Greg Rucka: Alpha

Almost.

“You come recommended.” The man, Matthew Marcelin, smiles, shaking Bell’s hand. “Highly recommended.”

“All lies,” Bell says.

Marcelin laughs politely, raises the buff-colored folder in his free hand. The W-E of Wilson Entertainment is embossed, surprisingly subtly, on its face. “If so, you’ve got a lot of impressive people willing to lie on your behalf. Take a seat.”

Bell does, and Marcelin follows suit, dropping into a warship-gray Aeron chair behind a chrome-bordered desk. Bell puts him in his early forties, but he can’t be certain-that age thing again. The man is balding, bespectacled, and wearing a suit that puts the one Bell is wearing to shame, and Bell’s suit isn’t poorly made by any stretch. Marcelin sits with his back to the floor-to-ceiling tinted window, and through it Bell can see glimpses of Irvine and the profile of WilsonVille itself, the park visibly active even from this distance. The crests of two separate roller coasters, their trains of cars whipping in and out of view. There’s the point of a pyramid, and something that looks suspiciously like the summit of Mount Everest. A stretch of green, the canopy of some faraway and make-believe forest. Heat haze distorts it all, a sliver of the Pacific in the far distance, shimmering in the July Southern California sunshine.

Marcelin flips the folder open with one hand, uses the other to slide his mouse along a Gordo, Betsy, and Pooch mouse pad, clicks without looking at what he’s doing. Glances up at Bell with the briefly pained expression of a man who’s forgotten his manners.

“I didn’t ask: Would you like something to drink, Jon? Is Jon all right? Or do you prefer Jonathan?”

“Friends call me Jad.”

“Then I’ll take the invitation. Water? Soda? Coffee? We can do you a latte, if you like. There’s a barista in the lobby; I’m sure you passed the stand on the way in-no trouble to send someone down for something.”

Bell did indeed see the barista, a woman who in no way looked to him like the one at the Black Bean, the girl in Skagway, and yet by her presence brought her immediately back to mind. Steaming milk in a metal pitcher beneath a lobby-wide mural of the Flower Sisters and their friends, serving a line of Bluetooth-wearing executives, and Bell could swear they were all half his age.

“I’m good, thanks, Mr. Marcelin.”

“It’s Matt, please.”

“I’m good, thanks, Matt.”

Marcelin nods, drops his eyes to the folder again. His eyeglasses slide down his nose, and he uses his thumb to push them back into place, not his index finger. Bell notes it, hates himself for doing so, for thinking the gesture odd, for wondering what it might mean when it doesn’t have to mean anything. Marcelin is still reading, so Bell goes back to looking over the office.

It’s a big office, a corner office, but pretty much what Bell had been led to expect. Park memorabilia, statues of Pooch in various poses, some of Gordo and Betsy, too. A movie poster of the latest Flashman feature film, this one featuring Dread Flashman, pirate-rogue and Scourge of the Mirror Sea. A powered-down television set, and a remarkably modest glory wall of only three photographs. Bell takes that as a sign of Matthew Marcelin’s restraint, because Matthew Marcelin is chief of park operations and at a guess is pulling down seven figures annually, easy. A man like that is going to have more than just a photograph of himself with the current First Family; another with the assembled Friends of WilsonVille, taken-Bell assumes-outside the park gates; and another with the archbishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

“You talk to David Gonzalez recently?” Marcelin sits back in his chair as he asks the question, conversational. He’s got a good manner, and though they’ve only spoken once prior, by phone, he’s relaxed with Bell, as if he’s known him for years.

“You know David?”

“He does some consulting for us now that he’s left the Bureau.”

“Haven’t talked to him in two, maybe three years.”

“I gave him a call about you, you know. He tells me I can’t do better.”

“He’s being generous. I didn’t know he’d gone private.”

“About eighteen months ago.”

“He consults for you?”

“We brought him in to do a walk-through of the offices. You noticed the security, I’m sure.” For emphasis, Marcelin lifts the Wilson Entertainment IFF chip-enabled ID badge that’s clipped to his lapel.

“That’s not in the job purview, is it?”

“No, no, it’s a park position. If you’re still interested, of course.”

Bell raises his hands slightly, shrugs at the same time. “Why I’m here.”

“Have you ever been to WilsonVille before, Jad?”

“No.” He pauses, thinking about all the times he and Amy had talked about making the trip, taking Athena to see the Flower Sisters in person. But it had never reached operational planning, had stayed a theoretical family vacation. “No. Never managed to make it happen.”

Marcelin rises. “I think I can fix that for you.”

It takes just under twenty minutes to drive the five miles from Wilson Entertainment’s corporate HQ to the park, a Friday in summer’s traffic, and Bell thinks it would’ve been faster to walk. Marcelin drives a new Audi sedan, air-conditioned comfort, and they wind through acres of packed parking lot before reaching the VIP spaces. The park, even from outside, is visibly crowded, and for the first time Bell has a true sense of its scale. One thing to study the maps of 156 acres of WilsonVille; another thing entirely to meet it in person for the first time.

Marcelin parks, waits for Bell to join him, then turns and gestures toward the redbrick promenade that leads to the main gates. Ticket booths line the approach on both sides, roped walkways to guide the guests to each window, and there’s an audible buzz of excitement, children’s voices mixing with teen laughter and adult grumbling. A thin seam of music threads through the air, piped from hidden speakers, what sounds like a movie sound track to Bell’s ears. The ticket booths themselves are designed to look like oversize doghouses, Plexiglas windows at the front and back, access doors on the side.

“Normally, I’d take you through the main entrance, give you the full experience,” Marcelin is saying. “But the crowd’s a little thick today. The alternate entrance is this way; we tend to use it for VIPs or special events.”

“Those aren’t the only two accesses to the park?”

“Oh, God, no. There’s facility maintenance along the northern side, chain-link and ugly as sin, then the inner park wall, twelve feet high, concrete. We do everything in our power to hide that stuff from the guests. Normally, that’d be the way I’d have brought you in, but seeing as it’s your first time, well…” Marcelin trails off, heading toward a side gate done in what appears to be weathered wrought iron but on closer inspection Bell thinks it’s stainless steel with a very good paint job.

Before they even reach the gate, a young black woman has appeared, wearing a blue blazer with a small W-E embroidered in gold thread above the left breast, an elegant and matching name tag pinned in position right below it.

“Mr. Marcelin, always nice to see you, sir!”

Marcelin takes a fraction of a second, just long enough to note the woman’s name on her tag, responds to her cheer in kind. “Nice to see you, too, Marjorie. This is Mr. Bell.”

“Welcome to WilsonVille, Mr. Bell.” Marjorie’s smile is luminescent, almost unbelievable in its sincerity. She holds a radio in her left hand, against her thigh, so discreetly it’s easy to miss. She’s turning back to Marcelin. “Is there anything you need today, sir?”