Minders (18 page)

Standing below the tree, he glanced over his shoulder through the yard at the dilapidated house. Sadie recognized it as one of the places Ford had visited while he was looking for Bucky. It was the old hideout with the turret and the hidden room through the fireplace. Sadie now watched his mind strip the place like a puzzle, assessing each piece of lumber and spare wood as a possible fix for the platform corner. It happened at blinding speed, with a soundtrack of words—“too big,” “bumpy,” “sawing,” “maybe,” “smell bad,” “diagonally?”—that she heard intuitively now.

Find the address
, Sadie told herself, determined not to repeat her failure of the day before. The house was on one of those abandoned blocks that existed like pockets of forgotten tranquility in the middle of City Center. There was no street sign visible but there was also no traffic, and between the quiet and the way that the uninhabited buildings and their plants had merged into one another, it felt a little otherworldly.

It was balmy, the air buzzing with the sound of the insects tucked into the overgrown yard. Ford spent the next three hours cannibalizing the surrounding houses and yards for parts and hauling them up and down with the dumbwaiter, which he’d installed on the side of the tree trunk. Sadie’s mind was working feverishly to assess all the new physical sensations she had access to: the smell of warm pavement, sweat running down his back, a bug in his mouth. He worked constantly, pausing only to swig water from a gallon bottle he’d suspended so it could be easily accessible from the treetop or the bottom.

It was like watching a performance, Sadie thought, the sleek motion of his mind as he thoughtfully chose pieces from the other buildings to realize his vision. He had a specific idea, but what fascinated her was his flexibility, his willingness to change as the reality evolved, taking advantage of a whole window with a pane of glass he found hidden inside a ruined house, compensating for a door that had looked solid but was rotted through. He knew generally where his final destination lay and trusted he would get there.

By the time he was done there was a roof with a window as a hatched skylight, four walls, one of them hinged so it could open completely like an awning, a short table with two chairs, a rope ladder, and his favorite part, the head of a rocking horse he’d cut off and, mounted like a piece of taxidermy.
Now the place has some class
, she heard him think to himself, and she laughed.

Cali called as he was finishing the last of his water. The sensation of strength and ease she got as he crushed the bottle with one hand gave Sadie a little rush.

It was clear from the warmth in his voice when he said, “Hey, babe,” and a few gossamer images that Sadie caught that his dinner with Cali on Friday had gone well.

“Hi, lover,” she said. “What are you up to?”

He glanced around the tree house. “Nothing. Working. You caught me on my break.”

And yet, Sadie thought, he was lying to her.

Tiny perfect points of color filled in the rest of the tree house in his mind, adding candles, a picnic basket, plates, and Sadie realized that he was building it for Cali, to take her to dinner. As a surprise. That’s why he was lying.

Wow.

He did all this for her
, Sadie marveled, aware of a strange tight feeling in her chest. He built the entire thing, just for her. Of course, Cali loved him so she knew how special he was.

“I just wanted you to tell me again that I’m going to be great at my new job and everyone will like me,” Cali said. “I’m nervous.”

“You’re going to be great at your new job and everyone is going to
love
you,” he told her.

And you’re getting a tree house
, Sadie said.
Which shows that one person in particular loves you very much.

“Thanks,” Cali said tremulously. “I tried listening to your message from the other night again—are you sure you weren’t drunk? It was really long, and you know how when you’re drunk—”

Ford chuckled. “I wasn’t drunk.”

“Well, I tried, but it was too noisy to hear anything, so I gave up.”

“Like I said, it was mostly just me telling you over and over how spectacular you are and how lucky I am.”

Now you say, “And I’m lucky too,”
Sadie prompted her. But Cali went with “Which is exactly why I wanted to hear it. So you promise to tell me all those things on Wednesday?”

“Yep. I might even make up a few new ones. And to show you I’ve been listening, I found somewhere really special to take you. Somewhere new.”

Sadie suddenly had a lump in her throat.

Cali said, “Sounds promising.”

That’s all?
Sadie demanded.
What about “Thank you,” or—and I can’t believe I’m suggesting this—“You’re the best”? You love saying that.

But Cali just said, “Bye.”

Sadie found herself feeling very dissatisfied with Cali. All her words about loving Ford seemed hollow in the face of her self-centered behavior on the phone. Ford had poured his heart into that message he’d left and all she could say was that it was hard to hear, and was he drunk? That didn’t seem very loving at all. Sure, she was pretty and had nice boobs, but Sadie began to think Cali wasn’t sensitive enough to be with Ford.

Ford didn’t seem to be upset at all, though, and as he looked around the tree house it was impossible not to share the excitement spilling from him. She felt a shimmering current of sensation that started in his toes and radiated through his entire body and knew, with the new clarity of deep stasis, it was pride. The idea that he felt good about something he’d done began to fill her with her own sense of warmth.
He is not your friend, he is your Subject
, she reminded herself sternly.
Your job is to assess and consider but not empathize.

As he gathered his tools together, Sadie thought that maybe Cali’s self-centeredness was part of the appeal for Ford, because it allowed him to stay emotionally aloof. No matter what she said, she was too wrapped up in herself to ever require more than attention and praise, so Ford never had to actually open up.

But you deserve more than that
, Sadie wanted to tell him.
You deserve someone who makes you stop fearing the unknown and instead want to jump into it.

Jump into it.
The phrase tinkled softly around her mind like a can being blown over a cobblestone street.

Ford patted the rocking horse on the nose, said, “See you soon, sport,” grabbed his hammer, and started down the rope ladder. He was a foot from the ground when Sadie heard a shuffle of feet and felt something being pressed over his mouth and nose. There was a cloying sweet smell, his head foamed with black and white dots like bubbles, and he passed out.

CHAPTER 14

W
hen Ford opened his eyes he was on a bed in a low-ceilinged room with powder-blue walls. He was lying on his side, staring at a radiator with something taped above it. He squinted, trying to see it, but couldn’t make it out.

Are you sure you should be this calm?
Sadie asked him.
You were just kidnapped and drugged. Don’t you think maybe a little panic or—

Ford sat up, making the horizon heave in front of his eyes, and Sadie experienced his nausea as hers.

Deep stasis might be a touch less fantastic in this context.

He took a breath to settle his stomach and leaned toward the radiator. Sadie saw a five-dollar bill hanging on the wall. Someone had doodled over Abe Lincoln’s portrait to make him look like Bigfoot and written “#41 of 120” as though it were a limited-edition work of art.

When Ford saw it, his heart began to pound, and Sadie sensed an emotional composite made up of gooey warmth that felt like friendship, cinnamon hope, and a dash of anger. His mind filled with sounds, not the windy ones from shallow stasis but a whole school playground of noises. Semitranslucent circles organized themselves into a bubbly picture of a young James, wearing a striped sweater and sitting at a pink plastic picnic table. Hand flat on the surface, covering something, saying, “Are you sure you’re ready to know the truth about Abe Lincoln?” and then triumphantly revealing Bigfoot.

The image fizzled now, the sounds bubbled away, and Ford, sitting on the edge of the bed, roared, “Where are you?”

Whatever Ford had been drugged with made everything in his head a little carbonated, and his voice sounded fizzy. Combined with the complex cocktail nature of the emotional experience in deep stasis, Sadie was having trouble getting a clear grasp of his state of mind.

A black kitten came and stood next to the door and stared up at Ford. “Go get someone,” he said to it, but it didn’t move.

“She’s deaf but I’m not, so would you mind not shouting, Citizen Ford?” The guy who had spoken was about the same height as Ford, but skinny instead of muscular, with broad shoulders. He slouched into the room almost apologetically, like someone who didn’t spend a lot of time around other people. His brown hair was carefully parted and trimmed. He wore a goldenrod cowboy shirt with pearl snaps and blue forget-me-nots embroidered over the pockets, a thin leather bolo tie with a gold buffalo-dollar clasp, khaki jeans, and brown cowboy boots that looked handmade. He carried a beige cowboy hat in his hand, since the ceiling was too low for him to wear it.

Hot anger, warm friendship, hard grief, and the bleachy scent of betrayal crowded each other for space in Ford’s mind. “If my head wasn’t aching I’d punch you, Bucky.”

“Sweet as ever,” Bucky said.

“What the hell?” Ford’s head was a shooting gallery of emotions, a different one flipping up every half second. “I don’t understand. You’re here? How long? And what’s with the enemy agent tactics?”

Bucky looked uncomfortable, his eyes staring beyond Ford. “Not much to say about that, Citizen F.” Sadie caught a glimpse of the bearded, wild-eyed Bucky from Ford’s memory, sitting across the table at a diner, picking invisible bugs from himself and looking over his shoulder. “I take my privacy very seriously. Why don’t we just start from scratch?”

Ford’s mind was going nuts: bleach, anger, grief, happiness, anger, but Sadie noticed the cinnamon scent she thought was hope surfacing more and more, as though Ford wanted to forgive Bucky but he just wasn’t sure how. “James was here. He drew the Bigfoot for you.”

“Incorrect,” Bucky said. “James made the Bigfoot, that’s true, and Bigfoot is here, but it doesn’t follow that James was here. Bigfoot is a good-luck charm. For safe keeping.”

“But—”

“Talk and walk,” Bucky said, heading out the door. “Places to see, wonders to learn, Citizen.”

Ford struggled to his feet and followed him into the next room, but he was almost knocked back again by what he saw.

It was a big space with light-colored walls, EvergreenLawn Superturf covering the ground, and filled with at least fifty miniature-golf sculptures. Some were set up for putting while others waited along the edge like an army ready to be called up. A couch, a coffee table, and a hot plate completed the furnishings.

Ford lost track of his anger as soon as he walked in. Sadie watched him trying to match each sculpture to a miniature-golf course he knew, eliciting cloudburst showers of memories of games with James, Willy, Linc, and Bucky.

His eye zeroed in on a dinosaur near the back of the room. “You got Daisy?” he said, skirting a castle and a UFO to reach it.

Bucky bit his finger and nodded.

Ford shook his head. “I went the next day to get her.”

“I broke in the night they put the locks on.” Bucky had moved to the far end of the room where the couch and hot plate were, and started pacing.

“I should have known it was you.” Ford patted the dinosaur. “I’m glad she went to a good home.”

Bucky paused in his pacing to take something white from a bowl at the end of the room and put it in his pocket. “Did you find the present I left for you at the old bottling plant? Nice sign, by the way. Although no one with half a marble would believe that had been a wire factory.”

Maybe people with more than half a marble have better things to do than know how wire factories are supposed to look
, Sadie pointed out.

“I thought it was you.” Sadie felt the warm flush of Ford’s vindication, followed by a hint of anger. “Why, though? Sort of out of the blue. I haven’t heard from you in two years.”

Bucky frowned. He picked up something red from a second bowl and put it in his other pocket. “You’d been papering half the desks in City Center trying to get your hands on that file. I thought I’d help.”

“How’d you get it?”

Bucky waved that away. “I also thought that once you saw it, read it, and learned how James really died, you would stop asking questions. You’ve been irritating a lot of people, Citizen Ford. I did it to shut you up. But that didn’t work, so I’ve resorted to an alternate plan.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in backup plans,” Ford said.

“I said
alternate
. And generally I avoid interfering with people as stubborn as you, so backup plans aren’t necessary.”

“I don’t need any interference,” Ford said, his anger rising, “not after two years.” There was something else mixed with the anger, Sadie sensed. Something subtle and gritty.

Bucky took a breath. “You think I abandoned you. I didn’t, Citizen F. Believe me when I say if I could be friends with anyone, it would be with you. But I have work, projects, that make that impossible.” He was pacing around as he spoke, not in straight lines but curvy eddies, as though his discomfort and frustration kept pulling him back.

The sense of grittiness inside Ford grew more pronounced, as though a wave of anger had churned old pebbles from the bottom of his emotional ocean. Sadie felt them grinding together while Ford took in the miniature-golf collection. “Yeah, I see how crucial your work is.”

“Everyone is entitled to company.” Bucky stopped pacing. His hands fell to his sides, and he stood looking forlorn but also determined. “I want to help you, Citizen Ford, but I can’t, I
can’t
, if you won’t move on.” His long fingers curved into fists of frustration.