  Joy blinked. Then it became clear to her: he wasn’t looking at her chest. He was looking at her BLAKE PEACE button. “Who is Bismuth?” she said.

  “That’s Walter Bismuth.” He pointed at Ed Terwilliger’s face on the button. “What’s he doing on a button?”

  Rayfield looked at the button. “Bismuth?” he said. “Never heard of him.”

  The man with the mustache looked with trepidation at Rayfield, whose head was almost level with his own even though Rayfield was still sitting down. “Blake peace,” he muttered. “Damned liberals.” Then, shaking his head in disgust, he nudged his companion’s shoulder. “Garcia, we have a flight to catch.” His eyes darted furtively toward Joy and he added, “Now.” He put his hand in his pocket. Rayfield started to get up, but Joy grabbed his arm and wouldn’t let him get up. She very much did not want either of them to get shot. After a long moment, the two men turned and walked away.

  Joy watched them leave, then took out the paper from her purse to reread Jorge’s notes. “Cruller’s planning to hurt Bismuth,” she said, half to herself.

  “And Bismuth is Ed,” said Rayfield.

  Their eyes met and they looked at each other for a long time. Another aircraft flew overhead, rattling all the glassware in the restaurant as it passed. Then Rayfield stood up quite suddenly, causing a woman at the next table to cry out in surprise. He was over seven feet tall if you included his hair, and he could move very quickly when he wanted to. “Better get a move on, Bunny-bun,” he said. “There’s trouble coming.”

  31

  The Dusty Galaxie

  The road was blocked by a tall metal gate. To either side, a heavy wire fence stretched into the distance, with coils of concertina wire gleaming at the top. At the side of the road was a guard house with at least one guard in it; Sarah could see him silhouetted in the window. A sign on the top of the shack proclaimed that the other side of the fence was property of the U.S. Army. Perla pulled the car over to the side. They were still about a quarter-mile from the guard shack—close enough to be seen. “Guess we won’t be going that way,” Perla said. A guard came out of the building to get a better look at them. Perla shifted into first gear and turned the car around, kicking up an enormous cloud of dust. She stopped again once they were out of sight of the gate.

  “Wonderful,” Sarah muttered. Her stomach felt all twisted and she didn’t feel much like talking.

  They had driven around the outskirts of Denver in Perla’s Plymouth Belvedere, just as Eileen had asked them to. At first Perla had played tour guide, showing Sarah the interesting places around town. Then the tour guide act had grown old, at about the same time that Sarah had observed that the sick sensation increased as they moved away from the city in a northeasterly direction. As they had gone farther out of the populated area, Sarah had begun to sense something: a deep vibration that she felt rather than heard. It was like a low hum that made her insides vibrate in a most discomforting way. She had guided Perla to drive in the direction of the hum, until they reached this fence with its well-defended gate.

  “There’s your answer,” Perla said as the car idled at the side of the road. “Unless your boss thinks we can wander in past the guards and have a look around.”

  Sarah smiled in spite of the disconcerting vibration. She wondered how it was possible that Perla didn’t feel it. “Let’s go back so I can call Eileen. It’s a dead end.” If this was an Army facility, she doubted Nathaniel would be hiding inside. It was possible that this had all been a wild goose chase. But that was for Lester Myles to worry about. She would call the office, relate what she had seen, and catch the first flight back to New York.

  Perla sat up suddenly in her seat and exclaimed, “Piss-crumpets!”

  “What?” Sarah looked around, expecting to see armed men converging on their vehicle. But she saw nothing except the vast, grassy plateau, the mountains on the horizon, and the Denver skyline in between.

  “Gas,” said Perla. “I forgot to get gas.” She tapped her finger on the fuel gauge, which was reading well below the empty line. “We passed a gas station back there, didn’t we?”

  As Perla had thought, the service station was only two or three miles down the road. The engine sputtered as she pulled in, and died ten feet short of the gas pump. Perla coasted the Belvedere up to the pump, behind the only other vehicle at the station—a battered old brown Ford—and heaved a sigh of relief as she put on the brake. “That’s about as close as it gets,” she said. “Now I need to see a man about a horse.” In response to Sarah’s quizzical look, she clarified: “I have to go pee.”

  There was an attendant sitting in a chair in front of the station. He got up, yawned deeply, and came over to fill the tank and wash the windows while Perla went in search of the toilet. Sarah got out of the car to stretch her legs. It was a clear September day, cool but comfortable. The sun had passed its highest point and was just beginning its trip toward the western horizon, where it would set early behind the mountains. Sarah admired the view as the attendant tried without success to figure out how to operate the pump.

  “I think you need to flip that lever,” Sarah offered. “No, the other way. Up.”

  The attendant figured it out eventually and was able to get the gas flowing. “Thenk you,” he said.

  “Not from around here, are you?” Sarah asked. She meant this as an attempt at small-talk, but the attendant turned red and his eyes darted back and forth as if he was looking for an escape route.
“Clueland,” he said. “I am from Clueland, Ohio.”

  “Do you mean Cleveland?”

  “Yes. I am Leonid. I mean, I am Leo. From Cleveland. Ohio. Why would I not be from Cleveland?”

  “Nice to meet you.”

  “I move to Colorado,” Leo went on, “to see the mountains. Beautiful mountains. There are no mountains in Cleveland.” He paused, thinking hard. “Right,” he decided at last. “No mountains there. Nothing in Cleveland but desert. I move here and work in an office for some time. Three months. Years. Three years. Then I lose my job and here I am. Pimping gas.”

  “Yes,” said Sarah, “I’ve heard pimping is hard work.”

  “You hear correctly!” said Leo, brightening. “Hard, very hard. Can never get gas to turn on. And the windshields. Washing windshields is easy, but getting water off with squoogee, this is not easy without leaving marks.”

  “Hey, what’s that Army base up the road? Do you know what they do there?”

  Leo suddenly looked very anxious. “Why do you think I know about Army place? I know nothing about Army. I just do the gas. I have never go to Army place. What Army place?”

  “Right up the road that way,” said Sarah, pointing.

  “Oh, that place.” Leo looked in that direction and scratched his ear. Then he leaned in closer so he could whisper. “Arsenal. They say it is chemicals.”

  Sarah inhaled sharply. “What did you say? Chemicals?”

  “Yes. They make chemicals. Mustard gas. Knee palm.” He pronounced the K in ‘knee’.

  “Knee palm?” She said the words quietly to herself to try to untangle them. “You mean napalm?”

  “Yes, knee palm. They drop it on jungle, it burns up. Giant fireball. Whoosh.” He shrugged. “That is what they say. I do not go to Army place, so I do not know.”

  Perla came back, looking extremely grumbly. “Somebody’s been in the bathroom this whole time,” she said. “Taking forever. I’m about to burst.”

  “Is that man again,” said Leonid, nodding toward the brown car in front of Perla’s. “He goes in there for long time. Big guy. Bowel problems, maybe.” The gas was starting to leak gasoline down the side of the car, so he removed the nozzle and screwed on the cap. Perla paid him in cash, which he accepted gratefully.

  “Do you have another bathroom?” she asked the attendant.

  “No. You may go in bushes if you want. They are good bushes.” He had intended this as a joke, but Perla did not laugh, so he shrugged uncomfortably. “Girls do not use bushes; that is true. You will have to wait. Maybe try knocking and make him hurry up. But bowel problems take long time, believe me, I know.” He tipped his hat and returned to his seat in front of the service station.

  But Perla chose not to knock on the door. She got into the car and drummed anxiously on the steering wheel as a T. Rex song played on the radio. Sarah sat beside her, and as the seconds passed she found herself needing to go to the bathroom as well.

  The next two minutes felt like an eternity. Finally, to Perla’s evident relief, a man came out of the building. He was very large, not fat but solid like a football player. His bald head glistened in the sun until he put on a metallic hat that glittered in the sun.

  “It’s about time,” Perla muttered as she started to open the car door. But Sarah shushed her and put her hand on Perla’s arm. “What’s the matter?” said Perla. “I’m not messing around. One more minute and it’s gonna spray out of my belly button.”

  “Just wait,” said Sarah. She watched the man get into his car. He did not look in their direction. She hoped he had not noticed that they were sitting in the car behind him. “I know him.”

  Perla squinted at the brown car as the man started his engine. “Look, Sarah, I really need to go.”

  “Follow him!”

  Perla gave Sarah the withering look that she usually used on Joy. “You’re willing to sacrifice my bladder for this?”

  “It’s Big John. Don’t you remember him?”

  “You’re right!” said Perla. “I should’ve recognized that Galaxie. Joy and Rayfield beat the stuffing out of him that day at the stadium. Isn’t he a friend of Ed’s?”

  Sarah had never known John very well, although Ed had told her many stories about him. Most of the stories from their younger days involved alcohol and ended with John doing something embarrassing. But then John had joined up with Arthur Papadakis. “I don’t know if he’s still a friend,” she said.

  “Why do you think he’s here? Should we talk to him?”

  Sarah bit her lip as she tried to think. It was hard to think with the vibrations disrupting her mind. “I don’t know.”

  “I can follow him. See where he’s headed, at least.”

  That soon became their only option anyway, because John was pulling away from the gas pumps. “Not too close,” said Sarah.

  “Right. I’ll just hold it a little longer.” Perla cast one final, longing glance at the service station and its bathroom before shifting into gear. “The things I do for you people,” she muttered.

  * * *

  It had been dry for several days, so John’s car kicked up a good amount of dust on the unpaved road. This made it easy to follow him, but Sarah worried that their own dust trail would also make it obvious to him that he was being followed. The terrain was mostly flat on this high plateau; the vegetation consisted mainly of dry, brown grass, sparsely dotted with a few trees. Perla reduced her speed to follow at a distance. It was easy enough to follow the plume of dust.

  For most of the way, the fence that marked the boundary of the army facility was visible on their left side. After ten miles, the fence veered away from the road until Sarah couldn’t see it anymore. A few minutes later, the dust trail changed direction and moved off to their left. Perla turned at the next opportunity onto another dirt road, this one even less traveled than the first. A few minutes later, it became evident from the absence of dust that John had stopped his vehicle. Perla slowed the car to just above walking speed while Sarah kept an eye out for the brown Galaxie.

  They soon came to a place where some tire tracks were visible going off the left side of the road. The tracks seemed well worn. Perla stopped the car.

  “This must be where he went,” said Sarah. “What are you doing?”

  Perla was getting out of the car. “Your friend at the gas station said girls can’t go in the bushes. I’m going to prove him wrong.” There was a small, gnarled tree about fifty feet from the road; she walked over to this and disappeared behind it. Sarah took the opportunity to get out and stretch her legs.

  The tire tracks made two parallel paths through the tall grass, leading toward a cluster of trees about half a mile away. Sarah saw something reflecting the sun beneath those trees.

  Perla returned, looking greatly relieved. “Any sign of him?”

  “There’s something shiny over there. I’m going to take a look.”

  “Hang tight for a second.” Perla opened the trunk of her car, rummaged for a moment, and pulled out a tire iron. “Now I’m ready,” she said.

  Sarah had been convinced that the gleaming object must be Big John’s car, but it turned out to be a large metal box on the ground, three feet high and four feet wide. The box was buzzing quietly. This wasn’t the low hum that was still causing Sarah considerable discomfort; it was just an ordinary electrical buzzing, like a transformer.

  “Look at this,” Perla called. “It’s another fence. Or maybe the same one.” Sarah hadn’t noticed it before, but now she could see the tall barbed-wire fence a hundred feet beyond the trees. It stretched into the distance to the north and south, perfectly straight. On the other side of the fence was the same flat, grassy plain, interrupted only by a single wart-shaped hill some distance away. The mountains were a jagged edge on the horizon.

  Sarah left the cover of the trees, looking around nervously although there were no other people in sight, and walked up to the fence. It was made of heavy wire, more solid than a regular chain link. There wa
s a supporting pole every ten feet or so, and the top of each pole ended in a Y that served as a bracket to support the coils of razor-wire that topped the entire length of the fence. As she walked along, her foot slipped into a depression in the ground and she fell.

  “Sarah!” Perla called. “Where’d you go?”

  “Somebody’s been this way,” Sarah called as she pushed herself up onto her knees. Her hands were scraped and a little bloody. She had fallen into a trench, two feet deep, that someone had dug underneath the fence. Somehow she had stumbled into it without seeing it. It might have passed for an animal’s burrow, but most animals could fit through very narrow spaces. This trench was deep and wide, and some flat stones had been placed neatly around the edges to keep them from eroding. A fairly large person—Big John, for example—could easily fit through it and crawl under the fence.

  “What are you looking at?” said Perla, who had come over to kneel next to her.

  “Somebody dug under the fence. Do you think he went this way?”

  “What are you talking about?” Perla blinked a few times. “Huh. I didn’t notice that before.”

  “I didn’t notice it either,” said Sarah, “until I was in it.” She rubbed her eyes. She found it hard to focus on the hole under the fence, as though it didn’t want to be seen. “The vibrations are stronger here. Do you think Big John can hear them?”

  Perla pried up one of the stones with the tire iron to examine it. “Sarah, I don’t like this. We should go back and call your boss. Let Lester Myles deal with it. What the hell are you doing?”

  On a sudden impulse, Sarah had crawled under the fence and was now on the other side, looking at Perla through the wire. “I just need to see where the vibrations are coming from. The source must be nearby.”