“It’s not a matter of credulity, sugar, but of observation. You’ll see for yourself some day soon. We’re going to pick him up tomorrow outside Tucson.”
“Then my presence here isn’t really required any longer.”
“Just until we pick him up,” he said firmly. “In spite of all the preparations there’s still a chance we could lose some more wheels. Remember, we’re dealing with an unknown quantity here, though I think Pickett’s extended himself about as far as he can. I promise I’ll call you as soon as we have him sedated and on his way back. Then you can finish your ‘inspection’ of the Houston installation and wing your way home. Maybe we can even take that vacation.”
“So soon?” she said, surprised. “As excited as you are about this I’d think you’d want to be around while Navis is running his tests.”
“The team will notify me when they know something,” Huddy told her. “I’ve thought about it and decided it might be better for me to be out of town in case the old man buys it… weak heart, remember… and somebody asks questions.”
“I won’t argue with that, Benjy. See you soon.” She blew a kiss into the phone.
“So long, sweetness. Meet you in a couple of days.”
She put the phone back in its cradle. It was quiet in the room, far enough from the highway so that you didn’t hear the traffic. The weather was calm and you couldn’t hear the lapping of the water against the bay shore unless you went out onto the little porch. She stared at the lamps, the vinyl-covered chairs, the TV bolted to its table, and she wanted to scream.
But Benjamin thought her presence here was necessary, at least until they picked the old man up tomorrow. Then this foolishness would be at an end and she could return home to her condo, her lover, and some serious work. No telling what was piling up in her office.
But as she rolled over and considered what to have for breakfast she kept thinking about the story Benjamin had told her, about the truck and the three men and the four wheels all coming off at the same time, and she found her gaze returning regularly to the curtained windows as though there might be something there, peeking in on her. Something better left alone….
Arriaga Ramirez’s opinion of his daughter normally would have stood up to examination. Usually Amanda was clear-headed, did think things through. But that morning she had panicked a little. After all, she was only sixteen, and the sight of the bug unnerved her more than it might have an adult.
At least, she thought it was a bug. The legs which held it tight against the wall were made of metal. It’s body was plastic instead of chitin, and it sent out its messages by methods rather more complex than rubbing hind legs together.
She wouldn’t have seen it at all if she hadn’t bumped the telephone with her hand the first time she’d reached for it. She was going to call Nancy Sue down the street and see if maybe she wanted to come over and gossip and do some homework together. Amanda was assigned the same homework as the rest of the kids. She had the option of attending class or working at home. She’d elected to stay home for the last several school days, pleading fatigue.
When she’d reached for the phone and bumped it the back part had slipped away, exposing the small strip of grey plastic. Leaning close she’d been able to see where it had been fastened to the wall behind the phone, had been able to see clearly the tiny wires that ran from the plastic to places she didn’t think they were supposed to go.
She knew the plastic and wires weren’t part of the phone system. She knew because she hadn’t seen the grey plastic before. There were two other telephones in the house and when she found the plastic and the wires attached to them too she started getting really worried.
Her mom was out shopping. Her dad was working on the boat. She was all alone in the house, a house suddenly filled with nasty little grey spies. The house backed onto a sidearm of the bay and fronted on a quiet, tree-lined street. There were vacant lots on both sides and it was a long walk to the nearest occupied home, Mr. and Mrs. Coxley’s.
Being alone had never bothered her before. There was about as much crime in Port Lavaca as in the middle of the bay. But the two deputies didn’t patrol very much, especially when it was hot out, and when they did make rounds they kept largely to the business district way out by the highway.
Everyone knew what went on in a small town like Port Lavaca, but that didn’t mean they’d know when some strangers came slipping in through an unlocked back door or open window. And she was trapped inside the house, unable to call for help without a mysterious Someone knowing about it immediately because of the omnipresent grey bugs….
Calm down, she ordered herself. You’re getting all excited over nothing. No one was crawling through the window to get at her. No hand appeared around the kitchen doorway leveling a gun at her. They didn’t know that she knew.
She made a thorough check of the rest of the house. In addition to the tapped telephones she found clones of the grey bugs in her mom and dad’s bedroom, under the bed, and in the dining room under the lamp.
She was careful only to look and not touch. Any disturbance might alert whoever had planted the devices. She didn’t want to alarm them. Her mother and father were out together much of the time, but she was almost always home. Still, someone had slipped inside and planted the bugs. The thought made her skin crawl. Someone had entered her sanctuary and done something illegal. Someone had invaded the privacy of her family. What was worse, she knew that if someone could get in to monkey with telephones and light fixtures, they could get in to do other things, too.
But why would anyone want to? Her father was a fisherman. Her mother worked part time at a dress shop. It didn’t take an hour to figure out that it all had something to do with Uncle Jake.
Those people who want to test him must know about his family, she thought. About us. They must be worried about him coming here and them checking up to see what they can find out. What could she do about it? Not a damn thing.
Tears started from the corners of her eyes. What could she do? There was no place else for Uncle Jake to run to. This was the only family he had. She’d been right to suggest meeting him in College Station. But if they were watching the house, they’d see her leave with her mom and dad, and they’d follow, and it might not make any difference.
Should she explain what she knew to her mom and dad? Maybe they’d believe enough to at least alert the Sheriff. Would that matter to these people, as powerful as they seemed to be?
Just get here, Uncle Jake, she thought. Once we’re together we’ll work it out. I know we can. She loved her Uncle Jake like a second father, and he loved her like the daughter he’d never had. She wasn’t going to let these mean people hurt him, no matter how omnipotent they seemed to be. As long as she had an ounce of strength left in her body they weren’t going to get what they wanted. Uncle Jake didn’t have much longer to live. He knew that and he didn’t try to hide it from her. She appreciated that, his honesty. She appreciated everything about him. She wasn’t going to stand by and watch somebody make a guinea pig out of him during his last days.
She told him so later that night.
“What do you mean,” he thought at her, “your house is bugged?”
“Didn’t you ever see any spy pictures, Uncle Jake? You know, bugs. Listening devices. They’re on all our telephones and all over the house. I probably didn’t even find all of them. Somebody’s monitoring our house.”
“I don’t see spy movies, Mandy, but I watch the news. I know what bugs are. I just… it’s hard to believe.” Why should it be? He asked himself. That business outside Phoenix a while back, that was hard to believe, too. Stopping that truck the way he had was even harder to believe, but it had happened.
“Don’t worry, Mandy,” he told her. “I know how to stop them bothering me now.”
Her reply was tinged with exasperation. “Uncle Jake, it’s not that easy. These are smart people. They have money, and they want you. You’re just one man.”
“I’ll take the wheels off any car they send after me.” He was feeling pretty good about himself.
“Listen to me, Uncle Jake. You didn’t listen to me. These people that want you, they’re smart. They’ll figure out you did that to their truck and they won’t give you a chance to do it again.”
“Then how are they going to catch me?”
“They’ll be a lot more subtle the next time, Uncle Jake. Now that they know they can’t run your car off the road, they won’t try to.”
The humming of cars caressing the nearby interstate reached him faintly, there on the bed in the motel room. “What else can I do, Mandy?”
“First off you’ve got to get rid of the car you’re using, Uncle Jake.”
“Get rid of the Galaxie? Mandy, I’ve had that car over twenty years. I can’t just dump it. Besides, if I get rid of the car how am I going to…?”
“You’ve got to get rid of it, Uncle Jake. That’s how they traced you the first time.”
