Futile Efforts (33 page)

Despondent over what he'd missed out on, the women he didn't bed, the kindness that went unrewarded.
 
Guilty over some of the wrong he'd done, the terror he'd caused innocents, and yet even now holding on to an undying, endless rage for this world and whatever lay beyond the world.
 
Fury and pride and petty hatred, a wellspring of pity and a great swelling of love.
 
For Mama, his mistresses, his long dead parents and siblings, and his many grandchildren, but especially Dante and even me, whom he always called his good boy.

"All right!" I yelled over the breaking tide of his mind.
 
"We'll paint!
 
Wait here, I'll be back in a little while."

Oils
.

"Shouldn't you start with water colors or something?"

Oils
, he told me, and started beaming again.
 
As I left I felt an electrical humming in the back of my skull shaping itself into words without sound.
Harrisburg, PA, as reported at Middletown, PA, 51°F.
 
Fair, UV Index:
 
0 Minimal.
 
Wind:
 
From the North Northeast at 5 mph.
 
Dew Point:
 
32°F, Humidity:
 
48%
 
Visibility:
 
Unlimited
  
Pressure:
 
29.91 inches and rising.
 
Local Pollen Forecasts Today: High (11.8).
 
Predominant Pollens: Oak, Birch and Maple.

Barabbas and I walked downtown to
Kolinski's
Art Supplies and Fine Materials.
 
Anton
Kolinski
had two sons who were cops in the Rossi family's pocket.
 
I got along with them pretty well.
 
I got along with most people pretty well because they knew I was the calm, shiftless
Ganucci
who preferred museums and Truffaut films over doing the kind of stuff that makes for good cable.
 
Occasionally, when I was younger, it left me open to a few kidnapping schemes, but now I mostly just got wary looks and a lot of free crap.

Kolinski
barely broke five foot tall on his tiptoes, but he had short guy attitude with a pair of powerful arms welded to a wiry frame.
 
No matter how relaxed he might appear, I knew he was always ready to throw himself forward and take on just about anybody at any time.

He bent and patted Barabbas, who moaned with pleasure, and said, "What can I do you for, Mr.
Ganucci
?"

I tried to keep the gloom out of my voice.
 
"Anton, I've been thinking about turning my hand at oil painting."

"You?"

"Me."

"Yeah?
 
Oils?"
 
He stuck his fists on his hips and flexed so the veins bulged on his tiny, solid forearms.
 
"Maybe you should start with water colors."

It made the muscles in my jaw tighten up, but I kept going with the vapid smile and said nothing.
 
Barabbas stayed perfectly heeled and walked side by side with me up the aisles as I glanced around.

The dance never ended.
 
Kolinski
did his best to appear impassive and uninterested, but he paid careful attention to everything I said, and I knew he'd give his sons a call the minute I walked out.
 
Good, it would soon filter back to Carla and keep everybody wondering.
 
The
Ganooch
might have a thousand libraries' worth of classical arts information filled to his cerebral brim, but I asked
Kolinski
for a few pointers anyway.

It eased his mind some and he gave me a couple of bits of advice, ticking each one of on his fingers.
 
"Paint loose," he said.
 
"Dark against light.
 
Far away things are small. Never place the horizon dead center.
 
Paint at eye level."

"Got it."

He handed me a half dozen beginning lesson books.
 
"Here, read these, they might help."

"Okay."

He showed me around to various products, pointing out each of their benefits and possible drawbacks.
 
Barabbas started getting high off the paint fumes and sort of capered around the store.
 
The first thing we settled on was a
Stanrite
#180 table top easel.
 
Kolinski
thought it was me just being excessively lazy and not wanting to stand while I dabbled and smeared.

I didn't quite know how many more miles my grandfather could go before he slept, but he certainly looked a little shaky on his feet.

It took another hour for me to come away with a Plexiglas pallet, the oil paints, a smock, brushes, double primed stretched canvas,
Turpenoid
odorless thinner, and linseed oil to help clean up afterwards. I wondered what
Ganooch's
new telepathic range might be and hoped he wasn't always going to be inside my head.

Barabbas was moody and tanked enough that he didn't feel like walking, so I carried him and all the other stuff home in a big box.
 
He stuck his teeth out at me and barked whenever a pretty girl passed our trail. A hint of rain filled the air and the breeze grew stronger.
 
The usual melancholy took a dip towards the dark and I had to force it back.
 
It didn't take much to really ruin a guy's day.

When I got back I set up everything in front of the bay window in my suite, and the
Ganooch
rolled forward without a sound.
 
I waited for the thrust of his psychic joy but nothing came.
 
He seemed stunned by gratification, as if this was all he could ever hope for and more.
 
He waved me off and immediately began pouring paint onto the palette as if he'd been doing it for fifty years.
 
I threw the beginner lesson books in the wastebasket.

Leaves spun in the wind and fluttered against the glass.
 
I tried Carla's phone but kept getting her voice mail.
 
I sat back and looked out at the yard, listening to
Ganooch's
paintbrushes dance across the canvas.
 
He hummed to himself in his head, which I heard, and I hummed along with him.
 
Black clouds blew in from the west and I pondered on just how far I could push the jacked weather satellite.

"Grandpa, can you get me the transponder numbers on Carla Rossi's portable communication unit, boost the system for me, and download it to my laptop?"

He dabbed at the easel and kept right on smiling in his own sphere of existence.
 
There was no change of expression at all, no sign of exertion or concentration beyond the canvas, but the hijacked codes to her portable DOE system were relayed in seconds.
 
She had a five to the fifth power level of security that transmitted the beam in a differential pattern across the globe, each relay more intricate than the last.
 
Ganooch
had absolutely no trouble bypassing the parameters, which scared the crap out of me.

My eyes began to burn and suddenly I had tears streaming down my cheeks.
 
I grunted and wiped my face with my forearm, flames filling the edges of my vision.
 
The fire took on contours and a menu blazed before me:

Ray Tracing &
Photocolorimetry
&
Radiosity

3D Computer Modeling of Images–VRML

Complete Visible Human Data Set

Visualization Toolkit

"Not quite, Grandpa.
 
We need the Interactive Image Processing and Synthesis table.
 
Standard and Eigen-Wavelets."

The
cyphers
appeared, symbols rotating through the air until the codes intertwined and latched in before me.
 
"That's it.
 
Lock into the
echography
and the satellite images distributed by NOAA, SPOT.
 
Get me her personal ID iterative fast-transform phase retrieval."

The
Ganooch
sent the info into my laptop without ever having stopped painting or even turning in my direction.
 
I pressed enter and waited about five minutes before Carla rose up before me, life-size and with completely vacant eyes.

Carla Rossi could still take my breath away.
 
I'd been in love with her since we were seven, back when we met one afternoon outside
Strazi's
Restaurant, where our families occasionally negotiated together.
 
It was Easter weekend and neither of us liked the fish, so we sat out front on the curb waiting until it was time for dessert.
 
We'd been teenage sweethearts, first lovers, and we got engaged the night my mother died beneath a cab grille on Columbus Circle.
 
Family pursuits often came between us, but I always expected we'd eventually break away on our own, get married, and raise our kids outside the influence of the biz.

"Carla, honey, what the hell is going on?"

"Now you're
privateering
my system?"

"More like piggy-backing on it.
 
You weren't answering your phone."

"I'm busy."

"With what?"

"Our west coast enterprises."

I sat back and tried not to sigh.
 
My heart thudded and I started to get a little crazy with the thought of her, the way I always did.
 
She had smoldering Sicilian features, billows and breakers of wild black hair, and a slightly darker shade to her skin than my own.
 
Her body was mature and ripened and always gave the impression of a barely contained detonation.
 
She had that European quality of character-driven beauty to her rather than simple prettiness.
 
Her powerful personality came through even in the hologram, and I fidgeted in my chair.

There was never going to be anybody else out there for me except Carla Rossi and the idea saddened, elated, and terrified me.
 
I knew she probably felt very much the same way most of the time, but—as would always be the case—men and women handled these sorts of things in vastly different ways.

"Which enterprises?"

"All of them.
 
We're expanding and diversifying.
 
I'm taking over
Tera
Corp.
 
Try and stop me and you'll suffer."

You couldn't turn around for two seconds without somebody tossing the monkey wrench in.
 
Tera
Corp was one of our subsidiary ventures that involved privatization and development of the space program for intergalactic colonization.
 
It was the kind of business the Rossi family stayed far away from.

"Carla, honey?" I said, and I put an extra plaintive grumble in my voice.
 
"What's really going on?"

She held onto the glacial front for another ten seconds and then it fell apart.
 
I perked up and wanted to take her in my arms.
 
She started sobbing and cried out, "I found one, Tommy!"

"One what?"

"A gray hair, Tommy.
 
A goddamn gray hair!"

Oh shit.
 
A shiver worked through me.
 
"But—"

"Are you going to marry me or not?"

"You know I love you."

She sneered at that.
 
"I know you like to use ‘family biz’ as an excuse for not making a commitment."

"That's not true," I said, though it was.
 
My eyes darted around the room and I tried to get the
Ganooch's
attention so he'd break transmission, but he didn't notice.

Something happened to Carla's lovely face then.
 
It hardened and toughened and she appeared even more competent and vicious than I knew she was, so extremely capable and indifferent to human life that I actually gulped.
 
Sweat writhed across my forehead.

Her lips barely moved.
 
"You know I'm a classic A-type personality with obsessive-compulsive tendencies.
 
If I'm not going to be planning our wedding anymore I need to do something with my time and energy.
 
I'm starting to sway towards becoming a workaholic, and I aim to take over all the action from here to Frisco. I'm going to become my father's right hand."