Dead Lines. Greg Bear
to an unkind trick. He slowly forced his fists to open. ‘This is crap,’ he murmured, replacing his glasses. He had not wanted to come here in the first place. He walked quickly down the steps and along the winding stone path between the bamboo to the gate. The scuff of his shoes echoed from the stone wall to his left. The gate whirred open, expelling him from the house, the grounds: an unwanted disturber of the peace.
On the street, he wiped his forehead with a handkerchief, then opened the car door and sat. He started the car, listening to the soothing, familiar whine, and tried to recall the answer Sandaji had given to Joseph’s question; despite everything, it remained clear in his head. He repeated her words several times, committing them to memory before putting the Porsche in gear.
Slowly his breath returned and the muscle binding in his chest smoothed. The back of his eyes still felt tropical, however, as if they were discharging a moist heat into his skull.
They were charlatans after all. Why go through that awful charade in the back room, then trot out a little boy in a Buster Brown outfit? Both had been stunts to gull the shills, trick the unwary into asking more questions, paying more money. That was as reasonable an explanation as any.
Peter was happy to leave Pasadena. His thick, powerful hands clasped the wheel so tightly that he had to flex his fingers. ‘Ah, Christ!’ he shouted in disgust once again at all things. New Age and mystical. There was life and this Earth and all the sensual pleasures you could reasonably grab, and then there was nothing. Live and get out of it what you could. Leave the rest alone. That other sort of madness could kill you.
Then why did I reach out for Phil?
Driving alone, his work done, the traffic on the 210 blessedly easy for this time of night, going back to his home in the hills, he pictured Phil’s rueful, ingratiating smile. On the highway, his tears flowed. His shoulders shook.
And a pretty little girl in a blue sweater, pink shorts and a tank top. Don’t forget her. Ever.
The loss and the old, much-hated self-pity just piled up and spilled. It was all he could do not to break into a mourning howl.
All he could do, almost, not to spin the wheel and drive right off the freeway.
Peter rolled over in the tangled sheets and opened his eyes to an out-of-focus bedscape. He blinked at a blur of satin trim coming loose from his brown wool blanket, then rubbed his eyes and closely observed another blur spotted with white: a rumpled pillow leaking feathers through its seams. He was still half asleep.
His hand fumbled on the bed stand for his glasses.
A shaft of sun fell across one corner of the room from the skylight, reflected from the full-length mirror, and beamed over the space beside his bed. He made out dust motes in the beam. The motes danced with a puff of his breath.
Nice to just sink, let sleep win. His head fell back onto the pillow.
Eyes closed. Delicious blankness. Birds sang in the back yard.
He opened his eyes again, arm twitching. The beam had shifted and the dust motes were swirling like spoiled cream in coffee. As he watched, bleary, they took a sort of elongated shape. He thought he could make out two legs and an arm. Small. The arm lengthened, adding a hand-shaped eddy. A face was about to form when he opened his eyes wide and said, bemused, ‘All right. I’m waking up now.’ He leaned over and waved his arms through the sunbeam. The motes dissipated wildly.
His jaw hurt. He was a mess and he stank. He got out of bed and straightened, hooking a temple piece around one ear.
The night had been disjointed, filled with scattered flakes of dream, memories drawn up from a deep sea like fish in a net. The dreams had all possessed a jagged, surreal quality, as if scripted by restless demons, pent up for too long.
‘Art, sperm, and sanity don’t keep,’ Peter said to the face in the mirror.
He thought about that for a moment, then padded into the bathroom to turn the hot-water tap for a shower. The old white tile in the stall was cracked and creased with mildew. The room smelled of moisture. It was a good thing the air up in the hills was dry or the floor would have rotted out a long time ago.
As he dressed, his clothes became a kind of armor, like blankets wrapped tight around a child’s eyes. The waking world was filled with traps designed to make him feel bad and he did not want to feel bad any more.
He stepped into old slippers and shuffled into the kitchen to make coffee in a French press, the only way he liked it. As he pushed the red plastic plunger down through the grounds, a bell-like tone came from the living room, not his house phone and certainly not his cell phone, both of which sounded like amorous insects. He finished the plunger push and went to look. Big throw pillows in Persian patterns covered an old beige couch. Two graceful sixties chairs made of parabolas of steel wire and slung with purple canvas supported massive green pillows, like alien hands offering mints. The big front window looked out over a garden left to itself the last nine months, and doing fairly well without Peter’s attention. Jasmine and honeysuckle vied with Helen’s old rose bushes to scent the air, and the splashes of red and yellow and pink in the late-morning sun were cheerful enough.
The bell toned again. He peered back through the now-contrasty and dark spaces of the living room. Then he remembered. He had left the box of Trans on the table by the French doors. He had also carried one with him into Sandaji’s house in Pasadena.
He opened the door, stepped out across the brick pavers to the upright oil drum closet, and fished out his coat. The unit was still in the coat pocket. He opened it and the display lit up at his touch.
‘Hello?’ he said into the tiny grill.
‘Peter, it’s Michelle. Seven rings. Hope I didn’t wake you.’ ‘Just getting cleaned up.’
‘Good. Weinstein left a map. It led me to ten more phones in a box hidden behind the couch. Is that cute, or what?’
‘Pretty cute,’ Peter said.
‘So I have fourteen phones now. I was trying to remember which one you put in your pocket. Did I dial the right number?’
‘You probably didn’t dial anything,’ Peter said, looking at the circle of shaded graphic lozenges on the touch screen, numbered from zero to twelve.
‘Yeah, right. Smartass. Well, I’m standing outside the house, on the drive. It seems to work out here.’
‘Great,’ Peter said, longing for coffee.
‘Joseph’s curious to hear what that woman told you.’
‘I could come over now,’ Peter said, hoping his sincerity sounded thin.
‘He’s taking hydrotherapy. How about noon? He’ll be ready by then and relaxed, and besides, you know that noon is the best time of his day.’
‘I’ll be there,’ Peter said, and stifled a small urge to say, I’s a-comin’, with bells on.
‘Are you glad to hear the phone works?’
‘Trans,’ Peter corrected. ‘Delighted. I’ll tell what’s-his-name.’
‘Weinstein. No, I’ll tell him, once I convince Joseph. And I’ll tell him you convinced me.’
Peter was picking the other units out of their box, just to give his hands something to do. Each was a different color: opalescent black, dark blue, red, a trendy metallic auburn, and the one he held, dark metallic green. They looked like props in a science fiction film. Something from the parts catalog in This Island Earth.
‘It’s our little conspiracy,’ Michelle said. ‘Besides, it won’t hurt you or me to help Joseph make another pot of money.’
What