Part 29 (1/2)
”Figure it out,” Lester said.
Perry thought for a moment. Six squared? Six cubed? Log six? ”Six *factorial*? My G.o.d you're weird, Les.”
”Genius is never appreciated.” He scooped up a double-handful of brown M&Ms. ”In your face, Von Neumann! Let's see your precious ENIAC top *this*!”
A month later, Perry was clearing security at Miami International, looking awkward in long trousers, closed-sole shoes, and a denim jacket. It was autumn in Boston, and he couldn't show up in flip-flops and a pair of cutoffs. The security guards gave his leathery, lopsided face a hard look. He grinned like a pirate and made his funny eyebrow twitch, a stunt that earned him half an hour behind the screen and a date with Doctor Jellyfinger.
”What, exactly, do you think I've got hidden up there?” he asked as he gripped the railing and tried not to let the illegitimati carborundum.
”It's procedure, sir.”
”Well, the doc said my prostate was the size of a guava about a month ago -- in your professional opinion, has it shrunk or grown? I mean, while you're up there.”
The TSA man didn't like that at all. A minute later, Perry was buckling up and leaving the little room with an exaggerated bowlegged gait. He tipped an imaginary hat at the guard's retreating back and said, ”Call me!” in a stagey voice.
It was the last bit of fun he had for the next four hours, crammed in the tin can full of recycled discount air-traveller flatulence and the clatter of fingers on keyboards and the gabble of a hundred phone conversations as the salarymen on the flight stole a few minutes of cramped productivity from the dead travel time.
Touching down in Boston and getting his luggage, he felt like he'd landed on an alien planet. The feeling of disorientation and foreignness was new to Perry. He was used to being supremely comfortable, in control -- confident. But he was nervous now, maybe even scared, a little.
He dialed Tjan. ”I've got my bags,” he said.
”I'll be right around,” Tjan said. ”Really looking forward to seeing you.”
There were more cops than pa.s.sengers in the arrivals area at Logan, and they watched Tjan warily as he pulled up and swung open a door of his little sports-car.
”What the f.u.c.k is this, a Porsche?” Perry said as he folded himself awkwardly into the front seat, stepping in through the sun-roof, pulling his bag down into his lap after him.
”It's a Lada. I had it imported -- they're all over Russia. Evolutionary algorithm used to produce a minimum-materials/maximum-strength cha.s.sis. It's nice to see you, Perry.”
”It's nice to see you, Tjan,” he said. The car was so low to the ground that it felt like he was riding luge. Tjan hammered mercilessly on the gearbox, rocketing them to Cambridge at such speed that Perry barely had time to admire the foliage, except at stop-lights.
They were around the campus now, taking a screeching right off Ma.s.s Ave onto a tree-lined street of homely two-storey brick houses. Tjan pulled up in front of one and popped the sun-roof. The cold air that rushed in was as crisp as an apple, unlike any breath of air to be had in Florida, where there was always a mus.h.i.+ness, a feeling of air that had been filtered through the moist lungs of Florida's teeming fauna.
Perry climbed out of the little Russian sports-car and twisted his back and raised his arms over his head until his spine gave and popped and crackled.
Tjan followed, and then he shut down the car with a remote that made it go through an impressive and stylish series of clicks, clunks and chirps before settling down over its wheels, dropping the cha.s.sis to a m.u.f.fler-sc.r.a.ping centimeter off the ground.
”Come on,” he said. ”I'll show you your room.”
Tjan's porch sagged, with a couple kids' bikes triple-locked to it and an all-covering chalk mosaic over every inch of it. The wood creaked and gave beneath their feet.
The door sprang open and revealed a pretty little girl, nine or ten years old, in blue-jeans and a hoodie sweater that went nearly to her ankles, the long sleeves bunched up like beach-b.a.l.l.s on her forearms. The hood hung down to her b.u.t.t -- it was East Coast bangbanger, as reinterpreted through the malls.
”Daddy!” she said, and put her arms around Tjan's waist, squeezing hard.
He pried her loose and then hoisted her by the armpits up to eye-height. ”What have you done to your brother?”
”Nothing he didn't deserve,” she said, with a smile that showed dimples and made her little nose wrinkle.