The jet had already departed when they returned to the airport. Lewis felt abandoned in hostile territory as MacIntyre directed him to a gold Mercedes. Lewis had forgone his usual morning coffee and was now craving it. It didn’t improve his mood or his headache. He tried to ignore MacIntyre’s gloomy presence behind the wheel.
MacIntyre used the Interstate and buried the Mercedes in the conservative center lane. He clung to the traffic until the last possible exit for the secondary highway. The divided four lane was immediately familiar. Lewis reflected that he had driven it once himself and three times in Suzanna Oxenburg’s Volvo.
“What did you do with my rental car?” he asked MacIntyre.
“Put it on a flat bed and sent it back to LA.”
“It wasn’t drivable?”
MacIntyre shot him a glance. “Well yes, I guess it was, as long as you didn’t mind getting in and out on the passenger side. You did a number on that car. I’ll bet you had some very interesting bruises on your back.”
Lewis glared at him. Not to mention a very goddam interesting and permanent hole in my chest, thanks to you. He had a powerful urge to grab the fool by the collar and slam his head against the window of the car.
The Mercedes was a haven after the heat and noise of the helicopter. He identified the car as Gerald’s, by the rich champagne color and the heavy, powerful feel of its engine. Smooth, ageless, enduring car. And boring as hell, unlike, say, red convertibles.
And that gave him the germ of an idea, an approach for Suzanna Oxenburg. He played out the idea in his mind until MacIntyre slowed to make the turn onto a side road. Lewis forgot Suzanna and the Jaguar and tensed against the slick leather of the seat. The road was marked Flannagan Ranch Road. He remembered it.
MacIntyre slowed again and turned hard left onto the gravel lane marked ‘Private—Absolutely No Trespassing’. Lewis was sure if he looked down, he’d be able to see his own heartbeat pounding under his shirt and jacket. He clenched his fists and winced at the answering cramp in his chest.
He concentrated on the fence line, the rigid tension easing slightly as he forced himself to focus on the screen of scrub and cactus in the ditch. He saw that the brush had been cut off at ground level close to the wire and allowed to grow thickly in clumps closer to the road. Somewhere in that ditch he’d spent hours, waiting and sweating, drifting and fighting the nightmares, alone, hurting, disoriented. It seemed unreal now, while he coasted over the road, alive and air-conditioned with the same sun shining harmlessly through the window.
He couldn’t very well have lain prone except in the cleared area directly along the fence where his body would be invisible from the road. How long he’d rested in any one spot he had no idea. He timed the drive and estimated three miles of brush choked ditches when they turned the last corner and the building came in sight. Counting the other side of the road, that made six miles of ditch for MacIntyre to search. Could it have taken all afternoon? Not bloody likely.
The road widened as it approached the vertical face of the building and the fence disappeared behind thick oleander hedges, heavily in bloom. The high hedgerows receded from the roadbed on either side and continued past the corners of the complex. The shrubs completely obliterated any side views of the center. A strip of flowerbed provided the only softening to the unadorned front of the building with its glittering high-rise face of glass panels.
The scene appeared to Lewis exactly the same as the day he’d been shot. No vehicles or other signs of life were visible. He looked deliberately at the ornate doors and the eight inches of patterned glass on either side. His hands were cold, the backs tingling from the memory of his momentary glimpse of Gerald’s body. He forced his eyes up. His gaze climbed the glassed face of the building. He remembered the glare that had made him squint, made him reach back into the car for his sunglasses. Suddenly he wanted to tell MacIntyre not to stop, to keep going, anything, just so he didn’t have to expose himself to another bullet.
MacIntyre did not stop in front of the complex but angled to the left and nosed the car up to the garage. He touched his thumb to the panel of a security monitor mounted on a square steel post set into the ground at the driver’s window. When the doors lifted, he drove into the garage and they waited in the dimness inside until the doors whirred softly closed behind them. When they were down and latched, a second monitor on a duplicate post flashed green. He pressed index and middle fingers to the panel and the doors in front of them lifted. They faced a paved courtyard, bordered on two sides by low detached buildings.
Directly ahead, across the courtyard Lewis saw tennis courts, a swimming pool and beyond the pool what looked like a parc course. The oleander hedges concealed the fence that enclosed the back of the recreation area. Over their brilliant red and pink flowers, the desert stretched to the horizon. MacIntyre slid the Mercedes into an end slot in one of a pair of covered car parks. “Home sweet home,” he said.
* * * *
MacIntyre gave him the three-minute tour on the way to the back door. Dorms and rec rooms in the two story buildings here in the back. Running track and lap pool behind the regular pool. Security fence completely enclosing the compound and inside the electric fence, a second fence of chain link created a twelve foot zone that could, in the future, be patrolled by dogs.
The brass plate at the back door that enclosed the print pad was a duplicate of those at HQ except for an additional line engraved under the B.E.I.G.E. initials. Lewis had to bend to read it and he was smiling to himself when he straightened and followed an unnoticing MacIntyre inside. Only Gerald would have created his own division: B.E.I.G.E. ARIZONA.
The chief of computer operations at the center was a Southerner named Deece. MacIntyre inquired whether Lewis wanted to meet him, eat lunch or tour the building first.
“Deece,” Lewis decided and they found him in the cafeteria, located on the ground floor at the back of the building to take advantage of the windows. Lewis inspected the glass and found it embedded with the black wire mesh that rendered it bullet and shatter proof but also distorted the view. The effect was very good though, a vast improvement over the windowless cafeteria at HQ where you never knew the weather or even the time of day. The coffee was better, too. More Gerald.
“I downloaded your datasets and username from HQ on our midnight sync job,” Deece told him, “so you’re cleared here whenever you want to log on. You might as well use Gerald’s terminals. He had an office downstairs in the operations room as well as the one on the third floor. MacIntyre will have to link your prints to the terminals through the security system. Gerald’s terminals have no lockout keys, we use biometrics for everything.”
“Already done,” MacIntyre said. He turned to Lewis, “Your prints are online. I guess you picked up the door systems. Gerald’s terminals are right index.”
“You want to see the computer room now?” Deece asked.
“I need to make some calls,” Lewis told him. “Then I’ll be down.”
MacIntyre showed Lewis the elevator but they took the stairs to the third floor. Lewis wasn’t sure why, but MacIntyre also made no move to call the elevator; they both turned automatically to the stairs. Lewis had a claustrophobic dread of being enclosed in an elevator the sole purpose of which had been to offset Gerald’s disability. He did not want MacIntyre with him when he walked into Gerald’s office or apartment either but he could not bring himself to protest so MacIntyre led the way down the carpeted hall and pushed open Gerald’s office door.
MacIntyre stood aside in the hallway. “My report’s on the desk, Sir. I had your bags brought up, apartment’s through that door. You need anything, call the housekeeper. You can get me on the comm line anytime. Numbers are in the system. Your hotel room key and your clip-on holster were in the console tray in the Buick. They’re in the middle drawer of the desk.”
“Didn’t you have somebody check me out of that hotel?”
MacIntyre smiled tightly. “Gerald talked about you. I knew you’d be coming back. I went in and built you a cover, extended your reservation indefinitely. You can check yourself out.”
* * * *
Lewis called Christine first and when he’d heard her status he had her call him back. They were both impressed when the call came right through. Apparently MacIntyre had been thorough.
The door to Gerald’s apartment beckoned. Lewis took a quick tour through the three rooms, realizing he’d be unable to concentrate until he did. Somebody had done a good job of cleaning out the clothes and personal items from the closets and cupboards but Gerald’s books and music were still on the shelves. Lewis studied the titles on the spines of the books and flipped through the CDs. He was glad they were there. It felt right although he wondered what would happen to the stuff.
He took off his jacket and returned to Gerald’s office feeling like working for the first time since he’d been shot. He powered up the terminal from habit and began to familiarize himself with the navigation setup while he made his second call to Delbert Victorio Sneed.
Sneed was a free-lance data dink. He lived in Glendale, an affluent suburb of Los Angeles. Lewis had never met him but he’d heard that Sneed was grossly overweight and seldom left his house. This seemed unlikely because Sneed himself complained about the six ex-wives he supported. That six women had divorced the man was believable; he was notoriously obnoxious. That he had found and married them from his house was a stretch. Lewis used him exclusively when he required an outside auditor, although Sneed did not make it easy.
“Get stuffed, Lewis,” was what he’d said before hanging up, when Lewis had called him from the airport in DC. Par for the course. Lewis figured Sneed would be curious enough to at least talk to him by today.
“Delbert, I’m going to come out there and kick your ass if you hang up,” Lewis said as soon as Sneed’s nasal whine came on the line. “What’s the problem this time?” he demanded before the fat man could respond to his threat.
“The problem, you asshole, is that every time you Beige guys send me a check, I get audited. I hate the fucking IRS and this is not funny. Are you guys trying to ruin me?”
“What did you do with the last payment I sent you, Delbert?”
“I don’t know. Oh yes, I remember. I bought a new Lexus.”
“For cash?”
“Well yeah, for cash.”
“If you’re only going to claim half your annual income and you live in a million dollar house and go around paying cash for luxury cars, you’re going to get audited, Delbert. Hire yourself a financial advisor. He’ll be a lot cheaper than the IRS.”
“I’ve got a better idea, Lewis. I’m going to drop you guys off my client list. I think the IRS has a direct line to your bank and every time you write a check, they go hunting.”
“Nobody has a line to our accounts but okay Delbert, I’ll pay you cash. Do you want the job or not?”
“How much?”
“Five or six hours. Twenty-five thousand, cash.”
“What’s the turnaround?”
“Tonight.”
“Get stuffed, Lewis.” The line went dead.
* * * *
Lewis logged on and checked his research for the name of the vintage car broker in Ann Arbor, Michigan who was the latest registered owner of the Oxenburg Jaguar.
There was a long pause from the other end when Lewis told the Michigan broker what he wanted. Then the man sighed. “I knew it was too good to last,” he said. “I knew I’d be hearing from the husband. First time I ever saw gold plated keys.”
The man did not want to part with the E-type. He had paid a premium for it and he was using it for promotions. The car was one of a kind, he might never get another one this good. No, he couldn’t name a price, he really didn’t want to sell it. But in the end, he did and managed to sound like he would recover from the loss. And yes, he could arrange shipment. It would be expensive, not his fault. The airlines, you know, insurance. He could get it there quickly. He had a planeload going to a Concourse show in San Francisco.
So Lewis went to lunch with one success for the day under his belt, though he was determined it wouldn’t be the last. He ate alone in the cafeteria, aware of but not bothered by the covert stares. Nobody approached his table and he realized for the second time that MacIntyre had done an effective job of spreading the word. Lewis was the bogeyman and everybody knew it.
After lunch he called Sneed for the third time. “Thirty-five, Delbert,” he said without preamble, “and you can have until tomorrow midnight. But I’m not calling back.”
“Tomorrow midnight,” Sneed agreed. “Get me a phone number and if you give me the comm protocol and a master username it’ll save time. I can break in if you want it done that way but it’ll push the time.”
“No you can’t. And even trying something like that will not be good for your health, Delbert.”
“I’m not saying anything, Lewis, I’m asking. Some people like to know where their weaknesses are.”
“We don’t have weaknesses.”
“Everybody’s got a chink in their armor,” Sneed assured him sourly. “But it’s your dime, I’ll do it your way, I have plans for the rest of my life.”
* * * *
Deece’s response to Lewis’s request for a master username was a carefully worded refusal.
“I can go around you,” Lewis said.
“Ah know,” Deece said, in his Georgia Tech accent. “I can’t help that but I won’t be part of it. A master username opens up the whole system, the security monitors, even the satellite links. A master user can locate every field office and any agent while they’re online, including the director. In about two minutes he could download terabytes of case files, client lists, anything he wanted and go through them at his convenience. You can go ahead and terminate me but I’m not giving out masters. Who is this auditor?”
“Delbert Victorio.”
“Sneed? Nobody will give you a master username for him, he’s a dangerous rascal.”
“Right, but he’s my rascal. You passed the test. If you’d agreed to give me a master, you’d be out the door. I know a way to do this, but it’s probably not very slick. You got any ideas?”
Deece smoothed his full sandy mustache between thumb and forefinger in a leisurely motion. “You want him to have total access, right?” he drawled after some serious mustache work. Lewis wondered if pinning Deece’s hand to the desk would accelerate the man’s speech.
“Right,” Lewis prompted.
“We could set him up with a datalink into a dumb terminal, slave a console to the link and dead-drop his input. Anything he enters would display on the slaved console and somebody authorized can pass the commands on or flush them if he goes off course. He’ll see the delay, of course. He’ll sniff that right away. Sneed’s sharp, he’ll know we have him on a pass-through.”
“We don’t have to make the man happy, Deece, just productive.”
“Ah’m the only tech here now with a master username. This’ll tie me up completely.”
“Put your second in charge. What’s your backup plan for vacation?”
“Vacation? Hmm, my plan for vacation is that I do plan to take one, someday.”
“I can write you up for failing to follow the vacation policy, Deece.”
“Gerald didn’t care if I took vacation time, he never took any. We were the permanent team out here. Gerald and me and MacIntyre.”
“Nobody’s permanent, Deece. Nothing lasts forever.”
“No Sah,” Deece agreed. He looked miserably unhappy, like Anderson, mourning Gerald on the inside while going through the motions. Best to keep the man moving.
“How are your production stats?”
“Back up overnight, thanks to you,” Deece’s smile was as slow as his words, “I think every field office knew the minute you got on that plane.”
Deece showed him around the computer facilities and introduced him to the four day shift operators, two of whom sat at terminals wearing headsets. The comm systems could handle sixty-four ports simultaneously and field access was direct. The headset operators were restricted to specialized requests. Another tech was responsible for the scrambling systems that coded and decoded all voice and data transmissions. Lewis cut Deece off after the first five minutes of his explanation of satellite communications security and the private VPN screen that provided the Beige-controlled security that was layered on top of that inherent in the dark web TOR browser . He didn’t want to waste time with a subject he couldn’t comprehend. Let alone in slow motion.
By three o’clock Deece was ready for Sneed and Lewis called Glendale and gave him the credentials and a phone number to communicate, if necessary, with Deece. Sneed would provide a synopsis of his review of their files and traffic for the previous forty days. The forty day window was dictated by the size of the verbose logs. History older than forty days was archived and Lewis didn’t have time or a reason to pay Sneed to go into the archives. He’d been shot thirty-one days ago; there’d be trace evidence of any security breaches in the current logs.
Lewis understood the theory of computer audits if not the internals. He had faith in Sneed’s record for excavating indicators of unauthorized or inappropriate programs. The audit began with a dump of the system log from the main monitor. This file recorded every user logon and program execution by start and stop time, what files were opened, whether searches or other database inquiries were invoked.
Because archiving was initiated without operator intervention, and it covered a rolling forty days, nobody could time unauthorized processing to occur immediately before an archiving run. Log file sizing was a topic of some debate. Obviously the larger the better for security reasons because the archived file was stripped of many of the data elements so only skeleton records were stored. However, the online log consumed precious RAM and was therefore in contention for production resources. On Group systems, security had priority but when the migration was complete and the Arizona center was fully online, response degradation would need to be evaluated.
Lewis had been required to sit through more than one tedious working session where tolerances were discussed. He had deferred the transfer of his own section from the DC center to Arizona for the purpose of letting the early adopters test and adjust the tolerances.
Lewis’s expectations that Sneed would find a significant problem were minimal. Deece impressed him. The man thought faster than he talked and his operations group had a healthy atmosphere of relaxed competence. MacIntyre wasn’t knowledgeable enough to be into the systems. None the less, using Sneed, whose reputation was well known, guaranteed Lewis an unimpeachable audit and that was the purpose of the exercise.
With Sneed finally at work, Lewis read through MacIntyre’s report. When Lewis got MacIntyre on the phone, it was after four and MacIntyre picked up on the first ring, like he’d been waiting for the call all day.
“I want to set up the interview schedule tonight,” Lewis told him. “I need the personnel assignments and a current shift schedule. Who’s got that?”
“Me. I’ll bring it up.”
“Right. MacIntyre, where’s that guard?”
“She’s got a name, it’s Lily. She’s staying in the dorms until you release her. I pulled her print clearances. She’s free in the dorms and recreation area but she can’t get inside or off the grounds.”
“Telephone?”
“No. And that’s the only thing she’s asked for,” MacIntyre said with heavy regret.
Right, no fool like an old fool.
When MacIntyre arrived, Lewis re-opened his report and had MacIntyre expand on his description of the exposed granite ledge from which the Johnson girl had allegedly pulled the trigger on him. “Why didn’t you show me that from the chopper?” Lewis demanded.
“Because she was miles inside our perimeter. That knoll is directly above this building. The pilot would have had a bird’s eye view of our footprint. Anybody getting a good look at the back of this place is bound to wonder about the compound and the satellite dishes, generators and fuel tanks back there. This is supposed to be some millionaire’s twice a year playhouse.”
Lewis accepted that grudgingly, but he still planned to get up on that ledge himself and fit the reports into the terrain. “I want to see Bliss,” he continued.
“He’s an easy man to see. He works right down the road at Foothill Feed and Fuel and he’s in the local watering hole every Friday and Saturday night.”
“Not to mention the times he’s right here, inside your perimeter,” Lewis said sarcastically. “No, I mean I want you to get him up here. I want to talk to him.”
MacIntyre looked shocked. “He’s never been up here. Everybody around here’s heard about Gerald from the Johnson girl. How’re you going to introduce yourself? How am I going to get him up here?”
“He knows you, right?”
“I’ve met him once.”
“Oh, I imagine once is enough. By now, he’s probably very eager to see a certain employee of yours, MacIntyre. I don’t care how you do it, just handle it. The earlier tomorrow the better.”
“Maybe he won’t come. Maybe he’s forgotten about her.”
“In your dreams, MacIntyre.”
* * * *
It was after midnight before Lewis admitted he wasn’t going to sleep. He let himself out onto the balcony off Gerald’s bedroom and was pleasantly surprised by the sharp night scent of the desert. The balcony provided a view of one of the dorms and he noticed the light spilling out of an open door and shadows of figures inside the room. An occasional burst of laughter reached him. It had the unmistakable flavor of poker.
Everybody stopped talking and stared at him with varying degrees of surprise when he appeared in the open doorway. “Ah, new money,” the banker said by way of welcome. She was tiny with wispy red hair and very thick glasses that enlarged her green eyes comically.
“Is this a private party or is anybody’s money good?” Lewis asked from the doorway.
She lifted a column of red chips inside the banker’s tray and let them trickle back musically into the stack, while she studied him. “All takers,” she said, “Stud or draw. No Seven Card No Peek or any of that shit.”
“You take my marker?”
“No.” Her green eyes snapped at him. “This is a cash game. I can just see me trying to collect on your marker.”
“Right,” Lewis said easily. He stepped inside and fished some wrinkled bills out of the pocket of his Levi’s. He took the chair beside her. “I always like a lady with rules,” he said, and gave her a half-smile with the bills. She returned the smile as she slid the chips in front of him and he knew he’d made an ally.
“I’m Robin,” she said and then everybody introduced themselves as well. Lewis didn’t bother, they all knew who he was. Robin was a surprise; she was Deece’s second. He’d expected somebody, well, bigger.
The young man sitting across from Lewis stood up to offer his hand. “I’m Ernesto,” he said, “you probably never heard of me but I used to work for Liz before I jumped to Gerald’s group out here. I did your premises in Mexico City. How are they? Do you like them?”
“Best house I’ve had in years,” Lewis said. “I don’t need a big house, but I like big rooms, and high ceilings. Seems to be a rare combination. You did a good job. You do my office, too?”
“Everything,” Ernesto said, looking pleased.
Robin dealt and the card banter picked up again. The deal passed to the winner, a slim, quiet man who dealt the hand before declaring the game would be lowball.
Despite Robin’s protests, they played lowball and Lewis won. He passed the deal to his left, back to Robin.
“Five card draw, jacks or better to open,” she declared and dealt crisply.
“Why’d you jump teams?” Lewis asked Ernesto when he got an opening.
“I wanted to do something with tech and something where I could talk with the guys in the field. I got tired of busting my butt and never knowing if people liked the way I set up their places or not. And Gerald, of course.”
“And? You like it here?”
Ernesto was immediately wary. He said nothing and everybody else was suddenly quiet, too.
“Tonight’s off the record,” Lewis said, talking only to Ernesto but aware everybody was hanging on his words. “Tomorrow, it’s all official, but tonight, I’m playing cards. Nothing leaves this room.”
“It’s okay here,” Ernesto said, “but there’s nothing to do when you’re not working.”
“You might try learning some card games,” Robin interjected caustically.
Ernesto looked at Lewis, “And the same old people to do it with. At least when I was in DC, there was a whole city to live in. You know, movies, football games, clubs and good music in Georgetown.”
“There’s a city right down the road.”
A chorus of groans greeted this, the explanation of which proved to be that policy prevented frequent excursions into the city. Too much traffic on the road might attract attention. You had to get a pass to leave the facility. It made sense. In some ways, this was trickier than HQ to keep under wraps.
Lewis won the next two hands and exercising his winner’s prerogative, passed the deal at random. He had avoided looking directly at the blonde across the table except for a cursory glance when she introduced herself as Julie. In due time, it was her turn. She managed to stroke every one of his fingers while accepting the cards. “Texas Hold ‘em,” she said, laughing at Robin’s expression.
Oh yes, he’d just bet. Almost any kind of hold ‘em.
“If you’re new, ask for help,” Robin told Lewis severely.
He winked at her, “I’ll win it back,” he promised. But he didn’t. The blonde won three hands in a row.
It was more natural to watch her than not while she was the dealer, so he did. She was obviously a sun worshipper; her skin glowed deep bronze everywhere. She wore an open-weave sweater in white cotton, loose at the neck and falling continually off one shoulder or the other. The combination of tanned skin, sun-bleached hair and open sensuality was sharply reminiscent of Angel. Lewis felt it and quashed it with his first look at her.
He couldn’t help wondering about her effect on Gerald, though, working with her, day after day. And the fingers had been no accident; she was a player. Why keep such a painful reminder on hand, Gerald? So close and out of reach.
“What’s your specialty?” Lewis asked her, keeping a straight face, though the question produced grins all around.
“I’m the housekeeper,” she said.
“But her specialty is winning middle of the night shooting contests and Chinese stoplight.”
Lewis looked at her questioningly. “I never win,” she denied, smiling. “I’m perpetually second.”
“Who wins?”
“MacIntyre,” everybody said at once to general laughter.
“MacIntyre,” Robin repeated. “He shoots just as good at midnight as noon or any other time. MacIntyre never changes, he even looks the same in the middle of the night.”
“If I ever get in a real shooting war,” Slim said seriously, “I’m going to find MacIntyre and get in his pocket.”
“Shouldn’t be hard to find, not with that cannon he carries.”
“We ever get in a shooting war and MacIntyre’s on site, it’ll be over before you wake up.”
When the laughter died down, Lewis said to nobody in particular, “I’d never met MacIntyre before today. I’d guess I’ve had some experience with almost everybody else his age. What’s he like?”
After a few seconds of silence, Robin rescued him. “He’s not like anything,” she said. “He’s Mac. Neither fish nor fowl. You want cards?”
Almost everybody was drinking Pearl in longneck bottles. Robin had a glass in front of her that contained ice and either plain water or vodka. Only the swing-shift supervisor and Lewis weren’t drinking — Lewis because nobody had offered him a beer and the super because he was going on shift in an hour.
He caught Lewis’s eye. “Seeing as this is unofficial and off the record and all, I want to say something about MacIntyre. I don’t think he’d disagree with me, if you want the truth, but I’ll say it in front of witnesses so it doesn’t get too blown up later. I know you’re going to have something to say about picking the new section head here. Don’t pick MacIntyre; he’s all wrong. We need somebody special. Like Gerald. Somebody you can talk to. You know.”
“You can’t talk to MacIntyre?”
“Well sure, as long as you don’t mind talking to somebody who keeps looking at his watch and checking everything you say against the regs.”
Everybody laughed and the blonde took it up. “You should have seen MacIntyre when he’d come by to see what the noise was about and Gerald would be down here sitting in.” She rolled her eyes, “MacIntyre doesn’t believe in fraternizing.”
“Doesn’t he?” Lewis said, holding her gaze.
“No,” she said after a moment, meeting his look. “He doesn’t.”
“What does MacIntyre believe in?”
“Gerald,” Robin said finally, rescuing him from the silence again.
“So did I,” Lewis said. “He was a good friend, the best. I guess that’s pretty hard to believe, seeing as I’ve never been here before.” He looked around the table. “Tomorrow I’m an auditor but tonight I’m just a friend of Gerald’s trying to figure it out. Obviously, he was having some problems, I’d appreciate hearing about him.”
“It was like he was tired,” Slim said. “I think he needed to get away from here, take a break. For the last few months he was just sort of weird.”
“Not weird,” the supervisor contradicted swiftly, “but not smooth, like he was before. He was just uneven . . . different from one day to the next.”
“Yeah, sometimes he was the old Gerald and sometimes he was almost like, well, Mac.”
A chorus of Nos greeted that. No, never like Mac. But not like Gerald, either.
“I’ve been here five years,” Robin said when the noise settled down, “Longer than any of you.” Her eyes were enormous and sad behind the lenses. “He’d been changing for a long time. The old Gerald didn’t do quite so much of the Chinese stoplight stuff. It was like he had to keep trying harder all the time, like it was getting away from him.”
“Yeah, at first, we never saw Mac around the center much but for the last year he was here every day. He was officially only the security chief but lately he was taking over a lot of Gerald’s work.”
“Gerald used Mac when he didn’t want to deal with us.”
“Why wouldn’t he want to deal with you?”
“We liked him, you know. We’d sort of look for opportunities to talk to him. He’d go for coffee and pretty soon everybody in the cafeteria would be at his table.”
“Yeah,” Ernesto looked down at the deck in his hands. “He liked us okay, but I sort of think we wore him down. I think he wanted to be left alone.” He looked up at the tanned housekeeper for confirmation. “Or at least, he wanted some new faces around. Like that little local girl he got to clean his rooms. Why did he want to do that, Julie?”
“I don’t know. It wasn’t because I did anything wrong. He just had Mac tell me he wanted his own person in his rooms. He said it was no reflection on my work, he just preferred it that way.” She shrugged, “Maybe Ernesto’s right and he just wanted a new face.”
“I’m down a hundred bucks. We gonna play or talk?” Robin asked. She looked pointedly at the deck in front of Ernesto, “You need help with those?”
“Another thing wrong with this place,” Ernesto said, “is the females. They’re either gun freaks or they’ll bleed you white.”
“Speaking of bleeding, where is MacIntyre?” The man with his back to the open door twisted to check over his shoulder.
“Sleeping out on the rim in a trailer.”
“Why? We short on space?”
“No. Probably too much fraternizing going on around here.”
“Speaking of space,” the housekeeper said to Lewis, “is the apartment okay? Do you need anything?”
“It’s fine,” Lewis said. “I’ll be moving when the director gets here.”
“Do you want one of the other rooms upstairs? Or I can fix you up down here. Whatever you want.”
Oh yes, Lewis had no doubt, though she didn’t interest him. “Maybe another time,” he said, “You’ll have a lot of demand for rooms with everybody coming in for the party. I’m moving into the city.”
She studied him, her gaze shifting down to his chest, where Lewis knew the missing muscle was discernible under his T-shirt. She looked back at his face, clearly uncertain about asking about his injury.
“It’s healed,” he said, wishing it was true.
She nodded, embarrassed that he’d read her thoughts.
Tomorrow and the next day he’d ask all the people around this table where they’d been and what they’d been doing when he’d pulled up outside this complex a month ago. He’d find out who could vouch for others and who had guesses, questions, answers — or anything at all to tell him about that day. He’d had a different purpose tonight and when the swing super excused himself to go on shift Lewis left with him.