Alexander Jablokov - Brain Thief by Alexander Jablokov

Author:Alexander Jablokov
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-02-12T05:00:00+00:00

25

“Hello?” Bernal shouted in through the open front door of the big vinyl-sided house that Spak sometimes identified as home.

“Back here,” a voice called. “Back in the kitchen.”

Arnie turned out to be the boss of the place. He wore a too-tight pink oxford shirt with a couple of missing buttons and had long, lank hair. He stirred stew in a huge pot on the stove. Two men at the kitchen table paused, white Chinese-restaurant spoons held at identical angles above their bowls, then dabbed their lips with napkins and left.

“Hey, bowls in . . . oh. Okay. Feed the bunnies, can you, Nourse?” He called after them. “I’ll put these in the ’wave when it’s safe for you to come back in.” He shook his head. “Don’t get many visitors. Not used to it.” Arnie himself seemed nervous, throwing glances at him when he thought Bernal wasn’t looking, the rest of the time focusing intently on the spicing of his stew.

“Spak gives this as his address,” Bernal said.

“It’s . .. well, it’s not an official center, if you know what I mean. You know, all that licensing and stuff. I used to run real residential facilities, oh, years ago. I ... yeah, well, we do get money. Grant money. It’s kind of experimental, what we’re after here. We got all sorts of sustainable gear in back, you want to see. Rabbit hutches, pigeon coops, an aquaculture pond. Tilapia. It’s a converted hot tub, works pretty good. That’s funded by some folks in New Hampshire.”

“I’m not concerned about your licensing,” Bernal said. “I’m looking for Spak. I hear he lives here.”

“Yeah.” Arnie was reluctant. “Most of the time. He in trouble?”

“No trouble. Just a few questions. He saw something I want to learn more about.”

“All of a sudden people are interested in Spak.”

“Really?”

“Well, someone gave him a hat. Schiaparelli. Red velvet, feather, veil. Big old jewel on the front.”

“Schiaparelli? You recognize things like that?”

Arnie chuckled. “You know Spak, you know old clothes. He digs around, makes some real finds. Loves every decade, every style. His only hobby.”

“So who gave him the hat? And in return for what?”

“You’ll have to ask him that.”

The living room was stuffed with armchairs and sofas. Crumpled baby wipes made a dune behind a big camel-back couch. Someone must have swiped a case or two from the back of a truck at a drugstore, and now the inhabitants fastidiously used them to clean their hands and wipe surfaces, and then tossed them in the corner. A loud snoring came from under the heap of old jackets on the couch. It reeked of unwashed skin.

Arnie looked around the living room and sighed, seeing it through someone else’s eyes. “Please be kind to him. These guys seem like they’ve been hit with everything there is to be hit with, but sometimes it’s surprising how much there is left to break. Now, excuse me, I got people to feed.”

_______

Spak was wearing even more clothes than he had been the last time Bernal had seen him, having thrown a silk dressing gown on over his flowered surgical scrubs.

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