Authors: James W. Hall
“Oh, come on. A pop quiz?”
“I need to know if I'm talking to a schmuck or what.”
Charlie Harrison shook his head, closed his eyes again. Lawton had to hold himself back from reaching over and smacking a little common courtesy into him. The young man leaned back in the booth, got a bored sound in his voice.
“He lives in Palm Beach, runs MicroDyne Corporation. Used to manufacture computer hardware, silicon chips, all that shit. But six, seven years ago they were losing their asses to the California heavyweights, profits slipping, so his sexy daughter drops out of M.I.T., swoops in and saves the day.”
“Sexy?” Arnold said.
The kid rolled his eyes.
“Yeah, Arnold. How you think she got on the cover of
Forbes, Fortune?
”
“By being smart.”
“There's lots of smart girls. Except most of them have thick ankles and thicker glasses. Morgan Braswell's a babe. Photogenic as hell. Don't tell me you haven't noticed.”
“She didn't save the company with her looks.”
“She comes swishing into a room full of five-star generals, I bet she makes an impression.”
“She's a smart girl. It's not about her appearance.”
“Hey, Arnold. You want to know if I've done my homework. Well, okay. The fact is, yeah, I've invested some time in this already. One thing I found out, MicroDyne doesn't actually manufacture anything. What they do is coat stuff with some hot-shit enamel or metallic powder or something. It's all classified. Some kind of glaze that goes onto the chips and microcircuitry modules that run the telemetry systems and onboard computers for military weapons and fighter jets.
All that hardware comes in the front door, they zap it with their coating and send it back to McDonnell Douglas or whoever, and those other guys build the planes and missiles.”
“And that's what you know. The sum total.”
Charlie frowned. He reached into his shirt pocket, came out with a little notebook, and flipped through the pages until he found the one he wanted.
“F-22 Raptor, the Bell V-22 Osprey helicopter, AIM-120 C missile guidance systems. The ALQ-99 jammer carried by the F/A-18F Super Hornet, and the Sanders situation awareness integrated system that regulates all deception countermeasures for the Hornet, the expendable decoys and signal and frequency emission systems. Those are a few of the systems coated with this shit.”
He flipped the notebook closed and put it back in his shirt pocket.
“Satisfied, Arnold? Do I get an A?”
Arnold was staring down at his thick hands spread out on the tabletop.
“That's good, Charlie. That's good stuff. Very specific.”
“I'm pleased you're pleased.”
“But you still got some more digging to do.”
“I'm aware of that. I just got started.”
“You study up on the rest of the family?”
Charlie sighed.
“Braswell's wife was a suicide, ten, eleven years ago. That what you mean? Went into a funk after her son died and jumped off a chair with a rope around her neck. Not very creative.”
Arnold swallowed and looked across at the television.
“So you know the story about the son, Andy Braswell, how he died.”
“A fucking marlin ate him, that's what I read.”
Arnold turned his head and looked at the kid.
“It didn't eat him,” he said. “It drowned him.”
“Okay, okay. So, what's your point, Arnold? You think all this per
sonal bullshit goes into the piece? What? Like Braswell's son dies, that's supposed to excuse the bad shit he's gotten into?”
Arnold popped the onion ring into his mouth, then reached out and thumped a solid finger on Charlie's forearm, munching while he spoke.
“Braswell's a decent guy. He got derailed from all the suffering he's been through. I think that's the slant you take.”
“I'll figure out my own goddamn slant.”
Charlie put his elbows on the table and leaned forward.
“What is it, Arnold? You change your mind? Decide you don't want to do business with me? All right, fine. So just take your goddamn envelope and your prototype and slither back under your rock. I got other stories. But don't jerk me around.”
Arnold topped up his beer mug from the pitcher, then leaned forward quickly to suck away the overflowing foam.
Eyes on the wrestling match, Arnold said, “That was some kind of fucking night, that Sugar Bowl. Unassisted tackle record still on the books. You were golden, kid. You were ten feet tall and you fucking glowed.”
“We lost the game, that's what I remember.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Arnold said, “But you gotta keep in mind, kid, like they say, it's not whether you win or lose, it's whether you cover the spread. And you did, Charlie. You covered it just fine.”
“I made you some money.”
“You made me a shitload, Charlie. But that's not why I'm here. Reason I'm here is 'cause I like guys with grit, tenacious little pricks like you.”
“Thanks.”
“I like 'em, mainly 'cause I can trust 'em not to give up their sources. I got a feeling about you, Charlie. A guy puts a gun to your head, you're not going to let somebody's name slip out. That's real important to me, to stay the hell out of this thing.”
“Okay, I'm a tenacious little prick. I don't give up my sources. Yeah, you picked the right guy.”
“Because what I haven't told you yet, Charlie, I'm a member of the family.”
“What? The Braswells?”
“A. J. married my daughter. Her name was Darlene. She's the one jumped off the chair with the rope around her neck. Not very creative.”
“Hey, I'm sorry. I didn't realize.”
“Well, now you do.”
“You're Braswell's father-in-law?”
Arnold nodded solemnly.
“I got an interest in this turning out right, Charlie. I want this exposed, but I don't want you disemboweling these people. Is that clear?”
Charlie searched Arnold's eyes for a moment or two, then nodded. It was clear. He didn't much like it, but yeah, it was clear.
Brandy reappeared, crossing the room through the gauntlet of hungry eyes, and she eased back into her seat.
“I miss anything?”
Lawton leaned forward, inhaling deeply.
“Nice perfume,” he said.
“Thanks.”
“Like fresh-cut clover with a rainstorm approaching.”
Lawton sat back, basking in Brandy's smile.
Charlie Harrison grumbled and pushed his beer bottle out of the way and stared at Arnold.
“All right, Arnold. You gonna give me this or what?”
Arnold took one more look at the young man, then nudged the envelope across the table. Charlie peeled back the tabs and pulled out the papers and started glancing through them.
“So how you gonna make out on the story, Charlie?” Peretti gave Brandy a wink. “Gonna be a good payday, I bet.”
Harrison was studying the blueprint.
“Just my regular salary.” Mumbling, not even looking up.
“Charlie doesn't care about money,” Brandy said. “It's one of his virtues.”
“Whoa!” Arnold peered at the boy. “Say that again.”
Charlie glanced up from the page. Gave Arnold a cute smile.
“I get a weekly wage, Arnold. That's how it works in the real world.”
“You telling me you're just going to give the story to this
Miami Weekly?
”
“That's right.”
“What're you, crazy? Only reason anybody looks at that pissant rag is for those sleazy personal ads. Bunch of perverts trying to find each other.”
“That pissant rag has been buying my groceries the last five years.”
“What about
Time, Newsweek
, one of those big guys? This isn't some little local story. It's national. Bigger than that, even. You take this story, peddle it to one of the big guys, I bet they'd pay you more than your biweekly salary. Ten thousand, fifteen at least.”
“Twenty-five,” Brandy said.
Arnold blinked, then swiveled his head slowly and peered at her.
“I have a friend.” Brandy smiled at Charlie. “Her name's Julie Jamison, she's an editor at
Rolling Stone
.”
“You didn't,” Charlie said. He let the blueprint flutter to the table.
Brandy closed her eyes and opened them, trying to be patient with him.
“I was very discreet. I told Julie about the story and she thought about it and called me back to say they'd probably do it as a three-parter, pay fifteen up front and ten more when the last section was printed.”
“Jesus Christ,” Arnold said. “When'd you do this?”
“A couple of days ago. Why?”
“When?” Arnold said. “What day?”
“I don't know, Monday, Tuesday. Hey, it's a big story. You said so
yourself, Arnold, it should have major circulation. Charlie should get some financial benefit from it. A career boost.”
Arnold took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes. Then he put them back on and peered around the bar as if these men had suddenly become dangerous.
Lawton shifted in his seat. He lifted the lid of the box and looked inside, then dropped the lid back into place.
“Can I press it now, Arnold?” he asked. “Can I press the button?”
“No, Lawton. Just sit there, okay? Let me think.”
“Christ, Arnold,” Charlie said. “Don't get paranoid on me. Relax, everything's cool.”
Arnold leaned forward against the table, raised his hand and flagged their waitress, flicked his hand for the check. Then he looked across at Charlie and lowered his voice. “Is that what you think? It's cool?”
“Julie won't mention it to anyone,” Brandy said. “I told her to keep it on the q.t. The secret's safe, Arnold.”
Lawton opened the lid of the box and peeked down at the contraption inside. It was a wild tangle of wires and a stack of circuit boards connected to several cylinders filled with blue fluid. The contraption reminded him of something. He wasn't sure what.
“The q.t., huh? This Julie, she's real tight-lipped, is she? Like maybe she got that figure, twenty-five thousand, it just came out of her head? She didn't have to go to her boss, run it by anybody else. She's not sitting around right now with the magazine's lawyers, discussing the possible libel case? Maybe calling up Braswell, trying to confirm a few items of interest. Nothing like that.”
Charlie leaned forward and laid a hand on Peretti's.
“
Tranquilo
, Arnold.”
Arnold jerked his hand away.
Lawton was staring down at the device. There was a blue button and a green one beside it. On one side of the contraption there was a small cone like a megaphone, or the speaker on an old Victrola, and
behind the cone a bird's nest of wires, and those tubes connected to the circuit boards.
Lawton remembered what it reminded him of. The microwave oven he'd taken apart, trying to repair. There on his workbench in the garage, all those circuit boards and wires and transistors. He had no idea what any of it was. Never even got the thing put back together.
Lawton snuck his right hand into the box and pressed the blue button but nothing happened.
Beside him Arnold was staring out the window muttering to himself. Lawton tried pressing the green button and still nothing.
“Look,” Brandy said. “I don't know why you're getting worked up. Julie's a professional. They do big stories all the time without leaking anything.”
She pouted at Arnold. Then turned the pout on Charlie.
Lawton could feel the box humming on his lap. It hadn't been humming before. So at least he'd gotten it started. Revving a little. Maybe what he should do now, he should press both buttons at once.
“How about my name?” Arnold said. “You happen to let that slip?”
Brandy pressed her lips together, fluttering her lashes. It was probably how she'd gotten out of trouble in the past. But it wasn't working with Arnold.
“You did, didn't you? You told them my fucking name.”
Brandy gave a guilty nod.
“Jesus God,” Arnold said. “You fucking idiots.”
Lawton slid his hand inside the box and pressed both buttons at once. The hum deepened. It sounded like a tuning fork held close to the ear. Lawton could feel his knee joints buzzing.
Across the room the television made a pop and went black.
At the bar, the two men with cell phones jerked them away from their ears. One man tapped his phone against his palm, then pressed it against his ear again. He shrugged and set the thing on the bar. The bartender was fiddling with the remote, trying to get the TV on
again. The Christmas lights twinkling along the top shelf of liquor bottles had gone out.
Arnold grabbed Lawton's wrist and pulled his hand out of the box.
“Aw, shit, Lawton, what'd you do?”
“Nothing.”
Arnold looked across the room at the dead television.
Then he snatched the blueprint off the table and slid it into the envelope. He prodded Lawton with his knee and the old man slid out of the booth, and Arnold got out after him.
“Wait a minute,” the kid said. “Let's talk about this like adults. Nothing's changed. Not really.”
“The fuck it hasn't.”
Brandy was looking at the blank television.
“That's what it does? It turns off televisions?”
Arnold stood there a moment staring at the two of them.
“Peretti, you're overreacting, man.”
Arnold headed for the door. Lawton padded behind him, lugging the box.
Outside in the daylight, Arnold halted and took the box out of Lawton's hands. Overhead a jetliner was roaring into a thin spray of clouds, lifting off, heading east out toward the Atlantic.
Lawton said, “So what is this thing, some kind of ray gun?”
Arnold looked at him for a second or two.
“Yeah, I guess that's what it is. Yeah, a ray gun.”