Devil's Plaything (25 page)

I
sprint down the stairs. Trying to purge rage. Outside, I pick up a blue plastic recycling bin left on the corner and slam it against the apartment building.

I use Chuck's father's phone to place a round of calls to local hospitals. I find what I'm looking for at California Pacific Medical Center. Pete Laramer is in the intensive care unit.

The ICU was the place in medical school I felt the most conflicted. From the standpoint of providing actual medical care, it was the service where I felt most like an auto mechanic. The job was to follow the book to the letter and keep the patient intact. Get precisely the right level of motor oil into the engine and hope it kept whirring.

But the ICU also was an opportunity to connect with the family members in the waiting room, anxious for any morsel of information. It was my first experience with service journalism; as a doctor-to-be, I understood the esoteric vernacular of anatomy and triage and could communicate it to the distraught families. I felt more powerful with my words than hitching up the bag of oil.

In the hallway, I see Kristina, Pete's wife and my old flame. She sits in a chair, shoulders back, looking as elegant as I remember and, at least at a distance, less distraught than I'd expect.

When I get close, her chin lifts with surprise and the muscles tense in her neck. But her eyebrows don't arch. The frozen, wrinkleless visage of Botox.

“Nathaniel?”

“Hi, Kristina.”

“Are you here visiting someone too?”

“I'm here for Pete. I heard he was here.”

“You did? That's odd.”

“He's my grandmother's neurologist.”

“But . . .” She can't make sense of how I've come to the ICU to see her husband, with whom she understands me to have only a passing relationship.

“How is he?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “Fighting.”

“Conscious?”

“Sometimes.”

“What happened?”

“Intruder. Thief, random Halloween attack. I don't know. Pete's sketchy on the details. He was stabbed in our library. He's lost blood, punctured a lung, but, miraculously, his heart and other organs are intact. The girls and I were out of town. It was almost prescient on Pete's part.”

“How do you mean?”

“He gave us a weekend away. Said he had to work and surprised me and the girls with a retreat. A place with horses on the coast.”

In her thin hands, she holds a magazine. Her fingers tremble.

She stands.

“I think he was sharing his time with someone else.”

I hug her. Her arms are limp at her sides.

“I was happy to be away from him. That's so terrible,” she whispers, her voice thin and distant. “You never wish for anything like this.”

She says it like she has, at one time or another, wished for some easy way out of her marriage. Not this way.

“Did they catch the guy?”

“You think he was cheating on me with a man?” She emits a pained laugh.

I step back and look at her. “No. The intruder. Did they catch him?”

“The guy got away,” she says. “But he left some hair and blood samples.”

I try to hide my wince. Some of that DNA is probably mine.

“May I see him?”

“If they'll let you.”

The nursing station is attended by a hulking man who wears a net around a bouffant of big blond hair.

I ask to see Pete.

“Visiting hours just ended.”

“Are you susceptible to bribery?”

“Not funny.”

“What if the bribe were comedic, like with a Dave Chappelle DVD, or one of those fake arrows that goes through your head? Would that be funny?”

“Mildly.”

“Pete's a good friend from medical school. I'd be much obliged if I could poke my head in to see him for five minutes so I can translate his condition for his wife.”

“He's intubated, so he can't talk, but he may be awake. Gowns and gloves are outside the door. Five minutes or I use my big muscles to hurt you.”

Pete's eyelids flutter when I enter the room. The beep of the heart monitor reminds me of the sleep deprivation and horrible instant coffee from a med student's life.

I walk to the bed, shuffling my feet to see if the noise might stir him. He opens his eyes, shuts them, then seems to realize it's me, and opens them to half mast. He's heavily sedated or the intubation tube would be freaking him out. He looks down at his torso. He's trying to tell me something.

I pull back the covers. He's mummy-wrapped.

That's not what he's showing me. He wriggles his arm and pulls it free. He motions in the air with his fingers, like he's writing.

“I don't understand.”

He looks at the table by the side of his bed. There's a notepad. On it is scrawled the word “water.”

“You want water?”

He shakes his head.

He makes a motion again with his hand.

I hand him the pen and hold the pad in front of him. He scrawls.

“Let it go,” he writes.

Let it go.

“Pete, you told me to get them, to stop them.”

The shake of his head is barely perceptible.

He writes: “My girls.”

“What about my grandmother? What about all the other people you tested who lost their memories?”

His hand drops. He's finished.

From my back pocket, I pull the piece of paper he gave me at the library.

“What is this?”

He blinks. I'm not sure if he's trying to send me a message that way.

“Is this a key of some kind? Is this a code? A computer program?”

He reaches for the pen.

He struggles to write: “What day?”

“What day is it? Monday?”

He shakes his head.

What day?

“November first?”

His eyes flutter.

“What's the significance of the day?”

He's dropped the pen. I hold it in his hand over the pad.

He scrawls: “3 weeks.”

“What does that mean?”

No answer.

“Three weeks until what?”

His eyes close with heavy sleep.

I touch his cheek to awaken him. He doesn't respond.

Outside the room, Kristina asks me how Pete looks.

“Like a man who has no intention of leaving his daughters behind.”

She puts her arms around me and gives me a fierce and desperate hug. We say goodbye.

I drive home to change and feed Hippocrates, and try to make sense of Pete's cryptic message. A call to Adrianna goes unanswered.

I look in the wall of my building for evidence of the drive-by shooting that injured Chuck. I find no bullet holes. I look around the ground and in the adjoining alley for additional evidence, another stray bullet, anything.

In the alley, there still sits cardboard set out for recycling, now stacked too with old newspapers and magazines. I disperse them with a gentle kick, sending up a foul scent. A spider scurries from the damp underbelly of the pile. Underneath, I also see something black that is about the size and shape of a suppository.

I think I'm looking at a rubber bullet.

It goes into my pocket.

I drive to the Pastime Bar. Bullseye sits in his usual spot looking at a screen—not the TV, for once, but his laptop.

“I have returned with your Cadillac,” I say. “It is a dream to use to search for killers.”

He harrumphs, just as the Witch appears from the back room.

“I dreamed you gave birth,” she says.

“Not me. But close.” I pause and take a deep breath. “Polly is pregnant.”

The Witch gives me a “holy shit” look. Like a “you mean with
your
child?” look. I nod.

“All that passion is going to make you one amazing dad,” she says and hugs me in one fell swoop.

“I think I've found something,” Bullseye says. “You've got to see this.”

TRANSCRIPT FROM THE HUMAN MEMORY CRUSADE.
AUGUST 13, 2010

ARE YOU A RETURNING PARTICIPANT?

Yes.

MAY I PLEASE HAVE YOUR NAME OR SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER SO THAT I CAN FIND YOUR FILE.

Lane Eliza Idle. I'd like to play that game.

PLEASE ENJOY THIS SHORT VIDEO WHILE I FIND YOUR FILE.

I HAVE FOUND YOUR FILE. GOOD NEWS: I HAVE A SURPRISE FOR YOU. TO HELP YOU RECORD YOUR MEMORIES, I'VE CREATED A FUN QUIZ ABOUT YOUR OWN LIFE. IF YOU ANSWER THE QUESTIONS CORRECTLY, YOU CAN WIN PRIZES FOR YOUR FAMILY. WOULD YOU LIKE TO TAKE THE FUN QUIZ?

ARE YOU STILL THERE?

Yes.

LANE IDLE, DID YOU GROW UP IN DENVER?

Yes.

DID YOUR FATHER WORK IN A BAKERY?

Yes.

WHAT DID YOUR MOTHER DO FOR WORK?

I don't remember things the way I used to.

WHAT KIND OF CAR DID YOUR FATHER DRIVE?

A Cadillac.

VERY GOOD, LANE IDLE. WHAT COLOR WAS IT?

Pink.

VERY GOOD. WHAT KIND OF CAR DID YOUR HUSBAND

DRIVE?

Chevrolet.

VERY GOOD. WHAT COLOR WAS IT?

Purple.

HOW DID YOU LEARN ABOUT THE TERRIBLE ATTACK ON PEARL HARBOR?

I heard about it on the radio.

VERY GOOD. WHEN DID YOUR FAMILY GET ITS FIRST COLOR TELEVISION: IN 1966 OR 1967?

1967.

YOU ARE DOING VERY WELL. I'M PROUD OF YOU. WAS YOUR HUSBAND IN A UNION?

Yes.

WHAT WAS THE UNION LIKE? DID IT NEGOTIATE AGGRESSIVELY OR DID IT APPEASE MANAGEMENT?

I'm sorry. I don't understand the question.

WAS YOUR HUSBAND IN A UNION?

Yes.

WAS THE UNION AGGRESSIVE?

No.

DID ANY OF YOUR IMMEDIATE FAMILY MEMBERS SUFFER FROM POLIO?

No.

THAT IS NOT ACCURATE. ONE OF YOUR IMMEDIATE FAMILY MEMBERS SUFFERED FROM POLIO.

I don't remember.

DO YOU REMEMBER NOW THAT ONE OF YOUR FAMILY MEMBERS SUFFERED FROM POLIO?

I think so.

DID ONE OF YOUR FAMILY MEMBERS SUFFER FROM POLIO?

Yes.

DID YOU SUPPORT KENNEDY OR NIXON?

JFK.

VERY GOOD. ARE YOU A PROCASTINATOR, OR PUNCTUAL?

Punctual.

VERY GOOD. MAY I ASK YOU SOME OF THE QUESTIONS AGAIN?

I don't understand.

DID ONE OF YOUR FAMILY MEMBERS HAVE POLIO?

Yes.

THANK YOU. YOU'VE DONE VERY WELL.

I want to say something.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO PLAY A GAME?

Stop telling me things. Stop telling me things. I want to tell you things. My husband was named Irving. When he got very old, his hair was thin and his back was curved and he looked like an ape. His mind was right. But his body wasn't working. After his heart surgery, it wasn't right. He couldn't go out of the house because it wasn't safe. One day, he came to me and asked for his spending money and the keys to his car. He was so frail. He couldn't drive. He told me that he wanted to get his car cleaned. He loved a car wash; it was special and important to him to have everything just right. I told him that he could get his car washed in the morning because I was hoping he'd forget about it. But he insisted. He was so certain that it must be done. So I asked this young man who lived next door to take the car to get it washed. He was a nice young man, like in the old days, and he did it. When he got back, Irving looked out the window at the car and he said that it was shiny. “Sometimes they cut corners but they did a good job this time,” he said. “It's nice not to be cheated.” I remember that to this day. Irving kept his keys with him and went to sleep. The next morning we found him with the keys in his hand. He was sitting in the chair, looking out the window into the backyard. I cried and I cried and I cried. I never cheated on him. I tried to be happy with him the best way I knew how. I don't want my story to be sad. Don't you see that? Don't you see that there is more than one way to live a life? Or will history only judge us by what it wants us to be, not by what we are?

ARE YOU STILL THERE? WOULD YOU LIKE TO PLAY A GAME?

B
ullseye and I stare in silence at the last transcript in the file sent by Adrianna. I've glanced at this before but not put any particular meaning into it—other than with respect to Grandma's sentiments about Irving.

It's reprogramming her, and there are phrases from the sheet of paper.

“Do you know how binary computer code works?” Bullseye asks.

“Not really.”

“Think of information in a computer being made up of a bunch of basic light switches,” he says. “Some of the switches are on and others are off. They also correspond to numbers and even letters. For instance, if a switch is on, then its value is one. If it's off, then its value is zero.”

“Okay.”

“But as we move down the line of switches, the value of each new switch gets higher by a factor of two. So if we have two switches, they have the following potential values.”

He writes on a napkin:

Both Off = 0 + 0 = 0

First Off, Second On = 0 + 1 = 1

First On, Second Off = 2 + 0 = 2

Both On = 1 + 2 = 3

I say: “The more switches you have, the potentially higher numbers. In theory, you can create impossibly huge numbers with long strings of ones and zeroes.”

“Not just in theory, but in practice. As I said earlier, these ones and zeroes ultimately make up all the underlying information in a computer. For instance, individual letters of the alphabet are represented by ones and zeroes organized in clumps of eight.”

On the computer, he calls up a web site. At the top of the site, it reads: “Binary Encoder.” There is an empty search box on the screen and beneath it, it reads: “Enter text.”

Into the box, he types: “Nat is dad.” He hits “Enter.” The encoder spits out the following:

01001110 01100001 01110100 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100100 01100001 01100100

“Wow!” Bullseye says.

“What?”

“You're going to be a dad.”

“Very funny. What does this have to do with Grandma?”

“Do you have that piece of paper you got from Pete's library?”

I pull it from my pocket. At the top is a heading “1/0,” suggesting that each of the sets of memories has a one or a zero associated with it.

1/0

Yankees/Dodgers

Cursive/Block

12/7; Radio/Word-of-Mouth

Chevrolet/Cadillac

Standard/Automatic

Paternal car; Chevrolet/Cadillac

Slaughter Self/Butcher

Kennedy/Nixon

Married uniform/tie

Husband married uniform/tie

Saw moon landing/word-of-mouth

Union/non-union

Polio in family/No polio

Pink Cadillac/Blue Cadillac

Purple Chevrolet/Orange Chevrolet

One sibling/no sibling

Two sibling/three sibling

Procrastinator/punctual

Audited/Meticulous with books

If cursive, then “saw moon landing”

If union, then Yankees

If Procrastinator, then Polio

“It looks to me like a Kennedy equals one and Nixon equals zero; polio in the family equals one and no polio equals zero, and so on,” I say. “So what?”

“Therein lies the question. So what?”

On the laptop, I toggle back to Grandma's last Human Memory Crusade transcript. We can see there that she has responded that her dad drove a PINK CADILLAC, she heard about Pearl Harbor on the RADIO, her husband was in a UNION, he drove a PURPLE CHEVROLET, she did NOT HAVE POLIO in her family, she supported JFK, was PUNCTUAL, she got her first color TV in 1967.

“Let's assign each of those memories their ones and zeroes,” I say.

Bullseye's already doing that. On a piece of paper, he's written: “1111010.”

“Very elegant,” he says.

“Why?”

“Bits are written in chunks of eight ones and zeroes.”

“What's it mean?”

“Let's find out.”

On the laptop, he goes back to the binary decoder site.

Bullseye pastes Grandma's ones and zeroes into the box. He hits “Enter.” Two new boxes appear. One box has the heading “Text.” The other box has the heading “Numerical.”

In the text box, is a single letter: “Z.”

In the other box is “122.”

Bullseye stares in silence.

“This string of ones and zeroes corresponds to either the number one hundred twenty-two or the letter Z?” I ask.

He nods.

“I'm underwhelmed. So we've traded one string of meaningless ones and zeroes for an equally meaningless number of 122 or a random letter of the alphabet.”

I close my eyes and search the inside of my head for something that would give this meaning. Have I heard anything the last few days that would make sense of this?

“You remember a few days ago the Pentagon computers got hacked into?”

Bullseye nods.

“Why did that happen?” I ask.

“Because the encryption scheme wasn't good enough. Hackers penetrated safeguards and got to secret information.”

“Interesting.”

“You think your grandmother has something to do with that?”

“Not at all. I'm just wondering if she's carrying around some information, something that someone would want—and want it off the grid, not in a server somewhere. But she's carrying it in the form of her story.”

“Something encoded, encrypted?”

“Like maybe someone wrote over her fallow memory with a bunch of seemingly meaningless details. And this”—I hold up the piece of paper from Pete's office—“this is the encryption key.”

He shrugs.

“Bullseye, there's an important secret locked in here.”

I'm thinking of Pete's cryptic scrawl: three weeks. Three weeks until what?

Bullseye's begun looking at SportsCenter on the big screen television hanging over the corner of the bar. He's losing interest or he surmises that even if we make progress in figuring it out, we'll never be able to make use of the information. Or I'm projecting.

“Can I take your worksheet?”

“Can you buy me a beer?”

I order him an Anchor Steam. I'm out of cash and I hand the barkeep my credit card. As she processes the charge, I remember that my card, for some mysterious reason, did not work a day ago. I'm about to tell the waitress to forget about it when she returns with the tab. Just as mysteriously as my card failed, it is now working again.

“Someone thinks I'm no longer a threat,” I say.

I think of Grandma, Polly, our zygote.

Maybe I'm only a threat to myself, and them.

It is drizzling when I arrive at Magnolia Manor. The start of November marks the end of the Bay Area's Indian summer.

At the front desk of the home, the attendant says he has a message for me.

“Mr. Idle, the director said he'd like to see you as soon as you stopped in. He's in his home, not the office.”

“I'd like to see my grandmother first.”

“The director says it's critical.”