It was hot for October; ninety seven degrees. But after three months above a hundred and five he, like pretty much everyone else in the valley, had had the discomfort cooked right out of him. Hell, ninety seven felt almost pleasant.

Phoenix felt like too open a city, too flat. There was too much room, too much visibility. The roads were wide in the heart of downtown, an area that, in most cities, would be filled with a million suited businesspeople, packed together as tightly as the premium real estate would bear and spinning the wheel of industry together. And because of the unrestricted terrain of the open Arizona desert allowed Phoenix to the luxury to grow as far to the horizon as the free enterprise system would take it, Reid felt exposed and conspicuous.

He almost lost Noel’s car three times, only to find her for the last time parked in front of the Dial building on Central Avenue.

The building was a two hundred foot copper tower with a curved roofline. Reid watched Noel from a distance as she sidled out of the car and walked into the building’s lobby. She wore a wig and oversized sunglasses. No, not sunglasses; the lenses were clear. Which was odd, he though -- Noel had perfect vision.

The building had many tenants. Reid would never know which one Noel intended to visit unless he got closer.
He entered then immediately crossed the lobby, stopping at a directory in front of the elevator banks, trying to find any company name that made sense when he saw her, right in the lobby standing with her back to him through the tall glass doors of Pacific National Bank.

She was in calm conversation with the teller and seemed to be signing something. On the Formica countertop in front of her she had set a small stack of papers. Or envelopes -- he couldn’t tell.

Reid leaned against the table and tried to look as casual as possible. He strained his neck around to see Noel, paper and what looked like a small jewelry box in her hands.

Personal items?

Momentos?

The one conversation Reid and Noel never seem to have is the one where she tells him about her past, about growing up, about her family. The most of a life story he’d ever received was ‘I grew up in South America until my father brought us to the States’ and the more recent short story about leaving her mistake of a husband. Then she’d always turn the conversation away from the past.

The teller led Noel across the bank through a thigh-high gate and into the vault. Safety deposit box?
He briefly thought about going into the bank again and trying to see the box number. Then maybe he could con the bank into giving him access; say he was a relative, a lawyer. Draft up some phony legal document. But he couldn’t risk her knowing he’d followed her, not until he knew what was going on. What would she need to keep such a secret? What was going on in her life that she had to keep secrets? Was it her past?

He looked up to see the guard staring his way. He smiled back and walked out of the building. There was one possible reason he could think of why she would be hiding some part of life from him. Was she in contact with Christian Jones? Was she running some kind of game on him?

* * * * *

Posted by Steve Medcroft at 04:47 PM | Permalink

Reid adjusted the thermostat down five degrees and waited as a fresh rush of conditioned air dried the sweat on his skin. He then pulled a chair up to his computer desk.

He’d been working on a new program. A role-playing game this time. He called it ‘Natural Elements.’ A player was presented with fictional scenarios involving some form of drastic, natural disaster. In one, the player started in a small mountainside village above which a volcano has erupted. The player then has thirty minutes before a wave of pyroclastic flow envelops the ground they stand on. The player has tools at his disposal and must create shelter or a means to escape in enough time to avoid death. The object of the game was to survive. And think survival through. If, for example, a player chose to create a shelter but neglected to store food and water, they would die of dehydration and starvation even if their shelter withstood the volcano’s flow.

Fundamentally, the game challenged a player’s ability to master their environment and control a number of elements at once. Reid built in as much challenge as possible. In the avalanche module for example, the player who couldn’t escape the avalanche had eleven minutes to guide rescuers to their location using only what they had been buried with from beneath the crushing snow.

Doing the work wasn’t necessary. Creating the software had little to do with gaming or selling it commercially. Reid just wanted the mental exercise of being able to figure out how to make a computer do his bidding, to try new lines of code, new programming tools, deeper threads of code.

He could hear Noel move in the room above the den as he leaned back in his chair to pull all the liquid he could from the bottom of a can of Diet Coke. He was satisfied with the subroutine he had just coded. It looked spectacular on the screen, aesthetic and tight, just as code should. He would compile and debug the routine later; hearing Noel reminded him of something he needed to do.

He reached for the house phone to call for food but changed plans as soon as he heard the stuttered dial tone. The voice mail box had a message. Unusual, he thought. Almost no one had the number. Clients called though a forwarded line he’d set up that rang to a pager he carried. His very narrow personal sphere of friends and family only had his cell phone number. He had never given this number to anyone.

He dialed his voice mail access number and listened:

“Ms. Brantly. This is Constance Widowmaker at American National in Grand Cayman. I’m calling as a matter of courtesy, a security measure really. It’s standard policy to inform all account holders of unauthorized inquires into their accounts. I just received a phone call from a Christian Jones about your account. Said he was your husband but since no-one is listed on your account, he was given no information or access to the account of course so you need not worry. And if you have any questions at all you can feel free to call me at our toll-free service number and ask for me by name or ask for extension three three two nine. I’ll be on shift until nine Pacific Time. Thank you.”

Christian Jones was the man Noel had run away from; the abusive ex husband. Son of a bitch, Reid thought. How did this happen? He racked his brain. According to Noel she hadn’t had contact with Christian Jones in almost a year. They had been careful together to not leave a public trace of her in any legal document. She wasn’t on the lease, his bank account, registration of the car, utility billing records. Nothing. Reid was sure there was no trace to lead Christian back to them.

Or was there? Was it a coincidence that Noel’s speech about their non-future together and this voice mail had come within forty-eight hours of each other?

He could sense her more than hear Noel come into the room behind him. He deleted the message and set the phone gently back into its cradle.

“Good morning,” she said softly.

He turned, pretending to be just then noticing. “Hey, you’re up.”

She smiled and leaned against the door frame. “Don’t let me bother you at your work. I’m heading out for some air and to run some errands.”

“No problem.” He listened to her walk through the house to their garage.

*****

Reid ripped the dust and rain streaked tarp off his motorcycle. It hadn’t been ridden in more than four months. He hadn’t needed it. And since Noel had paid no real attention to it, he figured it would be the most inconspicuous way to follow her.

He grabbed the helmet that was hanging off the right rear view mirror and pulled it over his head. He choked on the dust and hoped to God that a scorpion or black widow spider hadn’t decided his helmet would make a nice condominium for her next three thousand children.

He slid the key was in the ignition and when he pressed the starter, the engine purred to life immediately.

He rocked the bike back then forward off the kickstand. It jumped a little quicker than he’d expected as he let the clutch out and he jammed the brake as he nudged it through the gate and rolled down the driveway.

When she left a few moments before, he saw that she went west. Running a red light, he rode on to the next intersection, a stop sign, and paused. Which way now? To the right lay the easiest way to the freeways that led North to Scottsdale. A turn to the left would take her downtown.

Then he saw the flash of familiar brake lights in the distance directly ahead.

He rode closer and saw that she had pulled into a strip mall parking lot. She was fussing with something in the car. She ran a hand through her hair, pushing strands of it out of her face. Her head was down. She seemed to be focused on something in her lap. Or maybe writing. Or maybe digging in a bag.
What was she doing?

When she dared to move again, Reid could see that there was something different about her hair. It was tighter and darker than when she’d left the house moments before.

He pulled into traffic several cars behind her.

* * * * *

Posted by Steve Medcroft at 06:10 PM | Permalink