Flashback

“They’d never believe that I left Los Angeles without you,” said Leonard.

Val shrugged. The silence stretched.

“And you assume your father will be home in the middle of the day?” Leonard finally said. His voice was not completely steady.

“The Old Man’s a flashback addict,” snapped Val. “Flashers are almost always home—unless they’re in a flashcave somewhere.”

“If he is there, and if they don’t detain me and call the police, what do you want me to tell your father?”

“Tell him I’m here and that he should come out to talk to me. Tell him to bring two hundred bucks in cash—old bucks. If he doesn’t have that much in cash, we can go to an ATM together. There are still a few of those things left.”

Leonard didn’t know whether hearing this made him want to laugh or weep. “That’s what this is about? Getting money from your father? So you can get that forged Teamsters NICC and be a trucker?”

“Yeah.”

“What about your anger at him, Val?”

“Well, fuck that. It doesn’t matter anymore. I don’t know what went down between him and Mom and I don’t really care anymore. If he’s there—if he hasn’t spent every last cent he has on flashback—have him come out to meet me and bring the two hundred old bucks in cash. You can tell him that I’ll never bother him again after I get the money. I figure that after sending me into exile for five fucking years, he owes me at least that much.”

Leonard shook his head. He paused, then said: “I may have the password to the encrypted text on your mother’s phone, Val. I’ve thought of several possibilities.”

The boy’s head snapped up. “Does that matter now?”

“It might.” Leonard didn’t know if it mattered or not. And even though he’d known his darling daughter well when they’d lived together, odds were against him actually guessing the password she’d chosen. Dara had been extremely intelligent: she’d have known that a near-random mixture of letters and numerals would have been the most secure password she could have chosen. Leonard was almost certainly being sentimental and foolish when he thought he might have guessed the five-letter word.

“I’m not thinking anymore that the Old Man actually had her killed,” muttered the boy. “I just hated it when he didn’t cry when she died. He didn’t cry at the funeral or when we cleaned out her stuff. The sonofabitch never showed the slightest bit of emotion. Then he shipped me off and… well, I guess I was a little nuts for a while. I just want whatever money he’ll give me and then I’ll go somewhere where I never have to see him again as long as I live.”

Leonard began to speak but bit his lip instead. “Will you give me my daughter’s phone then? I want to read her text diary.”

“If you get the Old Man out here and he brings money so I can find the card guy, you can have the goddamned phone, Grandpa. Now go on.”

The condominium lobby where Leonard’s son-in-law lived was a bulletproof, blastproof vault. Surveillance cameras watched. Inner doors were metal and multilayered. One was supposed to speak to a microphone and video camera next to a screen that showed a 3DHD video loop of flowered meadows, grazing deer, and eagles floating in a blue sky, all these images laid over inspirational music that would kill a diabetic.

A man’s voice came from the grill: “Welcome to the Cherry Creek Mall Condominiums. Can we help you?”

Leonard said that he wanted to talk to Mr. Nick Bottom.

There was a hesitation and the voice said, “Please stay where you are. Someone will be right down.”

Leonard panicked. They were calling the cops. They’d called building security and someone was coming to grab him until the police arrived.

Leonard moved quickly to the heavy outer doors and tried one. It opened. He knew the people watching him on video could lock it from their control center, so they weren’t holding him prisoner, which they certainly would have done if the goal was to arrest him. Looking out the door, he couldn’t see Val across the street but traffic moved up and down First Avenue.

Leonard closed the door and waited, his old heart pounding and the constant flower of pain in his chest unfolding to something the size of a fist. It wasn’t his heart, he knew. It was something growing—and becoming more painful—in his left lung. George Leonard Fox felt mortality press down on his shoulders like a lead collar.

The inner door opened and a stolid, heavily muscled older man in a simple black security uniform came through. He carried a radio and other paraphernalia on his belt, but no gun.

“You’re Dr. Fox?” said the man, offering his hand. “I’m Gunny G., the head of security for Cherry Creek Mall Condominiums.”

Leonard shook the offered hand. The man’s fingers were short, blunt, and wide, but shaking the man’s broad callused palm was like grasping a relatively smooth-barked tree.

“Mr. Bottom asked me to watch for you and your grandson,” said Gunny G.

We’re under arrest, thought Leonard.