Device Free Weekend, page 15
Emma, Will, and Stephen sat by impatiently while Beau laid out his logic, which really was not so complex: if—in theory!—red clover was out, and if removing that option removed their ability to change the fate of Link Labs or, ultimately, Ryan Cloverhill… and if they had some reasonable assurance that no innocent people would be harmed, including themselves… then should they really be so quick to pass up enough wealth to make Solomon blush? Especially if Ryan covered them with the lawyers and, you know, whatever.
“Hell, forget about us; what about all those employees?” he said. “Go green, and a bunch of programmers get to play hacky sack for a few weeks. Paid! Do any of ’em get that the no-clover way?”
“That’s rationalizing.”
“He set the terms, not us,” Beau said. “And what about us?”
“What about us?”
“Any one of us could give the whole wad away if we felt that guilty about it. Imagine all the good that would do in the world.”
“In theory,” Stephen said dryly.
Beau pointed at him. “I’m just saying.”
“I still don’t think we’d ever lay a finger on a dime of that money,” Emma said. “In theory.”
“Yeah, but you can have all kinds of theories,” Beau said. “That’s what makes it theoretical.”
Emma looked at her old friends from across the table. Her longtime roommate, and the guy who’d made her so happy for so many years: Beauregard Jamison Hemford III. The bright-smiling fellow who had so effortlessly wiped away the lifetime of self-esteem debt young Lainie Calissa Goss had carried with her to campus like luggage, all the way from Marin County to Stillwater.
This was coming from both of them… but thinking back to that odd exchange in the basement, it also seemed clear enough to Emma which one of them had brought it up first.
Was it surprising? Not surprising? Both?
She knew that Lainie, deep down, felt jealous of Emma and Ryan’s childhood bond: that it had survived, that it had sustained no permanent damage, that it existed at all. To UpLink Lainie, Emma suspected, it just didn’t seem quite fair.
But that was just one of the differences between UpLink Lainie and Bardsley Lainie: Bardsley Lainie hadn’t felt left out in the least. Don’t get me wrong, we all love the guy, she’d said back then, after everything went nuts. But he’s one strange little twig. Who wouldn’t pick Stephen?
It was only since Ryan Cloverhill had become Ryan Cloverhill that Lainie’s viewpoint seemed to have changed. And now?
Well. In some ways, their UpLink personas really were authentic. Amplified for clicks and likes, maybe… but they were peas in a pod, Beau and Lainie, and they always had been. And Lainie had always been the mayor of that relationship.
“I’m not saying it’s worth thinking about,” Beau concluded. “I’m just saying… maybe it’s worth thinking about?”
Stephen said, “Why do you keep looking at Will?”
“What do you mean?” Beau said. “I’m looking at everybody.”
Stephen turned to Will.
Will shook his head slowly. “He’s looking at me because I recently confided in him—confided; Beau, you understand what confided means, right?—that we’ve been a little tight.”
“What?” Stephen said. “Since when?”
Emma sat up and leaned forward. She knew Will and Perry had had a tough couple of years, but she’d never heard either one of them mention money trouble. “What happened? I just saw you two in August. What’s going on?”
Will sighed. “You guys know Perry got so sick. Then he couldn’t travel for a while, lost his job in June. We’d already sunk a bunch into the house, and the recession shelled our investments, and…”
“Perry hasn’t been working?” Emma couldn’t believe this news. She’d probably asked a version of that basic question every time they talked. It was standard checking-in chitchat: How’s work? Lately, now that she thought about it, Perry usually said Can’t complain and changed the subject. Suddenly she felt like a dolt. “You guys!”
“We didn’t want to say anything,” Will said. “Perry made me promise. I don’t know what I was thinking when I told you, Beau.”
Beau looked sincerely chastened. “I’m sorry, buddy. I swear, I didn’t tell anybody except Lainie.” He gestured toward Stephen. “I can’t help it if I forgot we were sitting with Carnac the goddamn Great over here.”
Carnac the Magnificent, Emma thought. Beau always got everything just slightly wrong.
Stephen ignored him altogether, focusing instead on Will: “How tight is tight?”
“Stephen,” Emma said. “Come on.”
“I just mean, can’t we help?” He looked almost professionally offended by this revelation. “I can’t believe I didn’t pick up on any of this. I’ve been practically damn naked with your poker-faced husband today.”
“Well, that makes one of us.” Will chuckled a little. “Guys, don’t worry. We’re not losing anything important. This is exactly why we didn’t want anybody to know. One way or another we’d have been right here, even if Ryan hadn’t paid our way.”
Emma reached over, took Will’s hand. He kissed her knuckles.
“We’ll be fine,” he said. “And I don’t care if we each get a hundred billion, I don’t want anything to do with that money. In theory or for real. Perry won’t either. I promise you that.”
“Perry,” Stephen said. “I’m giving that guy a piece of my mind when he gets back here.”
“You’d better not, Rollie. I’ll never forgive you.”
“Yes, you will.”
“Okay, fine. But still: please don’t.”
Stephen shook his head and looked grumpy. Beau shook his head and looked embarrassed. Lainie hadn’t looked up from the table a single time through all of this.
Emma called bullshit. “Lainie, you’ve been awfully quiet,” she said. “I’d like to hear what you have to say.”
Lainie sensed them all looking at her. “I feel bad for Will and Perry too.”
Nope, Emma thought. Don’t think you can cop out on this and let Hubby take all the flak. “I mean about this green-clover idea of Beau’s,” she said. Knowing full well that what she was about to say next was flat-out mean. Knowing she should stop herself from saying it, unable to stop herself from saying it anyway: “Are you sure a hundred million is enough to make up for losing all those followers?”
This brought Lainie’s eyes up at last, flashing like distant thunderclouds. Emma knew that look. Had been doing her best to provoke it, if she was honest with herself. She readied for battle.
Bring it on.
“So besides that,” Perry said, looking skyward at the drone now tracking them along the oystershell path, “I guess the way I know I’m a prisoner now is, your hands aren’t empty anymore?”
Behind him, Jud said, “You’re catching on.”
Perry wondered what time it was by now. The sun was definitely well into the western sky. He was starving. And parched. His fluid intake for the day had amounted to two cups of coffee and two mugs of Forest Berries tea, and all that running around in an actual forest made a fellow thirsty. Had he seen any berries in his travels today? Maybe they were an urban legend. Or a different forest. Or he just hadn’t noticed.
At any rate, he hadn’t peed since the six of them had returned from the boathouse this morning. This morning didn’t even feel like today anymore. He had a headache. His fingers were scraped and sticky from pawing around in the needles and twigs, and he’d bent back a nail. Even his shoe had come untied.
Fuck it. Perry let the strings flap. Civil disobedience.
What were Will and the others doing right now? Was Stephen really there with them, as Ryan had claimed? Why was Jud walking him toward the cottage instead of the big house?
He supposed there was a way to research at least some of these things. So he asked Jud: “What time is it? Do you have any water? Why are we going to the cottage? Is Stephen still there?”
“Around fifteen-thirty,” Jud said. “No, but you can have some soon. Because I said so. And, no.”
“Thanks, Alexa.”
“She works for somebody else.”
Perry glanced over his shoulder, realizing he had no idea what time “fifteen-thirty” was without doing math. He supposed it didn’t really matter. He glanced up at the drone again—the goddamned all-seeing Ryan-bot and its faint, ever-present hum. It was starting to creep him out.
So he stopped walking and turned around.
Jud stopped with him.
The drone stopped and hovered overhead.
Perry said, “Jud, you strike me as the type who’s been around. Done a lot of things, met a lot of people. No?”
“You win that bet.”
“Here at home and in faraway places?”
“Around the world twice and talked to everyone once. Just like the song says.”
Perry didn’t know what song he was talking about. He didn’t much care. “In your opinion,” he said, tossing another glance up toward the hovering drone, “based on your personal experiences, has my very good friend Mr. Cloverhill become a madman?”
Jud actually seemed to consider the question. Finally, he shrugged. “If he is, he seems like a high-functioning one. And he offers a hell of a benefits package.”
Fair enough.
“Let’s move.”
Perry turned and walked on. Jud fell in behind. The drone tagged along.
As they rounded the last bend in the path, the cottage came into view once again—an entirely different view when not obscured by gloom and sideways rain. He imagined himself and Will out here, whiling away their retirement years in a spot near a spit like Mags and Luna had found for themselves.
Impossible, of course. For Mags and Luna, too, he felt pretty certain, without a benefactor like Ryan Cloverhill. Still, Perry could imagine it clearly. It made a nice picture.
Red means Stop. That was what Ryan had said on the phone, the raving wacko. Green for Go. Your doting husband can show you everything as soon as you’re finished dorking around out there.
But what was he really saying? Admit your price, and something like this could be yours? Perry couldn’t imagine what need in Ryan this deranged production of his fulfilled.
With clear skies, he could see the edge of the bluff beyond the cottage. The vast, denim-blue water beyond the bluff. He almost remarked on it over his shoulder, something along the lines of Nice backyard. But he stopped himself. Because there was something else:
There, in the water. Maybe a thousand yards out, just off to his left. Moving slowly toward his right:
A boat.
A big boat. Hundred-footer at least. Big enough to cut an aggressive-looking profile even at this distance. It was a profile that said: I am not a recreational craft.
Perry knew immediately what kind of craft it was. White, with a pilothouse. A mast and crow’s nest on top. A big yellow boom crane on the aft deck. He could see the unmistakable markings on its forward hull: a fat red diagonal band with a narrow blue stripe behind it. At least they were unmistakable if you’d grown up near a coast.
Because that was a Coast Guard cutter.
Perry felt his heart skip a beat. Were they out on maneuvers? Regular patrol? He pretended he hadn’t noticed a thing, casually sweeping his eyes as if taking in the full breadth of the glorious view. But his mind was suddenly spinning. He felt tingly all over.
What could he do?
Surely he couldn’t do nothing. Not with a big gleaming law enforcement vessel within sight. Was there any kind of play to be made here at all?
Perry couldn’t think of anything. He didn’t have a flare gun handy. He saw no way to quickly build a signal fire without Jud noticing. He could make a break for the bluff and wave his arms like hell, but what would that accomplish? He’d seen this end of the island from the water for himself; there would be no way anybody on that boat could see him from way out there, unless somebody happened to be scanning the island through a lens. Right?
“I wouldn’t bother,” Jud said, as if reading his mind. “They won’t see you.”
Perry felt all his skin tighten. How did he do that? What did they teach these pricks in Navy SEAL school?
He said, “Who won’t see me?”
“Good answer.”
Jud’s smug alpha effectiveness pissed him off. People pointing guns at him and following him around with drones pissed him off. It wasn’t fair, Mags and Luna out here in this quaint little Cape Cod with the wraparound porch, drugging houseguests and playing Sea Hags of the Sound. Also, Perry had been lying out of politeness before: He’d hated that Forest Berries tea. It tasted like mulberry bird shit.
And Ryan.
What in the name of all holy Christ had become of Ryan Cloverhill? Who did that guy think he was? Ryan Cloverhill?
Perry watched the cutter crawl behind the cottage, disappearing from view as if it had never been there at all.
But based on its trajectory, it would reappear shortly.
And that was when the idea came to him. Instantly, Perry made a decision.
Just like that. It was surprisingly easy.
He stopped walking. Bent to one knee. Finally tied his flapping shoelace.
Jud sighed. “You really can’t wait to do that?”
“Guys with long legs have to be careful,” Perry said. “We go down easy. Like baby giraffes.”
“Seems like you could have thought of that half a click ago.”
“Tell me about it.” What the hell: Perry went for a double knot. “Hey, out of curiosity, what’s Mr. Cloverhill paying you for all this extra duty, anyway?”
“I swear you and your shrink buddy share a brain.”
“That’s what my husband says. I was just wondering how much it would cost you if you really did shoot me.” He glanced upward toward the drone again. “Right in front of him.”
“I don’t think either one of us wants to find that out. Or your husband.”
“That’s what I thought.” His other shoe wasn’t untied, but he retied it anyway. “Know what else I just thought of?”
“Nope.”
Scuffling his feet to cover the sound, Perry closed his hand around some oyster shells as he stood up again. As many as he could grab without making a production out of it. He felt surprisingly calm just then. It was as if the whole world suddenly slowed down, became easier to understand. He said: “How much longer my legs are than yours.”
With that he spun, sidearming his oyster shells straight at Jud’s smug alpha face.
Naturally, Jud saw all this coming a mile away. He wasn’t fooled in the least. He simply moved his head to the side; the entire fistful of shells sailed harmlessly past him, scattering in the air, pattering ineffectually back to the ground wherever they happened to land.
But Perry had already bolted: Away from the cottage, away from Jud, in roughly the same direction the cutter was cuttering. Out toward the spit.
He’d wanted a much bigger jump, and he’d only bought himself a couple of steps; this was going to be over before it started. Despite his aversion to sports, Perry had taken up running with Will for exercise and rehabilitation. He’d actually grown to enjoy it; they’d even entered next year’s New York City Half Marathon together. It was good to have goals.
But he’d been off awhile, and long legs or not, he couldn’t imagine being any match for Jud in a sprint.
But a quick glance over his shoulder showed that Jud wasn’t even chasing. He was just standing there, one foot slightly forward, knees slightly flexed, both arms extended.
Shit.
Wrong bet.
Jud’s voice rang out: “Stop there, Mr. Therkle, or I will fire.”
But Perry had already made his decision. This was no time for baby giraffes. He pumped his arms and stretched his legs, thinking, He’s not going to shoot. This is without question the dumbest thing you’ve ever done. He’s not going to shoot. Will would shit himself if he could see how heroic you were being right now. He’s not going to shoot. You’re going to die.
“Last warning!”
Perry glanced to his left and saw the cutter crawling back into view. He saw the front door to the cottage banging open, Kai emerging to see what was going on this time. He saw the drone pacing him.
He thought: Stuff this in your Trolley Problem and smoke it, Mr. Cloverhill.
Perry ran in a probably ridiculous serpentine pattern as he aimed for the navigation tower due ahead, a hundred exhilarating yards in the distance. It rose before him like a red-and-white candy-striped ladder to the sky, a skeletal beacon against the blue. Perry could feel imaginary bullets burrowing into his back like murderized bees. He pumped his arms harder, stretched his legs farther. He’s not going to shoot. He’s not going to shoot.
And, sweet baby giraffes, it was actually true.
CHAPTER 25
THE TOWER WAS a triangular lattice of tubular steel surrounding a central nerve pipe. Its frame was widest at the base, narrowing as it climbed forty feet straight up into the sky. As he reached the structure, Perry realized there were at least two immediate problems with his plan.
First: He was going to have to climb that goddamned thing.
Second: Jud, it turned out, was willing to shoot after all.
Perry heard the crack of the first gunshot and felt the impact of the bullet almost simultaneously. The round chewed up a spot in the ground just inches ahead of him, kicking up dirt and pebbles. Close enough that he could actually feel the percussion of it through the soles of his deck shoes.
His first reaction was complete, mind-blanking panic. He had never been shot at before. It was terrifying. It made a person want to stop what they were doing immediately.
But it also confirmed that he was on the right track. He’d officially come around to Rollie’s way of thinking: they were all in real trouble out here. In this strange new state of clarity, Perry’s mind put two and two together: He’s going for my legs.
Didn’t they always say that cops, in shoot-outs with robbers, sometimes fired dozens of rounds without actually hitting anything? If that was true, then it was probably really hard to hit moving legs, even for a trained professional.
