see me. Then Clyde starts the truck and speeds off.
I suspect they are no threat, though I’ll need to deal with Sandy again at some point. Not when I’ve got a date in court.
54
The magistrate wears a pantsuit and a grim visage. Making sure to alternately make eye contact with me and a mousy man with a small head and a full beard sitting across an oak table from me, she explains she’s not a judge but a state-appointed arbiter. Do we have any questions about that?
Just: Why am I here?
“I’m not being cute,” I say. “I got served two or three days ago.”
“You know about your responsibility to pay taxes,” says the man, the Internal Revenue Service rep.
The magistrate holds out her hand, nun-style, urging calm. Her hair is pulled so tightly into a bun, I see scalp.
Overhead, one of the filament lights blinks out, making the boxy bureaucratic room even dimmer.
The magistrate looks at me. “This revolves around the estate of Pauline Sanchez.”
I nod. Of course. I clear my throat. “How much is she in arrears?”
“Not she,” the mousy man says. “You. Nine hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Plus penalties. We’ll not settle for a penny less.”
I shrug. Okay. “Why me?”
“Is this guy for real?”
The magistrate cautions him again with her hands, palms down. “Mr. Idle, you understand you have to pay the estate tax on what you inherited.”
“On the apartment and the car. I’m sorry, I. .”
The mousy man seems to soften. It dawns on him that I am not merely playing ignorant.
“You’re the journalist,” he says.
I nod.
“You obviously know you’ve got to pay the tax not just on the hard goods but also the liquid assets.” It’s not confrontational anymore, a tonal olive branch.
I shake my head. “I don’t. .”
“The cash,” the magistrate interjects. “Several million dollars in. .” She looks down at the file. Something seems to dawn on her too. “It was in a trust but payable to you in the event of. .” She trails off.
“You’re aware of the inheritance.” The tax man blinks rapidly.
I’m aware, vaguely. Even before she died, I had already moved into Polly’s house and started driving her car, all at her behest so that I’d be ready to take care of Isaac. Subsequent to their deaths, I’d been contacted on several occasions by an executor with regard to Polly’s estate but I’d asked him to take care of it, figuring she had her own cadre of money people. I recall him telling me I was in line to inherit a substantial sum of money. But, I kept thinking, for what? For being the helpless guy who watched the whole thing fall apart, who sat on the sidelines with the medical degree and the reporter’s notebook?
I’d asked him to give the money to Polly’s brother. I seem to recall that the executor had told me that, given the brother’s substance-abuse problems, Polly had wanted the lion’s share to go to me.
I remember getting letters from the lawyer and some from the IRS. I piled them up on the end table at the front of the flat I inherited and never quite took ownership of.
The magistrate clears her throat. “I’m going to order a continuation, Mr. Idle. Get yourself a good accountant.”
I nod.
“I’m sorry.” She puts her sun-cracked hand on my arm. “No one should lose a child.”
I put the Audi into drive and take a right out of the lot. No one should ever lose a child.
I pull to the side of the road, next to a yellow-painted curb, which, if memory serves, means I can be fed to piranhas if caught parking here. I pull my phone from my pocket. I dial Jill Gilkeson.
“Hi.” She’s lifeless in a way I now get.
“I’m sorry to bother you. One more question regarding all the fine work that Mr. Leviathan’s done.”
“Shoot.”
“Were there any others who worked with you early on at Leviathan Ventures, people who could attest to the germs of his efforts?”
She asks for a second to think about it. She starts listing names, thinking aloud. She promises to get me contact info for the ones she can find. She asks if she should just email me the names and contact info and I say sure. I’m fishing for something, not really sure what, when it leaps onto my boat.
“I’d appreciate if you didn’t call the Gearsons. Lena and Erik.”
“Sure. They don’t get along with Mr. Leviathan?”
“Oh no, not that. They just lost their son. He was friends with Jill, my daughter. A long time ago. He died earlier this year. He was one of those kids at Los Altos High School.”
“Sorry, I’m not following.”
“They had three kids who jumped in front of a train. Anthony, I think that was his name, he was the first. Then two copy cats.”
“Anthony Gearson.”
“Please don’t bother them.”
“I promise.” Deep exhale. “No one should lose a child.”
“Do a nice article. Andrew has given his life to make the world a better place.”
“I will.”
I sit bewildered, five minutes, ten. The phone rings.
I answer and hear: “It’s Doc.” I don’t respond, uncertain which ghost this voice represents. “Doc Jefferson. Sorry it took so long to get back to you. It’s been crazy, right?” Then friendly laughter. It’s the warden from Twin Peaks juvenile hall, the nominal administrator of the learning annex that went kaboom. “You’re one hell of a journalist.”
“How’s that?”
“Snooping around before an explosion. Great instincts.”
He knew I was there. Must have heard my name from the firefighter.
“I’m not sure what you were doing there but you nearly got an incredible scoop,” he says.
Revelation forthcoming?
“Our diesel pump exploded. We’re going after the pump company. Cost us our whole computer lab but it’s going to be rebuilt-and NOT at city cost. You can quote me on that.”
“They were experimenting on those kids.”
“Who?”
“PRISM, Sandy. .”
“The reality-TV gal? Are you kidding me? We’re committed to training our young folks and we’re going to get right back to it. We’ll have a new computing lab built in no time. Everything else you need is in the press release.”
I’m mute.
“Gotta run,” Doc Jefferson says. “Stay in touch, big guy.”
Forty minutes later, I’m passing Peet’s Coffee on University Avenue. It’s the same place where I met Andrew a few days earlier when I wasn’t sure whether he was friend or foe. Now I’m sure.
It’s nearly six o’clock, darkness falling in that eerily temperate Palo Alto way, the suburbs 2.0.
I park and turn off my phone. I pull my laptop and Bullseye’s laptop from the trunk. I find a spot inside Peet’s with a free power outlet. On the table next to me, three Stanford MBA candidates speak in a whispered shrill about
