Double Cross [2] (7 page)

I contemplate calling Otto, but our relationship is still too new and fragile for a middle-of-the-night call. Anyway, what would I say? That I had a nightmare? How pathetic would that sound?

It’s been a while since I’ve sat awake in the middle of the night, weighing my need to call a man against my desire not to seem pathetic. Only it was always a hypochondria attack in the past. Everything else is the same: a man I
almost
have. A semisolid relationship that’s not quite strong enough to withstand a freak-out.

But this is different. Because Otto is the perfect melding of every man I’ve always wanted, and he wants to be with me. In fact, I think I went after all those other men because I was intuitively searching for Otto, and none of those other relationships worked because Otto was the one I was destined to be with. Still, I can’t quite bring myself to call him.

If I called Packard, he’d be here in a snap, but I won’t be doing that, even though there’s something comforting in knowing he would’ve had the same dream. And he’d let me zing my fear into him, too, and that would make me feel a whole lot better. Packard’s the only one who can handle a zing. I don’t know if that’s because he’s the
inventor of the whole insane technique, or if it has to do with his highcap power. It doesn’t matter; I won’t be calling him. Packard is a Faustian bargain.

I read a sexy mystery book there on the couch for a while—a trick from when I’d be up in the middle of the night with a hypochondria freak-out, fighting with myself to not go online to look up symptoms.

An hour later, my mind feels separated enough from the awful imagery of the dream that I turn out the light next to the couch to sleep—fitfully—like some part of me is terrified to let go.

I officially rise at seven, exhausted and shaky. It’s a fear hangover, which is where your source of fear is gone, but the fear was so strong that the chemicals and adrenaline are still in you, surging around. I’d get them off hypochondria all the time.

I measure coffee into my coffeemaker and pour in the water. Then I turn on the power and I just stand there watching the drips merge into a film that covers the bottom of the glass carafe.

Until my cell phone rings, startling me out of my stupor.

Otto. I hate talking to Otto before I’ve had my coffee. But what if he needs me? What if there’s news about Covian?

I answer on the last ring. “Hey!” I say.

“Hey,” he says, his warm, confident
Hey
. “I didn’t wake you up, did I?”

“No,” I say. “It’s fine.”

“You sound a bit—”

“I didn’t sleep so well is all. Who cares. How’s Covian?”

Otto updates me on Covian’s condition. Apparently the bullet chipped his thighbone. There’s some microsurgery technique they have to perform, and he’ll be in a
brace for a while, but he’ll likely be able to jump back onto his soccer team by the end of summer.

“Ooh, I bet he’s happy about that.”
Drip drip.
“I’m so glad.”

“I wish I could’ve stayed with you,” Otto says. “I know that’s why you didn’t sleep well.”

“It’s not really why.”

“Justine. You were involved in a shooting.”

“I wasn’t hurt or even the target.” To push us off the subject, I report to him that watched coffee does not make itself fast, then we discuss our day. I tell him I’m going to work on Ez later on. I’m thinking maybe I ought to tell him about the dream invasion problem, but then I decide it can’t be over the phone—it has to be in person.

“You know, Ez did give me a very interesting piece of information.” I say this in my “something-scrumptious” voice, knowing he’ll be intrigued.

“Oh?”

I’d been planning on saving this tidbit for a perfect moment that never came last night, so I spill it now. “She told me that ingesting crushed diamonds can rip up your intestines.”

“What?”

“It kills you.”

Silence. Then he whispers, “Could that be true?”

“She has a thing about internal organs.” Which means she’d be the one to know. Hypochondriacs tend to be maniacally well informed on the subjects of their obsessions.

“My God! I’ve heard of people swallowing metal. But diamonds?”

“Remember that guy in the news who swallowed a whole car bit by bit?”

“Right. The VW,” he says. “Could it be true? A man can swallow an entire car, but not tiny diamonds?” I knew he’d react this way; this is the sort of thing we can discuss for hours.

“Maybe you should ask at the hospital today when you visit Covian.”

Otto laughs his warm, wonderful laugh. “What would it look like if the mayor began quizzing the medical staff on death by diamonds?”

“It would look like you’re interested in a wide range of things.”

“Justine. The mayor needs to maintain a certain amount of decorum with the citizens.”

I smile. “I hope not with all citizens.”

“Oh, no, I assure you …” Here Otto lowers his voice. “The mayor entertains distinctly unmayoral thoughts regarding a specific citizen.”

My pulse races.

“The other citizens,” he says, “would be scandalized.”

“Well!” I say. I can’t think of a clever comeback. Sometimes I’m like that with him.

“Be careful with Ez. She’s dastardly.”

“Dastardly?”

“I never thought I’d use that word about a woman, oddly.”

I can hear the smile in his voice as he says this, and it makes me smile. And then I jump at the loud buzz of my doorbell.

“Is that your door?” Otto asks.

“Damn!”

“What is it?”

“Ally. Our rollerblading date—I totally forgot. We’re doing the whole circuit.”

“Good Lord, I hope you didn’t drink too much of that coffee yet,” he says.

“No, thank goodness.” We both worry about an elevated heart rate while exercising. I may zing out my fear, but I certainly don’t zing out my common sense. Or the knowledge that I’ll always be in danger of vein star, and that I very well could have it.

I buzz Ally in as I get off the phone. She comes up and waits while I get on my sports togs, catching me up on the amusing little stories from Le Toile, the dress shop I used to manage and where she still works. The little stories make me feel connected to my old life, even though there are new girls who star in the stories. Ally also gives me a heads-up on a shipment of dresses from my favorite Italian line. They’re insanely expensive—nothing I could’ve afforded back when I ran the place. But now I have a lucrative job in the security industry—at least, that’s what they all think. I only pretend to be a nurse to targets.

“Actually, I may just put one aside for you,” she says. “It’s exactly your thing.” She describes it in detail.

“I am so there.” I’ll go check out the dress and meet the new girls, so that the stories mean more.

I put on my hat and gloves, and I grab my face scarf. It’s a loose weave, so you can wrap it around your face like a mummy and still see.

Ally smiles. “The security industry has been good to you, dude.”

I swing my ice-traction-modified rollerblades over my shoulder and grab my key. “Everything has its trade-offs,” I say.

I’m aware, as we head out into the bright, wintry morning, that she doesn’t fully believe me when I say that. I used to not believe it when people said that sort of thing, either.

L
ATER THAT MORNING
, I get in my car and start over to Mongolian Delites to say hi to the gang and grab a pastry before I see Ez. At a stoplight, I reposition the arms on the bendable Gumby doll I glued to my dashboard. I make it so that his hands are on his hips. Worried Gumby. I like to change Gumby to reflect my mood. I can’t get the image of those fingers out of my head.

The outfit I’ve chosen for this day is one of my favorites—a soft gray cashmere sweater, soft jeans, a nice long corduroy jacket, and a bright hat that Shelby knit out of about nine clashing colors of yarn. I used to think it was part of her Eastern European fashion sense that drew her to colors that clash, but now I see it as a uniquely Shelby thing. A grim, hopeless girl swathed in colors at war.

I pull open the heavy double doors that once bore Otto’s seal and enter the dim, candlelit dining room of tables and Persian rugs and tourist trinkets gleaming darkly on the walls. The place is just starting to fill with the early lunch crowd.

Delites is no longer Packard’s prison—he’d never willingly set foot in here again—but the place still serves as a kind of clubhouse for us disillusionists. I make my way around the perimeter of the main dining area to the back booth area, hoping the whole gang is there. They’ve become
family to me, and after that dream last night, I just want to be with them.

I smile when I spot Helmut and Enrique, our ennui guy, in the far booth. Enrique looks bored as usual, dark and suave, with a baby-smooth face and glinting diamond earring. Across the table is Carter, our anger guy, whose ash-blond hair is so pale it’s almost metallic. Carter’s complaining about the lack of snow with jerky arm movements, wide freckled face tight with anger. Good ol’ Carter. I want to hug him. Instead, I order a bagel and coffee from a passing waitperson and settle in next to him.

Eventually, Carter runs out of ways to articulate the outrageousness of Midcity weather, and Helmut launches into a thing about his current target, the Brick Slinger—the telekinetic highcap who terrorized the city last summer, killing random people with flying bricks.

Now the Brick Slinger is a prisoner in a tollbooth on Highway 83. And he eats stinky food that annoys Helmut.

Helmut goes on to describe the conspiracy theories he and the Slinger have been discussing. The main one involves the FDA, the Trilateral Commission, and remakes of Disney cartoons.

The Brick Slinger’s suicide—he smashed in his own head after Otto caught him—was described in gory detail by the reporter on the scene, but it actually never happened. Otto’s revisionist assistant, Sophia, erased the reporter’s memory and inserted a new experience of her own imagining. That’s her creepy power.

“His political obsessions got so bad, the Slinger actually cut himself off from the news two years ago. I’m catching him up,” Helmut reports. And his way of catching him up will be highly disturbing. You don’t want to discuss geopolitics with Helmut any more than you want to discuss future hopes and dreams with Shelby.

Enrique snickers and twists his diamond earring. Helmut tells us he’ll hand the Brick Slinger over to Vesuvius next for a crash in self-esteem; then Shelby will destroy his sense of hope.

Suddenly Helmut’s waving, and a burly bald man with a gray mustache comes over. Helmut introduces him as Parsons, the head of Packard’s secret bodyguard team. Parsons seems very in-charge and confident. Good.

Outside on the walk, I bump into Simon in his big crazy coat and ask him if he’s got anything.

Simon shakes his head. “I spoke with three people, one a longtime coworker.” He shoves his hands into his pockets. “They all think she made up the relationship.”

“So the whole my-boyfriend-did-it story was a lie after all.”

Simon screws up his lips, inspecting my face for a while. “You seem relieved.”

“I want to get at the truth.”

“We’re not there yet. I have two more people to speak with.”

“Three wasn’t enough?” I ask.

“There was a sameness in their wording. … I have a gut feeling.”

I smile. “Sure it’s your gut?”

“I spend my time with liars and bluffers, Justine. I’m not done.” He heads off.

I leave my car at Mongolian Delites and walk the seven blocks to the Sapphire Sunset piano bar. The air chills my lungs when I breathe deep, freshening me to my toes. My fatigue begins lifting.

Simon’s right about my being relieved that Ez is looking guilty. Maybe it’s wrong to be glad for that, but it simplifies things. I don’t want to disillusion an innocent person, but I sure don’t want to be a minion in my sleep. It’s bad enough that I’m one when I’m awake.

Oddly, as I near the bar, my eagerness to see Ez builds.

Sapphire Sunset comes into view on the next block. It’s a squat rectangle of blue stucco with black trim and shutters, and it sits right in the middle of a motley row of restaurants and antiques stores. Behind it is a hill that leads steeply down to the blocks along the lakefront. As I step up my pace, I spot a familiar blue car parked along the curb, with a familiar figure leaning against it, face turned to the winter sun. Packard.

I get a pang as I think of him so young and scared. And those corpse fingers in the walls! Him trying to cover them, block them.

Packard has a cardboard tray with two coffees and a bakery bag with an
M
logo. Maria’s corner deli—the place where I’d get coffees for Packard when he was trapped. He points to one. “Cow brown.”

Cow brown. His description for how I take my coffee—just a splash of cream. “Thanks.”

“And the other’s for you to bring to her.” He hands me the stuff. “She’ll respond emotionally to offerings like this.”

“Okay, Packard. Thanks.”

His eyes are light green in the sunshine, shot through with tiny bright lines. “What?”

“Nothing.”