"Oliver, this is no time for fooling around," Joey warned him as Oliver stepped forward with the gun pointed directly at his head.
"I'm serious, I'll use it," Oliver said, tensing his index finger on the trigger.
Joey saw how her hands were shaking. Then he studied his eyes. impassive. Still and dark. Oliver wasn't kidding.
"Joey, what's going on?" Noreen asked through her headset.
—. Are they? Do you want me to notify someone?
"Don't…" Joey warned. Oliver turned away and Noreen stopped talking.
"You'll only infect the wound," Joey added.
"Charlie, get out of the way!" Oliver exclaimed.
Charlie jumped back.
Joey carefully watched the whole scene. He now knew which of the two he should focus on.
"Oliver..." he began to say. Let me help you out of this...
-Drop your weapon! he interrupted her Oliver— He throws her to the ceiling.
This time, Joey didn't move.
"I said throw the gun at the ceiling! Oliver insisted, his hand finally stilling.
Charlie watched his brother without opening his mouth. Just like Joey. Two days ago she didn't think Oliver Caruso had what it takes. She today she was no longer so sure of it. Joey glanced up at the club's roof and prepared to throw the gun.
"I'm warning you, it's likely to go off."
"I'll take that risk," Oliver replied.
With a smooth movement, Joey tossed her father's small revolver over the edge of the roof. He went down with a thud, but didn't go off.
Behind Oliver, a car horn honked twice. Through the slats of the wooden fence that ran around the entire perimeter of the pool, Joey caught a glimpse of Gillian's sky-blue beetle making its way toward the revolving gate that led into the parking lot of the residential complex.
Oliver didn't need to say anything. Charlie broke into a run.
Joey studied Oliver's expression.
Looking for a weak point. But after all this time her chasing him, she already knew him.
"The more you run, the less chance you have of getting your old life back.
To her surprise, Oliver showed no reaction. He just watched as Charlie ran to the car. The instant her brother was over the fence, Oliver looked back at Joey.
"I advise you to stay away from us," she warned him.
As he sped away in the direction of the blue car he kept pointing his gun at her. And before Joey could react, the car door slammed shut, tires screeched, and Oliver, Charlie, and Gillian sped away.
"Joey, are you alright?" Noreen interrupted through her headset.
Ignoring the question, Joey started running toward the opening in the fence.
-Shit! he yelled as he watched Gillian's car bounce off the concrete speed bumps in the parking lot and finally gain the street. Joey bolted for her car, which was double-parked in front of the main building. But just as he turned the corner he discovered the flat tires on the rear wheels.
"Shit, I'm screwed," he muttered to himself. Noreen, call triple A right now.
-Right now.
"And a millisecond after you've spoken to them, I want you to start investigating…
"…Rooster and DeSanctis. I'm already on it," Noreen explained. I started the moment Charlie called her name.
"And what do you think of her reaction when I mentioned Lapidus?" Joey asked.
-Don't know. Only silence was heard.
"You should have seen the look on his face."
"Okay, I'll take a look at Lapidus too. By the way, did you know that the offices of the last job Martin Duckworth had are only twenty minutes away?
"Wonderful, that's what I want to hear," Joey said as he ran back into the club to retrieve his revolver from the ceiling. And what about his daughter? Any information about her?
"See, Joey, that's what doesn't make sense," Noreen replied. While you've been dealing with the Wonder Twins, I've been digging through the Duckworth family's birth certificates, driver's licenses, even tax returns. I'm not sure what Charlie was talking about, but according to all the information I could gather, Marty Duckworth doesn't have a daughter.
-As you say?
"Just like I told you, Joey. I've checked it a dozen times. According to all government and private databases, Gillian Duckworth simply doesn't exist.
"Brandt! How are you, old bastard? Gallo exclaimed, his wide smile showing the brand new break in a front tooth.
"Jimmy boy!" Katkin said, wrapping Gallo in a bear hug. As she led him and DeSanctis to his office in Five Points Capital, Katkin asked. What brought your fat ass down south?
Gallo looked at DeSanctis and then back at Katkin.
"Do you mind if I close the door, Brandt?"
Katkin stared at his friend.
"If this has to do with Duckworth..."
"So they've already been here?"
"Those two guys with dyed hair?" At first hour of the morning. I tell you, I knew something was wrong. So when I got your call...
"Was there anyone else with them?" DeSanctis interrupted.
"You mean apart from the daughter?"
Again, Gallo looked at his companion.
"What did she say?" he asked Katkin.
-Not much. The dark-haired boy spent most of his time trying to get me out. All the daughter did was sit still. She is very pretty, by the way; curly hair, unkempt appearance, but with fire in his eyes. She was watching me like a cat, you know what I mean? There was no one like her daddy. Why, do you think she's onto something?
"That's precisely what we're trying to find out," Gallo explained. Three days ago, an account in the name of Duckworth disappeared from a New York bank. Now, this... this daughter will have to answer some questions.
"Do you have any idea where they might have gone?" DeSanctis asked. Any other contact you may have regarding Duckworth?
Katkin walked over to his desk and consulted the database on his computer.
—The only thing I have here is his home address and some old work addresses...
"Neowerks," Gallo interrupted. That's right, I almost forgot about that job...
Freeway traffic before rush hour is light and the midday sun shines in a cloudless sky as Charlie, Gillian and I travel the wide open lanes of I-95. But even with the engine running at full throttle and the radio tuned to the local pop station, the inside of the car is too quiet a place. During the twenty minutes it took us to get from Grandma's condominium to Broward Boulevard, no one.
"Not Charlie, not Gillian, not me," he utters a single syllable.
From the jacket pocket I take out the strip of photographs again. The white edges of the paper are beginning to curl, and for the first time, I wonder if these people are real. Perhaps that is the reason why it is a color photocopy. Perhaps the photographs are manipulated. Fake identity documents to complete the disguise. I carefully examine the four faces resting on my lap. I change the redhead for blonde; the black man for a white one. But, to me, they are still complete strangers. They were important enough to Duckworth to keep in his best hiding place. And while we're still not sure if they're friends or enemies, one thing is absolutely clear: if we can't figure out who they are and why they knew Duckworth, this journey is going to get a whole lot more uncomfortable.
"Here we go," Gillian says, finally breaking the silence as she points to the exit ramp. We're almost there.
I lower the sun visor on the passenger seat and watch Charlie in the mirror.
In the back seat, he doesn't even look up. Three days ago he would have been doodling in his notebook, feeding on adrenaline and turning every embarrassing moment into verses, verses, and if we were lucky, maybe even a full ballad. "Stealing from reality," he used to say with typical adolescent swagger. But despite all his bravado, Charlie doesn't like danger. Or the risk. And right now the problem is that he's finally starting to figure it out.
"It's not bad to be scared," I tell him.
"I'm not scared," he says harshly. But I see the reflection of him in the mirror. His eyes land on his lap. For twenty-three years he hasn't done anything very special: live at home, drop out of Fine Arts school, refuse to join a band...even take the job at the bank file. Charlie has always cultivated the image of being a carefree boy. But, as we both learned from our father, there's a fine line between being a carefree spirit and being afraid of failure.
"It should only be a couple of blocks away," Gillian says, quickly interjecting.
Like Charlie, she addresses me with a short, concise sentence. I'm not sure if it's because of our lie about the money, the loss of his father, or just shock from Gallo and DeSanctis's attack, but whatever the reason, as he clenches his fists on the wheel, his childlike aura is finally beginning to fade. Like us, she knows that she has jumped onto another sinking ship, and unless we catch our breath soon, the three of us will go down with it.
"There he is she," she announces as she turns right into the parking lot. The sun bounces off the glass facade of the four-story building, but the yellow and purple sign above the front door says it all: Neowerks Software.
"So you're Ducky's daughter?" a shaggy-haired man in wire-rimmed glasses croons as he squeezes Gillian's hand warmly in his. Dressed in a roomy blue robe, wrinkle-resistant khakis, and leather sandals with socks, he's exactly what you'd think he'd get by mating a fifty-something millionaire from Palm Beach with a college teaching assistant from Berkeley. But he's also the only guy to show up in the lobby when we asked if we could talk to one of Martin Duckworth's old colleagues. So your name is Gillian, right? he asks for the third time. God, I didn't even know he had a daughter.
Gillian nods sheepishly, while Charlie shoots me a quick look. I raise my shield and let it bounce off my armor. After everything Gillian has done—everything she's risked—I don't have the heart to play Charlie's trivial games.
"If she wanted to give us up, she could have done it calmly when we were at her grandmother's apartments and at her house," I let her know with a withering look.
"Not until she's gotten her money," Charlie replies with another look.
"And you are also friends?" Shaggy Hair interrupts.
"Yes…yes," I say, holding out my hand for the man to repeat the gesture of clasping it in both of his. Walter Harvey," I say, about to forget my fake name. I lower my voice so no one else will hear me but I catch a glimpse of the dark-haired secretary who is looking at me from the shiny black Star Trek reception desk. The woman looks down at the magazine she's flipping through again, but the gesture doesn't help her feel any better. The entire lobby, with its space-age chrome armchairs and low silver amoeba-shaped table, is so cold it only feeds the panic factor.
—. And this is Sonny Rollins," I add, pointing at Charlie.
"Alec Truman," the man says, excited to introduce himself. Sonny Rollins huh? Like the jazz guy.
"Right," Charlie says, already chickened out. As the.
"Listen, Mr. Truman," Gillian says. I really appreciate you taking the time to...
"It's an honor for me... it's an honor," he insists. I repeat that we still miss him here. I'm only sorry I can't stay longer, I'm right in the middle of this hunt for microphones and...
"Actually, we just wanted to ask you we had a question and we were hoping he could help us," he interrupted. I reach into my jacket pocket and pull out the strip of photographs again. If these snapshots are from people who helped Duckworth on his original invention, we hope this is the guy who can give us an answer. Do any of these people look familiar to you? I ask Truman.
His face lights up like a kid eating crayons.
"I know that one," he says, pointing to the older, gray-haired man in the first photograph. Arthur Stoughton. Seeing the confused expression on our faces, he adds. He was with us at Imagineering; now he runs his own group on the Internet.
"So you were at Disney, too?" Gillian asks.
"How do you think I met your father?" Truman says mockingly. When your father left and came here, I followed in his footsteps two years later. He was in the front line: the first to arrive, the lowest paid.
'And what about this fellow, Stoughton?' I ask, pointing to the photo-. Did they all work together? "With Stoughton?" Truman laughs. We weren't that lucky... No, he was the old Vice President of Imagineering; even before he went to Disney.com, Stoughton had no time for foot soldiers like us. As he utters the last words, he realizes what he has said and looks at Gillian. I'm sorry...I didn't mean to...your dad was a great guy, but they never gave us a chance to...
"Okay…no problem," Gillian says, refusing to change the subject.
"What about the other people in the photographs?" Charlie asks.
Truman examines them carefully.
—Sorry, they are strangers to me.
"Are you Disney people?" -asked. "Or from this area?" Charlie adds. "Or are they guys from the that my father was a friend? Gillian insists.
Truman recoils from the battery of questions; he seems to be about to say something...then he falters. He starts to walk away and adds.
"I really have to go..."
-Wait! Gillian and I yelled in unison.
Truman freezes. None of us move. That's all. Truman is officially censored.
"I'm glad I met you," he says, handing the photos back to me.
"Please," Gillian begs. Her voice shakes; She reaches out and grabs his wrist. We found the photos in one of Dad's drawers…and now that he's dead…we just want to know who these people are…" Letting the thought sink in deeply, he adds. That's all we have.
Truman looks at Charlie, then at me and is dying to get the hell out of there. But when he looks down at Gillian's hand clamping onto her wrist…when her eyes meet hers…even he can't help it.
"If you wait here a moment, maybe I can take the photos inside and see if anyone knows the other three."
"Perfect…that would be perfect," Gillian says.
With the strip of photos in hand and the promise that he'll return them in a few minutes, Truman heads to the main entrance behind the receptionist's desk. Feel tempted to follow him, that is, until I discover the keypad on the security panel that is obviously designed so we can't get inside. It's similar to what they have at Five Points, except here, too, they have a digital screen—like a miniature TV—mounted on the wall above the keyboard. As Truman approaches the door, the screen begins to flicker and nine small blue boxes appear like a telephone keypad. But instead of numbers, each of the boxes contains a human face, making it look like the opening credits for The Brady Family. Even though Truman's shoulder blocks our line of sight, we can still see the reflection in the shiny black walls.
Touching the screen with his index finger, Truman selects the face that appears in the lower right box. The square lights up, the nine faces disappear, and just as quickly their places are taken by an equal number of new faces. As if he were entering the password for an alarm, Truman touches the digital screen and selects the face of an Asian woman in the upper left. Again, the faces disappear; again, nine different faces take their places.
"Looks like they've got the whole Buck Rogers set up here, right?" Charlie says.
"He says it because of this?" Truman asks, laughing and pointing at the screen. The next few years Contrarrostros will be able to be seen everywhere.
"Counterfaces?"
"Do you ever forget your secret ATM number at his bank?" -ask-. Never more. There is a reason why people do not forget a face, it is something that is fixed in us from birth. It's what allows us to recognize our parents and even friends we haven't seen for twenty years. Now, instead of a randomly chosen number code, you are given randomly chosen faces of unknown people. Combine that with a graphic cover and you have the only password that includes all ages, all languages and all cultural levels. "Global authentication", that's what they call it. Let's see if your code with the secret number is capable of doing that.
Touching the center square, Truman selects one last face. The square in which a blonde woman appears flashes on and off quickly. The mag locks buzz, the door opens, and Truman walks into the building, carrying our photos...
A surge of adrenaline heats my cheeks. I can't believe it. That's all.
"Did you say that Stoughton still works at Disney.com?" I ask him as he walks away.
"I think so," Truman says. Although you can also check it on the website. Why does he ask him?
"No… not at all," I reply. Just curious.
The door slams shut and Truman disappears. Charlie is still missing, but the more I look at the touch screen...
"Son of a bitch," Charlie mutters.
Gillian's jaw drops and we're officially on the bike for three.
-Do you think that...?
"Of course," Charlie mutters.
I can't help but smile.
All this time we've been looking at the inverted inkblot. As Charlie said when we were coming back from Five Points: You don't keep what will get you in trouble, you keep what you want to protect. Like the combination of your bike lock. When I was in eighth grade and Charlie was in fourth, I used to keep my combination in his backpack; he kept it in my wallet with Velero. Now it is no different. We both thought the key was to find out who the faces in the photographs belonged to; it is clear that the faces Literally. Forget chosen strangers random; people I knew.
Charlie is so turned on that he has even stopped looking at Gillian. She rocks back on her heels. Come on, he says with a slight nod.
"As soon as Truman returns with the photographs," I reply in kind.
"Sorry to interrupt," I say to the receptionist, and the woman looks away from the magazine, "but does she have any idea where we can find Internet access?"