Steal the Lightning: A Field Ops Novel (Field Ops #3)(61)

“Like a GIF.”

“Exactly like.”

“The kid’s a god? Part of a god? And all that other shit we saw?”

“Uh-uh. I think they’re what the guy says—shadows. Sombras, right? If I had to guess, I’d say—oh, yesterday, or this morning, the real kid wanders down the street. Something picks up on the image. Not the kid, exactly—just the movements, reflections, patterns of light he makes. All that. And the whole thing gets recycled, on and on, till it fades, or burns out, or whatever. The god’s just blowing off steam. This is the by-product. Leaked energy. It’ll get worse, most likely. Usually does.”

“An echo. But visual.”

I nodded.

“And it picks up on the boy, and all the rest, because—what? It likes them?”

“Might be random. Or there might be a trigger of some kind—emotion, activity. I don’t know. They react to us.” I kept watching the street. “But this is leakage, not the main event.”

I, too, pushed my plate away.

“It wasn’t like this when I started. I’d just get sent somewhere, usually a church or something, and there’d be a god, maybe getting restless, troublesome, a lot of paranormal business going on—and I’d lay the cables, mess around a bit, and, bam, stick it in the box. I never thought I’d say it, but it was pretty easy, back then. Mostly . . .”

“What changed?”

“People. Everywhere you go now, you get people, messing it up. Christ’s sake . . .”

“You know what I thought? First thing, when I saw the boy?”

“No.”

“I thought: what kind of fricking parent lets their kid out on his own in Vegas, this time of night?”

She was smiling. I smiled back.

“And what is really crazy,” she said, “I still feel that way, and the darn kid isn’t even real! Is that nuts or something, huh?”

She was at ease again. Yet I’d a feeling something had passed over us, a shadow I could neither clearly see, nor properly define. Passed over, and maybe waiting to return.

She asked me, “OK. What next then, maestro?”

“Next . . . I think we see what we can stir up, shall we?” I took my phone out of my pocket. “Let’s make a nuisance of ourselves. I’m good at that . . .”



“Second Eden.”

The woman had a shiny, feel-good voice, like Christmas tinsel.

So I put a kink in that, straight off.

“I’d like to speak to Preston McAvoy, please.”

“I’m sorry, sir. What was the name?”

“McAvoy, Preston McAvoy. Tell him it’s Copeland, from the Registry.”

That got silence: the technical equivalent of a hand over the mouthpiece.

“We’ve no one here of that name, sir.”

“I’m sure you have. Preston McAvoy. Can you check, please?”

Silence once more. I liked the silence. I could read things into silence: nervousness, uncertainty, a call to a superior . . .

Or she genuinely had no idea what I was talking about.

“Is this a guest, sir? You appreciate, we can’t give out information about guests.”

“You may know him as Johnny Appleseed.”

Another silence. Then, “Is that a stage name, sir?”

I sighed. “Tell him this is Copeland. Registry. I’m here in town to see him. Will you tell him that, please? Reg-i-stry.”

Did she draw a breath?

“I don’t believe that I can help you, sir.”

“It isn’t me you’re helping. It’s Mr. McAvoy.”

Silence.

“Look,” I said. “Why don’t you let me talk to your manager, or whoever’s there with you? How about that?”

“Thank you for calling.”

And the phone went dead.

Twenty minutes later, and I tried again. A man this time. Same routine, a bit more brisk, a bit less friendly.

We drank another cocktail. And then Angel said, “Let me.”

She used her own phone. Made her voice go slow and husky.

I had seen her do her act at Big Hollow, with Cleary’s security. This time, though—this was different.

“It’s personal,” she breathed. “Preston’s expecting me . . .”

They put her on hold. They put her on hold for ten minutes.

No one came back to her.

She hit end call.

“Promising,” she said. “They asked me what my business was.”

“I’d ask the same! Jesus—”

She smiled, tucking her phone away.

“I did acting classes, once upon a time,” she said. “I thought it’d be good for opera.”

“Acting what, for God sake?”

“Shakespeare. Ibsen. You know? But I was pretty broke, and I knew this girl, did film and TV work, and she got me a few auditions. Never made any money. But—you know. Young black woman, total unknown—two kinds of parts, basically. Maybe you can guess which that one was? If you try hard?”





Chapter 51

Tell Him It’s Copeland




There was nothing very flashy about Second Eden.

The frontage would have fitted any middle range hotel. The Johnny Appleseed cartoon leered down at us in bas-relief, wielding an apple the size of my fist.