The Traveler

Richardson stumbled down the staircase, passed through the kitchen, and went out the back door. A blast of cold air made his eyes tear up as if he was crying. As he stood on the porch he felt so weary that he wanted to lie down and curl up in a ball. His life had changed forever, but his body still pumped blood, digested food, and took in oxygen. He wasn’t a scientist anymore, writing papers and dreaming of the Nobel Prize. Somehow he had become smaller, almost insignificant, a tiny piece of a complex mechanism.

Still holding the petri dish, Richardson shuffled down the driveway. Apparently Boone’s conversation with Dr. Lundquist didn’t take very long. He caught up with the neurologist before he reached the car.

“Is everything all right?” Richardson asked.

“Of course,” Boone said. “I knew there wouldn’t be a problem. Sometimes it’s best to be clear and direct. No extra words. No false diplomacy. I expressed myself firmly and got a positive response.”

Boone opened the door to the car and made a mocking bow like an insolent chauffeur. “You must be tired, Dr. Richardson. It’s been a long night. Let me take you back to the research center.”

36

Hollis drove past Michael Corrigan’s apartment complex at nine o’clock in the morning, two o’clock in the afternoon, and seven o’clock in the evening. He looked for Tabula mercenaries sitting in parked cars and on park benches, men pretending to be power company employees or city workers. After each drive-by, he would park in front of a beauty salon and write down everything he had seen. Old lady pushing a shopping cart. Man with a beard loading a child’s car seat. When he came back five hours later, he compared his notes and saw no similarities. That only meant that the Tabula weren’t waiting outside the building. Perhaps they were sitting in the apartment across the hall from Michael’s apartment.

He thought up a plan after teaching his evening capoeira class. The next day, he put on a blue cotton jumpsuit and picked up the mop and the bucket on wheels that he used when he was washing the floor of his school. Michael’s apartment complex occupied an entire city block on Wilshire Boulevard near Barrington. There were three skyscrapers, an attached four-level parking structure, and a large inner courtyard with a pool and tennis courts.

Be deliberate, Hollis thought. You don’t want to fight the Tabula, just play with their minds. He parked his car two blocks away from the entrance, filled the bucket on wheels with soapy water from two plastic jugs, set the mop into the water, and began to push everything up the sidewalk. As he approached the entrance, he tried to think like a janitor-play that role.

Two old ladies were leaving the building when he arrived. “Just cleaned the sidewalk,” he told them. “Now somebody messed up one of the hallways.”

“People need to learn some manners,” one of the women said. Her friend held the door open so that Hollis could push the bucket inside the foyer.

Hollis nodded and smiled as the old ladies walked away. He waited for a few seconds, then went over to the elevators. When the next elevator arrived, he rode alone up to the eighth floor. Michael Corrigan’s apartment was at the end of the hallway.

If the Tabula were hiding in the opposite apartment, watching him through the security peephole, then he would have to start lying right away. Mr. Corrigan pays me to clean up his place. Yes, sir. I do it once a week. Is Mr. Corrigan gone? I didn’t know he was gone, sir. He hasn’t paid me for a month.

Using the key that Gabriel had given him, Hollis unlocked the door and went inside. He was alert, ready to defend himself against an attack, but no one appeared. The apartment had a hot, dusty smell. A two-week-old copy of the Wall Street Journal was still on the coffee table. Hollis left the bucket and mop near the door and hurried into Michael’s bedroom. He found the telephone, pulled out a small tape recorder, and dialed Maggie Resnick’s home number. She wasn’t home, but Hollis didn’t want to talk to her anyway. He was sure that the Tabula were monitoring the phone lines. After Maggie’s answering machine came on, Hollis switched on the tape recorder and held it up to the telephone handset.

“Hey, Maggie. This is Gabe. I’m going to get out of Los Angeles and find someplace to hide. Thanks for everything. Bye.”

Hollis hung up the phone, switched off the tape recorder, and quickly left the apartment. He felt tense pushing the bucket down the hallway, but then the elevator arrived and he stepped inside. Okay, he thought. That was easy enough. Don’t forget, you’re still the janitor.