Sunny, Bubba and Colby marched down the long hall away from the elevator. Parker walked behind them, followed closely by Jim, Jack, Neal and Bob. Shiny metal doors lined either side of the hallway suffused with stark, economic white light emanating from light fixtures overhead. Parker noticed as they walked past the many doors that not one of them bore a nameplate, a number, nor any signs of any kind. The doors were identical. He wondered how you navigated a building devoid of information pertaining to your location.
“Through there, please,” said Jim. He motioned to a nameless, nondescript door at the end of the hallway.
Sunny reached the door first and tried the handle. It turned easily and the door swung open, revealing a large room with a long wooden conference table in the center flanked by high-backed black leather chairs. Black leather sofas and easy chairs lined the perimeter of the room, punctuated by small circular tables with green-glassed brass reading lamps with little pull-chains. It produced a confusing mixture of corporate board room and leisurely after-dinner cognac-sipping parlor.
“Wait here, please,” said Jim. He disappeared through a side door. Parker examined the room and watched Jack exit through a door separate from Jim. Neal and Bob left through separate doors on the opposite side of the room. If he and the other kids hadn’t been the unwitting guests in a weird boardroom somewhere beneath a secret underground city, Parker might have been tempted to laugh at the almost Vaudevillian series of rapid-fire departures by the men who hours ago had by all rights kidnapped him, though seemingly accidentally, from an urban toy store.
He hurried to the door through which they entered and tried the handle. The handle wouldn’t budge. He trotted to the next closest door, the one through which Jim had exited, and found it likewise impassable.
“What are you doing?” said Sunny.
“Trying to find a way out of here,” said Parker. He scurried around the room, trying each door handle in succession, each time without success. “I don’t know what’s worse, being kidnapped by G-men on my birthday or being mistaken for him.” He thrust his chin at Colby, who had taken a seat at the head of the massive mahogany table. Colby propped his feet up, apparently deciding that if he were forced to wait for this mysterious General Ramsey then he would at least do it in the leisurely manner suggested by the room in which he was required to do so. The only articles Colby lacked were a red velvet smoking jacket, a ridiculously large brandy snifter containing an ounce or two of alarmingly expensive thirty-year-old liquor, and perhaps a drooping pipe clamped between his teeth, clicking against his tooth enamel as he spoke, issuing trivial appraisals such as “Jolly good” and “Smashing, darling” as if he strode bored-as-can-be through his Southern plantation home or around the deck of an immaculate ocean liner lazily traversing the Atlantic.
Parker was awakened from this reverie by the violent opening of a fifth door he had failed to see. Its paneling matched the walls of the room and he’d overlooked it entirely. A tall, broad-shouldered man entered the room. His silent approach was made all the more impressive by his undeniable presence. He wore a dark blue military uniform, though it was difficult to tell from which branch he hailed, as there rested a pair of silver wings over one breast, a gold anchor over the other, several gleaming stars on his epaulettes, and a half-dozen stripes decorating his sleeves. Multi-colored bars and emblems gleamed in the usual location over his heart. His forward momentum ceased abruptly and he froze. He stood unmoving. All of his senses seemed to absorb the location and status of every object and being in the room around him.
“Good afternoon.” His buttery-deep voice rolled with conviction and authority. There could be no mistake: it was indeed afternoon and a good one at that. “Obviously, I am General Ramsey. And, obviously, I am in charge here.” He paused, long enough to study each of them in turn, long enough to ascertain that their appraisal of his authority was absolute. “I am going to ask a question. And as we all agree I am in charge here and am therefore a very busy man, I trust you will not find me rude when I say I only have time to ask this question once.” He looked around the room, allowing time for his words to sink in. No one moved.
“I have been informed as to the particulars of your arrival here today,” said the General, “including the keen observations of Mr. Constantine Curly. Constantine is our local newsstand proprietor and a notorious gossip. I have been briefed by our operatives in Mr. Glaze’s Donuts & Fritters, and also by one Samuel Finchely, astute doorman of Sky City Plaza North. Lastly, I have expressed my appreciation for the help of Mr. Timothy Alvin, our appointed toy store manager as of two days ago. I am man enough to admit I would be lying if I denied being impressed with your actions thus far. So, my question, then, is as follows . . . .”
General Ramsey spoke slowly, annunciating every word, delivering every syllable with the silver-tongued surety of a man seldom questioned.
“Which of you . . . is . . . Colby Max?”
Parker’s gaze shot toward Colby. Colby stared starkly back at him. Parker glanced at Bubba, then at Sunny, who gave him the slightest of nods, confirming what he had already decided: it was time to stop screwing around and come clean. It was time to set straight just who was who. This was clearly not a game and General Ramsey was not the kind of man to suffer fools lightly. Even if it had been his own people who foolishly apprehended the wrong Colby Max.
Parker and Colby each raised a finger, pointed at one another and echoed in perfect unison: “He is.”
General Ramsey stiffened, almost audibly, and seemed to stand up even taller. He spoke, quietly, soft as a librarian. “This is not the answer I was expecting. If I have to, I’ll take you across town to Doctor Payne’s dental practice and personally supervise as he slowly extracts one tooth at a time from each of your heads in order to compare them with your dental records until I receive a satisfactory answer to my question.” General Ramsey looked back and forth between the boys. “This is not an idle threat. It is a tried-and-true method of personal identification, albeit an extreme one. I don’t like pulling teeth to gain information. But we’re in the middle of a war, and this is very serious.”
General Ramsey snapped his fingers. Side doors opened and Jim, Jack, Neal and Bob entered. Each took a few steps into the room and then snapped to attention. General Ramsey turned slowly to Jim. “Mr. Kelly, do you recall being summoned to my office a few days ago?”
“Yes, sir,” said Jim.
“Do you recall being entrusted with a photograph of Colby Max?”
“Yes, sir,” said Jim. He sounded nothing like the easy-going guy on the train who’d shown Parker the night-vision glasses.
“What happened to the photograph of Colby Max I gave you?”
“Sir,” replied Jim, “the photograph got thrown away, sir.”
“Thrown away?” repeated General Ramsey, very quietly.
“Yes, sir,” spat Jim. “Two days ago, sir. We stopped at Mr. Glaze’s Donuts & Fritters during our preliminary reconnoiter of the toy store, sir. The photograph was, regrettably, mixed up with refuse and discarded.”
“And what,” muttered General Ramsey, “did you eat during your respite at Mr. Glaze’s fine establishment?”
“Jack ate a bear claw, Neal ordered an apple fritter, Bob requested a chocolate éclair, and I enjoyed a glazed donut followed immediately by a maple bar. Sir.”
“A glazed donut and a maple bar?”
“Yes, sir,” said Jim. “Lacy and I are still trying for a baby and were up late, so I’d overslept that morning and missed breakfast, sir.”
“I see. And were there liquid refreshments to accompany your sweets?” asked General Ramsey. He grinned ever-so-slightly.
“Yes, sir!” answered Jim. “Chocolate milks all around.”
“Chocolate milk. Of course. That’s a fine recollection of your snack, Mr. Kelly,” said General Ramsey, most sincerely.
“Thank you, sir.” Jim beamed.
“Let me make certain I understand you correctly,” said General Ramsey. “You just
told me precisely what each of the four of you ate and drank during an on-duty visit to an out-of-bounds food establishment two days ago. Yet you cannot remember the physical appearance and description of your target long enough to properly acquire it. Is that what you’re telling me?”
Jim didn’t answer. He stopped beaming.
Beads of sweat appeared one by one on Jim’s forehead. The only sound in the room was Jack’s deviated septum whistling like a teapot.
“Perhaps if you took another six months to practice your sanitation skills, it might also improve your memory in areas less concerned with pastries,” said General Ramsey. “You might even find the photograph I entrusted to you.”
“Yes, sir!” answered Jim.
Parker could not begin to fathom the meaning of another six months of sanitation duty, whatever sanitation duty entailed exactly. Nevertheless, he felt sympathy for Jim, Jack, Neal and Bob. They had kidnapped him on his birthday, of that there was no doubt, but they had treated him well overall, and he supposed that were he ever again kidnapped, he hoped to be shown the same courtesy and friendship as he had been shown by Jim and his crew, despite the glaring fact that they had indeed snatched the wrong person entirely, a fact so sublimely illustrated by General Ramsey.
“I wonder . . .” said General Ramsey. He took a few steps. His gaze considered the carpet. His hands slid into in his pockets. He resembled a man strolling in the park, deep in thought, staring absently at birdseed scattered on the path around him.
Parker took his eyes off the General long enough to sweep around the room. Jim’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down against the knot of his black necktie as he swallowed nervously. Jack’s septum sounded as though it were about to boil over. Neal and Bob stared off into space as though they’d been hired as mannequins perched in the storefront window of a men’s clothier, perhaps Drab Black Suits 4-Less or What To Wear When You’re Being Yelled At By A Really Scary Tall Guy. Sunny stood wringing her hands together like she did last year when she’d won the sixth grade spelling bee at school after the agonizing spelling-out of some really long word. Parker had later learned the winning word had something to do with the study of dog whistles. Bubba looked cool as a cucumber, though Parker knew inwardly Bubba was about as cool as molten lava. Colby was still sitting down, though he no longer had his legs crossed on the table. He suddenly looked more like a scared kid about to get the third-degree than he did an ocean-going yuppie socialite drawn from the pages of contemporary American literature.
“I wonder . . .” General Ramsey said again. He strolled around the room. Almost casually.
No one else moved.
Parker swept his eyes around the room again. Nothing had changed: Jim, Jack, Neal and Bob were staring fixedly into space while Sunny, Bubba and Colby were observing General Ramsey.
The General took a few more paces, then turned on his heel and paced slowly back toward the hidden door through which he’d entered.
The seconds ticked away into minutes that crawled like hours. Parker wished somebody would say something. He wished the General would finish his sentence. He wished Jack’s nose would stop whistling. He wished he could yell some four-letter words. He wished he were back home, staring down at the city from his bedroom window as he had that morning, before he knew about any of this, before he knew his dad wasn’t coming home.
Most of all, he just wanted to get this over with. Whatever it was Jim had meant on the way here, this audition or interview or whatever, he couldn’t stand all this waiting, all this deafening silence. This was worse than the seven agonizing minutes Sunny had needed to spell her winning word.
“I . . .” said General Ramsey, for the third time, “wonder . . . .”
Parker snapped. “What?! You wonder what?!”
Everyone looked at him, even General Ramsey.
Parker studied the General, ready for the coup de gras of angry adult admonishments. General Ramsey, however, smiled.
“There!” he said, and pointed at Parker. “That’s what I’m talking about.” His eyes flashed around the room, pausing on each one of them in turn. He seemed to expect them to understand precisely what he meant, as though this clarified everything. “That’s the . . . the . . . fire! The . . . savvy! The . . . courage I need for this project. That’s the go-getter attitude I knew I could expect from Colby Max!” He strode over to Parker and leaned down so they were eye to eye.
This was a strange birthday and growing stranger all the time. Parker was fairly certain he had just been praised for blowing his top, something he seemed to do at least once or twice a week at school, where his reward was usually writing ‘I Will Not Snore In Class” five hundred times on the board with laser chalk, or sifting dead crickets out of the sand at the bottom of the gecko tanks with his fingers, the rotten-bug poop smell of which wouldn't wash off for days.
General Ramsey straightened up and looked around expectantly.
Parker marched over to Colby, who still sat at the head of the long conference table, apparently practicing invisibility. He leaned close to Colby, so he could speak quietly. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing.”
“Exactly!” Parker muttered through gritted teeth. “This guy thinks I’m you.”
“I know.”
“Tell him I’m not.”
“No way!” hissed Colby. “I wanna get the heck outta here.”
“So do I.”
“You weren’t in such a hurry while signing autographs in the elevator,” said Colby.
“That was different. That was a few scribbles on a napkin. This is serious!”
“Is there a problem?” asked General Ramsey.
Parker looked over his shoulder and saw the General standing with his arms folded across his chest. “Uh, yes,” Parker began tentatively, “uh . . . I’m not Colby Max. He is.”
“Liar!” shouted Colby.
Parker whirled around, mouth open, eyes wide. He couldn’t believe the ardor of Colby’s refusal to admit the truth.
“Colby!” shouted Sunny. Everyone looked at her, then back at the boys, trying to discern to whom she was speaking, at who she was looking.
Parker looked satisfactorily down at Colby only to find Colby already grinning up at him. They were getting nowhere fast.
General Ramsey walked over to Parker and Colby and looked each of them up and down. “If you like, we can stay here while Jim gets Dr. Payne on the phone,” said the General. No one spoke. The General pulled out a chair and sat down, kicking his heels up on the table as Colby had earlier.
Parker stared at Colby. Colby stared back at him for a moment before turning casually away, as if he were a stranger with whom he’d made accidental eye contact. Parker sighed. This was ridiculous. There had to be a simple way to prove his identity. Other than tooth extraction.
He had an idea.
“Subsuperdumbatoonerismology!” he shouted in triumph.
The uncomprehending silence was deafening.
Parker looked at Sunny as if he’d just said two plus two equaled four, as it obviously did. She looked back at him as if he’d said two plus two equaled 14,863, as it obviously did not.
“I beg your pardon?” said General Ramsey.
“Sub-super-dumb-a-tooner-ism-ology,” Parker said.
“You’ll have to excuse me,” said General Ramsey, “whoever you are. I heard you just fine. But I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Sub. Super. Dumb-a-toon. Erism. Ology,” said Parker.
“Dog whistles,” mused Sunny. All heads turned to her. A smile stole across her lips. “The study of canine hearing loss due to dog whistles. From the spelling bee last year. How did you remember?”
“Because you won,” said Parker.
Sunny smiled.
“And because Bubba said he wanted to be a subsuperdumbatoonerismologist.”
“I did?” asked Bubba.
“Yeah, you said there had to be a way to engineer a more humane dog whistle,” said Parker
.
“Oh yeah. I did say that.” Bubba smiled. “I love dogs.”
“This is relevant . . . why?” asked Colby.
“Brilliant.”
Everyone looked at the General.
“Just brilliant,” he said again. He smiled as he stood. “Only a friend of Sunny’s would have access to such information. And only a true friend would remember such a delightful word. And as Sunny only just met the real Colby Max this afternoon, making him a veritable stranger to her, the real Colby Max couldn’t possibly know anything about her knowledge of the study of dog whistles, thereby making it impossible,” -he pointed at Parker- “for you to be him! Thus, the real Colby Max . . . .” He whirled and pointed at Colby. “Is you!”
Colby looked none too happy about the General’s mental gymnastics.
“However,” said General Ramsey, “I’m afraid another problem exists.” He immediately became pensive once more. His eyebrows furrowed. He cradled his chin in his hand. He considered Parker and Colby. “I felt sure Colby Max would be brave. Confident. Ready to face any challenge head-on, no matter how great, no matter how grave the potential consequences. I see, now, I was mistaken.” He stared down at Colby. Condescension dripped from the medals of General Ramsey’s uniform.
“Are you done?” asked Colby. “Because my parents are probably worried sick. My band, Colby’s Kids, is headlining at The Crow Bar in Manhattan tonight—Sunny you’re invited—which means it’s going to be a late night, since we probably won’t go on until at least ten, especially if Poo’s stand-up routine goes long like it did last week. I’ll be lucky if I get two hours of sleep. And I have a front page photo shoot at nine a.m. for this Sunday’s edition of The American. At the risk of sounding like an old man, I need a nap. So I’d like to be going now.”
“Sir. If I may?” said Jim.
“Yes, Mr. Kelly?” said General Ramsey.
“Would you like me to take care of the excess targets now, sir?”
“And which ones, exactly, are the excess targets, Jim?”
“Everyone but him, sir.” He looked squarely at Parker. Parker saw no trace of the easy-going, conversational guy from the transcontinental subterranean bullet-train journey. He found it strange, a little scary even, that a person’s demeanor could be turned on and off that way, like the light switch in his bedroom. Maybe that was the way you had to be for government work. Not to mention the fact that Jim was talking about ‘taking care of’ Sunny and Bubba, his two best friends in the world. What ‘taking care of’ involved he still wasn’t sure. It sounded as ominous and callous as Jim’s voice.
“No, Jim,” said General Ramsey, “though I appreciate your offer.”
“Of course, sir.” Jim returned to his stoic position.
“I’m afraid,” said General Ramsey, “that you can’t leave, Colby. None of you can.” Parker, Sunny, Bubba and especially Colby looked hard at the General. His steely eyes swept over them like cold water as he spoke. “As a matter of national security, your departure is, in fact, quite impossible.”
Chapter 9
Blast Doors and Mammoth Snot