“Hi yourself, asshole. You think you can dick with me?”
“You're the asshole. You're the criminal. You think you can steal my girlfriend's identity and get away with it? Huh? We're going to track you down, brother, and that is a promise.”
“Girl”friend? The quickest calculation. So he was a she and the fish was on the line. Keep it going, he told himself, keep it going. “I guess we'll see about that, won't we.”
“So you got my cell, big deal. I know where you live. I know where you're calling from right now.”
“Really?”
“Really. You might be calling from anywhere in the 415, but you live in Marin, don't you?”
That froze him a minute-till he realized that was the old cell number, the dead cell number, and what did it matter? A whole lot of people lived in Marin County. Yeah. Sure. But how many Dana Halters? He saw Natalia's face then, her lips, the dark eternally disappointed pits of her eyes, heard her in his head questioning why, why, why do we have to move and what do you mean your name is not Dana? “What do you mean?”
The voice came back at him, a loser's voice, but hard now, hard with the righteous authority of the new kid called out on the playground: “Don't you?”
“Right,” he heard himself say, and he looked up to follow a woman in heels and a tight blue dress picking her slow careful way from the bar to the elevators, “and you live in San Roque.” And then, though he wanted to tear the thing out of the wall, all of it, the black box with the shiny silver panel, the wires and cords that pinned his voice to this place and this time, he very gently put the receiver back in its cradle and walked out the door and into the fog.
Four
WORK HAD JUST BEGUN on the next project Radko had lined up-a time-travel thing in which a group of twenty-first-century scientists, including one ingenue with inflated breasts, a sexy gap between her front teeth and a coruscating pimple dead center in the middle of her nose that had to be painted out in every frame, discover a portal to Pompeii the day before Vesuvius erupts and have to go around frantically trying to communicate the imminence of the danger in a language no one understands-when Bridger felt someone hovering over his shoulder and looked up to see Radko himself standing there on the scuffed concrete with a pained expression. It was just past ten in the morning. Bridger had spent the night at Dana's and so he'd had a relatively nutritious breakfast (Cheerios with a spoonful of brewer's yeast and half a diced nectarine, plus toast and coffee) and he'd left her hunched over her computer, tapping away at the dimensions of the wild boy's fate. He was feeling relaxed and benevolent, the new project-which no doubt would become as dull and deadening and soul-destroying as the last-engaging him simply because it was new, the computer-generated temples and sunblasted domiciles of Pompeii in diametrical contrast to the burnt sienna gloom of Drex III. He'd been bent over Sibyl Nachmann's face, his mind on autopilot as he painstakingly removed the blemish, a procedure Deet-Deet had already christened a “zitectomy,” when he became aware of Radko.
“She is out there,” Radko said, his voice deep and bell-like.
Bridger looked to the screen, not certain exactly what he meant-was she off the scale as far as looks were concerned or was she grazing the limits of histrionic expression? “Yeah,” he said, nodding, because it was always a good idea to agree with the boss, “yeah, she is.”
Radko waved both his hands vigorously, like an umpire declaring a man safe at third. “No, no,” he said, ““Dana,” she is out there.”
It took him a moment to understand-Dana was in the front office, beyond the uniform line of cubicles and the pouchy droop-shouldered figure of Radko, who was pointing now, his face heavy and oppressed. Bridger pushed back his chair and got to his feet. If Dana was here, then she was in trouble. Something had gone wrong. The first thing he thought of was the man in the picture, the voice on the phone, the thief. “Where?” he demanded, just to say something.
He found her in the outer office, slumped forward in one of the cheap plastic chairs against the far wall. She was wearing the T-shirt and jeans she'd had on when he left the apartment and she hadn't combed her hair or bothered with makeup and there was something clutched in her right hand, papers, letters. Was it her manuscript? Was that it? He crossed the room to her, but she didn't lift her head, just sat slumped there, her shins splayed away from the juncture of her knees, one heel tapping rhythmically against the leg of the chair. “Dana,” he said, lifting her chin so that her eyes rose to his, “what is it? What's the matter?”
There was a noise behind him-Radko at the security door motioning to Courtney, the receptionist, a nineteen-year-old blonde who two weeks earlier had dyed her hair shoe-polish black and banished all color from her wardrobe in sympathy with whatever style statement Deet-Deet was trying to make. She gave Bridger a tragic look and excused herself-“I'm just going to the ladies',” she murmured-and then the door pulled shut and they were alone.
Dana didn't get up from the chair. She didn't speak. After a moment she took hold of his wrist and handed him an envelope addressed to herself from the San Roque School for the Deaf. As soon as he saw it, he knew what it meant, but he extracted the letter and unfolded it all the same, her eyes locked on his every motion. The letter was from Dr. Koch and it said that after consulting with the board he had the regretful duty of informing her that her position had been terminated for the fall session and that this was in no part due to any dissatisfaction that either he or the board might have had with her performance but strictly a result of budgetary constraints. He concluded by saying he would be happy to provide her with references and that he wished her success in whatever new endeavor she might embark upon.
“You know it's bullshit,” she said, her voice echoing in the empty room. “They're firing me. Koch is firing me. And you know why?”
“Maybe not. He says they're eliminating the position-that's what he says…”
Her eyes narrowed, her jaw clenched. “Bullshit. I e-mailed Nancy Potter in Social Studies and she said they're already advertising for a vacancy in high school English. Can you believe it? Can you believe the gall of Koch? And these lies,” she shouted, snatching the letter out of his hand. “Just lies.”
Beyond the windows, two rectangular slits cut horizontally in the wall to let the employees of the inner sanctum know there was another world out there despite all evidence to the contrary, a woman with six dogs of various sizes on a congeries of leashes was pausing beneath the massive blistered fig that dominated the block. A kid in a too-big helmet went by on a motor scooter, closely tailed by another, the asthmatic wheeze of the engines burning into the silence of the room. He felt miserable suddenly, thinking only of himself, selfish thoughts, the what-about-me? of every contretemps and human tragedy. This would mean that Dana was going to have to relocate, no choice in the matter, and where would that leave him?
She was on her feet now, angry, impatient, thrusting out her arms and jerking her shoulders back in agitation. “It's because I was in jail. He blamed me. He all but accused me of dereliction of duty.”
He tried to put his arms around her, to hold her, comfort her, but she pushed him away. “Here,” she said, thrusting a second letter at him as if it were a knife, “here, here's the capper.”
The letter was from the Department of Motor Vehicles. A month earlier she'd sent in her license renewal, just as he'd done himself two years ago. As long as there were no outstanding convictions or special considerations, the DMV had instituted a policy of renewal by mail without the necessity of being re-photographed. Dana had taken that option-who wouldn't? The price of a thirty-nine-cent stamp saved you a trip to the DMV office and an interminable wait in one line or another. All right. Fine. So what was the problem? “It's your license?” he asked.