The Wooden Sea (28 page)

Standing in front of the dresser slipping things into my pockets, I looked at myself in the dresser mirror trying to figure this out--where would Floon go?

What's the first thing he would be likely to do?

Magda is an orderly woman. Everything in its place, our house is always spick-and-span, her desk is empty of any extraneous papers, and monthly bills are paid punctually. It's one of her qualities I deeply appreciate because I

am not usually tidy in either mind or checkbook.

Every morning when the mail arrived she put whatever letters were for me in a neat pile on top of my dresser. When I came home from work and changed clothes, I'd fan through them and read any that looked inviting. The others I

left on the dresser for when I could summon the small interest to open them.

Magda and Pauline kidded me about how many contests I'd lost or orphans I let starve because I didn't open most of those letters for days.

Today on top of that pile was a quarterly report from my stockbroker.

When my pockets were filled with what I thought I would need--money, notebook, pistol ... I mentally ran through the list to make sure I hadn't forgotten anything. While doing this, my eyes remained on the broker's letter, specifically the company's mailing and email addresses.

Something dawned on me.

"Elementary, my dear Watson!" And then I was galloping out of the house like a horse on fire.

Our town library was the pet project of Lionel Tyndall, the only obscenely wealthy resident of Crane's View. A lonely old eccentric who made a fortune in oil prospecting, Tyndall gave the library so much money before he died that the place is a joy to visit. Not only do they have a wide array of constantly changing books, but their equipment is always the most tiptop, cutting-edge, and up to date. The head librarian, Maeve Powell, patiently taught me how to use a computer and, when I had it down, how to surf and make the most of the Internet.

That morning when I entered, Maeve was sitting behind the front desk looking at a large coffee table book on wristwatches.

The library's computer room is behind that desk and off to the right.

There was no way I could see into it from where I was standing. It made me nervous knowing Floon might be a few feet away but I had no way of knowing it.

Librarian Powell is as serious as a postage stamp, so when she smiles you should consider it a
Page 155

special gift. She looked up from her book and smiled.

"Good morning, Francis."

"Hi. Have you been here since the library opened today?"

"Yes. I was just reading about the Breguet Tourbillon--"

"That's nice. But did a guy come in here in an ugly-colored jogging suit, around sixty years old and with a lot of white hair? He speaks with an accent."

"Yes. He was quite nice. Asked for the CDs of the Encarta encyclopedia and dictionary we keep on reserve. Then he went into the computer room with them."

"I knew it! I knew he'd look for a computer and that goddamned Internet! Is there anyone else in the library?" I looked around. A fat woman in a yellow dress sat at a table reading an _Utne Reader _magazine. "Anyone besides her?"

Maeve got my message. Her voice turned grave and quickened. "Yes, there are a couple of children in the computer room too."

"Shit." I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "All right, we'll just have to deal with it."

"Who is this man, Frannie?"

For a moment I was tempted to tell her but something held me back. "It doesn't matter. I just have to talk to him and it might be dicey. Who else is in the library besides her and those kids?"

"No one."

"Then why don't you go outside for a while and take that woman with you."

"Should I call the police station?"

"No, let's see if I can take care of it without a fuss. You two go ahead outside."

She stood immediately but then hesitated. It was clear she wanted to say something. Instead she walked around the desk and over to the woman. Both of them stared at me while Maeve spoke.

Fatso clearly did not want to leave. But she heard something that changed her mind. She jumped out of that seat like she'd been ejected from it. She motored by me toward the door at a speed that said it all.

When Maeve was passing me she stopped. "Frannie."

"Yes?" I looked from her toward the door to the computer room, wishing she would leave so I could get on with this.

"My daughter Nell is in there. Nell and her friend Layla."

"I'll take care of it. Don't worry."

"If anything were to happen--"

I spoke lightly--as if this were no big deal. "Nothing's going to happen, Mrs. Powell. I'm going in there and come right out again with this guy. Zip zip and we're gone. Please, trust me."

"I do trust you, Frannie. But it's _Nell _in there. Don't let anything happen to my child."

"Never." I touched her cheek with my hand. Her eyes were brimming with tears and her eyelids trembled.

When she had left the building I walked slowly around the desk.

Pressed flat against the wall, I took out my Beretta and checked to see if the safety was off.

Holding it at my side, I slid slowly toward the computer room. On reaching that door, I got ready to sneak a look through the glass.

Without warning a nova of unimaginable pain burst in my head. Because my back was to the wall I sort of crumpled against it and slid to the floor. If I hadn't been leaning I would have fallen on my face. I had no control over my body.

I thought I'd been shot. Then my mind blanked because there was no room for anything else in that space but pain. The breath froze in my throat. I could not see. No agony was worse than this, nothing. The most terrible part was I

remained conscious throughout--no blackout, no physical escape. I must have looked like a drunken man, sitting on the floor dazed and gone. It was like an underground nuclear test. You know--when the bomb goes off the only visible sign is the earth collapsing inward toward the fifty megaton fire in its belly half a mile below.

I don't know how long it lasted--five seconds, a minute. I don't know how I survived. When it stopped I was stupefied. Is that the word?

Stupefied, paralyzed, nothing in my brain would ever work right again.

Nothing ever could after that.

Sitting on the floor outside the computer room I stared unseeing at a large black-and-white photograph of Ernest Hemingway on the opposite wall. Next to him was one of Fitzgerald, then Faulkner, Emerson, and Thoreau. I knew the faces but it took an eternity to dig their names out of the rubble of my mind.

To make sure it was Hemingway, I said his name. It sounded correct although it came out of my mouth slowly, as if the word were made of chewy caramel.

I felt the cold of the floor under my palms, the hardness of the wall against my back. Nothing in me was safe or to be trusted anymore. One of the first realizations I made when my mind started focusing again was the brain tumor had just taken over my being. Despite what Barry said about me having a few days' grace period before it killed me, what just happened proved he was wrong--I might not have any days left.

I tried breathing normally but it was impossible. My lungs took only short fast panting breaths like those of a small animal that's been cornered. I

tried willing myself to breathe slow and deep but it didn't work. My eyes moved down the opposite wall, across the floor and onto my hand. It still held the gun, but for the longest time I literally couldn't recognize what that object was.

From inside the computer room came children's laughter.

That more than anything sharpened my thoughts. Why I was there came back to me: Floon--get him, Maeve's daughter-- save her. Get up.

"Get up, mullerfucker." I smiled at my mistake. One of my favorite words in the English language I couldn't even pronounce now. So I tried again, carefully. "Mother-fucker." Good, and now it was time to stand up. I tried. I

tried pushing myself up off the floor but I was heavy, so incredibly heavy.

Gravity had doubled, tripled. How was I ever going to rise?

For one grisly instant my head went on fire again--the pain blasting across it like a miles-long dance of heat lightning on an August night sky. But that was all--that flash, my breath freezing again, but then it was gone. It was

gone.

And then I spoke again but it was not in my own voice. "Get the fuck up, motherfucker." I said, _someone _said, the word perfectly enunciated this time.

"I can't. I have no strength." I said without self-pity, with perfect calm.

"No _you _can't, but I can. So do it." Gee-Gee's voice came out of me.

I said, "Where are you?" and waited. He said, "Everywhere you need me.

Just _get _up." I decided it was a good idea to leave the gun on the floor while trying to stand. I put it down gently, not wanting to make noise. It was black against the yellow linoleum. I don't like yellow things.

"Forget the yellow! Pay attention. You have to pay attention to what you're doing."

"Okay." I licked my lips and pulled some energy together to stand. It was slow going at first. As I was propping myself up, I suddenly felt a massive jolt of both strength and energy in my arms.

But only my arms, no place else.

They felt like they belonged to someone strong and agile. To someone maybe seventeen years old...

"It isn't me doing this, is it, Gee-Gee?"

"Yeah, it's you. Don't start getting philosophical on me. Just get a fucking grip and do it." He sounded exasperated, like my helplessness was a pain in his neck.

Standing again, I looked down and saw my pistol on the floor. It looked like it was five miles away at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

I needed it for what I was about to do but didn't know if I'd be able to get down there again without doing a nosedive.

"I don't think I can do this."

"Get the goddamned gun."

Like an old man, like _the _old man I'd been in Vienna, I carefully bent my knees and went down in a slo-mo squat for the gun. It worked and I felt like I'd really accomplished something. Because despite the strong arms, the rest of my body felt useless.

"Now what do I do?" I asked the emptiness around me. No answer came.

Just when I needed Gee-Gee most he disappeared.

I stood there with ashes and smoke coming out my ears from the Mount Vesuvius that had just erupted in my brain. There was no guarantee I wouldn't keel over again any instant. Yet I was supposed to step into a room and disarm a lunatic billionaire murderer with two children nearby?

Three children. When I was able to rummage up the strength to get me to that door again. I looked in and saw three little backs standing around one big one. Two little girls, a boy, and Floon were all staring at a computer monitor. He was seated while they stood but none of them was higher than his shoulders. The kids were close enough to be touching--they didn't want to miss any of the fun flying across the screen. It showed so much information so fast that it was impossible for my eyes to absorb any of what was there. Since all of their backs were to me I continued watching.

Now and then Floon put his hands on the keyboard and proceeded to type faster than anyone I have ever seen. That's what set the kids off laughing so much.

Every time he put his fingers down and attacked, they squealed dieir delight and kept trying to push in even closer to the monitor. I've heard the fastest typist can do a hundred and sixty words a minute. Forget it-- Floon was eons beyond that. From the look of things, he was going faster than the damned machine could take. I swear to God there appeared to be a kind of infinitesimal lag between what he put in and what showed up on the screen.

Typing, he looked like a cartoon character on fast forward.

Eventually he sat back in his chair and waited while the computer caught up and did what he had asked. Seconds later there would appear a burst of words and graphics or a flying myriad of mathematical something. He'd watch it a while and then assault that old keyboard again. Every time the kids cracked up at his frenzy. The interesting thing was, from all appearances, Floon didn't seem to mind them being there. Or else he wasn't even aware they were there at all.

But I was--even more so when, turning to Nell Powell, the boy gave her a hard push into the other girl. Nell shoved him back just as hard.

Off balance he staggered back from the girls, trying to catch his balance. He couldn't and fell on his ass. At which point I saw his face and he was me, age nine or ten or thereabouts. Ten-year-old Frannie McCabe was in that room with

Floon and the girls.

Forty-seven-year-old Frannie McCabe stood outside alone and watched.

When I asked Gee-Gee where are you he had said, _"Wherever you need me." _So this was what he meant? That me was no longer only me, and then Gee-Gee, but now other McCabes from all my eras. Including little boy Fran in there with

Caz de Floon. A living greatest hits album played all at the same time.

Still on his butt the kid looked at the door. His small face was a mixture of sneaky rat and choirboy. Without the slightest sign of surprise on his face he smirked like we were in on an in-joke together and flipped me a big thumbs-up.

I turned from the door. Back to the wall again, I closed my eyes tight. Okay, go with it. This is how it's going to be till you die:

Chaos everywhere, no answers to your questions, a head ticking like a time bomb, and a different McCabe every time you turn around. So go with it, use it; embrace it if you can.

Because you ain't got time to do anything else, bud.

Once more at die window, I watched as the boy stood up and looked my way again. He made a face that clearly asked, what do you want me to do? Seeing this, Nell turned around to see what he was mugging at. I pulled back quickly, not wanting her to know I was there.

What were my options? What could a little boy do with Floon that I couldn't, although at the moment the kid probably had more strength and clearheadedness than I did. The blowout in my head had left me drained and very shaky, too aware that I could collapse at any time.