Magic Time Read online

  She crossed to the window of the motel room, moved aside the rope of garlic hanging half-hidden by the drapes and angled her head to see into the courtyard without opening the blinds. Still cinder dark, iron dark. The street lamps in the parking lot showed curtained windows all around, shut-in stillness, silence, anonymity. Bilmer hadn’t had much sleep last night, partly because of the smell of the garlic— she’d kept dreaming she was in an Italian restaurant. Like a vampire movie, she thought. If only it were that simple.

  She had no idea if garlic was supposed to work against things other than vampires. It hung on both sides of the windows, knotted carefully on strings with a variety of seemingly random objects: old keys (she’d read legends that said iron was supposed to help), forks bought from a local antiques shop and warranted to be sterling silver, aconite and wild roses. Glass shards sparkled on the dresser, the carpet, in the bathroom, because she had carefully broken every mirror and anything that could serve as a mirror. She had no idea what the management of the Crystal Suite Inn was going to say when the maids reported what they found in the room.

  Not that it mattered. The woman whose name was on the register didn’t exist, either.

  No one was in the parking lot that she could see.

  Not that that meant anything.

  Was Kansas City far enough away? Had driving rather than flying this far helped? Did it matter?

  Crazy people do this, she thought, turning away from the window. She remembered the “psychological observation” at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, required of all service members. Getting to know the look of the crazies, the way their eyes moved and how the muscles of their faces differed subtly from the faces of the sane. The ones who’d come to the White House gate, who’d push through the crowds at any speech; the ones she and her colleagues would have to go check on every couple of months, sometimes in their homes but mostly at St. Elizabeth’s.

  The ones who wore tinfoil or collanders on their heads to keep the CIA from broadcasting voices into their brains.

  Did they hang garlic and iron and wild roses on their curtains before they could sleep at night?

  It was not knowing that scared her most. Not knowing what to expect, not having a plan to deal with it. How could she make a plan when she didn’t know when, or in what form, or from what direction the attack might come?

  A minimum of packing. Carry-on, never check-through. Jeans, hiking boots, underwear, a brush. She’d long ago ditched the T-shirts and overalls she’d worn doing maintenance, emptying trash and keeping dust out of underground rooms, had cut her hair and darkened it back toward its normal hue after bleaching it trashy blonde for the job. Bilmer fell gratefully back on routine. She dressed carefully, avoiding both the formality that screamed SECRET SERVICE and the jeans-and-flannel slobbiness that might get her pulled for a security check. A vaguely dowdy leggings-and-top set, Nikes, a big black purse. The Browning Hi-Power she’d picked up a couple of years ago at a gun-show in Texas would be trash-canned in the airport parking lot. It made her nervous to be without one, for the flight, but the chance of getting caught at the airport because of it scared her worse.

  These were definitely not people you wanted to mess around with.

  She had no idea what she’d say to President McKay when she saw him.

  How the hell could she talk about the things she’d heard and seen?

  She moved carefully so as not to step on the enormous circle she’d drawn with Magic Marker on the carpet around the room’s perimeter. Plugged in the cheap hot-glue gun she’d bought in Omaha yesterday, glanced at the clock.

  Just four. The motel lay close enough to the K.C. airport that she could get there easily but far enough away that it wasn’t a specifically “airport” motel. The Houston–D.C. flight came in at five-thirty, took off again at six. How soon was too soon to be in the airport itself?

  Her heart was pounding. Come on, kid! she told herself. You got through Tehran and you got through St. Petersburg.

  But in Tehran and St. Pete you knew what to expect. You had some idea of what would be coming at you.

  We don’t know how far Sanrio’s gotten, Stuart McKay had said, that afternoon last month beside the fountain in the White House Rose Garden. There’d been some kind of little fête going on, put on by Mrs. McKay for the uptown rich ladies as a fund-raiser, and the music was just loud enough to confuse a directional mike. McKay had signed the other members of the White House detail to keep their distance, and seeing him talking to one of their own, they had.

  Not far enough to show results to a Senate committee and ask for regular funding, the President had gone on. Not far enough to convince any of the Joint Chiefs that they should have regular military backing—thank God.

  Thank God indeed. Bilmer shivered at the recollection of things she’d seen—or thought she’d seen—in back corridors or at the bottom of those underground stairways at that installation in the Black Hills. Remembered rumors she’d picked up in small towns and badlands bars concerning creatures half-glimpsed in twilight, sounds heard on the wind or objects seen among the eroded rocks or floating in summer-dwindled streams.

  We don’t know what they’ve done so far. And we don’t know what they CAN do. Literally. At all.

  Stu, thought Bilmer, tucking two film disks and a sheaf of onionskin-thin notes behind the lining of her purse, you don’t know the half of it. She’d considered taking a microdot camera and all the rest of that rig but had abandoned the idea and relied on handwritten notes instead. Would film develop or come out blank?

  She didn’t know.

  Could they have traced her somehow along the backroads and half-deserted highways down the Missouri valley?

  She didn’t know.

  She laced up her sneakers, pulled the baggy red sequinned top over her head. Wear what you’re wearing today when you come back, McKay had said. In case someone has to meet you, they’ll know what to look for.

  They’ll know what to look for. The very thought made Bilmer antsy, as did the idea that McKay knew she’d be coming in on the 9:20 from Houston, whichever day she came. She was already a week later than they’d planned. And every day multiplied the things that could go wrong.

  Nothing will go wrong. She hot-glued the lining back into her purse, replaced the contents: compact, three lipsticks (being careful to use both powder and lipstick on her face), two checkbooks, notebook, a double handful of crumpled ATM slips and grocery receipts from towns that matched her current set of I.D., four pens, a bottle of ibuprofen, three little plastic-wrapped sanitary napkins and a package of tissues. Anything to make shadows on an x-ray and obscure the disks and the papers in the lining. If they tried to stop her at the airport, what shape would the attack take?

  She didn’t know.

  All her life she had known or tried to know. Tried to be prepared, to be ready. Caches of weapons, food, money, identities, plane tickets. Bank accounts in other cities under other names. Long before she’d entered the service she’d planned for contingencies, never telling everyone everything, never saying where she’d been. Was that what scared her so about the Source? The wholeness of it, the uncontrollable nature of the threat?

  Everything was possible. And there was nothing she could do to keep herself safe.

  There has to be something, she told herself firmly. I just don’t have a handle on it yet.

  Keep your head and you’ll be fine.

  She unplugged the glue gun, wrapped it and its packaging in a newspaper, made sure there were no stray spots of glue anywhere. That could go in a trash-bin in the ladies room at the airport. Tickets? I.D.? Rental papers? DO NOT DISTURB sign to hang on the door when she left?

  She checked them again, compulsively.

  She realized she was afraid to go out of the room.

  All the rules had changed. All the things she lived by were obsolete.

  And worse to come, she thought, if she didn’t get back to McKay with this proof. If they—he—didn’t stop these people whil
e they could still be stopped.

  If they could be stopped.

  She checked the parking lot one more time, took a deep breath. It was time to go.

  NEW YORK—6:45 A.M. EDT

  When he thought back on it, Cal Griffin was glad Luz Herrera’s four-year-old cut his foot on a piece of glass, so she stayed home that morning. But at the time, all it brought was the frenzy of one thing too many heaped upon far too much.

  “No, no, senora,” he said into the phone, fumbling through his laborious Spanish, “esta... esta okay. Okay? De nada.”

  She thanked him, promising to be there at two, to escort Tina from summer school at St. Augustine to the SAB’s afternoon and evening dance classes, then home again. Cal pushed away the question of where the pequeño Herrera was stashed on a normal day, and Cal returned home at ten or eleven to find Luz and Tina hunkered before the TV, his sister glancing up from a bent-double stretch, expectant and pleased.

  I’m not worth that kind of welcome, his guilt scolded him. But it was one of the few moments in his current life that gave him any worth at all.

  He turned from hanging up to see Tina in her leotard and tights, leaning against the kitchen door. She had been up since four, doing her homework, in order to keep the rest of the day and evening clear for her obsession, her bliss.

  “Sorry, kiddo,” he said. “Looks like I’m your chaperon today. How quick can you get your act together, so we can get you to nun central?”

  She groaned. She could get there and back alone, en avant et en arriere, no problem. I mean, come on, why did he and Luz keep insisting she was some kind of infant?

  “Not a chance,” Cal answered, his thoughts flashing on all the assholes, muggers, and perverts lurking in this city of wonder and infinite possibility.

  He knew he could put her in a cab and send her safely on her way; that this was the sensible choice. But he rebelled, chiding himself for the many absences, the shortfalls. He would walk her there himself, the young lawyer on the rise who rarely, if ever, mentioned her existence in the professional sphere. He’d punch in the time with her today, even though he couldn’t tomorrow or the next day or the next.

  Tina shot him a scowl. But beneath her mock displeasure, he sensed her relief.

  “Can I get us some coffee?” Without waiting for a reply, she headed for the counter. So light and fluid. Mom had been thin like that, fine-boned and graceful. Her legacy to Cal had been fair hair and deep-set hazel eyes. From their father, Cal inherited nothing. Tina had the man’s coloring and precious little else, even memories. Cal’s own recollections were fading fast, and just as well. In the years between Cal’s birth and Tina’s, he had been a hazy, inconsistent presence, an occasional and unwelcome guest.

  “You know, NYCB’s dancing ‘Afternoon of a Faun’ in October. Reuben Almeida’s gonna be guest artist from the Royal.” Tina was pouring coffee, adding a dollop of 2 percent milk to her own while he punched in the number for Stern, Ledding and Bowen to tell the voice-mail he’d be late. “If you wanted, you and me and Luz could, well . . .” She spoke casually but he heard the wistfulness in her voice, saw the longing in the quick glance she gave him.

  He nodded, noncommital. It was absurd to make promises. Even now, his mind was dancing a frantic reel to make up the time, to reimpress on his unforgiving superiors his dedication. Through the earpiece, a canned voice intoned a litany of options. Impatiently, Cal punched buttons as it led him down its maddening labyrinth.

  With a start, he realized Tina was still talking. He hadn’t heard a word. I’m not even here when I’m here. He was a ghost in his own life.

  The beep on the voice-mail sounded just as the doorbell rang. In one of those horribly elongated moments, Cal saw Tina dart across the living room, past the practice mirror and the folded-back carpet to the door. He cried a warning, was in the room seconds behind her but too late, she’d whipped off chain and deadbolt and burglar bar.

  A huge shape bulked in the open doorway, blocking the dim yellow lights from the hall.

  “Listen, I’m sorry,” a phlegmy voice gabbled, “I know what time it is, Mr. Griffin, but I been up all night, that meeting today, I—your daughter?”

  Irwin Schenk. Cal recognized the gray-stubbled basset face, the rumpled black suit. Four greasy strands were combed carefully over a shiny scalp.

  Tina had fallen back, shy. Cal stepped protectively between her and the door. “Sister.” Cal took a deep breath. How had Schenk found where he lived? “It’s okay,” he said to Tina. “He’s a client. Why don’t you go get dressed?” She melted into the shadows of the hall.

  “Look, I shouldn’t be here.” Schenk ran a flabby hand over his face.

  Damn right you shouldn’t, Cal thought hotly, invaded. “It’s all right.” He heard his voice glide silkenly into lawyer mode. He gestured Schenk toward the one good chair, a recliner that had only one tear (hidden by the wall) and no wobble. As Schenk settled heavily into it, Cal stepped back into the kitchen, switched off the phone and poured out a third cup of coffee.

  “So,” Cal handed Schenk the steaming cup. “You’re concerned about the meeting this afternoon.”

  “I can’t sue my own nephew,” Schenk said desperately. “He’s all I got.”

  Cal barely listened, studying the blossom of veins on Schenk’s nose and cheeks, the watery, scared eyes. As so often when in this guise, Cal felt curiously outside himself, observing the cunning machinations of a stranger. “Mr. Schenk, when we spoke, you said—”

  “I was hurt. My brother left him the business for a good reason. I’m a fool!”

  “Getting cold feet in these big suits—” Cal’s voice was a scalpel, precise, calming. He glanced beyond Schenk and stopped.

  Tina stood in the hall watching, barefoot. Her eyes were wide, fixed on him with an expression of pained surprise, as if seeing him newly minted and counterfeit; they held pity and accusation.

  Shame burned in Cal. His sister drew her pride and conviction, he knew, not just from the purity, the perfection for which she herself strove, but from her certainty that he held himself to the same standard.

  He followed her gaze as it shifted to Schenk. Like a camera twisting into focus, he suddenly saw the anguish on the old man’s face, the need and fear and fatalism. Images of the dream flooded back: the sword and those who had cried their need to no avail.

  Schenk was staring at him, waiting. Trying to regain balance. Cal ventured. “In these big suits, that’s not unusual. Only—”

  “My nephew wasn’t gonna freeze me out! But my friends, then your boss, they all said, ‘Idiot! Big money! More.’ ” He sighed, wretched. “Would I really win . . . ?”

  There it was, the straight line, just waiting for him. Cal looked to his sister, but she would not meet his eyes. Rage flared in him. Schenk’s gaze was locked on him, pleading.

  Slowly, with deliberation, Cal shook his head.

  “I knew it,” Schenk said. “The will’s sound, right?”

  Cal shook his head again.

  “Then who—?”

  Cal was silent, and his night-shrouded reflection reared up. Only the image now was not his father but Ely Stern, senior partner, gazing back with cool certainty. Cal’s belly grew cold.

  “We do. Your lawyers. This kind of law suit, we get the candy store.”

  “How do I get outta this?” Before Cal could respond, Schenk rose, closing on him. “I can’t face that table full of suits, that boss of yours, with his eyes like stones. I’ll fold; I know myself. What do I do?”

  With his eyes like stones. “Don’t go. I’ll draft a letter, you fax it, that ends it.”

  “But I signed stuff. Your boss said penalties, something. . . .” Schenk was in panic now. “I signed.”

  Cal fetched his briefcase, propped on the rocker—long minus its runners—his mother had bought the day he was born. He opened the case, found the contracts. He paused and felt, without turning to see, his sister’s eyes upon him. He tore the sheaf of papers i
n two. The sound reminded him of a guillotine.

  Schenk drew a vast handkerchief from a pocket, mopped his face. Pumping Cal’s hand, he gushed words of gratitude and departed.

  Cal stepped to the window and opened it. A wind from the west, like a hot breath, stirred his hair.

  If he hadn’t come here, Cal thought, if he hadn’t come and forced his way in, I’d have sat at that big conference table and let the machine shred him, and I wouldn’t have said a word.

  An arm slipped around his waist, and he looked down to see his sister there, gazing with nervous admiration.

  “How much trouble are you in?”

  He smiled reassuringly and felt only dread.

  He had no armor now, no sword.

  And Stern would be waiting.

  WASHINGTON D.C.—6:54 A.M. EDT

  One more mile. The hill was steep, but he’d done it before. Sweat crawled out from under the terry cloth band around Stuart McKay’s head and down unshaven cheeks. He could feel the faint persistent tug of the old shrapnel wounds in leg and thigh as he drove hard against the pedals. Not much pain today, more like a reminder of an unforgettable afternoon at Dak Kon, like initials carved into a tree: Charlie was here.

  The steepening hill, breath coming harder: I really have to do this more often.

  And on the page in front of him, propped on the handle-bars:

  “. . . a 2 percent increase on import tariffs of electronics will offset cost increases of General Motors and Microsoft, enabling a balance to be maintained. Mr. Sugiyama has approved this conditionally, with the stipulation that a cap be put on increases over the next five years. . . .”