“All right. I’ll check on the car meanwhile.”
They made their calls. Once both were done, Brighton magnanimously invited Brome to go first.
“Dr. Pareides has not heard from Lloyd Freud in over three years. The last time they spoke was after Freud has missed two appointments in a row and the doctor called him. Freud told him he moved and transferred to a physician closer to his new home. If a name was mentioned, Dr. Pareides does not remember it. He does recall asking where to forward Freud’s medical records. To which Freud said he would have the new doctor’s office contact him for those, but apparently it never happened, and Dr. Pareides has been too busy to follow up on it since then.”
“I don’t know what those nerds in Data get paid for these days,” Brighton said.
“Any word on the car?”
“They gave me an area that is about eighty percent certain to contain the vehicle. It’s going to take them about five hours to comb it, which will help, unless the car in garaged. If it is, then it’s all a waste of time.”
“We should get some more info on the new doctor and this girl, Iris. Even if we do find the car, chances are they won’t just park in front of wherever they’re hiding. It’s going to be abandoned far enough not to matter.”
“A dog might help,” Brighton said.
You’ll need a special kind of dog to follow a trail in this weather, Brome thought, watching raindrops splash and scatter across the window. But he said nothing, and even half-nodded, as though to say that anything was possible, if Brighton thought it so.
They arrived when twilight had already set in, but now they had to wait. The structure was too crowded. They watched as people and cars dispersed. When the area was sufficiently deserted, the pair appeared in the courtyard. Unhurried, they surveyed the two-story building and space around it. There were too many tracks — the crowd left heaps of ethereal waste — but it would not be long before they found the right one. Moving in opposite directions from each other, they began.
It took long. Too long. Pollution aside, someone had been trying to cover the tracks. Someone who knew that the tracks existed. Someone who knew the tracks would be sought.
Someone else may have paused, reevaluated the situation, consulted his superiors. But they didn’t send someone else. A Seeker — or dog, hound, as they were also called, though never in their presence — was no more capable of altering its course than a bullet shot out of a gun. They put the knowledge away for later, and continued the search. And eventually they had it. A curving strand of white, thin, almost faded. Had there not been a pair of them, or had their superiors sent someone else, the trail may have gone cold.
Bending sharply out of the gates, the white strand slithered into the west. Silently, tuning out the rest of the threads running in the same direction, the Seekers followed, dissipating in the shadows.
Chapter Eleven
Just as I had expected — and I had expected it only because of prolonged exposure to televised fiction — Dr. Young’s house appeared old and dilapidated from the outside. It was a two-story brick construction, with shuttered windows, lanterns on the porch and a box of a garage in the backyard. There were even a couple of mock tombstones on the front lawn, with a dirty hand protruding from beneath one of them. In a very conspiratorial way, the interior sparkled with neatness, functionality and occasional pieces of art, showing the owner’s substantial wealth, good taste and maybe insanity. The TV in the living room was as big as mine, could have been the same model, but he had done something to it, so that it did not turn on by itself when we entered.
That improvement was wasted, however. Dr. Young turned the thing on almost as soon as we sat down. Iris and I shared the longer part of the L-shaped, white, full-grain leather sofa. Dr. Young dropped into a workstation armchair and at once began to wallpaper the screen with info about The Union Station, The United Monorail, the Department of Transportation, Homeland Security and probably the Department of Kitchen Sinks, as well. It all looked ridiculous, but he really seemed to be putting an effort forth. Three odd hours passed. Somewhere in between, he sent Lloyd to the kitchen to make sandwiches. Lloyd returned in about ten minutes with half a dozen ham-on-ryes that were delicious, and we all ate, and Lloyd resumed hovering behind Dr. Young’s back, both of them mumbling occasionally. Also somewhere in between, I told Iris I was sorry that I got her in this mess.
“You didn’t get me in this mess,” she said patiently, closing her laptop. “The mess was there long before you came along.”
“Right, the world is not perfect. But I don’t think you had too much experience with murderers, police chases and kidnappings before I came along. At least I hope not.”
I chuckled.
“You don’t need to apologize for that. You didn’t do it.”
“Still, had you not decided to help me—”
“Luke,” she cut me off. “Are you trying to present me with a gift? Fine. Apology accepted.”
“It’s not a gift.”
“Then why do you insist on apologizing for something you believe to be my fault?”
“I… I just didn’t want to seem ungrateful…”
“That’s sweet, but if you don’t want to seem ungrateful, say ‘Thank you.’ Otherwise it may sound like you think I got you in this mess.”
“What? Ugh… I think we should start over.
“I run a couple of TV shows. What do you do?”
“I’m an extra.”
“Really?”
“Sure. Movies, TV. I’ve been a female cop on ‘Barlow and Warden,’ though you wouldn’t be able to tell. I’m leaning over the hood of a police car, with my ass to the camera, pointing a gun at a building.”
“Wow,” I said. “Huh. We haven’t, actually, met before, have we?”
She looked at me quizzically and giggled. “No, I don’t think so.”
“I just didn’t know with the pills how much I may have forgotten or didn’t pay attention to.”
“Yes, I’m a forgotten extra whom you seduced with promises of leading roles. I actually set up this whole thing to get my revenge. I am Lloyd’s employer.”
“Wait, didn’t that actually happen on ‘Barlow and Warden?’”
“I don’t know. I just saw that one episode that had my ass in it.”
“But no, what I meant was I could have forgotten being introduced to somebody. If I seduced you, I would remember. Pills or no pills.”
“Oh, thank you very much.”
“It’s not a gift!”
We talked more about the job of an extra and about catering and cash payments, and I asked her what school she went to, to which she replied that she went to Miskatonic in Arkham, which I’d never heard of, but didn’t let on, so as not to offend her. Then the conversation moved on to my school and I began telling her about my years at Northwestern and I think I must have chattered for two days straight.
At some point Dr. Young announced he was going to go “reconnoiter” the Union Station. I was enjoying the conversation too much, to pay too much attention to his nonsense. It seemed a long time since I’d spoken so easily and so much to a listener who wasn’t a part of my body. It was certainly my first normal conversation of the post-pills era. So Dr. Young departed, and Lloyd turned on the cartoons, and Iris and I just relaxed on the couch, facing each other, gesturing lazily, nodding and throwing our heads back to laugh. But then suddenly it was over. In response to a “Where are you from Iris?” Iris said they’d pulled her out of the water in seventeen.
“What?” I asked.
“San Diego,” she said. “I was six or seven, just floating around. Didn’t remember anything. They called me Iris because, you know, it contracted when they flashed the light on it.”