Drop by Drop

11

“I had the best reason in the world to come back to Sycamore River,” Lila told Tilbury, “at least I thought I did. I was going to make a dream come true.” She hesitated, deciding how much to reveal. “After I dropped out of school…”

“How old were you when you did that?”

“Eleven.”

“Was school too hard?”

“No, it was too easy, Edgar; I was bored out of my skull.” Talking was getting easier for Lila by the minute. Perhaps it was the warmth of the whiskey in her veins; perhaps it was the need to let go after all this time. All the trouble, all the pain.

“My mother didn’t care what I did, she had her, ah, men friends. Sometimes I crossed the bridge and wandered around on the south side. We always lived in cheap furnished rooms and those houses looked like palaces to me. Real homes with a mother and one father instead of a parade of dirty uncles. My favorite was one with a tile roof and blue shutters, and window boxes full of flowers that were changed with the seasons. There was a doghouse in the yard that was an exact replica of it, complete with the shutters and window boxes. I used to imagine living in that little doghouse.”

“Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?”

“It was part of what I was running away from. When I had your money—it seemed like a fortune to me at the time—I decided to use it for the one thing I could change: myself. I hitched a ride to New York, checked into a small hotel under a different name and began studying.

“In school I hadn’t bothered to learn much, but if you want to teach yourself the place to go is the New York Public Library. I read up on all the things that interested me. And I sought out people I could learn from. New York’s great for that too. I went to the best places and began rubbing shoulders with the best people. In Manhattan almost everyone’s from somewhere else; they’re not interested in your past, only in today and tomorrow.

“I was pretty spectacular, you should have seen me at my best. I learned to dress like a fashion model and talk like a university graduate. And eventually I hooked up with a rogue in the IT industry who showed me how easy it was to get my hands on other people’s money.

“I discovered I was magic on a computer. I could uncover personal secrets and private financial data and siphon money out of any bank that wasn’t adequately protected. There are still more of them than you’d think, Edgar, both foreign and American. That’s why it’s so hard to prevent cyber crime.

“In a cashless society with instant real-time money transfers wealth can be accessed across multiple platforms. There used to be a saying: ‘If you have a smartphone you have a bank.’ With the newest AllComs that’s more true than ever. In a single day I could transfer a fortune to an offshore account, exchange it for dollars if necessary, then transfer it again and again until it was untraceable. All the money I could ever want, right at my fingertips, accessed while I was wearing my pajamas and calling up room service.

“I could even come back to Sycamore River and buy the house with blue shutters. People will forgive and forget anything if you have enough money. So I stored what I needed in the best AllCom on the market and caught the train, ready to begin a new life.

“But nothing ever turns out the way you expect, does it?”

Her expression hardened. The green eyes were as opaque as glass. “The day after I arrived I went on one of those southside walks again. The houses I remembered are still there, but now there’s bloody war in every one of them. When I looked through the windows I saw men and women—and children too—hypnotized by their wallscreens, watching people slaughter each other as if it were some kind of game show. And for what? No one wins. The junk people snort up their noses or inject into their veins is a minor poison; killing is a worldwide addiction.

“And to make matters worse, the crowning insult, Edgar; my irreplaceable AllCom with all the information in it doesn’t work anymore. Now you know why I’m so upset.”

“If the tools of modern technology are failing, a hell of a lot of people are going to be upset,” he replied, “because they’ve put their faith in it. But the more complicated something is the more can go wrong. That’s why I like to keep things simple.”

He was wondering if the story she had just told him was as simple as it sounded.

By her own admission the girl—woman now—was far from honest. But her tale was intriguing to a man who loved a good story. She might be telling the absolute truth, but she also might have shaped her narrative to extract the last drop of sympathy from him. Acting was an innate ability. It could be developed and honed, but the best actors believed every word they said—while they were saying them. Working out of a backstory that was temporarily their reality.

“What are you going to do now, Lila?”

“I honestly don’t know.”

“You have a place to stay?”

“I do for a while; I’m not going to ask you to put me up again.”

Their eyes met. They understood one another completely. “I’m not offering,” he said bluntly. “But you can come back for a visit. I’ve got a real good workshop here; I’m not the techie you are, but maybe between us we could fix that AllCom of yours.

“Now, let’s have a meal and then I’ll take you back to wherever you live.”

Jack Reece continued to monitor the progression of the Change. It was becoming more difficult as the vast network created for and sustained by the computer started a slide toward extinction. Electrical power in the national grid was undiminished, but the necessary portals, due to their vulnerable components, had begun to disintegrate.

According to the news it was happening all around the globe. Governments were growing frantic as they realized the implications for civil society and military might.

Yet it was the small details, not the big picture, that seemed to upset people the most.

Bea Fontaine stood in her bedroom doorway almost in tears. “My nylons, Jack! They’ve turned into soggy tatters. I can’t possibly wear them to the bank in the morning and the Old… Mr. Staunton is very firm about—”

“The bank’s going to be open tomorrow?”

“And every working day, he’s firm about that too.”

“Do you have any makeup? Fake tan, that sort of thing?”

She was insulted. “I never wear fake tan.”

“I’ll drive down to the drugstore and buy some. You can spread it on your legs in the morning and he’ll never know the difference.”

“You’ve been my problem solver since you were a boy,” she said with a smile. “But I don’t understand about my nylons.”

“Nylon is a synthetic material, Aunt Bea, made of polyamides that have a high molecular weight and can be turned into a fiber. It was developed in the 1930s, I think; before that women must have worn cotton or silk stockings.”

“Silk?” Her eyes lit up.

“If the Change is starting on nylon I’ll buy you silk,” Jack promised. “In the meantime I’m on my way to the drugstore.”

As he backed his Mustang out of the two-car garage behind Bea’s house, she watched from the front porch. “One of your tires looks low,” she called to him.

Jack stopped the car and got out. If the tire on the driver’s side was low it was only minimal. He gave it a hard kick.

“Son of a damned bitch!”

He drove to the drugstore very carefully, bought the fake tan and delivered it to his aunt, then drove with even greater care across the bridge to the north side.

When Jack was away for any substantial period of time he left the Mustang with Bud Moriarty, a gentle giant of a man who owned an automotive garage on the north side. Like Jack, Bud was a classic car enthusiast; the two had met at a vintage car show. Bud kept Jack’s convertible in top condition until its owner returned.

Bud shared a house with Lacey Strawbridge, a former runway model going to seed. She claimed to have been a cover girl on the top fashion magazines. When Jack’s car pulled up in front of their house Lacey came running out to meet him, shrugging into a white cotton cardigan to hide the slackness of her upper arms. “Jack Reece, you devil, are you leaving us so soon?”

“Not for a while. But I need to have a talk with Bud; is he inside?”

“He’s down at the garage. Wait and I’ll ring him.”

“Is your AllCom okay?”

“Why shouldn’t it be?”

Jack followed her into the house and waited while she rang the garage. The case of her AllCom was dull from long use, but the call went through immediately. After a minute’s wait Bud Moriarty’s blunt features, smeared with grease, appeared on the screen. “Sorry about that, Jack, I was down in the pit. What can I do you for?”

“There’s something I want to show you. Are you coming back this way?”

“In half an… no, I can come back right now. It’s almost lunchtime.”

“We’re having Chinese dumplings,” Lacey told Jack. “Do stay, they’re almost as good as sex.”

Jack raised an eyebrow.

“I said almost.”

Jack grinned. “You should try it with a man.”

She stuck out her tongue at him.

Her relationship with Bud contained everything a marriage should—except sex. They were a fond pair but not a couple. Bud was interested in men. Lacey preferred women.

Asexual intimacy baffled Jack. For him any relationship with a woman—except for his aunt Bea—contained at least an awareness of sexual tension. The only time he broached the subject with Bud the other man had laughed. “If you leave sex out of the equation a woman can be your best friend.”

The three ate their meal on a wooden picnic table in the backyard, with paper napkins on their laps. Bud’s house was close enough to the river for a summer breeze to lessen the heat, but it was also convenient for mosquitoes. Although the air was thick with citronella, soon tiny dive bombers were attacking.

Jack slapped at his neck and arms. “Why in hell do you live here, Bud?”

“Cheaper property prices and lower taxes. I bought this place and the garage down the street for less than I would have paid for a house alone on the south side. There are a few inconveniences but nothing we can’t put up with.”

Lacey added with a wink, “At least we have a wooden toilet seat.”

When the meal was finished Jack led the way to the gleaming red Mustang waiting at the curb, looking almost as perfect as when it left the dealer’s showroom many years before.

“You put a set of brand-new tires on this for me,” Jack said to Bud.

“Yeah, a couple of months ago.”

“Pick one.”

“What do you mean?”

“Pick any tire you like, and kick it hard.”

Puzzled, Bud swung his foot and delivered the requested blow to a front tire.

The rubber was mushy.

Bewilderment was replaced by dismay. “Don’t tell me they’re all like that, Jack!”

“They are.” There was a subtle change in Jack’s voice; an edge that had not been there before. “Did you put synthetic rubber on my car?”

“It’s just as good; even better,” Bud said defensively. “Synthetic can wear longer.”

“The invoice I paid specified premium high-performance rubber.”

“Yeah, well… I mean…”

“Natural rubber,” Jack continued in the tone Bea would have recognized as his lecturing voice, “is obtained by tapping rubber trees and using chemicals to coagulate the liquid into latex.”

“But—”

Jack was relentless. “Natural rubber is resistant to heat buildup, which makes it invaluable for high-performance tires on racing cars, not to mention trucks and buses and airplanes. On the other hand, synthetic rubber is derived from petroleum and alcohol and is a helluva lot cheaper, so it’s used on ordinary cars. But my Mustang’s special. Did I ever tell you I wanted to do things on the cheap for it, Bud?”

“No, but—”

“Stop right there. ‘No’ was the correct answer.”

“I’ve always taken good care of your car, haven’t I? When that drunk ran into you and we had to replace the door I couldn’t find an original anywhere, but I had an exact duplicate made. You didn’t say anything at the time.”

“You didn’t tell me it was a substitute. And don’t look so worried, we’re still friends. Except now I know I need to keep an eye on you.” Jack flashed his sudden dazzling grin—which did not totally reassure Bud Moriarty. “Unless I miss my guess, soon you’re going to see a lot of unhappy people complaining about their tires. Synthetic rubber contains petrocarbons.”

“I’ll replace your tires immediately, Jack, I have some high-perf tires in the garage.”

“How many?”

“Maybe a dozen, I don’t get much call for them.”

“Where’d you get them from?”

“A wholesaler in Benning. Why? You won’t need more than five.”

“Call right now and tell them you’ll take all the high-perf tires they have in stock. Get a firm commitment before the rush starts.”

“Are you crazy, Jack? I can’t afford that!”

Jack lifted one eyebrow. “How do you know? You’re going to have a partner; me. A disaster can be an opportunity in a cheap suit.”

Acrylic paint was not immediately vulnerable to the Change, but in a matter of weeks people noticed that the protective covering on their walls, both inside and outside, was wet. Was beginning to run.

Since the twentieth century contemporary artists had used acrylics to produce the intense colors. Occasionally they were used surreptitiously in restoration projects of the utmost delicacy. The Change evoked memories of the dreadful summer back in 2016 when the Seine flooded and priceless works of art had to be relocated from the basements of the Louvre and the Musée d’Orsay. Fearing a similar disaster, museum staff began packing their modern masterpieces into hermetically sealed vaults in hopes of protecting them.

Then the Mona Lisa’s inscrutable smile sagged into a jowly grimace.

At about the same time America’s asphalt roads began to soften; the secondary network that helped connect the country.

If Robert Bennett was right in assuming that industrial sabotage was behind the Change, it was sabotage on an unprecedented scale.

Shay Mulligan awoke promptly at five thirty every morning. It was his habit to lie very still at first, eyes closed, breathing shallowly, reluctant to let the world know he was available for more heartbreak. Then he’d take one deep breath, throw off the covers and spring to his feet as if he had all the optimism in the world.

He had just thrown off the covers when he realized he was not alone in the bed.

Shay froze, waiting for memory to return. Too much to drink last night. A blue-lit bar in an alley off Spring Street, and a girl he once knew…

He eased himself to a sitting position on the edge of the bed. The rumpled sheets reeked of sex and sweat. A hundred horses were galloping through his skull. Slowly, to keep his head from falling off, he turned to look at the other occupant of the bed. “Lila?” he said tentatively.

“Hmmm?”

He knew she wasn’t asleep. Like a cat, she was fully awake and waiting.

“Is that really you?”

“Let’s see.”

She sat up and stretched. Arms extended to their utmost, fingers curling like claws. The mattress adjusted to her weight as she crawled over to sit beside him, letting the covers fall away from her naked body. He watched as a single drop of sweat rolled down the slope of her breast, dangled from her dark pink nipple and trembled there.

Shay wanted to lick it off. He licked his lips instead.

The drop fell to the quilt.

“It’s me, all right,” she confirmed. Her voice should have been husky, but it was clear and sweet. “I don’t think we had much conversation last night. you were bombed out of your skull. I wasn’t even sure you’d recognized me.”

“I had, all right, but I couldn’t believe it. And I never expected to find you—”

“In your bed? I suppose not, but I didn’t want to be alone last night; all the weird stuff that’s going on. You know?”

“I know.”

“You offered to bring me home because you didn’t have a pet.”

“Did I really say that?”

“You really did.”

He needed to clear his befogged mind. “Okay, wait a minute. Let me fix a cup of coffee… fix us some coffee… and then…”

Wrapping the lower half of his body in a bedsheet, he made his unsteady way to the kitchen. With his left hand he reached for a jar of instant coffee and two cups. He heard her come up behind him. He could feel her warm breath on his back but did not look around, in case she was a drunken delusion.

It might be better if she was. Suppose Evan woke up and found his naked father in the kitchen with… “Lila?”

“Hmmm?”

“You are Lila Ragland, aren’t you?”

“And you’re a veterinarian.”

“I’m a man with a teenage son who’s likely to walk in on us any minute.”

“I heard someone leave the house a while ago.”

“That must have been Evan, going out back to feed his horse,” Shay said. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”

“I would have, if I’d wanted to get up myself, but I didn’t. And now look at you.” She lowered her eyes and smiled. “You’re up already.”

For the first time since she took the job Paige Prentiss had been in the veterinary clinic for an hour before her boss arrived. She called him on his personal AllCom, but it was turned off—either that or the device was no longer working. Paige assured the Reed-Johnsons that Dr. Mulligan would attend to their bulldog’s erratic breathing as soon as he arrived. “Your dog’s probably just too fat,” she said.

Mrs. Reed-Johnson bristled. “Chauncey only eats what I eat,” she retorted icily. “Are you saying I’m fat?”

Paige regretted her words. Half of the dogs who came to the clinic were too fat, but their overweight owners didn’t want to hear it.

By the time Shay entered the clinic the Reed-Johnsons had left with their bulldog and without paying their overdue bill, as Paige was quick to point out.

It’s going to be that kind of day, Shay told himself. My clients don’t pay, and when I wake up with Lila Ragland she won’t tell me when I can see her again.

Two of the Nyeberger boys were rushed to the Hilda Staunton Memorial Hospital when Styrofoam cups containing Cokes dissolved into white goo. Flub and Dub mistook the goo for marshmallow whip and gobbled it down.

On a sweltering, overcast Saturday morning Bea Fontaine answered her doorbell to find an unexpected visitor standing on the porch.

Bea unlatched the screen door and ushered the young woman into the house. “I’ve been almost expecting this. Dwayne Nyeberger saw you outside the bank a few weeks ago and had a nervous breakdown.”

“Serves him right.”

“I never thought you were dead.”

“Neither did I,” Lila Ragland said with a wry smile.

“Why come to me?”

“I thought it would be better to explain to you privately, rather than in the bank.”

“This is about money, I assume.”

“Isn’t everything?”

“Not in my experience, no.” Bea’s voice was cool. “If you want to talk, come into the living room and sit down; I’ll be right back.” She went to the kitchen for a pitcher of iced tea and a plate of vanilla wafers. The conventions of hospitality were as much a part of Bea Fontaine as her gold-framed eyeglasses. She would have done the same for Jack the Ripper.

After taking a sip of tea Bea removed her spectacles to give the younger woman the Look.

Which had no effect.

“Do you want to open a bank account?” Bea queried. “You’ve picked a bad time for it.”

“I don’t have any money to deposit.”

“We couldn’t give you a loan, even if you had collateral.”

“I don’t; at least I don’t think so, but I’m trying to get my assets together. Did my mother have a safe deposit box in your bank a long time ago?”

“I have no idea.”

“Could you find out for me? Her name was Treasie Ragland and she died before I… went away.”

“Do you have a death certificate for her?”

“I’m not sure.”

“You can get a copy of one from the courthouse. Then you’ll need a court order requesting us to give you the box. Don’t worry, it’s pretty straightforward.” Bea was beginning to feel sorry for Lila. She was well dressed and well groomed, but there was something almost forlorn about her.

At that moment they heard the front door open. Footsteps sounded in the hall.