He swallowed a couple of pills from the orange bottle that said it contained Vicodin, and hoped it would do something to make him stop hurting so badly; and then, because there was no way he could face the preparation of coffee or food, he threw his jacket on over his shoulders against the possibility of November chill and staggered gamely down a block and a half to a small local coffee shop which provided a bagel and a large black coffee. After this, he felt almost human, so he got another coffee to go and found himself a taxi to whom he optimistically gave the same address as the previous night.
If he had hoped for a different result, he was disappointed. This driver had a bit more trouble finding the correct destination — they drove up and down the road a few times looking for the place that Al insisted he wanted to go to, but it persisted in its absence, and finally Al paid off the taxi and stood by the side of the road, uncertain as to what to do next. If his mind wasn’t playing tricks on him and he remembered correctly, the Meeting of the Mecha Men was still at least two hours away, and he was at a complete loss. His phone seemed to have been a casualty of either the accident that had rendered him this helpless, or of the taxi ride the previous night — he couldn’t even remember that much — but he knew that his roommate had not planned to take the good DSLR camera with the decent lens to the con, and where it lived. He had simply picked up the entire camera bag and brought the whole kit and caboodle along with him — he would explain everything later — but when he turned the camera on he saw that the battery held very little juice and a red “LO — BATT” sign hovered in the corner of the viewfinder as he took a couple of desultory photos of the place where all of his faculties still screamed that the California Resort should have been… but was not… and then began walking down the road in the hopes of finding somewhere, anywhere, to sit down with perhaps yet another coffee (they seemed to be working better than the Vicodin) and wait for the two chief protagonists of this looming fiasco to show up in good time.
If they showed up. If this was the right Saturday. If this was still the right time and space continuum. If he was still, really, Al Coe.
A tiny strip mall, a short walk up the road from which the hotel appeared to have vanished, yielded a Mexican restaurant and a three — table hole — in — the — corner coffee shop whose main business seemed to be the drive — through window that faced the parking lot. Al took the opportunity to plug the battery charger for the camera, which had been in the camera bag where the rest of the equipment was kept, into a convenient socket. He sat in the table furthest in, next to a window without a view, until the camera charger light began to flicker from red to green and back — not a full charge, but it would have to do. It was tough to fumble the battery and camera in the reunification process but his damaged arm was starting to be a little bit more useful in terms of actually holding and positioning (although he didn’t want to try lifting anything heavier than a newspaper with it just yet). He paid for the coffee he had been nursing, struggled into his jacket as best he could, slung the camera around his neck, and began to trudge back to what two separate taxi GPS units had identified — apparently against all visual and empirical evidence — as the rendezvous spot.
Andie Mae had outdone herself in organizing the whole thing. Both her guests arrived punctually, within ten minutes of one another, driven by media escorts who had been hired to ensure everything ran smoothly. Arnold Schwarzenegger arrived first, nattily dressed in a grey suit with a silvery — blue tie, smiling broadly as he stepped out of the car and looked around. If he appeared nonplussed at his whereabouts he was too much of a professional to show it; he stood chatting affably with his driver until the second car pulled up and Brent Spiner emerged from the back seat, looking around.
“Pretty spot,” Spiner said. “Nice view.”
“They tell me it is much better when it is summer,” Schwarzenegger said in his inimitable accent, and stepped forward. “Good to see you.”
“And you,” Spiner said returning a firm handshake. “Now, what was it again that this was all about? I seem to remember that I had an itinerary — somewhere — and it seems to have comprehensively disappeared…”
Al swallowed hard, and started walking toward the two men, holding on to the camera with his good hand.
“Gentlemen, thank you for coming,” he said, and his voice sounded strange even to himself. He was an complete autopilot now; he had absolutely no idea what he was going to utter next. All he knew was that he was going to tell them about the missing con, and babble about the hotel that used to be right there behind them but now apparently no longer was, but the whole thing was so preposterous when he tried to frame it in those terms that it never came out at all. Instead, he told the two stars all about a non — existent children’s charity which was supposed to have been staging a photo op with the two of them there, in order to promote a fund — raiser for a science and astronomy workshop for kids. It would be funded by an auction of memorabilia such as the photo they had arrived there to have taken. And then, gesturing at his wounded arm, he spun them a further tale about how there had been an accident (which there had been) and apologized profusely for being there by himself — because his assistant was delayed — and perhaps they could reschedule for a more mutually convenient time when everyone was more themselves. Brent Spiner did mutter something about being certain there had been a conference of some sort involved and that his booking had included that — he had even brought a folder of photographs which he had planned to make available for the planned signing event that he was sure had been part of the deal. But then they both turned and looked at the empty land behind them and of course there was no conference there and while they looked a little bewildered they were professionals and they had been paid and they were there. So Al took a couple of pictures of the two of them shaking hands, against a backdrop of a spectacular ocean view, and then one of the handlers took a photo of Al himself standing wedged rather uncomfortably between the two stars, his arm in a sling braced against the ribcage of the Terminator’s human alter ego, and then they all shook hands again and smiled and nodded and the two stars of the show climbed back into their cars.
“Can we, uh, drop you somewhere?” one of the handlers said, seeing Al left standing there looking pathetic with his arm in its blue vinyl sling and the wind, which had kicked up, tousling his hair and tangling it over his eyes.
“That’s okay,” Al said, “I’m being picked up.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive. Thanks, though. We’ll be in touch.”
One car and then the other purred into life and then pulled away. Al stood rooted in place for a moment and then sighed, lifting the camera and toggling the photo review button.
He stared hard at the final photograph in the camera’s memory.
The only thing that made sense in that picture was the three of them, standing side by side, smiling into the camera. Everything else… was making Al wonder with an edge of desperation just what had been in those pills he had taken that morning.