Steal the Lightning Page 5

  But had she really meant to kill herself?

  Or had she wanted something else, some mystical transcendence, union with a god, something to lift her up, out of the world?

  I’d thought her too hard-nosed for all that mystic bullshit. But who knows what you’ll do, or what you’ll go for, when you’re close to death?

  One thing I did know that she’d wanted.

  Someone to validate, to testify. Someone, perhaps, to be an audience, to force her, in her own mind, to go through with things.

  Me.

  I couldn’t shake the notion that, if we had never met, if I had never gone to her apartment, then she’d be alive. Angry, lonely and unhappy, but even so—alive.

  “I have some questions that I need to ask, before you go.”

  The doc who brought the news was young and handsome, like a doctor in a TV show. What the TV might have lost, though, were the gray rings around his eyes, the little twitch of sleeplessness pulling at the corner of his mouth, as if he were a fish on a line, forever tugged back to his work. “We found bruising to the abdomen and thorax. Frankly, she looked like she’d been punched. Repeatedly.”

  I stood there, said nothing.

  He prompted.

  “Could be due to CPR,” he said.

  He wasn’t accusing me. He just wanted it all over and done, so he could write up his report, tick the proper boxes and move on.

  I said, “I tried a few things.”

  “Uh-huh.” He looked down for a moment. Then, “Ambulance says she was ‘tied up’.”

  “No, she wasn’t.”

  He looked so tired his face was practically unreadable. His voice was soft and flat. He’d probably have failed the Turing test.

  “And you’re . . . who, exactly? Grandson? Son?”

  “No,” I said. “Apparently, I’m Indiana Jones.”

  “You gotta be excited.”

  “I’m thrilled.”

  It was not the first time I had breakfasted at sunrise in Manhattan after an appalling night. The last time had been several years ago; I’d just seen a bunch of shriveled corpses in an 8th Avenue sex shop, the kind of thing that lingers in your head, even when daylight comes. I know they say that sex is good for you, but those guys might have disagreed.

  So when Silverman suggested we “go eat,” I should have told him no, thanks very much. I barely wanted coffee. I definitely didn’t want the company. But I knew that, if I went home now, I’d lie there, staring at the ceiling and the thoughts would whirl around my head and never stop.

  So I said yes.

  “It’s the future,” Silverman said. “That’s what interests me. This source of energy, this power, and—well, I’m preaching to the choir here, right? But it’s guys like you bringing it in, and that’s just fascinating to me, you know?”

  “Fascinating.”

  “The human angle.”

  “Human.”

  “Look. I’ll be straight with you, Chris. I do the exhibition job, the museum gigs, but that’s not my main work. That’s what pays the rent. Fact is, I’m a filmmaker. I do camera, lighting, sound, and edit. I’m portable. I go places where a big crew can’t or won’t. You maybe know my work . . . ?”

  “I maybe don’t.”

  “Well, yeah. You’re not from here. I’ve been shown at the MoMA and Tribeca. Rikers was on PBS. I interviewed the guards, prisoners, anybody I could find. I’m interested in that human situation, you know? We’re human, we’re interested in human. What’s it like to do this job or that job, be subject to these sets of circumstances, or, or—” He looked at me. “What’s it like to work for the Registry?”

  I sipped my coffee. Glanced out the window at a cop car on the corner of the block. Some early morning pigeons had gathered round it, looking for donut crumbs, or whatever it is cops eat these days. Everything looked leached out, gray.

  “Lot of paperwork,” I said. “Though it’s all online, now. Like any other company, really. Rules and regulations. Dress code. Boss who sits in the office, drawing twenty times my salary. All that.”

  “Ah—ah.” He wagged a finger. “Now you revealed yourself there.” He smiled. “’Cause that was bullshit, wasn’t it? The first part. Then the bit about the boss. The salary. You let go there. You said something real. That’s what I like.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake. Everyone says that, it’s not—”

  “Sorry, sorry.” He raised his hands. “I’m rushing, aren’t I? I’m putting you under pressure. I apologize. You’ve had a bad night, and now, I’m doing this to you.” He shook his head. “That’s so bad of me.”

  “You’re not putting me under pressure.”

  I took another sip of coffee, then pushed it away, made to rise. He put a hand on my wrist.

  “Look,” he said. “I’m sorry. I haven’t worked this out yet. I never thought I’d meet one of you guys, and then, you know, actually work with you.” He hunkered down, glanced at the booth behind as if he thought someone might listen in and steal his plans. “This is my elevator pitch, OK? I was thinking, see? You—me. I’m almost done with the display. If I can free up a few days, a few weeks? I follow you around, film what you do. I show the world—Field Ops. Yeah?”

  “Not up to me.”

  “Whoever. We clear it with your rich boss. I understand you can’t make a decision now, but—”

  “Like I said, not up to me. In fact, a few years back, I’d have denied it all. I’d have told you I worked for an organization devoted to energy efficiency strategies, and that’d be the end of it.”

  It was probably a mistake, but I reached for my coffee cup again, and sat back.

  I said, “Going public’s quite a novelty for our lot. Plenty of ’em still don’t like it. But, that’s the way the wind’s blowing.”

  “And I can help! Believe me, I can be respectful about this. I already know plenty, just from working on the exhibit. People talk.” He dropped his voice. “I know what happened in Chicago. And—yeah. Indiana.”

  I bet you don’t, I thought. But I nodded, and he got all bashful for a moment, then he smiled, and for no real reason, I smiled back.

  “I’ll tell you something—something kinda weird, shall I? Kind of a confession.”

  “If you want.”

  “Earlier, when all that stuff was happening, with the old lady . . . know what I was thinking?”

  “It looked more fun in The Exorcist?”

  “No—and, listen, I was concerned for her, of course I was. And you, though we’d only just met. But at the same time, there was this little part of me, all the time, thinking . . . wish I had a camera here.”

  He kept his eyes on me, and when I didn’t answer, he said, “Is that . . . is it creepy, or something?”

  “Yeah, it’s creepy.”

  But I smiled when I said it.

  “If I had your OK—if I could tell them you were on board, just in principle, when I make my pitch, then—”

  “Hey. I’m Field Ops. Lowest of the low. What kind of power d’you think I’ve got?”

  It took a moment. I could almost see the quip arriving, dawning in his eyes. And then he leaned towards me, aimed his index finger, and in a voice like James Earl Jones’s, said, “You have the power to command the gods.”

  He freeze-framed, posing there, then sat back, grinning at me.

  “How’s that for a strap-line, then? I mean, we are halfway there now! How is that?”

  Chapter 13

  Mr. Appleseed

  I left him in the café. I had the Registry send out a car for me. It was hard not to reflect on how much trouble I’d had trying to get a flask when I’d desperately needed it, while just a thirty second call this morning netted me my very own chauffeur.

  We took the Holland Tunnel, presently arriving at the holding center outside Newark—a big old warehouse with the windows all bricked up. The staff had changed since I was last there, which was a relief. I filled in forms. I typed, into official files, my own “account of the r
etrieval,” required for legal reasons, since we’d suffered a fatality. My fingerprints were scanned. I handed in the flask. I’d drained a fair amount of power, as it turned out. I wondered, if I’d started sooner, whether I could actually have saved her. But I’d never know.

  The same car swept me back to my apartment. The driver talked the whole way, asking about London and the Royal Family, as if he thought I knew them personally (his wife was just the biggest fan, he said), and I would zone out, then ask him to repeat himself, and this jerky, broken dialogue was probably the only thing that kept me conscious. By the time he’d let me out and I’d negotiated the foyer, the elevator, and my own front door, the apartment had acquired a near-hallucinatory brilliance, the windows blazing with a light both crystalline and dream-like. If you’d told me I’d been taken up to Mars and that it looked a lot like Jersey City, which was just across the water, I’d have probably said, “Fine,” and toddled off to bed.

  Which, around 2:00 p.m., I finally got chance to do, suffering a broken, fitful sleep for the next fifteen hours or so.

  What followed should have been a joy: a whole day in New York, and only one appointment left to keep. But all I wanted was to leave.

  I strolled round town, just killing time, avoiding anywhere I’d been with Melody Duchess. I ate lunch in a bagel place, ordered lox and cream cheese, then found myself on Christopher, idling. It was all a little straighter than it used to be, but you could still buy a dildo and a set of leather chaps, and a perm for your dog, if you wanted such things. Though not all in the same shop.

  Three o’clock, I had a debriefing in a rented office up on 22nd. The last tenants still had their names up on the door. They’d called themselves “Financial Therapists,” and by the look of it they’d also left their furnishings. I passed through the waiting room with its soft chairs and softly murmuring TV into an inner office with a desk, computer, and a framed picture of the Brooklyn Bridge. It was even more impersonal than my apartment.

  Helen Ramirez, the sole worker here, was young and in a suit. She didn’t smile when I walked in. She didn’t ask me to sit down, so I sat myself. She didn’t offer me a coffee, so I gestured to the Keurig.

  “Please, go ahead,” she said, staring at the screen in front of her.

  When I sat again, she folded her hands upon the desk between us. They were very small hands, the nails perfectly manicured, hands that had been moisturized frequently and kept out of the cold.

  She said, “Good health?”

  “What?”

  “You’re in good health?”

  It wasn’t a greeting.

  “I suppose so. Far as I know.”

  “No injuries? Cuts, bruises? Strains? Heart problems, respiratory? No,” she drew a breath, “back problems?”

  “Why would I have back problems?”

  “A lot of people claim for back problems. The cause of back pain, as you know, is often undetectable. We only have the person’s word they have a problem.” She smiled, not warmly. “It’s a very common claim.”

  I said, “No back pain.”

  She tapped a key upon her keyboard.

  “And you won’t be seeking counseling or other forms of mental health care? Or requesting leave on grounds related to the recent incident?”

  “No! I thought this was a debrief, not—”

  “First things first, Mr. Copeland. Now, sign the form, please.”

  She printed off a sheet of paper. In each category she had typed an N. Apparently I was in perfect health, without so much as an ingrown toenail.

  I read it, signed it, passed it back to her.

  “Good,” she said. “At least we won’t have any more expense from this one.” She leaned back in her chair. She wasn’t really looking at me. It struck me she was much less comfortable with her role than she’d have liked me to believe, and it struck me, too, that people in that state can be a problem. As now, when she said, “Disappointing,” in a long, drawn out, meditative kind of way.

  “Oh, I agree.”

  “We’d hoped for better.”

  “I wasn’t really chuffed myself.”

  She pretended to read the screen. “I see you tried a retrieval on the target item. After considerable delay. And there were . . . side effects. I’ll tell you now, the company’s not pleased at all.”

  “Right.”

  As distinct from the rest of us, I thought, who are over the fucking moo.

  But I was sensible for once, and said nothing.

  Now, finally, she looked at me. Straight at me. Dark eyes that might, in better circumstances, have been pretty.

  “If you could walk me through what happened? For the record?”

  I sighed. But I went through it again, in quick, short sentences. She typed, though she wasn’t typing half of what I said. She definitely didn’t type the parts about the screaming, or the fear. Her face was like a mask while I told her about that.

  At the end, she sat back, eyes on the screen.

  “The name she gave you. Mark, you say?”

  “Mark, or Mike. It wasn’t clear.”

  She typed.

  “No last name?”

  “I was trying to gain her trust,” I said. “You can’t rush on stuff like that.”

  “Your task parameters—”

  “Hey, fuck the task parameters. Who knew she was going to snuff it on me, eh? You see that coming? ’Cause I certainly didn’t.”

  “I don’t believe,” she said, “there’s any reason to be disrespectful here.”

  She let me fume a few moments. Then she said, “Mark, or Mike.” She typed. She asked me, “Age?”

  I drained my coffee.

  “Young,” I said. “She called him young.”

  “So—younger than you, say?”

  “Could be. You get to her age, everybody’s young, I suppose . . .”

  She typed this up. Then she sat back, turned the screen so that I couldn’t see it.

  Ms. Ramirez put her small, elegant hands back on the tabletop. Then she said, “We think that this is somebody we’ve come across before. At least, we’ve come across his handiwork.” She tapped with her index finger, two, three times. I waited. She said, “Have you heard of Johnny Appleseed?”

  “I’ve heard the name. Why?”

  “Someone,” she said, “is distributing pieces of high-energy, psychoactive matter-gods, if you prefer the term. And we’re pretty sure it’s our material. Since we’re the only company dealing in the product, it would probably have to be.

  “Last night’s our second, possibly third fatality. We have suspect cases in Seattle, Portland, Boston . . . reports from Vegas, too. It’s deliberate. It may be a rival company, trying to bring us into disrepute. Oil, or nuclear . . . It may be sabotage. Disgruntled employee, that sort of thing. Seventy-eight percent of all industrial problems are down to employees.

  “We—I’m speaking for the East Coast office, now—we’d like you to look into this.”

  “Of course.” But I was instantly on guard. “I’m tied up for the next few weeks, though. I have a mentoring job.”

  I could see my time with Angel vanishing like smoke, before I’d even got to it.

  Well, I wasn’t going to let that happen. Not without a fight.

  Ms. Ramirez checked her monitor.

  “Farthing,” she read.

  I wondered who her boss was. I wondered who to talk to if she screwed me over on the mentoring. I had contacts in the US Registry but I didn’t want to use them. Mostly, I had Adam Shailer, whom I’d have very much preferred never to see again, except perhaps in court, charged with some scandalous and preferably humiliating crime. I wondered how to stop myself from sounding like a whiney teenager who’s just had his day out cancelled.

  She kept on looking at the screen.

  “Good,” she said, eventually.

  “Good . . . ?”

  “You’ll need some help. It’s an opportunity. For both of you. As things are—well, from our point of view, th
is is damage limitation, and I understand you have experience with that?”

  It took me a moment to realize she wanted an answer.

  “Just some stuff last year,” I said.

  “Chicago.”

  “Yeah . . .”

  The index finger tapped again.

  “This isn’t what I do, you know.”

  “I have been told,” she said, “that you’ve had some success in other cases.”

  “It’s a matter of opinion.”

  “I’ll send you the files. See if you can find our Mr. Appleseed before he causes any more problems, will you?”

  I nodded.

  She said, “And one more matter. You met Silverman?”

  “What about him?”

  “You know him well?”

  “He made Rikers. It was on PBS.” When she kept staring, I said, “No, I don’t know him at all. We met the other night. He helped me out, when no one else would.”

  “We’ve had an e-mail from him. He says you’re working on a documentary about your job with him. Is that true?”

  “Hardly. He said he wanted to make a film. I told him, talk to my boss.”

  “He took you literally.”

  “OK.” I shrugged. “Call the legal people, get a cease and desist, problem solved. I’m certainly not making any film.”

  “Don’t be so hasty.” She was reading something on the screen. “Apparently they like him. They say he has ‘integrity.’ He could be good for us.”

  “Well, tomorrow, I am out of here, and tonight, I have no intention of sitting down and being interviewed by anyone. Except maybe a barman or two. So that’s that.”

  It wasn’t, but I’d had enough.

  “Send me the files,” I said.

  I stood up, pulled my jacket on, and left.

  There is a problem in Manhattan. Rents go up, and all the little shops and bars that made it so much fun are gradually eroding, while the chains are moving in. But I knew a couple of places I could get a drink and nestle in that cozy New York anonymity, where you can drink alone and not feel like a loser, or an alcoholic.