Orphan X: A Novel (2 page)

It did not take her long to break the relative silence of the car. “Everyone with their phones plugged into their faces all the time,” she said to Mia. “You know who predicted this? My Herb, may he rest in peace. He said, ‘One day it’ll be so that people talk to screens all day and won’t even require other humans.’”

As Mia took up the conversation, Evan glanced down at Peter, who was staring up at him with charcoal eyes. His thin blond hair lay lank, aside from one lock that swirled up in the back, defying gravity. A colorful Band-Aid had been applied to his pronounced forehead. His head tilted as he peered down at Evan’s foot. Slowly, Evan became aware of cool air on his bare ankle. The missing sock. He took a half step, sliding the offending ankle out of the boy’s line of sight.

Mia’s voice floated over him.

Clearly she had asked him a question. He looked up at her. A scattering of light freckles, not visible under weaker light, covered the bridge of her nose, and her glossy chestnut hair was a lush, piled mess. He’d grown accustomed to seeing her in frantic single-parent mode—runs in her stockings, slightly out of breath, juggling Batman lunch box and satchel briefcase—but the glow from behind the panels cast her now in a different light.

“I’m sorry?” he said.

“Don’t you think?” she repeated, mussing Peter’s hair affectionately. “Life would be boring if we didn’t have other people around complicating everything?”

Evan felt the fabric of the sleeve wet against his forearm. “Sure,” he said.

“Mom? Mom.
Mom.
My Band-Aid, it’s coming off.”

“Case in point,” Mia said to Mrs. Rosenbaum, who did not return her smile. Mia fussed in her purse. “I have some more in here somewhere.”

“The Muppet ones,” Peter said. He had a raspy voice, older than suited an eight-year-old. “I want Animal.”

“You
have
Animal. On your noggin.”

“Then Kermit.”

“Kermit was this morning. Miss Piggy?”

“No way. Gonzo.”

“We have Gonzo!”

As she smoothed the new Band-Aid into place with her thumbs, kissing Peter’s head at the same time, Evan risked a quick glance down at his sleeve. He was bleeding through, the black fabric even darker over his forearm. He shifted, and the pistol suppressors clanked together in the paper grocery bag dangling at his side. A wet splotch had appeared on the bag—the bloody sock leaking through. Gritting his teeth, he spun the bag around and set it on the floor with the stain facing the wall.

“It’s
Evan,
right?” Mia had directed her attention at him again. “What do you do again?”

“Importer.”

“Oh? What kind of stuff?”

He glanced at the floor indicators. The elevator seemed to be moving glacially. “Industrial cleaning supplies. We sell to hotels and restaurants, mostly.”

Mia shouldered against the wall. Due to a missing button, her knockoff blazer gapped wide at the lapels, providing a generous view of her dress shirt. “Well? Aren’t you gonna ask me what
I
do?” Her tone was amused yet stopped shy of flirtatious. “That
is
how conversations work.”

District attorney, Grade III, Torrance Courthouse. Widowed five years and change. Bought her small unit on the twelfth floor a few months ago with what remained of the life-insurance money.

Evan produced a pleasant smile. “What do you do?”

“I am,” she said, with mock grandiosity, “a district attorney. So you better watch your step.”

He hoped the noise he made sounded appropriately impressed. She gave a satisfied nod and produced a poppy-seed muffin from her purse. From the corner of his eye, Evan noticed Peter again staring at his bare ankle with curiosity.

The elevator stopped on the ninth floor. Fresh from the social room, a coterie of residents crowded in, led by Hugh Walters, HOA president and monologist of the highest order. “Excellent, excellent,” he said. “A good showing at tonight’s meeting is essential. We’ll be voting on which morning beverages to offer in the lobby.”

Evan said, “Actually, I—”

“Decaf or regular.”

“Who drinks decaf anyways?” asked Lorilee Smithson, 3F, a third wife with a face turned vaguely feline by decades of plastic surgery.

“People with A-fib,” Mrs. Rosenbaum weighed in.

“Knock it off, Ida,” Lorilee said. “You just talk down to me because I’m beautiful.”

“No. I talk down to you because you’re
stupid.
”

“I say we offer kombucha,” Johnny Middleton, 8E, chimed in. A hair-plugged forty-something, he’d moved in with his widowed father, a retired CFO, some years back. As always, Johnny wore a warm-up suit with the decal of the mixed-martial-arts program he’d been attending—or at least talking about incessantly—for the past two years. “It’s got probiotics
and
antibodies.
Way
healthier than decaf.”

A few more residents piled in, crowding Evan against the rear wall. His skin prickled; his blood hummed with impatience. Theaters of war and high-threat zones focused his composure, but Castle Heights small talk left him utterly devoid of bearings. Mia glanced up from the muffin she was picking at and gave him an eye roll.

“We haven’t heard much from
you
lately, Mr. Smoak,” Hugh said with a practiced air of superciliousness. Probing eyes stared out from behind black-framed glasses so old-fashioned they were trendy again. “Would you like to weigh in on the morning-beverage measure?”

Evan cleared his throat. “I don’t have a strong need for kombucha.”

“Maybe if you worked out once in a while instead of playing with spreadsheets all day,” Johnny stage-whispered, the dig bringing a titter from Lorilee and glares of condemnation from others.

Fighting for patience, Evan glanced down, watching the stain on his sleeve slowly spread. Casually, he crossed his arms, covering the blood.

“Your sweatshirt,” Mia whispered. She leaned toward him, bringing with her the pleasing scent of lemongrass lotion. “It’s wet.”

“I spilled something on it in the car,” Evan said. Her eyes remained on the sleeve, so he added, “Grape juice.”

“
Grape
juice?”

The elevator lurched abruptly to a stop.

“Whoa,” Lorilee said. “What happened?”

Mrs. Rosenbaum said, “Maybe your augmented lips hit the emergency stop button.”

The residents stirred and milled about, livestock crammed in a pen. A blur at Evan’s side drew his attention—Peter crouching, his little fingers closing on Evan’s pant cuff, lifting it to reveal the curiously bare ankle. Evan pulled his foot away, accidentally knocking over the grocery bag. One of the pistol suppressors rolled free, the metal tube rattling on the floor.

Peter’s eyes flared wide, and then he snatched up the suppressor and shoved it back into Evan’s bag.

“Peter,” Mia said. “Get up. We don’t
crawl
on the
floor.
What are you thinking?”

He rose shyly, twisting one hand in the other.

“I dropped something,” Evan said. “He was just getting it for me.”

“The hell
was
that thing?” Johnny asked.

Evan elected to let the question pass as rhetorical.

Johnny finally unstuck the red lever, and the elevator continued up. When they reached the tenth floor, Hugh held the doors open. He looked from Peter to Mia. “I take it you didn’t arrange child care?”

The eight or so women in proximity bristled.

“I’m a single mom,” Mia said.

“HOA guidelines expressly specify that no children are allowed during committee meetings.”

“Fair enough, Hugh.” Mia flashed a radiant smile. “You’re the one who’s gonna lose the swing vote on the hanging begonias in the pool area.”

Hugh frowned and moved on with the others into the hall. Evan tried to stay behind with Mia and Peter, but Mrs. Rosenbaum reached back and fastened her hand over his forearm again, cracking the developing scabs beneath the sweatshirt. “Come on now,” she said. “If you live in this building, you’ll do your part like everyone else.”

“I’m sorry,” Evan said. “I have to get back to those spreadsheets.”

He loosened Mrs. Rosenbaum’s hand. Her pruned finger pads were smeared with his blood. He gave her hand a formal little pat, using the gesture as cover to wipe her fingers clean with his other palm as he withdrew his arm into the elevator.

The doors closed. Mia folded the remains of her poppy-seed muffin in the paper wrapper, jammed it into her purse, and shot a sigh at the ceiling. They rode the elevator up in silence, Evan holding the paper bag, the top crumpled down to cover the stain. He kept his sockless foot and bloody sleeve facing the wall on the far side of Mia and Peter.

Peter held his gaze dead ahead. They reached the twelfth floor, and Mia said good-bye and stepped out, Peter trailing her. The doors started to close behind them, but then a tiny hand snaked through the bumpers and they jerked and retracted.

Peter’s face appeared, his solemn expression undermined by Gonzo staring out from the Band-Aid on his forehead. “Thanks for covering for me,” he said.

Before Evan could respond, the doors had slid shut once again.

2

Fortress of Solitude

The façade of 21A’s front door matched the others in the building precisely, adhering to HOA regs and passing unnoticed before the eagle eye of Hugh Walters on his monthly floor inspections. What Hugh
didn’t
know was that the thin wood laminate concealed a steel door fire-rated at six hours, immune to battering rams, and effective in repelling hinge-area breaching charges.

Arriving at his place at last, Evan slid his key into the ordinary-looking dead bolt. When he turned the key, a concealed network of security bars inside the door released with a sturdier-than-normal clank.

He stepped inside, locked the door behind him, deactivated the alarm, dropped the bloody grocery bag on a glass accent table, and exhaled.

Home.

Or at least his version of it.

Copious windows and balconies maximized the corner penthouse panorama. Twelve miles to the east, the downtown skyline glittered jaggedly, and Century City rose to the south.

The condo’s layout was largely open, gunmetal gray concrete floors split by a freestanding central fireplace, numerous pillars, and a steel staircase that spiraled up to a rarely used loft Evan had converted to a reading room. The kitchen featured poured-concrete counters, stainless-steel appliances, brushed-nickel fixtures, and a backsplash of mirrored subway tiles. The broad island overlooked a spacious, sparse plain broken by training mats, various workout stations, and the occasional sitting area.

The windows and sliding glass doors were made of Lexan, a bullet-resistant polycarbonate thermoplastic resin, and the retractable sunscreens added a second layer of discreet armoring. Built of tiny interlocking rings like chain mail, the woven metal was composed of a rare titanium variation. The screens could stop most sniper rounds that might penetrate the bullet-resistant panes. They added an additional protective shield from explosive devices while obscuring the sight line of would-be trackers or assassins.

And they provided excellent shade from the sun.

Even the walls themselves had been reinforced. Evan had undertaken these upgrades slowly over the years, using different suppliers each time, shipping the equipment piecemeal to various addresses, assembling much of the gear off-site. When he needed to hire installers, he ensured that they never knew precisely what they were installing. With meticulous planning and patience, he had built a fortress of solitude without anyone’s taking notice.

He had great affection for the world he’d created behind the door to 21A. And yet he was prepared to abandon it at a moment’s notice.

He crossed now to the kitchen, his shoes tapping on the polished concrete. The one flare of whimsy and color came in the form of the so-called living wall installed beside the stove. A vertical garden fed by a drip system, it grew everything from mint and chamomile for fresh tea to cilantro, parsley, sage, basil, and peppers for omelets. Though it was December, the chamomile was flourishing within the carefully controlled environment of the penthouse.

On occasion it gave Evan pause that the only living thing with which he shared his life was a wall.

But he had the Commandments, and the Commandments were everything.

Reaching the Sub-Zero, he pulled from the freezer drawer a frost-clouded bottle of U’Luvka, a Polish vodka named for a style of crystal glass. He poured several ounces into a shaker over distilled ice, rattled it until his palms adhered to the frozen metal, then tilted the contents into a chilled martini glass. He drank, letting the cool burn move past his lips, closing his eyes into the pleasure of it.

He drifted through the scent of the vertical wall and stepped out through one of the south-facing sliding doors. The floor of the balcony was layered with quartz stones that crunched loudly underfoot, which was precisely the point. Shatter-detection software embedded in the windows and doorframes picked up the precise audio signature of the crunched rock, alerting to the compression sounds of any object over fifty pounds. The sensors also were triggered if anything of size neared the glass.

A square planter toward the balcony’s edge held an assortment of squat succulents and a base-jumping parachute, tucked behind an inset panel in the event that Evan had to make a rapid exit.

Setting his elbows on the railing, he sipped again, feeling the vodka warm his cheeks. In the distance the crescent of Marina del Rey sparkled at the continent’s edge, riding the lip of the night-black Pacific.

Movement in the neighboring building drew his focus. Evan faced apartment 19H across the street. Joey Delarosa flickered into sight behind his vertical blinds, eating out of a pot with a wooden spoon, a football game shimmering in the background. A low-level accountant at one of the big firms, he spent most of his off-hours eating and watching TV. About once a month, he’d go on a drinking jag, stumble home from the Westwood bars, and call his ex-wife, crying. These calls were met with a stony reception; Joey hadn’t honored the telephonic restraining order or paid child support in three years. His last domestic interlude had put his then-wife in a two-day coma and left his son with a permanent limp, growth plates being what they are in six-year-olds. The service door in Joey’s kitchen, which let out near the trash chute, sported a Schlage wafer lock that Evan could get through in five to seven seconds with a forked tension wrench.