Afterparty Part 30

The pair of true believers he was currently in dialog with were cut from the same cloth as the others he'd talked to. The senior pastor was another hardcore g.a.n.g.b.a.n.ger with a long record. The Vincent bet that if he looked into it, the pastors had probably served time together. This one had gotten out of the federal prison only last year and moved to the Motor City. The sidekick was a local with tracks on his arm. That pattern held up, church to church. Ex-gangleaders in charge, with a congregation of junkies, prost.i.tutes, b.u.ms, and lowlifes. It made a certain kind of sense; religion was most needed by the most desperate, and these folks were on the lowest rung of society, what his grandmother used to call "the least of these."

Except that's not what the Vincent's employer expected. Someone, somewhere, was supposed to have a connection to a pharmaceutical company.

"You're the one, aren't you?" the senior pastor said. No trace of anger or fear. His name was Arun, and according to his prison records his religion was Nation of Islam. That file, obviously, was out of date. "You're behind the disappearances."

Rumors are spreading, the Vincent thought. He said, "Aw, you don't want to know me, Arun. I take off them hoods then you know what I got to do."

Both of them a.s.sured him that they would tell him nothing, regardless. Then the Vincent looped a cord around the young one's neck and let the pastor listen to him gargle for a while. He released his grip before the boy expired.

This was his new method. These Holo-Jesus freaks were tough as nails alone, but they had an overreactive sense of empathy. Just crumbled when someone else was in pain. So you nabbed two of them and started slapping around the least knowledgeable one.

Right on cue, the pastor said, "Please, he doesn't know anything."

"But you do," the Vincent said.

In a matter of minutes-and a few more strangulations-Arun was spilling details. That empathy is a b.i.t.c.h, the Vincent thought. Like a puppet show-put your hand on one, and the other one talks. The Vincent made him answer all the questions in his employer's questionnaire, then they moved on to the important topics, like who was providing them with precursor packs and hardware.

The Vincent's pen buzzed. He flicked it open. "Hey there, boss."

His employer was not happy. The Vincent was taking too long, and he still hadn't found out where the chemjets were being made, and what pharmaceutical company was supplying them.

"I've got some good news and bad news on that front," the Vincent said. "I'm staring at a couple of guys who were building a printer." In the bas.e.m.e.nt of the church the Vincent had found not one printer, but three of them, and the second two only partly a.s.sembled. There were stacks of new machine parts still in their packing, and tools and soldering irons on the workbench. "They had enough to build four, maybe five of them.

"The bad news is that there's no way they could be building all of 'em, not even all the ones I've found. Strictly a small-scale operation. So that means other people are making them, too."

His employer wanted to know whether he'd found the a.s.sembly instructions, and the Vincent said they were on the pastor's phone. "I'm working on tracking down where that came from, too. But like I told you, these guys are organized like terrorists cells-they don't know much but the one or two fellas they talk to in the other churches. I think we got to consider the possibility that there ain't no factory, and there ain't no central leaders.h.i.+p. I just don't think there's a Big Pharm company pulling the strings."

The employer started yelling then, and the Vincent pulled the pen away from his ear. When his tone finally changed the Vincent said, "Sorry, what were you saying?"

More yelling. The Vincent didn't let it bother him. Finally the employer settled down and gave him an address. The Vincent thought, New Mexico?

The rest of the instructions were explicit. "Just to be clear," the Vincent said. "No restrictions on Rose and Skarsten?" He was surprised at the change, but relieved. He wouldn't have to go behind his employer's back to get rid of witnesses.

"One more thing," the Vincent said. "I'm running a mite low." He did not have to say its name aloud; the employer understood that when the Vincent brought up amounts he was talking about not cash but Evanimex. There were several knockoff street drugs-Brick, Darwin, HooDoo-that purported to provide the same effect and that he could have purchased himself. But he'd tried all those, and there was no comparison; Evanimex, the pure pharmaceutical product, was the only guaranteed solution. He'd first tried it several years ago when the government treated him for PTSD. It had worked well-so well that he never wanted to go back to his old self.

The problem, of course, was tolerance. Take the drug too often and it wouldn't have any effect at all. So, he rationed. He used it for work first and daily phobia-management second. The rest of the time he tried to distract himself with his hobby.

His employer told him that he'd already s.h.i.+pped the latest package of pills.

"That doesn't do me much good out here on the road," the Vincent said. "I've got enough for about a week, then-"

The employer told him he'd be done in a week, and hung up.

The Vincent stared at the pen for a moment, imagining a few things he would like to do to his employer.

"I'd like you to consider something," Arun said. Again, calm as a houseplant. He was a smart guy; he knew that now that he'd heard the Vincent's conversation, and heard those names, there was no way he was living through the next fifteen minutes. Still he didn't lose his composure.

"And what would that be?" the Vincent asked. He reached into his pocket for another set of plasticuffs.

"You have our printers; you have our paper," the pastor said. "After you're done here, find a quiet place, and just try one of the Logos pages."

"I will give it to you boys," the Vincent said. "Every one of ya's tried to witness to me."

"Just consider it," the pastor said. "You'll thank me for it."

"I sure do appreciate your concern, Arun," the Vincent said. He looped the cuff around the man's neck and cinched it tight. Arun fell onto his stomach and began to flop around. The sidekick heard all this and started crying. "Arun? Arun?" The Vincent la.s.soed him too and put him down.

No restrictions, the Vincent thought. Maybe he really would be home in a week. It sure would be good to get out of all these s.h.i.+tty hotel rooms. And Vinnie would be happy to get another turn at the wheel. Jesus, he loved those stinking little buffalos.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE.

The sun hammered the freeway, turning the air above it to jelly. Still we three pushed on-Rovil, Dr. Gloria, and I-Tint s.h.i.+elds on full, air-conditioning turned up to eleven. Rovil tried to chat, but I had become hazardous cargo, silent and toxic. Ollie had vanished. That morning I'd tried to call her pen, but she didn't answer, and the desk clerk claimed to have no idea who I was talking about.

I felt like s.h.i.+t.

Rovil couldn't believe we were leaving without her, but I told him to keep out of it, letting him think Ollie and I had split over some female relations.h.i.+p thing he'd never understand. "She's just cooling off. She'll be fine. Ollie's, like, hypercompetent."

He looked worriedly out at the motel parking lot and said, "I suppose."

"You're still my pal, right, Rovil? You're still with me on this?"

Rovil breathed out. "Sometimes I think you don't need a friend so much as chauffeur."

"A chauffeur would quit."

That got a smile out of him. "Look, I know I'm an a.s.shole," I said. "But we're almost there, kid-a few hours from Emerald City. Just take me the rest of the way."

He relented, and after a couple of hours on the road he'd dropped the worried pout. He listened to his music, a grating form of Indonesian pop, and when we crossed the border into New Mexico he set the car to auto and let go of the steering wheel, excited to finally be in a state that allowed autonomous cars-proof that there was as much joy in surrendering free will as exercising it.

Sometime after 2 p.m. we left the interstate, and Rovil took the wheel again. Los Lunas was a surprisingly green town on the Rio Grande, with lawns and trees living the high life off the river. The car's GPS led us confidently out of town along Highway 6, west into the desert, through brown, rolling hills. Then we left the highway for a smaller road, then exited that one as well. Each turn seemed to lead us onto narrower, sketchier roads until finally a white cement drive appeared on our right. A black steel gate blocked it, and bleached stone fences curved away in both directions.

Rovil stopped the car. "Are you okay?" he asked.

"Fine." I was sweating in the cold air-conditioning, every pore open. I tried to think of something to say. "h.e.l.l of a driveway."

The road ran for five miles and ended in a cul-de-sac. According to the satellite pictures there was a cl.u.s.ter of buildings at the end of the road, but their details were obscured in a cloud of fuzzy pixels; the rich could afford privacy agreements.

"He owns everything within ten miles of the compound," Rovil said. He rolled up to the gate and the entry panel.

Dr. Gloria said to me, "Put your head down."

"What?" I couldn't concentrate.

"Cameras," she said, and nodded toward the gates. "It's what Ollie would have had you do."

"Jesus, how could cameras make a difference? Edo knows we're coming. He invited us."

Rovil had rolled down the window. I started to tell him the gate code that had been in the text message, but he said "I remember" and typed it in.

The gates slid open. We rolled through, started to pick up speed, and I said, "Wait. Pull over. Now."

He stopped the car and I jumped out. I marched across the pebbled ground toward a set of boulders, toward a clump of gnarled bushes, toward ... f.u.c.k. Nowhere. Into the heat. Sweat poured from my face and dried almost instantly.

I stopped in front of a large juniper bush. Its limbs were gray as old bones. The plants around it were equally dead and strange, a cohort of parched alien bodies buried standing up. Humans didn't belong out here.

Dr. Gloria descended from the sky and landed upon an Old Testamentaquality boulder.

"You have absolutely no idea what's going on in your own brain, do you?"

"Not now, Gloria."

"Would you like me to explain?"

"I would like you to explain what the h.e.l.l Edo's doing out here in the middle of nowhere."

"I like the desert," she said.

"It's the f.u.c.king waiting room of the apocalypse. In a hundred years half the planet's going to look like this. So, what, he just had to get a preview?'

"You could have stayed with her," Dr. Gloria said. "Called off this trip until she could come with you."

"What do you do if you want to run out for milk?" I said. "How long do you have to wait for a f.u.c.king ambulance out here?"

"I'm concerned that you're thinking of ambulances," she said.

"I'm concerned that I have not punched you in the f.u.c.king throat."

"You love her," Dr. Gloria said. "Maybe you should admit that."

"Why, exactly, did I want you to come back?" I turned back toward the car and was surprised to see that it was more than a football field away, American or Canadian rules. Rovil leaned against the fender, gazing out at the landscape, watching me but pretending not to. When I started walking back he casually got back inside the car.

Minutes later I dropped into the front pa.s.senger seat. "Sorry," I said to him. "Mexican food." He nodded as if he believed me and handed me a bottle of water. I drank half of it in two long swallows.

We zipped along the white road for several minutes. The air-conditioning triggered something in my body, and another tide of sweat swept out of me. I felt like I was being wrung out: cell walls rupturing, epidural levees crumbling, veins- "Now you're being melodramatic," Dr. Gloria said.

A figure appeared ahead of the car, walking toward us in the middle of the road. It was a man, wearing shorts but naked from the waist up, tall and broad with a big gut. A floppy hat obscured his face.

Rovil slowed the car. We stopped when the man was perhaps thirty yards from us. He stopped walking and peered at the darkened winds.h.i.+eld.

Rovil glanced at me.

"Yeah," I said. "It's him."

I got out of the car again. Dr. Gloria alighted by the side of the road.

"Edo," I said.

Edo Anderssen Vik stood up straighter. "Lyda?" He took off his hat. "Lyda Rose!"

I walked toward him. Behind me, Rovil got out of the car.

"And Rovil?" Edo said. Again completely surprised. "This is amazing!" A bad thought occurred to me: Edo was not only G.o.d-drunk, he was afflicted with Alzheimer's.

He stepped toward me, arms wide for a hug, and I stepped back. Edo dropped his arms, confused, the hat forgotten in his hand. His round gut looked permanently red; his chest was covered by a mat of white hair.

Rovil moved up and shook Edo's free hand. "How are you doing, Mr. Vik?"

"Rovil, please, you're not an intern anymore. Call me Edo." He looked from Rovil to me, still grinning. "What are you doing here?"

"We got your text," I said.

He frowned, not understanding. Then he glanced up. He listened for a moment, then nodded. Someone was speaking to him from the sky.

"Ah," he said. "Of course." He looked back the way he'd come, then said, "The house is just down the road. Lyda, will you walk with me? It's less than a mile."

I said to Rovil, "I promise to be good."

"I'll follow in the car," he said.

"Closely," Dr. Gloria told him, but of course he couldn't hear her.

We walked for a while, Dr. Gloria trailing me like my maid of honor, the car creeping along behind her.

"You're a hard man to find," I said.

Edo laughed. "I suppose so."

"We've been trying for weeks," I said. "We even tried to see you in Chicago, but Eduard cut us off."

"He did?" Edo looked upset. "But of course. I suppose he'd be very upset if he found out you were here."

"So he's not home."

"Oh no. He and his wife left last night for Amsterdam." He smiled. "Nick of time, eh? Otherwise ... whoosh. He'd run you off."

"What's he so afraid of?"

He thought for a moment and said, "A few years ago I was in my car, and I saw a man by the side of the road. It was very cold out. He was holding a cardboard sign that said HUNGRY. Just that one word." He shook his head as if seeing it for the first time.

"I felt that hunger myself, Lyda. I felt like I was starving, that I was going to die. Is it like that for you? I could feel his weakness, how cold he was. I told the driver to stop. I gave the man my jacket. I took off my shoes. Then I gave him my wallet, and a smartcard that had access to my accounts. I even tried to give him the car!"