Dead Ringers (5 page)

The creak of movement came from upstairs. Frank exhaled loudly and rested his aching head against the metal column, staring at the bottom of the steps. The footfalls overhead were loud squeaks and he could trace the bastard's progress through the living room and into the kitchen.

The door at the top of the stairs clicked open. As his double descended into the cellar, Frank caught a different smell on the air and his stomach growled.

The bastard stepped into the pool of light thrown by the caged bulb on the basement ceiling. He wore a gray suit—the one Frank had bought to wear to his mother's funeral—and had managed to match it with the same tie as well, a red and yellow disaster that his mother had loved.

The man held the gun in his right hand and a greasy brown paper bag in his left.

“You're early,” Frank said. He wouldn't say a word about the funeral suit. Wouldn't give the bastard the satisfaction.

“I've got to be up early tomorrow,” the man said.

Frank could not get used to looking at his own face but he was glad that his own voice sounded different in his head than it did to those around him. If he could have recognized this man's voice as his own, he might really have gone insane.

“I had a job interview yesterday,” his double went on. “Went out for drinks and Chinese food with the editor tonight—a follow-up, but really a formality. I'm supposed to go in bright and early to meet with the HR director, fill out some paperwork. If my references check out, they figure I can start middle of next week.”

Frank swallowed hard. His head was still ringing from smashing it against the column and now he wanted to bang it again. Wanted to scream.

“Editor?” he asked softly.

The bastard gave him an apologetic sort of smile. “Yeah, about that. When I say my references, I mean your references, of course. You'd already made contact with the Web site, started the ball rolling … I figured I'd send some of your portfolio articles over and call to follow up. They're adding staff, so the timing was perfect.”

Frank closed his eyes, stomach roiling with nausea. Bile surged up the back of his throat but he choked it back. If detoxing himself hadn't made him throw up, he wasn't going to puke now.

“You can't do this,” he whispered.

“Oh, Frank,” the bastard said, almost sadly, “it's the only thing I
can
do.”

He walked over and dropped the greasy paper bag onto the floor. Frank could have kicked out with his legs, but what would the point have been? He couldn't defeat the son of a bitch with just his feet.

“Leftover Chinese food. Figured it was better than another bowl of Cheerios. Some of it might still be warm.”

Frank glared at him, lip curled in fury. He hocked up a gob of phlegm and spat it onto the front of the suit coat. His double tried to twist out of the way but the yellow phlegm hit the fabric and clung there.

Gun gripped tightly in his right hand, he kicked Frank in the ribs. Hard. Frank huffed in pain, grunted the air out of his lungs, and a fresh burst of pain went through him, but he didn't think his ribs had cracked.

“Shit!” his double hissed, seemingly in regret.

It made Frank wonder. Why would the bastard not want to hurt him? If he meant to take Frank's place, why not just kill him?

“Why are you doing this?” Frank said, steadying his nerves. “And how. Damn, man, how can you look exactly like me?”

The man narrowed his eyes. “I don't look like you, Frank. I
am
you.” He glanced around and shuddered lightly. “Cold down here. I'll give you another blanket in the morning and over the weekend I'll pick up a space heater. Next couple of months it'll be freezing in here.”

Frank's mouth dropped open. He blinked as a numb dread spread through him and for a few seconds all he could remember to do was breathe. Then he shook his head slowly.

“You can't … I mean,
months
?” He strained against the cuffs, hurled himself forward, felt the heat of rage burning in his face. “
Months!
What the hell do you want from me? Why are you here?”

A haunting sympathy passed across the double's face, but then it hardened with resolve. He tossed the handcuff key onto the floor and it skipped on the concrete and struck the paper bag.

“Eat your Chinese food.” He lifted the gun, took aim, just in case.

Frank thrashed against the column, tugged against the cuffs, causing the blood to run along his arms again. Pain seared his wrists.

“Fuck the Chinese food!” he screamed. “Fuck…”

The strength went out of him in an instant. Rage had been undercut by despair.

He slumped against the column. Rested his skull gently against it. Tears welled in his eyes and slid down his cheeks.

“Fuck you and your fucking leftovers.”

His double hesitated, seemed about to argue, and then walked over and retrieved the handcuff key, gun pointed at Frank's head. He pocketed the key and stepped back, studying Frank with an expression that had gone hard and cold.

“Have it your way.”

The man with Frank's face strode across the cellar and up the stairs. The door clicked open and then closed and Frank heard the footsteps crossing back toward the living room, then the creak as the bastard ascended to the second story, likely to sleep in Frank's own bed.

Only then did Frank remember his bladder and bowels. The bucket sat empty over by the washing machine, useless to him at this distance. He'd never be able to make it through until morning without pissing, at the very least.

He slumped again, and squeezed his eyes closed.

The smell of Chinese food filled his nostrils. The bag was right beside him. He could twist around and maybe get his hands on it, but even then he would be unable to bring the food to his mouth.

The long night stretched ahead.

 

FOUR

First Light Gallery took up the first floor of a row house on Newbury Street, a tourist-magnet neighborhood full of trendy boutiques and high-end shops. Lili paused on the sidewalk, staring up at the soft white light of the gallery windows. The few paintings that were visible through the glass were startling in their beauty, but otherwise the shop seemed sterile and unwelcoming. On the upper floors were the offices of some kind of elite auction company, and a small set of steps with an iron railing led down to the sunken entrance to the gourmet chocolatier on the bottom floor.

“We could just get chocolate,” Lili suggested.

Tess gave her a nudge. “Or we could go inside. Why is this freaking you out?”

Lili laughed nervously. “The whole cab ride over all I could think about was your run-in with your ex-husband's doppelgänger. It's just—”

“You wanted an adventure,” Tess reminded her. “Besides, the guy probably didn't look as much like Nick as I thought.”

Lili put a hand to one cheek, glancing at Tess. “I'm being stupid.”

“Yes. Yes, you are.”

Lili whacked her arm. “You don't have to agree with me.”

“But I do,” Tess said, snatching her wrist and tugging her up the four steps to the art gallery's entrance.

The white lights seemed cold instead of warm, like the bright misty glow inside a freezer.

A strong wind kicked up and Lili held the front of her jacket closed as Tess reached the gallery's door and pushed inside. Lili followed her in, a bell ringing above their heads, and when the door had swung shut she felt an almost-claustrophobic warmth envelop her. The place looked chilly from the outside, but the heat was on inside and the air was suffocatingly close.
Weird,
she thought. All she knew about art was what she had learned as an archaeologist, how to identify things and preserve them. She didn't know quality and certainly couldn't identify one modern artist from another, but she felt sure it must be inadvisable to keep a gallery so warm. Couldn't be good for the paintings.

An old woman cleared her throat. Lili glanced over and saw that the woman stood with an old man, her husband or companion, and both were perusing the paintings on the walls with the air of people who believed a certain amount of gravitas was necessary for the appreciation of expensive art. The only other noise in the gallery was a man's assured voice talking low at the back of the shop.

“Did any of the people who mentioned this place to you get the name of this woman?” Tess asked.

“Devon something,” Lili said, navigating her way around a half wall. The gallery had a number of them, thrusting out at angles like the room had jagged teeth. White lights and white walls made the whole thing seem like Heaven's waiting room.

They came around another of those walls and the voice at the back of the gallery grew louder. It belonged to a thin, bespectacled man of about fifty, his silken silver hair combed neatly to one side. He wore artfully faded blue jeans, distressed leather shoes, and a shirt that Lili thought had to have cost at least a week's worth of her salary. The fortysomething woman he'd been addressing wore a tailored suit, the skirt long enough for the executive boardroom but short enough to show how much work she put into making sure her legs didn't reveal her age.

Both of them glanced over when Lili and Tess came around the corner. The executive cast them a snooty look that Lili tried to tell herself had nothing to do with two brown women walking into the whitest room on Earth. But the silver-haired guy brightened immediately, a huge smile spreading across his face.

“And here she is now!” the man said, delighted, and made a beeline toward Lili. He took her hands in his and began to lead her back toward the executive. “Dev, this is Laura Niswander. Laura, this is Devani Kanda, the artist of the piece you were just on the verge of buying.”

Lili went cold. The man's delight seemed to bleed into the executive, who began to smile and babble something about the beauty of her paintings. The art itself had nothing overtly remarkable about it—cityscapes of Boston from an earlier era, painted in a style that allowed the thick gobs of paint to look crude up close but to take on an almost elegant beauty the farther away from it one stood.

The man—maybe the owner or manager—narrowed his eyes. “Dev, say something, honey. Are you okay?”

The executive woman's gaze turned cold and she shrank back an inch or two, clearly feeling snubbed by the lack of a proper greeting. Lili smiled and shook her head.

“I'm sorry. I'm not her,” she told the proprietor.

“What?” He cast a worried glance at the executive. “She's being funny.”

Tess moved closer to Lili. “She's not, actually. Not being funny and not the artist. Just looks a lot like her, apparently.”

The silver-haired man sneered at Tess as if he'd been wearing a mask of amiability before and now it had slipped. “What are you talking about?” He glared at Lili. “I know you say when you're off the clock you're off the clock, but this is taking it too far. This woman is a patron of the arts. She's been admiring your work and is interested in—”

“Actually, Peter,” the executive said, “it's getting late and I should go. Perhaps I'll come in again and you can show me the work of an artist who appreciates her good fortune and might be less rude to those who can afford to support her efforts.”

“Laura, please, you misunderstand,” the proprietor said.

“Do I?” the woman asked, staring at Lili and Tess a moment before she sniffed and strode away.

Lili knew she ought to attempt to stop the woman, but she was too stunned to do anything but watch her march off in a huff. Moments later they heard the sound of the bell over the gallery's front door as the woman departed.

Peter stared at her, obviously furious. “What's gotten into you? You know what can happen for an artist when a woman like that becomes passionate about your work. Word spreads. There are more sales. Prices go up. What were you thinking?”

Lili bristled, staring at him. “I was thinking that I'm not this Devani person.”

Something in her tone made him blink and tilt his head, evaluating her more closely. He stared at her clothes for a second, then narrowed his eyes as he seemed to notice other differences. For a moment he seemed to consider the possibility, but then he searched her features and scowled.

“Dev—”

Tess put up a hand to stop him. “Stop. You're not getting this. Her name is Lili Pillai. We heard there was an artist being shown here who looked a lot like her and got curious. We meant no harm and certainly didn't want to piss off your customers, but she's really not the woman you think she is.”

The older couple from the front of the gallery had come around one of the angled half walls and they were stealing glances in their direction while they pretended to contemplate some of the paintings. Some people would have been driven away by the raised voices and the angry spectacle, but not this couple. They seemed as intrigued by the unfolding drama as they were by the art on the walls.

Peter frowned, dubious. “You're serious?”

Lili threw up her hands as if in surrender. “Completely. I've never been inside this gallery before.”

He pushed one hand through his silver hair and paused, head cocked as he stared at her. “You don't just look a lot like her. I went to high school with two sets of ‘identical' twins, but you and Dev look more alike than they ever did. You've got to be sisters.”

Not that I know of,
Lili wanted to say. But that wouldn't be putting it strongly enough. She'd grown up an only child and, nontraditional as they might be, there was no way her parents would have given a baby up for adoption—especially a twin. No way.

“This is just too bizarre,” she said, glancing at Tess. Thinking about her run-in with her ex-husband's doppelgänger.

“Getting more bizarre by the second,” Tess replied.

Lili turned to Peter. “Do you have a picture of her? Devani Kanda?”