Spoonbenders

The inside was a movie set for a late-night jungle melodrama on WGN: walls of grimacing island gods, plastic leis and paper lanterns, and enough bamboo to build an Indonesian aircraft carrier. “Don’t worry, the Pusateris don’t have a piece of this.” Matty didn’t know he should have been worried about that until he mentioned it.

They took a table at the back of the room. The waitress, a plump, dark-haired woman in her fifties, greeted Grandpa with a kiss on the cheek. “Patti, this is my grandson, Matty. We’re celebrating. How about a piña colada? You like coconut, kid?”

“Virgin?” Patti asked Matty.

He felt his face heat. “Uh…”

“Semi virgin,” Grandpa said. “Give him a taste. Like I said, big day, big day.” He rapped his hands on the table, as full of energy as Matty. “So. How’s school?”

How’s school? He barely thought about school, even when he was there. Nothing seemed as real as the things that had happened to him this summer. After Nick Pusateri Senior, who could fear a high school senior? What could a math teacher possibly do to him?

“It’s good,” Matty said.

The drinks came. Matty’s was some kind of white slushy with a huge slice of pineapple riding the side of the glass. He sipped at it through the straw and felt the tingle of incipient head freeze. Or maybe it was the alcohol. Matty had no idea what was in the drink, or what it would do to him. He’d only smoked pot.

Grandpa waved at someone at the door. “And here’s my pal now.”

G. Randall Archibald strode across the room. “Mai tai, my dearest Patricia! And a platter of calamari!” He slapped Matty on the shoulder. “What a performance! We should go on the road!”

Matty was so confused. Archibald shook hands with Grandpa Teddy and plopped down in a seat. “Whew!”

“So Smalls bought it?” Grandpa asked.

“Literally. He’s planning on big orders. Once he got over the disappointment over losing Matty, he realized the defense possibilities. The micro-lepton gun is the greatest weapon ever created to combat psi-spies, foreign and domestic!”

Matty couldn’t figure out what was going on. It was as if Hitler had sat down at the table with them, and Grandpa was asking about the weather in Berlin.

“So he’s in, then,” Grandpa said, and he couldn’t hold back a grin.

“In? He’s already talking RFPs, taking the gun straight to the military,” Archibald said. “He’s fired up to get us a contract, no matter if Star Gate’s canceled. The safety of these United States depends on it.”

Grandpa was nodding. “I was thinking we need to add a visual component. The sound effects are great, but a laser doodad would really sell it.”

“Wait wait wait,” Matty finally said. “You guys are working together?”

The men regarded him with amusement. He was not amused. Everything he knew about his family was not wrong, exactly, but turned sixty degrees. It was like the big red Picasso statue downtown—it became something different when you found a new angle.

“How long’s this been going on?” Matty demanded.

“Since the beginning,” Archibald said. “Before there was even a Telemachus Family.” His circus-animal eyebrows arched their backs. “Or a Telemachus.”

“But you destroyed us! On TV!”

The magician looked chagrined. “That was regrettable.”

“Regrettable? You wrecked everything.”

“That wasn’t Archie’s fault,” Grandpa Teddy said. “He was following the plan. Your grandmother was supposed to come out and do her best trick. The audience would have eaten it up. And then he—”

“And then I,” Archibald put in, “the world’s most notable debunker of psychics, would have eaten crow. Loudly, chewing openmouthed. My endorsement of authenticity, my imprimatur, would have catapulted them over the heads of that Israeli faker himself.”

“May he burn in hell,” Teddy said.

“But that didn’t happen,” Matty said.

“Fate intervened,” Grandpa said. “And your grandmother refused to try again. I must admit, I sulked for a while. But in the end, it was for the best. What would fame have gotten us?”

“Jail, perhaps,” Archibald said.

“Heartache,” Grandpa said.

“Better to take the money,” Archibald said.

Grandpa put his hand on Matty’s shoulder. “The company Archie and I started—ATI? It was built from the start to milk as much money from the government teat as possible. That milk was running dry, what with Smalls’s retirement. But now that the ol’ boy is jazzed up—”

“We’re back in business,” Archibald said.

“Sorry I couldn’t tell you about what was up,” Grandpa said. “Didn’t want you to tip our hand.”

Patti set down Archibald’s drink, a tall orange-colored thing decorated with a sprig of something green, a slice of pineapple, and a pink parasol. Archibald raised it high. “To ATI!”

“Archibald and Telemachus Incorporated,” Grandpa answered.

“Okay, but, but…” The number of questions in Matty’s head was turning into a multivehicle pileup. “Is the micro-lepton gun fake or not?”

“Oh, it’s real,” Archibald said.

“And totally fake,” Grandpa said.

“Ever hear of a placebo?” Archibald asked.

Matty nodded, even though he wasn’t exactly sure what the word meant.