Spark: A Novel (35 page)

I removed the handcuffs and Emily walked over to the drillpress machine. She pulled off her parka and canvas shoulder bag and hung them on a handle.

“You should buy some more furniture, Jacob. Where’s your couch?”

“I don’t have one.”

“So where do your friends sit when they come over?”

“I don’t have any friends. If you want to sit down, there’s a chair over in the kitchen area.”

Emily glanced at the chair but kept wandering around the room, touching the old machines and peering out the windows. She had a quick, nervous energy—like one of the hermit thrushes with olive brown wings that darted through the streets of the city. It was logical that she wanted to run away from me, and that meant I had to figure out what she was thinking. In
A Boy for Baxter,
the dog could watch and sniff and figure out Gordon’s mood. I wasn’t a dog, and understanding what went on in the mind of a Human Unit seemed like a difficult task.

“You said that people from the bank wanted to talk to me. So where are they? Let’s move this forward.”

I slipped on my phone headset and dialed Miss Holquist’s number. She answered immediately. “I found the customer we’ve been looking for. We’re at my apartment.”

“Is she under control?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Give her your phone.”

I removed the headset and slipped it onto Emily’s ears.

“Who’s this?” Emily asked. “Do you work for the bank?”

Miss Holquist started talking and Emily remained silent for a few minutes. At a certain point, she shook her head and frowned.

“Is that it? Have I heard your little speech? Okay … now it’s
my
turn. Two days ago, I did a search on the Internet and found out that Jafar Desai was killed in Paris. Did you know that? Did you know that the bank is connected to a criminal who hires assassins?”

Emily stopped talking and rolled her eyes. “I’m
going
to tell you about the files. I’m getting to that. All you need to know is that I
can’t
give the files back. When I heard that Jafar was killed, I sent the files to Thomas Slater at the We Speak for Freedom Web site. Since I don’t have the files anymore, tell Mr. Underwood to let me go or call the police. I’m sure I broke one of the security laws that were passed after the Day of Rage.”

Emily looked up at me. “Now she wants to talk to you.”

I slipped on the headset. “Yes?”

“Keep her under control,” Miss Holquist said. “I’m going to contact our employer and call you back.”

The line went dead, but I left the headset on.

“So what’s the decision? Are you going to let me go?”

“Miss Holquist wants to talk to the bank’s legal staff. They’ll determine if the information you received is owned by the bank or by the Pradhani family.”

“They should have figured that out earlier.” Emily turned in a slow circle and examined the loft. “Okay … I see one bed, one table, and one chair. Do you have a bathroom?”

“Over there.”

She went into the bathroom, and then stuck out her head a few seconds later. “Why is your mirror covered with masking tape and newspapers?”

“Why do you ask so many questions?”

“Is the mirror cracked? Is that the problem?”

“I covered the mirror because I don’t like to look at myself.”

“Okay. That’s reasonable. I feel that way in the morning.”

She closed the door again, but her energy remained in the room. I heard the toilet flush and water splashing in the sink as I hurried
over to the entrance door and used my key to lock the dead bolt from inside the loft. Then I returned to the kitchen and waited.

The bathroom door creaked open and Emily smiled at me. “I think you’re wrong about the mirror, Jacob.”

“And why is that?”

“You’re a very
intense
person … that’s true. But you’re not unattractive. Why don’t you look at yourself in the mirror for a few seconds every morning and then—”

Before I could react, Emily sprinted across the room and tried to yank the door open. The dead bolt held and she fumbled with the lock—finally realizing that she was trapped. I couldn’t see her face, but her hands became fists then hands again. She took a deep breath, smoothed back her hair, and faced me.

“This is crazy. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You took the files.”

“They were
sent
to me. Okay? I met Jafar Desai at this silly Financial Futures conference in London. He told me that his father-in-law was crazy and he needed some kind of ‘insurance’ if he and his family left India with his wife’s inheritance. Trust me … this wasn’t a complicated scheme. I never met Jafar after the conference. We didn’t talk on the phone. Jafar said he would transfer a monthly payment into my bank account. If the payment didn’t occur … that meant he was in trouble and I should post the evidence of money laundering on the Internet. I hated my job and was planning to quit next year, so Jafar’s offer sounded like a good idea.”

“He sent you the files.”

“That’s rig ht.”

“But you don’t own this information.”

“Of course not.”

“Then why did you give it to Thomas Slater’s Web site?”

“Because Jafar got killed in Paris. The Pradhani Group hired an assassin … probably some Mafia guy … to shoot everybody. Look, I realize you’re just doing your job, Underwood. But these people are really
evil.
Do you understand that?”

“Let’s stay with the facts,” I said. “Why did you put the flash drive in the music box?”

“That was
my
insurance in case something bad happened to me. The music box was a Christmas gift from my uncle when I was fourteen years old. Roland would leave surprises in it if I was sad or having problems in school. Then he’d tell me that ‘home is where the heart is.’ ”

Emily returned to the kitchen area. She opened the refrigerator and discovered rows of bottled water. “Where’s your food, Underwood? You
do
eat food, right? I’m hungry.”

“I don’t consume things that decay inside me.”

“Are you some kind of weird vegetarian?”

“Sit down and I’ll serve you something.”

Emily watched me take a bottle of ComPlete and my only glass out of the cupboard. I placed them both in the middle of the table.

“What’s this?”

“ComPlete. It’s a sole-source nutrition drink.”

“Isn’t this for old ladies and cancer patients? What about some crackers and peanut butter? Or an apple?”

“This is the only food I consume.”

She tore off the plastic seal and poured the white liquid into the glass. It was very strange to have this Human Unit in my private space. I could feel the warmth of her body over by the refrigerator.

“I’ll drink this crap, but you’ve got to sit down at the table. I don’t like you standing there, staring at me.”

“There’s a folding chair in the closet.”

“Perfect. Go get it.”

I went to the closet, returned with the chair, and sat beside her at the table. “Here’s to you, Jacob.” Emily raised the glass and took her first sip. “This tastes like vanilla chalk dust. But
good
chalk dust.
Nutritious
chalk dust.” She finished off the drink and slammed the glass down on the table.

“Another bottle?”

“Sure. Why not? Let’s go crazy tonight.” She grinned when I took out a second bottle of ComPlete. “So what are we going to do while we’re waiting for the lawyers to call? Do you have a deck of cards?”

“No.”

“A television?”

“No.”

“What do you do when you’re not tracking down wayward bank employees?”

I decided not to tell her about the nail and the cord and walking in a perfect circle. “Sometimes I watch a documentary about a service dog named Baxter.”

“Sounds great! I love dogs. Let’s watch it together.”

I didn’t want her to keep asking questions, so I turned on my computer and told Edward to play
A Boy for Baxter.

I don’t really own anything except for my clothes and a few pieces of furniture, but I have become attached to this movie. Over the last three years, I had watched the film hundreds of times and memorized all the dialogue. It felt like I owned the story.

All that changed when I saw the movie through her eyes. Emily liked Max Velden, the trainer who carried dog biscuits in one shirt pocket and bite-size chocolate bars for humans in the other pocket. She hated Dr. Potterfield, the autism expert who was constantly lecturing the two parents about everything they did wrong. At the end of the story, when Baxter was hit by a car, Emily’s eyes glistened and I wondered if she was going to cry. “Not fair,” she whispered.
“Not fair at all.”
When the dog got up on three legs and limped across the backyard patio, Emily blew her nose with a paper towel and drank a glass of water.

“That was a great movie, Jacob! Thanks for showing it to me.”

“I’ve watched it a few times.…”

“So who are you? Gordon or Baxter?”

“I don’t understand.”

“I hope you don’t take this wrong, but I think you’re kind of like Baxter. When we were drinking chocolate at the Vickerson workshop, you didn’t really say anything, but you were watching us, evaluating.” She laughed. “You would have been a great German shepherd.”

“I’m—I’m Gordon.”

“You’re autistic? Really?”

I looked down at the floor. “No. That’s not it.”

Dr. Rutherford said that I needed to form relationships with other people. But I knew that was a bad idea.

Other people are confusing.

Other people make simple events complicated.

Other people attach invisible lines to your Shell, and then you can’t move freely.

“I was injured in an accident, and it transformed me. I don’t perceive emotions. When I look at someone’s face, I can’t read the message there.”

“And Baxter could help you?”

“Yes. Definitely.”

“How do you deal with people if you don’t have a service dog?”

“I’ve scanned and downloaded images of forty-eight different emotions. They’re photographs of a nineteenth-century French actor named Jean LeMarc.” I took out my phone. “Laura … show emotion file.”

In the first photograph, Jean LeMarc was smiling. His eyes were wide and upturned lines appeared at the corners of his mouth.

“Happiness,” Emily said.

“That’s right.”

“This is fun. Show me each photo and I’ll see if I can pick the right emotion.”

Sadness.

Pleasure.

Disgust.

After she gave me the right answer, I would lower my phone below the edge of the table. I’d find an emotion, then raise my hand and present the new photograph.

Fear.

Surprise.

Desire.

Emily laughed and demanded clues for a few of the images, but I wouldn’t answer her questions. She had problems identifying melancholy and ennui.

“That’s not ennui. He just looks tired.”

“You show me the right expression.”

Emily pressed the palm of her hand against her cheek, gazed up at the ceiling, and sighed loudly. “No. That’s not it. Maybe you have to be French to feel ennui.”

I presented the last emotion, and she studied it for several minutes.

“Happiness.”

“You already said ‘happiness.’ ”

“Joy.”

“Correct.” I switched off the phone.

“When I was a child, I was told that the righteous would have an eternity of joy with the angels up in heaven. But I didn’t believe that. Not even a little bit. Joy catches you by surprise. You’re just living your life and then … bam!”

She touched my arm and I jerked away from her. In that instant, all the warmth of the room vanished and it was cold—once again.

“Never do that.”

“Okay. I’m sorry.”

“Rule number one is to tell people that I don’t like to be touched.”

“I—I can see that. I apologize.”

“You have a phone call,” Laura said.

I got up from the table, walked over to the windows, and Miss Holquist whispered into my ears, “I want you to solve our problem … completely. Lorcan will come to your apartment tomorrow morning. He’ll pick up the empty container and take it away. Do you understand what you’re supposed to do?”