The Cloud

20

Across the street from where I’m parked is a small grocer that carries the staples of modern life: bread and canned goods, cheap liquor and tobacco, and cell phones. A plump woman standing behind the counter, prematurely wearing dentures, sells me a Motorola phone that a decade ago would’ve been among the most powerful mobile computers on the planet. The computational zing wrapped in its dime-a-dozen metallic clamshell would’ve been housed in a block-long warehouse, a veritable state treasure. Now it’s near the lowest rung on the technology ladder-so much so, it’s displayed behind the counter next to boxes of condoms and antihistamine. And it costs only $35, provided that I also load it with one hundred minutes of pre-paid talk time for an additional $23. I don’t have to sign any contracts or sign up under my own name.

I unwrap the phone and then stand momentarily stymied where to toss the disemboweled packaging. Into the black trash bin, the blue recycling one, or the green container for compost? Trash, I conjecture. I turn on the phone. It’s got some battery life, but not much. I offer the woman a dollar if she’ll let me plug my new phone into the wall outlet for five minutes. She shrugs.

“You’re not the first,” she says.

Five minutes later, I’m back in my car with a new pre-paid phone and a meager plan. I tuck the new phone into my pocket and use my existing one to call Faith. When she answers, I say: “Are you ready?”

“With a tall cup of No Doze with your name on it. Let’s go, please.”

“See you in the alley.”

To avoid driving past the man in the Mercedes parked on Polk Street, I drive around the block in the other direction. I slide into the alley behind the cafe. The alley-lined with dozens of the holy trinities of state-approved garbage, recycling and compost cans-is such a tight fit that Faith must squeeze sideways to get into the car. As she twists her body, I glance at the short brown skirt that comes only to her knee, slit up to her thigh, not the least bit practical unless Faith was expecting a summer day to suddenly break out or she wants attention focused on her legs.

She hands me the coffee. I take a big slug, grimacing as the scalding liquid scorches the roof of my mouth.

“It’s even more exhilarating if you pour the whole thing on your head.” She smiles and my heart skips a beat-either from caffeine or the stimulant created by Faith’s proximity. Maybe it’s the same neurological mechanism.

I’m about to make a comment about the fact that it’s strange to me that Faith is composed enough to joke even though she’s allegedly being stalked, when she says: “Thank you for the rescue.”

I swallow hard. I put the coffee into the center console and drive in silence to the end of the alley. I take a left, drive half a block, take another left and drive two blocks, then take another left heading back toward Polk. Just before the intersection, I park in a red loading zone in front of a neighborhood bar called Leap Year. I feel Faith watching me. I turn to her and then back to Polk; half a block up the street, double-parked as it has been, sits the black Mercedes.

“He’s going to see us.” The anxiety is back in her voice.

“We’re behind him. No streetlight shining on us. If he sees us he’d have to turn the car around and we’d be outta here.” But I’m irritated that maybe she’s right. “You have any tips, Faith?”

“Tips?”

“On doing surveillance. You seem to have the knack.”

“I don’t want to do this. I want to be somewhere safe.”

“You’re free to go at any time.”

“You know he’d see me.”

“Then we’re stuck with each other-for now.”

She doesn’t respond.

“Aren’t you curious who is following you?” I turn to look at her. Her eyes glisten with tears. “What’s going on, Faith?”

She sniffles once, then takes a deep breath. With the tips of her fingers, she wipes moisture from under her right eye. She looks at me, suddenly composed.

“So he’s dead? Alan.”

“I think he had a heart attack. I don’t think he was. .” I don’t finish because I’m not sure whether he died of natural causes. He’d seemed hurt when he fell into me. Maybe his heart was already giving out. Or maybe someone drugged him, before or after our collision.

Faith interrupts my introspection. “Are you sick too?”

“No, why. .”

“When you saw Alan, you. . passed out.”

I don’t respond.

“Then it touched a nerve,” Faith says. “You’ve lost someone.”

I think: Ain’t that the truth. My first true love, Annie Kindle, drowned five years ago in a lake in Nevada. My paternal grandmother, Lane, though still alive, suffers intensifying dementia. Polly, who was going to make it all better, left me. Things I love die or go away.

“I was disoriented.” I finally offer my explanation. “I’ve got a concussion.” So, yeah, I think, sick, in a way.

“It’s not my fault.”

“Why would my concussion be your fault, Faith?”

“I was just doing him a favor. That’s it.” She sounds just a tad defensive but maybe fairly so; a man is dead.

“Hold that thought.”

The man in the Mercedes steps out of the car. He’s tall and thin, more leg than torso. He looks in the direction of the cafe where I picked up Faith and cocks his head. He closes the car door and starts walking to the cafe: gangly, awkward strides, long arms, pink head, birdlike. He’s favoring his left leg, but at this distance in the dark I can’t settle on a diagnosis. Maybe lower back pain.

“He knows I’m gone,” says Faith.

The man disappears into the cafe. I can imagine he’s looking around, checking the bathroom, then asking the tattooed dude behind the counter whether he’s seen a brunette in a brown skirt. At some point, he’ll realize Faith disappeared through the alley or he’ll wonder if he lost focus and missed her wandering out the front.

“There he is,” Faith says.

“Turkey vulture.”

“What?”

“He moves like a bird.”

“Absolutely does. The way he cocks his head, a buzzard. You know your birds of prey.”

Back at his car, he finds a ratty-haired man in decrepit full-length coat looking through the back window and scratching his arms. Crack addict. The buzzard pulls out a wallet. He extracts a bill. He holds it up so that the druggie can see it. He drops the dollar onto the ground behind the car.

The addict shrugs and bends to pick up the money. As he starts to stand, the buzzard launches a soccer-style kick at the druggie’s head. Just before he’s about to make contact, the gangly attacker pulls back, sparing the druggie a terrific blow, causing him to fall to the street in a ball.

“Oh God,” Faith says.

“Mean buzzard.”

He climbs into the Mercedes. No sooner does exhaust start to come from his tailpipe than he is off. He peels into light traffic, cutting off a diminutive European smart car made for parking, not surviving crashes.

I pull out to follow. The Mercedes is separated from us by the smart car and an old-model sedan coughing exhaust.

“Take me to my car,” Faith says.

I don’t answer.

“You’re kidnapping me.”

“You think this guy is just playing around?”

“I. .”

“Help me find out what’s going on so that we can both feel safe.”

Faith crosses her arms across her chest, resignation. The Mercedes takes a left onto Bush Street, a thoroughfare that heads in the direction of downtown.

“At least tell me what we’re doing.”

“I’m following him to see where he goes and you’re going to continue telling me how you happened to observe my almost murder by subway.”

I take the left onto Bush. I’m now separated from the Mercedes by only the sedan, a Buick. But I doubt he would be able to see us in the darkness and drizzle. The light turns green. We continue toward downtown.

A few blocks later, the Mercedes takes an abrupt, illegal left turn onto Grant Street beneath an enormous green gate with an orange dragon on the top. Chinatown.

I hear a honk and realize I’ve stopped in the middle of the street. The Mercedes is half a block away now but moving slowly; not surprising given Chinatown’s narrow streets and the challenge of navigating a handful of jaywalkers, the very last of the night’s produce, and shoppers toting bags.

The Mercedes’s taillights disappear over a slight hill.