Paradox Bound

by Peter Clines

  “It’s what I do.” She walked back to the passenger side, leaned into the car, and flipped a pair of switches on the dash.

  “Stay,” said Eli.

  “Beg your pardon?”

  He nodded over his shoulder. “You could stay in town for a day or two, before you take off again. We could…I don’t know. I could show you around. I have a million questions I want to ask you.” He shook his head. “I studied history, cars, anything I could think of that might give me a hint who you are.”

  “A tempting offer, Mr. Teague. Very tempting.” She sighed and looked away. “Unfortunately, one that must be declined at this time.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m looking for something. And I’m not the only one looking. And I don’t think the others can be convinced to take a few days off just because I might want to.”

  He rolled the words back and forth in his mind. “So this is some sort of contest?”

  “More of a treasure hunt.”

  He set his hand on the passenger door. “Do you need help?”

  “Inviting yourself along, are you?”

  “No,” he said. “Maybe. I’ve just been hoping for years that you’d show up again. I don’t want it to be over in less than half an hour.”

  She gazed at him for a moment. Her right hand came up, then settled back at her side. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve already lost one partner. Not again.”

  “Ahhh,” said Eli. “I didn’t know.”

  “How could you?” She patted the car. “Anyway, I must be off. I’ve got to be in Boston on Friday.”

  “What’s in Boston?”

  “Quincy Market. Someone’s going to be there at noon selling information. I need to buy it.”

  “For the treasure hunt,” he said.

  “Something like that.”

  “That you don’t need help with.”

  “Again, sorry.”

  “And that you’re carefully not telling me anything about.”

  One side of her mouth twitched up, just for a second. “It’s safer for you if you don’t know.”

  “Well, it shouldn’t be too hard,” he said. “If worse came to worst, you could probably walk to Boston in three days.”

  “I don’t have three days,” she said. “I’ve only got two hours.”

  “You just said you’ve got until Friday.”

  “I’ve got to be there on Friday, but I’ve only got two hours to get there.”

  “I…you lost me.”

  “Again, it’s safer for you that way.” Harry reached into the car and flipped a few switches. The engine rumbled to life. She kicked at the dirt with her shoe. “I wish things could be different, Mr. Teague.”

  “So do I,” said Eli.

  “You seem very nice and clever, and you’re very handsome. I think it could be pleasant, getting to know you better.” She gestured at the purring Model A. “But this is a dangerous quest I’m on, and I won’t risk anyone else’s life.”

  “Quest?”

  Harry stepped closer. She was a good height, just an inch or so shorter than him. Her hands settled against his chest. She leaned in close, her lips brushed his cheek, and warm air flowed across his ear.

  “Goodbye, Eli Teague.”

  She shoved him. He stumbled on the soft shoulder, grabbed at the air, and fell on his ass. He looked up and she was already in the driver’s seat, taking the wheel in her hands.

  Eli crawled back to his feet as the Model A rolled onto the pavement and made a tight turn, heading back out of Sanders. His stomach churned as the car pulled away, but he raised his hand to wave farewell. Harry waved back, and then she vanished into the night.

  4

  Eli had been back from lunch for an hour, trying to reconstruct the inventive new method one of the tellers had used to freeze half the bank’s terminals. He yawned, still tired from a long walk home the night before. And very little sleep once he got there. He’d spent most of the night staring out the window at the road in front of his garage apartment, hoping to see the 1929 Model A business coupe drive by. Or stop.

  He readjusted himself after the yawn. One and a half walls of the bank were all glass, and his cubicle had him with his back to the expansive window. Moving to block the afternoon sun from his monitor had become an unconscious habit over the years.

  The freeze probably wasn’t that difficult. It just wasn’t as interesting as Harry’s warm breath on his ear. Or the many possible things she could’ve done with twelve Confederate dollars that would count as a good cause.

  Then a new shadow fell across Eli’s cubicle and knocked him out of his memories. “Truss is in town,” Bill hissed.

  Eli’s eyes went wide and any lingering happy memories fled. “What?”

  Archibald Truss—never, ever referred to as Archie—owned Stahlbank. Eighty-something branches in the United States, nineteen in Canada, more than a hundred in Europe, and three in Japan. He also owned a movie studio, a toy manufacturer, and large percentages of several car and computer companies. He liked to travel around and check on his different holdings.

  Sometimes people knew he was coming. Often they didn’t. He’d dropped in on their branch twice in the two and a half years Eli had worked there. Each time had resulted in someone being fired. The first time it had been the old branch manager.

  “Sheila saw him having lunch over at that little bistro place,” said Bill. “He was just getting his food when she saw him.”

  “And she’s sure it was him?”

  The assistant manager’s head bobbed up and down, a shadow against the bank’s big windows. “His Caddy was out front.”

  “Dammit.”

  “Get it running,” Bill said, pointing at the computer. “We can’t have the network down if he stops by.”

  “I can’t just turn it on,” said Eli, soaking up some of Bill’s panic. “I’m still trying to figure out what happened.”

  “Then just make it look like it’s on. Get to it.”

  Eli blinked the sunlight from his eyes and spent fifteen panicked minutes scrolling through code before he spotted the loop. Simple, like he’d thought all along. A million-to-one mistake. A minute of typing undid the freeze and left a flag so he could find the snippet of bad code later. For now, he just wanted to have things working so he could have a sliver of job security.

  Someone cleared their throat behind him.

  He turned around, expecting to see Bill or maybe a customer who was looking for someone to talk about loans. Instead he choked on the breath he’d taken in and took a moment to let it wheeze out. He used the moment to decide if he was expected to stand or stay seated.

  “For Christ’s sake,” grumbled Truss.

  The old man would’ve been well over six feet tall, but age had hunched his back and put his head even with his shoulders. His bushy eyebrows were the only hair on his skull, and his teeth were too perfect to go with his leathery lips. He looked like a vulture wearing dentures. If the vulture had rectangular glasses and a good tailor.

  His two personal assistants-slash-valets-slash-bodyguards flanked him. The one with the bright-red, chopped hair, Svetlana, had a dark suit and a tie that did not go well with her complexion. She stood three inches taller than Eli and at least fifty pounds heavier. Rumor was she’d been some kind of Russian bodybuilder before coming to work for Truss. The one everyone called Helena had sharp cheekbones and curly blond hair she kept tied back in an almost-topknot. Today she wore a pinstriped blazer with a gray turtleneck that showed her lean figure. Eli knew for a brief time people thought she might be a trophy wife, but the speculation had died quickly. Probably because nobody liked the idea of Truss having sex with someone a third his age and even vaguely attractive.

  Much like their ambiguous job descriptions, Eli had never been clear if Svetlana and Helena were actual names, nicknames, or if they even knew this was how people referred to them. He thought Helena might be a reference to something, the way some people snickered about it,
but he didn’t know what.

  Truss glared at him over the rectangular glasses. “You’re the computer guy, I take it?”

  “Yes, sir,” he said. After a moment he added, “Eli Teague, sir.”

  “Are you one of those bootlickers who’s going to say ‘sir’ after every sentence, Teak?”

  Eli managed to bite off the correction forming in his mouth. “No,” he said. “Not at all.”

  The corners of the old billionaire’s mouth moved up. “Bigger stones than your district manager,” he muttered. “Are we safe from the government?”

  Eli blinked. “Sorry?”

  “The government. My lawyers say they’re looking into everyone’s computers now. Can they get into this one?”

  “Ahhh, well,” said Eli, “I can’t really say. I’m only in charge of this part of the network.”

  “Blaming someone else?”

  “No, si—Mr. Truss,” said Eli. “I’m in charge of the in-house network, yeah, but that’s still linked to the bank’s larger, international network. Asking me if it’s secure is like putting me in charge of one window of your house and asking if the house is secure.”

  The old man’s bushy eyebrows tensed and relaxed. “Go on.”

  Eli fiddled with his hands for a moment, trying to build a better metaphor, and decided to stick with the one he had. “I can tell you this window’s closed and locked,” he said, “or if I see or hear anyone in the house from where I’m standing, but that’s about it. Security depends on knowing what state all the windows are in.” He gestured at the wall of glass behind the old man. “It only takes one to be open for someone to get in.”

  “If they happen to look at the right window,” said Truss.

  “Right,” said Eli. “Exactly. But there are so many windows that get opened and closed every day, anyone who’s determined could eventually get in. The only person who can answer your question is whoever’s in charge of your whole computer network, and even they can only give you a best-case scenario.”

  Truss crossed his arms. “You seem pretty sure of that, Teak.”

  “I’m just a realist,” said Eli. “There’s no such thing as a perfect system. They’ve all got flaws somewhere.”

  “Even mine?”

  Eli had a quick debate in his mind about the scrap of code he’d found and whether he should mention it. “Probably,” he said, not pushing his luck.

  Truss stared at him, like a snake hypnotizing a rodent.

  “Good to see there’s someone here with a spine,” the old man muttered. He turned and shuffled away as abruptly as he’d appeared. The two women stepped out of his way, shot Eli a synchronized icy stare, and followed their employer.

  Eli stood up to watch them go. Half a dozen other heads poked up from cubicles. Half of them watched the old man’s progress, the others stared at Eli. Their eyes sparkled with curiosity. Was he about to clean out his cubicle? Was he their new boss?

  He shook his head and gave them what he hoped looked like a confident nod that said everything was going to be fine.

  The lights flickered twice, went out, and a loud clack echoed across the office. Every computer screen in sight went black. Eli cringed. He couldn’t remember if he’d saved his flag with the line of bad code. After the encounter with Truss, he couldn’t even remember where he’d found it.

  The customers and employees were already grumbling. The two women guided Mr. Truss toward the front door, keeping him hidden between them. They made it look like they were saving the president. A man stepped into their path and Svetlana shoved him away with her thick forearm.

  Eli glanced over his shoulder and watched Truss head out to his car, a 1940 Cadillac Sixty Special. The Imperial Sedan model, in oxblood maroon. The kind of car movie stars got chauffeured around in during the glory days of Hollywood. Expensive then, even more expensive now. Rumor was the old man had one on each coast.

  He turned, dropped back into his chair, and listened for the hum of computers waking themselves back up. There wasn’t much he could do for the next ten minutes. The OS at the bank desperately needed an overhaul. Once it was up, assuming there weren’t any more pressing issues, he’d try to dig up any transactions that might have been caught in the brown-out and—

  “Hello.”

  Eli glanced over his shoulder as the shadow fell across him. He yelped, kicked at the floor, and rolled back in his chair to bump against the desk. “Jesus,” Eli muttered. “You scared the crap out of me.”

  The big man didn’t move. He loomed in the cubicle entrance, taller and broader than the redheaded amazon employed by Truss. The light from the windows behind him made him little more than a dark shadow in the bank. A void lurked beneath the brim of his fedora, with only a faint gleam along the edge of his cheeks to show anything solid was there.

  The man wore an old suit with lines that made Eli think of pictures of his grandfather from the 1950s. An immaculate outfit with perfect dry-cleaning creases in it, but at least half a century out of date even to Eli’s untrained eye.

  “Can I help you?” he asked when the man didn’t speak.

  One of the arms came up. It held a long, thin notepad. “Are you,” asked the man, consulting the pad, “Elias Teague?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, that’s me. Can I help you with something?”

  The shadow checked his notebook again, then lifted the page to glance at the one below it. The movement seemed very rehearsed to Eli, part of a performance the man had given many times. “We’re investigating a crime,” the shadow said. His other hand came up with a square that fell open to reveal a badge. With the light behind it, Eli just saw a flash of silver and the letters U and S before the man flipped it closed and dropped it into a coat pocket. “I spoke earlier with two of your friends, Cordell and Robin Furber. They said the three of you were driving into town last night around ten thirty when you decided to get out and walk. Is that correct?”

  Eli took a slow, deep breath. “More or less.”

  “May I ask why?”

  “I just…I felt like walking.”

  The government man said nothing.

  “They were going to drop me off,” Eli explained, “but my place is kind of out of the way for them, so I just…I figured I’d walk.”

  The big man nodded slowly. “Have you noticed any unusual vehicles in the area lately?”

  Eli glanced past the man and caught a glimpse of Truss’s blood-red Cadillac across the parking lot, rolling out onto the street. “What do you mean unusual?”

  “Something out of the ordinary,” said the man. His face stayed very still while he spoke. His cheeks gleamed where the light hit them. He shifted the notebook pages again. “A classic or antique. An old Model A, for example.”

  Eli swallowed. The memories of shame and piss danced on the edge of his brain, but he couldn’t focus on them. He felt the man’s gaze on him.

  “You’ve seen it,” said the man in the suit. “Last night, perhaps?”

  Another memory joined the other two. Eli felt more drops of sweat on his back. One raced down, the other sank into his shirt.

  “What did she tell you?”

  “Who?” Eli managed to squeak.

  “The woman. Harriet Pritchard. Did she tell you where she was going?”

  “I don’t know what you’re—”

  “We know she’s been to this town before. Fifteen years, eleven months ago. Did she contact you then, as well?”

  The people in the front of the bank kept talking. Eli couldn’t hear any voices near him. Someone opened one of the front doors, and the shifting pane of glass sent a shaft of sunlight across the bank and onto the man. The air wheezed out of Eli’s lungs.

  The man wore a mask. One of the transparent Halloween masks people bought as cheap, last-minute costumes. Two pink dots the size of quarters decorated the cheeks. The eyebrows and lashes were painted on, along with the lips. The molded plastic face showed a faint smile, almost a straight line.

  Behind t
he mask, the man’s eyes were closed. The eyeholes revealed two ovals of flesh behind them. The man leaned forward, aiming his face at Eli, but never opening his eyes.

  Eli swallowed again as the shaft of light swung away. The memory of raw childhood fear churned in his brain. The image of the lunging car and the man with the pistol filled his mind.

  “Did she contact you?” the man repeated.

  Eli pushed the memories away and straightened up in his chair. “What’s this about?”

  The man straightened up and folded his notebook shut with one hand. “We’re investigating a crime.”

  “What crime?”

  The notebook followed the badge into a suit pocket. “I’m not at liberty to say.” In the shadows beneath the hat’s brim, the eyeholes of his mask looked like the empty sockets of a skull.

  “Why are you questioning me?”

  The man took a small step forward. He was in Eli’s cubicle now. “We believe you may have information about the location of a dangerous fugitive.” His face didn’t move enough when he spoke to shift the mask. This close, Eli could see the man’s cheeks and square jaw adjust through the clear plastic, but his mouth didn’t…

  His mouth…

  Eli swallowed a squeak. His heart raced. Beads of sweat drew lines under his shoulder blades and down his back.

  Smooth skin stretched behind the painted-on lines of the sculpted mask. The man had no lips. No mouth. No nostrils inside the transparent nose. No eyebrows or eyelashes hid beneath the ones drawn on the mask.

  Nothing but blank flesh.

  Wrinkles appeared on the man’s brow, between the clear mask and the fedora. He took another step and grabbed Eli by the throat. His finger and thumb stretched back, shrinking Eli’s windpipe and pushing into the soft spots behind the jaw. “Where is she?” he growled. Eli could hear the faint muffle to his voice, as if the man were talking through thick fabric. Or skin.

  “I don’t know,” he whispered. “I don’t. She drove off like she always does.”

  The empty sockets of the mask stared at him. The blank face leaned in close. “Where is she going to be?”

  Eli paused and the faceless man squeezed. Pain flared behind Eli’s jaw and raced through his body. He sucked in air, but the crushing hand let only a few thin wisps down into his lungs. He beat at the man’s arm, tried to throw himself out of the chair, but the dark man shoved him back without any effort.