The Far Side (20 page)

“Linda Walsh, sir, what happened?”

Oliver squared his shoulders.  “There was a fire.  The fire department said at first that there was a lot of electrical equipment in Andie’s closet, and that’s where they think the fire started.  Now, though, they are saying it’s arson.”

“Where are Kit and Art?”

“I have no idea.  I assume Crenshaw.”

Linda shook her head.  “I was due to help Andie next, and she went ahead with Art.  Kit was already here.”

Oliver frowned.  “You’re saying there might be five people in there?”

Linda lowered her voice.  “I don’t think there are any people in there, if you get my drift.”

Oliver perked up.  “Yes, I suppose that’s possible.  But the machine...”

Linda laughed nastily.  “You have Kit’s phone number?  Try calling him.”

Oliver pulled out his cell phone, knowing that there were nearly a half dozen people staring at him, wondering what was going on.  He dialed Kit’s number and Kit picked up.  “Kit, where are you?”

“I’m at Crenshaw, helping Art with Poppa Two.  What’s up, Mr. Boyle?”

He looked at Linda.  “He says he’s at Crenshaw with this Art person, working on the project.”

Linda’s laughed turned really nasty.  “Kit was here earlier; he and Kris were going back to Crenshaw after Andie and I were ready.  Andie all but fired Art this morning, sir.  There is no way he should be back at Crenshaw.”  She dropped her voice.  “I think this was deliberate, sir.”

The fire chief nodded.  “It was certainly deliberate.”

Oliver made up his mind quickly.  “I think the police should interview one of my assistants, one Christopher Richards, and another associate, Art something or other.”

“Art Foster,” Linda supplied.

“This was a research project with a possibility of a significant return on investment.  There may have been foul play.”

The fire chief studied Oliver and the other two adults.  “You understand that it is -- unlikely -- at this juncture that my people would have missed even one set of remains.  Three was stretching it.  Five?  Not a chance.”

Linda smiled at him.  “There is a possibility that Andie, Kris and that other guy were at the remote site.  They may be safe.”

Oliver met her eyes.  “Kris said she and Andie would never be there at the same time.”

“Not voluntarily, sir.  If my guess is right, Kris and what’s his name were at the remote site, and Andie would have been here with Kit and Art by herself.  I don’t know about you, but if I was a betting person, much as I like Andie, I have a feeling two adult males could take a four-and-a-half foot woman unawares and overpower her.”

“You’re saying this might have been murder?” the fire chief asked.  He didn’t seem surprised, but then Oliver suspected you don’t get to be a veteran fire chief without having seen a lot of fires.

“I’m saying that I suspect kidnapping at the least,” Linda told him.

“If you give me the cell phone numbers of the three missing persons, we’ll see if we can locate their phones.”

“Sir, if they are at the remote site, they are outside the service area.”

Oliver coughed and recovered.

Otto spoke up.  “You’re saying Andie might be okay?”

“Yes, sir.  There remains, however, the problem of getting to them.”

She waved at the charred remnants of the house.  “You’re going to want to be very careful removing the debris, sir.  Particularly around Andie’s closet.”

There was a lot more palaver, then the police had to be brought up to speed and Oliver kept waiting for someone to ask where the remote site was, but they didn’t.  At first, he was relieved, then he grew a little concerned, and finally, seriously concerned about their lack of curiosity.

“Chief, we’re going a few feet away to talk; we’ll get back to you.”

The fire chief pressed his earpiece into his ear, and then smiled blandly at Oliver.  “I’m sorry, sir.  My people have found some cylinders of compressed gas that they believe may be bottled hydrogen.  That could be a serious explosive danger.  Also, we’ve found a white, powdery substance as well that we can’t identify.  It may be toxic.”

“Borax,” Linda said spitefully.  “You can’t be serious.  And if the hydrogen hasn’t cooked off already, it’s not going to now.  Andie only had one small bottle, about the size of a household fire extinguisher.”

“I’m afraid we’re going to have to move people back some distance and close the area,” the fire chief said blandly.

Oliver’s mind had been working furiously.  Pretend to be supine and ignorant or start the good fight now?

Linda took the matter out of his hands.  She laughed at the fireman.  “You have an IQ of about half of Andie’s -- and Kris is pretty smart herself.  You are so going to regret not letting us work to get them back.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about, young woman.  We have hazardous materials here, and you have to get back.  There is a danger of an explosion or explosions, plus there appears to be toxic chemicals present.  You have to leave.”

“Consider very carefully what you do,” Oliver told him.  “Think about the wife, the kiddies, your pension and your eternal soul.”

“Threats, sir, aren’t useful.”

“Maybe -- and maybe not.  That, however wasn’t a threat.  Just a promise.”

They got back, but long before he reached the new police line, which, coincidently, he was sure, left the Boyle house inside the closed area, he had Jack Schaeffer on the phone and in motion.  Jack promised to mobilize whatever resources that were necessary.

Next, Oliver called David Solomon.  “David, what’s going on there?”

“I don’t know.  The cops are swarming all over the sound stages.  They arrested Abe and the guy he was working with -- Shorty, Abe said his name was.  They arrested a Chinese guy as well.  They told me he was a spy for China.  The other two, they’re talking to a big crowd of cops and suits.  What’s going on, Oliver?”

“I’m not sure.  I’ve got Jack Schaeffer on it... you might want to get your lawyers to coordinate with him.  I’ll pick up the tab, David.”

“Sure, I just would like to know what’s going on.”

“Well, my daughter and two others are missing at a fire down the street from my house.  The fire department just declared it a hazardous chemical site and have pushed us back beyond our house, even.  They may do that there.”

“Jesus!  I’ll be ruined!”

“I’ll take care of it, David, I promise.  Tell any of the producers and directors to get in touch with Jack Schaeffer or myself, okay?”

There was no moment when Oliver was sure that the connection was broken, but after that, David didn’t answer.  Worse, he couldn’t get anyone else on his phone.

He heard Helen speak softly to Otto.  “How are you doing, Otto?”

“I’m so angry!  Andie’s in trouble and I’m so weak I couldn’t fight off a kitten.  I haven’t got a clue what’s going on here, except these bastards are out to get her.  Isn’t that right, Oliver?”

“It seems that way, Otto.”

“You and all these others, Oliver, even my daughter, think I’m a stupid fool, don’t you?”

“Otto...”

Andie’s father laughed.  “You think my daughter inherited her brains from her mother?”  He laughed harder.  “Yeah, I won the fuckin’ lottery and took the hundred million dollar cash payout.  Do you really believe all those stories that I just sit on that pile and swill beer at the bar?”

“Well...” As a matter of fact, Oliver thought exactly that.

Otto grimaced in pain.  “Yeah, right!  You think you’re so smart!  Just like my daughter!  Show her what she expects to see, and she never once dug into my affairs.  Oliver, in case you haven’t noticed, the stock market has done rather well since I won that fuckin’ lottery.”

“Well... yes.”

“I like sports bars, Oliver.  You know how many sports bars I own?”

“I have no idea,” Oliver admitted.

“About a hundred in Southern California, but twice that many in New England.  Those pansy fuckers really like their sports!

“My property management company owns a couple of small malls, and I’m partners in a couple larger ones.  There are lots and lots of other things as well, Oliver.

“I’ve been getting my affairs in order.  There’s no way they’ll let someone like Andie own a bar, much less a raft of them, even through a REIT.  You do know what a REIT is, right?”  Otto laughed at his own wit.

“Yes, I know what a Real Estate Investment Trust is.”

“Good!  So, I was in the process of divesting that, but now I’ve changed my mind.  It’s yours now, Oliver.  Spend the money to get Andie back!  Put the rest in your pocket, make a couple of movies and dedicate them to me.  Put fucking sports bars in those movies, and lots and lots of fucking car chases with some sexy cars!”

“I already have plenty of money, Otto.”

The man laughed.  “Whatever.  I know how much, because guys like me, we know these things.  I just doubled it.  Sue me!”  He doubled over with laughter again but ended up on his knees.

“Oliver,” Helen told him.  “Otto needs an ambulance.  Take care of our daughters.”

“You bet!  These are going to the sorriest assholes on the planet when I get done with them.”

* * *

The next morning Oliver held a meeting.  The police had come to arrest Linda Walsh, but she had talked with Jack Schaeffer, who’d arranged for her to surrender herself in a day.  Helen was with Otto, who was now in the hospital with little hope for survival for more than a day or two, according to his wife.

David Solomon and another of his attorneys were also there for the meeting, plus another attorney representing some of David’s clients.  Also at the table were Kurt Sandusky and a man of about thirty who had only a fine stubble of hair on his head.  At a guess, Oliver was sure that he was looking at a serving Special Forces soldier.

Oliver stood up.  “I’m going to be candid and forthright, because even though the authorities haven’t admitted it yet, they seem to know.”

He went on to explain the fusor project and then, while everyone was digesting that, he explained about the blue door to the Far Side.

Jack Schaeffer’s eyes were glowing with, Oliver thought, an unholy glee.  Jack was a friend and one thing Jack had often lamented was that most of his jousting was with pygmies for peanuts.  He had, he’d told Oliver, ethics and wasn’t about to join something like the ambulance chasers suing for smokers, asbestos, breast implants and the like.  No, he wanted a real, formidable adversary.

“Going back to the power thing for a moment, Oliver.  How much power are we talking about?  How much does it cost?  Most of those fusion machines cost tens of billions of dollars and have trouble keeping the lights lit at their plant.”

“Linda?” Oliver asked the young woman.

Linda Walsh stood up.  “I worked with Andie, and most recently, Lin Xi -- he’s the one they are now saying is a Chinese spy.  Since I know his family dates back to the gold rush days in Sacramento, I don’t think so.  Anyway, I know how much the fusor Lin was working on, cost.  Right at eleven thousand dollars.

“It was intended to be a pure power machine, and he increased the fusor size from three feet to six feet in diameter and used a better source of extremely high voltage current, although still with only a relatively small amperage.

“We just got it working, you understand, on Tuesday.  Today is Wednesday.  We had to keep it detuned, because it was exceeding the thousand-amp service that the sound stage had available in the area close to the fusor.  That was where we stood when I went to meet Andie at her house.

“That’s more than a thousand amps at 240 volts... call it 240 kilowatts of continuous production.  That’s a quarter of a megawatt, and we had to hold it back.  Lin told me before I left he thought he could get three or four times that from it... around a megawatt.  A 500 megawatt oil or gas plant costs a couple hundred million dollars.

“You do the math and multiply eleven thousand dollars by five hundred and check which is smaller.”

“Christ!” Kurt said... “That’s not much more than a couple of million!”

“And very early days -- Poppa One is the first fusor designed from start to finish to put everything into energy production.  Six feet is probably the largest fusor chamber we can hope to make without a lot more engineering.  Just remember that the number of fusion reactions will go up with the cube of the diameter.  In theory, a well-designed ten-foot fusor could well produce a gigawatt.  And it’s not going to cost billions of dollars like a nuclear reactor would -- more like millions.”

“Radiation?” asked the nearly bald young man next to Kurt Sandusky.

“Zero, zip, nada,” Linda told him.  “Andie had me install some alpha particle detectors close to the fusor.  There are some of them a few feet from the machine... but not very many.  Ten feet away, there are none.  There are no radioactive byproducts other than alpha particles, and they are eliminated by the reaction that generates the electricity.”

“And the other thing,” Jack Schaeffer asked.  “The Far Side Door?”

“At last report, we had no idea where it went,” Linda told them.  “I imagine Andie knows now.  She’s not one to sit and wait for things to happen.”