Linwood Barclay - Trust Your Eyes

“No one lives there. The girls are gone.”

“Oh, okay, I didn’t know.”

“Been gone for months,” she said. “Landlord hasn’t rented it out.”

“Okay,” I said again, nodding. “Thanks.”

She stepped back into her apartment and closed the door.

So that was that.

I turned left as I walked out the front of the building, heading north up Orchard, thinking about what I would tell Thomas when I got home. Not much, really. I gave it a shot, but the place was empty.

What the hell else could I do?

I was sitting on the train, looking out at the passing Hudson, when, out of nowhere, something that had been troubling me for some time at an unconscious level came bubbling up to the surface: Why was the blade housing up, and the ignition in the OFF position, on Dad’s lawn tractor?

Thomas knew he was going to have to make his own breakfast and lunch. Ray had told him it was going to be his responsibility. Ray had said if he was going to have to get up before the crack of dawn to grab a train into Manhattan to go on this cockamamie adventure (Thomas was pretty sure that was the word he’d used), then the least Thomas could do was feed himself.

“Okay,” Thomas said. “What do we have?”

“There’s bread and jam and peanut butter and tuna. Look around. Open the cupboards and help yourself.”

“If I make tuna, where’s the can opener?”

“Thomas, look at me.”

“Yes, Ray?”

“Use your head. If you can’t find something, look for it.”

“Okay.”

Ray didn’t seem very eager to check out that window on Orchard Street, but Thomas was pleased he’d agreed to it. He wasn’t sure he’d have sent another message to the CIA outlining his concerns about the face with the bag over it-he wanted to keep his relationship with the agency on a professional level. If the government got the idea he was going to involve them in every suspicious act he’d observed on Whirl360, they might be less inclined to use his services when The Big Thing happened, whatever The Big Thing turned out to be.

Regardless, Thomas was feeling more confident with each passing week that he was ready for it. At the end of every day, when he finally closed down Whirl360, erased his computer’s history, turned out the light, and lay his head on his pillow, he put himself to sleep by walking through a city he’d recently gotten to know. The night before, with his eyes closed, he had wandered San Francisco. He was going down Hyde, turning right onto the downhill corkscrew stretch of Lombard, the Coit Tower off in the distance. Or walking straight along Hyde, where it starts to slope down, off in the distance there, that has to be Alcatraz. Then crossing Chestnut, the buildings giving way to not much of anything on the left, something called the Russian Hill Open Space. And if he kept going this way on Hyde, pretty soon he’d be…

Asleep.

Ray poked his head into his room sometime around five, waking him. “I’m off,” he said. “Don’t get into any trouble.”

“I won’t,” Thomas mumbled into his pillow.

The sun was coming through the window when he finally got up. He turned on his computer and set up Whirl360 before he went into the bathroom, had a quick shower, and got dressed.

In the kitchen he stood a moment, staring at the cupboards, contemplating his course of action. He was pretty sure the cereal was in that cupboard next to the fridge. He opened it tentatively, as though expecting a rat to jump out, but there was the box of Cheerios he was hoping to find.

The milk was in the fridge. Of course he knew that, he thought. He got a bowl, poured cereal into it, added milk, ate it all up, and returned to his room, leaving the dirty dish on the table and the cereal and container of milk on the counter. This wasn’t neglectfulness on his part. While Ray had made it clear he was responsible for feeding himself, he had said nothing about cleaning up. Thomas figured Ray would want to do that when he got home, just to make sure it was done the way he liked. That was how it had been with their father. Adam Kilbride wanted to be in charge of cleanup. He never let Thomas do the dishes. Which was why Thomas wasn’t up to speed on such things as loading the dishwasher, operating the vacuum cleaner, doing laundry, scrubbing the floors, or dusting. The one chore Thomas had thought might be fun was cutting the grass, but his father wouldn’t let him operate the lawn tractor. But now, even if Ray let him, he’d never want to drive that tractor.

After breakfast, he continued his exploration of San Francisco. Went through the Mission, Sunset, and Richmond districts and Haight-Ashbury, and strolled over the Golden Gate Bridge. Took quite a few mouse clicks to make that crossing. He became so absorbed with that part of the trip he almost forgot he was responsible for his own lunch.

He returned to the kitchen just before one. A tuna sandwich seemed like more than he wanted to take on because he’d have to use the can opener, and even when his father opened tuna he used to swear when the lid finally popped off and tuna oil spilled all over the place. So Thomas found the peanut butter and some bread and was in the middle of making himself a sandwich when there was a knock at the door.

For a second, he didn’t do anything, because it was always someone else who opened the door, but then he realized he was the only one there, so he set down the knife slathered with peanut butter and went to see who it was.

“Hello, Thomas.”

It was Len Prentice, or as Adam Kilbride often called his former boss, Lenny.

“Oh, hi, Mr. Prentice.”

Thomas could see the man’s car a few steps away from the porch, but there was no one else in it. He had come out to the Kilbride house alone. He stood like he was expecting to be invited in, but Thomas didn’t want to do that. He had never liked Len Prentice.

“Your brother around?” he asked.

“He’s in New York City today,” Thomas said.

“What’s he doing there?”

“He’s checking to see whether somebody was murdered by having a bag put over their head.”

That stopped Len for a second. “Huh,” he said. Then, “You really are crazy, aren’t you, Thomas? Can I come in?”

He hesitated, then said, “I guess it’s okay.”

“I was driving by and thought I’d pop in and see how you boys were getting along.”

Thomas didn’t say anything. Len Prentice hadn’t actually asked him a question.

“Got a beer or anything?” he asked.

Thomas said, honestly, “I don’t know.”

“Never mind. I’ll have a look.” Len crossed through the living room to the kitchen, opened up the fridge, and found what he was looking for.

“So whattya been doing to keep yourself busy, Thomas?” he asked, twisting off the cap and taking a swig.

“I work on the computer.”

He nodded knowingly. “Oh yeah, right. Pretty much all the time, right?”

“I have stuff to do.”

“What did you say Ray was doing again?”

“He’s in New York.”

“Yeah, yeah, but the other part? What’s he doing?”

“He’s meeting a friend about work, and he’s trying to find out what happened to the person in the window.”

Len drank more of his beer. “Is this the person who had a bag put over his head?”

Thomas nodded.

“Your dad used to talk to me,” Len said. “I wasn’t just his boss, you know. He and I, we were friends. And he said you were always finding pictures of things on the Internet that got you all riled up. Used to tell me he considered unplugging you from the Net, but letting you sit on the computer all day was really the only thing that gave him any peace.”

Thomas wanted Len Prentice to leave so he could finish making his peanut butter sandwich and take it upstairs with him.