As soon as Tracy clicked his seat belt I handed him a blindfold, otherwise known as the sleep mask I use when flying. “Here,” I said. “Put this on.”
“You can’t be serious,” he said, giving me the Look.
I usually didn’t fare very well against the Look, but there was no backing down on this one. I didn’t even flinch. “Trust me,” I said. “It’s the only way.”
“Who is this guy again?” asked Tracy.
“I told you. He’s a friend.”
“And why can’t I know where he lives?”
“You’ll see,” I said.
Tracy held up his blindfold. “Was that supposed to be funny?”
I hit him with my Robert De Niro impression from Goodfellas, the “Get your shine box” scene. “Lil’ bit,” I said, scrunching my face. “Lil’ bit.”
Tracy rolled his eyes before putting on the mask. He wasn’t a fan of my De Niro impressions. “You got any earplugs, as well?”
We started the drive out to Fort Lee, New Jersey, in our old Jeep Cherokee that we always talk about replacing but never do. By the time we crossed the George Washington Bridge, Tracy stopped muttering how “silly this all is” and seemed content to lean back and listen to the Tom Petty channel on the radio. Finally, after an excellent back-to-back set of “Free Fallin’” and “American Girl,” I pulled into an empty parking lot near a warehouse for a medical supply company that no one has ever heard of, primarily because it doesn’t actually exist.
Tracy reached for his blindfold as soon as I cut the engine. He couldn’t wait to get the damn thing off.
“Hold on, not yet,” I said.
“But we’re here, right? The Batcave?”
“Almost.”
I came around to get him from the other side of the Jeep, guiding him by the arm across the vacant lot to the security gate near the warehouse entrance. I knew the code for the gate, but there was no code for the steel door ten feet behind it, and definitely not one for the second steel door waiting for us after that.
Julian liked his privacy. For good reason.
“Okay, we’re good,” I said, once we were all the way inside. Tracy took off the blindfold, his eyes slowly adjusting in the low light.
“Hi, Tracy. I’m Julian.”
Even if Tracy still had the blindfold on he would’ve made the connection based on the British accent alone. “Wait. You’re the guy from the bar at Frankie’s, the one who gave me his seat.”
“Yes. That was me,” said Julian. “The one and only.”
“Only a little less drunk,” said Tracy, realizing it was all an act.
“Not as less as you might think,” Julian assured him. He motioned for us to follow. “I’ve got a seventeen-year-old Nikka Taketsuru opened. Who’s joining me?”
“We’ll pass,” I said as we fell in line behind him. “I’m driving, and Tracy needs to focus.”
“Speak for yourself,” said Tracy.
“Actually, as much as I hate to deprive a chap of a good Japanese pure malt, Dylan might have a point,” said Julian. “We have a lot to cover.”
Any further objection from Tracy ended the second we turned the corner into Julian’s office. Tracy looked around, mouth agape, at the mainframe computers, three-dimensional printers, and other gadgets along with Julian’s giant desk configured from the wing of an old Fokker Eindecker, the first German fighter plane. And surrounding it all were walls that doubled as seamless projection screens carrying a live feed from Julian’s latest hacking conquest—the newest Mars rover, Perseverance. It was as if we were standing on the red planet with a three-hundred-sixty-degree view.
“Holy shit,” said Tracy.
“Yeah, I get that a lot,” said Julian. He scratched his beard. “Come to think of it, that’s not true. You’re only the seventh person ever to see the inside of this place. Our friend, Agent Needham, was actually the sixth. Where is she, by the way?”
“Watching Annabelle,” I said.
“That’s one overqualified babysitter,” said Julian.
Tracy was taking it all in. Everything. He turned to Julian. “So you were, what, my backup at Frankie’s? Protection? A little George and Ira Gershwin?”
That’s what I get for telling Tracy about Vladimir Grigoryev’s serenading me instead of killing me. Meanwhile, Julian, who had an IQ higher than the 145-degree melting point of palmitic acid, looked at me without a clue. George and Ira Gershwin?
“‘Someone to Watch Over Me,’” I said. “A song from one of their musicals.”
“Clever,” said Julian. “A bit on the nose in terms of gay men stereotypes, but still very clever.” He poured himself two knuckles of his six-hundred-dollar Japanese whiskey. “Shall we get started?”
If we were truly going to pull this off, Tracy needed an extra pair of eyes and ears. But we could only get so close to him when the exchange happened. Julian’s job was to bridge the gap. He went over to his desk, reaching for the already opened FedEx package.
“Do they work?” I asked.
“That’s why you guys are here,” he said. “We’re about to find out.”