Yesterday's Thief: An Eric Beckman Paranormal Sci-Fi Thriller (23 page)

I rolled down the window. “What is he protecting? Why does he think he needs this big fence?”

Viv shook her head. We turned left and followed the road until a guardhouse appeared around a corner. It stood just behind a broad iron gate. A closed gate.

We were miles from the last power lines we’d seen. Unless they were underground, this had to be off the grid.

A huge man stood by the guardhouse, staring straight ahead as if we weren’t there. Muscles made his neck as wide as his head, and he wore a white shirt, open to his chest, with a leather vest. We’d seen no other cars for miles, yet here stood a man at attention.

Viviana pushed her fingers through her hair. “Is
Tigan
.”

“What?”

“You say Gypsy.”

His massive hook nose jutted out from his face.

“He’s probably thinking about getting a new nose,” I said.

Viviana punched my thigh.

His thoughts were all Romanian. I was pretty good at recognizing the language by now. I couldn’t understand a word. We’d come to the right place.

We got out and walked to the iron bars of the gate. He didn’t even turn toward us.

I acted as if this were a normal situation. “Hello, sir. We would like to see Mr. Dobra.”

He shook his head. Didn’t even look at me. Did he understand?

Viviana set her jaw.

She put her hands on the bars and let out an angry stream of Romanian. I recognized the words “Zaharia Dudnic” and “oncle.”

That got his attention. He came to the gate. He had a flattop haircut and a cauliflower ear.

They shouted back and forth in a heated exchange. He shook his head a lot.

Viviana grabbed for him through the bars. He jumped back. I pulled her away, and she stormed to the car. When I got in, she yelled at me in Romanian and we fishtailed down the road.

Once I had a loving cat that had been in a fight. When it came inside, it attacked my foot, having trouble turning off fight mode. Apparently, that’s how it was with Viviana.

I put my hand on hers as she shifted into third. “Viviana, please stop!”

She slammed on the brakes and turned to me, breathing hard.

I reached out and switched off the ignition. “Viviana, don’t be angry at
me
, okay? Take a deep breath and tell me what that was all about.”

She stared out the windshield. “He refuses to let us in. He refuses to even tell Zaza that we are here.”

“Did he say why?”

“No.”

“But Zaharia’s in there? He’s okay?”

“He wouldn’t tell me.” A vein pulsed in her forehead.

“Okay, let’s think.” I held her hand. “This has got to be his place. He bought it, using his alias. The guard is Romanian.”

She leaned out the window, peering up at the fence. The light was fading. “I will go in there, look around.”

I pictured her meeting the guard without an iron fence separating the two. “Let’s wait on that. We’ll drive around the perimeter, then watch the guardhouse from a distance. Maybe he lets some people in.”

We followed the fence around the property. Much of it was dense forest. The road was bad, especially in the Porsche with its low clearance.

Viviana stopped the car and pointed. “Look!”

Almost a mile inside the fence, a one-story building stood in a clearing. Exterior lights were on, even though it wasn’t dark yet. Because of the energy catastrophe, that was rare. Close to us, a man moved around. Gliding along. Was he hovering?

Viviana jumped out of the car and ran to the fence. She yelled, “Zaza! On keel Zaza!”

The man stopped, then resumed his ghostly gliding movement. Viviana yelled again.

This time, he turned and moved toward us. He traveled fast, about as fast as a runner might. It turned out he wasn’t hovering; he was on some kind of Segway device. Instead of wheels, it had tracks like those of a tank.

Near the fence, he stepped off the device and came to us. He wore a Russian hat—
ushanka
?—deep brown with earflaps. A white beard covered his jaw—more like a week’s growth of stubble, really. His cheeks were sunken like an inmate of a Russian gulag. He was a broken-down shadow of the man in the news photo.

His gait indicated a neuropathology. It looked as if he were walking on the deck of a ship in rough seas. Impossible to narrow it down without a clinical exam, but some of the possibilities included Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, NPH, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob.

Viviana had her fingertips clawed into the chain-link fence. “Zaza.
Sunt eu
, Viviana!”

I’d seen Parkinson’s patients with his same lack of facial expression.

“Maria.
Cum
?” He looked back toward the building.

“
Nu
, Zaza—”

Nu
is Romanian for no. I put my mouth close to her ear and whispered, “Don’t correct him.”

He turned toward his scooter device.

Viviana pleaded with him in Romanian. They spoke back and forth. I couldn’t understand the words, but based on his tone of voice, he was confused. At one point in the conversation, he pointed at me.

His thoughts were poorly organized. Romanian and English bouncing around in there, but his brain wasn’t working right.

He got back on his scooter and left. He was fast on that thing. The guy could barely walk, but on the scooter, he flew, bouncing over irregularities in the trail.

I turned to Viviana. She buried her head in my shoulder. “Oh, Eric. What has happened to him?”

“What did he say?”

She looked up at me. Tears glistened in her eyes. “He invited us to dinner.”

I stood up straighter. “That’s excellent. Will the guard let us in?”

“I mentioned the guard, but I’m not sure Zaza understood. He just said to come tomorrow at five. He pointed to you and said, ‘
Adu-l Ivan
.’ Bring Ivan.”

“Ivan?”

She put her face against my shoulder again. “That was my father’s name. Maybe he thinks I’m Maria, my mother. But my parents both died in 1950, when I was born. He also called me Lia at one point.”

“She was … his wife.”

She sighed. “
Da
. His wife.”

* * *

The next morning, I drove solo to my condo and picked up some clothes and other personal items. The building next door had been red-tagged—the earthquake damage had made it uninhabitable. Demolition would take place in a month. This was now a lousy place to live. Another reason to move in with Viviana.

I stopped in the middle of filling a suitcase and sat down on the bed. Was I making the right decisions here? I was keeping Viviana and Zaharia’s existence as my own private secret.

Did I really think that was the best way to get Zaharia’s energy ball and solve the energy catastrophe? Or was I being led around by my feelings for Viviana? Maybe I just wanted to be the hero and show all those people who didn’t listen to me. Look what I found, Dr. Barbie Baumgartner, an energy ball. See, it wasn’t junk science after all, so there! Told you so.

I resumed packing. Viviana and I would have dinner with her uncle, and I’d learn more. I could decide then. Of course, I would never turn Viviana over to the government. I didn’t trust them.

Next, I traded in my Yaris for a Tesla Stealth. It was what all the new millionaire PIs were driving. So much for blending in with a nondescript car. I spent some time setting up the features, including things like communications and driving preferences.

I drove to my office and parked out front. Another decision. Tell Peggy I found the Romanian time travelers or leave her in the dark? I trusted her, but the fewer people who knew, the better. I could tell her later. Another decision kicked down the road. I pulled out into traffic and pointed my new wheels back to my love nest, south of San Francisco.

On the way, I made one final decision: I would tell Viviana about my special talent.

She met me at the door like a 1950s housewife greeting her executive husband after his hard day at the office. Really just a hard morning of putting underwear in a suitcase, but it felt good.

After a delicious lunch of
sarmale
, a type of Romanian cabbage roll, I led Viviana over to the couch. We sat facing one another.

“Viviana, I’m going to tell you something I’ve never voluntarily revealed to anyone else.”

“Voluntarily?”

“One other person knows, but he figured it out on his own.”

She smiled but knitted her eyebrows and cocked her head. “Is some kind of joke?”

“No.”

She patted me on the knee. “Okay. Am all ears.”

“I’m revealing this to you because I trust you.” I took a deep breath. This was the point of no return. “I can read minds.”

She laughed. “Yes, I saw. You could tell was thinking ‘stay or go.’ At gym. You told me.”

“No, I mean I can really hear your thoughts, when you are consciously thinking something.”

She crossed her arms. “Prove.”

“Okay, think something, in English, and I will tell you what you’re thinking.”

She smiled at me. <
I love you, Eric Beckman.
>

I jumped back and blinked. I hadn’t expected that. I leaned in and kissed her. “I love you, too, Viviana Petki.”

She put her hand to her mouth and blushed. “Yes, you are good. How did you do that?”

“You don’t seem shocked. And do you really love me?”

“Yes. Of course I love you, Eric. No, not surprised. You are very good guesser. Clever.” She got up and put the lunch plates in the dishwasher.

I followed her. I took her by the shoulders and turned her toward me. “I’m not guessing. Think something random, in English. Something I’d never guess.”

“Okay, okay.” <
The color red and the number nine.
>

“The color red and the number nine.”

Her face turned white. She slapped me and backed away. <
El este un monstru.
>

“
El este un monstru.
But I’m not a monster.”

Her nostrils flared and she clenched her fists. She glared at me. “And you lied. Said you only knew few words of Romanian.” She backed away farther.

“No, I didn’t lie. I guessed at what that meant. I heard you think it, and I guessed at the translation.
Monstru
, monster, right?”

She put her fists on her hips. “Have been reading mind all the time?”

“Only your conscious thoughts. What did you want me to do? Tell you right at the start? Tell everybody?”

She crossed her arms. “You knew my name was Petki all along.”

I put my hands up. “I wasn’t the one who lied about it.”

“I had to lie.”

“I’m not judging you. I understand your motivations.”

She ran into the bathroom and closed the door. <
Poti citi something something prin usa?
>

I followed her and spoke to the door. “You have to think in English.”

She opened the door and glared at me, then closed it again. <
Can read mind through door?
>

“Yes, Viviana. I can read your mind through the door.”

Her gasp was so loud I heard it in the hall. After a pause, she thought, <
Is why he pleasured me that way.
>

“Yes, I knew what you wanted me to do. You thought it in English. Please let me in.”

She came out but sidled past me, holding me back with her outstretched arm. “You lied about this.”

“I didn’t tell you, but what could I do?”

“You told me I said ‘Zaza’ in coma. But you heard in brain.” She stormed around the living room. What a temper.

I shrugged. “Yes. I lied about that. I’m amazed you remember that.”

She tapped her forehead. <
Nu ma subestima.>

“English. Please.”

She leaned forward and with her teeth clenched, shook her finger at me. “You don’t tell me how to think.”

We looked at each other for a few seconds. The corners of her mouth quivered, and then we both burst out laughing.

I put my arms around her, but she pushed me back. “Am not ready.”

“Viviana, I love you. You just told me you loved me. Has that changed?”

She lowered her head. “I need to think.” <
Yes. I still love him. Wait!
> She whipped her head up. “You heard that?”

I nodded.

“Can you turn off? Not listen?”

“I can.”

“Turn off now, please.”

“Okay.”

“How will I know?”

“I’m afraid you won’t. You’ll have to trust me.”

The doorbell rang.