Devil's Plaything - Matt Richtel [38]
Adrianna. That was the name Grandma was muttering.
Maybe I’m imagining things.
I call Biogen a second time and ask for Lulu Pederson. I get her voice mail and realize that, indeed, I hadn’t imagined a thing.
“You’ve reached Adrianna Pederson in Biogen’s Advanced Life Computing department. I’m not available right now; leave a message and I’ll get back to you.”
I leave a message.
“Adrianna, this is Nat Idle. I’m hoping that means something to you. Please call me—day or night. Anytime.”
I leave my phone number and hang up.
“Grandma, who is Adrianna?”
No response.
“Wait here.”
I step out of the car, lock Grandma inside, and walk to the basketball court. I approach the in-progress game.
“Newton!”
The players pause.
“Does Lulu use the name Adrianna?”
He nods. “I told you already: she hates ‘Lulu.’ Adrianna is her middle name.”
I shake my head.
“Leave him alone,” one of the other boys says. “We’ll start screaming if you bother us anymore.”
I nod and put out my hands—surrender.
The boys start playing again. I turn to see Grandma in the car, and let the latest revelations sink in. I try to make sense of the disparate pieces. I received a mysterious computer memory stick from someone with the initials L. P. That person appears to work for Biogen. And she has the middle name Adrianna, which happens to be the same name Grandma has been muttering. How and why is Grandma connected to any of this? Does Grandma know the answer—somewhere in her damaged gray matter?
And what has happened to Adrianna? Why did she miss our meeting?
Inside the car, I stare at Grandma, who stares straight ahead. Then looks at me and cocks her head.
I bite the inside of my lip to keep from conveying my shock and the depth of my curiosity. A woman named Lulu Pederson—who may have written me a mystery note with a mystery attachment and knows I went to the Galapagos—shares the name of a woman who is haunting my demented grandmother. And now Lulu Adrianna Pederson seems to be missing.
I need help.
I dial Chuck. He doesn’t answer. I leave a message telling him I’d like his help following up on a lead in our story.
“Lane smooched a colored boy,” Grandma says.
“Lane, let’s go home, get some rest, and try to avoid any more nasty surprises. On the way, we can make one more stop by that dentist’s office.”
“No thank you.” Emphatic.
I look at her. She blinks twice rapidly, betraying some discomfort.
“What’s wrong with the dentist?”
“I said no.”
“Grandma?”
No response.
Her silence speaks volumes. I have to check out that office.
Chapter 19
I weave through a few side streets, and take a right turn onto Geary, a fat thoroughfare thickening to a crawl with commuter traffic. We slip into the mess. We putt along in silence for a few blocks, and then I see something troubling in the rearview mirror, one lane over to the right.
There’s a Prius several cars behind us. Its driver looks like the lovechild of a circus clown and Bigfoot.
I turn off my engine, yank out the keys, and put on the hazards. I open the door and start hustling toward the Prius.
I am thoroughly pissed off, but I still realize I have two big problems.
One is that my move prompts an eruption of honks. The collective angst of several dozen drivers already frustrated by life’s deep unfairness—traffic, the Bay Area cost of living, the fact they don’t yet own an iPad—spills out into a symphony of honking harangues.
The second problem takes a moment longer to materialize.
I zigzag to the driver’s-side window of the hybrid. I peer inside at the face of a man in his mid-twenties with a soul patch, hefty sideburns, ring-pierced lower lip, and an ostentatious hairy wig. He holds a dime-store clown mask he has pulled from his face, leaving it dangling from his neck by an elastic string.
He looks startled, then menacing, like a guy who goes to Oakland Raiders games just for the fights in the stands. His speakers thump with hip-hop.
He rolls down his window. He starts to speak. Starts to, then pauses, turns down the hip-hop, and makes an impassioned plea.
“I am one hundred