“No?” May asked, looking up into the rearview mirror. But his head was down, gaze aimed at the floor. “No, it doesn’t sound more plausible?” she said.
“No, that’s not what’s happening,” David said. “This is real.”
“What makes you say that?” Gary asked, turning back with one arm thrown over the top of his seat.
“I just...” David looked away, out the window. “I can just tell. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always... known things. And as soon as I saw Doctor Bishop, I knew that this was real. That this, being a part of this, is what I was meant for. All of us, we have to be a part of this.”
“Wow,” Gary said, turning back around. “That’s heavy.”
“I see men,” David said. “Watching me.”
May frowned, looking up into the mirror again, and then down at her watch.
“Right now?” she asked. “You shouldn’t be hallucinating yet.”
“No,” David said quietly, speaking to his folded hands in his lap. “All the time. They wear hats. Like Alain Delon in Le Samourai. And they never say anything, they just... watch.”
May looked over at Gary, who smirked and pointed a very unsubtle circling finger at his temple. This revelation was actually deeply worrying to May. David was clearly suffering from some type of mental illness, probably schizophrenia, and the idea of linking minds with a person like that seemed like a spectacularly bad idea, especially with so much at stake.
Yet, many progressive thinkers had recently suggested that so-called mental illness was really nothing more than freedom from culturally imposed restrictions on the mutually agreed upon “reality.” It was possible that May was being too uptight in her thinking. She should allow herself to be more open about unconventional views of reality.
After all, just because she couldn’t perceive them, who was she to say that mysterious men with fedora hats weren’t actually watching David?
Still, she had no way of knowing how David’s unconventional view of reality might effect the experiment.
Only one way to find out.
44
Walter, Nina, and Bell stayed lying on the floor the rest of the way to Golden Gate Park, but even hidden Walter felt as if the whole of San Francisco was watching him. He kept thinking he heard police sirens coming after them, but every time he strained his ears they seemed to fade away again.
He had to keep wiping his face.
Sweat was soaking his collar.
“Paranoia,” he murmured. “I’ve never noticed paranoia as a side effect of our special blend before.”
“It isn’t paranoia if they really are after you,” Bell said with a smirk.
At last they were turning off Fell onto Kezar drive and entering the park, the lush green of the trees and lawns swallowing up the noise and visual chaos of the city and enveloping them in soft shady silence. But what should have calmed him down only made Walter more tense.
They might have escaped the scrutiny of the police, but they were closing in on a much more fearsome adversary, and a much riskier enterprise. Their showdown with the Zodiac was only minutes away. Their chance to get rid of him once and for all. Or perhaps to perpetrate the greatest disaster in San Francisco since the Great Earthquake of 1906.
Kenneth pulled off the road and parked just south of the playground that lay adjacent to the carousel. Walter rose up cautiously and looked around.
“Have we heard from Leslie lately?” he asked.
Nina picked up the walkie-talkie.
“Leslie?” she said. “Report in please.”
Leslie’s voice popped from the speaker.
“Going a bit slow,” she said. “Payton is really feeling the bumps. Don’t know if he’s going to be okay for this.”
“Damn delicate flower,” Nina growled. She keyed the mike. “Well, get there as soon as you can, please. The clock is ticking.”
Bell shook his head.
“Our blend should have no impact whatsoever on the digestive system,” he said. “It has none of the impurities of mushrooms.”
“It’s fear, Belly.” Walter pressed his dry lips together. “Garden variety. I’m feeling pretty sick to my stomach myself.”
* * *
Leslie barreled down Fell Street like a race car driver on speed, pushing the crotchety old van to its limit, swearing out the window and cutting off cars with the horn blaring. Lucky for them, Payton didn’t seem to have anything left inside him to throw up, but he still looked pretty queasy.
To Leslie’s surprise, Susan seemed exhilarated by her aggressive driving, even letting out a little cheer when she finally cut in front of a cigar-smoking cabbie who was being a jerk and wouldn’t let her into the lane. Leslie was even more surprised when Susan gave the cabbie the finger as they passed. Maybe there was hope for her yet.
“I don’t know if this is such a hot idea,” Payton said.
“That milkshake wasn’t such a hot idea,” Leslie snapped. “But you survived, didn’t you?”
“I think this is fun,” Susan said with a big happy grin. “It’s like being in a cool spy movie or something. And I didn’t even want to come to this class in the first place, because I thought it would be boring!” She patted Payton’s arm. “You’ll be okay. Just visualize peace inside your stomach, like Doctor Rayley says.”
“Uh... okay,” he said with a wan smile. “You’re probably right.”
Leslie tried not to be bothered by the fact that men always listened to women like Susan, and almost never listened to women like her. There was too much on her mind to let something like that get to her.
She drove into the park, searching for Bowling Green Drive. She’d never driven in the park before, since she normally rode her bicycle everywhere, so she got a little bit flummoxed by the one-way streets. The ticking clock made each minor mistake seem epic, and she hated to make any mistakes in front of Susan. It was important for her be perceived as a strong, competent leader, especially given the stakes of this particular mission.
She forced herself to remain calm and double back without comment, searching for the entrance to the parking lot for the lawn bowling club.
* * *
May parked the station wagon on Stanyan Street. Gary ran around to the back and grabbed the picnic basket containing the biofeedback machine, along with a folded plaid blanket. David just stood quietly waiting at the curb.
“How are you feeling, David?” May asked as they waited for a break in the traffic.
“Good,” David said, a little half smile playing over his lips. “I feel good.”
“I don’t feel good yet,” Gary said. “But we should be feeling good any minute now, right?”
“Right,” May replied, crossing the street and motioning for the two men to follow. “Any minute now.”
The Sharon Meadow wasn’t too crowded when they arrived. There was a birthday party taking place in the far northern corner, and several trees had been decorated with cheerful, brightly colored balloons and streamers. All the revelers were gathered around a picnic table, clamoring for slices of a large pink cake being doled out by a tiny, grandmotherly woman in a sweater that was almost the exact same color as the cake.
A pretty young woman with a long black braid that hung nearly to the backs of her knees played fetch with a brindle Boxer puppy. An earnest young Latino man was playing an acoustic guitar while two female friends sang in harmony. On the far southern end, a young couple was enthusiastically making out on a blanket, willfully oblivious to everyone else in the park. The wide center of the meadow was basically empty, with the majority of the population sticking to the shady parts.
It wasn’t a ton of people, but there were more than May might have preferred. In fact, a public park seemed like a pretty risky place for a dangerous experiment. If it really was dangerous.