Fat Tony -- Section Four

    Fat Tony worked his way through base security, showing his ID and putting his fingerprints on scanners.  Then he took the base shuttle out to the remote square of a building that housed one of the most unofficial of official organizations in the military: Arcane Reconnaissance Team, South-West Division.
    Fat Tony stared at the Museum—what the place had always been called, as far as he knew—as his quiet driver took him across the flat expanse of scrub and dust that separated the building from the rest of the base.
    “Ho-o-omeward bound,” he sang to himself.  “I wish I was….”
    He thanked the driver for the ride and climbed out of the car.  Someone was already opening one of the heavy metal doors for him.
    “Welcome back, Lieutenant,” said Sergeant Guevara.
    “Jo, I am so far from being a lieutenant, I’m almost a sergeant.”
    “Nice one, Tony.  I’m laughing on the inside.  Get in here.”
    “The Major in his office?”
    Jo shook his head.  “Main Gallery.  Funky things going on, so thanks for coming out.  The boss knows it’s not your favorite trip to make.”
    “Not so bad,” shrugged Fat Tony, walking down the painted concrete hallway.  “For example, yesterday, I slammed my hand in my car door and thought, ‘This is worse than making a trip to the Museum.’”
    “It’s good to see you to, Mr. Fat.”
    “Come on, Jo, you know it’s not you guys.”
    “Don’t sweat it, Tony.  After you.”
    Fat Tony led the way into the Main Gallery, a dark, domed room in the middle of the Museum, filled with men and women in uniform sitting in swivel-chairs.  No desks, computers, or phones, and nothing on the walls, although everyone stared at the dome intently.
    “Anthony.”  A small man in his forties with shockingly oversized ears walked up to them, speaking quietly.  “It’s good to see you, and thank you for coming.”
    “Occasionally willing to oblige, Major.  How are the kids?”
    “The oldest is catching up to you, and she’s beautiful.  You still single, Tony?”
    “Too lazy to get married, sir.”
    “I suppose that’s as good an excuse as any, though I don’t think you ever failed a fitness test.”
    “It was a miracle,” said Tony.
    “Either that, or the five miles you run every day.”
    “So you called me out here, urgently, so you could set me up with your daughter?  I’m flattered, sir.”
    “Tony, when was the last time you went on a date?”
    “Is this the place or the time?  I do charge by the hour now.”
    “All right,” said the Major.  “Something strange has been going on close to home here.  Our people didn’t notice it at first, and we’re not even sure what it is.”
    “Or if it really is anything,” said Jo.
    “Which is why we asked you back, Tony.  We would have let it go, but—well,” said The Major, “take a look and see what you think.  If we dragged you out here for nothing, at least you’ll be getting paid more for it than you used to.”
    “Sure thing,” said Fat Tony.  He looked around the room for a place to sit.  “Sir, if I still cursed, I’d be cursing at the moment.  Is that my old chair?”
    “The Sergeant pulled it out of storage for you.  You like it?”
    “I’ve always liked it, but I didn’t think you’d keep it after I retired.  I was pretty clear I wasn’t coming back.”
    “Actually,” the Major coughed, “the chair got caught in administrative limbo.  We wanted to junk it, but we were told we had to surplus the thing since it cost so much originally.  We finished the paperwork once, lost it, did it again, the buyer didn’t pick it up, and one thing led to another.  You know how it is.”
    Fat Tony turned to Sergeant Guevara.  “He’s lying, isn’t he.”
    “Through his teeth.  He kept telling me not to get rid of it, though I tried.  I had it in the dumpster once, but the old man made me take it out.  He was crying.”
    “That’s enough, Sergeant.”
    Jo stretched his face into a frown and drew tear-tracks down his cheeks, nodding sympathetically.
    “Well,” said Tony, “I’m back, it’s a good place to sit, so no harm done.  Thank you, sir.”
    “I liked having you around, Anthony.  I’ve always been sorry about how things turned out.”
    Fat Tony shrugged and walked over to his chair.  He knew it was an awkward end to that conversation, but there was no good way for that conversation to end.  Ever.  The best that ever happened was a sort of collective amnesia, everyone ignoring the elephant in the room.
    As he sat back into his custom-built leather chair, a quick spitting war between nostalgia and anxiety started in the area of his chest, but a few deep breaths into his meditation exercises and habit took over.  Around him, tracing over the arch of the dome, an image of the magical life of the South West sprang to life.  The best description Fat Tony had ever come up with was a radar image designed by the team of Andy Warhol and Jackson Pollock.  Assuming they were both on LSD.
    It had been five years, but he quickly picked out the distant wash of happy magic from Northern California—the Redwoods were his polar star—then traced his way back over the ugly mess of Vegas, down to the deep-old magic still alive in the Tohono O’odham Nation.  Finally his eyes and senses settled around Tucson, Arizona.
    Sergeant Guevara rolled his own chair over next to Fat Tony’s.  “I think I’ve finally picked out where your apartment is,” said Jo.
    “You’re still trying?  I thought you’d decided to get a real hobby, like carrot peeling.”
    “There,” said Jo, pointing towards a tiny, empty spot in the magical fabric that made up the pattern of North-Central Tucson.  “No place stays that black all the time.  You blacked out your apartment so no one could find any traces of your magic.”
    “That’s an interesting theory,” said Tony.
    “I’m right, aren’t I?  I finally got it!  Hot dang, I’m taking up smoking again to celebrate.”
    “Woah, woah, slow down.  Don’t get lung cancer on my account.  Besides, that’s not my place.”
    “It is too!  I’ve guessed every single street in this stupid city and you always tell me that’s not it.  This was the last possible place.”
    “Just walk through this with me, Jo, and give me a little credit.  What’s the only thing that stands out more than a magical hotspot?”
    “Oh,” said the Sergeant.
    “Exactly,” said Tony.  “Someplace that’s blank all the time is going to be noticed, and I don’t want my place to be noticed.”
    “So what’s over there?” asked Jo.
    “Let’s see,” said Fat Tony, opening up his focus to the patterns of magic that surrounded that house.  Not much to see, really, residential neighborhood, usual noise, up in Grandma’s neighborhood. 
    Grandma’s neighborhood.  Fat Tony managed to keep his reaction to a few rapid blinks.
    “Who knows?” he said.  “Not my job anymore, unless you think that black spot has something to do with whatever’s going on that your people noticed.”
    “Nah,” said Jo, “we don’t think so.  It’s a more subtle thing, like you said.  Not all the way black, not a hotspot.  Keep looking, see if you find it.”
    “Haven’t had a chance to look yet.  Someone interrupted me by trying to do the impossible.”
    “I will find your apartment, Tony, so help me.  And then I’ll egg the place.  Every day for a month.”
    “Save the eggs and I’ll make you breakfast.  My omelets are worth wrestling a chicken for.”
    “It’s a deal.  Now do your job.”
    “Sir, yes sir.”
    Fat Tony pulled his focus back to Tucson.  Subtle, they were saying, no specific thing, so that meant patterns.  Little things.  He mentally filtered out the major magical players—the big firms downtown, the University, the Eegee’s sub-shops—and let his attention wander over the rest of the city like his mom used to choose deserts: never quite settling on any one thing.  He forgot time as he lost himself in his work.  In fact, Time could have dropped an hourglass on his head and he wouldn’t have noticed.  The colors and feelings of the city swirled through his eyes and started reaching his ears, almost like a street performer playing over the sound of traffic.  There, the melody was stronger, and—
    “Got it,” said Tony.
    “Geez,” said Jo.  “Six minutes.”
    “Where’s my dollar?” asked the Major from behind them.
    “I’ll leave it on your desk, sir.  How do you do that, Tony?”
    “You had a bet on this?”
    “And I was almost nervous,” said the Major.  “One more minute and I would have lost.”
    “I thought he was joking when the Major bet you’d see it in under seven.  Even knowing what we were looking for, most of us took upwards of three hours just to see what might—might—have been there.”
    “Oh, it’s subtle,” said Fat Tony.  “Thing is, it’s not on purpose.”
    “Come again?” said the Major.
    “It’s the fault of the training, sir.  We’re trained to recognize patterns, mostly patterns caused by people.  Terrorists, thieves, businessmen, housewives, they all mostly do things on purpose, and that shows up in the magic they use.  This irregularity your people found—which was very impressive searching, whoever did it—is unintentional magic.  Take this bubble here.”
    Fat Tony reached out with his hand and a bit of magic, pulling out an image of one magical irregularity from near the airport.  “This is one of the larger ones, probably a warehouse or storage locker.  You see how diffuse the magic is?  No direction to it.  People use magic like a rope to pull on things or tie things up.  This magic is more like a ball of yarn.”
    “Theories on what causes it?”
    “None, though I think you were right to worry about it.  This magic seems really unstable.  Can you go check it out?”
    “Jurisdictional problems,” said the Major.  “We’ll turn it over to the FBI.  I’ll have to use finesse.  They don’t like to hear from us at ART.”
    “You need more from me?” asked Fat Tony.
    “That’s it,” said the Major.  “Sergeant Guevara will call the shuttle and send you off.  Thanks for making the trip.”
    “It wasn’t too bad, sir.” 
    They shook hands and Jo and Tony slipped quietly out of the Main Gallery.
    “You always were the best, Tony,” said the Sergeant.  “The Major still talks about you.”
    “Yeah,” said Fat Tony.
    No one said anything about his coming back permanently.