Spoonbenders

“I’m sorry. I know!” There were no sirens. No squeal of tires in the driveway. Just a quiet backyard, a couple of empty hammocks, and his grandfather. How long had he been watching? Long enough to pull out a chair at least. Thank God Matty hadn’t been using his original travel method.

“Easy now, you’re not in trouble,” Grandpa Teddy said. “How long have you been at this?”

“I just tried it a couple times.”

He chuckled. “Not talking about the smoke. I’ve seen that look before, Matty.”

That look. Of course Grandpa Teddy would recognize a trance. He’d been married to the greatest clairvoyant and astral traveler of all time. He may have been the one to deliver her letter.

“You seemed pretty deep,” his grandfather said. “How far away were you?”

“Not far.” Matty didn’t know what to do with his hands. Should he sit down? Lean nonchalantly against the garage? No. No way could he pull off nonchalant. Chalant was the best he could do.

Grandpa Teddy, though, seemed perfectly relaxed. “What’s the farthest you’ve gone?”

“Uh…” Matty was having trouble concentrating. Were Turner and Smalls driving here, right now?

“Just estimate,” Grandpa Teddy said.

“How far is the lake?”

“That’s pretty good.”

“Is it?”

“For a thirteen-year-old it’s God damn amazing.”

Amazing. He was amazing. He didn’t even bother to mention that he was fourteen now.

“So tell me,” Grandpa Teddy said. “Why are you still shaking like a leaf?”

Matty didn’t want to say. But he was too terrified not to. “The government. They just spotted me. While I was, you know.”

“The government? Who?”

“His name’s Clifford Turner. He works with Destin Smalls? He looked straight at me. He saw me.”

“Well I’ll be damned. Cliff actually has some talent.”

“You know him?”

“Oh, I know him. Good guy. Just didn’t think he had it in him.” Grandpa Teddy did not seem as shocked as he should have been. But wasn’t he the master of the poker face? “And how did you catch their names? Did he talk to you?”

“Not this time.”

“This time? This has happened before?”

“No, not like that.” Matty quickly told him about meeting Smalls and Turner weeks ago, when they stopped him on the sidewalk. He talked fast, imagining SWAT teams converging on this location.

“Did Smalls threaten you?” Grandpa Teddy asked.

“No! I mean, not physically. He just said he could turn me off. Turn my power off. Like a light switch, he said.”

“Jesus,” Teddy said. “The God damn micro-lepton gun.”

“What’s a micro—?”

“A million-dollar boondoggle. Don’t you worry about it. Does anybody else know what you can do?”

“Uncle Frankie.”

“You went to Frankie with this? Your mother I could understand, but—”

“I could never tell Mom. But Frankie, I knew he would be…excited.”

Teddy grunted in agreement. “Probably right about your mother, too.” He looked at the joint in his hand. “And this helps, does it?”

Matty nodded.

“Someone should do some research into that.”

“What do we do?”

Teddy smiled. Was it the “we”? He said, “Your cover’s blown, kid. Destin Smalls is going to use you as his ticket back into the game.”

“What game?”

“The only one men my age care about—relevance. But don’t worry. I’ll deal with him. Right after I go see a friend of mine.” He handed Matty the joint. “Better hide that.” Then he stood and brushed out the creases from his pants. “Meanwhile, you better get inside and change into fresh clothes—your mother’s coming home.”

Oh, right. Better take a shower, too.

Teddy left in his car. Matty went into the house and was stopped before he made it to the bathroom.

“Well?” Frankie said.

“Twenty-eight, eleven, thirty-three,” Matty said.

18 Teddy

Somehow, without noticing it, he’d stopped throwing himself into love with a new woman every day. He’d forgotten his habit like an umbrella left behind in a restaurant, unmissed because the rain had stopped. It was absurdly late—late in summer, late in life—to realize that he’d abandoned his quest for a daily fix. Yet here he was, alone in a gleaming fortress of a kitchen on a Sunday morning, feeling like he was sitting in sunlight. All because of a random encounter with a woman in a grocery store.

Since Maureen had died he’d felt no need to get to know a woman, only to love her, briefly and intensely, and move on. And it was clear, after entering this house, that even if Graciella managed to love him, she wouldn’t be happy sharing his ramshackle life. Just look at this room! A quarry’s worth of granite, interrupted only by hunks of stainless steel, set on a plain of ceramic tile. His coffee cup rested on a slab of teak as big as a drawbridge. In these modern mansions, the kitchen served as both factory and showroom, like one of those Toyota plants staffed by robots. Even the phone he was talking on felt more expensive than one of his watches.

“That’s my final offer,” he said. “One test.”

“I’m bringing in Archibald,” Destin Smalls replied. “That’s nonnegotiable.”