“Right back at you. Now tell me about the package.”
I describe how I opened the thumb drive, and the instructions I found. I glance at the clock on my phone. It’s noon. I’ve got three hours before the mystery meeting.
“Sounds cloak and dagger. Are you going to wear a trench coat?” Pauline asks.
True to her word, Pauline has tried to remain light, fun, and flirty. She says she’s not going to change her approach to the world just because I don’t want to date.
“Something very strange is going on,” I say.
“With the memory stick?”
I hesitate. I’d love her help figuring out what’s going on but right now she presents as many complications and entanglements as she does resources and insights.
“It’s already been a long day. I don’t know, just strange,” I finally say.
“So are you going to go to the meeting?”
I look at Grandma. Does the thumb drive have anything to do with the attack in the park, and Grandma’s recent ramblings? Or is it coincidental, unrelated, some kind of joke?
“Wearing a trench coat and matching socks.”
“Socks and dagger,” she says. “Can I come?”
I tell her that I’d prefer to go alone.
“Be careful. Socks aren’t much defense against sharp objects,” she says. After a pause, she adds, “I’d love to see you later.”
I’m silent.
“I should go,” she says.
“Wait. Could you spare me another minute?”
“What’s up?” She suddenly sounds rushed.
“Tell me about Chuck. Your investor.”
There is a moment of silence, then she says: “What makes you ask?”
“He seemed interesting when we met last night. I’m just curious about him.”
Another pause.
“I think he’s curious about you, too.”
“Meaning?”
“I think he thinks you’re cute. You’re his type.”
I’m not sure if she means that he likes my journalistic temperament or, perhaps, that he’s gay. Now that I think about it, it had crossed my mind.
“You should work that angle,” she continues. “Maybe you can get him up to sixty-five dollars per blog post. You’ll be a rich man by the year 2075.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Look, Nat, can we talk about this later today, or tonight? I’m staying in the city.”
Pauline has a gorgeous house in Marin, overlooking the water. But she keeps a three-story loft downtown, near the ballpark.
“Come by tonight and we’ll make good on the drinks we missed, and I’ll tell you about Chuck.”
Before I can tell her that’s not going to happen, she adds, “I really gotta go. I’m on Internet time.”
She hangs up.
From my backpack, I pull out my laptop. I find a weak signal in the waiting room. I call up a browser and I search for “Adrianna.” It is a fool’s errand. There are several million of references.
Is Adrianna a resident of Magnolia Manor? That makes no sense in that Vince seemed baffled that Grandma had mentioned the name Adrianna.
From my pocket, I pull one of the shell casings I found on the ground outside my flat after this morning’s drive-by shooting. The brass housing looks to measure less than an inch in length, the width of a ring finger.
Into Google, I type: “identify shell casing.” I get countless hits — about collections of artillery shells, lamps made from old casings, and on and on — but not the clearinghouse site I’d imagined would let me precisely identify my bullet, or the gun that fired it.
“All that surfing can rewire your brain,” a voice says.
I look up to see Dr. Laramer.
“You’re looking well, Mrs. Idle,” he says to my companion on my right.
I close my laptop.
“Hello, Doc,” I say. He wears blue scrubs and flip-flops. “Is it casual footware Friday?”
“It’s Thursday,” Grandma says.
She’s right.
He looks at her and cocks his head.
“Interesting,” he mutters.
Chapter 15
“What?” I ask.
He ignores me and walks to the outer office door. He turns the latch and locks it. Except for us, the reception area is empty.
“Trying to keep us in, or somebody out?” I ask.
“I like a peaceful lunch hour but I’m making an exception for a family friend.” It’s not clear if he intends a slight.
The three of us walk down a corridor to his private office.
“What’s so interesting, Dr. Laramer?”
“Call me Pete, please. Let’s talk in my office.”
His confines celebrate his success.
Framed on his wall are numerous credentials, including his Neurology Board certificate denoting his specialty in memory and recall disorders, and a letter from the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The last time we’d visited, he’d told me he’d received a patent for developing techniques for using real-time imaging technology to explore the brain’s memory centers. He’s like an old-time cartographer, but instead of hiking into the interior of a continent, he’s mapping the subterranean layers of the brain to follow the flow of neurochemicals.
Adjectives that describe Dr. Pete Laramer: smart and ambitious. Not neat. Haphazard papers and files sully his desk. I’m that messy. I could be a fancy doctor.
Facing out from the desk stands a framed photograph of Kristina and three daughters who appear poised to share her beauty.
He’s my height but paunchier, a late-thirties white guy with gray-speckled temples. His eyes are bloodshot; between them and the scrubs, I infer he’s been on night call at the hospital. He looks otherwise devoid of any medical condition, which I find slightly disappointing.
“What strikes you about Lane?” I ask.
“She seems fit. Tracking. It’s good.”
“Really? It seems to me like she’s slipped off a cliff.”
Fewer than six months ago she’d have been, if not in her prime, sufficiently lucid. Brains don’t fail this precipitously.
I situate Grandma on a chocolate-leather couch. As I do so, I explain she is agitated and acting frightened. Grandma interjects. “You’re the doctor who studies my head.”
“That’s an interesting way to put it.” He glances at me as if to say: See, she’s on the ball.
He asks me to elaborate on what she’s been saying. “Has it been nonsensical rambling or is she repeating herself and focusing on a particular idea?”
I explain that Grandma talked about a man in blue and the dentist. She’s been upset since we nearly got shot
