Freak City Read online

  Chapter Nine

  When Argus told Mikael and Ahmed most of what Madam Sylvia had said and not said, Ahmed was satisfied, but Mikael merely grunted,

  "At least she didn't charge you. She didn't, did she?"

  "No,” Argus replied. "I guess it was on the house."

  "You got what you paid for,” Mikael said. "Still, she might be on to something about the some where and the some when. I got an idea,” and he went off to rummage around in his jacket while Argus waited patiently. Mikael returned with a city bus map and offered it to Argus.

  "You can keep it,” he said. "What I would do is find all the buildings and the places in the photos and the newspapers, every where there is an address of any kind mentioned or even shown, and mark it down on this map. Maybe there will be a pattern you can see."

  "Okay,” Argus said, dubiously. He accepted the map and was about to put it away when Mikael snatched it back, and opened it up on the shipping table and marked a spot with indelible blue ink.

  "This I know for one thing,” Mikael declared. "Where the old football stadium was, right here,” and he proudly showed off his work to Argus.

  "When they tore this thing down, everyone was shaking their heads. Still are. It was something that made no sense. Almost brand new billion dollar facility. Why would he do that, they asked. But that Fulsom guy who built it, nobody asks him any questions. He's so rich they said he must have had good reason."

  "I remember,” Argus nodded. "There's something in there about a place called Fulsom Towers too,” he added, looking again at the package. "Must be the same guy"

  "Anything worth owning, he owns it, people say,” Mikael said. "Well, anyway,” and he handed the map back to Argus.

  "Keep it,” he repeated. "I have another one at home. I don't know why but I do,” and he laughed as he walked away. Throughout the long afternoon, Argus busied himself with opening boxes and processing inventory. It was the kind of mindless work he seemed to need. Nothing to bother the brain. Nothing to worry about and how. It was not until he got home that he had to think again about anything. It was Jolene who prompted him. She was waiting at the door for whichever of the two arrived first, Argus or Seth. Seeing it was Argus, she immediately asked him for the package and when he gave it to her, she dashed off to the kitchen, where she'd earlier that day installed a color copier she'd borrowed from someone for the day.

  "I figured if I made a couple of sets,” she shouted over the roar of the machine, "then each of us could have one and we wouldn't have to worry about losing the originals or bothering you if in case like maybe I wanted to look at something in the middle of the day like I did today or the middle of the night like Seth last night"

  Argus was standing there in the hallway kitchen door, his customary position lately. He felt as if entering the room would be intruding on her space. Sometimes he sort of slid on by in order to get to the living room, because there was no other route, and sometimes he only stood there thinking about sliding on by, but was too shy and too inwardly panicked to make the move. The problem was, he was worried he might be developing a tremendous crush on Jolene. At the same time, he was beginning to feel that Seth was maybe the person he liked the best of all the people he'd ever known. It was a weird combination, and being all bottled up the way he was, he had no idea how to deal with it. Mostly he figured he'd stay in his room and try and avoid them both, but that was becoming more difficult each day. He wanted to be with them, and they seemed to want to be with him too.

  "I was thinking of a plan,” Jolene was still talking, "where we would split up the clues, and each take a bunch, and work on them separately. What do you think about that?" There was total silence as Argus didn't realize she was talking to him. She repeated her idea.

  "Oh,” he finally said, "I guess so. Yeah, it makes sense."

  Just then Seth arrived home and got caught up on the conversation quickly. Since he asked, Argus told them all about his visit to Madam Sylvia, and showed them the bus map Mikael had marked up.

  "That's an awesome idea,” Seth said enthusiastically.

  "Which one?" Jolene asked, favoring her own.

  "All of them. Both of them. Everything,” Seth said, gauging from her tone that he needed to scramble.

  "Finding the spots. Marking the map. Splitting it up."

  "You could take the buildings,” Jolene said, "since you know about that. And I could take the people."

  "People?" Argus was puzzled.

  "I mean the photos that have people in them,” she said. "I will try and find out where they are."

  "And I can find those offices,” Seth said.

  "Okay,” Argus just wanted to be agreeable. He didn't know what he would do. Maybe he wouldn't even have an assignment.

  "You can take the rest,” Jolene said, speaking to Argus. "At least for starters that is."

  She was already handing out copies in piles. Argus didn't know what she meant by "the rest.” She was already sorting through her own copy, pulling out the photos with the men in the park, the boys on the playground, the family in front of the house. She gestured to Seth the photos and articles that he should assign to himself, and he fumbled through his own pile to match all the ones that she showed him. They were so busy organizing and negotiating their way through the papers that they didn't notice Argus, slipping away, taking his own pile along with the package and heading back into his room. Once there he sat down on his bed, and sighed.

  Something once happened to me, he remembered her saying. That was the part he hadn't told anyone, not Ahmed, not Mikael, not Seth or Jolene. Maybe she knew what it was and wouldn't tell. Maybe I should go back, and ask her again, but he knew that he wouldn't. Maybe, he thought to himself. Maybe call Alex. Maybe he'd know. So many times lately he'd wanted to call, but prevented himself. Now at least he had a pretext, something to talk about, but Alex would laugh at him, saying, 'so, you went to see a fortune teller and she said some crazy stuff, what do you know?' Alex never took anything as seriously as Argus did. It was always that way, so he couldn't call his brother, who was the only other person who could possibly know what it was. If it even was anything. Nothing ever happened to me, he said to himself. Except now.