Earl stepped into the warm humidity of Maui from the controlled environment of Walter's house and looked around at the cozy suburban street. Despite an occasional palm tree, the scene could have been taken from any housing development in any part of the United States and dropped here.
Of course, the weather was a clue, too—Halloween was two weeks away, yet the ambient temperature now would be a Wisconsin summer. Just more unreality in the dream he sometimes thought he must be dreaming.
He wandered over and sat on an enormous chunk of lava plunked down where sidewalk met driveway.
"Escaping" from Lovelace had been easier than anticipated. Walter had brought his youngest son, Lucas, an eight-year-old just a bit taller than Earl (more surrealism, as he remembered himself staring at this kid right in the eye). The boy pulled off his Random Noise T-shirt and Earl put it and the boy's Ultron Enervator cap, a soft combat-helmet affair that hid most of Earl's hair, on. Earl and Walter simply strode through the phalanx of cameras and reporters and into a van; only one or two cameras followed their progress. Walter called Lucas on an EnviroPatrol walkie-talkie and the boy, now hatless and wearing a white school shirt, simply walked out. Later, in the hotel room, Lucas washed black coloring out of his hair. A redhead too, but still no match for Earl.
Earl's first meal with the family had been the weekly Sunday dinner. Earl had to give Walter's wife, Marcia, credit for the time needed to make the meal of roast beef, mashed potatoes, spinach, a tossed salad, rolls, cake for dessert—nothing came out of a can or package except the rolls—but it was all served with an undercurrent of tension. Marcia did not seem overly pleased to see him; the oldest boy, Tom, seventeen, was sullen, but how much of that was normal teenage angst Earl couldn't tell; and the daughter, Jennifer, fifteen, barely glanced at him and said even less.
"Did you enjoy your little excursion, Lucas?" Marcia said as she passed him the peas, which he took reluctantly.
"It was fun," the boy said. "There sure were a lot of reporters and stuff."
"We saw you on the news," his mother said. "They said they think you were a decoy for someone else, but they didn't know who."
"Did you really see me on TV?"
"We almost missed you," Tom said. "You didn't look the same with black hair."
Lucas giggled.
"About settled in, Earl?" Walter said, passing a plate of sliced meat.
"I think so. Nice room. Nice house."
"We'll have to take you up to Haleakala Crater sometime," Walter said as he sliced his meat and vegetables into bite-sized portions. "Spectacular place."
"Yeah," Lucas said. "One of the highest and driest places on Earth. A big volcano, and hills and dunes everywhere. There's this weird plant that grows up there, the silverfish—I mean—"
"Silversword," Jennifer said.
"I was going to say that."
"It's the state flower. You ought to at least get it right."
"I—"
"Never mind," Walter said. "We can take Uncle Earl to see all the sights upcountry, right, dear?"
Marcia glanced at him. "Yes, of course."
She thinks it's a lousy idea, Earl decided. Marcia kept her hair cut short, businesslike, although Earl wondered how she got all the individual strands to move as a unit.
"So, what is it exactly you do, Walter?" he said into the stiff silence.
"I'm associate director of operations at the Honokohau Haven Resort, part of the Adkin Lodging Group."
"Big hotel?"
"Fifteen hundred rooms. Divided into six clusters with three swimming pools apiece. Six restaurants, a movie theater, several small stores, a full-function post office, three excursion boats."
"Which one is it?"
"Farthest end, Kihei side. Marcia works at the Maalaea Hilton at the Kamaole end."
"And what do you do, Marcia?"
"I run the registration system." She didn't look up.
"I understand ten years ago the Maalaea Anchor complex didn't even exist."
"Some close-the-gate-behind-me types wanted to stop the project, but the possibility of a thousand-plus jobs in these hard times won out over antidevelopment sentiment," Marcia said.
"They're just afraid the hotel complexes will fill up all the spaces between Kihei and Kamaole," Walter said. "That's not the intent of the project at all. There are height restrictions and design conditions to be met. It'll look great when it's done."
"I see," Earl said turning his fork into a mound of potatoes. "And the native people? I mean, the real Hawaiians?"
"No—"
"Pass the potatoes," Walter cut in.
"The bowl needs refilling." Marcia carried the bowl into the kitchen.
"Actually, we hope someday to open our own business," Walter continued. "We've been saving for it."
"Oh? Something people need, I hope?"
"A small grocery store, perhaps with a pharmacy. Ellis Silverstein runs the hotel pharmacy but would like to have his own place." Marcia returned and handed the filled bowl to Walter, sat back down. "Kihei or Kamaole aren't that far away, but it would be more convenient."
"Where?"
Walter ladled out a portion of potatoes, then offered the bowl to Earl, who took it and scooped out some.
"We're looking at a small store near the intersection of the Kihei Road and the main road into this housing area."
"Near the poor side of town," Tom said.
"'The poor side of town'?" Earl thumped the bowl down on the table. "This place isn't even ten years old and you're already declaring class warfare?"
That last comment, Earl reflected back on the lump of lava, probably hadn't been a good idea.
His eye was caught by Lucas expertly guiding a skateboard around a parked car and up the driveway, stopping a half-meter away from Earl. A foot clad in layers of polymer shoe clumped on the ground while the other stopped forward progress of the board. Lucas regarded Earl through pale eyes set in a face speckled with freckles, which continued down the boy's neck, across his arms, and on down legs sticking out of multicolored shorts. The pattern was unbroken under the bright yellow T-shirt, Earl remembered.
"Hi, grandnun—grun—"
"Call me uncle."
"Yeah." The boy looked at him a moment longer. Now that the excitement was over, he'd had time to consider this strange being who'd moved into the room next to his. "Granduncle? Is that right?"
"Well, let's see." Earl counted off on his fingers. "I had a brother, Sam, who had a son, Walter. That son is my nephew, and I am his uncle. Walter grew up and had a son, you, making you my grandnephew, so yes, I am your granduncle."
"You look like a kid."
"Looks are deceiving. I'm seventy-nine years old."
"Wow."
"This your board?" Earl jumped off the rock and nudged the board with a toe of his sandal.
"Um, yeah."
Lucas took his foot off and Earl picked up the skateboard, a sculpted flow of aerodynamic plastic. "Interesting." He set it down again. "Just step up here and—woop."
"Put this foot here," Lucas said, squatting and pushing Earl's foot. "The other here, so you can balance."
"Ah. Ready to rip now." He crouched. "Flying down the highway—" He looked at Lucas. "How do you turn this thing on?"
Lucas laughed.
"Let's see, foot power 'stead of horsepower." Earl pushed a couple of times, then went back into the crouch. "Look out, here comes the board-skate terror, tearing up the landscape, brummm." The board slowly rolled to a stop. Lucas giggled again.
"All right," Earl said, turning the board so it faced down the driveway, "time to get serious." He got on, pushed hard several times.
"Good," Lucas said, jogging alongside.
"Now we're m-m-moving—" He nearly lost his balance where driveway met road. "Pocket of turbulence, there." He pushed a few more times and rolled swiftly across the street. "Oop, wait, how do you turn? Quick!"
"Shift your weight—"
"Too late! Abandon ship!" He jumped off the board, which smacked into the curb. "Sorry."
Lucas shrugged. "It didn't hurt it. Shift your weight to turn."
"Oh. Sounds easy."
"Like this." The boy took the board to the other side of the street, pushed off hard. "This is the way you turn." He made a graceful sweep up a driveway, around and back.
"Ah."
Lucas demonstrated a few more times, then Earl got back on. The first few attempts were rocky, but soon Earl began to get the knack of it.
"Not bad," he said about an hour later, "but I wouldn't want to make a living at it."
"Some thrashers get big bucks."
"Is that what you want to do when you grow up?"
The boy shrugged.
"Well, don't worry about it now. What's over here?" Earl crossed an empty lot shorn of vegetation, passing utility hookups sticking out of the ground.
"One of the new golf courses," Lucas said as they reached a fence.
"Jeez. Pretty soon this island will be nothing but fairways and greens. I suppose it's part of that new hotel complex thing your parents work for." Across the expanse of links, he could see flat shapes like a low pile of boxes.
"Yeah."
"The ocean's on the other side?"
"Yeah."
"I haven't been there yet. Let's go." Earl climbed over the fence, just a low chain-link affair. He held the skateboard as Lucas scrambled over.
"Um, they yell at us if we walk on the grass and stuff," Lucas said.
"Well, I suppose you could get hit with a ball," Earl said as he strolled across a fairway that angled off in a different direction. "There's one now. I wonder where the owner is." He couldn't see anyone back along the flat, grassy corridor.
"This dips in the middle, you can't see them."
"Ah." Earl heard a sharp intake of breath from the boy as he picked up the ball and hurled it into the bushes next to the fence. "I hate golf." The boy tittered.
The rest of the journey was mostly on access roads, passing groups of bare-kneed, sweating, huffing golfers. Eventually, they came out on a hill that had been sliced into and lined with concrete to allow a two-lane road to pass below.
"The highway," Lucas said. "They moved it back from the beaches so they could put the hotels in. This way." He led Earl to a pedestrian crossing over the road, fenced on both sides but with flowers along the edges and grass in the middle. On the other side, the grass turned into a macadam path angling between two hotels built low and spread out. The path widened into a sort of mall with carefully arranged gardens bounded by low walls, benches, and sidewalks divided up into geometric shapes differentiated by color and texture. A McDonald's restaurant was tucked into one corner.
Finally the paved mall ended in bright white sand. Earl's feet sank as he trod across, weaving around ozone shelters squatting like misplaced mushrooms. A tradeoff between wanting to bask on the beach yet reduce risk of skin cancers, the shelters generally formed a half-dome, the open side facing the waves. Those who didn't have the shelters oiled themselves to a bright sheen in liquid sunscreen; only a couple of diehards allowed themselves to roast to brownness. Blaring portable radios competed with blaring portable TVs or even the rapid-fire beeps of video games; an occasional beach ball or Frisbee or the person chasing them threatened to collide with Earl, but he simply dodged and kept going. The ocean edge was only a little less crowded, mostly with parents holding wriggling tots as the waves glided in. He didn't stop, but waded in until his polymer-and-Velcro sandals were covered in churning water, soaking the cuffs of his new jeans. He stopped, looked out toward the horizon.
"Uncle Earl, what are you going to do now? Are you going to go to school or something?"
Earl looked back at the boy at the edge of the wet, holding skateboard nose down in the sand. Lucas, the youngest, seemed least bothered by him. Of course, the boy was too young to remember the snarling, gnarly old man he'd been so recently.
"A loaded question, Lucas. I don't have the faintest idea. There's a bigger question that has yet to be answered. It affects my whole future. And that is, am I going to grow up again? Or am I going to be this size the rest of my life?"
The boy's eyes widened. "You mean you might stay a boy forever? Wow."
"Yeah, wow." He looked around at the beach, the hotels, the ocean, the rippling flesh of near-naked humans, then looked back out toward the sea. His mind wandered back to the night before he left the Albuquerque hospital, sitting in Marian's room with her and Aaron. They had talked way past midnight about things they had avoided before, their past lives, their families—their future.
They had been reluctant to say good-night, and stood in the center of the room, looking at each other.
"Well, take care of yourselves." Earl saw the moisture in Marian's eyes and barely could restrain his. "Don't let the big folk let you down—"
He found himself being crushed in an embrace; the sensation startled him because all of the group scrupulously had avoided such contact (except maybe Linda and Jerry). As Marian hugged him, Aaron awkwardly stepped forward and joined in.
A wave rolling in toward a Maui beach shoved at Earl's knees. He took a deep breath.
"I seem to be only like a boy playing on the seashore while a great ocean of undiscovered truth lies before me." He laughed lightly at his pretension, kicked the water. "Wonder what ol' Newton would make of all this."
* * *
"Arlene, what's going on? I thought you wanted to get back to the farm. It's been nearly a week since they released me from the hospital."
Marian shrank inwardly from Arlene's gaze over half-eaten scrambled eggs. "I have to make absolutely sure everything is in proper order. The farm can wait a couple of more days. Elisha says everything is running well."
"Well, it's just that we seem to be wasting time. And running up a motel bill."
"That is unavoidable." She touched her napkin to her lips three times, then tossed it down and stood up. "I have an appointment." She reached into her fanny pack, tossed a twenty on the table. "Pay the bill, then go back to the room. I hope to be done within the hour."
Marian watched her sister stride off, moving between the tables like a cement truck through traffic. Marian's trip wasn't as steadfast—one person shoved a chair back into her path; a waiter laden with tray did a quick and graceful swerve; three boys wouldn't yield space for her to pass by.
"How're you doing, honey?" the cashier said, ersatz smile splitting the makeup coated face.
"Fine," Marian said, knowing the woman couldn't give a damn. She knew the attitudes of most of the staff by now; Marian and Arlene had eaten every meal at this plastic-and-veneer restaurant attached to their motel. Marian was sick of the bland, textureless food and constant smell of something being cooked to rancidity. At least now, though, her fame as a member of the Seventeen had faded; only occasionally would someone take a quick snapshot.
She didn't bother to zip her coat as she walked across the motel parking lot. After a three-day spell of cold rain, Albuquerque's October had warmed again, so she'd gone back to the sandals they'd given all the Seventeen. Arlene had bought only a few items of clothing for her, including one pair of clunky and uncomfortable shoes. The sudden drop from the frenzy of the last couple of weeks to idle waiting for Arlene to do whatever Arlene was doing made her listless. She felt a vague unease thinking about that, and she unconsciously hurried up the external stairs to the room. What to do now? Watch soap operas or talk shows? She was sick of the misery and neurosis—
Something to do offered itself when the phone rang.
"It's Shirley."
"Oh, good. It's nice to hear a friendly voice. How's things?"
"At home, OK. Merlin and Phoenix are fine, although they miss their mistress. Last night I found them sitting in your chair again, looking eagerly at me, then being very disappointed when I wasn't you."
"Oh, they're just being ornery again. When I get back, they'll sulk because I was gone so long. I can't thank you enough for taking care of them, and watching the place."
"My pleasure, I keep telling you. Any idea yet when you'll get home?"
Marian sighed. "Arlene keeps delaying our departure, I don't know why. I think she's—oh, I shouldn't say that. This has been a shock to her."
"Not as much as to you, I'll bet. Anyhow, the other news is that Dave has accepted your resignation. He says the city manager has agreed your situation is unique and is giving you a year's severance pay. I'll get the check and hold it for you. Dave helped me clear your desk. The stuff's in your house."
One part of a past life gone. "Thanks. How's your mom?"
"Pretty much the same. The doctor says she's at the point where anything could happen." The line was quiet for a moment. "I think I've said this before, but I don't know what else to say. I'm sorry about what happened to you."
"I know, but no use stewing over it. I would feel better if Arlene did something. This is so unlike her."
"Well, forgive me, I'll never say this again, but watch out for her. See you soon, I hope. Keep your chin up."
After hanging up, Marian again gave serious thought to asking Shirley, her friend in Bellingham for six years, if she would take her in . . . but again, she shook her head.
I can't ask that of her.
She picked up her phone, selected a wi-fi connection and called up the local newspaper's Web version. She noted news about the Seventeen had moved to page three, now that they'd all scattered. Her own departure had been, like everything Arlene did, carefully planned. They waited until ten at night—Earl already having left, Aaron scheduled to go the next day—and walked out while the few media people were off to the side interviewing some politician who'd dropped by. Straight to this motel, a standard low-cost chain.
After about a half-hour of desultory clicking through pages, Arlene returned. A man and woman in business suits followed her in.
"It's all set. You're going with them." Arlene went to the closet, grabbed a suitcase and tossed it onto the bed.
"What do you mean?" Marian jumped up. Both the man and woman stood between her and the door.
"I mean, everything's settled." Arlene scooped clothing out of the dresser drawers and into the suitcase. "I have assigned custody of you to these people. You'll go with them. They'll give you room and board."
"For what?"
"For—they have their reasons." Arlene stepped into the bathroom, returned with Marian's toilet items and dropped them in. She pushed on the lump of clothing and began to close the suitcase.
"I'm not going anywhere with them. What are you doing?"
"You'll go with them because it is my decision. It's been made legal. This will allow me to go back to the farm with minimal disruption. Please go, and don't make a scene."
Marian stared as Arlene zipped the suitcase closed. The woman stepped forward and took it.
"I don't believe this, Arlene."
"Listen to the one who suddenly doesn't believe. As if I'm supposed to believe what happened to you. Just a whim of yours. Lord."
Marian felt her face go hot; her heart thudded in her chest. "I am your sister!"
She thought she saw an opening in the way Arlene turned away and fumbled with a pillow.
"Arlene." Marian stepped forward and touched her forearm. It jerked like it had been zapped with electricity. In the next instant a hand slapped across Marian's face with enough force to make her stumble back and fall. Fighting against shock and pain, she looked up. And froze.
Anger and fear rippled across Arlene's face—and hate, washing across the muscles, setting her mouth and settling into a wide-eyed stare. Arlene's hands clenched and her body shook.
"Don't—you—ever—touch—me—again." The words came out low, even and cold.
Marian trembled as she pushed herself to her feet. Arlene continued to loom over her. Marian understood, now.
"You coward—"
Arlene raised a hand and took a step, but the woman interposed herself between the two. "That's OK, we'll take her now."
"I'm not going—don't touch—leave me alone!" But the man's grip was strong as he pinned her arms. She felt herself lifted.
"Arlene! Don't do this! Help me! Arlene! For God's—" She continued to shout and struggle, trying to twist and kick, but she was aware of being carried out of the room, down the steps and toward a car. Every move she made was met with a countermove, even in the car where she was pressed into the seat between the man and the woman. Her struggles diminished—until she saw something thin and shiny in the woman's hand.
"This will calm you."
"No!" Marian shouted, yanking her arm free and nearly knocking the syringe out of the other's grasp.
"Whoa, easy," the man said, pinning her head against his shoulder.
She barely felt the prick; she concentrated on screaming and trying to twist out of the stranger's grasp. Rage and humiliation were all she had to power the effort, but even that soon drifted into a contradictory mishmash of sound and light until everything just faded away.
* * *
"Set: time." No response.
Aaron sighed. Yesterday, his office computer had responded immediately to his command "Break wind" by giving him a flatulent reply even though the timbre of his voice had changed. The VCR, on the other hand . . . he began tapping at keys on the remote control.
Yesterday had been an entirely different day. First a visit to the suddenly larger mall to get new clothes (in the children's department, of course, where he turned down an Automatic Enema T-shirt in favor of more mundane shirts and pants, although he did buy some purple undershorts), then a visit to Thagg, Morgan, and Edwards in downtown Kansas City. The place came to a virtual halt—"Are you for real?" Merilee, the receptionist, had blurted—as he made his way to his office. As he cleaned out his desk—a huge, flat surface to him now—some of the staff had surprised him by presenting him with a boy-sized T-shirt with the motto "I survived the Holn" emblazoned across the front.
"Of course I don't expect the firm to keep me on," he told Forrest Thagg, senior partner. "I, as a customer, would find it a bit difficult to take me seriously anymore. Now that it's apparent my . . . condition . . . is somewhat, um, permanent, I see no other recourse."
Thagg's muscles registered just the tiniest fraction of relaxation. Not long ago, I towered over this dried-up gnome. "Just so. Although we held your position until we heard something different, we decided it would be difficult to maintain decorum under the circumstances. However, we do appreciate all you've done for us, Mr. Fairfax, and we have determined a fitting severance bonus."
That bonus, Aaron had to admit, was most generous. However, as they walked out of Thagg's inner sanctum, the old man did an odd thing.
"Ah, Mrs. Fairfax. May I see you for a moment?"
Aaron watched quizzically as Janessa walked past. Then, he'd dismissed it as Thagg's wish to comfort the bereaved wife. That night at dinner, though, Janessa had said Horace Duncan would be over at eight A.M. the next day. Aaron had pressed her to say why "Horseface" Duncan, her divorce lawyer, would be making a house call. She'd been evasive, though.
Between Thagg and Horseface, Aaron couldn't shake the suspicion something was up, which was why he was climbing shelves stringing camcorder wires and programing a balky VCR. He had to bend almost double to see his watch face on the shelf below so he could confirm the time. He hadn't had time to get the band shortened to fit a thinner wrist yet, so now it was mostly just a nuisance.
Please, lord, let Horseface be on time. And please make this jury-rigging invisible to the eyes of mine enemies.
The VCR's digital clock said 8:04 when Horseface followed Janessa into the entertainment-center den. Aaron already had taken a chair on one side of the room. Janessa did what he expected by sitting behind the low, circular glass coffee table.
"That him?" the attorney said as he placed a briefcase on the table.
"Him," Janessa said.
"Boy, they really did make him into a rugrat." His thick, long face, which inspired the nickname, split into a grin as he sat down next to Janessa. "I can see why you want out of this mess."
"Will it be easy?"
"Easy as pie, my dear, easy as pie. The ruling simplified things tremendously."
"What's easy as pie?" Aaron said. "Are you going to let me in on your little game, or are you going to continue to play screw the husband?"
"Oh, dear," Horseface said, opening the briefcase and extracting a sheaf of papers, "they didn't do anything to blunt that tongue, did they? That's too bad."
"As part of the process, the Holn cut away diseased tissue. If you'd been there, Horseface, they wouldn't have had enough left to do anything with."
The attorney grinned. "Such talk from a brat. Maybe you need some discipline." He spread papers out on the table, addressed Janessa. "It's all here. You sign these papers, and everything's yours. The house, the car, the property, the bank accounts, everything."
"What if I refuse to sign?"
Horseface turned his head slightly to look at Aaron. "You are not allowed to sign."
"Now wait a minute. Some of this stuff is mine, and there's damn little in any of the bank accounts that's hers."
"Sign here, here, here, and here." Horseface stood up and walked around the table toward Aaron. "Didn't you hear what the judges said, little boy? You are the size of children, you are children, you do not have the maturity to act as adults. Therefore, as children, you do not have any rights. And there ain't a thing you can do about it."
The attorney lunged and knocked Aaron off of his chair. He hit the floor with a grunt, and when he rolled over and looked up, Horseface was leaning over, leering at him.
"Not a goddamned thing. Little boy."
Aaron's body shook as he stood up. "That is the damndest piece of melodrama I have ever seen, but somehow it fits coming from you, shit-for-brains." He turned to Janessa. "Now I know why you were so fucking anxious to deposit that severance check."
Janessa looked up from the papers. "Of course. We can't allow children to handle that much cash." She shrugged. "Besides, I would have gotten it anyway. This just makes it quicker."
"Jesus. Don't I get anything? Bus fare to—huh. Where do I go from here?"
"Oh, that's been taken care of, too."
"What?"
"Horace, be a dear and take him to the utility room, make sure he stays there."
"Of course." He came at Aaron, who tried to turn, but felt a hand on his shoulder. He twisted but Horseface grabbed again. Aaron struggled, but could not prevent being dragged from the room. He raged at his helplessness, and Horseface actually chuckled as he pushed him into the small room with the washer and dryer. Aaron lunged at the door, but the lawyer already had blocked it. His rage continued as he paced in front of the appliances, muscle spasms threatening to make him kick or lash out at something. He kept himself from doing so, but just barely.
Now what is she doing? What arrangements? She's been planning a lot, this "wife." And that goddamn lawyer—acting like the curly mustachioed character in a melodrama where they tossed peanuts at the bad guy. The most maddening thing was that Janessa and her shyster knew, where he did not, what was going to happen next.
Finally Horseface opened the door. "You can come out now, little boy. Janessa says to meet her in the living room."
Aaron dashed into the den. No one was there, and the VCR was still running. He cut the recording, rewound the tape for a quick moment, played a second to confirm he had something, hit the rewind button. He had to climb up on the shelf and stretch to get the camera. He yanked the cable, pulling it free of the tape he'd used to press it into the edges along the large-screen monitor. Jumping down, he stuffed camera and cables into a cabinet below the VCR.
"Aaron?" Janessa.
He stabbed the stop button, yanked the cassette from the machine and slipped it into a cardboard sleeve.
"Coming." He tried to act nonchalant as he stepped into the hall.
"What were you doing?"
"Looking for tapes."
"You don't have time for that." She led the way into the living room. Three men glared down at him; Horseface smirked from the couch.
"There's your stuff." Janessa pointed to a suitcase. "You're going with them."
"Them who? And where?"
"I have signed custody over to their organization."
"What organization? Who are these people? Where are we going? Answer the goddamn questions."
"They are your guardians now."
"But—"
Janessa nodded at a tall thin man, who in turn nodded to a bulky man of medium height, who leaned over and picked up the luggage.
"Let's go," the thin man said, placing a hand on Aaron's shoulder.
He twisted away. "Just a fucking minute. Let me get this straight. You stole my house, my car, my stuff, all my money, then you signed away my rights to a trio of thugs? Damn you, woman, bitch!"
"Au contraire, my little friend," Horseface said. "She is within her legal r—yow!" Horseface dived to avoid a candy dish that hurtled by the spot his head had been.
Someone shoved Aaron against a chair, pinned his arms. The thin man kneeled in front, pulled out a flat box, opened it and took out a syringe.
"This is a sedative. You can cooperate and walk out of here on your own power, or we can carry you out. It makes no difference to us."
"I guess it does to me. You have all the cards."
The man nodded, stood up. "Let's go. Give me that." He took the tape from Aaron and stuffed it into a side pocket of the suitcase.
Aaron was guided firmly out the front door and toward a long car. The thin man drove, the bulky man sat on his left and the third man, only slightly less bulky, sat on his right. As the car backed out of the driveway, Aaron leaned forward so he could see the house, roosting elegantly on top of the highest rise in the Briarwood development. In the closed garage sat his Maserati. He sighed, sat back.
No one spoke on the trip up Interstates 635 and 29 to Kansas City International Airport. Aaron had to put aside plans to shout how he'd been kidnapped in the crowded concourse because the car went to a commercial area and the three silent ones guided him to a private jet.
Once airborne, he asked, "Can you tell me where we're going, now?"
No one answered. That almost was worse than being beaten. He flicked his wrist to check the time, forgetting again he didn't have a watch there. He patted his shirt pocket before remembering where he'd left it: on the shelf below the VCR.
So she got that, too.
Thinking of the VCR made him look at the suitcase in the seat next to him. The rectangular bulge of the tape still showed through. He slumped back, felt sleep sneaking up on him. He'd been up early, setting up the vidcam and VCR, climbing up and down the shelves—"Like a monkey," his mother would have said in the days when he was a boy and did such things as a matter of course.
The background roaring of the jet lulled him toward sleep, and his mind drifted to the day he left Lovelace. He'd watched the man Earl had said was his nephew and a boy walk into Earl's room, and a few minutes later man and boy walk out. Except there was something about the boy—Aaron grinned. Earl looked so natural in contemporary kiddie-character-tie-in clothing. Aaron slept in the hospital room one more night, and when his turn came, Janessa simply asked if he was ready and they walked out the door and past the army of media. The bright sunshine blinded him, making the figures indistinct in his peripheral vision. He heard them muttering until a bright one finally caught on and started calling "Mr. Fairfax! Mr. Fairfax! Any comment?" The name rippled through the crowd as they all suddenly remembered the naked boy on the hill, and for a fleeting second, Aaron discovered what it was like to be a megacelebrity. As he walked, eyes on the ground in front of him, he noted Janessa was as cool as ever in the tumult, even though someone occasionally called her name. By this time, an impulse that had been building in him became overwhelming. When he noticed the eye of a telephoto lens pointed right at him, he gave in. He lifted his left hand, three fingers and thumb curled, middle finger sticking straight up. The image, like the one in June, went out, but in the taped replays he saw later, the gesture was buried under electronic fuzz.
Someone shaking his shoulder brought him back from sleep he hadn't been aware of falling into. "We're landing," a gruff voice said.
After checking his seat belt, he looked out. The plane was in final approach, and the ground below looked vaguely familiar. It didn't click, though, until the plane glided over the runway and he saw the terminal building flash by.
"Hey, this is Albuquerque. What's going on here? Are you people from Lovelace? The government? Who the fuck are you people?"
All three glanced at him, but all three turned away.
Aaron slumped. After the long taxi to a general aviation terminal, they walked straight through to another long car. He watched listlessly as the streets and building zipped by in an unfocused blur. Finally the car turned into a nondescript driveway past a long cinder block building painted a sick mustard yellow and pulled up in front of a nondescript gray building, also cinder block. Inside, blue linoleum stretched before him, cinder block walls painted dark blue halfway up and white the rest of the way hemmed him in on both sides. About halfway down the long corridor, Less Bulky opened a door with a foot-tall 6 stenciled at an adult's eye height. Aaron stepped into a small room of white cinder block walls and brown linoleum. A window framed in gray metal broke the solidity of the blocks; below it, a floorboard space heater ran the length of the wall. A desk, chair and lamp stood against the wall to his left, and a bed to the right. A chest of drawers faced the foot of the bed against the wall of what turned out to be the closet.
"Your room," the only words spoken by Less Bulky. "Key on the desk." Bulky dropped the suitcase in the middle of the floor and both men left, shutting the door.
Opposite the closet, to the left of the hall door, was the bathroom: toilet, sink, shower stall, all perfunctory, nothing fancy. He noted wryly among the supplied toilet items a can of shave cream and a razor. The first couple of days he'd automatically stepped to mirror, but the face looking back always reminded him of that futility. Actually, he'd quickly gotten used to not having to shave.
He stepped to the window, but had to pull the chair over and climb up. A gray cinder block wall filled the view left to right, top to bottom. Across four feet of asphalt-covered ground, one clump of crab grass grew defiantly from a crack where wall met asphalt.
He got down, went over and sat on the bed, staring at the brown floor until the door opened and a hefty woman in a white nurse's uniform stepped in.
"Aaron? I'm Ms. Ames. We need to get you signed in and all, but right now, I imagine you're hungry. Please come with me, and we'll get you some lunch."
He stood, began moving toward the door.
"Don't forget your key."
A large metal tag with 6 stamped on it hung from the key. He stuffed it into his pocket. He followed her down the corridor to a point where another branched off.
"This is the dining room," Ms. Ames said. "Please go in and have a seat. Jerry will bring you a lunch in a few minutes."
He watched as she strode down the branch corridor, took out a key. As she twisted the key in the lock, Aaron noted a dark blotch on the back of her left hand. He stepped into the dining room, actually just a longer version of his room. More cinder block walls, egg-yolk yellow bottom, white on top, dark-green linoleum floor. Fluorescent light glared from fixtures embedded in the false ceiling. A rectangular metal table with a fake wood-grain pattern stood in the center with plastic chairs in disarray around it. The only other furniture was a soda-pop machine in the far corner. No pictures broke up the unrelenting flat expanses of the walls, not even a clock.
Someone else sat at the table, head down, but there was no mistaking the cascade of auburn hair flowing down over the shoulders. She did not move until he stepped close. The head came up and Marian Athlington fixed him with her eyes, not fearful, just tired.
The two stared at each other—so much like their first meeting in the patrol car all those seeming years ago—for several seconds.
"I am Aaron Lee Fairfax. I am forty-three years old." He took a deep breath, let it out. "I do not own a Maserati anymore."