minutes later she was still trying to figure out how to capture the image. It was all pure alchemy to me, so I wasn’t much help beyond offering cheerful words of encouragement. I could smell her starting to smolder.
“How urgent is all this?” she asked, glowering up at me.“Believe it or not I have people who pay me to do things for them. Quite a few at the moment.”
“It’s pretty urgent to George Donovan. Enough to risk a loaded gun at his head with my finger on the trigger.”
She frowned, but kept at it until she had what I needed transferred to a disk, which popped out of a little door on the front of the computer.
“He must really want her back,” she said, handing me the CD in a flat plastic case.
“Oh, yeah.”
“You know why? Beyond the obvious?”
“Mostly fear. Maybe love. Those are good enough ‘whys’ for starters.”
“Good enough for you?”
“Sure. I’ve seen what fear and love can do. You have any other theories?”
I could almost see the imperceptible tug as the hook caught. It was hard to know all the forces that drove Jackie’s busy, chaotic brain, but I knew one of them was curiosity. And its co-conspirator—the fear of boredom.
“Do you think Donovan will hold up his end of the deal with you? If you find Iku?” she asked.
“I’m wondering the same thing. I want you to take a look at my severance agreement and the settlement of the intellectual rights suit. Let’s see if Donovan’s as omnipotent as he thinks.”
“Could be a lot of money.”
“That’s what Donovan thinks.”
I spent another half hour making sure Jackie had what she needed to do whatever she did on the Internet. The potency of the Web was just starting to take hold about the time I evolved from divisional vice president to finish carpenter, and I’d seen my friend Rosaline Arnold pull off someastounding online research. I promised I’d learn how to do it myself someday. After I evolved a little more.
I left Amanda’s Audi Avant back in her driveway before sunset, which was just starting to heat up over on the western shore of the Little Peconic Bay. Clumps of luxuriant clouds were getting into formation, bathing in the first golden wash that radiated from the horizon. Eddie ran up to me just long enough for me to rub his head, then darted back toward Amanda’s. A true loyalist.
I peeled out of my clothes and put on a pair of swim trunks. The September air was only slightly cooler than late August, but the bay was still warm. I walked gingerly over the pebble beach and dove through the miniature waves, feeling the salty grey-green water scrub off a coating of City grit, startling disruptive revelations, and unexpected possibilities.
I’m not a great swimmer. My body’s too dense to float, though as a little kid I’d mastered a sort of hybrid dog paddle–Australian crawl that would keep me from drowning as long as my stamina held up.
I swam out as far as I dared and looked back at the tip of Oak Point. My cottage and Amanda’s stood side by side a few hundred yards apart, two Foursquare testaments to the power of hope, forbearance and weathered cedar. My father built mine during the Second World War. Amanda’s had also been raised by her father, though not with his own hands. He built about thirty other houses along with it, most of which she still owned, along with a big piece of abandoned industrial property at the base of the lagoon that bordered her lot. This alone would have made Amanda a very wealthy woman, even without the bulging portfolio of investments she’d inherited along with the real estate.
Besides the cottage, all I inherited was a debt from the nursing home that looked after my mother during the lastyears of her life. I was able to pay it off before taking my career, my marriage and my financial wherewithal off a cliff, leaving me with just enough to live on for a while before I had to reacquaint myself with finish hammers, nail sets and miter saws.
I wanted to
“How urgent is all this?” she asked, glowering up at me.“Believe it or not I have people who pay me to do things for them. Quite a few at the moment.”
“It’s pretty urgent to George Donovan. Enough to risk a loaded gun at his head with my finger on the trigger.”
She frowned, but kept at it until she had what I needed transferred to a disk, which popped out of a little door on the front of the computer.
“He must really want her back,” she said, handing me the CD in a flat plastic case.
“Oh, yeah.”
“You know why? Beyond the obvious?”
“Mostly fear. Maybe love. Those are good enough ‘whys’ for starters.”
“Good enough for you?”
“Sure. I’ve seen what fear and love can do. You have any other theories?”
I could almost see the imperceptible tug as the hook caught. It was hard to know all the forces that drove Jackie’s busy, chaotic brain, but I knew one of them was curiosity. And its co-conspirator—the fear of boredom.
“Do you think Donovan will hold up his end of the deal with you? If you find Iku?” she asked.
“I’m wondering the same thing. I want you to take a look at my severance agreement and the settlement of the intellectual rights suit. Let’s see if Donovan’s as omnipotent as he thinks.”
“Could be a lot of money.”
“That’s what Donovan thinks.”
I spent another half hour making sure Jackie had what she needed to do whatever she did on the Internet. The potency of the Web was just starting to take hold about the time I evolved from divisional vice president to finish carpenter, and I’d seen my friend Rosaline Arnold pull off someastounding online research. I promised I’d learn how to do it myself someday. After I evolved a little more.
I left Amanda’s Audi Avant back in her driveway before sunset, which was just starting to heat up over on the western shore of the Little Peconic Bay. Clumps of luxuriant clouds were getting into formation, bathing in the first golden wash that radiated from the horizon. Eddie ran up to me just long enough for me to rub his head, then darted back toward Amanda’s. A true loyalist.
I peeled out of my clothes and put on a pair of swim trunks. The September air was only slightly cooler than late August, but the bay was still warm. I walked gingerly over the pebble beach and dove through the miniature waves, feeling the salty grey-green water scrub off a coating of City grit, startling disruptive revelations, and unexpected possibilities.
I’m not a great swimmer. My body’s too dense to float, though as a little kid I’d mastered a sort of hybrid dog paddle–Australian crawl that would keep me from drowning as long as my stamina held up.
I swam out as far as I dared and looked back at the tip of Oak Point. My cottage and Amanda’s stood side by side a few hundred yards apart, two Foursquare testaments to the power of hope, forbearance and weathered cedar. My father built mine during the Second World War. Amanda’s had also been raised by her father, though not with his own hands. He built about thirty other houses along with it, most of which she still owned, along with a big piece of abandoned industrial property at the base of the lagoon that bordered her lot. This alone would have made Amanda a very wealthy woman, even without the bulging portfolio of investments she’d inherited along with the real estate.
Besides the cottage, all I inherited was a debt from the nursing home that looked after my mother during the lastyears of her life. I was able to pay it off before taking my career, my marriage and my financial wherewithal off a cliff, leaving me with just enough to live on for a while before I had to reacquaint myself with finish hammers, nail sets and miter saws.
I wanted to
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