“Guess who came into the bar tonight?” I said. “Ted Merrill.”
“Oh?” Jack replied. For a moment he sounded puzzled, as if he were wondering why I had bothered to call him about this, but he quickly made the connection. “Oh,” he repeated. “I gather it wasn’t a coincidence?”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “For one thing, he knew my name. For another . . . well, he drew me a picture, on a napkin. He even signed it.”
“A picture of what?” Jack asked, sounding like he already knew he wasn’t going to like the answer.
“A cornucopia,” I said. “In other words, a horn of plenty.”
There was a long pause in our conversation. My bus had passed the lake now, and was turning off the parkway into the residential streets of Queens where the monolithic ranks of apartments gave way to rows of small brick and stucco houses leaning one against the other, and all shut up against the night.
Finally, Jack said, “They’ve got the radio. Now they want the antenna.”
“That’s what I thought,” I replied. “But why?”
Jack fell silent again. The bus rolled on through sleeping neighborhoods, past shuttered stores and empty streets.
“Well,” he said finally, “maybe when your intruders broke into your apartment, they were after the Blue Box, but once they saw the radio, and saw that it said Haverkit—just like your box—they knew to take that, too. Or someone told them to look out for it. The Blue Awareness considers itself to be a religion and religions have sacred objects: maybe Avi’s Haverkit radio is one of those things. Only it’s missing an important component: a very unusual antenna.”
“I still don’t understand. How would they know about the radio?”
“Remember I told you that Avi and Howard Gilmartin had some kind of relationship way back when? Well, before it fell apart over the Blue Box thing, Avi and Howard likely exchanged alien encounter stories. Howard saw something—someone—tinkering with his radars. Avi had a niece who told him that she saw a very similar figure years later, adjusting the tuning dial on his radio receiver . . . and don’t argue with me right now about whether or not that actually happened, okay?”
“Okay,” I agreed. I wanted to hear where this was going.
“So let’s say for a while, at least, Gilmartin and Avi were kind of friendly. Collegial, at least. You have to bear in mind that they had something else in common: whatever else these guys were, at heart, they were both ham radio operators. Hams love to talk about their equipment, love to compare the parts they use, the quality of the parts, who builds them, stuff like that. And of course, one of the main things they always focus on is the kind of antenna they use, the kind the next guy uses, what kind of reception they get, what’s the best time of night to send and receive broadcasts using what kind of antenna. The fact that Avi had constructed a horn of plenty antenna—one small enough for an amateur to use, because back then, the only ones that anyone knew of belonged to observatories and you needed a flatbed truck to haul them from one place to another—that would have been a fascinating piece of information. So if he shared it with Howard Gilmartin . . .”
Now, I couldn’t help but interrupt. “So what if he did? That would have been more than thirty years ago, Jack. And maybe the Blue Awareness doesn’t think Howard is dead, but really, we know he is.”
“Yes, but his son isn’t. And from what I understand, Raymond Gilmartin has studied every scrap of information about his father’s life, every document, every memoir. Whatever went on between his father and Avi—good and bad—you can bet Raymond knows about it. And you did tell Ravenette that you’ve got a device she thinks—no, believes—is a Blue Box, because she can’t imagine how anyone but an Aware trained to use one to scan a devotee would have a Box. But Raymond knows how—he knows that Avi Perzin built it. Well, if Ravenette is a Second-Level Aware, she’s certainly got access to the only person who’s ever been awarded First-Level status, and that’s Raymond. So put all this together, Laurie, just like Raymond probably did. It’s not hard to figure out who your uncle’s niece is—I did it in about ten seconds. To begin with, Perzin isn’t exactly the world’s most common surname. Now add in the fact that Haverkit was the only manufacturer thirty, forty years ago that was producing high-quality electronic and radio kit parts and it’s more than likely that whoever was in your apartment was told to look for anything that said Haverkit—after all, if you’ve got Avi’s Blue Box, there’s a chance you’ve also got his radio, no? And then whammo; right on your shelf, there it is. Think about it, kiddo: you gave them all the clues they needed.”
Jack was right. I might as well have drawn them a map to my apartment, handed them the keys and told them to look around. “Crap,” I said, which seemed to sum up exactly how I was feeling about this.
“So back to the antenna,” Jack continued. “I’m sure these days, on the web, you could certainly find the plans for building a small enough horn of plenty antenna to make the radio work the way they want it to—meaning, to be able to draw in signals outside our atmosphere. But I guess they don’t want any antenna—they want the original.”
“But I don’t have it. I’ve told you that. My father cleaned out Avi’s apartment after he died. I took a few things, like the radio and the box, but that’s it. I never even saw the antenna.”
“All right then,” Jack said. “Let’s tell them that. Exactly that.”
“How?”
“I’m going to call Ravenette. As I said, she’s got to have something to do with the creep show they seem to have given you a starring role in. Or at least she’ll know who to pass the message to, and I’m guessing that person’s name is Raymond.”
“You don’t have to call her for me. It’s a good idea, but I could do it myself.”
“Sure you could,” Jack said. “But we’re friends, and friends don’t let friends deal with the Blue Meanies by themselves.” He paused for a moment and then repeated, “Friends. That’s what we are, right?”
“Sure,” I said. “I thought we cleared that up.”
“You’re right,” he replied. “We did. So now, a couple of friends are going to wake up a psychic who seems to have a bunch of friends of her own. Nasty ones.”
I stayed on the line while Jack dialed Ravenette’s number. Once it began ringing, he conferenced me in. When she answered, though, she didn’t sound like she’d been in dreamland. Busy, sleepless—who knew why she sounded wide awake. But Jack decided that he did.
“So you’re up,” Jack said after telling her who was calling. Then, not waiting for her to reply, he added, “Of course you are. You’re a psychic. You knew that we would call.”
Ravenette ignored the jab. But she did pick up on the fact that Jack had implied he wasn’t the only one on the call. “We?” she said. “Who’s we?”
“Laurie Perzin is on the phone with me.”
“Oh really? Well what do you want?”
I thought she sounded annoyed, but in a fake sort of way. There was a note of caution behind her bravado. Jack must have picked up on this, too, because he wasted no time in going after her.
“So tell me something,” he said. “Why is it that you and your buddies can’t do anything in a normal way? Everything has to be weird and mysterious, right? Or downright threatening. And when even that doesn’t work, you send your moviestar poster boy to play games for you. Did it ever occur to any of you that you could just pick up a phone and say Hello, I’d like to talk to you? Isn’t that a lot easier than breaking into someone’s house? And don’t tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about.”