Blackbird (17 page)

“Where to?” he asks.

It always takes the doctor a few seconds. He always thinks before he speaks, knowing he has to get the exact wording right. They’re clear about that whenever they contact him. Everything has to be as they specify.

“I’m trying to get downtown. How much to go to Broadway and Spring?”

The driver tilts his head, looking out into the rain. The wipers are going their fastest speed, whipping back and forth, a steady beat.

“How ’bout forty?”

The doctor will say thirty-five, the man will agree, and he will get in the backseat. That is how it will happen, but now that he’s here, standing beside the car, he has a moment of hesitation. What has he done? Are they unhappy with him? Why do they want to meet him now, after nearly two months have passed?

“Thirty-five?” the doctor asks.

The driver nods. He puts his thumb over his shoulder to say
get in
.

The doctor takes one last look out into the rain, scanning the few people on the street. It’s not a choice. He has to meet them, he has to do this, but there’s still that itch to turn around, head back to the hospital, get his car and just go. Leave. How long would it take them to find him?

He opens the door, slides into the backseat. Cal is there, wearing a crisp black suit and tie. “Richard,” he says. “Thanks for meeting me on short notice.”

“Of course.”

The sedan starts forward and the doctor falls against the seat. His clothes are soaked through. He pushes his hair off his forehead, wiping the rain from his cheeks. He tries not to seem nervous, instead looking out the windshield as the car turns south on Broadway.

“The drug,” Cal starts. “You said you were certain about its effectiveness.”

Richard shakes his head. “I said I was as certain as I could be. It’s all still very experimental. I was clear about that from the beginning.”

“You said that in high dosages, the memories wouldn’t return for six months, maybe a year. Did you not say that?”

“It was a theory, a working theory. Why? What happened?”

Cal peers out from behind thin wireless glasses. “We’re hearing that that’s not the case. That there are memories coming through. One of our people was recognized from the island.”

The doctor’s first impulse is to apologize or explain, and he has to remind himself that he’s done nothing wrong. The drug was always experimental. They knew that. He was clear. It had only been used in a handful of studies, mostly PTSD patients, and his theory was just that—a theory. When they’d tested the high dosage it had worked, for only three weeks, but it had worked.

“I saw it work,” he insists. “You saw it work.”

“It’s not working anymore. It’s been less than a month and the memories seem to be coming back for some of them.”

“It was always experimental. You asked me to suppress years. Their time on the island, something that big . . . It was never certain.”

Cal fiddles with his cuff link. When he says it his voice is even, and it’s a statement, not a question. He never asks. “We’ll need more.”

The doctor lets out a breath. He watches the city go by beyond the window, trying to think of how to say it. He can’t just get more of the drug, but they have to think he can. Cal needs to need him.

“You’ll have to give me time,” he says.

“We don’t have any.”

“You can’t just expect me to get it for you in a day. I’ll need two weeks . . . at least.”

“One.”

Cal signals to the driver, and the sedan pulls to the curb. They haven’t reached Broadway and Spring. Instead they’ve stopped above Union Square. The Flatiron Building is a block south.

“I’ll try.”

“Do better than try,” Cal says. “Or you may end up on the island yourself.”

Then he reaches over the doctor, opens the door, and gestures for him to get out. The rain is coming down harder now. The drains are flooded, water rising up to the curb. The doctor wants to say something to convince him, to get him on his side, but Cal stares straight ahead. He is waiting for him to leave.

The doctor steps out. He is soaked again, the rain so hard it stings when it hits his skin. He closes the door and the car pulls away. That threat is enough to send his heart racing. It’s still in his head as the car takes a right down Twenty-First Street, disappearing from view.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF–NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

“
HOW DO THEY
feel?” Ben asks, glancing at your hands.

You’re looking down at your pink, scraped palms, the bruising just starting to darken. The skin burns where it hit the pavement. “They’re fine,” you say. “And I’m fine . . . better, at least. I’m just relieved we’re away from LA.”

By the time the taxi dropped you off, Ben was already home. You told him what happened with the hunter, and he ushered you into the Jeep before taking off for Cabazon. The more miles you put between you and Los Angeles, the more you could relax, the shaking in your hands subsiding. Three hours later, there’s no sign of anyone following you. You have to hope he can’t get to you here.

Ben turns the Jeep down a main strip, past another row of houses. Cabazon is a desert town, the orange sand stretching to the mountains, the buildings faded by the sun. Just off the freeway there’s a gas station with two giant dinosaur sculptures outside. As Ben parked, refilling the tank, you studied them, wondering how many times you’d passed them before today. How long had you lived here? Did you grow up nearby? Is there someone waiting for you to come back?

“I just need to know something, anything,” you say, scanning the street, looking at each of the short stucco houses. Nothing about it seems familiar. “I feel like I’m running out of time.”

Your voice is uneven and you turn away, hoping Ben doesn’t see the sudden swell in your eyes. “Don’t talk like that,” he says. “You got away from him twice. You’re strong and smart and from now on I’ll be there with you, wherever you go. Whatever you need. That police officer, she’s putting the pieces together. She’s going to find them.”

Ben stops at the stop sign and a woman crosses in front with two small boys, both riding bicycles, the training wheels still on. You didn’t wear your glasses, and now you meet the woman’s gaze through the windshield, watching her cross. For once you
want
someone to recognize you. You’re hoping she’ll smile, you’re hoping she’ll wave.

But they just keep moving. She says something to the boys, resting her hand on the littler one’s back. Ben takes another turn, circling another block, and you pass a birthday party in someone’s backyard. Colorful paper flags are strung up in decoration. There’s music playing. “How does someone go from living here, having some normal life, to what I’ve been through? How does that even happen?”

Ben doesn’t respond. He just puts his hand on your arm as he takes another turn, moving back toward the town center. The main area can’t be more than ten square miles, and in the last hour he’s driven up and down the streets, past parks and playgrounds, schools and libraries, and supermarkets. How many drug stores have you seen? How many restaurants? You keep studying the faces of strangers, wondering if you knew them before.

The sun is going down, the sky deepening. You pass a shopping complex, some advertisements on the wall beside it. You’re drawn to one particular one. It pictures a blond woman in a white sequined gown,
LULA’S BRIDAL
written underneath it in big, loopy script. The woman has a bright purple flower tucked behind one ear. It’s faded, the ad ripped in places, but it’s familiar. The memory rushes in.

The yellow paint on the house is peeling. You stick your finger beneath it, ripping it off, watching how the chips break apart in your hand. You’re younger, you can sense that, and before you can turn away a little boy runs up to you. He has black hair and black eyes and a handful of grass. He throws it in your face.

“Gotcha!” Then he is off, cutting into the overgrown yard.

You run after him. He can’t be more than five years old but he is fast. He jumps some beaten gray tires sitting in the grass, tears around a broken television set that was thrown beside the fence. He starts into the front yard. Down the street, high above the row of dingy houses, is a billboard for a place called Lula’s Bridal. The bride wears bright purple eye shadow, her hair teased out three inches.

The boy circles again, back around the other side of the house, slipping through a gap in the fence. You follow, ducking a rusted ladder that is propped against it. It’s your house, that’s clear. You know every stepping stone, know where the dog has dug ditches, know about the pile of wooden boards tucked behind the side door.

You are running and you are happy, laughing, and so is he. He turns back to you and his eyes catch the light. His smile is all teeth and in an instant you can feel it: You love this place and you love him. You cut around the house, running to him then, your little brother.

“It felt so real,” you repeat. “He was right there. It was like I was with him again.”

After you came out of the memory, Ben drove around, trying to find the yellow house, but nothing turned up. It must have been painted in the years since, and the bridal store must have closed. No one you asked had heard of it, and the billboard you saw in the memory has since been taken down. The peeling advertisement from the town center is the only indication the store was ever there.

“When you had that other memory, it felt the same way?” Ben pulls into the convenience-store parking lot. The florescent light streams through the front window, casting a strange glow on his face.

“It was that vivid, yeah.”

“What was it of?”

“I could see this church, this funeral. I didn’t know who it was for, though. Just that I was reading something at it.”

“It’s coming back, then,” he says. “Your memory is going to come back.”

He rests his hand on the door handle, kissing you once before he takes off into the store, having promised a 7-Eleven dinner.

You pull your notepad from the glove compartment, writing down a few lines:

       
- House was originally yellow

       
- Located by the freeway, near a billboard

       
- Lula’s Bridal

       
- Brother was younger, with dark hair and eyes

You’re still looking at the notes when there is a knock on the window. You look up with a start. The man must be in his forties, with greasy gray hair that sticks up in all directions. He has a large, bulbous nose, covered in thin red veins. His eyes are glazed over. You move your hand to the door, trying to push the lock down without being too obvious.

But he smacks the door with his hand. “Awwww, now you’re driving around in some fancy car and actin’ like you don’t know me. I see what happened. And here I was, I was being a kind, good-hearted person, I said:
Shorty Do! You gotta help her! You know she always needs someone to buy it for her!
”

You watch him through the window. He gestures with his hands, occasionally slapping his leg for emphasis. Does he actually know you?

“What do you mean? Buy what?”

The man leans in and winks. “Yeah, ‘what’ is right. I won’t tell.”

“I was being serious. . . .”

“You still like the big bottle of Wild Turkey, eh? I’ll get it for you, but then you gotta give me a little of it. I don’t need to take much today, just a little.”

You roll down the window, wondering if it’s possible he does recognize you. “So we know each other, then? From when?”

“You’re messing with me?”

“No, I’m not . . . I just don’t remember. I can’t remember a lot of things now. Something happened.”

The man glances inside the store, turns back to you. “You look kind of different . . . but I knew it was you. I haven’t seen you in, I don’t know, a year? Who’s that boy?”

“What’s my name?”

“How would I know? You used to come up to me, asking me to help you, and then one day I didn’t see you. I never saw you till now.”

“Was I with anyone?”

He puts his hands in his filthy jeans, pushing them deeper into his pockets. Then he nods into the car, at the center console. There’s five bucks sitting in an old coffee cup. “Help me out?”

You can see Ben inside the store, the back of his head just visible over the candy aisle. You pluck it from the cup and pass it to him. “Was I with anyone?”

“Some kid. Little younger than you.”

Your lungs feel tight. You look down at the notebook, at the description of your
brother. “What did he look like? What was his name?”

“He looked kind of like you, black hair, pretty brown eyes. I don’t know. . . .”

You write everything he says, trying to ignore that he’s called you pretty. “What else? How many times did I ask you to do that? Do you know where I lived?”

He laughs, backing away from the car window. He’s watching the road behind you, the passing traffic. He checks the corners of the building, for what, you’re not sure. Something must’ve scared him.