Hooked

by Matt Richtel

  Then a shooting pain.

  I felt myself lose footing, my legs buckled, the earth slithered underneath me, the onset of another shrieking headache.

  “Something’s wrong with me, Annie. I don’t know if it was the acupuncture, or . . . it’s something that’s been going on for a couple of days. Since the explosion.”

  “What are you talking about?” she said, sounding earnest and intense.

  “My head. It’s—it feels like it’s exploding.”

  “Nat, focus. I need you to tell me when it started. Are you disoriented? Nauseated?”

  “Yes. A couple of days ago. I’m thinking it’s post-traumatic stress disorder, but bad. Or . . . what?”

  After a brief pause, she spoke. “Dammit. Goddammit. Let me think for a second.” She paused again. “Can you get hold of some amphetamines—like Ritalin, or even crack? Low, low doses of crack would be fine.”

  Ritalin. The stuff people take for attention deficit disorder? Crack? Me?

  “You’re just tired, Nat. If you can’t get something stronger, fuel up on sugar and caffeine. It’ll keep you going.”

  Sugar and caffeine.

  I wanted to go back in a time machine.

  “Are you qualified to prescribe sugar?”

  I was hoping for a connection. I got the opposite—a disconnection.

  “I have to go now,” she said, her tone intensified. “Nathaniel, I need you to bring that man’s laptop.”

  I gulped for air.

  “We can trade it for our freedom.”

  Our freedom.

  “I can’t wait to see you, Turtle. Don’t forget the laptop. It’s everything.”

  The line went dead.

  I stood up. Blood, what was left of it, took the A train from brain to extremities. I paused to let dizziness pass. I looked at Samantha, still slumbering, then I staggered toward the Explorer.

  Annie was alive. How could that be? But I heard her, the warmth, coupled with that toughness I’d had so much trouble grasping in our year together. More of that than I remembered. Still, it was Annie, and her whereabouts were locked inside the mystery Ford.

  As I put the key into the door lock, I was struck by an impulse. Fighting the pain in my neck, I leaned under the car. I looked at the underside. Did there appear to be anything out of the ordinary, or dangerous? Like a bomb?

  Nothing looked suspicious.

  I pressed my hands against the ground in the form of a push-up. I rose to my feet. A phoenix—with blue canvas high-tops. Annie was waiting. So was Erin. I opened the car door. “I’m rebounding,” I said.

  I climbed into the car, and was struck by the antiseptic smell of leather scrubbed clean. Without hesitation, I reached for the glove compartment. I opened it and found a cream-colored envelope. Inside that, a map—of Nevada. It was in black and white, except for the circle in blood-red pen around Boulder City. A town apparently so small that it was denoted by the littlest typeface on the map. It wasn’t far from Hoover Dam and Lake Mead.

  There was a typewritten note on the edge of the paper. It instructed me to be in Boulder City the following afternoon. I had almost twenty hours to get to my destination. I glanced back at the paper—at the few additional words typed there. “Will call with an address,” it read. The note wasn’t signed, it was stamped with the image of a turtle.

  On autopilot, I carried Samantha to the car and set her in the back seat, where she continued to metabolize sleeping medicine. I started the car.

  Sometimes my moments of creative clarity happened in the middle of the night. Other times in the shower. Once during a particularly depressing series of one-night stands eighteen months after Annie’s disappearance, while I was mid-coitus with a woman who made bracelets by enclosing colorful plastic around strands of human hair. This time, it happened when I was in reverse.

  I was thinking about the sound of Annie’s voice, just the mere, extraordinary sound of it, and her instructions: to bring the laptop, to stay awake eating sugar and caffeine. I was navigating the behemoth SUV out of the lot. I hit the brakes.

  The car stopped. My mind careened forward. I was struck by a series of seemingly unrelated images. Andy’s laptop, which everybody seemed to be craving, his headaches, and apparent addiction to uppers. The caged rats, with the holes in their skulls. Someone was experimenting on rat brains, measuring their brain activity.

  Eat sugar, said Annie. Drink caffeine. Better yet, take uppers.

  I had my first guess at what might be happening.

  I reached into my jeans. I felt what I was looking for—the tattered and bloodied piece of notebook paper I’d taken from inside a cage at Strawberry Labs. Along the left side of the paper were written numbers, which I knew to be names: A1, A2, up to A15. Then B1 to B5. Some with C and numbers.

  At least three dozen. More than I had seen. Missing, and presumed dead.

  Beside each name were four columns. One read “food,” the next, “stim”; the next two had the headers “NOR” and “DA.” I couldn’t be sure what that meant, but I had a strong guess. Norepinephrine and dopamine. Neurotransmitters, measurable through urine sample. They helped control attention span and impulsivity.

  Also, the rats had shaved heads, consistent with the placement of electrodes. Like someone also had been measuring their brain waves. Attached to B4’s wires had been two words, “stim” and “wave.”

  Stimulation? Brain waves?

  Food? Stim? The concept rang familiar. Wasn’t it a classic experiment? What would rats choose, food or stimulation? But why? What did that have to do with this?

  “No way,” I said, almost in the form of a question, then answered myself. “Not possible.”

  I flashed on the image of Andy’s laptop, its space bar cracked and indented. He typed the word “ping” over and over. Like a rat clawing at a lever to obtain more stimulation. Was Andy doing something similar? Could the computer have been acting as a stimulant? Could it elevate anxiety and adrenaline—to dangerous levels? Could it be elevating mine?

  “Not possible.”

  I reached for the super-secret spy phone. I fumbled it in my slippery hands, looking for the feature that told me what numbers I’d received calls from. Annie’s number was listed as blocked.

  I scrolled the menu looking for anything else that could tell me her whereabouts. Was there a way to find her—immediately? Not in twenty hours, when it might be too late. I looked in the mirror. A chalk outline of a face looked back, eyes peering through whiskers and disease.

  I dialed directory assistance and asked for the number for Glenn Kindle. Unlisted. I tried Kindle Investment Partners. I found myself at the voice mail of Glenn’s administrative assistant, Diane McNulty. Good old Diane. She wasn’t around either. I called the operator again and asked for any Diane McNultys in the surrounding area. There was a listing in Redwood City, a few miles north and a few tax brackets south of Palo Alto.

  Before I knew it, I’d been connected to Diane’s number. And shortly thereafter, I heard another voice from the past.

  “Hello.”

  “Diane?”

  “This is she.”

  “Howdy, Diane McNulty,” I said, employing the politician’s trick of repeating a name. “It’s Nathaniel Idle—Annie’s old boyfriend.”

  There was a pause.

  “Hi, Nat. My goodness. How are you?”

  Warm. Like a grandmother who just wanted to invite you in off the porch and give you a cold glass of lemonade.

  “Diane. I need to find Glenn,” I said abruptly. “It’s essential that I reach him.”

  Again, a pause. “I’d be happy to get a message to him tomorrow. Can you give me a call at the office?”

  I sunk my head into my shoulders. She was a smiling Cerberus, a dog at the gate happily wagging her tail, but whose protective powers were not to be underestimated in the slightest.

  “Can I reach him tonight?” I said. “I can’t impress upon you how important this is.”

  “Oh, I
don’t think so, Nat. He’s in transit to Las Vegas. He’s speaking at TelCom, the annual trade show with telecommunications companies,” she said. “I bet you’re calling about Ed Gaverson. Aren’t you still a reporter of some kind?”

  Ed Gaverson. The founder of Ditsoft, Glenn Kindle’s friend and sometime business rival.

  “Isn’t it a tragedy? On top of the world—and he does . . . that. . . ?” she said, lowering her voice. “This is all off the record, of course.”

  I was a juggler, a spinner of plates, a sword swallower, with someone sharpening knives already ingested. Something happened to Gaverson?

  “I need to talk to him about . . . Annie,” I said.

  “Oh, Nat,” she said quickly, innocently. “I know how hard that was for you. I promise to let him know right away you’d like to chat. Is it the anniversary?”

  Diane had no idea what I was talking about. I wasn’t sure if, and how much, I should tell her. What if I told her about Annie, and she told Glenn or whoever had Annie fighting for her life?

  Who else would have Annie scared to death?

  “How can I reach Dave Elliott?” I asked.

  “Oh yes, that’s a good idea. He’s in downtown San Francisco.”

  A hop, skip, and a jump. I turned the car around and pulled out of the parking lot. In the rearview mirror, I again caught a glimpse of my face—illuminated by fading sun. The light accentuated the red lines burned into my eyes. If I didn’t get answers soon, would I even survive long enough to see Annie?

  44

  The operator gave me the phone number for Dave Elliott’s law firm and, when I asked sweetly, the address too. Elliott was in the Kindle inner circle. Maybe he could bring me inside the circle too.

  I felt pulsing of my cranial veins. I recognized it now as the precursor to another set of dancing linebackers. My mysterious flulike symptoms, or a wave of exhaustion. When I’d sensed something wasn’t right with me, Annie had very nearly validated my intuition. Perhaps Dave Elliott could make it clearer still.

  Sugar. Caffeine.

  Somebody tell the FDA: The most powerful drugs in the world remain unregulated, and available cheap at 7-Eleven.

  Moments later, I stood at the counter of just such a convenience store with a basket filled with the stuff of an eleven-year-old’s erotic fantasy. A box of Cocoa Puffs, a 44-ounce coffee, a half dozen Snickers, four Milky Ways, a six-pack of Jolt, twelve sugar doughnuts, and, for protein, Slim Jims and prepackaged peanut butter crackers. And various other assorted snack items that I’d always wanted but lacked the medical counsel to buy or ingest in good conscience.

  I exited the convenience store, ignoring the curious gaze of an overqualified employee. I climbed into my car and looked around—for police, or other antagonists. I’d become a fugitive from the law—and my dentist. I devoured two candy bars and slugged a mouthful of muddy coffee. It pasted me with a surge of sugar and caffeine.

  I headed downtown. With any luck Dave Elliott would be doing what lawyers did best. Working late.

  As I drove, I flashed on my editor, Kevin. I still owed him the story about the impact of cell phone radiation on the brain. Was I so conditioned by school that I could think even at a time like this of my financial and work obligations? I almost laughed.

  Finally I’d found a worthy excuse. Kevin, I was planning to get my story in on time, but I was murdered. If that didn’t buy me a few extra weeks, I didn’t know what would.

  I called my attorney. “Dude,” he answered after the first ring. “What’s up?”

  I had to hand it to Eric Rugger, attorney-at-law. He might not know how to connect with the common man on juries. But he did a great job speaking the language of the common teenager.

  “Great news,” he said. “They have not reopened the Aravelo investigation. I talked to my sources; you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

  “Yeah, I figured that much out. Hey, here’s some more great news: I’m wanted for blowing up the Sunshine Café.”

  “If you’re serious, we need to get off our mobile phones. They can tap these calls.”

  “I’m innocent. I don’t give a shit who’s listening.”

  “Nat, are you talking about the reports on the radio that the police are looking for two survivors of the café explosion?”

  “Yep.”

  He paused before he spoke again.

  “That might just be a tactic. It might mean you’re wanted for questioning. It’s a way of making sure you cooperate. You need to turn yourself in immediately. And you need to get off this phone. Tell me where to meet you and we’ll go together.”

  That seemed like a good idea on the order of pouring lemon juice down my back.

  “You spent a year at Justice, right?” I said.

  Eric had spent a grad-school summer at the Justice Department.

  “Nat, I don’t see . . . ”

  “I need a favor,” I said. “I need you to call any friends you might have at the SEC. Ask about a company called Vestige Technologies. V-E-S-T-I-G-E.” I told him it was in New York and had some problems several years ago.

  I had barely hung up with Eric when I looked up to see the cross streets of Front and Mission and a gorgeous dusk view of the Bay Bridge. I didn’t pause for long. I needed to get into the building quickly if I had any chance of catching David Elliott.

  I parked the car. One more call. I picked up my phone to dial, but stopped, remembering Eric’s admonition—they can tap your calls.

  I put my phone down and picked up the blonde angel’s cell phone. I gathered that my use of the phone was a secret. Except to Annie, or whoever she was working with. I got out of the car and went to a pay phone to call Bullseye. No answer.

  I called the Past Time bar. The phone was answered by Ally, who tended bar twice a week. She put Bullseye on the line.

  “Is Sam with you?” he said. “I haven’t heard from her since I left her studio a couple of hours ago.”

  “Bullseye. I need you to sit down.”

  “As opposed to what?”

  He was in his usual terse mood and probably wasn’t all that concerned about Samantha’s absence.

  “Sam’s okay,” I said. “She’s gotten a little mixed up with the nonsense involving me and the waitress.”

  “I’m standing, Nathaniel.”

  I looked up the side of the building that was home to Dave Elliott’s office. Same joint I’d visited several years earlier, when I’d quizzed him about Vestige Technologies. Bullseye arrived within ten minutes. He looked at me: “Holy shit.”

  Then he turned to Samantha. He leaned over, kissed her forehead, and stood looking at her in silence for a full two minutes.

  “She’s been drugged, but she’s okay,” I said. “She needs rest, but I think she can do without a doctor for now.”

  He brushed a wisp of her hair off her forehead and behind her ear.

  “I’m going to kill somebody.” He took Samantha’s hand. “And I’m not nearly as ticked off as she’ll be. She hates ingesting any synthetic chemicals.”

  “Did you call the cops?”

  He lifted her gently into his car. “Dennis,” she said, stirring, using his given name. “You smell good.”

  “No police. Please,” I said. “Do you still have the laptop?”

  He climbed behind the wheel of his car.

  “I hid it. On a table in my living room. Do you want me to do something with it?”

  I nodded. I gave him Mike’s cell phone number. I told him to ask Mike to make a copy of the laptop’s hard drive, fit the computer with a tracking device. I wasn’t sure it would work, but I figured if anyone would know, it would be Mike. I begged Bullseye for discretion, a melodramatic and unnecessary request.

  Moments later, I walked into Starbucks and bought two lattes and one individually wrapped, three-dollar butter cookie.

  I entered Dave Elliott’s building and walked to the guard station.

  “Badge,” demanded the guard, a portly fellow with a ham-size
d fist dug into a bag of tortilla chips.

  “Coming up.” I put down my snacks and dug into my pocket. “By the way, you want this extra latte and cookie? Johnson asks me to get it, then he calls to say he had to scamper home to his wife.”

  “Serious?”

  “Where the hell did I leave my badge?” I said, as if talking to myself.

  “Don’t sweat it,” he said, snagging the latte.

  I took the elevator to the eighteenth floor, where Elliott kept his office. The glass reception doors to the law firm were open too, and there didn’t appear to be a soul around. Inviting. What luck.

  I made my way down a hallway, passing the photos hung on the wall of serious-looking law partners dressed in pinstripes. There was a light on inside when I arrived at Elliott’s office door. I had hardly begun to debate whether to knock when I heard a voice from inside.

  “Nathaniel, what took you so long?”

  45

  Dry cleaning,” Dave said. “That’s the key.”

  He stuck out his hand.

  “What the heck happened to you?” he said. “And to what do I owe this visit?”

  “You tell me.”

  He’d known I was coming. Was he tracking me?

  I put out my hand and gave him an aggressive shake. His palm was slick. He turned away to face the room.

  “Diane said you might be heading this direction.”

  He leaned over his desk and squirted his hand with an industrial-strength bottle of Purell. I might have been offended if there wasn’t so much more on my mind, and if it didn’t happen so often these days. Especially interviewing medical professionals, or business executives; they immediately went into their pockets to disinfect. They did it not just with me, but with each other, with whomever. Sometimes they didn’t grip hands at all but just touched fists. Germophobia. The handshake had given way to the hosedown.

  What I had was much worse than a cold.

  I recognized the room. The big oak desk, beneath a built-in shelf—still virtually devoid of books. To the left of the desk, a window with a terrific view of the Bay Bridge, lit by car headlights and brake lights, and a nearly full moon. At the other side of the room, across from the window, a couch. In front of the couch, a reddish-colored coffee table, with an ice-filled bucket chilling bottled waters. Dave gestured toward the couch. I sat. I picked up a water, opened it, and took a slug.