Mercury Man (12 page)

He shoved his feet clumsily into his battered old running shoes and got away before his mother could say another word.

The street seemed warm and, after the steady roar of the fans, almost silent. He looked up at the lighted window of their apartment and imagined his mother sitting there, worrying about him, about his
future. He felt like a rat for running out on her, but he couldn't stand the hassle. And he could have killed Bim for coming over. Why wouldn't they let him be? He didn't always want to hang out — least of all now, when he needed time to think, to figure out his next move.

He wondered if life would have been any easier if his dad had stuck around. There were quite a few things he couldn't talk to his mom about. Maybe with his dad it would be different. But then Joe Blake obviously wasn't interested; otherwise why had he stayed away all these years? Why hadn't he ever gotten in touch with them? His mother hadn't made it easy, of course, but there were ways his dad could get through to him without stirring her up. Yet he had never bothered. Tom wondered what he would do if his dad made the attempt. Receive him with open arms? Walk away in disgust?

Nesrallah's candy store was two blocks away. He hustled along and was there in a few minutes. A couple of ten-year-olds were frigging around with one of the game machines; otherwise the place was empty. Tom couldn't find the magazine, and he knew it was no good asking Nesrallah. You would have to nuke him to get him off his butt. Since nobody was around he stood looking at a few of the girlie mags, awestruck by the images he saw within. After a while Nesrallah shouted over, breaking into his dream, “Hey! Put them back or buy them. I'm not running a strip tease!”

“I'm looking for
Heavy Metal
, Nes!”

“It's already gone. Tuesdays, I told you, or else it's gone. Get your nose out of those magazines! Whatsamatter, you can't find a real girl?”

Tom swore, but under his breath. Nesrallah could get abusive and it was no good antagonizing him. He put the magazines back and walked coldly past the storekeeper.

“In a few years you'll have one for yourself,” Nesrallah said, unsmiling, without looking up from his newspaper.

Outside, it was steaming. Even the candy store's tinny air conditioning had seemed like an escape. Reichert and his portable fans! The cheap bastard — he probably got them at a discount. Tom didn't want to go back to the apartment, but he felt sorry for his mother. She was so out of it and she tried so hard.

He walked along toward the first traffic light. On his right a vacant lot, full of rubble and shadows, lay beneath the wreck of a half-demolished building. Lights glinted on broken glass and cans, and on the metal garbage shafts attached to the upper floors like fat robotic arms.

In the lot, wrapped in shadows, he saw the shape of a car. It was facing right toward him, and as he came up to it, he could hear the engine running quietly. Suddenly the headlights flashed on, blinding him. A man's head appeared at the driver's window.

“I'll turn the lights out,” a voice said. “But don't try to run. Just stand right there and listen. I'm not going to hurt you. Do you hear me, kid?”

Tom recognized the voice at once. This was the moment his grandfather had warned him about! Nothing would take him into that lot, but he stopped
in his tracks, blinking in the bright light. The man might run him down if he moved.

Abruptly, the headlights went out.

“Don't look at me,” the man whispered. “Just lean on the front of the car, as if you were waiting for someone. If a car comes by and notices you, step back here. I have to ask you a few questions.”

“Who are you?” Tom whispered, looking off down the street. Some cars cruised by the traffic lights, but the nearest pedestrian was blocks away. “Why in hell are you following me? I could report this to Dr. Tarn.”

“You don't work for Dr. Tarn. You were watching Fabricon. Why?”

“No — no reason. I was just curious. I told Dr. Tarn I didn't mean any harm. Who are you? You shouldn't be following me.”

“What do you know about the firm? Did your friends tell you something that scared you? Is that why you went in there? Tell me what you know.”

“I went in there because I was scared of you! I don't know anything. I didn't mean to cause any harm.”

“Why were they after you? Why did you run away from them?”

“I was scared.”

“Are you scared of everything, kid? I don't think so. Now talk straight to me. What did Tarn tell you this afternoon? I was watching. I saw him go in there.”

“He talked about the future and how helpless people are and how computers would take over the world. Stuff like that.”

The man's quiet laughter seemed to mock everything: Fabricon, Dr. Tarn, the whole idea of the future. Tom looked around at the garbage, the broken bottles, the metal tunnels clinging to the buildings. The dark figure in the car seemed part of all that — something cast aside and yet resilient.

“So that's what he talked about, was it? And it all made sense to you?”

Tom was about to say that he didn't like Tarn at all; he wanted to quote his grandfather's scornful phrase about the scientist being a “dangerous beast,” but he was afraid this man would kill him on the spot.

“Some of it sounded weird, like that stuff about the soul being nothing and the brain being a meat machine.”

There was a moment's silence. Tom turned slowly, but the figure was still there, a dark shape in the front of the vehicle.

“Listen, I have to get back to my mother. Why are you following me? I'm going over there — to Fabricon — with my grandfather. Don't you know that?”

Still the man was silent. Tom took a step toward him.

“Listen to me, kid. I'll leave you alone, but there are two things I have to tell you. If you listen carefully and cooperate, you won't have any trouble from me. Come just a little closer and pay attention.”

Tom took a step closer.

“When you go over to Fabricon, watch out for the Pavlov Room. You got that? The Pavlov Room. Stay away from there, whatever you do. You understand? The second thing is: don't mention me at Fabricon. If
you do, you may never get out of there alive. As far as you're concerned, I don't exist. You understand that?”

Tom swallowed hard and nodded. “Yeah, I understand.”

“I'm coming back to see you after you pay your visit. So keep your eyes and ears open. I need whatever information you can give me. But keep your mouth shut about this meeting. Now get the hell out of here!”

The headlights flashed on; the car engine roared. Tom ducked away, jumped over a castaway tire, and sprinted down the street.

He was so agitated it was hard to think straight. But a few things seemed to be coming clear.

He doesn't work for Fabricon
.
Otherwise, why would he warn me, why would he tell me to keep quiet? Unless it's some kind of trick … a set-up, some kind of set-up.

Tom desperately needed to talk to his grandfather. He considered hiking over there at once, but that would mean running out on his mother. It was their evening together and he just couldn't do it. He would have to go back and eat pizza and act as if nothing had happened.

He took the apartment stairs two at a time. On the landing he could already smell the hot pizza, and he heard his mother's laughter through the thin walls. He stopped right there and thought
Reichert
, but it wasn't Reichert.

Pushing the door open, he made her jump. She smiled, however, and stepped back and spoke into the telephone.

“He's here now.”

She handed him the phone. “Grandpa,” she explained, and rushed off to the kitchen.

He heard the rattle of pans on the counter, his mother humming to herself. She sounded happy.

“Tom!” Jack croaked at him. “He's been here! The guy who was watching you.”

“When?”

“About an hour ago. He drove me over to Fabricon and dropped me off back here.”

“I saw him a few minutes ago.”

“He didn't tell me he was going there. He must have wanted to talk to us separately. What did he say?”

“He asked a lot of questions.”

“We've got to talk. Can't trust the phones. Can you meet me somewhere?”

“Sure. But not tonight. Mom and I are having pizza.”

“So she said. … OK. The comic book store, then, tomorrow at about ten. Call me if anything comes up.”

“Right.”

His grandfather rang off. Tom stood holding the phone.

“Pizza and wine in the café,” shouted his mother from the living room.

The next morning, Tom slept in. Vaguely, he heard his mother call out a goodbye, then the door slammed and the roar of the fans filled up the morning silence — she must have turned them on as she left the apartment.

Wrapped in sweaty bedsheets, he fought off dreams of being trapped in swamps and of standing stripped naked in front of his high school class. Sleep became impossible and he got up, only to find that he was late for the meeting with his grandfather.

He splashed water in his face, threw on some clothes, and left the apartment, a piece of cold pizza in one hand and a small can of orange juice in the other.

Crosstown Comics, on the other side of Pitt Park, was one of the surviving concerns in a cheap, half-deserted mall that had once featured a dry cleaner, a small hardware store, and a porno shop. Although a new chain had recently moved into town, as far as Tom's grandfather was concerned Crosstown Comics was the place of choice.

Tom got there at ten-thirty but Jack Sandalls was nowhere to be seen. The boy bought a pastry in the tiny coffee shop at one end of the joyless mall and walked around, eating it slowly, watching the lethargic traffic and waiting for the comics store to open.

The store was a hole-in-the-wall operation run by an ex-hippie named Sebastian, who lived upstairs in the space behind the fire escape and a few withered plants. Crosstown's greasy windows were posted up with crude, hand-lettered sale signs that never changed, while inside there was barely room to turn round. The place was crammed with magazines and comics of all kinds, old LPs, and tapes. It stank of smoke and incense, and some said you could get high just by hanging out there for ten minutes, but Sebastian was a cheerful owl-like presence who sold everything at a reasonable price and knew a lot about comics. If you pressed him he would begin to talk about the good old days in Haight-Ashbury.

Minutes passed, but there was no sign of Jack. After the morning rush, the city seemed to be afflicted with a deep uncertainty, as if its frenzy of devotion to duty had been snuffed out by the heat. Tom was beginning to worry a little about his grandfather; he half-expected a pickup to drive out of the distant park and a grim driver to lean out the window and order him inside. Yet what had happened last night affected him like a persistent nightmare that has suddenly developed a good side. The man was scary, but it was just possible he wasn't working for Fabricon — unless his advice and questions were part of some weird plot by Dr. Tarn.

Why did things have to be so complicated? It was hard to know who to trust, who to rely on — and Tom wondered if that was something you learned in the big world, or an instinct you were born with that got you through safely where others faltered. Strangely enough, he felt that he might be able to trust the man in black, whereas he would never trust Chuck Reichert at all — those were just his instincts, all he had to go on, and he might be crazy to follow them.

He peered down the street and had just reached a desperate pitch of restlessness when he saw his grandfather appear in the distance, a rotund figure in a battered golf hat and sunglasses, swaying along on an old ten-speed. When he came close enough to shout a greeting, easing his bike up the broken ramp beside a long-vanished hamburger concession, all Tom's worries seemed to float away like dust in the morning sunlight.

“Don't tell me that Sebastian isn't up yet!” Jack muttered, locking up his bike in front of Crosstown's smeary windows. “Well, it's another damned muggy morning. Had some trouble dragging myself out of bed and into action. Didn't want to face the day at all — longing for a nice sea breeze in all this heavy weather!”

Pulling his sunglasses off, he gave Tom a sharp look.

“You OK, son? Your mom OK? We've got to talk! Things are breaking a little too fast for my liking.”

They went together to find a table in the coffee shop. A waitress in a soiled apron took their order for coffee and juice without even looking at them. Tom
told his grandfather the details of his encounter of the previous night and the old man slowly lit up his pipe.

“So he gave you something like the same yarn, did he?” Jack nodded. “That man is quick. And he's handed us plenty to think about. Can we trust him, Tom?”

“I don't know, Grandpa. He warned me about the Pavlov Room, a place I should stay away from. The guy seems weird, pretty scary, and he wants us to give him information. But you know, when I really believed him was when he laughed at Tarn's ideas.”

“What do you mean?”

“He asked me what Tarn said to us, and when I told him he laughed. But it wasn't an ordinary laugh. It was a deep kind of scornful laugh, as if he could never believe anything that Tarn predicted about the future.”

Jack considered this. He sipped his coffee and leaned forward. “Now, listen, Tom. We're at a disadvantage in this game because we don't know anything about anybody. We need to get filled in a bit better before we see Tarn. There's a couple of things I want you to do for me.”

“OK.”

“Call Tarn's office and make our appointment, but don't make it tomorrow, no matter what they say. There's another thing — you've had a pretty good look at that fella by now, even if it was dark or on the run. As soon as you get home I want you to draw me the best picture of him you can.”