“Let’s go outside.” Roberto was trying to look friendly.
Sam grabbed the hat and glasses; Anna took his arm as if he were escorting her for a walk, and they went out the door.
“Listen, Jason got carried away. I’m really sorry. Fortunately no one was hurt. That’s a miracle. We came after you and couldn’t find you. We thought after the boat thing that Jason was safe at the lodge, you know, calmed down. But he slipped out, got the rocket launcher again, and blew up the cabin as well. We had no idea until we caught up with him. We could tell the Mounties, but they don’t even allow Mace in the country, for God’s sake.”
“Why then does my brother have a rocket launcher, for God’s sake? It’s insane. You’re crazier than he is.”
“It’s gone. Destroyed. I agree it was crazy. But it’s what Jason wanted. Now he wants another one.”
“Can’t you tell him no?”
“Of course. We have. But the question of the moment is whether we tell the Mounties that your brother blew up the boat and the cabin or we just buy the cabin and be done with it.”
“The company will pay for the cabin?”
“Of course.”
“The boat too? It’s a million and a half dollars.”
“Of course the boat too.”
Anna looked at Sam.
“Anna, I need to speak with you alone about confidential company business,” Roberto said.
Anna kept looking at Sam.
“Over there by the ramp to the docks,” Sam suggested. It was visible from every direction including the Mounties’ boat.
“Okay,” Anna said, walking with Roberto.
“Jason lost a CD-ROM. It’s his work, but it belongs to the company.”
“I don’t know anything about it,” Anna told Roberto.
“You’re sure.” He scrutinized her, as intense as she’d ever seen him.
“I’m sure.”
Perhaps it was her imagination, but she was certain that he was looking at the fanny pack, actually located on her stomach, and that he was suspicious.
“We’re going to take Jason to see Dr. Galbraith in Seattle.”
“Well, I guess I don’t have a lot to say about it,” Anna said, “but I appreciate your telling me.” She walked back to Sam, feeling safer with every step she took away from Roberto.
“Let’s talk.” She led Sam back toward the forest.
“What did he want?”
“They want to take Jason to his doctor and they want to pin me down about whether we would press charges against Jason or anybody else for the boat. I told him no.”
“You don’t believe him about Jason and the rocket launcher, do you?” Sam said.
“It’s possible,” she said. “Jason could do anything. What I really wonder is, how can I possibly get control of my brother without years in court in France or Canada? The minute I start up, they’ll hit me with a smear campaign-with the videos they have of my brother explaining our estrangement. Oh, and to top it all, his daughter is completely out of control and hates me even more.”
“Grady, I think you said.”
“Jason’s daughter-now grown. She’s half crazy herself. She’s in LA. I’ve tried so hard to talk to her, but I’m getting nowhere. She’s a stripper. She drinks. God only knows what else she does. She’s twenty and hell on wheels.”
“Tell me what you know about her.”
Anna began with Grady’s birth and recounted up through her life as a stripper.
“That’s important,” Sam said when she had finished.
“The seaplane is due in two hours. We’re going to have to part ways in Vancouver. I need to know when I’ll see you again and exactly how I hire you.”
“I’ll need time to research and plan. Let’s meet in LA at the Capital Plaza in five days-next Friday evening. You’ll hear from me in the meantime. You’re going to your place in Manhattan?”
“Yes. I’ll be there tonight.”
“I’ll send people. I’ll be talking to you.”
“Tell me,” she said, “how exactly do I get in touch with a guy who has no last name?”
“E-mail.”
“E-mail? That’s it?”
Sam took Anna into Betty’s apartment, sat her down where she could use the phone, and excused himself. When he found a public phone he paused for a moment, knowing that his life would take a major turn if he picked it up. As he considered this, he saw the would-be photographer come around the corner, a new cardboard camera in his hand.
Sam motioned with his head toward the dock, careful to keep his face in the shadow of his hat brim. The man obviously understood that Sam meant to throw him back into the bay. He snapped a picture and ran, but Sam was on him before he had gone twenty feet.
“It isn’t in my nature to fight,” Sam said, shoving a hand under the man’s rib cage and holding it like a handle. The photographer screamed and dropped the camera, grabbing at his chest, obviously in terrible pain. Sam smashed the camera under his heel while the man dangled.
“Next time take a picture of the natural wonders. It makes a much better souvenir. And don’t bother Betty about any more disposable cameras. She’s all sold out.”
A man came around the corner in response to the screams and Sam let go of the ribs.
“Don’t come back.”
As the bird-watcher looked on in amazement, the wounded cameraman ran around the corner, holding his side.
Sam returned to the telephone. It was starting to feel like old times. The first call went to Shohei because he might be in Japan. Fortunately it turned out he was in San Francisco, and more significantly, he happened to be taking a little sabbatical and therefore had no contract at the moment.
Next Sam would need Jill, one of his assistants, and his mother, a Tilok woman everyone called Spring. But if he was going to call Jill about returning to work, protocol would dictate that he first call Paul. Paul’s assistant answered the phone. He didn’t know Sam’s voice. Paul, who now ran a large hardware business, was with a commercial contractor, according to the anxious-to-please clerk.
“Tell him Robert Chase called.”
Now he could call Jill. It was an easy call-they had been friends for years and lovers briefly. Jill’s one weakness was that she liked reminding him in embarrassing little ways about what had happened between them- and about other women with whom it had happened. Jill was a bean counter by nature, and he supposed that just naturally carried over to counting more than beans.
Spring was an even quicker call than Jill. With Shohei, Jill, and Spring on board, Sam was gratified. He wanted a cigar.
He dreaded calling Typhony, but it would be gutless to have Paul talk in his place, and for what he had in mind he would need his whole crew. At the moment he had a dozen employees, mostly techies, working at feeding the Big Brain’s database and keeping it operating for government contracting work. When Sam wasn’t using his computer, it did work for the CIA, FBI, and other agencies, generating revenue. Grogg, a man whose glasses were epic in their size and magnification, was the craftsman who had implemented Sam’s architecture and created the electronic marvel that was the heart and soul of Sam’s business. Grogg remained on the job, but Sam would need to hire more investigators: the men and women who helped get the techies the kind of information Big Brain could use to solve real-world riddles.
Inside the store he found Betty.
