Trust Your Eyes

TWELVE

The next day, at breakfast, I said to Thomas, “I liked Dr. Grigorin.”

“She’s okay,” he said, grabbing a banana from the bowl. “What kind of pills did she give you?”

I shrugged. “Who knows what the hell all these drugs are called.”

He peeled the banana down to the halfway point. “Did she tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“What I’m doing. I told her you could know about it.”

“She told me.”

“I thought it was time for you to know what I’m working on.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me yourself?”

He bit into the banana. “I figured, coming from her, you’d believe it. Because she’s a doctor.”

“You think Dr. Grigorin believes it?” I asked him. “What it is you’re doing? Memorizing maps and street plans so you can help secret agents on the run? And that one day, there won’t be any maps at all and you’ll have all the information stored up here?” I tapped my index finger just above my temple.

He put the banana down and rested his palms on the kitchen table. “If she didn’t believe it, why would she ask so many questions about it? If she didn’t believe it, she’d dismiss it out of hand.” Disappointment washed over his face. “I guess you don’t believe in what I’m doing. I was wrong, thinking Dr. Grigorin could convince you.”

“Think about it, Thomas. You’re just some guy, living in a house outside Promise Falls in upstate New York. You’ve never worked in law enforcement or for any kind of government agency. You don’t have a degree in whatever one gets a degree in if they’re an expert in maps and-”

“Cartographer.”

“What?”

“A person who’s an expert at making and studying maps is a cartographer. But you can’t really get a degree in cartography. You’d probably get a degree in geography and apply what you’d learned while acquiring that degree when you began working as a cartographer.”

He’d thrown me off my game for a moment there, but it didn’t take me long to get back on track. “Okay, so, you don’t have a geography degree, and you’ve never worked as a cartographer.”

“That is correct,” Thomas said, nodding.

“So what you believe is, you, with no actual qualifications and no connections to the powers that be, have attracted the attention of the Central Intelligence Agency, this multi-billion-dollar organization with operatives all over the world, and they want you to be their map guy.”

Thomas nodded. “I know. It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

“That it is,” I said.

“But I have a good memory. So I’ve been chosen.”

I leaned back in my chair and said, “ You are the chosen one.”

“Now you’re mocking me again,” he said.

“I’m not-okay, I suppose it sounds like I am. What I’m trying to do, Thomas, is point out to you how totally absurd this is. Dr. Grigorin even told me that you’ve been in touch with former president Clinton.”

The night before, standing at Thomas’s partially open door, I’d watched him carry on a conversation with someone who wasn’t there. The phone was on the hook, and he wasn’t on the keyboard or looking at the monitor. I’d heard him say, “I almost called you Bill.”

“That’s right,” Thomas said. “But you can still call him Mr. President. Former presidents are still called that.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” Thomas said. “Those pills the doctor gave you aren’t working. I thought they’d make you more tolerant and understanding. But you’re just like Dad.”

He left his unfinished banana on the table, got up, went back up to his room, and slammed the door.

WE needed food in the house. I couldn’t keep going out for subs and pizza. I was loading up on frozen foods at Price Chopper when I ran into Len Prentice and his wife, Marie. Len and my father had maintained a friendship after Dad left the printing company. Normally of pasty white complexion, he looked as though he’d gotten some sun lately, although he’d lightened up slightly since the funeral. Marie, however, was pale and washed out. She’d had health problems as long as I’d known her. I couldn’t remember what, exactly, but thought it had something to do with chronic fatigue syndrome. Always tired. I’d known the two of them-admittedly, not well-for the better part of three decades. They had a son, Matthew, who was about my age, and whom I’d hung out with some when I was in my teens. He was an accountant now in Syracuse, married, with three kids.

“Hey, Ray,” said Len, who was pushing the cart. Marie had been trailing along behind him. “How’re you and Thomas doing?”

Before I could answer, Marie said, “Ray. Good to see you.”

“Hi,” I said to both of them. “We’re good. Managing. Just getting in some provisions.”

“It was a lovely service,” Marie said earnestly. Dad had always referred to her as “Mary Sunshine,” although not to her face. Despite her health problems, she was perpetually cheery. The minister could have dropped his pants and waved his dick around and she’d still have commented on how nice the flowers were before anything else.

“Yes,” I said. “Thanks again for coming.” I looked at Len and smiled. “I meant to ask you the other day whether you fell asleep under a sunlamp.”

Marie patted my arm playfully. “Oh, you. Len got back from a vacation a couple of weeks ago.”

“Where’d you go?” I asked. “Florida?”

Len shook his head, like it didn’t really matter, but said, “Thailand.”

Marie said, “Tell him how beautiful it was.”

“Oh, it was that. Absolutely stunning. The water, it’s this coral blue color unlike anything you’ve ever seen. Have you been there, Ray?”

“Never,” I said. “But I’ve heard people say it’s wonderful. You didn’t go, Marie?”

She sighed. “I just don’t have the energy for travel. Not to go that far. I don’t mind packing up and spending a week at a lodge you can drive to in a couple of hours, but all that walking through airports, lining up at customs, having to take your shoes off and put them back on again. It’s too much for me. But just because I’m not up to gallivanting around the globe doesn’t mean Len shouldn’t head off with others who feel more up to traveling than I do.”

“Ray,” Len said, “I’ve been meaning to come out and see you before you go back to Burlington.”

“Not sure when that will be,” I said. “I need to get Thomas sorted out first. I have to decide what to do about the house. Thomas can’t live there on his own.”

“Oh mercy, no,” Marie said. “The boy needs looking after.”

I felt my back go up, but didn’t show it. She was right, that Thomas needed some looking after. But he was a man. Not a boy. He didn’t deserve to be treated as though he were a child. And then I felt a pang of guilt, wondering if I’d been too hard on him, the way I’d been challenging him about his mission.

“Yeah, he does,” I said. “But I’m going to see if I can make him a little more self-sufficient.”

It was something I’d been thinking about. Just because Thomas believed in things that were not real didn’t mean he couldn’t make a contribution in the real world. I wanted to get him making his own meals, and helping out around the house. Maybe, if I started giving him responsibilities, it would keep him out of his room for longer intervals. Involve him, if not in the outside world, in the operations of the household.

“Well, we should let you go,” Len said. “Good to see you.”

“I keep meaning to drop by with a casserole for you boys,” Marie said. “Or maybe you’d like to come over for dinner?”

“That’s very kind,” I said. “I’ll talk to Thomas about that.” Fat chance, I thought, although dinner out with people he knew might be worth a try. A baby step out of the house. We’d already managed a trip to the psychiatrist without a major incident, so long as you didn’t count Thomas’s quarrels with Maria.

“Thomas still memorizing maps for when the big computer virus hits?” Len asked, a hint of a smile in the corner of his mouth.

I was caught off guard. “You know about that?”

“Your dad told me. I guess he needed to talk to somebody about it.”

Slowly, I nodded. Marie said, “Len, don’t bring that up. It’s none of your business.”

“It was. Adam told me,” he snapped at her, and Marie blinked. To me, he said, “Your dad was feeling the burden of it all, you know?”

So everyone seemed to be telling me.

I tapped on Thomas’s door and opened it far enough to stick my head in. “I’m back.”

Thomas, clicking away on his mouse, traveling with his back to me, said, “Okay.”

“And you’re making dinner.”

That got him to turn around. “What?”

“I thought I’d let you make dinner tonight.”

“I never make dinner.”

“Then all the more reason to start. I got some frozen stuff. It’ll be simple.”

“Why aren’t you making dinner? Dad always made dinner.”

“I’ve got a job, too,” I said. “You’ve got yours, and I’ve got mine. I’ve got calls to make, and I may have to bring back some of my stuff from Burlington-”

“Vermont.”

“Right, from Burlington, Vermont, so I can work here while we sort things out.”

“Sort things out,” Thomas said quietly.

“That’s right. I’ll walk you through it. How to put the oven on, all that stuff. But you’ll need to come down around five.”

I treasured Thomas’s shell-shocked expression as I closed the door.

Almost on cue, my cell rang. It was my agent, Jeremy Chandler, who’d been fielding job inquiries for me for the last ten years.

“I’ve got three jobs here for you but it’s not like the Sistine Chapel is asking you to paint a ceiling and you’ve got forty years to do it. These are magazines and one Web site, Ray, with deadlines. Looming deadlines. If you can’t do the work, I need to know now so I can farm these jobs out to other artists who, while not nearly as gifted as yourself, are clearly much hungrier.”

“I told you, I’m at my father’s place.”

“Oh shit, yeah, I forgot. He died, right?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what he did.”

“So, the funeral and all that stuff, is that over?”

“Yes.”

“Then you’ll be back in your studio when, exactly?”

“I have some stuff to deal with, Jeremy. I might have to set up a makeshift studio here temporarily.”

“Good idea. Otherwise, I’ll have to get Tarlington for these illustrations.”

“Oh, God,” I said. “The guy paints with his feet. His Obamas look like Bill Cosby. Every black guy he does looks like Bill Cosby.”

“Look, if you can’t take the job, you don’t get to criticize. Did I tell you, I heard from Vachon’s people?”

“Jesus.” Carlo Vachon, a noted Brooklyn crime family boss, was facing a slew of possible indictments on everything from murder to unpaid parking tickets. I’d been commissioned by a New York magazine to do a drawing of him in which I’d exaggerated all his physical features, particularly his girth, as he held a gun to the Statue of Liberty. In my version, she had both her arms in the air.

I was breaking out in an instant sweat. “Is there a hit out on me?”

“No, no, nothing like that. Apparently he loved the illustration and he wants to buy the original. The thing is with these mob guys, they love the attention, even when it’s not exactly positive.”

“You have the original?”

“I do.”

“Send it. No charge,” I said.

“Done. But that’s not even why I called.”

“What is it?”

“There’s a new site about to start up. It’s got backing from some very big people, and they want to take on HuffPo, but they want something different, and I said to them, what about an animated political cartoon, kind of like those ones on The New Yorker Web site. Ten seconds long, but the animation is actually kept to a minimum. You create movement by panning across the image and-”

“I get how it could be done,” I said. “You mentioned me?”

“I didn’t even have to. They came to me. This woman who’s setting it up, her name’s Kathleen Ford. Got financial backing like you wouldn’t believe. Lots of media money. She wants to have a sit-down with you ASAP.”

“Okay, but right now I-”

There was a knock at the front door. A solid, purposeful, somebody-means-business kind of knock. I hadn’t heard a car pull up, but Jeremy did tend to talk as though he was trying to drown out a 747, even when there wasn’t one in the vicinity.

“Someone’s here,” I said.

“Ray, this is huge. You’ve got to meet with this woman. It’s major bucks.”

“I’ll get back to you.”

I left the phone on the kitchen table and went to the door.

There were two of them standing there on the porch, a black sedan parked behind my Audi, blocking it in, I supposed, should I decide to make a run for it. A man and a woman, both in their forties, both dressed in shades of gray. Both in suits, although his came with a narrow, businesslike tie.

“Mr. Kilbride?” the woman asked.

“Yes?”

“I’m Agent Parker, and this is Agent Driscoll.”

“Huh?”

“FBI,” she said sternly.