The Best of Subterranean

by William Schafer

  All that stuff sounded familiar from my day-to-day life lately, even the helicopters and the crowding and the people reading the same magazines, but I’d never thought it had anything to do with me. Life is full of coincidences. “But, if gangstalking’s not a real thing…why are you talking about it?”

  “Because you are being gangstalked. You are a targeted individual. The fact that you haven’t even noticed just goes to show how strikingly un-paranoid you are. Your ongoing mental health must be very frustrating to your tormentors. In your case, there really is a vast group of seemingly random people attempting to make your life a ruin. Haven’t you noticed a huge increase in your bad luck these past few months?”

  “I’ve had a shitty run, sure, but I don’t think it’s a conspiracy.” It was more than a shitty run, really. It was an era of epic failures. From my stolen car (and my mysteriously lapsed car insurance, though I sent in checks every month) to the morning I woke up and found every piece of electronics I owned turned into useless lumps (the repair guy at the computer shop said it was like an electromagnetic pulse bomb hit my hard drive, and he sold me a pricey new system when it turned out my warranty had lapsed two days before) to, not least of all, my wife announcing six months ago that she’d fallen in love with another guy, and incidentally, she was taking almost all the clients from Poor Stephen Decorating, Inc. with her when she left. Pretty much the only customer I had now was a guy with a taste for taxidermied animal heads on the walls. Portia had gotten most of our friends in the divorce, too, it turned out.

  “Do you want my help to find out who’s doing this to you?” Cameron was intense, her eyes fixed on me like I was the only person in the world.

  “How do you know anybody’s doing anything? If you’re not involved, where do you get your information?”

  Cameron tapped her fingernails—unpainted, but long and nicely manicured—on her desk blotter. “I can’t tell you that.” She glanced at the ceiling, face taking on a faraway look, as if she were doing a calculation. “Not now. Soon. But I promise, Stephen, I can help make your troubles go away.”

  I pondered. “And you don’t charge anything? I warn you, if this is some kind of long con, I’m not a good prospect. My wife got everything but our condo, and as you know, it’s not much of a prize at the moment.”

  She grinned, and it was a very different expression from any I’d seen on her before—it was the grin of a professional athlete looking forward to creaming the competition. “I’m totally free. I only ask that you trust me.”

  I sighed. I still didn’t buy it, but Cameron was definitely interesting, and my life had only been interesting in bad ways lately, so I decided to take a chance on a change. “Okay. You’re hired. Only not in the sense of receiving any compensation for your services.”

  “Great. I’ve got some work to do here tonight, but come back at nine tomorrow morning and we’ll talk about the next step.”

  “Okay.” I could always just not show up, if I came to my senses in the night. I left her office and began the walk home, and happened to pass a couple of cops hanging out at the coffee shop on my way. They politely listened to my story, made a call on the radio, and told me someone would come to my place to take a report soon. I kept walking, and gave my ex-wife a call on my cell phone, getting her cheerful voicemail and trying not to sound too Eeyoreish as I told her about my latest win in the bad-luck sweepstakes. I left out the bits about gangstalking and Cameron. My ex and I had a remarkably cordial relationship, but it was still brittle, and couldn’t bear that kind of strain. Back home in my wrecked apartment I dug around in my files until I found the phone number for my homeowner’s insurance, so I could see about getting some of my stuff replaced.

  The insurance people were very helpful. They helpfully told me they had no record of my policy at all, despite the hundreds of dollars in premiums I’d sent in over the years.

  I sat on one of the least ripped cushions from the remains of my couch and thought about my troubles as the sunlight disappeared from my windows and another night fell over Oakland and my life.

  * * *

  The police officer came over around seven p.m. I’d made some small progress toward cleaning up the place, or at least piling the debris, working in the light from the lone unsmashed light bulb on the ceiling in the kitchen. The officer, a young Hispanic guy, whistled low, expressed his sympathies, and asked me if anything had been stolen. I told him no, just smashed. He said, “Have you had any, you know, altercations with anybody lately? This kind of thing, sometimes it’s random, but sometimes it’s teenagers getting revenge for something.”

  I opened my mouth to say, “Well, interestingly enough, I’ve got this webcam,” but then my phone rang. My phone never rings anymore. “You mind?” I said.

  The officer shrugged and wandered over to look at the view from my balcony, which was a pretty nice view, more so when the balcony wasn’t strewn with shattered flowerpots.

  “This is Cameron,” the phone said. “Do not tell him about the webcam.”

  “Uh,” I said, thinking, She is in on it, she was bluffing. “Why’s that?”

  “Because those two kids who wrecked your apartment have just been found murdered less than three blocks from your house. You heard those sirens a little while ago?” I had. I hadn’t thought much of it. Sirens were just weather around here. “Unless you want to get embroiled in a murder investigation, tell the cops you have no idea who wrecked your place.” She hung up.

  As I put the phone away, I wondered how she’d gotten my cell number, but it didn’t seem like such an amazing feat, all things considered. “Sorry,” I said. “My ex. No, officer, I don’t know who could have done it. I wish I did.”

  The cop nodded like he’d expected nothing less. “Let us know if you discover anything missing.”

  I forced a smile. “Think you’ll catch the guys who did this?”

  He held out his hand and seesawed it. “Sometimes we do, especially if they hit more than one place, but… We’ll call if we find anything out.”

  “Before you go, I was wondering, I heard a bunch of sirens earlier, sounded close by…any idea what’s going on?”

  His face went stiff and guarded for a moment, then he sighed. “Officially, I can’t comment, but anybody with a police scanner could find out, and it’s your neighborhood, so…they found a couple of dead kids— teenagers—over by the motel a few blocks south. Probably a drug thing.”

  “Jesus. I hope you catch whoever did it.”

  “Me too, sir. Me too.” He left me to my wreckage and my increasingly dark thoughts.

  I had Cameron’s number in my phone now, so I went to my balcony and leaned against the railing, looking down on the lake below. When she answered, I said, “What would you have done if it was too late? If I’d already told the cops about the webcam?”

  “I would have come to the police station and told them I was your attorney.”

  That surprised me. “You’re a lawyer?”

  “I pretty much have to be. I’ve got my private investigator’s license, too. And I trained to be an EMT, but my certification has lapsed.”

  “You’re an accomplished woman.”

  “I just believe in being prepared. Stephen, the vandals getting killed… this is serious.”

  “You think it’s related to this whole thing? Not just a coincidence?”

  “Go out into your hallway. See if the webcam is still there.” I went. No camera at the end of the hall. “No, it’s gone.”

  “I didn’t take it down. Which means someone else came by your apartment and noticed it, realized their operatives had been caught on camera… and decided to dispose of them.”

  I could maybe believe people were fucking with me for undisclosed reasons, but that they were willing to kill? It seemed insane. I told Cameron so.

  “You can either start taking this seriously, or you can wait until it gets bad enough to become undeniable,” she said. “I don’t know what’s next, but their atta
cks on you seem to be escalating. What if they kidnap you? Get you hooked on heroin? Frame you for murder?”

  I just laughed, bewildered, nervous—it seemed like something out of a straight-to-DVD thriller. “I guess that would be bad.”

  “Lock your doors. And if they broke the locks, block them with a bureau or something. Don’t trust anyone, Stephen. It’s in your own best interests to become a nutball conspiracy theorist. See you tomorrow. Nine a.m. You won’t be late.” She hung up, apparently not big on the rituals of hellos and goodbyes.

  I went into the kitchen to check the cabinets for something edible, without much luck. Even my bag of pretzels had been torn open and stomped into salty powder.

  A knock at the door. After a moment’s hesitation I pressed my eye to the peephole, half expecting someone to shove a metal shishkabob skewer through the lens and into my brain.

  My ex was standing in the hall, still every inch the perfectly poised and professional blonde, dressed in a long white coat with silver buttons, and a matching bag over her shoulder.

  I opened the door. “Portia,” I said.

  “Stephen. Let me see what they did.”

  I stepped aside and she floated in, circling the wreckage, taking in everything with her professional eye, and finally shaking her head. “It can’t be salvaged. You’ll have to start again. Best tear up the carpet, I never liked it anyway. You’ll need all new…everything. It’s a shame, but it’s also an opportunity, really.”

  I chose not to mention the fact that I could hardly afford a complete renovation. When we’d first split up, I’d suggested she buy out my half of our business, but she’d told me I was welcome to remain the head of Poor Stephen Decorating, and she’d start her own business, Portia’s Designs. Which she did. Our clients didn’t care what the business was called—they just went with her. Everyone assumed she was the one with the real aesthetic sense; it can be difficult to be taken seriously as a designer when you’re a straight man, though I suppose straight men get enough advantages in life that the occasional disadvantage is only fair.

  “Come on,” she said briskly. “Put on your jacket, it’s chilly out. Let’s get something to eat.”

  “We’re spending time together socially now? Won’t Harold mind?” Harold. He was a personal trainer with a jaw like an anvil and a brain to match. I wouldn’t piss on him if he was on fire, unless I could somehow start pissing gasoline.

  “Harold’s very secure in our relationship. He thinks it’s nice that I stay in touch with you and try to help you out. Now come on. I’m hungry. We’ll go to the Italian place on Telegraph.”

  I went obediently to put on my jacket, and locked up behind me when I left, not that I had much to protect. While we were waiting for the elevator, Portia suddenly hugged me tight, a seemingly impulsive act that was even more surprising because Portia was almost never impulsive—she was a planner through-and-through. “I’m so glad we became friends again, Stephen,” she said, letting go. “I’m sorry things worked out the way they did between us. You know that, don’t you?”

  She’d never said sorry before, not exactly—there’d been a lot of “The heart knows what it wants” and “Surely you could tell things had cooled between us, I know you felt it too” and “You deserve a woman who loves you with all her heart” and such, but never an actual sorry.

  “I know now.” The elevator doors opened, and we went down and out, and I tried not to let myself pretend we were still married, going out for a meal like we used to do a couple of times a week, during the long gone far away good times. But I failed. Reality came crashing back when she dropped me off two hours later in front of my building without so much as a kiss on the cheek, and told me to take care of myself.

  I had no idea how to do that at all.

  * * *

  The next morning I woke up early—even with my alarm clock smashed, I’ve always had a good body clock, and usually wake with the sun—and did my best to make coffee and toast in my demolished kitchen.

  Finally nine o’clock arrived, and I was waiting outside Cameron Cassavetes’s office with a paper cup of coffee in each hand. Cameron came around the corner right on time, carrying a pair of her own cups, and we looked at each other and laughed. “We’re a couple of considerate ones, aren’t we?” She unlocked the door and ushered me in. I noticed, with just a little rush of shame, that she’d repaired the damage I did to the glass.

  We went into her office, and she sat behind the desk, though the good chair was there, this time, leaving me the lousy one. We each took a couple of sips of coffee, then she said, “We don’t have much time. I want you to read this.”

  She pushed a sheet of lined yellow paper across the desk. Neat handwriting in blue ink, with a heavy black slash covering a few lines near the bottom. It began:

  Next client. Stephen. Tuesday. Walks by co-op bakery 11:45am. Ugly green sweater, cute butt.

  “You think my…sweater is ugly?” I looked up, grinning a little. No one had called my butt cute in a long time. Portia was of the opinion that I had no ass to speak of.

  She rolled her eyes. “Keep reading.”

  I did.

  Victim of gangstalking. Reasons not definitely known, but probably the ones you think. Put camera at end of third floor hallway, 245 Arnold Way to document an attack and aid in establishing credentials. Beware escalations.

  He’ll think you’re involved, will break into your office (call glazier to make an appointment), and will lie in wait behind your desk. Spare your back by switching the chairs around.

  You should tell Stephen the truth. But you’ll need a convincer. 9:16am. Wednesday, your front door, freak hailstorm, falling bird. Make sure he sees it.

  And after that, the blacked-out part, which I couldn’t read, even when I held the paper up to the light.

  “Uh,” I said. “What is this supposed to mean to me?”

  “Come on.” She rose, and I followed, still clutching the cryptic document. We went to her door, which she opened, and looked out on an ordinary winter day. She looked at her watch. “9:15 now, and a bit. Keep your eyes open…”

  There was a crack of thunder, always a rarity in Northern California, though the sky wasn’t particularly ominous. And then—

  Hail. I’ve seen hail here before, but it’s usually the size of BBs, maybe pea gravel at best. These hailstones were more like marbles, some approaching golf-ball size, and they crashed down in a torrent that sent bystanders rushing for doorways or any other shelter they could find. Chunks of ice bounced mere feet from where we stood. “Holy shit,” I said, and then a seagull crashed right in front of us.

  I jumped back when the bird hit in a flurry of feathers, but Cameron didn’t even flinch, just reached out and prodded it with her boot-clad toe. “Dead, poor thing. Knocked right out of the sky.”

  I looked at the piece of paper. “How. What.” How could she make it hail? How could she arrange for a falling bird? “When did you write this?” I said finally.

  “I wrote it later tonight,” she said. “But I received the note a week ago. Come on. I want to show you something.”

  “What?”

  “My time machine.”

  * * *

  I don’t know what I expected, but what Cameron showed me was a metal lockbox. The safe was a little black job with a row of numbers to punch in a combination, like you might find in a hotel closet. Except there was a lot going on at the back, a spiraled mass of gears and wires and a bulb of cobalt blue glass in the center of it all, emitting a faint light. Cameron put the safe down on the top of her desk and thumped the top. “This is my time machine. Shame it’s too small for a person to get inside, huh?”

  “You are either a) crazy or b) fucking with me,” I said.

  “Mmm. There may be a third alternative. I got this device years ago, from a client I helped out with a tricky piece of trouble. My first client, actually. I don’t pretend to know how it works, technically—I was told it has something to do with an infinitely l
ong rotating cylinder warping space-time. But here’s how it works, practically speaking. Once a week, the safe can be opened, and I find a note inside. A note from myself, but from one week in the future. The note tells me things I need to know— sometimes dangerous things, sometimes things about clients or cases, but sometimes mundane things, like what the weather’s going to be like or if my favorite wine is going on sale. Every week I take out the note, and put in a note for myself one week in the past.” She shrugged. “That’s it. I send messages to myself. Not the most dramatic use of a time machine, but I’m assured it’s relatively safe, as long as I follow the rules.”

  I knelt down and looked at the safe more closely. “Once again, if you’re conning me, you’re lousy at picking marks.”

  “You think I used my weather-control powers to start a hailstorm and knock a bird out of the sky, Stephen? Trust me on this.”

  “But if you did have a tiny time machine, why would you use it for such ordinary things? Why not send yourself, I don’t know, lottery numbers? Stock tips?”

  “I have done that. How do you think I can afford to be a freelance troublesolver? But I don’t do too much, just enough to cover my needs and put a little money away for the future. The client who gave me this machine advised me to keep my mucking with the timestream to a minimum. Because the past can be changed, Stephen, both for the better, and for the worse. And that’s where you come in.”

  She sat down again, and I did too. I’d hear her out. The hailstorm… that was hard to explain away.