looked surprised. Pastor Rudy seemed calm. “You’re welcome to them,” he said to me.
“If you’re wrong—,” Hootan said.
“Then we come back and bust up the joint. Or whatever it is gangsters do.”
“Don’t encourage him,” Dr. G said.
Luke said to the pastor, “You’re not just going to let them walk out of here?”
Rudy patted the man’s arm. “Everything works out, Luke.” He looked at me. “ Vaya con dios. ”
“Like I have any choice,” I said.
* * *
Hootan, his mission accomplished now, dropped me off at Bobby’s apartment. It worried me that I didn’t have to give him directions.
Before I went in the building, I used the flip phone Fayza had given me to call the hospital. I had to speak my way through half a dozen options until the patient phone rang on the NAT ward. If you’re looking for the last pay phones in North America, they’re all located in psych wards.
A female voice answered. “Hello?”
“Put Olivia Skarsten on the line, please,” I said.
The woman said, “Who?”
I finally recognized the voice as belonging to Alexandra, a Korean college student who’d subsisted for four years on a diet of pita chips and intelligence enhancers, until she began to see Manitous residing in furniture. “I want Ollie, damn it. It’s me, Lyda.”
“Oh!” Then: “Are you calling from your room?”
“Alexandra, I left three days ago.”
“Right.” She set down the phone. I could hear the tinny roar of the open line, then Alexandra yelling for Ollie in the distance. Minutes passed while I paced Bobby’s tiny apartment. I just hoped Alexandra remembered to lead Ollie to the phone. Separating the wall appliance from wall was an exercise in object differentiation that Ollie was not prepared to execute.
“Hello?” It was Ollie.
“Hey,” I said.
“Lyda.” She had no problem recognizing voices. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said.
“So the pellet’s working?”
“I’m clean as a whistle. This is something else. I need your help.”
“You’re in trouble.”
“If I’m going to stay out of trouble, I need you.”
She knew what that meant. Not the “you” under medication. The old Ollie.
“You want me to ride without a helmet,” she said.
“Just for a little while.”
The line went silent.
“I’m not going to be very sharp for a while,” she said finally. “And then when the meds wear off … it’s going to be the whole package.”
“I figured.” With Ollie’s particular damage, there was no happy medium for medication. The minimum dose was pretty much the debilitating dose. She was on or decidedly off.
After a moment I said, “So when do you think…?”
I listened to Ollie breathe for thirty seconds, a minute. Mulling it over. Finally she said, “How about tomorrow morning?”
“You can get out by then?”
“It’s not Fort Knox.”
THE PARABLE OF
the Ticking Clock
In those days, after the fall of the towers and the bombing of the trains and the wars in desert cities, after the chemical attacks of New Delhi and the Arab Spring chilled into the Autumn of the Iron Boot, the woman Olivia Skarsten left her post in the United States Army and became a communications analyst for Calasys, Inc., one of the hundreds of private corporations serving the signals intelligence needs of the American empire. She served her company, and her country, very well, and served them even better when she began using Clarity, a certain designer drug that was all the rage in the spook set. She might have served for longer if it had not been for the Case of the Broken Watch.
One of the subjects on the monitor list that Olivia was responsible for was a Pakistani expatriate living in New York City. The man—let’s call him Akbar—had been added to that list because of family relations: Two cousins were known members of the LeT, a Pakistani extremist group that longed to strike a blow against India and its allies. One day Akbar made an
“If you’re wrong—,” Hootan said.
“Then we come back and bust up the joint. Or whatever it is gangsters do.”
“Don’t encourage him,” Dr. G said.
Luke said to the pastor, “You’re not just going to let them walk out of here?”
Rudy patted the man’s arm. “Everything works out, Luke.” He looked at me. “ Vaya con dios. ”
“Like I have any choice,” I said.
* * *
Hootan, his mission accomplished now, dropped me off at Bobby’s apartment. It worried me that I didn’t have to give him directions.
Before I went in the building, I used the flip phone Fayza had given me to call the hospital. I had to speak my way through half a dozen options until the patient phone rang on the NAT ward. If you’re looking for the last pay phones in North America, they’re all located in psych wards.
A female voice answered. “Hello?”
“Put Olivia Skarsten on the line, please,” I said.
The woman said, “Who?”
I finally recognized the voice as belonging to Alexandra, a Korean college student who’d subsisted for four years on a diet of pita chips and intelligence enhancers, until she began to see Manitous residing in furniture. “I want Ollie, damn it. It’s me, Lyda.”
“Oh!” Then: “Are you calling from your room?”
“Alexandra, I left three days ago.”
“Right.” She set down the phone. I could hear the tinny roar of the open line, then Alexandra yelling for Ollie in the distance. Minutes passed while I paced Bobby’s tiny apartment. I just hoped Alexandra remembered to lead Ollie to the phone. Separating the wall appliance from wall was an exercise in object differentiation that Ollie was not prepared to execute.
“Hello?” It was Ollie.
“Hey,” I said.
“Lyda.” She had no problem recognizing voices. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said.
“So the pellet’s working?”
“I’m clean as a whistle. This is something else. I need your help.”
“You’re in trouble.”
“If I’m going to stay out of trouble, I need you.”
She knew what that meant. Not the “you” under medication. The old Ollie.
“You want me to ride without a helmet,” she said.
“Just for a little while.”
The line went silent.
“I’m not going to be very sharp for a while,” she said finally. “And then when the meds wear off … it’s going to be the whole package.”
“I figured.” With Ollie’s particular damage, there was no happy medium for medication. The minimum dose was pretty much the debilitating dose. She was on or decidedly off.
After a moment I said, “So when do you think…?”
I listened to Ollie breathe for thirty seconds, a minute. Mulling it over. Finally she said, “How about tomorrow morning?”
“You can get out by then?”
“It’s not Fort Knox.”
THE PARABLE OF
the Ticking Clock
In those days, after the fall of the towers and the bombing of the trains and the wars in desert cities, after the chemical attacks of New Delhi and the Arab Spring chilled into the Autumn of the Iron Boot, the woman Olivia Skarsten left her post in the United States Army and became a communications analyst for Calasys, Inc., one of the hundreds of private corporations serving the signals intelligence needs of the American empire. She served her company, and her country, very well, and served them even better when she began using Clarity, a certain designer drug that was all the rage in the spook set. She might have served for longer if it had not been for the Case of the Broken Watch.
One of the subjects on the monitor list that Olivia was responsible for was a Pakistani expatriate living in New York City. The man—let’s call him Akbar—had been added to that list because of family relations: Two cousins were known members of the LeT, a Pakistani extremist group that longed to strike a blow against India and its allies. One day Akbar made an
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