Cloud Atlas (57 page)

“I’m on permanent vacation now. I was offered early”—he’s never used the word on himself before—”retirement. Took it like a shot.”

The store owner’s gaze is all-seeing. “Celebration at Duane’s tonight? Or commiseration at Duane’s tomorrow?”

“Make it Friday. Celebration, mostly. I want to spend my first week of freedom resting in my cabin, not poleaxed under Duane’s tables.” Napier pays for his groceries and leaves, suddenly hungry to be alone. The Jeep’s tires crunch the stony track. Its headlights illuminate the primeval forest in bright, sweeping moments.

Here
. Once again, Napier hears the Lost River. He remembers the first time he brought Milly up to the cabin he, his brothers, and his dad built. Now he’s the last one left. They went skinny-dipping that night. The forest dusk fills his lungs and his head. No phones, no CCTV or just TV, no ID clearances, no meetings in the president’s soundproofed office. Not ever again. The retired security man checks the padlock on the door for signs of tampering before he opens the shutters.
Relax, for Chrissakes. Seaboard let you go, free, no strings, no comeback
.

Nonetheless his .38 is in his hand as he enters the cabin.
See? Nobody
. Napier gets a fire crackling and fixes himself beans and sausages and sooty baked potatoes. A couple of beers. A long, long piss outdoors. The fizzing Milky Way. A deep, deep sleep.

Awake, again
, parched, with a beer-swollen bladder.
Fifth time now or sixth?
The sounds of the forest don’t lullaby Napier tonight but itch his sense of well-being. A car’s brakes?
An elf owl
. Twigs snapping?
A rat, a mountain quail, I don’t know, you’re in a forest, it could be anything. Go to sleep, Napier
. The wind.
Voices under the window?
Napier wakes to find a cougar crouched on a crossbeam over his bed; he wakes up with a yell; the cougar was Bill Smoke, arm poised to stove Napier’s head in with a flashlight; nothing on the crossbeam.
Is it raining this time?
Napier listens.

Only the river, only the river
.

He lights another match to see if it’s a time worth getting up for: 4:05. No. An in-between hour. Napier nestles down in folded darkness for holes of sleep, but recent memories of Margo Roker’s house find him. Bill Smoke saying,
Stand guard. My contact says she keeps her documents in her room
. Napier agreeing, glad to reduce his involvement. Bill Smoke switching on his hefty rubber flashlight and going upstairs.

Napier scanning Roker’s orchard. The nearest house was over half a mile away. Wondering why the solo operator Bill Smoke wanted him along for this simple job.

A frail scream. An abrupt ending.

Napier running upstairs, slipping, a series of empty rooms.

Bill Smoke kneeling on an antique bed, clubbing something on the bed with his flashlight, the beam whipping the walls and ceiling, the near-noiseless thump as it lands on the senseless head of Margo Roker. Her blood on the bedsheets—obscenely scarlet and wet.

Napier, shouting for him to stop.

Bill Smoke turned around, huffing.
Wassup, Joe?

You said she was out tonight!

No, no, you heard wrong. I said my contact said the old woman was out tonight. Reliable staff, hard to find
.

Christ, Christ, Christ, is she dead?

Better safe than sorry, Joe
.

A neat little setup
, Joe Napier admits in his sleepless cabin. A shackle of compliance. Party to the clubbing of a defenseless, elderly activist? Any dropout law student with a speech impediment could send him to prison for the rest of his life. A blackbird sings.
I did a great wrong by Margo Roker, but I’ve left that life
. Four small shrapnel scars, two in each buttock, ache.
I went out on a limb to get Luisa Rey wised up
. The window is light enough to discern Milly in her frame.
I’m only one man
, he protests.
I’m not a platoon. All I want out of life is life. And a little fishing
.

Joe Napier sighs, dresses, and begins reloading the Jeep.

Milly always won by saying nothing.

56

Judith Rey, barefoot, fastens her kimono-style dressing gown and crosses a vast Byzantine rug to her marble-floored kitchen. She takes out three ruby grapefruits from a cavernous refrigerator, halves them, then feeds the snow-cold dripping hemispheres into a juicer. The machine buzzes like trapped wasps, and a jug fills with pulpy, pearly, candy-colored juice. She pours herself a heavy blue glass and slooshes the liquid around every nook of her mouth.

On the striped veranda sofa, Luisa scans the paper and chews a croissant. The magnificent view—over Ewingsville’s moneyed roofs and velveteen lawns to downtown Buenas Yerbas, where skyscrapers rear from sea mist and commuter smog—has an especial otherworldliness at this hour.

“Not sleeping in, Cookie?”

“Morning. No, I’m going to collect my stuff from the office, if you don’t mind me borrowing one of the cars again.”

“Sure.” Judith Rey reads her daughter. “You were wasting your talents at
Spyglass
, Cookie. It was a squalid little magazine.”

“True, Mom, but it was
my
squalid little magazine.”

Judith Rey settles on the arm of the sofa and shoos an impertinent fly from her glass. She examines a circled article in the business section.

“ENERGY GURU” LLOYD HOOKS TO HEAD SEABOARD INC.
In a joint statement, the White House and electricity giant Seaboard Power Inc. have announced Federal Power Commissioner Lloyd Hooks is to fill the CEO’s seat left vacant by Alberto Grimaldi’s tragic death in an airplane accident two days ago. Seaboard’s share price on Wall Street leaped 40 points in response to the news. “We’re delighted Lloyd has accepted our offer to come onboard,” said Seaboard vice CEO William Wiley, “and while the circumstances behind the appointment couldn’t be sadder, the board feels Alberto in heaven joins with us today as we extend the warmest welcome to a visionary new chief executive.” Menzies Graham, Power Commission spokesman, said, “Lloyd Hooks’s expertise will obviously be missed here in Washington, but President Ford respects his wishes and looks forward to an ongoing liaison with one of the finest minds tackling today’s energy challenges and keeping our great nation great.” Mr. Hooks is to take up his new responsibilities next week. His successor is due to be announced later today.

“Is this a project you were working on?” asks Judith.

“Still am.”

“On whose behalf?”

“On behalf of the truth.” Her daughter’s irony is sincere. “I’m freelance.”

“Since when?”

“Since the moment KPO fired me. Firing me was a political decision, Mom. It proves I was onto something big. Mammoth.”

Judith Rey watches the young woman.
Once upon a time, I had a baby daughter. I dressed her in frilly frocks, enrolled her for ballet classes, and sent her to horse-riding camp five summers in a row. But look at her. She turned into Lester anyway
. She kisses Luisa’s forehead. Luisa frowns, suspiciously, like a teenager. “What?”

57

Luisa Rey drops into the Snow White Diner for the last coffee of her
Spyglass
days. The only free seat is adjacent to a man hidden behind the
San Francisco Chronicle
. Luisa thinks,
A good paper
, and takes the seat. Dom Grelsch says, “Morning.”

Luisa feels a flare of territorial jealousy. “What are you doing here?”

“Even editors eat. I’ve come here every morning since my wife’s … y’ know. Waffles I can make in the toaster but …” His gesture at his platter of pork chops implies,
Need I say more?

“I never saw you in here once.”

“That’s ‘cause he leaves,” says Bart, performing three tasks at once, “an hour before you arrive. Usual, Luisa?”

“Please. How come you never told me, Bart?”

“I don’t talk about
your
comings and goings to no one else either.”

“First one into the office”—Dom Grelsch folds the newspaper—”last one out at night. Editor’s lot. I wanted a word with you, Luisa.”

“I have a distinct memory of having been fired.”

“Can it, willya? I want to say why—how—I’m not resigning over how Ogilvy crapped on you. And since my confessions are rolling out, I knew you were in for the ax since last Friday.”

“Nice of you to let me know beforehand.”

The editor lowers his voice. “You know about my wife’s leukemia. Our insurance situation?”

Luisa decides to grant him a nod.

Grelsch steels himself. “Last week, during the takeover negotiations … it was intimated, if I stayed on at
Spyglass
and agreed I’d never heard … of a certain report, strings could be pulled at my insurers.”

Luisa maintains her composure. “You trust these people to keep their word?”

“On Sunday morning my claims man, Arnold Frum, phones. Apologies for disturbing us, blah-blah, but he thought we’d want to know Blue Shield reversed their decision and will be handling all my wife’s medical bills. A reimbursement check for past payments is in the mail. We even get to keep our house. I’m not proud of myself, but I won’t be ashamed for putting my family ahead of the truth.”

“The truth is radiation raining on Buenas Yerbas.”

“We all make choices about levels of risk. If I can protect my wife in return for playing a bit part in the
chance
of an accident at Swannekke, well, I’ll have to live with that. I sure as hell wish you’d think a little more about the risk you’re exposing
your
self to by taking these people on.”

Luisa’s memory of sinking under water returns to haunt her, and her heart lurches. Bart places a cup of coffee in front of her.

Grelsch slips a typewritten page over the counter. It contains two columns of seven names per column. “Guess what this list is.” Two names jump out: Lloyd Hooks and William Wiley.

“Board members of Trans Vision Inc.?”

Grelsch nods. “Almost. Board membership is a matter of public knowledge. This is a list of unlisted corporate advisers who receive money sourced in Trans Vision Inc. The circled names should interest you. Look. Hooks
and
Wiley. Lazy, damning, just plain greedy.”

Luisa pockets the list. “I should thank you for this.”

“Nussbaum the Foul did the digging. One last thing. Fran Peacock, at the
Western Messenger
, you know her?”

“Just to say hi at superficial media parties.”

“Fran and me go back a ways. I dropped by her office last night, mentioned your story’s salient points. I was noncommittal, but once you’ve got battleworthy evidence she’d like to say more than just hi.”

“Is this in the spirit of your understanding with Trans Vision Inc.?”

Grelsch stands up and folds his newspaper. “They never said I couldn’t share my contacts.”

58

Jerry Nussbaum returns the car keys to Luisa. “Dear God in Heaven, let me be reincarnated as your mother’s sports car. I don’t care which one. That’s the last of the boxes?”

“Yep,” says Luisa, “and thanks.”

Nussbaum shrugs like a modest maestro. “The place’ll sure feel empty without a real woman to crack chauvinist jokes on. Nance is actually a man after so many decades in a newsroom.”

Nancy O’Hagan thumps her jammed typewriter and gives Nussbaum the finger.

“Yeah, like”—Roland Jakes surveys Luisa’s empty desk, glumly—”I still don’t believe how, y’ know, the new guys’d give you the high jump but keep on a mollusk like Nussbaum.”

Nancy O’Hagan hisses, cobralike, “How can
Grelsch”
—she jabs her cigar at his office—”just roll over waving his feet in the air and let KPO stiff you like that?”

“Wish me luck.”

“Luck?” Jakes scoffs. “You don’t need luck. Don’t know why you stayed with this dead shark for so long. The seventies is gonna see satire’s dying gasp. It’s true what Lehrer said. A world that’ll award Henry Kissinger the Nobel Peace Prize throws us
all
out of a job.”

“Oh,” Nussbaum remembers, “I came back via the mailroom. Something for you.” He hands Luisa a padded khaki envelope. She doesn’t recognize the crabbed, looping script. She slits open the envelope. Inside is a safety-deposit key, wrapped in a short note. Luisa’s expression intensifies as her eyes move down the note. She double-checks the label on the key. “Third Bank of California, Ninth Street. Where’s that?”

“Downtown,” answers O’Hagan, “where Ninth crosses Flanders Boulevard.”

“Catch you all next time.” Luisa is going. “It’s a small world. It keeps recrossing itself.”

59

Waiting for the lights to change, Luisa glances once more at Sixsmith’s letter to triple-check she hasn’t missed anything. It was written in a hurried script.

B.Y. International Airport,
3rd—ix—1975

Dear Miss Rey
,

Forgive this scribbled note. I have been warned by a well-wisher at Seaboard I am in imminent danger of my life. Exposing the HYDRA-Zero’s defects calls for excellent health, so I will act on this tip-off. I will be in touch with you as soon as I can from Cambridge or via the IAEA. In
the meantime, I have taken the liberty of depositing my report on Swannekke B in a strongbox at the Third Bank of California on Ninth Street. You will need it should anything happen to me
.

Be careful
.

In haste,
R.S
.

Angry horns blast as Luisa fumbles with the unfamiliar transmission. After Thirteenth Street the city loses its moneyed Pacific character. Carob trees, watered by the city, give way to buckled streetlights. Joggers do not pant down these side streets. The neighborhood could be from any manufacturing zone in any industrial belt. Bums doze on benches, weeds crack the sidewalk, skins get darker block by block, flyers cover barricaded doors, graffiti spreads across every surface below the height of a teenager holding a spray can. The garbage collectors are on strike, again, and mounds of rubbish putrefy in the sun. Pawnshops, nameless laundromats, and grocers scratch a lean living from threadbare pockets. After more blocks and streetlights, the shops give way to anonymous manufacturing firms and housing projects. Luisa has never even driven through this district and feels unsettled by the unknowability of cities.
Was Sixsmith’s logic to hide his report and then hide the hiding place?
She comes to Flanders Boulevard and sees the Third Bank of California dead ahead, with a customers’ parking lot around the side. Luisa doesn’t notice the battered black Chevy parked across the street.