Devil's Plaything (5 page)

“Your address is on the business card you gave me.”

“So is my phone number,” I say.

He clears his throat. “That's what I'm here about—about your phone number.” He frowns. “You mentioned someone anonymous has been calling you. You asked me to check into it.”

“I did. Why?”

He answers my question with a question. “What the hell have you gotten yourself into?”

C
huck stands at the edge of the alley. He's waiting for me to walk to him, which is the natural order of things in Silicon Valley. Everyone walks to the venture capitalists, hoping for the validation, insight, or a check that will change their lives.

I walk over.

“I'd have put out an azalea on my balcony as a signal but the few plants I've ever owned have died of benign neglect,” I say. No smile. He's totally missed my
All the President's Men
reference.

“So, Nat, you have some enemies. I'm not against having enemies. In fact, I find it very centering.”

“Are
we
enemies?”

“No. Allies. Absolutely. Colleagues.”

“But you've got some enemies?”

“Yes, but evidently you do too,” he says.

He makes a show of pulling his hand from his right pocket and withdrawing a yellow Post-it. On it is scrawled a phone number. He holds it out and asks me if I recognize it.

It's in the 415 area code, local. But the rest of the number doesn't look familiar. I shake my head.

“It's a central switchboard for the San Francisco Police Department,” he says.

“Okay.”

“The call to your phone yesterday at six twelve p.m. came from there.”

“From the cops?”

“Bingo.”

I shake off a moment of wonder to stay focused. The park shooter was a cop?

“You can see why I decided to show up in person to tell you.”

“Respectfully, not really. I don't.”

“Because if you've ticked off the cops, then they're monitoring your phones.”

“Tell me again how you found out about this?”

Chuck's eyes briefly divert from mine. “A reporter never reveals his sources. Why should I?”

I sigh.

“You're skeptical,” he says. “A journalist should be. I'm highly connected through military channels. You'll have to trust that.”

“I appreciate your work on my behalf, and I guess I'm surprised by it.”

“Oh, c'mon Idle!”

“What?”

“You're working on a great story, right? Something involving the cops? This could be a big coup for Medblog.”

I nearly laugh. I've sold Chuck a steroid version of journalism, or at least stoked his own sensational view of the trade, and now he's running with it. I feel my skepticism about him meld into something else; he's displaying an endearing enthusiasm—is this the zeal of a soldier turned entrepreneur up for a challenge and a fight? And why not? He doesn't know that Grandma Lane and I almost got shot; he thinks we're playing a harmless game of cops and journalists.

Or maybe I'm being played by him. But why?

I think about the rash of Porta Potti fires. Has the absurd evolved into the serious? My stories have not just embarrassed the cops but also, obviously, could cost a few pranksters their jobs and the department critical funding. The State Attorney General, a Democrat planning to run for governor next year who wants to prove her law-and-order mettle to the conservative voting base, has launched a full-throated investigation. Hoping to make points with voters looking for creative ways to cut government spending, she says cops who set fires under the color of uniform should cost their departments discretionary state funds. The chief's job is in play.

“I can't imagine anyone in the police department would want me dead over a Porta Potti.”

“Dead?” Chuck responds with mild alarm. “What's going on?”

“I'm wondering the same thing.”

He looks at the Post-it. “Let me do a little more investigating and make sure I got this right,” he says. He puts the yellow paper in his jacket pocket. He pulls out a clamshell phone. He hands it to me. “Take this.”

It's a basic low-end phone, two years old at least, with a white scratch along the front casing. “I've got a phone.”

“This one is pre-paid. It can't be traced, and our conversations will be private. The number is on the back. If you need to reach me, call on this line.”

“You're kidding me,” I say.

“It's my backup. I've got a regular phone.”

He extracts a second phone, a fancier device with a touch screen. As he does so, it buzzes with an incoming call. He looks at the caller ID and sends the call to voice mail.

“Keep your phone,” I say, handing the old clamshell back to him. He puts his hands up, not accepting it. We look like two mimes having a contest.

He responds emphatically. “Cops are like drones working for a big corporation. They lack real capitalist financial incentive. So when they get bored with their jobs or feel undervalued, they check out, or wield power in counter-productive ways. I hate cops, and I love journalism that speaks truth to the uniform.”

“Aren't soldiers just cops with bigger guns and air cover?”

He smiles. “Touché. But soldiers get sent into messy situations, try to fix them, then get sent home. Our incentive is survival. Being a soldier is like working for a start-up, having real motivation,” he says, pauses, then continues. “Let's break open a great story.”

“Let me think about it, Chuck,” I say. “But I should go.”

As I turn to leave, he grabs my arm. “You're always in a hurry.”

I look at his hand, and he quickly retracts it.

“Sorry. Let me know if there's anything else I can do to help you.”

“Not grab my arm.”

He clears his throat. “Fair enough. I'm prideful too.”

I'm irritated but want to sound deferential.

“Can I call you later, or put a pot out on my balcony to arrange another meeting?”

Before he can answer, I hear the roar of a car. I look up. Coming down the ordinarily serene street from our left is a Humvee with tinted windows, sun glancing off its black hood.

“Global warming explained,” I say.

I look back at Chuck, and see his eyes go wide and pupils constrict to a point. Extreme and sudden fear.

A
flash of light and a staccato burst.
Spat, spat, spat, spat, spat.
A blur of motion as Chuck dives toward me and tackles me to the ground. My backpack goes flying.

“Son of a bitch!” he screams. His full weight blankets me. Limp.

“Chuck!” For a moment, he doesn't respond and I'm sure he's dead or mortally wounded.

“Foot,” he groans, and suddenly stands.

I crane my neck and see the Humvee speeding away. Dull pain pulses in my elbow where it slammed against the pavement. I rise more slowly than G.I. Chuck.

He grabs his ankle. There is a glaze of red on his hand. “Stay down, Chuck.”

“It's a scratch.”

He's getting one of nature's most powerful drugs, a heavy outpouring of neuro-chemicals that outweigh the pain and enable him to flee danger. But the danger's screeched off and Chuck needs to not aggravate the wound. We both look at the blood on his hand and I'm relieved to find it is just a spattering, confirming his impulse that he's been lightly wounded.

“I graduated med school.” I take a few deep breaths to slow my heart rate down. “Let me look.”

He hops backwards. “What are you involved with?!”

“I'll call the cops.” I pull out my cell phone.

Then he hops forward, with surprising alacrity, adrenaline screaming through him. His hand swoops forward and grabs my phone hand.

“Are you crazy?” he says. “Let's go after him.”

“We need to call an ambulance. You're in shock.”

“Call while you're driving,” he says, releasing my hand and hobbling toward my car.

I again see all the zeal and risk tolerance that has made this guy a part of both the military and the venture-capital community.

I start to dial 911 on my phone but get only as far as “9” when my own competitive zeal bristles. I retrieve my backpack and storm past Chuck to my car, popping the door locks up with my key ring on the way.

I climb in my side. Chuck does the same, moving well for a shot guy.

I toss my backpack in back. I usually dump it in the passenger seat.

I put the key into the ignition. I turn the key. The engine won't turn over. I try again. I make sure the car is in park, not neutral or drive. I try the key again. No luck. The engine is dead.

“Motherfucker!” Chuck shouts, and pounds his hand on the sun-cracked dashboard.

He climbs out of the car. As I watch wordlessly, he hobbles across the street. He pulls keys from the pocket of his long coat, clicks open a blue convertible BMW, and climbs in.

“Chuck!”

“I'm going after him.” He climbs into the car. “Get the bullet casings.”

“You're in shock.” I shout my earlier admonition as I get out of the car.

He starts his engine. He pulls a tight U-turn, and heads off in pursuit of a gunman in a gas guzzler. One day I'm nearly shot by a hybrid driver, then by a driver of a Humvee. On my side, I think, G.I. Chuck in his sports car. I'm in the middle of a battle involving the entire automobile food chain.

I walk to the front of my car. Popping the hood, I immediately see the problem. Someone has disconnected my battery cable.

I reconnect it, and climb back into my Toyota.

I grab a handful of In-and-Out-Burger napkins out of the glove compartment and get most of the battery grease off my hands. I pull out my cell and dial 911, but again I don't hit “send.” I'm thinking about Chuck's plea that I don't call the police, echoing the warning in the mystery note. It's ludicrous. But something else nags at me. Maybe before I call the cops again, I should get myself to Magnolia Manor. I've got to keep Grandma safe. And I've got to find out what she knows—and what or who is hunting the one or both of us.

I turn on the ignition, then turn it off again. I step out of the car, walk over to where Chuck may have saved my life, and look on the ground for shell casings. I find two bullet remains, slightly charred, already cooling. More must have smashed into the concrete walls or sprayed into the alley, but a cursory look doesn't turn them up. Against the wall of the alley, a neighbor has haphazardly left out for recycling a dozen or so folded cardboard beer and food boxes. They're damp to the point of being limp from last night's fog and I have the patience to scan the surfaces for holes for only a few seconds before conceding.

A few neighbors have wandered outside, and I figure the cops can't be far behind. I need to jet.

I hustle back to my car and speed to the nursing home to mine the emptying remains of Lane's hippocampus.

And I suddenly find myself thinking about snakes.

Five months earlier, I'd started interviewing Grandma for the magazine story I wanted to write about her.

We sat on a freshly painted bench outside the home, sunshine on our faces, a game of Boggle on the bench between us. I clipped a tiny microphone to Lane's blouse so I could record our interview.

“The computer records me too,” she said.

The Human Memory Crusade.

“Yes, but I smile, come bearing high-calorie snacks, and can take you to the movies later.”

Lane smiled. “You don't want to hear me drone on. Now let's stop before I bore you to death.”

“It's for me and your legions of fans. Besides, I'm getting two dollars a word to write about you.”

This time she laughed out loud.

“Really, Grandma. It would mean a lot to me to hear your stories.”

After a pause, she said, “Do you remember when I used to take you to the park to hear
your
stories?”

When I visited as a kid, it became tradition. She'd take me to Stow Lake. She knew a man who worked at the boathouse. He had strong hands and he rowed us into the middle and she asked me about my life, friends, school, parents. She made me feel so interesting.

“Where should we start, Grandma? The shed incident in Warsaw, how you and Grandpa met and eloped and borrowed coal to heat the apartment, Uncle Stevie, the Great Wanderer?

“Why don't you like that doctor?”

“Doctor?”

“The man with the wavy hair. The memory doctor. Isn't that perfect? I forgot the name of his specialty.”

Earlier that day, I'd taken her to her first neurology appointment after noticing a slip in her command of language.

“Stop stalling, Lane.”

“Was it about a woman? Did you two have a fight about a woman? Or money? That's why men fight.”

I told her: in medical school, I dated Kristina Babcock, a beauty in the class below me. It didn't work out. I ran into her a few years ago. She'd married a guy in her class who became a neurologist—now Grandma's doctor.

“I knew it. You shouldn't be jealous of him.”

“The guy just went a different way than I did.” The way of the wife, the three kids, and the mansion.

We fell silent.

“Snakes,” Grandma finally said.

I shook my head. Confused.

“That's the story I want to tell.”

“Oh,
snakes.
Are you sure you want to talk about that?”

She told me the story about when I was ten. She took me to the reptile zoo in Golden Gate Park. A zoo volunteer showed me the boa constrictor. The volunteer wanted me to touch the snake. I was afraid and refused. The volunteer took my hand and put it on the snake.

“You projectile vomited all over the volunteer,” Grandma said.

I didn't sleep that night and I came into Grandma's room and demanded we return to the zoo. I marched up to the volunteer and demanded to touch the snake.

“You were wearing a baseball cap that came down so far on your forehead that it wasn't possible to see your eyes. But I could tell how scared you were. You held on to my hand, and you reached out and touched the snake. And you know what happened?”

“I threw up again.”

“You can be very dramatic,” Grandma said. She paused and patted my hand. “I loved your brother. I still love him, don't get me wrong. But he was like your dad. And your grandpa Irving. Happy to let the world spin and float in space and not ask why. Not you. You asked why, and you challenged yourself.”

“I should get more than two dollars a word for this humiliation.”

“I'm glad that we became such good friends, that you could trust me. It's a fine legacy,” she said, sounding distant.

“Are you okay, Grandma?”

“Do you still trust me?”

The way she said it made it sound like she was trying to provoke conversation.

“Grandma?”

“What?”

“Do you want to talk about what happened later that day?”

“Which day?”

“The snake day.”

“I'm pretty tired.”

What happened that day is that we went back to the house. I crawled under my grandparents' bed to write my first story. It was about a superhero who defeated a gigantic evil boa constrictor named Zooby. Talk about your unoriginal inkblot tests. I also got my first case of writer's block.

Bored, I started yanking on a loose floorboard. I pulled it up and found the picture. Or the half picture. It was ripped. Grandma was in the remaining half, wearing her Rosie the Riveter outfit. She was standing on a dock. And there were some words on it.

“I don't remember what it said on the picture but I always associated it with someone making you afraid,” I said.

Her eyes were closed.

“Grandma?”

“What?”

“You got so angry when I showed it to you.”

“When you showed what to me?”

“The picture I found hidden under your bed. You asked me in a quiet voice not to tell anyone. You were crying. You told me that something very bad could happen.”

“Your imagination was always so vivid.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“I'd like some hibiscus tea.”

“I'm just curious, Grandma. Did you want to talk today about snakes, or about the picture under the bed?”

“I'm totally pooped. Your generation doesn't use that word, but we use it all the time.”

“Would it help if I turned off the tape?”

She didn't respond. I remained silent, hoping she'd feel compelled to fill the void and continue. It didn't work.

“I'd like a chance to think about whether I'm going to start over,” she finally said.

“Start what over?”

“With a story. A particular story.
The
story.”

“About the family?”

“About falling in love, and about how all this came to be.”

“Grandma?”

“I've said what I want to.”

“Please.”

“It's just a silly story about love. Mostly, it's about that.”

“That doesn't sound remotely silly. I can't think of anything less silly than love.”

“People make choices. You made a choice about not marrying that woman. And not becoming a doctor. Sometimes other choices seem more exciting than others. Sometimes they're the right decisions, and sometimes they're not.”

“I'm not sure I understand.”

“You will. You'll understand better than anyone how it can become the devil's plaything.”

“How what can become the devil's plaything?”

“An idle mind. You and I, we have idle minds. Pun intended.”

“Cute.”

“I want to set the record straight. I want to tell my story. Everyone does. We all have our version of events. But we're all scared to share our own truth.”

“You mean everyone here at the retirement home?”

Silence.

“Grandma?”

“I might have to settle for the box.”

The computer.

“Can you just tell me that you understand that people make unconventional choices, and sometimes those choices come back to haunt you?”

Within weeks it seemed her memory fell off a cliff. We never had such a substantive conversation again.

I'm now parked outside Magnolia Manor.

What's haunting you, Grandma Lane?