The Return of the Incredible Exploding Man Page 5

  “Hi, Mr Dolan,” Grace said brightly. “How may I help you?”

  “Has someone come up to my room in the past five minutes or so?”

  “No.” All of a sudden Grace didn’t sound quite so perky. “Why?”

  “Someone was knocking on the door.” His voice, he thought, sounded remarkably steady. “I thought it might be one of the housekeeping staff.”

  “No, your suite was serviced while you were out earlier. Did you see who it was?”

  He thought of the dark shape that had moved across the door viewer. “No. Not clearly. But there was someone there.”

  “I didn’t mean to contradict you, Mr Dolan.” Grace was all business now. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes. A bit puzzled. Maybe someone got the wrong door.”

  “Yes,” she said, the tone of her voice telling him everything he needed to know about what she thought of that. “Please just sit tight where you are, and I’ll send someone up.”

  “You don’t have to do that. I just wondered who it was.”

  “Please, Mr Dolan. We have procedures for this.”

  For what? “Okay.” He hung up and went back to the window. The sun was closer to the horizon now, shadows starting to gather between the trees and across the fields.

  About ten minutes later there was another knock on the door, this time firm and confident. He went to the door and said, “Hello?”

  “Mr Dolan?” said a man’s voice. “Officer Muñoz, Sioux Crossing Police Department.”

  Alex put his eye to the viewer, got a fisheyed look at a short young man in a crisp blue uniform. “Hello.”

  Muñoz held up to the viewer a badge which might as well have come out of a Christmas cracker for all that Alex knew. He said, “Are you alone in the apartment?”

  “Yes.”

  “Could you open the door, please, and then stand aside?”

  “Okay.” Alex opened the door and stood to one side, and Muñoz, who looked and moved more like a dancer than a law enforcement official, stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

  “You reported some suspicious activity,” he said.

  “Someone knocked on the door,” Alex said. “I don’t know who it was. It might have been perfectly innocent.”

  “Okay.” Around his waist, Muñoz was wearing a belt festooned with arcane equipment, as well as an oddly foreign-looking sidearm. “May I take a look around the apartment?”

  “Sure. But there’s no one here. They were outside.”

  Muñoz gave him a level look. “Please let me do my job, Mr Dolan.”

  “Okay.” Alex waved into the suite. “Help yourself.”

  “Are there any weapons in the apartment?”

  “What? No.”

  “Okay. Please stay here.” And he went into the suite and for the next five minutes or so Alex heard him moving almost soundlessly around.

  “Well,” he said when he finally came back, “the apartment seems clear.”

  “It is clear, Officer Muñoz.”

  “Yes.” Muñoz unbuttoned one of the breast pockets of his shirt and took out a little black notebook and a pen. “Could you tell me what happened, Mr Dolan?”

  “I was expecting they might just send up hotel security,” Alex told him. “Or even just a waiter. This seems a bit like overkill.”

  Muñoz gave him that look again. “It’s my job to decide what is and isn’t overkill, sir. So. In your own words?”

  Starting to feel a little self-conscious, Alex told the story. He left out the bit about the little blue sparks, though. He was beginning to think he’d imagined them. Muñoz wrote everything down without comment, only interrupting a couple of times to clarify something which Alex didn’t think needed clarifying.

  When they’d finished, Muñoz quickly paged through his notes, then snapped the elastic band back round the notebook and buttoned it into his pocket again.

  “Thank you for your cooperation, Mr Dolan,” he said. He took a folded piece of paper from his other breast pocket and held it out. “Could you fill this in, please?”

  Alex unfolded it, saw a list of bullet points and little checkboxes. “What is it?”

  “Customer satisfaction survey.”

  Alex looked at him. “I’m sorry?”

  “Customer satisfaction survey.” There was no indication that Muñoz was anything but serious. “You don’t have to fill it in right now. You can do it later and leave it at the front desk; they’ll make sure it gets back to us.”

  “Okay.” Alex scanned down the page again. “So, what happens now?”

  “I’ll check the perimeter of the hotel and we’ll get a specialist to run a review of their security arrangements.”

  “Seriously, Officer, that seems way over the top.”

  “Maybe to you, sir,” Muñoz said soberly, “but from time to time we have some very high-status guests at the New Rose, guests whose security people take their jobs very seriously. We’ll have to report this incident to all of them.”

  Alex tipped his head to one side. “High-status like whom?”

  “I’m not allowed to say, sir.”

  “Okay.” Bemused, Alex folded the piece of paper and put it in the back pocket of his jeans.

  “Did they give you the phone?”

  “Yes, Officer Muñoz, they gave me the phone,” Alex sighed. “That’s how I get into the room.”

  The sarcasm bounced right off Muñoz. “The number for Headquarters is in the contact list. If you see or hear anything unusual, give us a call and either ask for me or Chief Rosewater.”

  “Chief Rosewater.”

  “Doesn’t matter how insignificant it seems. It could be important.”

  “Nobody told me about this when I checked in.”

  Muñoz pursed his lips. “That will have been an oversight, Mr Dolan.” He reached for the doorhandle. “Don’t forget to fill in the survey.”

  When Muñoz had gone, Alex closed and locked the door and put on the chain. He went into the kitchen. A few moments later, he came out again and dragged one of the living room armchairs across the suite to the door. By tilting it back a little he was able to wedge it under the handle. Sod fire regulations.

  He cooked himself a beef stir-fry and sat on a stool at the kitchen counter eating it. Later, he took one of the beers from the fridge and sat in front of the window again, staring out across the darkened countryside through his reflection. Presently, for something to do, he filled in Muñoz’s customer satisfaction survey.

  He woke the next morning feeling well rested but with a nagging conviction that at some point during the night he had dreamed there was someone in the suite with him.

  SHOWERED AND SHAVED and wearing some of his new clothes, he went straight past the Prairie Dining Room and out the front doors of the hotel. Forty minutes later, he was sitting in one of the booths at the Telegraph Diner regarding his breakfast.

  He’d barely started to eat when Mickey Olive came in, nodded hello, and slipped into the booth opposite him.

  “Heard you had a little excitement yesterday evening, old son,” Mickey said.

  Chewing a mouthful of bacon and eggs and hash browns, Alex blinked at him. He nodded.

  “Do us a favour and let us know if anything else happens, will you?”

  Alex swallowed. “Someone knocked on my door, Mickey. That’s all. Everyone’s behaving as if it was the third act of Die Hard.”

  “It bothered you enough to call the police,” Mickey pointed out. “Hi, Rhoda,” he added, beaming at the waitress who had materialised silently beside them. “I believe I’ll have bacon and pancakes this morning. And coffee, of course.” He looked at Alex. “You good?”

  Alex glanced down at his breakfast. “I’m good.” He had been literally tightening his belt, and he usually just had a slice of toast or—if it was a good month—a bagel for breakfast. He planned to put on a few pounds while he was there and it was on Stan’s dime.

  When Rhoda had gone back to the counter, Mickey sa
id, “Something about it bothered you enough to call the cops.”

  “I called the front desk,” Alex said. “They called the police.”

  “And quite right too. But why would you call them if it was just someone knocking on the door?”

  There were little blue sparks on the door handle. “I was twitchy, that’s all. Still a bit tired.” He put some more food in his mouth, chewed, swallowed. “The police officer said you sometimes have high-status visitors at the hotel.”

  “He did?”

  “He did.”

  They embarked on a brief staring match, which Mickey finally broke. “Yes, we do get VIPs staying there from time to time. Security’s important.”

  “VIPs?”

  “Oh,” Mickey waved it away. “People coming to visit the Facility. Scientists, senators, congressmen. The president.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. I believe you’re in the Presidential Suite, in fact.” He saw the look on Alex’s face and added, “He’s only been here a couple of times. The suite’s been sitting empty since last October; someone might as well have use of it.”

  Alex thought about it. “Well,” he said.

  “It’s got all kinds of hidden extras I’m sure no one’s told you about,” Mickey went on. “I’ll have to get the hotel to show you the briefing book; it’s rather fun.”

  “Can I launch an airstrike from there?”

  Mickey deadpanned him. “Anyway, as I said, security is important. If people are just wandering in and out and annoying the guests without the staff noticing, that’s an issue. We have to report stuff like that to the Secret Service.”

  “Good lord.”

  “What I’m really here for,” Mickey said, taking a couple of folded sheets of paper from the inside pocket of his jacket, “is to tidy up some rather tedious legal stuff regarding your visit to the Facility.” He handed the sheets over and watched Alex unfold them. “Bullet points, you won’t be allowed to write or speak about anything connected with the Facility until you sign a formal contract with us. Basically, if you want to see The Beast you’ll have to sign this, and if you subsequently decide not to come on board and go away and write something about it anyway we’ll pursue you and your extended family through the courts for the rest of your lives, kill your pets, kill your friends’ pets, demolish your home and plough salt into the ground where it stood so nothing will ever grow there again.” He smiled happily. “What do you say?”

  “I think it’s a remarkable work of compression,” Alex said, holding up the two closely printed pages. “In the hands of a lesser attorney this thing would run to almost a hundred pages.”

  Mickey inclined his head. “Concision is a wonderful thing, Alex. There should be more of it. Would you like to borrow a pen?”

  “It’s okay, I have one.” Alex read the agreement one last time to make sure he wasn’t signing himself, his mother, his sister and his cousins into a lifetime of indentured servitude. Then he flattened the document on the table beside his plate and signed where indicated.

  “Don’t get grease on it, there’s a good chap,” Mickey advised. “We’ll only have to do it again.”

  “Does grease make it null and void?” Alex asked, folding the sheets up again and handing them back.

  “Nah,” he said, slipping them back into his jacket. “Just makes it look unprofessional.” Rhoda returned with a plate bearing a two-inch stack of pancakes and several rashers of crispy bacon and Mickey sat looking at it solemnly. “I can feel my arteries closing up already,” he said.

  “What are you doing here, Mickey?”

  He looked up. “Breakfast.”

  “No, here. Claytonland. I never saw a man who looked further from home.”

  “Oh.” He unwrapped his knife and fork, settled the napkin in his lap. “That. Well, I was a barrister back home.” He drizzled maple syrup onto the pancakes. “I was doing all right, had a nice house, interesting work. And then…” He paused and looked off into a distance far beyond the end wall of the diner, the little syrup jug still in his hand. His silence lasted so long that Alex started to fear he’d suffered a stroke or something, but then his eyes focused again and he went on, “I had a bit of a mid-life crisis, I suppose. Stan Clayton got in touch one day, just out of the blue, and suddenly everything was so much… more.” He looked at Alex and shrugged. “I don’t suppose that makes much sense,” he said apologetically.

  It not only made sense, it sounded familiar. Alex said, “He’s done the same thing with me.”

  “If you’re thinking this whole thing is just a rich man’s toy, don’t,” Mickey said solemnly. Alex didn’t try to deny it. “This is serious science, genuine fundamentals of the cosmos stuff. When they get The Beast working it could change everything.”

  “If, Mickey. If.”

  “Well, indeed.” He busied himself with his breakfast for a little while, then said, “It’s a nice town, isn’t it.”

  “Yes,” Alex said. “Almost everyone has been telling me how nice it is.”

  Mickey glanced at him, fork loaded with pancake and bacon. “‘Almost’? Oh. Yes, I heard you’d been chatting with our friendly local newspaper editor. How is Dru? I haven’t seen her for a couple of weeks.”

  “Have you been keeping tabs on me?”

  “Of course not, old son. Someone just mentioned they’d seen you in town, that’s all.”

  That could have been anyone. “Dru told me how you rebuilt the place.”

  “Ah, now that was before my time, I’m afraid.” Mickey sat back and took a sip of coffee. “I’ve seen the ‘before’ photos, though. It wasn’t very pretty.”

  “If I tell you something, will it eventually find its way back to Stan?”

  Mickey went back to working on his breakfast. “Not if you don’t want it to, no.”

  “Seriously?”

  “He’s my employer, not my owner.”

  Alex leaned his elbows on the table and said more quietly, “I really don’t like what you’ve done here.”

  Mickey looked at him, glanced around the diner. “What have I done?”

  “Not you personally. Stan.”

  “Oh.” He went back to his food. “How so?”

  “You’ve bought this county and everyone in it, and they’re happy about it.”

  “It’s an arrangement of mutual benefit,” Mickey agreed around a mouthful of pancake and bacon. “Don’t quite see your problem.”

  “Mickey, I’m going to have to write about that.”

  He started to say something, thought better of it and put another forkful of breakfast in his mouth instead.

  “Have you any idea what that will look like to, you know, normal people?”

  He sat back, chewing, then took another swallow of coffee. “We don’t have copy approval?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve been promised complete independence but I haven’t seen a contract yet.”

  Mickey thought about it. “I’ve seen it,” he said. “Can’t remember a clause about copy approval, though, now you mention it. Which seems a schoolboy error.” He grinned. “Have to rectify that.” When Alex didn’t answer, he added, “This is a nice town, Alex. Everyone loves us.”

  “They don’t have any choice.”

  “Oh come on now.” Micky looked mildly disappointed. “Don’t be like that.”

  Alex sat back and crossed his arms. “So, what happens now?”

  Mickey gave him that disappointed look for a few moments more, then decided to park that part of the conversation and said, “A car will come and pick you up from the hotel tomorrow morning. It might be good not to be late; Professor Delahaye doesn’t like to be kept waiting. He’ll give you a tour of the Facility.” He thought about it. “Well, he’ll probably hand you over to one of his assistants, but that’s the Professor. I think they’ll probably lay on a lunch for you.”

  “And then I can go home?”

  That disappointed look again. “You can go now; you’re not being held against
your will. Give me a few hours to have the jet ready and you can be home by suppertime.” He drank some coffee, returned his mug to the table. “Of course, if you do that you’ll never get to see The Beast.” He dabbed his lips with his napkin and dropped it beside his plate. “But you should go to the Facility. The food’s terrific; they have a Michelin-starred chef.”

  Of course they did. Nothing but the best for Stan’s Cosmic Warriors. “I think I’m the wrong person for this job.”

  “Stan speaks very highly of you. I’m afraid I haven’t read your work yet, but I’ll get round to it.”

  “That’s not the point, Mickey. I’m not going to be able to do the job Stan wants me to do.”

  Mickey sighed. “You know, it’s not my job to talk you into taking up the offer; I’m just here to handle admin. But between you and me, there are worse places to be.”

  ON THE WAY back to the hotel, he stopped off at Stockmann and bought a couple of notebooks and a pack of cheap ballpoint pens, then he spent most of the day sitting in the armchair at the window trying to put his impressions of Sioux Crossing into order. He told himself he wasn’t working, that he was just noting down the pros and cons of taking the job, but by lunchtime he’d half filled one of the notebooks and he was no closer to working out what to do.

  For lunch, he made himself a bacon sandwich, and when he’d finished that he stood at the window with his hands in his pockets. After a while, he took out the bunch of keys Mickey had given him and weighed them in his palm.

  AT THE FRONT desk, Grace provided him with paper maps of the town and the county. When she discovered where he was planning to go, she wanted to organise a cab. “It’s a bit off the beaten track,” she told him. “Hard to find, if you don’t know your way around.”

  “I’ll be fine,” he said, looking at the maps. “It doesn’t look so hard.”

  But, of course, it was. Following the maps and Dru Winslow’s directions, he walked away from the town. The day was cool and overcast and there was no sense of that impossibly huge sky hanging over him. Not far from the hotel, the houses and buildings thinned out and the road gently undulated away into a vanishing point. He could hear tractors in the distance in the fields on either side, and from somewhere the breeze brought the smell of manure.