Spaceland Page 9

  “Go to hell.” I cut the connection and started getting dressed. Khakis, a clean blue shirt and a beige V-neck sweater. My hands were shaking. It was hard to button my shirt. A minute later the phone warbled again.

  “What?” I answered.

  “I think you should move out,” said Jena. “I don’t want to live with you for one more minute. I’d like you to vacate by the time I come back this afternoon.”

  “Why should I be the one to move out? Why not you?”

  “I don’t want to get cheated out of my share of the house.” I heard Spazz coughing in the background. And then the sound of his voice. He was advising her. “Vacate, Joe,” repeated Jena.

  “Fine,” I said coldly. “I’ll rent someplace better. Or maybe I’ll buy. I’ve got a million dollars, you know. Seven hundred and eighty thousand, actually. You were wrong about them not collecting taxes.”

  “Half of it’s mine,” said Jena.

  this time I didn’t curse. I turned off the phone and put it in my pocket. I opened my metal attaché case and looked at my million dollars again. It made me feel better to see it. The money meant I was still someone. Not a loser. The shaking ebbed away and I began to feel cold and strong. If the bitch wanted me to vacate, I was gone. I went outside, taking the attaché case with me.

  It was a sunny day, reasonably warm for the start of January. I drove down to the corner shopping center. On the way there, I tried to take my mind off Jena by getting into the subtle vision thing. You always have a kind of image of what’s around you. By glancing this way and that, you keep this full three-dimensional map off the world reasonably well updated inside your head. But with my third eye looking vinn at Spaceland from its stalk, I didn’t have to be glancing. I had the whole image, right there, all the time, and my mind’s eye could pick out whatever viewpoint I needed. I could see what was behind things and inside things and underneath things. I didn’t even need to look at the road while I was driving. I could point my face in pretty much any direction I liked. My third eye could always see where everything was.

  It should have felt nice to be seeing all around me all at once. But thanks to Jena, I felt unhappy and numb.

  At the shopping center I got a pack of cigarettes at the drugstore. It was time to start smoking again. Jena hated for me to smoke. Too bad. And then I filled up the back of my Explorer with empty boxes. I could pack and be out by noon. Not being home when Jena got back was starting to feel like a really good idea. Vacate. That was so Jena to fixate on a word like that.

  On the way back home, smoking a cigarette, I drove slow so I could soak up what all the people were doing in their houses. It was comforting to see them. They were eating breakrast, showering, watching TV, yelling at their kids, like that. And then I noticed a couple doing it. What was the big deal about sex anyway? It was always the same. Why cheat on your partner? I’d always dreaded ending up like Mom, all stiff and bitter and crazy. If Jena was going to do me this way, maybe it was really better to get free. But I couldn’t visualize my life without her.

  My dream came back to me then. My Hat Dad had bucked up into the third dimension to escape the knife. I wondered if there was any way I could lift my own augmented body into the fourth dimension. I felt around inside myself, but couldn’t seem to find a way to do it.

  But all this time, more than anything else, I was thinking about Jena and Spazz. Jena—well, maybe I could forgive her. I’d been treating her poorly, and perhaps this was what I had coming to me. She’d been drunk. It didn’t have to count.

  But as for Spazz—I wanted to kill him, pure and simple. I even got to the point of wondering if I should go buy a gun. That would be something. Walk right up to the smug son of a bitch and pump a clip into him. Shoot him in the heart and stomach so I could watch his face. And, yeah, use my subtle vision to look into his body and see his punctured heart pumping his blood into his abdominal cavity and see his stomach acid digesting the adjacent organs. Thinking this way made me start shaking again. I did my best to push the hate thoughts back. If I killed Spazz I’d go to jail instead of ending up rich. If I was rich I could get a better woman than Jena. A woman who wasn’t moody and didn’t get drunk all the time. I looked over at my attaché case. I needed to stay focused.

  Back at the house, I switched on my phone and saw on its screen that I’d gotten three messages from Jena’s phone. I deleted them without listening. I needed to vacate. I remembered then that Ken Wong had scheduled a series of special Y2K meetings with staff members today. Sunday morning meetings to iron out any problems before the real work started on Monday. My meeting was in an hour. I wasn’t going to make it.

  I phoned Kencom and got hold of Ming Wong, the secretary. I told her I was taking a sick day. Ming was Ken Wong’s cousin. Ken was a product of Cupertino High School and Stanford, a Silicon Valley smoothie, but Ming was a recent immigrant from Taiwan, and she didn’t speak very good English. She was strict and bossy anyway.

  “You know where is Spazz?” Ming demanded. “He missing meeting with Ken right now. Bad start for Western New Year. Has Spazz make report to you?”

  “Spazz is in Las Vegas,” I said. “And Ming, I may not make it in tomorrow either.”

  “This very bad.”

  “I’ve got gastroenteritis. There’s diarrhea all over my sheets. Have a nice day.” I’d learned long ago that the more disgusting your sickday excuses were, the less likely it was that anyone would call you on them.

  When I turned around to start packing, Momo was there, big and pink and womanly, wearing a gold dress cut open in back. She was sitting on her little metal dish, the saucer thing she used to travel long distances. “Are you and Jena going to start on the business plan today?” asked Momo. Seeing Momo made me mad. She was the cause of all my troubles.

  “Plan for what?” I snarled. “For Jena doing it with Spazz?”

  “I see you’re upset with your wife,” said Momo, settling down on my floor as if for a long chat. “I’ve been reading up on Spaceland business styles, you know. Jena’s suggestions about the marketing campaign were very apropos.”

  “Forget Jena!” I snapped. “It’s all over between her and me.”

  “I think you two could still work together,” said Momo. “I’d rather not have to bring more and more people in on our secret, you know.” She took on a coaxing tone. “Surely your subtle vision has increased your empathy. How can you refuse forgiveness to someone whose very innards lie open to your view?”

  “We have a phrase that might apply here,” I said. “It’s called hating someone’s guts.” But did I really hate Jena? Hard to say. At this point I really didn’t know anymore. “Leave it alone,” I said. “Right now I have to find a new place to live. And, Momo? Before you come nagging me, why don’t you figure out exactly what the hell kind of product we’re supposed to be developing.”

  “But this is precisely what I’ve come to discuss!” exclaimed. Momo. “Calm yourself and hear my plan, Joe Cube. Our product will be the key hardware for a third generation cellular phone system. 3G broadband wireless, as your fellows say. We’ll send wideband, packet-switched, hundred-gigahertz radio signals through the fourth dimension. There’s an unlimited band of unused frequencies out here, and our air doesn’t scatter your signals. They’ll travel parallel to normal space, but exactly one millimeter above it. Our core business will be providing little antenna crystals that project vinn from your space. Vinn to the fourth dimension. Little loop antennas in hyperspace. For signals in the ten- to hundred-gigahertz range, an antenna can be a mere centimeter long. We’ll kink the antenna wires with two right angles so they run your signals along your vinn/vout axis. The sending antenna shunts the signal vinn to our All where there’s no smog, no buildings, no mountains, no other signals, no interference. The signal flies along parallel to your space. And then the receiving antenna shunts it hack vout to your world.”

  “My God!” I knew a killer pitch when I heard one. “You’re talking the talk, Momo!” />
  “My family and I formed the notion of the hyperspace antennas before I came here, but we weren’t quite sure yet of the application. While you were asleep, I read the contents of your local bookstore, with particular attention to the business and technology magazines. And then I had my idea. I feel this proposal is very much of your time.”

  “It’s dynamite. Momo.” I was pacing around the room, my heart pounding with excitement, all thoughts of Jena temporarily on hold. I had the better part of a million dollars and a great piece of technology. My big break at last! And then a brainstorm hit me. The perfect name.

  “The Hyperphone!” I exclaimed. “You like?”

  “I’ll trust your sense of business on such details, Joe,” said Momo in a neutral tone. “That’s why I picked you to be our Spaceland representative.”

  “The Hyperphone.” I repeated, still hoping to get my nugget of praise. Actually, come to think of it, maybe I’d heard that word used before? I pressed on. “We’ll sell—who knows—maybe a million of them!”

  “Most excellent,” said Momo, brightening. “A very wide distribution was my intent. Though perhaps a mere fifty thousand antennas would be enough, were people to use them sufficiently.”

  “Enough for what?” It occurred to me that I hadn’t given much thought to Momo’s motives for helping me. “Why are you really doing this, Momo?”

  “Therein lies a complex and tangled tale,” said Momo. “I’ll recount it to you at a more propitious time. But we have many tasks before us, so rather than discoursing any further, I’ll set off for Klupdom.”

  “Why?”

  “To initiate the fabrication of your—Hyperphone antennas. My husband Voule is quite an accomplished craftsman. I’ll return anon. Meanwhile you might ponder the best fashion in which to organize your new business. And you’d better think of a different name. I believe that when I read your bookstore, I noticed that Hyperphone is already trademarked.”

  “Um—how about Metaphone?” I said after a minute.

  “That’s taken too,” said Momo immediately.

  “Christ.”

  “Name it after me,” she suggested.

  “How do you mean?”

  “The Mophone. Nobody’s registered that one yet.”

  “Not bad,” I said, turning the word over in my mind. I was used to this kind of spitballing from endless hours of meetings. I was good at it. “Mophone has mobile phone in it straight up. Kind of retro, which fits in with the idea that we’ll make life simpler. There’s a black thing going on too. Mo’ phone. That works.” I tried the word a few more times. “Mophone. Mophone. Mophone. I’m hearing a touch of mofo in there? Kind of a rough word. But that’s not a bad thing. Makes us edgy. I can see the ad. Black dude, initially menacing, but then he takes off his shades and he’s smiling at you. He’s your friend and he’s talking to you. He likes you, even though you’re a rich white geek. ‘Static? Bad signals? Dropping your calls? Get a Mophone, mofo!’” I thought a bit more. “I guess the only things I worry about are the gayness and the drugs.”

  “Your reasoning is obscure,” said Momo.

  “Morphine. Homo phone. Morphodite.”

  “Might such connotations hurt your sales?”

  “Oh, probably not. Morphine, well, who cares. And gay is hip. Let’s go with it. Mophone. I love it!”

  “I really must be on my way,” said Momo. “What will be your next step towards our Great Work?”

  “I’ll look for a place to rent,” I said. “And then I’ll see about incorporating Mophone.”

  “It is well,” said Momo. “And Joe—remain vigilant. I’ve seen some signs that—well, never mind. Just remember that you’re augmented. That should get you through the day.” She was gone before I could ask questions.

  The phone chirped. Jena.

  “What now?” I asked. “I’m busy vacating.” Despite Momo’s unsettling warning, I was feeling pretty chipper. Unlimited phone spectrum! The Mophone!

  “Joe, it’s about Nero’s Empire. You were so huffy that I didn’t get a chance to tell you before. One of their guys was at our room first thing this morning. He woke me up. Very buff, very tan, very crooner. He said he has to talk to you.”

  This sounded like the pit boss from last night. Sante. “You told on me?”

  “No! I was surprised you weren’t there. I told him I didn’t know what was happening.”

  “What did he say then?”

  “He said he’d find you.” Her voice had an anxious edge. “He said he knows where you live. And then he left, and I called you, and you hung up, and Spazz and I had breakfast, and now we’re on the way to the airport.”

  “Was it Spazz who put them on me?” I demanded. “Did Spazz tell?”

  “Nobody told Nero’s Empire anything, Joe. Let’s try and stay centered. You’re blowing everything all out of proportion. It’s probably something innocent. I only called to give you a heads-up. Maybe they want to take your picture. Like to advertise about their big winners. Or maybe they want to comp you for your next trip.”

  “Thank God I’m clearing out. They might already be on their way. I’ll hurry. And—Jena?”

  “What.”

  “Be careful.”

  “You be careful too, Joe. I’ll call you again when I get up to Los Perros.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’m gonna be all over the place today. Momo’s got an idea that’s completely off the hook.”

  There was a pause. “We can still work together, Joe. Even if we’re split up.” Hearing Jena on the phone, I could visualize her so well. She’d be staring down at her fingernails, nibbling at them a little. Her nose would be sharp and her cheeks would be pale. Her eyes slitted. Nervously pursing her lips. Checking her face in the sun-visor mirror. She was so touchingly unsure of herself.

  “We’ll see,” I said softly.

  “Don’t forget that half the money’s mine.”

  I’d been thinking about this one. Like it or not, I’d told Jena last night that I would split the winnings with her.

  “I remember what I said, Jena. But first we’ll see what happens with the Nero’s Empire guy. And as for the rest of it—who knows. Nothing’s final yet.”

  “Great.” She made a kissing noise and hung up. I felt better now.

  I got into a packing frenzy, and in a little less than an hour I was done. Everything I owned fit into a suitcase and seven cardboard boxes, except for the computer and the stereo which were loose on the car floor. I had my desk and my desk chair too. There would have been fewer boxes, but I had some books and papers I’d never unpacked from the last move. I didn’t let myself think too much about why I was packing. I just did it.

  Right as I was stepping out the door for the last time, my phone rang one more time. I was pretty eager to be on my way before the gangsters showed up, but I answered just in case it was Jena with more news. But it was someone different.

  “Hello, this is Tulip Patel. I’m calling for Joe Cube?” Her voice was warm and vibrant.

  “Um—hi, Tulip. It’s me. How did you get my number?”

  “Spazz left your card here.” She stopped, seemingly not sure how to continue.

  “And you’re looking for him?” I coaxed.

  “Yeah,” said Tulip,. “How was the big trip to Vegas?”

  “Jena and Spazz aren’t back yet,” I said. I heard a car in the street, and quickly checked it out with my subtle vision. Just a neighbor’s BMW. Those were nice cars. Jena kind of wanted one. Maybe I should get her one for—but wair, Jena and I were supposedly through. I kept forgetting, and in the shock of the brutal memory, I blurted out the truth. “They spent the night together. It was really painful.”

  “Damn it,” said Tulip. “I knew this would happen. Well, that’s all I needed to know, Joe.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m moving out on him,” said Tulip. “He’s done this kind of thing before. God’s gift to women.”

  An obvious thought formed i
n my reptilian male brain. “I’m moving out, too,” I said. “So maybe I’ll see you around.”

  “Maybe.” She didn’t sound too interested.

  “I won a million bucks at blackjack last night,” I bragged.

  “That’s nice,” said Tulip. “But you lost your wife.”

  That popped my bubble pretty fast. “I’m feeling kind of suicidal,” I said. A useful line, partly true. “It would help to talk with a woman.

  “I don’t know you, Joe.”

  “Can I call? Maybe we could get together.”

  “I’ll think about it,” said Tulip, and gave me her number. Good good. Jena wasn’t the only fish in the sea.

  In my car, I peeked in my attaché case at my tax-bitten million dollars one more time, making sure I really did honest-to-God have it, and then drove back to the shopping center, smoking two cigarettes on the way.

  So I’d gotten out of my house before the Nero’s guys showed up. No way they’d find me now. What was with that, anyway? If Jena or Spazz hadn’t squealed, Nero’s had nothing to go on. I’d had a lucky night, that’s all. That’s what gambling was all about. Were they sore losers all of a sudden? I bought a paper and sat down in the local Starbucks to study the classifieds.

  Real estate was insanely tight in the Valley these days. Los Perros listed a total of ten houses for rent, half of them to hell and gone in the mountains. I decided to go for the most expensive one actually here in town, a two-bedroom house right on Los Perros Boulevard. It rented for more than our monthly mortgage payment. Big deal. I had seven hundred and eighty thousand dollars in the Halliburton case sitting on the table in front of me.

  I made a call and got a Kay Harmid at Welsh & Tayke Realty. Even though it was Sunday, they were open. Yes, the house was available for immediate occupancy. It had just gone on the market today, I was lucky, I was Kay’s first caller on this. She’d be able to show it to me this morning if I liked. But I needed to understand that I’d have to come up with three months rent to move in: first, last, and deposit.

  “No problem,” I said, even though she was talking about a serious amount of dough—almost enough to buy a car. But, hey, I was a player.