Devil in the Wires (19 page)

 

Chapter 46

A Change in Temperature

“D
o me a favor?”

“Depends.” She laid an index finger to her cheek, pressed her lips together, watching me.

“Angie. I need to count on you for this. It could be important.”

“Hm. Like I can count on you.”

“And you can, you can,” I said quickly.

She raised her brow.

“OK, I mean, I know that in the past—­I know I haven't always—­”

“I'm kidding, Chris. Again. Doesn't mean you don't deserve it though.”

“I know. I know I do.”

“Once more with feeling, hey?”

“I—­yeah. Yeah, I know. But this is really important, and there's no one else that I can trust. Do you know anyone in picture archives? Anything like that?”

“In the Registry? I know Press and Media.”

“You've got a contact there? Someone reliable? Discreet?”

“What is this?”

“I want pictures of Shailer. Going back, say, six or seven months. Not the stuff used in publicity. Any candid shots—­meetings, events, anything like that. Especially if there's other ­people in them. In fact, only if there's other ­people in them. Does that make sense?”

“Not to me. Do you think it makes sense?”

“I hope not.”

“Well,” she said. “I'll do you a favor. And maybe you'll do me a favor some time, too, hey?”

So I said I would.

I hadn't reckoned on how quickly she was going to call it in.

S
he played on the piano, a simple, Eastern-­sounding tune, changing the harmony beneath it so that each time it sounded different. “It's not a twelve bar, it's an eight bar,” she remarked, as if this meant much to me. “Still blues.” Then she played me a CD.

“Remind you of anything?”

“Well, a few things, I suppose. I don't know the artist, but . . .”

“Sounds like John Lee Hooker, but it's not. Recorded in Khartoum.”

“Khartoum?” I said.

“See? You like it, don't you?”

“I think I do, yeah.”

“It's why I want to join Field Ops. If it'll get me there. It doesn't matter how, it doesn't matter what I have to do.”

“I want you to think about that—­”

“I'm offering a trade,” she said. “I find your pictures. You get me into Field Ops.”

“It doesn't—­I mean, you can't just—­” Then I said, “You know a guy named Woollard, possibly? You're not related, are you?”

“I don't know any
Woollard
. I know you. So what's the answer, big boy? How we set?”

It was my fault. It had to be my fault. Two years back, I'd told her stories of the places that I'd been, the things I'd done. I'd wanted her to be impressed. I'd wanted her to think of me as brave, resourceful, intrepid. I'd wanted her to think that I was Indiana Jones. This, I realized now, had been an error.

Men try to impress women. But women are never impressed by the things men think impress them, or the things men think are impressive. Men want to be action heroes. No one wants to date an action hero.

Whatever had brought us together, all that time ago, it must have been something else she saw in me, though God knows what.

The stories, though, had stayed with her, a fact I now regretted.

“Morocco,” she said. “You went to Morocco.”

“Yes . . .”

“You heard the music there. You told me how they'd play around the campfire every night, out in the desert . . .”

“Well, yeah. It's a big thing, if you play an instrument there. They don't have television.”

“Nor do I.”

“But—­”

“I could go there, Chris. I could record it. They have these great little studios now, they're the size of a laptop. You can do anything with them. They'd let me take that with my field gear, wouldn't they? It wouldn't interfere.”

“Is it getting cold in here?”

“The AC's probably too high.” She got up to adjust it. Coming back, she said, “You need new clothes. We'll have to do some shopping.”

“Clothes?”

“You don't have any jeans.”

“I don't wear jeans. I've not worn jeans for years.”

“And that shirt's awful. It makes you look like a children's entertainer.”

“I thought it brightened me up a bit. You know. A bit of color . . .”

She didn't seem convinced by this.

“We'll go shopping tomorrow. You can meet me after class. Are you free tomorrow?”

“I'm free whenever I like. I don't seem to be doing much, in any case.”

“Good. That's settled.”

A bit later, though, she said, “Did it get really cold in here? Like, just now?”

“I thought it was me.

It happened very quickly. The temperature dropped, all in the space of fifteen, twenty minutes. There was no warning. Angel found a sweater that would fit me. But by that time, we were freezing.

“What's wrong with this building?”

The windows had grown dark. The sky had gone gray.

And then the snow began.

It was like somebody had picked up a great chunk of somewhere very, very cold, and dropped it on our heads.

Snowflakes whirled against the window, and the glass itself was icy to the touch.

I called the Beach House.

There was no reply there for a long, long time.

Then someone said, “It's not us. We don't know what it is. But it's not us.”

I
said, “They say the system's perfect. It's responding well to the cold. Can't find one thing wrong. But something . . . something . . .”

I nodded to the window. Snow had piled against the glass, almost a hand's width deep.

“There's that out there,” I said. “And murders.”

“You're creeping me out.”

“Sorry. Look. There's nothing to worry about. I'm just making connections—­or following some other guy's connections, anyway. They probably aren't even there. But I'd just say . . . be careful, OK?”

“It's a talent,” she said, “seeing links between disparate phenomena. It's a recognized thing.”

“Really.”

“I'm serious. Not everyone can do it.”

“It's only any use if they're right.” I had to borrow a coat from her, a big thing like a lifeboatman's jacket. “Saddle up the mutt,” I said. “Let's go.”

I'd expected it to be cold, but it was worse than that. It was biting cold, the kind of cold that ­people tell you is too cold for snow, cold that felt like it would scour the skin off your cheeks.

Two hours back, I'd been roasting. Now I was shivering.

And Riff just wouldn't go. He'd barely leave the back door of the building. He stood, and whined, and looked at Angel, asking, “Do I have to?”

“Come on, come on!” She tugged his leash. He planted his feet in the snow. She wrestled with him. She bent down, scolded, pleaded. He cocked his leg and turned the new snow yellow. But he wasn't going to squat. Not till somebody did something with this lousy weather.

“He's got standards,” I said.

Snow caught in my hair. It gathered in my collar, dribbled down my neck. A foggy yellow light appeared further down the road, and it got bigger and brighter and resolved itself into a bus moving at a snail's pace down the street. It sailed by like some ghostly Arctic liner, depositing a file of disbelieving passengers, all shivering in springtime clothes.

“Poop!” yelled Angel. “Poop! Poop! Poop!”

The dog looked up at her, then craned his head around, gazed longingly towards the doors.

Angel was furious. “If he doesn't go now, he'll have to go at three in the morning! I know him! Go
on!
”

“I'll take him,” I said, already knowing that, at 3
A.M.
, it would be about the last thing I would want.

Still. I said it anyway.

 

Chapter 47

The Freeze

P
olar vortex. Freak winds. Climate change. Unprecedented incident. I liked that last explanation, just because it sounded so dismissive: “Oh, don't worry, it's only an unprecedented incident.” I liked it more than the guy we saw on TV with the beard and glasses, trying to explain how global warming had resulted in us all half freezing to death.

I didn't go home. I was tired of my sublet apartment, anyway, the sense of tiptoeing round someone else's life. I stayed with Angel. We watched TV. We made love. We dozed a little. Now and then we stared out of the window, watching the snow get deeper. It spread across the roofs of the building opposite. Clouds of steam floated from the vents and chimneys, capturing the light like glowing ghosts.

You think your life is going one way. You think it's doing one thing. Then something else swings up out of the past, and it's all changed . . .

At 2 a.m., we walked the dog.

There was no traffic now. Hadn't been for hours, from the look of the road. Cars on the street side were piled high with snow, like they'd been sitting there for fifty years or more.

She walked Riff up and down, cursing the weather. I had never heard her curse so much; it just went on and on, almost like a litany. Then Riff began to curse as well. He growled. He hunkered down, pushing himself backwards through the snow. It was bizarre. Angel tugged him with the leash, and when he wouldn't move, she dropped down, petting him, brushing the snowflakes from his fur. “What's wrong, boy? What's wrong?”

I looked up.

“Something's coming . . .”

The wind had gone. The snow was dropping straight down, curtains of it; where it passed before the street lamps, each flake was illuminated, tumbling over and over. Within a few yards, visibility grew vague. The house across the street was a baroque snow-­castle. Snow swept up around the parked cars. But further on . . . further on, I saw something. A shape that moved in no way that seemed normal here, that wasn't a bus or a car, and I saw it move into the middle of the road, a shadow behind veils of snowflakes, big as a horse, and something hung above it, outstretched like gigantic wings . . . It was coming closer. Riff growled. “Keep him quiet,” I said, though there was no real point. Or possibility. A shadow came trotting through the snowstorm, taller than I was, and behind it, a second shape, almost as large—­

“Moose,” said Angel.

But it wasn't a moose.

A sudden rush brought it abruptly out into the light. I took a step back. Couldn't help myself. The thing was huge—­it towered over the surrounding cars, peering about with an imperious gaze, nostrils twitching, breath a smoke amid the snow.

It was a stag. Huge, sail-­like antlers jutted from its skull. Snow crusted its fur. It pawed the ground, lifting long, elegant legs, and sending up a spray of white. It turned a tight, nervy circle, looking for somewhere to go.

Behind it came a doe—­antlerless, a little smaller. The male was dark gray or brown, the doe more reddish. I was so busy watching them I failed to see the second female come bounding from between the houses, leap the barricade of cars and land beside her kin, skidding in the snow. I heard her breath snort. I saw the stag lift his head, give a short bray. Then he turned and, with a peculiar, bucketing run, galloped off along the street, the does headlong in pursuit.

Riff started barking then. Little explosions of noise, unstoppable as hiccups. He rose onto his hind legs, straining with the leash, longing to be set free and race off in pursuit.

We stood there, and I looked at Angel, and the snow was gathering on our clothes, our hair, and Riff barked, and I had to see the deer again.

I told her, “Wait for me.”

 

Chapter 48

Paul Says Hi

“W
ait for me.”

I held my hands out as if to part a curtain. Snow folded around me. I had hoped to catch a last glimpse of the deer, but I saw nothing. Even the buildings just across the street had steadily dissolved and disappeared. There was a distant, pearly kind of light, diffuse, with no clear point of origin, and it was darker than it had been. I stepped high over the snow, but I wore summer shoes, and quickly felt my toes freeze, the cold clutching my ankles. When I looked back, I could see the trail I'd made, just for a little way.

Three yards beyond, and I saw nothing.

I looked around, turning a full circle. I had to be in the middle of the crossroads here, otherwise I'd surely have seen something—­if not a building, then a tree, a bus stop or a streetlight. A car at the roadside. But there was nothing. Only endless snowfall. I couldn't believe that just a few hours back, I'd passed this very spot—­and in sweltering summer heat!

I attempted to retrace my steps. It was easy at first, where I'd simply been pushing through the snow; but a little further back, I had been high-­stepping. I found a ­couple of these pit-­like footsteps, and then another, further off—­surely too far away, beyond the length of my stride . . .

I could not be lost.

It was ridiculous. I thought of calling for Angel, but that would be absurd; I was ashamed to do it. She could be only a few yards away, if I could only work out which direction . . .

The snow seemed to muffle everything. I wasn't sure she'd even hear me if I called. Once, I thought I heard an animal noise—­a distant, coughing sort of sound—­but it could just as easily have been a car trying to start, or the creaking of masonry in the sudden cold.

I remembered stories about ­people trapped in Arctic white-­outs, helplessly wandering in circles till they died.

I had probably begun that process, moving in some small circumference—­otherwise, I'd have come up against some landmark, or if nothing else, a parked car. I was badly chilled by now. My fingers hurt. I took a breath, tried to clear my head. If I walked in a straight line, checking my trail through the snow as I went . . .

And I tried, I tried—­but after several minutes I had still found nothing besides snow, and more snow. That I could no longer trust my senses, or my judgment, was deeply worrying. Till then, I'd kept my panic down, but now I felt it rise in me, and realized just how near the surface it had been, all along.

I shouted.

“Angel!”

I turned, facing back the way I'd come.

“Angel! Angel!”

Behind me, someone said, “Angel.”

I spun around and almost lost my footing. There was someone standing there—­a man, from the voice—­but just beyond the limits of vision.

“Hello?” I said.

The figure stayed there. I began to wonder if it was a person at all; perhaps some object, a piece of street furniture I'd recognize immediately, once the snow cleared. It crossed my mind that it might be the deer again, and I wondered now about the wisdom of pursuing them: even a small deer could be dangerous if alarmed.

Then, suddenly, it vanished.

I shouted again. I stumbled forwards, slipped, and fell down on my knees. My hands were in the snowdrift. I was frightened. I couldn't find my way back home. It was one of those stupid situations in which ­people manage to die despite the odds, like drowning in a few inches of bathwater. I struggled to stand up, straining my leg muscles, my feet sliding apart. I was shaky, tottering. Then I saw that there was someone right in front of me. Close enough, this time, that I could see him through the falling snow.

He was tall and thin. He wore a hoodie from which a pinched, blond face peered out at me; handsome in a ravaged sort of way, but with a look so mean that handsome and ugly became almost interchangeable. His nose was large and bony, the brows strong, his eyes narrow and suspicious. The hoodie he was wearing had a Blackhawks motif on the front, on which snow had settled like the glitter on a Christmas card. There was snow on his shoulders, snow on the hood. Snowflakes settled on his eyebrows.

Again, he said, mockingly, “Angel.”

It was Paul Gotowski. He looked at me, head to one side, weighing me up, as I struggled to maintain my balance.

I said, because I had to say something, “Awful weather, eh?”

He only looked at me. There was no escaping the threat implied.

“You think she's gonna come for you?” he said at last. “Think if you just call, she comes a-­running?” He looked about him, pantomiming. “Don't look like you're in luck so far,” he said. “Still . . . maybe she will. Maybe you're special, huh? Maybe you got something . . .” He pouted, eyes on me, speculatively. “Can't see it, though.”

I said, “You need to stay away from her.”

The snow came drifting down between us, slanting this way, then that, flakes tumbling, spiraling between us.

“
You need to stay away from her
,” he sneered.

I said, “I know about you. There's a restraining order. I've got friends here who are cops. I'm just giving you a warning—­”

“Oh!
Just giving me a warning,
huh? Oh, well, thanks. I'm much obliged.” He wobbled his head as he spoke. Then he stilled. His face thrust forward, pushing out of the hood. “Cops. Once that might've scared me. Might've made me think twice. Nowadays—­ha. Not so much.”

I tried again. I was freezing now; my toes hurt, I had my fists in my pockets, pressing them against my groin. I said, “Move on. Go somewhere else. Do something.” He looked at me, as if I were some insect, buzzing at the far edge of his thoughts. I told him, “Get a fucking life, why don't you?”

He just looked at me. Then he said, “Move . . . on. Like this?”

He was gone. I couldn't piece together what had happened. He'd stepped back, and then—­

He was across from me, over to the side. He waved, a silly, cheery wave, as if waving to a child.

“You tell her Paul says hi. Tell her I'll see her soon.”

I stepped towards him through the snow. My fists were up. I was ready for him. But once again, he seemed to step behind the snowstorm and disappear. I kept on moving, huge, high steps, half running, half falling. Something big came rearing up in front of me. I staggered, slipped, launched myself towards it—­

It was a car. I fell straight into it, felt the door handle as it gouged against my hip.

“Angel!” I called.

Ahead of me now, I heard Riff bark. I leaned against the car roof, using it to negotiate the thick drifts by the pavement's edge, climbing and sinking into waist-­high banks. A streetlight lit the falling flakes. How had I missed all this? How had I been lost? There was a wall, the door of Angel's building. She was there, behind the glass, and as I stumbled up, she pushed the door open, and I almost fell into her. Riff barked, like gunshots in the enclosed space.

She held me. She looked into my face, and from the way she frowned, I knew that what she saw was far from good.

“Where on Earth,” she said, “have you been?”