Mind Games (17 page)

I close my eyes. “I know.” When I open them, the world seems to have dialed up a degree in hue, brightness, and saturation. I feel beatific.

Aggie jumps up from her chair and scratches her thigh
through her white pants. “Uh! I thought getting my nails done would make this better.” She scratches her skin rhythmically, frenetically, seeming more animal than human. Then she dashes from the room.

Sasha and Elaine click their beauty boxes shut.

“I better go find her,” I say.

I find her upstairs, embarking on an ambitious multimedia skin-mapping project. It involves life-sized diagrams of the human form on the wall, a complicated system of eighty-four “zones,” digital images of anomalies, and lots of string.

Two hours into the project, I make up an excuse to go. She acts funny about my leaving, and I get the idea she’s thinking about forcing me to stay. For the first time it occurs to me that her criminal creativity could be turned against me.

          Fifteen

I
SHOW UP
at Cubby’s the following evening at six. My new hair color shocks him, though he claims to like it. But all I can think about is the kiss. Cubby keeps looking at me strangely, and I know it’s because of the hair, but part of me feels like he sees the kiss all over my face.

“I’m so sorry I’ve been AWOL,” I say, wrapping my arms around him. “I missed you.”

“You were busy with all that training. It’s cool.” He pulls back and looks at me. “It’s so different.”

If he only knew how much is different. “Well, the one thing that’s not different—” I kiss him long and hard.

“Wow.” He looks at me quizzically. “Is something up?”

“No!” I grab two plates and a jar of red hot chili pepper flakes and bring them out to the coffee table in front of the TV.

He settles onto the couch. There’s a double-cheese pizza on its way, and an action adventure movie ready to roll.

“I’m not really used to the hair yet myself,” I admit. “It was an impulsive decision.” I flop sideways onto the couch and swing my feet onto his lap.

He rubs my toes just how I like, reinvigorating my guilt about the kiss.

“I know I’m making all these giant changes all at
once, and I’m sorry because I know it’s not fair. …” My chest contracts; I feel like Packard is sucking the air out of me.

“Hey, I’m proud of all your changes, Justine. Suddenly you’re coming into your own as this woman of action, and you have control of your health situation. That alone is impressive. I mean, how long has it been since you went to the ER, or even had one of your head tingle things? Two months? Not only that, but you’ve gotten yourself this new job that pays well, and no, I don’t like that it’s this secret security thing, but I can deal. Okay, maybe the hair …”

I kick him. “I knew it!”

“But I’ll get used to it. The point is, you hardly ever used to do things like that.”

“I just want you to know, I’ll never lose sight of the larger picture. The things that mean the most.”

He squeezes my foot. This is the real and true thing, I think. Right here. Cubby rubs my foot with one hand and works the remote with the other. We can’t start the movie until the pizza comes; that’s one of his personal rules.

The doorbell rings a hundred channels later. “That was fast.” Cubby hauls himself up. Moments later he’s calling me to the door. “Somebody for you.”

My heart jumps. Disillusionists would call first. I flash on the Silver Widow. Could she have followed me? It’s just like something she’d do. I rush across the condo and round the corner to find Strongarm Francis at the door, looking caterpillary as ever with his giant round glasses and thick, tendony neck. Packard’s right-hand man.

I make my introductions. “Francis and I work together,” I tell Cubby.

Francis says, “Sorry to barge in, but we need Justine for a quick trip in the field. Unexpected eventuality.”

I feel faint. Am I in trouble? What if the Silver Widow burst into Mongolian Delites? What if Henji discovered we were asking about him?

“It’s six o’clock on a Friday night,” Cubby says. “We just ordered a pizza.”

I place a hand on Cubby’s chest. “Cubby, every once in a while I’ll have a trip like this. Not often.” I glance at Francis, who nods. “If it wasn’t important he wouldn’t be asking. Francis, how long will this take?”

“Hour tops.”

“But we just ordered pizza,” Cubby says.

“How’s about this,” Francis says. “I bring her back with two pizzas, on the company. Piping hot.”

“What’s up?” I ask Francis once we’re in the elevator.

“Your hair is brown,” he says.

“I colored it. That’s not against the rules, is it?”

“No, but I brought a brown wig for you to wear for a disguise, and now it’s outmoded. Got your weapon?”

“No.”

“Did I or did I not instruct you to have it at all times?”

“I was having pizza with my boyfriend.”

“You need to wear it or carry it at all times. When you need it, you need it.”

“Did something happen?”

“Not yet,” he says.

His car is a boxy black Buick—just the kind of car I’d imagine for him. We get in and he reaches under the driver’s seat and pulls out a revolver, empties out the bullets and hands it to me. I never liked holding guns when we went to the range as kids, and I don’t like it now. And this one is much bigger and heavier than the lady revolver I had. “Look here, every chamber is empty, okay? Have it on you, in your belt strap or something, like you’re hiding it, but make sure they see it.”

“Make sure who sees it?”

“Our clients, the Mandlers. Six months ago the Mandlers hired us to crash the man we refer to as the Bon Vivant. This is the final meeting.”

“There’s danger at a client meeting?”

“We need to confirm their expectations, that’s all.” He hands me sunglasses and a baseball cap. “For the duration of this meeting, you’re acting invisible. Know how to do that?”

“Yup.” I put the gun in my pocket. Francis starts up the car and pulls out. “So that’s it? Nothing’s wrong or anything?”

“Should there be?”

“No.”

He gives me a look. Then, “No commentary, no matter what happens. Especially once we’re with the target. Can I have your word of honor on that?”

“Why would I say anything?”

Francis waits.

“You have my word of honor.”

This seems to satisfy him. I love how much stock the disillusionists put in one’s word. It’s nice that they would value something like that.

“The Bon Vivant is indirectly responsible for the death of the Mandlers’ son. He ruined the boy, who then drunkenly crashed his motorcycle, wound up in a wheelchair, and shot himself two months later.”

“So they hired us.”

Francis nods.

“So who’s the client for the Silver Widow? Is it the dead husband’s parents?”

Francis stares ahead. I’m almost thinking he didn’t hear me, but then he says simply, “That’s confidential.”

“I thought we always knew who the client was.”

“You don’t with this one,” he says curtly.

“But with others we do, right? It’s weird that we wouldn’t know, right?”

He gives me a stern look through his thick glasses. Have my questions made him uncomfortable? “Focus,” he says. “Try that stuff on.”

I try on the sunglasses. “Why the disguise?”

“Insulation. I am the only face of the disillusionists. If I bring one of you for an assist, you’re disguised.”

“So that’s what this is? An assist?”

“What did you think it was?”

“Clients think you single-handedly do the disillusioning?”

“Ideally.”

Friday evening traffic is sluggish along the Midcity River. I scan the old brick buildings, looking for more faces. I’m always on the lookout now. “Maybe they think you’re some kind of a highcap.”

“They might.”

“So why doesn’t Packard hire highcaps to disillusion people?”

“Highcaps can’t do what you do,” Francis says.

“Plus, all the highcaps who knew Packard think he’s dead, huh?”

“Seems so.”

“What would make the nemesis do that to Packard?”

“I’d like to see you cut down on the questions and concentrate on this.”

“Fine.” I put on my hat and look in the visor mirror. The giant sunglasses make me look like I’m trying to cover a black eye. “Just let me ask you this last thing, Francis. If I suddenly wasn’t a hypochondriac anymore, maybe got miraculously cured, then I wouldn’t need to zing anyone, would I?”

“Yeah. Heard what you did to the kitchen.”

“If I got cured, I’d be able to leave though, right? I’d be free.”

He scowls at the road, and I recall that first time I met Francis. Or rather, didn’t meet him—the night I’d ended up at Mongolian Delites desperate for a zing. Francis had walked out mad. And then later, had urgently inquired if things were okay.

Oh my God. “You knew,” I say. “That night I came back, you knew Packard was going to let me join without warning me what I was in for.”

“I thought it seemed likely.”

“How could you have let him?”

Francis grunts. “You don’t
let
or
not let
a man like Packard do anything.”

“You could’ve warned me.”

“At that point? Would it have stopped you?”

We drive in silence.

“Why did he need a hypochondriac so badly? Is this all about the Silver Widow?”

He shakes his head. “No, and don’t ask me any more questions. My advice is to be an excellent disillusionist.”

“As a way out?”

“My advice is to be an excellent disillusionist,” he repeats.

“Are you saying the way out of this is through?”

“That was a question.”

After a few more nonanswered questions and then stony silence, we get to a deserted Burger Qwik and park nose-to-nose with a blue BMW. I get out and hang back, leaning on our passenger door in the drizzle while Francis confers with the Mandlers—a well-dressed couple in their sixties who have matching short silver haircuts. They look like they came from a pharmaceutical ad. Mrs. Mandler hovers an umbrella over the three of them. Mr. Mandler balances a briefcase on the hood and nods toward the restaurant. “He in there?”

“Nearby. Now here’s what happens,” Francis says. “You give me a gander at the money so that I know
we’re in business. Then I take you to see him. Once I satisfy the terms of our agreement by showing you the man disillusioned, you will hand that case over and our transaction is complete.”

“I can live with that.” Mr. Mandler opens the case, and Francis checks the money. When I’m quite certain the woman is watching me, I pull my jacket aside to display my gun, like they do in the movies. I’m guessing Francis wants them to understand that we will be able to protect them from their newly disillusioned enemy.

Francis leads us across the Burger Qwik parking lot and into the adjoining parking lot, heading toward a coffee emporium—a bright, cozy island in the rainy darkness. We probably look like a double date—the sophisticated pharmaceutical couple with their domestic dispute friends.

“He’s been spending most of his time this week in coffee shops,” Francis tells the Mandlers.

“Not looking for new victims, I hope,” Mr. Mandler says sternly. “That was the whole point of this exercise.”

“Mr. James Hermann is not looking for new victims, folks. Ready?”

“We’ve been ready for three years,” Mrs. Mandler says levelly.

Francis pulls open the door, and we follow him into the bitter warmth of the coffee shop. He leads us past tables of students with their backpacks and laptops and around a condiment station. I spot a lone man hunched over a cup at a far corner table. The brim of his baseball cap shields his face, and his dark overcoat is buttoned all the way up. It’s a look that says flasher or derelict. He curls his hands around a paper cup, as if to warm them on a hot beverage, but when you get up close you can see the cup is empty. “Almost finished,” the man mumbles, not looking up.

The Mandlers exchange careful glances.

“We’re just here to talk to you,” Francis says.

He still won’t look up.

“We know you as James Hermann,” Francis continues.

Hermann pulls tight into himself—a movement that reminds me of a turtle.

Mr. Mandler pushes past Francis and looms over Hermann. “Don’t act like you don’t know what’s what, Hermann,” he barks. “You knew the lay of the land well enough when you were destroying our boy—Hey!” He bangs his fist on the table and Hermann cringes deeper. Then Hermann peers up from under his cap, and I get a look at his small nose, big forehead, and the way he peers out at the world, as if from a distant location inside himself.

I gasp. Shady Ben Foley. He looks a decade older, and he’s lost all kinds of weight.

Francis shoots me a warning look.

I can’t believe it. Shady Ben Foley, disillusioned. I feel this crazy sense of triumph and relief, like something’s over.

“You killed him,” Mrs. Mandler says with rumbly conviction. “You took our healthy, happy son and you broke him in two.” She outlines Shady Ben’s crimes in a memorized-sounding speech. Mr. Mandler seems to glow; maybe he feels the relief and triumph, too. Or maybe he’s burning through the last of his hate. I find myself wishing Dad could see Shady Ben like this.