This Shared Dream (59 page)

She waited for hours, and would have waited much longer, but at around 5:00
A.M.
, he arrived like German clockwork, before a new, sharp police shift would come, poking his head around the side of the building.

He zigzagged across the grass. He was the type of person who would be on the condo board; he probably knew where the motion detecting sensors were. Beneath a window she assumed was his, he looked back and forth, then fell to his hands and knees. Bette stood as he inched his way forward, making wide arcs through the grass with his hands. He didn’t dare risk a flashlight; Bette supposed he surmised that someone was posted at one of the upstairs windows.

When he got close to Bette, she said, “Is this what you’re looking for?”

He jumped to his feet and reached for, surely, his gun.

She stepped forward and before he could move, she cuffed his hands, in front of his waist, in plastic restraints. Then she pulled him at gunpoint past the building’s end, past the sleepy guard. His upper arm shook as she held it with a firm grip. “Here’s the deal.”

He stared at her in the faint light of the coming dawn. “You’re not a cop.”

“I have what you want. And I’m going to give it to you. First, drink this.” She held up a disposable plastic-lidded fast-food cup with a straw sticking out of the top.

He spat at her, which she had anticipated, stepping back before he even tried it. She slapped his face and said, “Now, let’s try again. Don’t bother to spill it; I have plenty.”

“What’s in it?”

“Wilhelm, you should rejoice. It’s your holy grail, the Hadntz Device, fiftieth incarnation. A powder.”

“I don’t believe you. Who are you? How do you know about—”

“Drink it.”

After a bit of expert persuasion, which Bette assured him would not cause permanent damage, he fully complied.

Jill

July 23

J
ILL WAS GETTING DRESSED
for work when Elmore called.

She’d had a very late night. They’d found the photograph of the Perler Device. Daniel and Koslov had perused the notebooks all night in the library.

She went upstairs to sleep at four. When she returned at six, Daniel was asleep on the couch. Koslov snored in the rocking chair.

She had awoken Daniel and told him she wasn’t going to work. She didn’t want to see Wilhelm there. He had convinced her she had to go; he had a man outside the house, dressed in a suit, with a Bank entrance pass, waiting to follow her to work for her safety. He would follow her inside. “Wilhelm might be watching to see if you go into the building,” Daniel said. “We could nab him. Depends, I suppose, on how obsessed he is.”

Now, as she gathered her briefcase and keys in the foyer with unsteady hands, her phone beeped. Elmore.

“Jill,” he said, then said nothing more.

“I’m right here.”

“Is…”

“Is what?”

“Is Stevie with you?”

“What? No. What do you mean?” Her voice rose. “Isn’t he with you?”

“He’s run away. He turned off the alarm and left. I don’t know when.”

“What are you
talking
about? When did this happen?”

“I’m not sure. We put him in bed at seven, and—”

“Seven?
Seven?
He doesn’t go to sleep until at least
nine.
”

“Tracy—we think that he should get more sleep. He seems kind of cranky.”

“He was there at eight. He called me at eight. He sounded really lonely. I got some books for him—” She made herself stop.
This can’t be happening
, she thought. “Did you look everywhere? He likes to hide. Look around outside. Isn’t there a park across the street? Maybe he’s playing there. Maybe he just left a few minutes ago.”

“I looked everywhere.” Elmore sounded despairing.

Don’t panic,
Jill told herself. “So you’re saying that he’s been gone for
twelve hours,
maybe?”

“We checked on him—”

Now she was screaming. “Twelve
hours,
Elmore?”

“Yes.”

“What did the police say?”

“I haven’t called them yet. I just found that he was gone. I went to get him up and—I was hoping he was with you.”

“Oh, right, it might get in the paper. I’m calling them right now.”

“I’ll call now. I just wanted to check—” His voice caught. “They’ll want to come here.”

“Maybe I should wait at home,” she said. “Maybe he’s on his way here. Or maybe I should call someone to stay here. I’ll do that. I’ll go out to look for him.”

“The police might want to question you.”

“I’m going out. Where would he go? Can Tracy check the school? It’s not far from you. Maybe he just walked over there.”

“Tracy’s, ah, in court.”

“Right. Court. Okay. I’ll let you know.” She hung up, furious, afraid, and at her wit’s end.

She called the school. An aide was there, setting up, and Jill listened as she combed the school, calling his name. Finally, breathless, she said that he wasn’t there.

“Call me immediately if he shows up.”

She hung up the phone.
Dread,
she thought.
This feeling is pure dread.

Daniel was at her side. “Whens is missing?”

“I can’t stand it,” she whispered. “I just can’t stand this anymore.”

Zoe

SOMEWHERE THERE’S MUSIC

July 23

Z
OE HAD BEEN WORKING
in the ballroom since seven in the morning, when everything got so crazy. She sat on the floor next to a tall window and slanted light blessed her scorebook, propped on her knees. Her markers were scattered around her.

Zoe’s Dad and Mom and the Crazy Aunts were in the library when Zoe got finished, around nine. Some of them were talking on phones. There were other people there she didn’t know. Crazy Aunt Megan was putting on her running shoes. Her dad picked up his car keys.

Zoe handed Brian her scorebook. “This is where Whens is.”

Brian looked down at the familiar-looking manuscript, the interesting spatter of color that Zoe’s bits of music always were, as if the colors were as much of a pattern as the tones that were simultaneously represented. Except—

“Okay. You have extra lines down here. Not five staff lines, but seven.”

“I put those in when I do people.”

“Okay,” Brian repeated, as he always did when he was trying to be extra patient with his kids. He continued to study it.

“What do you mean, when you do people?” asked Crazy Aunt Jill. “Can I see that?”

Brian handed it over.

Zoe frowned. “You didn’t know that I do people?” She sounded hurt.

“I’m sorry, honey.” Jill reached over and hugged Zoe to her. “No, I didn’t. What do you mean?”

“All of you have sounds. Can’t you hear them?”

“We’re not as gifted as you, sweetie.”

Zoe stepped away from Jill and looked around at all of them, puzzled. “Well,” she said finally. She paged through her book. “Mom sounds like this.” She held up the notebook briefly. “And Bitsy looks like this.” She held up another, more antic-looking page, with colors and notes scattered wildly.

“Can you play them for us?” asked Jill. “Can you tell us what they
mean
?” She sounded very crazy today, but Zoe understood. She shook her head. “These notes aren’t on the piano. The extra ones.” She sighed. “The violin is better, but there’s just too much space when I play it. I fill it in with my head. It’s—kind of behind things, or in front of them.” She brightened. “I just need to invent a new instrument, that’s all. Anyway, now we can find Whens. I’ll just have to show you.”

“How?” asked Jill, her hands white and clasped to her chest.

“We can drive there,” said Zoe. “Don’t you see?”

Her dad and Crazy Aunt Jill looked at each other. Detective Kandell was there too, but looked like he was getting ready to leave. Zoe liked him; he was kind and never acted like he thought she was nutsy.

Then Brian said, “I don’t think we can go right now. We’re—really busy. How about tomorrow?”

Zoe stared at them, one by one. Then she walked away in silence.

*   *   *

Zoe stood on the front porch, uncertain, for a moment. She thought she might cry, but she didn’t.

Instead, she looked at her score. Then she turned left and turned left again at the corner, where the bus stop was.

The bus trundled up just as Aunt Jill’s car came around the corner. Jill and her dad were in the front seat. They did not look at the bus as she climbed into it and showed the driver her Metro pass.

The driver nodded and pulled the door shut; the bus lurched forward.

Zoe sat in the front seat, straining forward to see out better. She looked at her score. At one stop she started to get up, and then sank back into the seat.

Finally, when they were at the George Washington University stop, she got off. She waited until the walking light came on, crossed the street, and went into a side entrance of the hospital.

It was getting a little tricky. She was glad the adults weren’t with her; she knew they wouldn’t follow her through this.

She got on an elevator and went to the fourth floor. A nurse at the station glanced at her when she got out of the elevator, then looked back at her computer screen.

Zoe walked briskly down the hall. She missed Whens so much! She blinked away tears and took the stairway down two floors, walked down another corridor, and took the elevator to the basement, where she went to the cafeteria.

She walked through the kitchen, which smelled like mashed potatoes. She felt like she was in a movie! This was where people always ran to get away from someone who was chasing them. However, she didn’t feel quite strong enough to smash over the big chafing dishes on wheels, or push the shelf of glasses over behind her to slow people down. It was kind of boring when nobody was chasing you. Then a thin woman carrying a stack of napkins said, “What are you doing in here?” and she broke into a run. Much more fun!

She burst through some double doors and was on a big concrete delivery bay. Two men were there, loading boxes onto a dolly. She rushed down the stairs and shot out onto Washington Circle.

A streetcar was coming around the circle. It was connected to a wire up above the street and ran on a track. The cars all looked funny. Zoe closed her eyes and listened. The clanging of the car grew louder, then stopped.

The streetcar door was open in front of her. A woman pushed past her and got on. She was dressed in a different way too. She wore a kind of tight dress and a round, little blue hat that matched her dress.

The woman sounded like the bottom note on her score, which was kind of like a drone note. Everybody here did.

The driver looked at her. “Getting on, girlie?”

Zoe reached into her pocket and the driver said, “Kids ride free.”

Zoe stared out the window. Washington looked the same, but different. It was fun, but scary. She knew she wasn’t dreaming. The perfume of the woman next to her burned her eyes.

She closed her eyes, listening. Sweeter in this direction …

She leaped from the streetcar on a quiet street lined with trees and ran past some picket-fenced yards until she got to the one on the corner.

Whens was in the front yard, playing with a big white dog. The dog fetched a stick and then Whens took one end. They pulled. Whens let go and fell down backward. The dog ran off, tossing his stick in the air and catching it with great joy, looking at Whens with a laughing sideways glance.

“Whens!” Zoe ran up to him. “Everybody’s looking for you!”

“My name is Stevie,” said the boy. He stood up.

“I’m Zoe.” She was taken aback. This boy looked exactly like Whens. But Whens would never say that. “Don’t pretend. We have to get back right now. Come on!” She took the boy’s wrist.

The boy yanked it away. “I really don’t want to play with you.”

A woman came to the door. She looked kind of like Crazy Aunt Jill, but different. She wore a cotton dress with a big wide skirt.

“Hi,” she said, wiping her hands on her apron. “What’s your name?”

“Zoe,” she said. The sounds were so strong. She looked down at his music in the notebook, and the colors glowed and matched. Most of them. This was Whens. But it was a different Whens. “I’ve got to go.”

She walked back down the street, thinking. She wished very hard that she had her colored pens. She realized that she needed to make yet another line on his staff. The music was getting really complicated.

She took the trolley back to the hospital, and went through the various floors, in a bit of a daze. She paused at the gift shop window and looked longingly at a set of markers there, then hurried away. Maybe she could get home before she forgot this new part of the music.

She got on a bus and was home by eleven.

She turned onto the front walk and her mother came running out the door. She grabbed her and hugged her close. “Where were you? We were worried sick! Oh, I’m so glad you’re back.” Zoe watched her send a message to her dad.

In a moment, Brian pulled up in his truck and jumped from the cab. “Zoe!” He knelt in front of his daughter. “I’m so sorry. We’ll take you to look for Whens now.”

Zoe said, “That’s okay. I have to work on it a little bit more.” Her father looked so upset that Zoe gave him a hug, then walked into the house, thinking.

Across the International Date Line

THE NEW SCHOOL

July 24, Senegal

A
BAKAR TARAB WAS FIVE
, and on his way to the store to fetch a Fanta for his big brother, Yaccoub.

He passed the small houses of his neighbors and ran down the dirt road, his bare feet making soft plashes of dust. They needed rain. He often heard his mother talking about it, and about how Yaccoub needed to find a job. Yaccoub always laughed at that, his lean face just a little bit mean, in a way that scared Abakar. Sometimes Yaccoub hit their sister, Issa, who was thirteen. Once, when their mother got between Issa and Yaccoub’s raised hand, Abakar had been afraid that his brother would strike their mother—a complete, absolute taboo. Abakar had held his breath while their mother stared hard at Yaccoub, a warning like steel in her eyes, and breathed again when Yaccoub lowered his arm and said, “How do you think I get the money to feed us, woman? I have a job. It is not an easy job to feed three other worthless people.”