He took the brochure and pointed at the immense condominium building that was featured in almost every shot. “They ought to put some bars over all these windows,” he told her. “Because none of these people will ever get out.”
She snatched the brochure back. “That’s ridiculous,” she said. “This is a place where you could put what you’ve got left. It’ll do you some good.”
Guerin saw that her eyes were starting to water. He knew what she wanted. They should pledge all their assets, turn over everything to this coven of the dead and dying, and move in together. Wait hand in hand in a wallboard cave for the inevitable. He had to admit, they were clever, these Centurions. Just give up everything you have and they guarantee you peace of mind for as long as you live, and pray that it’s not too long.
“That Centurion thing’s a scam.” It was a new voice echoing about the gloomy mailroom. Guerin and Adele spun about. A shambling man, who might have been in his fifties — wearing a checked sport coat and white shoes and belt — had appeared in the doorway.
He indicated the brochure in Adele’s hand. “You give ’em everything, including your Social Security, and sign a blanket power of attorney. They got you by the cajones for the rest of your life, which probably ain’t too long given the quality of the food I hear they put out.”
A white ring of fury had come to outline Adele’s lips. “Who are you,” she demanded. “How did you get in here?”
The man tipped an imaginary hat and smiled grandly. “Jack Squires, ma’am.” He glanced at Guerin. “With Astral Investments.” He broke off to consult a well-worn spiral notepad. “Came to see a Mister Gunderson who answered one of our ads: a little risk, a lotta return...”
“Oh, my God,” Adele breathed.
Squires glanced up. “Something wrong?”
Guerin spoke up. “It’s me,” he said. “I’m Gunderson.”
Squires grinned and snatched up Guerin’s hand. “Imagine that,” he said, pumping it vigorously. “Running into you right here.”
“Not so strange,” Guerin said, looking at Adele.
“Let go of his hand,” Adele said.
“It took me awhile to get back to you,” Squires said, still pumping, “but now that I’m here, we’re gonna roll.”
“I’m calling the police,” Adele said, making a tentative move for the door.
Guerin felt a warmth growing in the hand that Squires held. It was probably just the exercise. He couldn’t remember a more vigorous handshake. Yet there seemed to be something more that coursed up his arm from Squires’s big paw.
Guerin felt Adele’s gaze burning upon him. “I’m a man of... some years,” he said. “I need something solid.”
Squires nodded, finally releasing his hand. “I couldn’t agree more.” He glanced at his notebook and shook his head. “Chinchillas, zoysia plantations, Mojave snow peas.” He clucked his tongue in sympathy. “That’s a tough run of luck.”
“That’s idiocy,” Adele said.
“I need to be certain of my future. Take the downside into account for a change.”
Squires nodded. “I know just what you mean. I’ve got a place for your cash.”
“You don’t give him a cent!” Adele’s voice had risen to a shriek.
Squires put his hand on Guerin’s shoulder. “Now, tell me. What kind of property is it you’re most interested in? What is it you really want?”
Adele tried to jockey herself in front of Squires. “He wants some peace of mind. Not jackals trying to steal his money.”
“Adele.” Guerin tried to restrain her, but Squires was unfazed. He had not taken his eyes from Guerin.
“What is it that you really want, Mr. G?”
Guerin’s eyes locked in on Squires’s. He looked down the man’s gaze until his head was swimming. He was on the staircase of their once-grand building, his legs limber, his flesh glowing, ascending the steps toward a glorious field of light. At every landing, well-wishers whooped and urged him on: forty-niners with panning kits slung to their backs, men holding strange machines and hopeless patent applications, little girls in ballet dresses, a huge rabbit with a replica of a human foot hung around its neck for luck, thumping him with its paw...
Guerin pulled his glance away at last. Adele stared at him in concern. He nodded reassurance to her, then gathered himself to speak.
“Well, Mr. Jack, I’ll tell you. Forty years I work, no union, no pension, but I put what I can aside, and I make investments...”
“Investments?” Adele cried.
“...so that someday, I don’t have to work for somebody anymore, and maybe, if things work out, I could retire,” he looked sheepish, “in Tahiti, I think.” He cleared his throat then and his face fell. “But, things, they don’t work out so well.” He threw up his hands.
Adele seemed relieved. She turned to Squires, vindicated.
“If you’ll pardon us,” Adele took Guerin’s arm.
Guerin held back, looking at Squires in appeal. “So, to answer your question, if I had just one more chance to make it happen, I’d want a little carryout market, maybe. Nothing fancy, but on a good corner. Enough business so in a year or two, I sell out and go to Tahiti, unless you know someplace better.”
Adele turned, astonished. Guerin avoided her, and shrugged at Squires, who had, after all, asked.
Squires did not hesitate. “I can do it for you.”
“Throw this crook out,” Adele wailed.
“I don’t need your money, Mr. G. This is one man of vision to another.” Squires bent to jot a note on a slip of his pad. He stood and stuffed it into Guerin’s pocket. “I’ll be at this address at four. You think about it.”
He slipped his pad into his pocket, nodded a goodbye to Adele and clapped Guerin on the shoulder as he left. “You got a spirit I like.”
Guerin pulled out the paper and took a look at the address. Adele stared up at him, anxious. Finally, Guerin turned to her.
“An honest face he had, don’t you think?”
“Oh, my God,” she wailed, as she ran out the door. “Oh, my God.”
As he moved farther and farther inland from his building and far from anyplace he knew, Guerin reassured himself that finding opportunity was, for one in his position, a matter of trusting one’s intuitions over what others might call logic. There was the known path, and the other path. And he was destined to be an adventurer.
He was passing now through an area of ramshackle shops, including a laundry so filthy he wondered how anything could be cleaned there, then a liquor store with a row of swarthy men hunkered in a row beneath its front window. The proprietor stood near the barred doorway with a pistol in his hand and glared at Guerin as he passed.
In the next block, all the shops seemed closed, except for a balloon and message service from whose entry issued a blare of music he could not begin to identify. Outside, a van with gay balloons stenciled on its side sagged at the curb, its two right tires gone flat. Guerin peeked inside the shop and saw a young man with the made-up face of a woman standing bare-chested behind a counter. He was staring into a mirror and was sawing intently at his front teeth with a heavy file. Guerin staggered back into the street and hurried on, thinking that there were perhaps limits to adventure.
Soon, he had passed into a district of warehouses and storage yards interspersed with vacant lots. It was there that he heard the first sound behind him. He spun about to check, but there was nothing but empty street to be seen. He paused, then forced himself onward. When he heard the sound again, he did not turn but walked more quickly to a corner ahead and ducked around the edge of a shuttered moving and storage building to wait.