Spook Country (22 page)

“Can’t you get ICE to roll them up for you?”

“You have to find them first. We found the kid and followed him home, in the course of trying to find the subject. We found him, to the extent that we ever did, from what you told us about the subject. The rest of them are like ghosts.” Milgrim found that he knew Brown well enough, now, to hear the edge of a certain craziness in his voice. He wondered if the other man did.

“Ghosts?” The other man’s tone was absolutely neutral.

“The problem,” Brown said, “is that they’ve been trained. Really trained. Some kind of intelligence background, in Cuba. I’d need that professional a team, and it hasn’t happened, has it?”

“No,” said the other, “but as you yourself once said, they aren’t really our problem. He is our problem. But if he knows what we’re doing, we now know that he doesn’t know when, or where. Perhaps, later, we can steer adequate professionalism in the direction of your facilitators. When it has nothing to do with us, of course. And we’ll certainly have to find out who our man is, and do something about him.”

China rattled on a table, as someone stood. Milgrim released the banister and made it back into his room in two long, agonized, exaggeratedly careful steps. He closed the door with utmost care, took off his coat, draped it over the chair, removed his shoes, and got under the angling-themed sheet, pulling it up beneath his chin. He closed his eyes and lay perfectly still. He heard the front door close. A moment later he heard an engine start, and a car pull away.

After an indeterminate period of time, he heard Brown open his door. “Wake up,” Brown said. Milgrim opened his eyes. Brown stepped to the bed and tore the sheet away. “How the fuck can you sleep in your clothes that way?”

“I fell asleep,” Milgrim said.

“Bathroom’s down the hall. There’s a robe there, and a garbage bag. Put everything you’re wearing in the garbage bag. Shower, shave, put on the robe, and come down to the kitchen for a haircut.”

“You give haircuts?” Milgrim asked, amazed.

“The housekeeper’s here. He’ll give you a haircut and measure you for some clothes. And if I catch you sleeping in them, you’ll regret it.” Brown turned on his heel and left the room.

Milgrim lay there, looking at the ceiling. Then he got up, got his toiletries out of his coat, and went to take his shower.

51. CESSNA

T ito discovered that he could sleep on an airplane.

This one had a couch and two chairs, behind the smaller, instrument-filled room where the fat, gray-haired pilot sat. Garreth and the old man sat in the two reclining swivel chairs. Tito lay on the couch, looking up at the curved ceiling, which was upholstered, like the couch, in gray leather. This was an American airplane, the old man had told Tito. It had been one of the last of its kind, made in 1985, he had said, as they’d climbed the little stairway on wheels on the runway at East Hampton Airport.

Tito had no idea why the old man would want such an old airplane. Perhaps it had been his, Tito thought, and he’d simply kept it. If it was that old, though, it was like the American cars in Havana, which were also very old, and shaped like whales made of pale ice cream, frosted greens and pinks, dressed with huge chrome teeth and fins, every inch rubbed to a perfect gloss. As they’d walked to it, from the Lincoln, Garreth and the old man each carrying luggage they’d taken from the trunk, Tito, for all his fear, had been taken with its lines, how it gleamed. It had a very long, very sharp nose, propellers built into its wings on either side, and a row of round windows.

The pilot, fat and smiling, had seemed very glad to see the old man, and had said that it had been a long time. The old man had said that it had indeed, and that he owed the pilot one. He didn’t, the pilot had said, not by half, and had taken the two suitcases, and Tito’s bag, and put them into a space built into the wing, behind one of the engines, hidden when he shut it.

Tito had closed his eyes, going up the stairway, and had kept them closed while Garreth had gone to park the car. “Cutting it close,” the pilot had said, from the front of the plane, while Tito sat with his eyes closed on the couch. “Dawn-to-dusk operation, here.” The old man had said nothing.

Taking off had been very nearly as bad for him as the helicopter, but he’d had his Nano ready, and had his eyes closed.

Eventually, he tried opening them. Sunset was filling the windows, dazzling him. The movement of the plane was smooth, and unlike the helicopter, it felt as though it was actually flying, not being carried along, suspended from something else. It was quieter than the helicopter, and the couch was comfortable.

Garreth and the old man turned on small lights, and put on headsets with microphones, and talked to each other. Tito listened to his music. Eventually the two men unfolded small desks. The old man opened a laptop and Garreth unfolded plans of some kind, studying them, marking them with a mechanical pencil.

It grew warm in the cabin, but not uncomfortable. Tito had taken off his jacket, folded it to use as a pillow, and fallen asleep on the gray couch.

When he woke, it was night, and the lights were off. Through the entrance to the room where the pilot sat, he could see many different lights, small screens with lines and symbols.

Were they leaving the United States? How far could an airplane like this fly? Could it fly to Cuba? To Mexico? He didn’t think it likely they were flying to Cuba, but Vianca having said she thought that Eusebio was in Mexico City, in a neighborhood called Doctores, came back to him.

He looked at the old man, whose profile he could just make out against the glow of the instruments’ lights, sleeping, chin down. Tito tried to imagine him with their grandfather, in Havana, a long time ago, when both the revolution and the whalelike cars had been new, but no images came.

He closed his own eyes, and flew through the night, somewhere above the country he hoped was still America.

52. SCHOOL CLOTHES

M ilgrim found the housekeeper in the kitchen, where Brown had said he would be, rinsing breakfast dishes before putting them in the washer. He was a small man, in dark trousers and a crisp white jacket. Milgrim walked into the kitchen barefooted, wrapped in an oversized robe of thick burgundy terry cloth. The man looked at his feet.

“He said you’d give me a haircut,” Milgrim said.

“Sit,” the housekeeper said. Milgrim sat on a maple chair, by the matching table, and watched as the housekeeper tidied the last of the breakfast things into the washer, closed it, and turned it on.

“Any chance of some eggs?” Milgrim asked.

The housekeeper looked at him blankly, then brought out electric clippers, a comb, and a pair of scissors from a black briefcase on the white counter. He covered Milgrim in what Milgrim assumed (jam spots) had been the breakfast tablecloth, ran the comb through Milgrim’s damp hair, then began to cut it, as if he knew what he was doing. When he was done with the scissors, he used the clippers on the back and sides of Milgrim’s neck. He stepped back, considering, then used comb and scissors for a few minor adjustments. He used a napkin to swipe Milgrim’s hair clippings off the tablecloth, onto the floor. Milgrim sat there, waiting to be presented with the mirror. The man brought a broom and long-handled dustpan, and started sweeping up the hair. Milgrim stood up, thinking that there was always something sad about seeing one’s own hair on the floor, removed the tablecloth, shook it out, and put it on the table. He turned to go.

“Wait,” said the housekeeper, still sweeping. When the floor was clean again, he put his barber things back in the briefcase and brought out a yellow cloth measuring tape, a pen, and a notebook. “Take off robe,” he said. Milgrim did, glad that he hadn’t followed Brown’s orders too literally, and was wearing his underpants. The housekeeper quickly and efficiently took his measurements. “Shoe size?”

“Nine,” Milgrim told him.

“Narrow?”

“Medium.”

The housekeeper made a note of this. “Go,” he said to Milgrim, making a shooing gesture with his notebook, “go, go.”

“No breakfast?”

“Go.”

Milgrim left the kitchen, wondering where Brown might be. He looked into the office-study, where Brown had taken his whiskey the night before. It was furnished like the rest of the house, but with more dark wood and more vertical stripes. And, he saw, it had books. He stepped to the door, peered around, swiftly crossed to what he’d taken for a bookcase. It was one of those pieces where the doors of a cabinet have been covered with the leather spines of antique books. He bent, taking a closer look at the remains of these skinned volumes. No, this was a single piece of leather, molded over a wooden form shaped like the spines of individual books. There were no actual titles, or authors’ names, in the carefully faded gold stamping across these. It was a very elaborate artifact, mass-produced by artisans of one culture in vague imitation of what had once been the culture of another. He opened it. The shelf behind was empty. He quickly closed it.

In the hallway, he examined the housekeeper’s handiwork in a mirror dotted with faux age spots. Tidy. Hyperconventional. A lawyer’s haircut, or a prisoner’s.

He stood on the cool gray marble, at the foot of the slit of stairwell. He clicked his tongue quietly, imagining the sound sucked up the slit.

Where was Brown?

He went upstairs and collected the plastic garbage bag from the bathroom, along with his razor, toothbrush, and toothpaste. He went to the boy’s bedroom, where he added his underpants to the contents of the bag. Naked under the oversized robe, he removed his book from the Paul Stuart coat draped over the ladder-backed chair. He’d helped himself to the coat from the rack in a deli, shortly before Brown had found him. It hadn’t been new when he’d gotten it, already a season old, and it was past cleaning, now. He put the book on the blue desk, picked up the coat, and took it into the closet. He put it on the hanger closest to the boy’s blue blazer. “I’ve brought you a friend,” he whispered. “You don’t have to be frightened anymore.”

He closed the closet door behind him, and was picking up his book, when Brown opened the door from the hall. He looked at Milgrim’s haircut. He handed him a crisp paper bag from McDonald’s, marked by a few translucent spots of grease, picked up the garbage bag, tied a knot in its neck, and left with it.

Grease from the Egg McMuffin dripped on the robe, but Milgrim decided that that was not his problem.

In what he took to be little more than an hour, the housekeeper entered, carrying two paper shopping bags and a black vinyl hanger-bag, all marked JOS. A. BANK.

“That was quick,” Milgrim said.

“McLean,” said the housekeeper, as if that explained it. He dropped the two bags on the bed, and was turning to the closet door with the hanger-bag when Milgrim took it from him.

“Thanks,” Milgrim said.

The man turned and left.

Milgrim opened the hanger-bag and found a black, three-button jacket, wool-poly blend. He laid it on the bed, atop the hanger-bag, and started unpacking one of the shopping bags. He found two pairs of navy-blue cotton briefs, two pairs of medium-weight gray socks, a white sleeveless undershirt, two blue oxford button-downs, and a pair of dark-gray wool trousers with no belt loops, tabs and buttons at either side of the waistband. He remembered Brown having taken his belt, the first day. The other contained a shoebox. In it was a pair of rather sad rubber-soled leather oxfords, generic office-wear. Also a black leather wallet and a plain black nylon carryall.

Milgrim dressed. The shoes, which he thought visibly cheap, actually helped. They made him feel less like he was heading back to boarding school, or joining the FBI.

Brown entered, a blue and black striped tie in his hand. He was wearing a dark-gray suit and white shirt. Milgrim had never seen him in a suit before, and assumed he’d just now removed the tie. “Put this on. We’re taking your picture.” He watched while Milgrim removed his jacket and knotted the tie. He assumed ties were like belts, as far as he was concerned.

“I need an overcoat,” Milgrim said, pulling on his new jacket.

“You have one.”

“You told me to put everything in the bag.”

Brown frowned. “Where we’re going,” Brown said, “you’ll want a raincoat. Downstairs. You’re having your picture taken.”

Milgrim went downstairs, Brown behind him.

53. TO GIVE THEM THE PLEASURE

I nchmale’s cell wasn’t answering. She tried the W, and was told he was no longer there. Was he on his way? Probably. She hated the idea of missing him, although she assumed he intended to be here for a while, if he was going to be producing an album. Vancouver wasn’t that far away, and she didn’t imagine she’d be there very long.

Odile called from the Standard to ask the name of the hotel in Vancouver. She said she wanted to tell her mother, in Paris. Hollis didn’t know. She called Pamela Mainwaring.

“Where are we staying?”

“The flat. I’ve only seen pictures. All glass. Over the water.”

“Hubertus has a flat?”

“The company. No one lives there. We haven’t opened in Canada. We’re starting in Montreal, next year. Hubertus says we need to start there; he says Quebec is an imaginary country.”

“What does that mean?”

“I only work here,” said Pamela. “But we do have people in Vancouver. One of them will meet you and take you to the flat.”

“May I speak with Hubertus?”

“Sorry,” said Pamela, “he’s in a meeting in Sacramento. He’ll ring you when he can.”

“Thanks,” Hollis said.

She looked at the helmet Bigend had sent her. She supposed she’d better take it with her, in case there was locative art in Vancouver. It didn’t seem like something you could safely check through, though, and it was going to be awkward for carry-on.

Before she started packing she called her own mother, in Puerto Vallarta. Her parents wintered there now, but they were a week from coming back to their place in Evanston. She tried to explain what she was doing in Los Angeles, but she wasn’t sure her mother got it. Still very sharp, but increasingly less interested in things she wasn’t already familiar with. She said that Hollis’s father was fine, except for having contracted, in his late seventies, a fierce and uncharacteristic interest in politics. Which her mother didn’t like, she said, because it only made him angry. “He says it’s because it’s never been this bad,” her mother said, “but I tell him it’s only because he never paid it this much attention before. And it’s the Internet. People used to have to wait for the paper, or for the news on television. Now it’s like a tap running. He sits down with that thing at any time of the day or night, and starts reading. I tell him it’s not like there’s anything he can do about any of it anyway.”