Charlie Huston - Sleepless

Park held out the tube again.

“Just let’s. Let’s do this. And.”

Cager drew his comb.

“Park.”

He placed the teeth in the part and raked to the left.

“Are you well?”

Magda put a hand on the butt of her weapon and placed the palm of her other hand in the middle of Cager’s chest.

“Step clear, boss.”

Cager didn’t step clear, he stepped closer, raking to the right.

“You seemed very animated when you were on the phone. Very engaged. I couldn’t define the emotional state, but you were intent. Who were you talking to? I understand there was no one on the line, but who did you believe you were talking to? I’m curious.”

Park was thinking about the conversations he’d been having with Rose more and more often. Talking about today, thinking she was as well, only to discover she was talking to him three years ago. He had that feeling now. He was having one conversation, Cager was having another. But he didn’t know which was the real one.

“I was talking to my wife.”

Cager held up the phone, displaying the call log that showed that the last incoming call was received hours before.

“No, you weren’t. But that’s who you thought you were talking to?”

Magda was sliding herself into the space between them.

“Back off, boss, he’s not right.”

Cager waved the comb at her.

“Be quiet, Magda. He’s just sleepless. That’s all.”

He held the phone out.

“Yes, Park? Sleepless? And you need what I gave you before.”

Park wanted his uniform. He wanted his badge plainly on his chest. His cap and his stick. He wanted his handcuffs. He wanted to make an arrest. To tell people it was all all right. Just step back and make some room, everything is fine. He wanted to show that he was here for a reason, to do a job. And he wanted to do the job. He wanted his surface to again match his interior. He wanted off.

He took the phone from Cager’s hand.

“The other. Now. I.”

Cager nodded.

“Yes. You don’t have to explain.”

He took his own phone from the bag again.

“But I wasn’t lying. I don’t have any with me. I know where it is, but you will have to get it yourself.”

He was working buttons, accessing an application, scrolling down a list that flicked across the screen.

“Good. There’s one nearby.”

He held out his empty hand.

“The dragon. I have people waiting at the club.”

Park handed him the tube. Cager handed it to Magda.

She took the cellophane cap from one end, pulled out the tissue wrap, and unfolded it. Cager watched as she unwrapped and then rewrapped the dragon and put it in yet another pocket on her vest.

He turned his phone toward Park and displayed a string of numbers.

“This will be an adventure for you, Park. A quest.”

7/10/10

I UNDERSTAND.

He’s playing a game. Like Beenie said, taking his fantasy and putting it over this world. Trying to change it to fit what he wants it to be.

He showed me a number and waited to see if that would be enough, if I could figure it out. I recognized the format: 34/04/26-118/25-31. The funny thing is, if the first number set had begun with 41 or 42, and the second with 69 or 70, I would have gotten it the first time I saw those sequences when I opened the Afronzo, Parsifal K. Jr. file on Hydo’s hard drive. I would have recognized what it was, from sailing with my father. Looking at it on Cager’s phone, it was familiar only from the file itself. He started to explain, and I understood before he could finish.

He thinks I’m sleepless. I’m not sleepless. Rose, I’m not sleepless. You don’t have to worry about that. I’m not acting like myself, but I’m not sleepless. I acted sleepless for Cager. I acted like I couldn’t remember the number. He took a pen from his bag and wrote it on my hand. “Don’t wash your hands,” he said.

He wanted to look at another room, one with more Chasm Tide characters, all created by sleepless. I couldn’t see any more of that stuff. I don’t have time anymore for anything else but what I have to do. I left and went to my car. I opened Google Earth on my laptop and zoomed on Los Angeles. Moving the cursor in sine waves, I tracked the numbers scrolling up and down at the bottom left of the screen. I found a match and zoomed in closer. Cager wasn’t lying; it is nearby.

Before shutting down, I connected Hydo’s hard drive and opened the secret Afronzo Junior file. Every cell in the spreadsheet has a sequence of two number sets. The first sets all start with 33 or 34, the second sets with 118. I scrolled through them and found the cell that contained the number Cager wrote on my hand. I held my open hand next to the screen and took a picture with my phone. Then I magnified the cell and took another picture. Then I put the laptop and hard drive away and took my Walther from the spare, along with the RFID interrogator I stole at the gallery of Chasm characters.

Walden Drive was just around the corner. The fence running behind the trees wasn’t electrified. I’m sure the members wish it was, but the power bill would be too much even for them. I climbed the fence and crossed part of a fairway and ended up on the sixth green. The sprinklers were off. I’ve never played the north course of the Los Angeles Country Club, but I’m certain my father did.

He didn’t care for golf particularly. He said, “Parker, there are some pursuits in life that one becomes proficient in for the sake of one’s profession, and for no other reason.” Golf was one of those pursuits. I think he appreciated the game itself; it was the gambling, cursing, and boozing that went along with it that he objected to.

I walked to the ninth green, to the strip of grass running between two large bunkers that protected the approach. I pointed the interrogator at one of the bunkers and pulled the trigger. It beeped and displayed a series of horizontal lines. I circled the bunker and pulled the trigger every two yards and got the same result. But the bunker was at least fifteen yards at its widest point. To be certain I hadn’t missed anything, I walked to the middle, mentally quartered the trap, and pulled the trigger four times, one at a time, while aiming into each of the quarters.

Nothing.

I started over with the second hazard, got one negative, walked two yards, pulled the trigger again, and the screen flashed a positive result: ff688-6-2623-56.

I had to narrow it down, so I circled the trap, pulling the trigger every few steps. And found that just one-third of the bunker gave me a positive. I found a rake at the edge of the hazard, dug the tines in deep, and began to rake the sand east to west. I didn’t find anything, so I began raking north to south, crossing the marks I had already left. Occasionally I took a read with the interrogator to make sure I hadn’t moved anything without realizing it, but it remained consistent.

Finally I had to spin the head of the rake and use the little leveling plane to shave the sand away. I sank it to about an inch’s depth and pushed the sand into a pile and took a reading from the interrogator on the pile, then went back and did it again, working across the area where I got my first positive result. It took almost two hours. It was buried slightly less than a foot deep. Zipped into a plastic bag that had been double sealed with duct tape. I sat at the edge of the hazard and brushed damp sand from the bag and read the label on the bottle inside.

Afronzo-New Day0R33M3R

There are hundreds of global coordinates in the Afronzo, Parsifal, K. Jr. file on Hydo’s hard drive. Hundreds of bottles of Dreamer stashed from the Hollywood Hills down to Long Beach and from Santa Monica to Dodger Stadium.

Hydo said Dreamer was “in the air.”