Easy and Hard Ways Out (31 page)

MOVING OFF DEAD CENTER

a. Coming In

He had a cold.

Brank filled his pockets with tissues before leaving in the morning. He kissed Joan and then kissed Brucie at the door. As he stepped outside, an elderly Negro woman passed by on the opposite side of the street.

“Is that my Mommy?” asked Bruce.

“No jokes now,” said Brank. “Daddy is leaving.”

The day was perfect; crisp, dry autumnal air, streamers of bright morning sun, electric-blue sky. In spite of himself, Brank began to feel better; a nostril opened momentarily and he inhaled quickly. On the highway, as he approached an overpass, two children waved to him from above, and he smiled and waved back.

They spat down on his windshield as he passed underneath. Soon after, his nostril re-clogged.

The Rock spotted it first thing in the morning, as soon as he looked at the circuit-breaker panel. The lights weren't on this time, but a blower-motor breaker had definitely been tampered with. Or had failed in a way he'd never seen before. Breakers sometimes
opened
spontaneously, but they never closed that way. No, something was definitely amiss in the Accounting men's room. Definitely. He looked down the row of stalls, bent over to see if there were any feet. Nothing. But did he hear a
thunk?
He was puzzled. No question, something was wrong.

Colonel McGuinn led them into the building, five of them, the Air Force technical inspection team. McGuinn was a tall man who seemed shorter because of his oddly shaped head (top part narrower than the bottom); it resembled a bowling pin and made some people think he was stupid (usually the same people who thought men with large foreheads were smart). Next in line to McGuinn came Captain Cramer, a hawk-faced, scared-looking man who'd won many citations for his work as human-subject volunteer in the secret poison-gas test program. Some people thought he, too, was addlebrained, and in this case they were correct. The other three members of the inspection team were two majors who never said anything, and a sharp lieutenant who spoke occasionally but was ignored because he was young. They were met by an equally competent team from Auerbach Labs: Assistant-to-the-president Redberry, VicePresidents Marchese, Rupp, Fish, and Lingenfelter, and Head of Purchasing, Van Lamm (because he was Lingenfelter's brother-in-law). The death-lady secretary served coffee and Danish in Redberry's conference room.

“Wouldn't mind clipping a few of her coupons,” said Colonel McGuinn when the secretary stepped out for a minute. “She always wear black like that?”

“Always,” said Rupp.

“Bet she has black underwear too,” said McGuinn.

Captain Cramer smiled; he was missing a right upper bicuspid. Also a chin, thought Marchese. The man has no goddamn chin.

“Which reminds me,” said Van Lamm.

“Rodney, please,” said Lingenfelter, leaning over backward.

“What's the difference between a pickpocket and a Peeping Tom?”

Redberry began to snap his fingers.

The young lieutenant started to give the answer, thought better of it, stopped.

“A pickpocket snatches watches,” said Van Lamm, florid, looking wildly around.

McGuinn chuckled politely. He took a final gulp of coffee, as did the two silent majors, though they hadn't finished.

Redberry twitched twice.

Fish brushed some dandruff off his Danish.

Captain Cramer gave out with a foul-smelling, poison-gas laugh.

“All right,” said Colonel McGuinn. “What say we move this thing off dead center.”

“Sixty seconds to target,” came Kinsella's voice over the intercom.

Buchfarer tightened his lips, concentrated.

“Thirty seconds.”

He saw Chaplin point down and then abruptly “kiss off” and begin to descend.

“Dragon-one rolling in,” came the toneless voice in his headphones.

Buchfarer released the master safety ordnance switch, threw another that armed his Bullpup missiles, another that armed his cannon.

“Dragon-one off target,” said Chaplin, the flatness in his voice ever so slightly strained.

“You've got it, baby,” said Buchfarer over the intercom.

“Okay,” said Kinsella, punching a final number into the computer that controlled the run.

They swooped downward through the moist Asian air.

b. Hanging On

They were in the environmental test lab warming up the equipment. The ECM pod was already in the main oven being cooled. Wizer was preparing data sheets while Mills and Coletti heated bagels in the auxiliary ovens. Steinberg was rigid with fear near one corner. Chin-Tao Wong moved cautiously away from Lubell, who seemed about to ask him a question. Ardway underlined phrases in a quality control manual.

“Everyone is disappearing,” said Brank to Blevin, who sat casually at a desk, his arms folded. “LoParino is gone, Dubrowolski is gone, and Pat is gone.” He sneezed.

“Of course,” said Blevin. “When the pressure's up, the people are down. That's the way it always is with an inspection.”

“Life is a disappointment,” said Brank, something tiny clicking into place in his brain. “That's the message. Did you know the real inventor of the sign that revolves around the Times Building missed getting the patent by two hours?”

“Bullshit,” said Blevin. “The thing probably doesn't really work anyway.”

At that moment, Pat walked in, looked around briefly (avoiding Brank's gaze), and left. Steinberg followed. In the oven, liquid nitrogen bubbled out of an inlet pipe and metamorphosed instantly to super-cold subfreezing gas. The glass porthole was encrusted with a hundred thousand icy white crystals. Inside, the temperature plunged headlong toward the final value specified by the Air Force, minus seventy-six degrees Fahrenheit.

“I wonder how fast your spit would freeze in there,” said Brank.

The Rock had been thinking. If only he could piece it together. Something funny. Lights left on in the Accounting men's room, soap disappearing; now blower-motor breaker tampered with, lights left on in the Personnel office. Something definitely was happening. And it wouldn't be long before Murphy would blame it on him, accuse him of forgetting, the senile errors of an old man. He had to do something, take some action. He walked back to the Accounting men's room and stepped inside. It was empty. He looked down the line of cubicles, then sank to his knees and pressed his head sideways to the floor to search for feet. Nothing. He stood in front of the circuit box and carefully opened each breaker, hearing the fan motors shut off, seeing the rows of fluorescents blink out one by one. When he left, the room was completely dark. He locked the door with a key, and began to letter a crude sign on a paper towel.
OUT OF ORDER
. He felt in his pocket for Scotch tape.

Oddities pinwheeled through his mind, things out of place, disjointed: the strange sounds he sometimes heard—non-plumbing noises; the missing toilet handles, too many of them; the profuse, unusual graffiti. Imagination, he thought. The imagination of an old man. Still, if he could only piece it together …

The inspection team was in the environmental test lab, watching as the techs took data.

“Lot of advantages, Gene, working in a place like Auerbach,” said Rupp jovially, draping an arm over Colonel McGuinn's shoulder. “The Labs ever found someone who could take charge, someone who knew all the right people in the services—hell, who knows what they'd be willing to fork over. Package deal might even include Mr. Redberry's secretary.”

Colonel McGuinn nodded sagely, a wise old bowling pin. “Wears too much black,” he said curtly. And then, “You need someone to get things off dead center.”

Captain Cramer sat down at a small corner desk with Blevin. Before each were thick piles of paper labled “Acceptance Test Procedures” and “Mil Spec Handbook.” The men spoke in code.

“We'll want this to Mil-C-five-nine-three-two, class D, method four,” said Cramer.

“Method four is preposterous,” countered Blevin. “We use Mil-C-five-oh-eight instead, sub-section three, paragraph nineteen, except with the word ‘ninety' substituted for ‘seventy.'”

Cramer shook his head. “This is something I don't know,” he said.

“But now you do know,” said Blevin.

“I'll have to get clearance,” insisted Cramer. “When I don't know something I have to get clearance. This is something I don't know.”

In a small room adjacent to the lab, Pat and Steinberg sat at a table; next door, in a larger room, Redberry, Ardway, and the vice-presidents were going over some papers.

“So,” said Pat, nodding, “I guess we come out on top again. Even when we lose, we win.”

She was dressed uncharacteristically; tight white sweater, short brown skirt, black mesh stockings and high heels, pink iridescent lipstick. She'd dyed her hair red.

Steinberg looked around furtively. “I don't think we should talk about it now,” he said. “It's not over yet. Someone could walk in.”

He wondered about her dress, wondered what significance to attach to it, tried to pin down something else that was different about her.

“Someone already has walked in, Stanley,” said Pat.

He whipped about quickly, cursing his tunnel vision; he saw no one.

“Years ago,” she added. “Years ago.”

“Ah'm takin' her up now,” said Wizer, cutting off the liquid nitrogen supply and turning on the heat. In fifteen minutes the temperature in the oven would far exceed that of boiling water.

“Oven thermometer have a calibration sticker?” asked the young lieutenant.

“Oh, yeah, they calibrated it,” said Wizer, pointing to a small yellow paper rectangle with a date on it pasted on the side of the oven.

Inspected by J. Roth, thought Brank. “They calibrate everything here,” he said. Or rather, he thought, more accurately, they put calibration stickers on everything.

“How about the people?” said the lieutenant. “They calibrate them?”

What a strange and unmilitary question, thought Brank. He was exceptionally nervous and edgy. I could spill the beans, he thought. Right now, I could spill the beans to this guy here, and he looks like the right guy too.

“People change too fast,” he said. “You think they're one thing and they turn out another. Can't calibrate people.”

The lieutenant grinned faintly. “Oh, there's some you can,” he said. “Soon's you look at 'em.”

He motioned with his chin in the direction of Brank's badge, half hidden in a shirt pocket, neatly trimmed picture of a lion peering out.

“My sticker,” said Brank sheepishly.

Buchfarer was conscious of being a prisoner now in a screeching metal shell, his life totally dependent on machinery and electronic parts and invisible electromagnetic beams. “Dragon-two rolling in!” He felt the acceleration, felt himself pressured back into the seat, felt the wetness in his helmet. He searched the night intently for signs of anything—lights, the target, the flash of a ground-to-air missile—but saw only blackness and the dull red glow of his own instruments. The low ceiling had made visibility impossible. He felt a slight jolt an instant before the plane leveled off and began to climb.

“Rockets away!” said Kinsella.

The engines howled as they wrenched the plane upward in a steep ascent.

“See anything?” said Kinsella. “You see any secondaries?”

“I can't see shit!” said Buchfarer. “Let's just get the hell out of here.”

“I'm not sure if I hit it,” said Kinsella.

After several moments they began to level off, and Buchfarer retook control of the plane. “Dragon-two off target,” he radioed. Chaplin's craft was a flickering silver dot in the distance when the flight leader's voice came through the headphones.

“Dragon flight, this is Dragon leader. Didn't see any secondaries here, did you?”

“Negative,” said Buchfarer.

“All right, we'll try bobbing for some more apples then. You keep us close company and jam those eyelids open.”

“Okay.”

Buchfarer didn't feel like keeping anyone close company. He felt like sleeping. He wished he were home, in Seattle, on a brisk Saturday morning in autumn, lying under a soft quilt next to his sleeping wife, the day still ahead of him, big breakfast, the newspaper, a game of softball with the boys, standing hands on hips in a sunlit field and just breathing, inhaling the air.

He saw Chaplin peel off.

c.
Going Out

In the men's room, Schneck paced back and forth. He was trapped. He had planned to show up at the inspection, then sneak back later, but now the plan was aborted—by a senile janitor. The irony! The plans of a doctorate in physics wiped out with elegant simplicity by a custodian. Schneck clenched and unclenched his hairy fists. He could not yell for fear he'd be discovered. He could not switch on the lights or the blowers for the same reason. The man was a genius, he thought. J. Edgar Hoover of the Maintenance Department. Schneck sat down heavily on a toilet seat. He began sketching a picture of a simian creature defecating from a tree on a shrinking letter A. There was nothing to do, after all, but sketch.

Outside, security officer Brine put a meaty hand on Rocco's shoulder. “Got you!” he said triumphantly.

McGuinn and the inspection team were in the large room with Blevin, Redberry, and the rest of the vice-presidents. Rupp, Ardway, Steinberg, and Pat were in the small room assembling the final data packages. The blue, crenulated Air Force approval stickers lay in a pile on a table in the larger room. All that remained was for the engineers to sign the data sheets.

Lubell and Chin-Tao Wong went first, putting their signatures under those of the techs, Mills and Coletti. Pat signed next in the “supervisor” box, and then Ardway, as Chief Engineer. Lubell and Wong left. Ardway pointed to a spot on a new sheet, directly under a scrawled “Elton Wizer.” He held a pen out to Brank. Brank stared at it.