Past Tense

Chapter 29

The fifth arrival was as unobtrusive as the first and the third. In the back parlor Mark and Steven and Robert heard the bell ring, from the wire across the blacktop. They watched the screens. Robert lined up three different views of the track. They waited. Two miles took four minutes at thirty miles an hour, and six minutes at twenty. Call it five minutes on average, depending on how fast a person was prepared to drive, and what kind of vehicle they had. The surface could be jolting.

It was five minutes and nineteen seconds exactly, according to the digital clocks in the bottom right-hand corners of the screens. They saw a pick-up truck come out of the trees and into the light. Robert used a joystick and zoomed the close-up camera tight on it. It was a Ford F150. Single cab, long bed. Dirty white paint. Close to a base specification, three or four model years old. A workingman’s vehicle. A tool of a trade.

Robert tightened the shot some more, to check the license plate. It said Illinois, which they all knew was bullshit. The guy was from New York City. His office ISP was unbreakable, but his home wifi was wide open. He ran a fund on Wall Street. He was one of the new faceless super-rich no one had ever heard of. Mark was keen to impress him. He thought Wall Street could be a key market. The right kind of people, with the right kind of needs, and the right kind of money.

They watched him drive through the meadow, and bump down off the track into the motel lot. They saw him stop outside the office. They saw Peter come out to greet him. They shook hands, and exchanged pleasantries. Peter gave him a key, and pointed. Room eleven. The absolute prime location. Significant in every way. Their bed and your bed were almost touching. Head to head. Symmetrical. Separated only by the width of a wall. Just a matter of inches. Room eleven was the VIP enclosure, no doubt about it. An honor not to be given lightly. But Mark had insisted. Demographics were important, he had said.

Robert clicked mice and tapped keyboards and arranged the screens so they could see just about everything at once, all around them on the walls, one picture overlapping the next, some of the angles different, like a clumsy attempt at virtual reality. They saw the Wall Street guy park his truck beyond the dead Honda. They saw him detour for a look in room ten’s window. Nothing doing. He walked back. He looked like Wall Street. Decent haircut, fit from the gym, tan from a lamp and weekends at his wife’s summer rental in the Hamptons. He was dressed well, even though they supposed he was trying not to be. To match the everyday truck. His closet had failed the challenge. His luggage was two hard cases and a soft nylon duffel, all of them dusty from the open bed.

Plus, last of all, from the passenger seat, a plastic bag from a New York deli, stuffed with what were either potatoes or rolls of money.

Meanwhile the first four arrivals were gathering close by, forming up, sliding from screen to screen, getting ready to talk, or try to, or at least to rock from foot to foot until someone said something. Male bonding. Sometimes a slow process. Robert turned up the sound. There were hidden microphones all up and down the length of the motel. Aided by what was painted to look like a TV dish, but was really a parabolic microphone, as sensitive as a bat’s ear, aimed down the row, at the patch of dirt outside room ten’s window. Where folks were likely to cluster. Overkill, electronically, but Mark had insisted. Consumer feedback was important, he said. The more raw and unfiltered the better. Best of all when they didn’t know anyone was listening.

They listened. The voices were tinny and a little distorted. There were guarded greetings, the same as before, and the same war stories from the road, about getting there on time and undetected, and the same description of Patty and Shorty themselves, as specimens, in terms of their health and strength and general appeal.

Then the consumer feedback turned a little negative. Mark looked away, disappointed. On the screens a small schism had opened up. There were two opposing factions, separated by one vital difference between them. Arrivals number one, two and three had actually seen Patty and Shorty through their window. Live and in the flesh. Right there. After their blind went up. Arrivals number four and five had not. By then Patty and Shorty were hiding in their bathroom. Which had no damn window. So theirs was a two-point complaint. If everyone was starting out equal, like they should, free country, level playing field, and so on and so forth, then wait until everyone had gotten there, surely, and then raise the damn blind like a ceremony. Like a special occasion. With everyone lined up to witness it. Or at least put a window in the damn bathroom. One thing or the other.

In the parlor Mark said to the others, “I don’t see how we could put a window in the bathroom. Not with plain glass, anyway. Too weird. But anything else wouldn’t work. You couldn’t see in.”

Steven said, “We could use a plastic sheet on the outside. Some kind of design on it. So it looked pebbled from the inside. Then we could peel it off when we’re ready.”

“You’re dodging the issue,” Robert said. “We screwed up with their blind. Simple as that. The guy is right. We should have left it down until everyone got here.”

Mark said, “Patty wanted to see the sunshine.”

“What are we now, social workers?”

“Her mood might prove critical.”

“How’s her mood now?”

“Relax,” Mark said. “Think outside the box. What’s done is done. And as it happens we did it at the exact halfway point. Three saw them, and three won’t. We could think of it as a reward for punctuality. Like a bonus threshold. Like we’re offering something. We could call it marketing.”

“Punctual means on time, not early. We should treat them all equally.”

“Too late.”

“Never too late to fix a mistake.”

“How?”

“You get on the mike with Patty and Shorty, and you remind them you warned them about this earlier, and you say but maybe they didn’t realize exactly what they were getting themselves into, so now for their own comfort we have taken a unilateral decision to close their blind again for them. And we do, right away. They’ll hear it. They’ll come out of the bathroom. Meanwhile we apologize to arrivals four and five, and we tell them we’ll have a proper ceremony later. After Patty and Shorty have calmed down again. When we’re all assembled. Maybe as the sky goes dark. We could suddenly raise the blind and light up the room both at the same time. I bet we would catch them right there on the bed. It would look like Saks Fifth Avenue on Christmas Day. People would come from miles around.”

“That doesn’t solve the problem,” Mark said. “All it means is three people will have seen them once and three people will have seen them twice. That’s not equal.”

“Best we can do,” Robert said. “As a gesture. Which could be important. We can’t let this become an issue. You know how they talk in the chat rooms. Word of mouth can make you or break you. We should be seen to go the extra mile to put this right.”

Mark was quiet a long moment.

Then he glanced at Steven.

Who said, “I guess.”

Mark nodded.

He said, “OK.”

Robert clicked a switch labeled Room Ten, Window Blind, Down.

His voice came out of the ceiling. Like before. In the bathroom it was just as loud as it had been in the main room. He said, “Guys, I apologize. Most sincerely. My fault entirely. I wasn’t clear enough when we spoke earlier. About the downside of seeing the view, I mean. So we put it right for you. The blind is down again now and will stay down as long as you want. I’m sure you’ll be more comfortable that way. Again, I apologize. I was thoughtless.”

Patty said, “What do you want with us? What’s going to happen to us?”

“We’ll discuss what we want with you before the end of the day.”

“You can’t keep us here forever.”

“We won’t,” Mark said. “I promise. You’ll see. Not forever.”

Then there was a small electronic pop and the ceiling went quiet again.

In the silence Shorty said, “Do you believe him?”

“About what?” Patty said.

“The blind being down again.”

She nodded.

“I heard it,” she said.

Shorty got up stiffly, from his spot on the floor, and he opened the door, just a crack. He knew right away. There was no bar of daylight. Just gloom.

“I’m going through,” he said. “It’s uncomfortable in here.”

“They’re going to raise it again.”

“When?”

“Probably when we least expect it.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re messing with us.”

“Soon?”

“Probably not. They’ll wait a while. They’ll want us to build up a sense of security.”

“So it’s safe for a spell. Right now. Then later we could nail up a sheet.”

“Could we?”

“Why not?” Shorty said.

In the past she would have objected purely on the grounds of good manners. Being Canadian. Both the sheet and the wall would be damaged, surely. But now all she said was, “Do you have nails and a hammer?”

“No,” Shorty said.

“Shut up, then. Save your breath to cool your porridge.”

“Sorry,” he said. He stood at the door for a moment. Then he went through. He was sore from sitting, with his butt on one kind of cold tile, and his back on another. He lay down on the bed and stared up through the dark at the ceiling. Somewhere there was a camera. He couldn’t see it. The plaster was smooth all over. So it was in the light fixture or the smoke alarm. Had to be. Probably not the light fixture. Too hot, surely. Secret spy cameras were presumably delicate. Circuit boards, and tiny transmitters.

So it was in the smoke alarm. He stared at it. He imagined it staring back at him. He imagined smashing it with a hammer. He imagined fragments raining down. He imagined the hammer still in his hand. What would he smash next?

He got up off the bed again and went back in the bathroom. He closed the door. He set the faucet running in the sink. Patty watched him from her spot on the floor. He bent down low, close to her ear, and he spoke in a whisper. He said, “I was thinking, suppose I had a hammer, what would I do?”

“Nail up a sheet,” she whispered back.

“I meant after that,” he said.

“What after that?”

“I would come in here. This is the back of the building. All the action is at the front. The bullshit with the blind, and people looking in. Maybe no one is watching the back. The wall is nothing but a skin of tile, then half an inch of wall board, then a six-inch void between the studs, maybe packed with insulation, plus maybe a vapor barrier, and then cedar siding nailed on sixteen-inch centers.”

“So?”

“If I had a hammer I would bust my way through. We could walk away.”

“Through the wall?”

“A proper demolition crew could do it in a second. That would be routine.”

“Then it’s a shame you don’t have a hammer.”

“I figure we could use the suitcase on the tile. Like a battering ram. We could swing it, with the new rope handle. Like one, two, three. I bet the tile would come off all in a sheet. Then I could kick the rest of the way through.”

“You can’t kick through cedar siding.”

“Don’t need to,” Shorty said. “All I need is to pop it off the studs from the inside, where it’s nailed on. With sudden outward force. Which should be easy enough. Then it would fall away by itself. All I would need to actually kick my way through would be the wall board. Which should also be easy enough. That stuff ain’t strong.”

“How wide of a gap would there be?”

“I think about fourteen inches, effectively. We could step through sideways.”

“With the suitcase?”

“Something we got to accept,” Shorty said. “We need to be realistic. The suitcase stays here until we capture a vehicle.”

Patty said nothing for a moment.

Then she whispered, “Capture a what?”

“Some of these guys peering in the window must have driven here. Which means there must be cars in the lot now. Or maybe they all got picked up in a Mercedes SUV. In which case it’s still out there, neatly parked somewhere, all warmed up and ready to go. If we can’t find it, no matter, because there are plenty more in the barn. Which ain’t far away. I bet all the keys are hanging up on a neat little board.”

“So first we destroy their property and then we steal their car.”

“You bet your ass we do.”

“This feels as crazy as the quad-bike thing.”

“The quad-bike thing wasn’t crazy. It worked perfectly. You know that. We saw it working perfectly, every minute, beginning to end. It was something else that didn’t work perfectly. We didn’t know they had cameras and microphones. We didn’t know they were cheating.”

“Just theoretically,” Patty said. “How long would it take to kick through a wall?”

“Not long, if we kept the hole a limited size. If we kept it low down to the ground. If we were prepared to crawl out, hands and knees.”

“How long in minutes?”

Shorty closed his eyes. He visualized. Eight kicks, six with the toe, to crack the wall board in strategic locations, and then two mighty blows with the flat of the sole, to punch it all out. Call it eight seconds overall. Plus then time to tear the insulation out, handful after handful, a blur, like a dog digging up a treasure. Call it another eight seconds. Or ten. Call it twelve seconds, to be on the safe side. So far a total of twenty. But then came the siding. Popping it off the studs would not be easy. It was fixed on with big nails shot out of a gun. Heavy blows would be required. The problem was the angle of attack. He would have to direct low karate-style kicks through a narrow opening. Kind of sideways and downward. Not practical. Hard to develop maximum power. Better to lie on his back. A downward stamping motion would translate to maximum outward force. Over and over again. Eight times at least.

He said, “One minute, maybe.”

She said, “That’s pretty good.”

“If the tile comes off all in a sheet.”

“What if it doesn’t?”

“We would have to bust off every piece separately. Just to get to the wall board in the first place. Then from that point onward it would be a minute. Except probably two, because by then we would be tired, from busting off the tile.”

“How long altogether?”

Shorty said, “Just hope it comes off all in a sheet.”

She said, “Are we really going to do this?”

“I vote yes.”

“When?”

“I say right now. We could run straight for a quad-bike. Might be better than a car. We could ride it through the trees. They wouldn’t be able to follow.”

“Except on another quad-bike. They have eight more.”

“We would have a head start.”

“Do you know how to drive a quad-bike?”

“How hard can it be?”

Patty was quiet another long moment.

“One step at a time,” she said. “First we’ll test the suitcase on the tile. We’ll see if it comes off all in a sheet. If it does, then we can go ahead and make a final decision. If it doesn’t, we can go ahead and forget it anyway.”

Shorty opened the bathroom door and glanced across the room at the suitcase. It was still where he had put it down, all those hours before. After he had watched Karel drive away in the tow truck.

He whispered, “They’ll see me get it. Because of the camera.”

“They don’t know what’s in it,” Patty whispered back. “We’re allowed to take our own stuff in the bathroom, surely. We might need it. We might choose to sleep in here, what with people looking in the window all the time. That would be perfectly natural.”

Shorty paused. He nodded. He went to get the suitcase. Cool as a cucumber. Perfectly natural. He strolled over, and hefted it up, and strolled back. He put it down, and closed the door. Then he breathed out and flapped his hand to ease the pain in his palm.

They picked their spot. To the left of the sink. A blank patch of wall. No outlets. Therefore no hidden cables inside to snarl things up. No pipes inside, either. The water came and went all in one place, on the other side of the room. Perfect. Plain sailing.

They pulled and shoved the suitcase until it was in position. They stood facing each other, with the case between them. They bent down over it, and they grabbed the rope with all four hands. They lifted the case, six inches off the floor, to clear the baseboard at the bottom of the wall. They moved away a step, and they set the suitcase swinging, gently, back and forth, back and forth. It was a big sturdy item. Very old. A plywood shell, covered in heavy leather, with reinforcements on the corners. They perfected their rhythm. They let the weight do the work. On each swing they made one arm short and one arm long, to keep the suitcase exactly level, like a piston, so its blunt end would hit the wall square on.

“Ready?” Shorty said.

“Yes.”

“On three.”

They swung once, and twice, gathering momentum, and on three they stepped in toward the wall and accelerated the weight as hard as they could.

The case smacked against the tile.

The result was not what Shorty expected.

His instinctive prediction had been that the wall board would flex inward a fraction, which would cause the skim coat to crack off. The tiles were cemented to the skim coat. If the skim coat flaked off, the tiles would come down with it. In sheets. Gravity would see to that.

Didn’t happen.

Instead half a dozen tiles shattered into pieces. Some of the broken bits rained down on the floor. Others stayed up on the wall. Like random coin-sized fragments, still solidly glued to separate coin-sized daubs of adhesive. A cheap job. The tiler had buttered three or four knobs of cement on the back of a tile, and then pressed it into place. One after another, over and over. All the unbuttered voids behind them had made them shatter on impact. But the wall board itself hadn’t flexed at all.

They put the suitcase down. Shorty pressed his thumbnail in the space between two surviving fragments. The skim coat was right there, dry and smooth and creamy. It was hard and rigid. He scraped at it. It powdered a little. He pressed harder, with the ball of his thumb, and then with his knuckles, and then harder still, with his fist. The wall board didn’t yield. Not even a tiny fraction. It felt solid.

“Weird,” he said.

“Should we try again?” Patty asked.

“I guess,” he said. “Real hard this time.”

They backed off as far as the width of the room would allow, and they swung the case once, through a big healthy arc about a yard long, and then again, and on three they staggered sideways and smashed the case into the wall as hard as they could.

Same result. A couple more orphan fragments fell off the wall. Nothing more. It was like hitting concrete. They felt the shock in their wrists.

They dragged the case out the way. Shorty tapped on the wall, experimentally, here and there, in different places, like knocking on a door. The sound it made was strange. Not exactly solid, not exactly hollow. Somewhere in between. He stepped back and kicked out hard. And again, harder. The whole wall seemed to bounce and tremble as a single unit.

“Weird,” he said again.

He picked up a jagged shard of tile and used it to scrape at the skim coat. He made a long furrow, and deepened it, working back and forth, stabbing and scraping. Then he made another furrow, and another, in a wide triangle, missing some of the still-stuck fragments, including others inside the lines. Then he stepped back and kicked out again, hard, aiming carefully. The scored-around triangle of skim coat flaked off and fell to the floor. Under it was revealed the papery surface of brand new wall board. He attacked it with the shard of tile, furiously, hacking and gouging, spraying dust and curls of torn paper all around. Then he stepped back again, and kicked, and kicked, and kicked, in a frenzy of frustration. He kicked the wall board to fragments and powder. He pulverized it. He reduced it to nothing.

But he didn’t kick his way through it. He couldn’t. It was backed by some kind of thick steel mesh. Which came into view, section by section, as the wall board in front of it was destroyed. It loomed up through the cloud of dust and particles, white and ghostly and tightly woven. It was a net, with steel filaments as thick as his finger, running up and down and side to side. The holes they made were grudging and square. About big enough to put his thumb in, but nothing better.

He used the shard of tile to cut more wall board away. He found a place where a bright green ground wire was soldered to the back of the mesh. Like an electrical connection. A very neat job. A random yard away he found another. Same thing. A ground wire, soldered to the back of the mesh.

Then he found a place where the mesh was welded to a prison bar.

There was no doubt about it. He knew from the size, and the shape, and the spacing. Like on every cop show ever made. There were floor-to-ceiling prison bars built inside the wall. The mesh was spot welded to it, here and there, like a curtain. Like a sheet nailed over a window. He knew why it was there. Because of the ground wires. Because of a long-ago memory of a build-your-own electronics kit he had gotten at Christmas. When he was a kid. From his uncle. Same uncle who gave him the Civic, as a matter of fact. The mesh wasn’t there for reinforcement. It was there because it made the room a Faraday cage. Room ten was an electronic black hole. Any radio signal trying to get in would splinter every which way through the mesh, and then drain away to ground, through the many carefully soldered wires. Like the signal never existed at all. Same thing for a signal trying to get out. Didn’t matter what kind of signal it was. Cell phone, satellite phone, pager, walkie-talkie, police radio, whatever, it wasn’t going to happen. The laws of physics. Couldn’t be ignored.

A signal couldn’t get out because of the mesh.

A person couldn’t get out because of the bars.

Patty took a look over his shoulder and said, “What is all that stuff?”

Shorty tried hard to think of something cheerful to say, but he couldn’t, so he didn’t answer the question.