Dead Lines. Greg Bear

just between friends.

      In the sixties and early seventies, he had stayed well away from the serious and somber.

      He would have loved to go on that Old Farts Hot Dog Tour, had there been time; that would have been something he could have done well with Phil. This, he did not think he was going to do well.

      ‘“Lydia, do you burn incense, practice astral projection?”’

      Peter gave it up.

      At noon, still alone in the house, pacing, glancing at the mantel, Peter realized that the cardboard box was not decorous. He walked up to the fireplace and lowered the box to the brick hearth. Inside, a bronze-colored plastic urn looked both cheap and better. He lifted the urn from the box and centered it, creating two urns, one on the mantle, one in the mirror above the mantel. Phil and anti-Phil. Through the looking glass.

      By one o’clock, Peter was irritated and not in the least nervous or worried about what he would say. By two, he was furious. He opened a can of baked beans from the back of the cupboard and ate them cold. He spooned up the sweet smoky beans and the little lump of pork fat and thought of all the pot-luck food Lydia would no doubt bring.

      As he finished the last bite, the Trans chimed in his pocket. He answered.

      ‘Yeah?’

      ‘Have I reached the party to whom I am speaking?’

      ‘Who is this?’ Peter asked.

      ‘Stanley Weinstein. Mrs Benoliel told me you were in the Bay Area. I’m calling to say thanks.’

      ‘For what?’

      ‘For convincing Mr Benoliel to invest in our company.’

      ‘Did I?’

      ‘You did. And he did. We’re bubbly. I’m inviting you to come to the Big House and meet the crew. We have some of your reward, and if you’re interested, we might have some work for you. I’ve been doing my research. I didn’t know I was meeting a famous man.’

      Peter stared out the window at the city. ‘Where are you?’ he asked.

      ‘Michelle says you’re somewhere in Marin. We’re not far, if that’s true – and I don’t otherwise know, because a Trans unit cannot be located, it is completely private.’

      ‘I’m in Tiburon,’ Peter said.

      ‘That’s grand. We’re less than half an hour away. Let me give you directions. You can’t miss it, actually. Do you know where the old San Andreas prison is?’

      ‘I’ve never been there.’

      ‘Now’s your chance. California Department of Corrections closed the prison three years ago to sell the land. Very posh, four hundred and fifty acres, great Bay views.’

      ‘I didn’t know that,’ Peter said.

      ‘We lease space in the condemned wing. It’s right next to the gas chamber. When can you get here?’

      ‘There’s a wake today. Maybe tomorrow?’

      ‘I was sorry to hear about your friend.’

      ‘Thanks,’ Peter said.

      ‘You’ll need some time, obviously. Why don’t we get together at eleven tomorrow morning? If that’s not too soon.’

      Peter realized he could use the money, if any, to get home. ‘Thanks. I’ll be there.’

      Weinstein gave him his Trans number and the backup landline office number. ‘We’re still having some glitches,’ he explained. ‘Just temporary.’

      Peter wrote the numbers on a piece of scrap notepaper with a ball-point pen.

      ‘Looking forward to it. I think you’ll enjoy the whole experience.’ Weinstein ended the call. The cut-off was noiseless. The silence next to Peter’s ear just got deeper. He closed the unit, then turned over the paper. Phil had cut an old typed manuscript into smaller pieces. Always thrifty.

      He read the truncated bit of dialog.

       ‘Do you play any games?’ Megan asked him, licking her lips.

       ‘Not really, not very well,’ Carlton replied huskily.

       ‘Why? Do you have something against rules?’

      Peter folded the scrap and put it in his shirt pocket, then walked down the drive for the fifth time in the last two hours to see if cars were coming. For a moment, he wondered if Lydia had died in an accident and he actually had seen her ghost last night. Perhaps she had committed suicide, taking his five hundred dollars and driving down the road to the beach and drowning herself in the cold waters of the Bay. That was crazy. Crazy thinking. Here he was, seeing things, almost flat broke, hoping for a payout from Stanley Weinstein because he didn’t have enough money to get home.

      His imagination had slipped into a tense, angry riot when he finally saw cars driving up Hidden Dreams Drive. The first one, a green new-style Beetle, carried two people. The driver was Lydia. Behind the Beetle came three more cars.

      Peter straightened his coat and walked back to the house.

      What the hell, he thought as he climbed the porch. Phil, you might have liked this. I sure don’t. But it has your touch, somehow.

       CHAPTER NINE

      Lydia looked tired and pale but vital, and she certainly behaved as if nothing untoward had happened. She introduced the guests to Peter. Two he had met long ago, writers from a group Phil had belonged to for almost thirty years, the Mysterians. Peter had attended several meetings and liked them well enough. Mystery writers, reporters, a couple of cops. The two Mysterians that Lydia had invited were both male, portly, and in their sixties. Peter had the impression they were gay and lived together.

      Two women Peter did not know – matronly, in their early forties – carried Tupperware bowls of potato salad and green salad and a foiled tray of lasagna up the walk and into the kitchen. Four other unfamiliar faces drifted by and were introduced, all male and in their mid to late fifties. The guests shook hands with Peter, stood awkwardly in the living room, and circulated past the bronze plastic urn, giving it sidelong glances.

      ‘I’m glad Phil showed up,’ Lydia whispered to Peter in the kitchen. Peter watched her closely. ‘They had him for two days before they called me,’ she said. ‘I don’t know why they didn’t call you.’

      ‘You kept his last name,’ Peter said. Lydia brushed his shoulder with her arm. She smelled cool and nervous, beneath the haze of tobacco. If she had not smoked for thirty years she might still be beautiful. She faced him square and her expression turned to concern. ‘You look bad, Peter. Maybe you shouldn’t have stayed here last night.’

      ‘It was not a comfortable evening,’ Peter admitted.

      ‘Spooky?’ she asked, piquant.

      He awarded her a thin smile for the jab.

      ‘I doubt it was Phil,’ Lydia said. ‘He’s long gone. This world never did suit him. I didn’t suit him. But you know, even so, I kind of lost it yesterday,’ she suddenly confessed, her eyes bright. ‘I had a little fit. I started shouting his name, in the empty house. Isn’t that strange? Just blew out my grief. I felt better after. I didn’t know I still gave a damn.’