The Bradbury Report (25 page)

We were back in Friel Street at three. On the dot. The Tall Man—we were never to know his name—was waiting for us outside on the sidewalk.

He helped get our bags out of the car. “From now on,” he said to Anna—this exclusionary tactic wore thin—“whenever you can remember to, try to park the car around the corner, or down the block, will you?”

The building was one of a row of connected, three- and four-story brownstones, probably put up sometime in the twenties or thirties of the last century. It had, as did its neighbors, eight or nine cement steps leading to its front entrance. There was no elevator in the building, not even for freight. Luckily for me, our apartment was on the second floor. It was in the rear, overlooking an unexpectedly capacious courtyard,
shared with the buildings adjacent, in a section of which brick-walled enclosure some of the tenants had established a kind of community garden, consisting of a dozen or so small, rectangular plots. This stretch of Friel Street was entirely residential; it was quiet and well kept, lined with mature shade trees. At first sight, I liked the place. So did Anna.

“This is good,” she said.

“I didn't pick it,” the Tall Man said. “You should be reasonably comfortable.”

“How long will we be here?” I said.

“I can't tell you that.”

“Because you can't,” I said, “or because you won't?”

“Both,” the Tall Man said. “Why don't we grab your bags and get in off the street.”

I carried my own bag up the front steps; the Tall Man carried Anna's. When we were inside the vestibule, a small space where the tenants—there were three apartments on each of the four floors—received their mail, the Tall Man put down Anna's bag. He positioned himself, blocking the front door, with his back to the street. “Before we go up,” he said to Anna. “I'm afraid you will find the clone is not who he was when he was last with you.”

“In what way?” Anna said.

“Pretty much every way,” the Tall Man said. “I want to tell you. He's a handful. He's a regular little shit.”

“We'll be okay,” Anna said.

“I'm not sure you will,” he said. “Look, he's very strong. When he's angry, and that's a good share of the time, he's almost impossible to control. I don't know, even with two of you, that you'll be anywhere near strong enough. As I say, I'm concerned.”

“Well find a way,” Anna said. “I'm not too worried.”

“You should be. He's not a child,” the Tall Man said.

“I'm aware of that,” Anna said.

“There's no telling,” he said this now to me, “how he'll react to you. He seems not to like men.”

(Anna and I would talk about this. We agreed that part of the reason for his fierce antipathy towards men—however small a part, and not
discounting what might have happened to him inside the Clearances—was that, since they'd found him, the men of Anna's group had treated him more harshly than was called for. It is not illogical to think that one can hate cloning, without hating the clones. Admittedly, he was not easy to like. I, myself, am not easy to like.)

“He doesn't like
you
?” I said.

“Not one bit,” he said. “I'm not the only one he doesn't like.”

“What would you have us do?” I said. “Shall we hire a bouncer?”

“Be careful. Keep him as quiet as you can. Don't let him out of the apartment.” Nodding at Anna: “Let her do most of it, would be my advice. You keep to the background. Try to stay out of his way. For the first while, at least.”

“He's up there now?” I said. “In the apartment?”

“Yes.”

“Is someone with him?”

“What do
you
think?”

“Let's go up,” Anna said.

 

Our apartment, 2R, was up a wide set of carpeted stairs that switched-back at a small landing midway, then to the right at the end of the hall. The Tall Man knocked on the door. Three discrete raps with his knuckles, several seconds apart. Within, a man's voice said, “Who's there?”

“You'll have to teach us the code,” I said.

The Tall Man said, “We're here.”

The black man we'd seen on the road outside Sabevois let us in.

“We're quiet now,” he said.

The apartment was in the shape of an inverted L. We entered into a small foyer. To our right was a hallway, off which were two long, narrow bedrooms of identical size, each with a single sash window in the far wall. At the end of the hallway was a bathroom, windowless, with a tub and shower. To our left was the kitchen, a galley, large enough for one person to work in. (Though the clone was always hungry, there were whole categories of food he would not eat. He would eat no fish or seafood, and could not stomach the smell
of Anna cooking either. He'd eat nothing creamy, though he would drink milk. No soup or stew. He'd eat chicken, but not red meat. He would tolerate pasta served with olive oil. He liked vegetables, loved broccoli and carrots, raw or cooked. He'd eat cereal or eggs or pancakes for breakfast, but was happier with frozen waffles. For lunch he'd eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, or a cream cheese and jelly sandwich, with potato chips, so long as we cut the crusts off the bread. He liked French fries, though he didn't get them often, and pickles. In Winnipeg, once, we let him try beer. He liked it, which made us leery. Of all things he liked cheese best, especially Muenster. Sometime in the first two weeks, we made the mistake of ordering out for pizza. For a month afterwards, the clone would settle for almost nothing else, and preferred it come out of the microwave. In general, we ate what he ate.) In front of us, past the kitchen, parallel to the bedrooms, was the living room, also deep and narrow, with two sash windows in the far wall that overlooked the courtyard. Beneath a pass-through from the kitchen, there was a rectangular table with three chairs. Along the living room wall to our left was a tall, freestanding bookshelf, empty except for a legal-size envelope on one of its shelves, a fireplace that had been bricked up, and a television on a low table. On the opposite wall, facing the television, was a sofa and, in front of that, a glass-top coffee table. In the space between the two windows, against the far wall, was a high-backed upholstered wing chair and matching ottoman.

The clone was sitting on the sofa, Alan was sitting on the sofa, his stocking feet up on the coffee table, his hands folded in his lap. His head lay back against the top of the sofa; his eyes were closed.

The black man moved into the living room and stood beside the sofa, placing himself between us and Alan.

“Is he asleep?” I asked. We were still in the foyer with our bags.

The Tall Man answered me. “We'll be lucky, if he is. So, look. Here's what you've got. There are two beds in the far bedroom. You'll want the clone in there, with Mr. Comedy. You,” he said to Anna, “take the other bedroom. Sleep light, both of you. Stay alert. We don't want the damn thing running off. Now come with me a minute.” So
far, Alan had not moved, or shown any indication he was aware of our presence. I was, I confess, afraid to look at him.

The Tall Man led us into the first bedroom, the one that would be Anna's. Against the wall separating the bedrooms there was a queen-size mattress and bedspring in a metal frame with no headboard. Above the bed hung a faded landscape in oil, giving a generic view of a mountain lake. There was a night table and a lamp and a chest of drawers. The floors in all the rooms, except the kitchen and bathroom, were covered in the same light-brown carpeting, which looked brand-new and smelled chemical. Anna put her bag on the bed. “The only closet,” the Tall Man said, “is in the other bedroom.”

“I'll make do,” Anna said, though this would prove a nuisance.

“There's a linen closet in the hall,” the Tall Man said, “with sheets and towels and things. In the kitchen there are plates and pots and pans. Silverware. Cups. You've got all that kind of stuff. Utensils. You'll need to lay in some food. Otherwise, you should be set for a while.”

“Thanks,” Anna said.

“I'll put my bag in the other bedroom,” I said.

“Not yet,” the Tall Man said. He took out of his pants pocket a small black thing that looked like a cell phone. “This is for you,” he said to Anna. He handed it to her. “It's a reader.”

“What is that?” Anna said.

“It finds the clone,” he said. “In Iowa, after we took him back from you, we implanted just under the skin a tiny silicon capsule, inside of which is a microchip. If you look closely at his arm, in the front, just below his shoulder, you'll see a blue dot. It's barely visible. It won't need charging for at least a year.”

“He
does
have a tracking device,” I said.

“Yes,” he said, “but ours. If you lose him, if he gets away, you'll know where he is. As will we.”

“You have one of these?” I said.

“More than one. If he gets lost, just press this button.” He showed Anna a button on the side of the reader. “You do that, and we go get the clone. You don't try to get him yourself. In case he has it in his mind not to be gotten. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Keep this in a safe place, where the clone won't find it. Listen carefully to what I tell you next. You listen, too,” he said to me. “If, at any time, you feel you are about to be taken, then you let the clone go. Don't wait. Take no chances. Set him loose. Tell him to get as far away from you as he can. Make sure he does it. Then, press the button. When you've done that, destroy the reader. Smash it with your foot. When we lose your signal, we'll assume things have gone bad. Once we've collected the clone, we'll try to help you.”

“Where will you be?” Anna said.

“There will be someone nearby.”

“What do you mean,
our
signal?” I said.

“There's a chip inside your reader,” he said. “So we'll always know where
you
are, as well.”

“That's a comfort,” I said.

He stuck two fingers—his fingers were bony and skewed and as long as tongs—into the pocket of his shirt. “And this.” He'd removed from his breast pocket a small envelope, which he held out for us to see in the flat of his elongated palm. “There are two pills in here. One for each of you. If you are taken. They are instant and painless. No need to suffer. Nor any virtue in it.”

“No thanks,” I said.

The Tall Man laughed. “Do you imagine you are being brave?”

“I know I am not,” I said.

“I'll hold on to them,” Anna said.

“To be kept away from the clone.”

“Of course,” Anna said.

“Don't leave him alone,” the Tall Man said. “One of you should be with him at all times. Another thing. This shouldn't need saying, but if you take the clone out of the apartment, which I don't recommend, be sure his tattoo is covered.”

I carried my bag into the other bedroom. There were two beds, separated by a nightstand. Close enough that we might have slept, Alan and I, each in his own bed, and held hands across the divide. It was clear neither bed had been slept in. Alan had not spent the night
in the apartment. I put my bag on the bed nearest the door—this seemed to me strategic—claiming it as mine.

When I came back into the living room, Alan was still on the sofa, and appeared still to be asleep. The black man continued to stand watch over him.

This was the first chance I'd had to take a real look at my clone. There was nothing intimate, or epiphanic about the moment, constrained as it was—though I wouldn't have wanted Alan to myself—by the presence of two strangers, one of them, the black man, all but blocking my view. Alan's head was canted back against the top of the sofa, his neck stretched to its limit, the underside of his jaw exposed. I could not see much of his face, and the perspective I had on it was distorting. He was absolutely still, giving virtually no sign he was breathing. He was inanimate. I might have been looking at a wax figure.

Anna and the Tall Man were by the bookshelf, on the opposite side of the room. The Tall Man picked up the envelope that was on the bookshelf and took from it a driver's license. “For the clone,” he said. “But you keep it for him.” The name on the license was Alan Lewis Grey. His address was the same Hastings address the group had fabricated for Anna and me. His age was given as twenty-one, and his birthday—too coincidental to be credited—September 12, the day Sara and I were married.

“We'll come by at least once a month to see how you are doing, to check on the clone's progress.” He looked at me. “And his.”

“My progress is none of your business.”

The Tall Man smiled. “Of course it is. So you get to work.”

It would be a year before I started my report.

“We'll be here a month?” I said to Anna.

“You'll be here at least that long,” the Tall Man said. “If all goes well.”

“What if we're not home?” Anna said. “When you come.”

“We won't come when you're not home,” he said. “You'll find two keys to the apartment on the kitchen counter by the stove.”

“Yes. I saw them,” Anna said.

“Don't lose them. Keep the door locked. We have our own keys
in case we need to get in.” The Tall Man looked over the room. “All right then,” he said. “I think that's about it. There's nothing more I need to say. Except good luck to you. Good luck to you both. To the three of you.” Then, to the black man: “Let's leave them to it.”

As soon as they'd gone, Alan lifted his head off the back of the sofa and opened his eyes.