SPYWARE BOOK (22 page)

The kitchen was full of rich oak cabinets. A white tile countertop bordered two of the walls. Embedded in the tiles were a sink and a gas stove. The stove had a steaming teapot shaped like a white swan on the front burner. An island topped with matching tile sat in the middle of the kitchen. A hundred pots, pans and implements hung from a rack suspended over the island.

Ray watched the teapot. He decided to wait to see who came when it started to whistle.

The wait seemed incredibly long. Gas stoves burned hotter? Ray began to doubt that piece of ancient wisdom. His whole body ran with sweat, despite the cool waft of air conditioning that came out of the kitchen. His wet palms gripped then regripped the pistol. Now he knew the true foresight of its makers. If it hadn’t been for the textured handgrip, he might have dropped it.

The swan-shaped teapot began to warble, then whistle, then finally scream with abandon. It fired a two-foot plume of vapor that licked the oak cabinets like a dragon’s breath. Still, no one came.

Ray’s breathing became erratic. He began to doubt the wisdom of his plan. Had Ingles spotted him? Was he outside, starting up his car even now? Was his only chance at finding Justin fleeing the scene even while he stood motionless, staring at a fucking teapot?

He turned to peer through the screens out toward the driveway. He saw no sign of a car or Ingles. He turned back to the kitchen, and his breathing stopped altogether.

Ingles was there, pulling two mugs from the cabinets. He popped in two Lemon-Lift teabags and poured hot water over them. Ray paused, looking at the two mugs. Who else was in the house?

Screwing up his courage, he told himself it didn’t matter, even though he knew it did. He pushed open the door and aimed the pistol at Ingles’ back.

#

Vasquez followed the sheriff’s deputy into Brenda’s house. Johansen followed her like a silent shadow.

The place was a wreck. The cabinets had been pulled from the walls in the kitchen. The living room cushions had been torn apart. Everything in the bedrooms had been overturned, slashed open and gutted. Books, smashed lamps and piles of clothing were everywhere. A spilled collection of rare CDs lay in a broken pile near the stereo. A pair of suntan queen-size pantyhose lay across them.

“Anything obviously missing?” asked Vasquez.

“Not a burglary,” replied the young deputy. He was a short man with broad shoulders and a tight crew cut. He sported a yellow scarf and black shades. Vasquez tried not to smile at his get-up.

“Not necessarily just vandalism, either,” he told them. “Seems to me that they were searching for something. See how the pictures on the walls aren’t slashed? Only the big cushions were opened up.”

Vasquez followed his pointed finger and his reasoning. He may look like a webolos boy scout with that scarf on, but he seemed to know his business. “Any prints yet?” she asked.

“No, must’ve been wearing gloves.”

“Where did they break in?” asked Johansen over her shoulder.

The deputy led them to the garage. “Pried open the doorway here.”

“Where did Vance get a crowbar?” asked Johansen as he took notes.

“More importantly, where did he get the time to do all this? This would take too long to do. Every piece of furniture has been smashed and gone through. Every box in the garage has been emptied. Besides, why did he do it?” she asked.

The deputy shook his head. He had no more answers. He headed back into the kitchen where the fingerprint crew was dusting and taping the countertop and some water glasses.

“Maybe she had something on him,” suggested Johansen.

“Possibly,” she said. “Hypothetically, then, he could have done this last night, then Brenda came home and surprised him.”

“Right, so then he takes her to the lab, they fight and she gets shot?”

“Hmm. We’re not seeing the whole thing yet,” she said. She stood in the garage, looking around in a circle. It was then that saw a light flash outside the window. It was a red light.

“What’s that?” she asked.

Johansen squinted through the dirty window, but the light had stopped blinking. “What?”

“There was a flashing red light out there, in that tree,” she said. Quickly stumbling and sliding her way through the destroyed house, she reached the front door. She headed outside and examined the trees in the front atrium. In one of them, a liquid amber, she found a box of black plastic.

“Is that it?” asked Johansen over her shoulder. He startled her a bit. He always managed to move more lightly on his feet than she did, even though he was twice her size. Sometimes, it was disconcerting.

She reached for the box.

“Don’t,” said Johansen, “it might be a bomb.”

Just then, it flashed again. Both of them backed away. Out on the street, they heard the deputy calling in on his car radio to the dispatcher. The red light stopped flashing while he waited for the response. It came crackling across the radio, and when he responded: “Ten-four,” it flashed again.

“It’s no bomb,” said Vasquez, reaching for it.

Johansen frowned down at her and the device. She glanced back and up at him. There he was, hovering over her protectively again, she smiled to herself as she peered at the little box in her hand. It was about the size of a pager.

“It’s too small to be a bomb,” she said. “Besides, I think it’s just here to detect police radio transmissions. To detect us.”

She flipped it over and could clearly see the batteries and the circuitry. “See this? Someone has built this thing with parts of a radio receiver and a pager.”

“Vance?”

“Maybe, I don’t know,” she said. “But it seems unlike Vance. This whole thing does. Maybe we should be looking for a third party.”

“Like who?”

“Well, where have we seen a mess like this before?” she asked. “Who is the type to make gizmos?”

“That Nog guy?” suggested Johansen, wrinkling his nose as if catching wind of something bad.

Vasquez turned back to the gizmo. “A third party. Someone who could have made that bashing-shooting mystery at the lab make sense.”

“Let’s hit the neighborhood kids and see what they know.”

She nodded and followed, pocketing the gizmo.

#

“You took your time in getting here,” said Ingles. He turned around and faced Ray with a knowing smile. “I was beginning to suspect the police had caught up with you after all.”

Ray kept the gun leveled. He wondered if he would shoot Ingles today. Perhaps in the next ten minutes. He felt there was a very good chance that he would. It was a cold thought. He knew he was ready to do it. The very smugness of the man, that was enough of a reason.

“Why did you do it, Ingles?” he asked.

“Why? Why did I do what? I’m not the one the police are after, Vance.”

Ray was almost beyond words. He drew in a breath, and remembered why he was here. “Who else is here?”

“No one,” said Ingles. “I assure you, we are quite alone. Ah! You are wondering about the two cups. The second is for you.”

If it had been anyone else, Ray would have thought he was lying. But Ingles always made an art of such things. “Into the other room,” he ordered.

Taking both teacups with him, Ingles walked calmly into the living room. Ray followed, careful not to get too close. He checked every direction as he walked through the entryway into the living room. At any moment he expected Nog or Agent Vasquez or some other accomplice to show up and bash him again.

The living room was decorated with ducks. Mallards, mostly, in many forms. There were duck-images woven into the couch upholstery amid patterns of cattails and ponds. The wallpaper boasted of more ducks. Strewn about the room and the walls were the heads and bodies of more ducks: some were plastic, some porcelain, others were real, stuffed corpses. One green-headed corpse eyed him with black beads from its perch on top of the big-screen TV.

“Have a seat,” said Ingles, setting the teacups on either side of the coffee table. He placed cork coasters under each of the cups. In between them sat a porcelain coaster holder with a proud mallard’s head on it.

Ray remained standing. “I want to know where my son is. I want to know now. If you bullshit me, I’ll shoot you.”

“Well, well,” said Ingles, leaning back on the couch with his cup. He spooned in two cubes of white sugar from a jar on the table. The jar was hand-painted with a pond scene. “This stance is a trifle more aggressive than I had hoped for. Don’t you want to know what this is all about?”

“I only want to know about my kid.”

“No, no. You want more than that,” said Ingles, calmly stirring sugar into his tea. “You want to know about Sarah, and the fate of the internet.”

Ray thought about smashing the gun into his face. He almost did it. He held back, deciding that since Ingles was in a talking mood, he should let him talk.

“You always loved to talk, Ingles, so talk.”

“That little bit about Sarah surprised you, did it?”

“No,” said Ray in a dead voice. By now, he had figured she was involved somehow. He kept pushing that thought away. Justin came first. But it was hard not be curious.

Briefly, Ingles explained his love for Ray’s wife. It had been a lingering thing for him, Ray gathered. Ray stood silently the entire time. He was relieved to learn she had not been cheating on him. At least, not since they were married. It still hurt, somehow, despite everything.

“So for that, you burned down the net and pinned it on me?” asked Ray giving a bemused snort. “You are crazier than I would have believed.”

Ingles waved his words away. “No, no. I’m destroying the net because I hate it. I pinned it on you, however, because I hate you. Some people decide to go out by taking a gun to work. This is simply my way. I think if a man is going to make his mark on this world, he might as well make an impressive one. Don’t you agree?”

“So, why do you hate the net?”

Ingles frowned and steepled his fingers. “You remember that old joke about a million monkeys and a million typewriters eventually reproducing the works of Shakespeare?”

Ray nodded. He eyed the clock and wondered if Ingles was stalling. Could this all be bullshit to waste time? Justin wasn’t getting saved with all this. He had to either call the cops in, or get something useful out of Ingles. He checked the gun again, and it was loaded. The little button showed red, meaning the safety was off.

“That’s what the net is, Ray. Don’t you see? It is our new Tower of Babel. It’s destroying the works of real value by burying them in a billion videos of cats on toilets and nude women doing mirror-shots. If there is another Shakespeare out there today, no one will ever know it. That’s why I hate the net.”

“Okay, I get it, you are an elitist dick,” Ray said, “but I’m done listening. You are going to lead me to my kid. Now.”

“Look Ray,” began Ingles in the slightly patronizing voice that he reserved for students who complained about their poor grades. He put down his tea cup. “Let’s put our cards on the table. Or rather, I will, because you don’t have any.”

Ray breathed deeply, trying to clear the rage from his mind. Ingles simply wouldn’t give up on bantering. Ray believed that if he had simply shot him, the man would still be admonishing him even now.

With a smooth motion, Ray aimed the gun at the TV set and fired. It imploded nicely. Shards of glass and plastic shot out in a flash of sparks. A few of them sprayed far enough to leave glittering chips on the coffee table.

“I always wanted to do that,” Ray said, “and now I know that this thing works.” He leveled the gun on Ingles’ chest again. “Talk,” he repeated.

Ingles didn’t look up, but Ray could tell he was rattled. It felt great to do something the bastard hadn’t calculated an hour ago.

“You are trying to convince me that you will kill me if I don’t help you,” said Ingles. His tone was no longer patronizing, it had shifted into his reasoning, philosophizing mode. “But what if I can’t help you? What if I don’t care about dying? How will that help Justin? Another murder on the list?” he shook his head and took a sip. “No, another murder makes no sense.”

“You’re logic is flawed, Ingles,” said Ray, enjoying the raised eyebrows this evoked, “I didn’t say I would kill you. There are six more bullets in this gun. They will serve to cause a great deal of pain.”

A look of concern crossed Ingles’ features. Ray grinned upon seeing it. Ingles stirred his tea. “Perhaps we could come to some kind of arrangement, then,” he said.

“Yes, certainly. I’d like to know which foot you use the most, Ingles. The right, I believe? I will be kind then, and begin with your left. Please be so good as to place your left foot on the coffee table.”

Ingles made no move to obey. He frowned and seemed to be thinking.

“Here,” said Ray, pulling one of Ingles’ ties from the back of an armchair. He tossed it to Ingles, who finally looked up at him. “You will want that to tie off your ankle. I don’t want you bleeding to death on me. I need you lucid and alive.”

Ingles picked up the tie. He dusted some of the glittering chips of glass from the table. “You are proving to be a poor houseguest, Vance.”