The Inner Circle (25 page)

“Hi,” I said.
 

At the sound of my voice the old woman looked up. She had a very wrinkled face. Her white puffy hair was thin and balding. She squinted at me with eyes that couldn’t quite see me.
 

She asked in a frail voice, “Have you seen my son?”
 

Speechless, I took a step back and looked down the basement stairs. The Kid was standing at the bottom. His hands were on his waist, and as he stared back up at me, he released a long and heavy sigh, deflating like a balloon.

35

The Kid’s mother sat in a high-backed easy chair in the living room. It was positioned to face out the big picture window overlooking the front yard. Her metal walker was beside the chair. She seemed oblivious to our presence—the Kid’s, her personal nurse’s, my own—and just continued staring out the window.
 

I whispered, “What is she looking at?”
 

The Kid and I were in the kitchen, which wasn’t really a separate room so much as an extension of the living room. The Hispanic woman—her name was Carmen—was busy fixing lunch for the Kid’s mother.
 

“Not what or at,” the Kid said. “It’s who and for.”
 

“Okay. So who is she looking for?”
 

“My brother.”
 

“I didn’t know you had a brother.”
 

“I don’t.”
 

Carmen had just finished making a sandwich. She placed it on a plastic plate and took it to the Kid’s mother. Even when she walked up the old woman didn’t notice. Carmen had to lean down, whisper something into her ear, and wait a few seconds before the words registered. Then the Kid’s mother smiled up at her, nodded once, and Carmen placed the plate on her lap. The Kid’s mother stared down at it for a moment, touched it briefly, and returned her attention to the picture window.
 

“Alzheimer’s,” the Kid said. “She’s had it a couple years now. Just recently it’s gotten worse. For some reason she thinks it’s 1989.”
 

“What happened in 1989?”
 

“My brother died.”
 

I looked at him, this twenty-six-year-old computer genius who wore expensive jeans, designer shirts, always had gel in his hair. His face had grown more somber in the past couple minutes, his eyes dimmer.
 

“Are you going to tell me?”
 

He didn’t look like he was going to respond. He just stood there, watching his mother. Finally he took a deep breath and said, “I was six. My brother was nine. Our dad had just returned from one of his business trips, this one from Australia. He brought us a boomerang. You’d think he’d buy us two boomerangs, but he was a cheap bastard and only brought back one.”
 

Carmen had pulled up a wooden rocking chair beside the Kid’s mother. She sat there waiting for the Kid’s mother to take a bite of her sandwich. When that didn’t happen, she took the sandwich and gently lifted it toward the old woman’s mouth.

“So of course we both wanted to play with it. There was this field about a mile from our house, out near the woods. We went there to test it out. We didn’t really know what to expect. Our dad said something about how it was supposed to come back to us, so that’s what we were hoping. But I guess we didn’t throw it right or ... I don’t know. The thing ended up in a tree. Real high up there. Neither of us was supposed to climb the trees because the branches were too high, but that didn’t stop my brother.”
 

The old woman kept her gaze out the picture window as she let Carmen feed her. Taking little bites of the sandwich, she would chew thoughtfully for a long time before swallowing. Carmen would lift the sandwich toward her mouth again and sometimes the Kid’s mother would turn her head away like an obstinate child, other times she would open her cracked and gray lips and take another bite.
 

“So he climbed the tree. He went the whole way up. The boomerang was caught in the branches farthest out. He had to shake this one branch for about five minutes before the thing finally got loose. Then when he started to climb back down, his foot slipped and he just ... fell.”
 

There was a pink plastic cup on the floor beside the old woman’s chair. It had a lid and a straw. After about two bites of the sandwich, Carmen picked up the cup and offered it to the Kid’s mother, placing the straw between her lips.
 

“The drop, it was only about ten, twelve feet high. Shouldn’t have hurt him much at all. But as he started falling he tried to catch himself on one of the other branches. He managed to grab one of them but it threw off his center of gravity. He sort of flipped in the air and instead of landing on his feet or back like he would have, he landed on his head. I was standing right there when it happened. I heard his ... I heard his neck snap.”
 

The Kid’s mother chewed and sipped silently from her chair. Carmen went about her task without any complaint or show of impatience.
 

“His eyes were still open and for some reason I thought he was still alive. But he wouldn’t answer me when I said his name. So I ran home. I ran straight home and found my dad and told him what happened. My dad took me back out to the field. He found my brother and he just ... he started crying. It was the first and last time I ever saw him cry. He picked up my brother and carried him the entire way home. He put my brother in the car and drove away to the hospital. He had never even said a word to my mother. She had been home the entire time, gardening or whatever. And then it was just me there, watching my dad drive away with my brother, and I didn’t want to go back inside. I didn’t want to tell her what had happened.”
 

The sandwich gone, Carmen offered the pink cup one last time. When the Kid’s mother refused it, Carmen took a napkin and wiped the corners of the old woman’s mouth.
 

“Anyway, I knew I couldn’t stay outside forever, so I went in. My mom was there, but I didn’t tell her anything. I just went to my room and shut the door and cried. And my mom, she knew I was home, that my dad had gone off somewhere, but she didn’t know where my brother was. So she sat by the window for him. She just sat there. And even when my dad came home, told her what happened, she refused to believe him. I think ... I think that’s when the screw in her head really started to come loose.”
 

Carmen gathered the plate and the cup and brought them to the kitchen. She went about cleaning up without a word.
 

The Kid glanced back at her, then at his mother, and whispered to me, “Sometimes she has good days, sometimes bad. Today’s another bad day.”
 

I said nothing.
 

“Go ahead, Ben. Ask your question.”
 

“What question?”
 

“You want to ask, why don’t I put her in a home?”
 

Carmen washed her hands at the sink. Dried her hands on a towel and walked back into the living room, sat down beside the old woman.
 

“It’s none of my business.”
 

“First,” the Kid whispered, as if he didn’t hear me or just didn’t care, “because she’s my mom. And second ... because of Hickory View.”
 

I thought about that brick building, about the Halloween decorations, the Norman Rockwell calendar and the bowl of Hershey’s Kisses. I thought about Phillip Fagerstrom and his dark eyes as he stared back at me, his angel of death.
 

“You don’t really expect the same thing would happen, do you?”
 

“I’m not talking about the building blowing up. But every time I think about putting her in one of those places, I remember what it looked like. I remember how you wrote about it. And that old man, the one that was just coughing and coughing and nobody did anything about it, nobody came to help? I just ... I couldn’t do that to her. It wouldn’t be right.”
 

We stood in silence for a couple long seconds. Then the Kid muttered, “Fuck it,” and turned away, went and opened one of the cabinets. He brought out a box of Orville Redenbacher. He opened one of the bags, tossed it into the microwave, closed the door, and hit the popcorn button.
 

As the microwave hummed to life, he said, “Believe it or not, I’ve been trying to stay away from this shit. I don’t have the metabolism for it I once had, and I don’t have time to go to the gym.”
 

“Then why are you making it now?”
 

“I’m fucking nervous.”
 

A minute and a half later, the microwave pinged. He opened the door and carefully brought out the steaming bag. The smell of artificial butter was intoxicating. He dumped the popcorn into a large plastic bowl, held it out to me.
 

“Want some?”
 

I shook my head.
 

“More for me then.”
 

He opened the basement door and disappeared down the steps. I started to follow but stopped, turned to check on the old woman one last time. Carmen sat beside her, a book now opened in her lap, just reading while the Kid’s mother continued staring out the window and waiting for a son who would never return.

36

I sat down beside the Kid and said, “So what do we have?”
 

“Not sure yet.”
 

“What’s your first impression?”
 

“That we may have just opened a big fucking can of worms.”
 

The Kid clicked the mouse, typed some commands, and a window popped up on the screen.
 

“What are these?” I asked.
 

“Folders. Eleven of them.”
 

“Anything else?”
 

“Nope. Just these.”
 

“And?”
 

“Notice how they’re labeled?”
 

I did. Below each folder was a single word, or hyphened word, all starting with the letter B.
 

Bellman, Boots, Bonnet-Maker, Barrister, Broker, Billiard-Marker, Banker, Butcher, Baker, Beaver. And, lastly, Boojum.
 

“Recognize where they come from?”
 

I nodded. “
The Hunting of the Snark
.”
 

Like the Kid, I had already read over the nonsensical poem a dozen times. It was about a crew of ten lead by the Bellman, whose map of the ocean was a blank sheet of paper, on their hunting expedition of a snark. All of the labels were the ten members of the crew, except for Boojum.
 

The Kid was already opening the folders, skimming through the emails. He had started with the first one: Bellman.
 

“Why not start with Boojum?”
 

“Because if this is the can of worms I think it is, then knowing who Boojum is is the very last thing I want to do.”
 

I wasn’t quite sure what he meant, but it didn’t matter anyway. Within minutes he had skimmed through all the emails. Apparently there weren’t many.
 

“Looks like Carver was reaching out,” the Kid said, and stuffed a handful of popcorn into his mouth.
 

“For what?”
 

“Here’s how he started out every email.”
 

The Kid made another circle with the cursor, and I leaned forward and read the simple line:
 

I’m currently on the hunt for a snark named Caesar
.
 

That was it. Carver didn’t even sign his name, though the email came through with the sender simply identified as Man of Honor. And if the intended parties knew anything of Caesar and Simon and the games, it was safe to assume they already knew everything there was to know about Carver Ellison.
 

“Who are they?”
 

The Kid kept skimming, opening one folder and then closing another. “People high up in the government. FBI, CIA, NSA, Homeland Security. There’s even one from the Secret Service, and another from the Pentagon.”
 

“Were there any replies?”
 

“A few. Luis Thackray of the CIA—labeled under Boots—responded with a standard spam warning form, detailing what would happen if Carver didn’t take him off his list immediately. The same with Demetrius McGowan of the NSA—labeled under Beaver—though his was a little more crude.”
 

The Kid clicked the mouse and again made circles with the cursor. There was McGowan’s message, simple and to the point:
 

Fuck off, asshole
.
 

“Well that isn’t very professional,” I said.
 

“Few in the NSA are.”
 

“None of the others responded?”
 

The Kid opened another window. “Bernard Jardine of Homeland Security did. He’s listed as Barrister.”
 

“What did he say?”
 

The Kid shoveled another handful of popcorn into his mouth and pointed at the line with the cursor.
 

Who all is in your hunting party?
 

“What was Carver’s response?”
 

“There wasn’t one. At least not here.”
 

“Do you think he contacted Jardine another way?”
 

“I have no idea, Ben. I know just as much as you do.”
 

“That’s bullshit.”
 

“Excuse me?”
 

“Why haven’t you opened the last folder yet?”
 

The Kid went quiet, looking away from me. Above us, a soft patter of footsteps sounded, no doubt Carmen heading into the kitchen, maybe to refill that plastic cup the Kid’s mother didn’t seem very interested in. I wondered just how many hours passed through a day where the Kid hid himself down here while his mother sat in her high-backed easy chair, waiting and watching for a son long dead. Surely Carmen wasn’t here day and night. Was there a night nurse, and if there was, did either nurse know what the Kid truly did with his time?