think: ‘I don’t want those bastard lawyers taking over unless I’m dead and stinking.’ Isn’t that what you said? So don’t crap your pants and die, honey.” She closed the door of his head-box and he began his muffled screaming. After a second she opened it. “Look, you get to live. If you are good, we will give you oil and some days, at least Christmas and Easter, you won’t be far off normal. Sort of like Jason. Well, a little more paranoid than Jason, but still alive.” She closed his door again.
As a test she left the room, and noted that his words were unintelligible and the sound not particularly audible even with the bedroom door open. It was time to deliver Jacques’s vector in the manner prescribed. This was definitely an important experiment. It would be the first aerosol use and it was imperative that they know exactly the amount DuShane inhaled and that he inhale the amount prescribed by Jacques. After dosing him she would begin his education.
The phone rang.
She knew it would be Gaudet, and it was one of those rare occasions when he would be gleeful as a schoolboy over their progress.
Thirty-six
The place reminded Anna of Jason’s lodge, the way it was laid out and even the aesthetic aspects of the design. There were five bedrooms in addition to the master suite, as well as two guest houses with three bedrooms each. To further supplement the living space, a large banquet tent had been placed on the lawn near the pool. Normally it was used for summertime parties, but now it was being used as a barracks. Sam, Anna, Spring, Jason, Grady, and T.J. each took a room in the main house.
With a grin, T.J. had won the toss for accommodations in the primary residence. That left six men to the tent and six into the two guest houses. There was a lot more coin tossing. Anna unpacked her stuff in the master suite knowing that Sam would be busy for a while with the men. Whether it was necessary or not, she knew that Sam would feel compelled to have a meeting to set things in order.
Although laid as unobtrusively as possible, sandbags now lined the interior walls of the house, rising to window level in the living room. In the event of a full-scale assault the living room would provide the final shelter other than the safe room. More “safe” than “room,” it consisted of a large concrete-reinforced, habitation-adapted, steel safe that sat inside what had once been a utility room. If it got down to the safe room, Sam was counting on the Mounties to arrive before it was breached.
After unpacking, Anna took from her closet a silken robe that she had acquired from Japan. She had never worn it, having resolved to keep it for a special occasion. It wasn’t a special occasion, but it felt right for the moment. Under the robe she decided to wear a silk nightgown that looked vaguely like a cocktail dress. For a second she pondered something more translucent, but dismissed the idea. A quick check of Sam’s room revealed that he was still roaming around with the boys. She should have known that he would need to mark his territory before retiring. She hoped to talk for a while before leaving him to sleep.
She was nearly done with the biography of the Warner brothers, and decided to finish the last chapter.
There was a soft knock.
It was Spring.
“Hi, I would have thought you would be asleep,” Anna said.
“No. I have been wanting to follow up on our prior conversations. You finished the book that your friend gave you.”
“Yes.”
“I wondered if you figured out where she went.”
“I have always resisted any notion that we are somehow the product of our upbringing. I like to feel like the captain of my own destiny. I don’t like introspection as much as I like goals and making choices to get where I want to go.”
“So you’re captain of your ship. And who is captain of Sam’s?”
Anna laughed at that. “Oh, I have a sneaking suspicion that he feels the same way I do. But then you will say: If Sam is in the grip of his past, then who is to say that I’m not? Is that it?”
“I thought all this contemplation might have provided a bit of insight.”
“Into what?”
“Into your situation with Sam. Maybe I’m just a meddling mother interested in Sam. If so, I’m sorry.”
“It’s a confusing situation.”
They talked for an hour and ended with Anna’s poem, which she had not recited since junior college. Spring had her repeat it.
“And you are close with your mother now?” she asked.
“I think so.”
“When you wrote this poem you seemed to be flirting with a feeling that you don’t really express.”
“I never liked day care. The place smelled bad and they ignored me.”
“And what did your mother say?”
“About what?”
“Day care.”
“We’ve never discussed it.”
“What if you one day showed her the poem?”
“It’s no big deal. After all these years it would be mean. Don’t you think?”
“There is a Tilok story that I would like to tell you and I would like to tell it to you while you wait for Sam.”
“I’m not admitting to waiting for Sam in a silk robe and a nightgown.” Anna smiled.
Grady was thinking about Clint and the strange exhilaration of getting to know her father. And his strange nature. Clint was out in the guest house, Anna’s room was to the right of her, and to the left was her father’s, and nothing had ever felt quite so bizarre. She hated to admit it, but she wasn’t sure how to actually build a relationship with her father and she was equally confounded by a man like Clint. There probably wasn’t a large chance that Clint didn’t know about the strip club and that, in a way, made it easier, because if they became friends she would need to tell him before they became lovers.
On the other hand, she wondered if any invitation to friendship that she might venture would be tainted by a thousand other invitations, a thousand other clever lines echoing like old words in a prison hall.
In this beautiful house she wished for her Panzy, the ultimate feline source of comfort. She’d seen that each of the rooms was equipped with a computer and access to the Internet. She could check her AOL account for any messages from the Critter Sitter. The rules set down by Sam for e-mails and the Internet, however, were clear. She was not to access her computer at the apartment because it might be traced. Also she knew she had to view her e-mail through the previewing function and could not per se open it. Under no circumstances could she send an e- mail anywhere, nor could she enter a chat room of any kind. Curious, she turned on the machine and used the password taped to the inside of the Microsoft Guide.
She punched an AOL icon, dialed in, and used her screen name and password. Aside from the junk mail, she had two messages: one from Guy and one from the Critter Sitter, with an urgent subject line. The heat of adrenaline-fueled worry coursed through her body as she thought about Panzy. Maybe sick. Maybe dying. She could not call anyone anywhere except Jill and her other friends at Sam’s office without special clearance, and then the answer would probably be negative. Although certain it wouldn’t hurt, she decided not to even preview the e-mail without asking Sam. It would only take a minute to find him. As she rose, she saw her father standing in the doorway, looking a little uneasy.
“Jason,” she said, still not used to calling him Dad. “You don’t look well.”
“The Nannites. I’m sorry. I don’t want you to see me like this, but I just wanted to look at you for a moment. To see that there is some good in the world.”
“Anna will give you some oil.”
