Monroe nodded. “Popped. Onto the wall, mostly, but a bit went onto Mastick’s lips.” His eyes were bright with delight. “Some, right into the bastard’s open mouth.” And he was off laughing again.
“That’s not funny,” Charlie said. “Do you know how dangerous—”
“Rest assured,” Giles patted his arm. “They contacted senior medical staff immediately. Hempelmann and the others. They concocted a nonreactive solution to rinse out his mouth. He swished it, then spat it, every fifteen minutes for three hours. They tested the spit and it was a good recovery.”
“But then.” Monroe wiped away a tear. “I don’t know why this part kills me, but it does. They run a counter on his breath from six feet away. Mastick’s still hot as a barbecue. So then . . .” He started chortling again.
“They pumped his stomach,” Giles interrupted. “And collected the contents. That’s a beaker I shudder to contemplate. And when it came time to salvage the plutonium from the organic material—”
“Who did they give the job to?” Monroe thumbed Charlie in the ribs. “Who?”
“I have no possible idea.”
“Mastick,” Monroe all but yelled. “They made the poor bastard titrate his own barf.” And he was howling with laughter again.
Giles chuckled along, while Charlie stood shaking his head. “You guys are great. Honestly. But can I please go to bed now?”
Monroe kept grinning. “You know, Mister Charlie, a thing I admire about you?”
“What is that?”
“That you can work all day on detonators, and still sleep at night.”
“Hey,” Giles said. “Play nice.”
“No offense,” Monroe protested. “I can’t get but about three winks, myself.”
“Nor any taken,” Charlie answered, patting Monroe’s arm as he walked past, aiming for the barracks. “I’m too tired to take offense at anything.”
He was soldering in his sleep. A giant in-box bent under the weight of designs he was to build. The instant he finished an assembly, some soldiers snatched it up. Brenda stood by, tapping her foot. In the logic of the dream, she could end his work with a word, but she kept silent. Charlie wanted to see where the finished detonators were going, but whenever he turned his head someone would press on his stomach to make him focus on the device before him. As he surfaced into wakefulness, it turned out that Midnight was kneading the blanket on his belly with alternating paws. He rubbed her ears back, which she tolerated for half a minute before hopping down to begin her day’s expeditions.
The barracks were quiet, the others boys already at work. Charlie shuffled to the latrine, squinting at a pinup calendar to see that it was Saturday. Tonight, he might have some fun. If he was not too exhausted. Or too blue about Brenda. Or required to build something for Monday.
Probably he had slept through breakfast. But he scanned the row of empty sinks, and for the first time since arriving at The Hill, he had his choice.
Charlie was waiting by the mess hall for a ride to the concrete bowl when Monroe arrived with the power wagon. Stopping to let boys unload, he gave a sloppy salute.
“So I missed it?” Charlie asked.
“Yep, but you done good, Mister Charlie.”
“I did?”
“Sixteen went bang without a hitch. New world record.”
“Two of them misfired?”
Monroe shook his head. “Didn’t fire at all.”
Feeling like a rock had dropped in his belly, Charlie put a hand on the truck for balance. A moment later, Bronsky’s yellow pickup came idling along. The driver slowed, and Charlie moved over to receive his lecture. But the department director only pointed over his shoulder. “We have leave assembly on big table. Perhaps please by tomorrow you are find what failed and why.”
“Sure,” Charlie said. “Yes, sir.”
The truck pulled away, and wearily Charlie started toward the gate to the labs. At the same time the guards stepped forward, he reached for his pass.
“Hey, Mister Charlie,” Monroe called. “See you at the dance tonight?”
“I wish,” he mumbled. The guards inspected his pass and waved him forward.
When Charlie had presented his assembly for testing, it was laid out on a grid atop the fabrication table. Now a rough wooden crate sat in that place. He dragged it to the edge and peered in: wires, devices, cables, all in a mad knot. He turned the crate over and dumped the contents out.
It looked like a spiderweb that had trapped itself. Merely untangling the thing would take hours, and that was before a single diagnostic test. There was no one to help him, no one to share the work. And if he succeeded, what then? Was he a hero, or a monster? How would his invention be used?
Charlie fell back into his chair. Detonation wires dangled a few feet away. Without thinking, he took the positive one and clipped it to his left sleeve. Calmly, he attached the negative to his right. He completed the circuit. He was the Gadget.
The building’s custodian passed in the hallway, a local man mopping the floor. He circled back though, and poked his head in the doorway. “Everything all right, senor?”
“Excellent, fantastic, splendid,” Charlie told the man. He lifted the wires and let them fall on his chest. “All clears.”
29.
Already I knew Lizzie well enough to wait before asking. I gave it three whole days, though I was ravenous with curiosity. Meanwhile, Mrs. Morris was friendly to me as a scorpion. Each Sunday after I played, trying harder, aiming for perfection, her hostility was less hidden. And the reverend—between daily services, visiting the sick, and the funeral of a woman who’d lived her whole life in Santa Fe and therefore drew quite a crowd—was not around the house much. We all knew when he’d come home, though, because that voice boomed up the stairs like it was amplified.
“Thank God he’s quiet during sex,” Lizzie joked one day, though the very thought scandalized me.
It was after dinner, and I’d just come from the washroom. “You are so saucy” was the best reply I could muster.
“Probably he waits till we’re both not here, so they can be as loud as they want.”
“Probably you should spend less time imagining other people’s private activities.”
Lizzie laughed. “Believe me, kid. If my Timothy were here, I’d be thinking about his and mine and there’d be no room for anyone else’s.”
“Naughty.” I whapped her with my washcloth. “Come drink with me at La Fonda.”
“Your treat this time?”
“Why not?”
“Church collection money paying for booze.” She slid into sandals. “I love it.”
Off we went, into the warm evening. The moon hung high in the clear desert sky. Lizzie took my arm and we strolled like sisters.
The hotel bar was packed as a theater showing a new Bogart movie. Guys in their twenties, loud as a college party. Dozens of them, but no Charlie. One funny thing: None of them were dressed like ranchers or vacationers. No locals either. No girls. No one in uniform. Just a gang of pale guys with short hair, many wearing glasses.