“But it’s going down.” Even as he spoke, Scott remembered Tom:
What if it blips up to eighteen?
“You said it was going down.”
“Not today—Codexco issued a press release fifteen minutes ago. That algorithm bullshit worked after all. They’re signing a billion-dollar contract with the government of Japan.”
“But what about the venture capitalists?”
“What about them?”
“Aren’t they going to dump their shares?”
“Who the fuck knows?”
“You do. You’re the one who talked to them and you said it was going down.” Scott was on his feet now; the salesman, still on the phone, was watching him, his pencil hand still.
“Ten minutes,” Gudukas said. “And my boss says make it three hundred grand if you’re hanging tough.”
Scott stood there, the cell phone in his hand, showroom cars gleaming all around. Had he imagined the whole thing? Was it some brain chemistry weirdness? Maybe he was having a stroke. That was it. He felt paralyzed already: the slightest breeze would knock him down.
“We can have it on the lot Monday morning, Mr. Gardner,” said the salesman. “I’ll need a deposit, say five grand.”
Scott walked out of the showroom, got in the Triumph. It was cold in the Triumph and some snow blew in with him. He went to punch in numbers on the cell, realized he still had the Boxster brochure in one hand. Mortgaging the house was the only answer. It was going down. This was a blip. How was he going to explain? He had no idea. The words would come pouring and Linda would sort them out. He called her at work. Not there. Her cell. No answer. Home, and got the machine. But Ruby and Julian were there. “Pick up, pick up,” he yelled. No one did.
What next? Tom? Impossible. His mother? Horrible thought, but he had no better. Even if she agreed, it would take time. He needed time.
Scott called Gudukas. He expected to hear bedlam in the background at the brokerage, but it was quiet.
“Mickey,” he said, “I need—”
“Too late,” Gudukas said. “Stock’s at fourteen. We closed you out.”
“Closed me out?”
“Had to cover,” Gudukas said.
“My five hundred grand?”
“Standard procedure.”
“Gone?”
“Plus what you owe the brokerage. It all happened so fast we couldn’t get you out till it hit thirteen seventy-five. Comes to two hundred grand.”
“You’re telling me I lost my five hundred grand and you want two hundred more?” Scott was speaking slowly, slurring his words a bit; maybe a stroke after all.
“Plus or minus.”
“You’re slime.”
“Want me to say I’m sorry? Think that’ll bring your money back? I lost a shitload more than you, buddy boy.”
“So what?” Scott said.
“Suck it up,” said Mickey Gudukas.
32
I
t was like the three bears only she was the porridge—first too hot, then too cold, finally just right. Fat snowflakes went by, some of them catching in her eyelashes; but the road was bare. After what seemed like ages, Ruby came to the 840 mailbox and took a left down a long tree-lined lane, dodging huge piles of poo every so often. Eight forty Trunk Road turned out to be a farm with acres and acres, still inside the boundaries of Old Mill. She’d had no idea.
Ruby pedaled up a little rise. From the top she saw a small wooden house on one side of the lane and a much bigger one on the other; beyond stood some sheds, a barn, more fields, and in the distance two dense groves of trees. She was coasting down the hill, wondering where exactly in all this Julian lived, when a woman in a red-and-black checked jacket came out of the big house. Ruby ducked behind a tree, one hand on the trunk, poised on her bike.
The woman crossed the lane, walked toward the little house. She had something in her hand, an envelope maybe. Her boots crunched on the packed snow of the path to the door. She knocked on it.
“Julian,” she called. “Are you home?” She knocked again, harder. “Julian?” The woman knelt, stuck what Ruby could now see clearly was an envelope under the door, and walked back to the big house. Ruby shifted around to keep the tree between them, but the woman never looked in her direction. The door of the big house closed behind her.
Ruby got off her bike. She couldn’t ride the rest of the way down the lane—what if the woman glanced out her window? Best to circle around behind the little house, but the snow was too deep for riding. Ruby leaned the bike against the tree. What if the woman went out into town, drove past? She’d see it. Ruby laid the bike down, covered it with snow. This kind of thing was so tricky. She set off in a wide circle through the fields, ending at the back of the little house.
Ruby tried the door, locked, peered through a cracked and dirty window, saw a wheelbarrow, bags of garden supplies, a shadowy hall leading to the front of the house. She stepped back, noticed a bulkhead door. Wasn’t that for getting in the cellar? She raised it, went down stone steps to another door, quite small, her size. She tried this one and it opened. Ruby climbed back up the stone steps, pulled the bulkhead door shut, went down in darkness and entered the house, closing the little door, too.
All cobwebby in the cellar. Ruby waved her hands in front of her, cutting through as she moved toward a dusty shaft of light that came from a high window on the far wall. Halfway there she came to a staircase, all rickety, and went up.
She found herself at the front of the house, a bare hallway with warped and darkened floorboards. The envelope, addressed to Julian from A-Plus Tutorial, lay by the front door. Ruby opened it.
Inside was a letter with an A-Plus Tutorial business card attached. On the business card it said:
Forgot to include this last time—Margie.
Ruby read the letter, dated November 19, 1998, and written on stationery that said
Master of Balliol, Oxford
at the top.
Re: Vipers in My Backpack—Zoological Fieldwork in Up-Country Gabon
Dear Mr. Sawyer:
We all of us, dons, fellows and students, so enjoyed your talk Wednesday last. How pleasant to learn that the tradition of the bold amateur naturalist lives on. Do come back and regale us with an account of your next adventure.
Yours truly,
R. M. Simkins, K.B.E.
Ruby reread the letter. Then she read it again, holding it near a window for better light. Must have been typed on a real typewriter because every letter made tiny dents in the back of the page. Something bothered her, something not quite right. She took out her magnifying glass, peered at the year, 1998. Something not quite right about that second 9. Just at the left of the tail part, the paper looked a little thin, felt a little rough, as though something had been rubbed away.
Ruby examined the back of the page under the magnifying glass, saw that while the numbers on the front read 1998, the impression on the back read 1988. Someone had erased that little bulge on the bottom left of the 8, turning it into a 9. Ruby pocketed the letter, went upstairs, creak creak, another worn staircase, but not rickety.
At the top she came to a small room: fireplace strewn with cigarette butts and burned matches, a bed on one side, a desk at the other, by the window; not much else. On the ceiling over the bed was written,
negligent is to forsake as
mendacious is to deceive
Julian’s room.
Ruby sat at the desk. A flock of dark birds skimmed by, followed by a whirlpool of spinning snowflakes. Nothing on the desk but a phone and a few papers, kept in place with a jar of strawberry jam. Ruby opened all the drawers, found nothing, no novel or anything else. She shifted the jam and examined the papers.
At Home,
read the first page, the handwriting beautiful:
A Living Novel by Julian Sawyer.
Ruby turned to page one:
Notes for a Living Novel: Toward a New Form. By Julian Sawyer.
And under that:
negligent is to forsake as
mendacious is to deceive
nothing you can’t depend on
will ever depend on you.
The last two lines, her lines, the test for who can be relied on, were scratched out.
Page two:
Scott: inferiority complex, esp. re Tom; fundamentally lazy; a gambler with no notion of odds; falsely believes himself to be ambitious, but all he wants is more of the same; lack of more of the same is all that makes him unhappy—not a good enough reason, not nearly; IQ 110. To do: friendly discussion of investment strategy, esp. options trading; find out more about family insurance firm: does Tom have children?
Page three:
Linda: ambitious in real sense, wants to develop her own thwarted expressive potential; developing Brandon—the next best thing; many problems with Scott—explore; lies well (Gabon paper episode); IQ 120. To do: find out much more about Adam; become good friends. Bad things happen slowly.
Page four:
Adam: Superboy—the paragon under whose boot they lie; time line—broken leg, leukemia.
Page five:
Brandon: normal kid, might actually have grown up to be a happy person in other circumstances; IQ 125. To do: more of the same; (get details of party denouement).
Page six:
Ruby: IQ—
“The Speckled Band”
Ruby still had her jacket on, and her hat with the stars, but she felt very cold.
What else? Phone messages. Ruby found only one, not new, since the light wasn’t blinking.
“Julian? This is Gail. Did you ever buy Codexco? It’s going up anytime now.”
Codexco? Wasn’t that Dad’s stock, the one that paid for the Atlantis trip? And wasn’t it supposed to go down? The dark birds swooped by again, going the other way this time. And down the lane from that direction, the direction of Trunk Road, came Mom’s Jeep Grand Cherokee. But not Mom. Julian was at the wheel.
For a moment, Ruby couldn’t move, not a muscle. He was going to park, come through the door, up the stairs and find her at the desk, the living novel all spread out on top, and there wasn’t a thing she could do.
Bad things happen slowly.
Help me. Oh, God, help. But her body was frozen.
Body frozen, but her mind kept going, on its own. Julian had the car. Mom must have lent it to him. Mom was at home.
Her body came to life. Ruby grabbed the phone, called home. “Answer, answer.” She mouthed the words.
Mom answered. “Hello?”
“Mom. Call Julian right now. Tell him—”
“Ruby? He’s out looking for you. Where—”
“Call the car. Tell him I’m home.”
“Home?”
“Back, Mom. I’m back already.”
“But why, Ruby? Is something wrong?”
“Just do it. And warn Dad about the stock.”
“The stock?”
“Codexco.”
“Codexco? What’s—”
The car started turning off the lane, into the driveway.
“Now.”
“But you’re not home.” Mom’s voice got higher. “Why should I lie to Julian?”
“Make him turn around, Mom. Make him turn around.”
“Turn around? I don’t—”
“Trust me.”
The car rolled up the driveway to the little house. Mom started to say something else, something else beginning with
but
. Ruby hung up, backed a few feet from the window, where she could still see out but knew he couldn’t see in, except at night when lights were on. The car came to a stop. The engine died. The door opened. Julian put one foot on the ground, paused. The car phone rang; Ruby heard it.
Julian put it to his ear. His lips moved. Then they didn’t. His foot left the ground, disappeared back inside. The door closed. His lips moved again. He put the phone down. The engine fired. The car backed out, all the way to the lane. Ruby breathed. The wheels turned. Next the car would swing around, straighten out on the lane, head back to Trunk Road, through Old Mill to West Mill, home.
But that didn’t happen. Mom’s Jeep stayed where it was, halfway into the turn, didn’t move at all for what seemed like a long time. Then it did: but forward, erasing the turn and coming back up the driveway to the little house. Ruby backed into the middle of the room. She heard the engine die again, the door open and close.
Ruby glanced around wildly, tried the only door there was: on the other side a tiny bathroom, transparent curtain hung over the stall shower, useless. She turned back to the room, saw the pages of the living novel scattered on the desk, ran over, piled them neatly, placed the jar on top. The front door opened; and closed, shaking the house a little. Ruby whirled. Under the desk? No. Under the bed? No. Where? Where?
Up the chimney? Ruby darted into the fireplace, crouching, peering up. What was that thing, the thing that had caused the smoke episode? Damper, he’d taught her himself. This one seemed quite high up. Maybe if she rose, got her hands on it—
Footsteps on the worn stairs,
creak creak
.
Ruby stood—head, shoulders, the top half of her body in the chimney. She reached up, felt a metal plate, not sharp, got both hands on it, pulled her feet up, up, out of sight. A little blob of something fell from the chimney wall, landed with a plop. Footsteps entered the room. Step, step, pause. A long pause. She could hear him breathing. Then came a sound, a soft thump: setting down the jam jar?
Step, step, step, pause. A door opened, the bathroom door. Then a quiet silvery shriek—the shower curtain, transparent or not—yanked aside. She heard him talking: “If A, then B,” he said.
Ruby’s arms ached. Her hands got damp, started to lose their grip. If she could only draw her feet a little farther up, press them against the wall. Now: had to be now, while he was in the bathroom. Slipping, slipping, hands so sweaty—now. There, like that, wedged in, her legs bearing some of the weight. But how loud was that scraping sound her boot made? Another blob fell plop.
Step, step. Whoosh:
bedcovers swept off.
Grunt:
Julian looking under the bed.
Step, step, step.
Then
tap, tap
: at the desk, the tap of his fingernails. The broken-off one with the purple bruise underneath—how had that happened?
Ruby could feel him thinking, like one of those weather fronts on TV, pushing, pushing, pushing that front right into her own head. A faint plastic click, and then Ruby heard the dial tone. But no dialing. A plastic impact, and the phone was back on its stand. Had he just figured out the call to Mom? The Codexco message? Both?
Step, step,
coming closer.
Step, step.
Ruby glanced down. She could see through a tiny opening between her left leg and the chimney wall, down to a thin strip of the fireplace floor where two shoe tops now rested among the ashes and cigarette butts. Then came a little snick, a pause, and a match spun down. She smelled cigarette smoke. “If A, then B,” he said again, but practically in her ear this time. Maybe he hadn’t figured out the call or the message; if he had he’d be at C right now, or D, or even farther.
Oh, let that be true.
Julian stayed right there, smoking his cigarette. Ruby hung on, soaked with sweat under her jacket and heavy clothes. The pressure of his mind pushed and pushed. Then the cigarette, half smoked, landed down there with the other butts, still smoking. Smoke rose. It was going to make her cough.
The shoe tops shifted, turned with a grinding sound, moved out of sight. Ruby held her breath, keeping that cough inside.
Step, step.
Then down the stairs, little quick ones. More stepping on the level below, movement of objects, then fainter sounds on the level below that. After that no sound at all. Smoke rose. The cough was coming and there was nothing she could do.
The car door slammed.
She coughed. Her feet slipped.
The engine started. Ruby lost her grip, crashed down in the pile of cigarette butts. The car drove off.
L
inda watched through the living-room window. A DPW truck went by, spewing sand; the oil man; a visiting nurse; and then the Triumph. She hurried into the kitchen.
Scott came through the garage door. Her first thought was that he’d caught it too, whatever Ruby had. His face was bloodless, even the lips, and there was a tiny tremor in his hands.
“Are you all right?” she said.
He didn’t answer, gazed around the room as though it were a strange place instead of his own kitchen.
“I’m worried,” she said.
He nodded.
“I got the strangest call from Ruby.”
“Ruby? Isn’t she here?”
“She’s out looking for Zippy.”
His voice rose suddenly, scaring her. “She’s got to stop that.”
“I know. Julian’s gone to find her. But she sounded so frightened.”
“Frightened?”
“Of Julian. She said to warn you about the stock.”
He turned to her, the muscles in his face all slack. “Warn me about the stock?”
“Scott. Are you all right?”
“Warn me what?”
“I don’t know. Is there some connection between Julian and Codexco?”