Mind Games (6 page)

“Everything okay?” I ask.

“More than okay.” Packard sends Helmut and Shelby to the kitchen to make kebabs, and I wonder briefly if “kebabs” is a code for something. Once they’re gone, Packard slides down off his stool and stands in front of me, all masculine heat and coffee breath.

“I’m ready,” I say. “I’m in.” I don’t tell him I’m only in until I think of something better. I hold out my hand. “Go ahead and make the hole. My fear is all stoked up.”

“I’m sure it is.” Packard practically shimmers with excitement as he takes my hand. “Push out with your awareness.”

“I’m doing it.”

“Good.” He keeps his eyes on my hand and it starts: the lifting and shifting, the hot hand, the dizzying release of pressure. And the windy feeling in my fingers. Followed by peace pervading my entire being. Pure peace.

I inhale, savoring the bright, vast weightlessness of the world, and lower myself into a chair at a nearby table. Candlelight reflects off the pagoda mirror like
ghostly diamonds. Why exactly did I wait so long to return to Mongolian Delites?

Packard brings me a glass of water. It’s a small gesture, but perfect, like everything. “Thanks,” I say. I take a sip and relish the way its coolness drenches my heart. The moment is perfect. The candles are perfect. Packard is perfect. I close my eyes and savor the freedom.

“Hey!” Packard grabs my ponytail. “Don’t do that.”

I laugh. “What? Don’t enjoy it?”

“Precisely.” He lets go of my hair, grabs silverware and napkins, and sets the table around me. “Enjoying it is like driving a car at top speed with your attention fixed on a bug squashed on your windshield. Down that road lies devastation.” Fork, fork, spoon, knife. “Our targets are dangerous and diabolical people. You must not get into the habit of devolving into a sensual hedonist every time you zing.”

I try not to smile, but I do so enjoy his extravagant talk.

Packard sets out wineglasses, and soon Shelby and Helmut arrive bearing plates piled with skewers of colorful vegetables and fat scallops.

Packard opens a bottle. “Ouzo okay?” He seems to be addressing me.

“For what?”

Packard gives me a stern look. “We’re celebrating.”

Shelby scoots a chair up next to mine. “Do you have somewhere better to be?”

“No,” I say, marveling at how beautiful her thick, dark curls look against the deep red of her dress.

Packard lights more candles. Helmut and Packard settle in, and Shelby raises her glass. “I will toast to you, Justine,” she says. “May the targets never see you coming.” We laugh and clink and make more toasts. I’ve
never belonged to a squad or a club, especially not a secret one like this. We dig into our food.

“We were all quite surprised when you left last month—nobody has ever declined,” Helmut says.

“I was crazy then,” I say. The four of us have a good laugh about that. I push an onion off my skewer. You can tell from the sear marks that everything was grilled flat, and later placed on skewers. “You guys are really into kebabs,” I observe.

Shelby and Helmut glance warily at Packard.

“Nothing wrong with it, of course.” I’d forgotten you weren’t supposed to talk about the restaurant.

“There’s plenty wrong with it,” Packard says darkly.

Quickly I change the subject. “That is such a beautiful dress, Shelby.”

Shelby smiles at me. If she were American, she would’ve had that chipped tooth fixed, and she wouldn’t be so beautiful. “I bought dress at Asia emporium. Justine, will you shop there with me tomorrow?” This in a solemn tone, like she’s asking for my hand in marriage. “May I bring you to Asia emporium?”

“I’d love to, but I have to work tomorrow.”

“But you are disillusionist now,” she says.

“I can’t just quit my job.”

There’s this silence where Helmut and Shelby look at Packard.

“Details, logistics,” Packard says. “I don’t see the rush to shop.”

Shelby puts down her fork. “For six years I am only girl disillusionist. Except for Jordan.” Apparently Jordan doesn’t count. “Male disillusionists are all friends with much male bonding, but I am alone. Regular girls do not want to be my friend, and even if they want to be friend, I must make up pretend life.” Shelby’s as girlfriend-starved as I am.

“I’ll go,” I say.

Packard wants us to wait until my training is under way. Apparently I’m already assigned to two targets—the Silver Widow and the Alchemist.

Helmut looks surprised. “Where did they come from?”

“They’re new,” Packard says.

Helmut makes a face, like something strange is going on. I’m a lot more surprised by the names. “The Silver Widow and the Alchemist?”

Shelby says, “All targets have code names.”

“Are they highcaps?” I ask.

“No,” Packard says. “We sometimes disillusion high-caps, but the Silver Widow and the Alchemist are human.” He turns to Shelby. “Why don’t you give Justine an update on the criminal she knows as Foley?”

“Yes, your Foley. One of the illusions that comfort people is, if I have this thing,
then”
—she flows her hand in a graceful movement, a sort of ballet of the fingers—“I will be so happy. Is important illusion for people—around corner is happiness. Can you guess what your Foley wants most in life?”

“Money?”

“To be adored.” She spears a beet slice. “So pathetic.”

“Yet so common,” Packard says.

“To be adored?” I’d feel sad for Foley if I didn’t loathe him. I sink my fork into the center of a succulent grilled scallop the size of a baby’s fist.

Shelby stares at her plate as she chews. “I infuse target with grim clarity about impossibility of happiness.”

“That’s your disillusionist specialty?”

She nods.

“She sucks the sparkle out of desire,” Helmut adds.

“I do not suck, I give. I give knowledge.” She points around the room. “Whatever it is you want, it will not make you happy.” She sniffs. “Your Foley, he sees this now. Is despondent. All day he wears pajamas. I take his watch and leave.” So the man’s watch is Foley’s.

Packard glowers. “You know I don’t condone robbery that isn’t part of disillusionment.”

“He would lose watch anyway.”

“Nevertheless.”
Packard turns to me. “Though she’s right—he’ll lose everything. It is often necessary to part targets from their worldly possessions. Steal, bilk, make them gamble it all away. Right now, our predatory financial advisor is fleecing Foley. Money helps protect Foley from the harsh truths of life and what he’s done to people. That’s the case with most criminals.”

“In this part of the world,” Helmut counters. “Once the resource wars start up, that will change.” He goes on to paint alarming scenarios of overpopulation, monetary collapse, and nuclear exchanges. I can’t believe how many statistics he knows.

Shelby touches my arm. “Helmut’s disillusionist specialty is dread about big picture—about world situation.”

“It’s not
dread
about the world situation,” he says. “It’s
clarity
about the world situation. I help people see that they live in dangerous and threatening times.”

Shelby sniffs. “Nothing to be done.”

Helmut glares at Shelby; I can feel the ruthless power of his anguish sure as I can feel the cloth napkin between my fingers. “It’s reality,” he adds. “The water wars will be what kills us.”

“Unless a horrible disease gets you first,” I say. “Your own body’s working overtime right now finding ways to self-destruct.” It’s wonderfully liberating to be able to talk like this without upsetting myself.

“Who cares?” Shelby says. “We have no chance for happiness anyway.”

Silently we sit, siblings in torment. The moment stretches on and I have this crazy sensation that I’m
finally home. I smile at the thought. And then I chuckle. And then we all just burst out laughing.

It’s exhilarating, just laughing around the table. I have this brief sense of us as supervillains from a B-rate thriller. Except we’re more like crime fighters—if there were crime fighters who got their superpowers from being really neurotic, and used them as part of a bizarre and marginally ethical program of criminal rehabilitation.

I gaze across the table and catch Packard staring at me, eyes sparkling in the candlelight.

Later, Helmut gives me a lift home. It’s 2:30 a.m. when I get to Cubby’s. I let myself in and creep across the living room and down the hall to find him asleep in the snuggly softness of his bed. He’s surprised I’ve come.

I slip in next to him. “I’m done,” I whisper, smoothing my hands over the supersoft blue blanket.

He squints. “What do you mean?”

“I mean you were right. I decided to be over the medical stuff.”

He opens one eye. “What happened?”

“I can’t really explain.”

My new disillusionist friends warned me passionately against telling Cubby—for his own good. That’s fine with me. Being recruited for a psychological hit squad due to my extreme neurotic tendencies does little to bolster the whole normal-girl image I’m going for. And anyway, it’s all just temporary.

“Like a breakthrough?”

“Sort of.”

He squints and turns over.

With shock, I realize that he was actually going to dump me. I can’t let him. Cubby is everything I ever wanted, everything I always aspired to, and now I have
a chance with him. I place a hand on his shoulder. “You were right,” I say. “I took your advice. Okay?”

I wait. If he says
okay
, I know I have a reprieve.

“Okay,” he mumbles.

I settle down next to him and lay my head on my pillow with a silent sigh.

          Five

T
RAINING IS TO START
at ten, two hours before Mongolian Delites opens for lunch. I dress in a sleeveless white top, knit maroon skirt, and brown boots, and I put a sparkly barrette in the heavy side of my blonde hair. Wearing a bright and pretty outfit always helps me feel more awake.

Not that I need it. The moment Packard pulls open the Mongolian Delites door and our eyes meet, I feel exuberantly awake.

“Morning.” He turns and trudges toward the bar.

“Morning.” I follow, drinking in his hotness. What am I doing? I just got my reprieve from Cubby!

“Five minutes,” he says, taking a stool in front of a plate of kebabs, of all things. His blue flannel shirt, just a shade darker than his faded jeans, is untucked, and his curls are tousled; he looks like he just got out of bed.

I settle onto a nearby stool with the big strong coffee I got from the corner deli and focus on the
Midcity Eagle
. Another pedestrian has been killed by a brick hurtling from nowhere—this one just west of downtown. That’s ten victims this year. The photo shows dashing Chief Sanchez at the scene, dark hair flowing from beneath his signature black beret. He holds up a brick, looking right out at you with his big brown puppyish eyes. The warm feeling wells up in me. There’s
something downright noble about him and his quest against crime. Like the knights in the books I used to love. I can’t wait for him to get the Brick Slinger.

Packard glances over at my newspaper. “Police Chief
Otto Sanchez
. Somebody needs to stop him from wearing those ridiculous outfits.”

“I’m impressed with his work so far. The force has doubled their case clearance since he’s been in charge.”

Packard snorts and eyes my coffee. “Is that regular?”

“Maybe.”

“No more for you. Too high-octane. Meet me at the booth.” He points at the coffee. “And bring that.”

I head back, not exactly thrilled with Packard’s bossy attitude. Or the way he insulted Chief Sanchez. A lot of men ridicule Sanchez’s elegant suits and berets and his unconventional hair, his dazzling rise from detective to police chief to Midcity’s biggest celebrity.

Packard appears with the stack of magazines and a large mug.

“What if I’m a person who likes to drink lots of coffee?” I ask.

“I don’t care. All that caffeine energy comes through the zing. I can vent emotions but not caffeine or any other drugs of any kind, so steer clear of them. You’ll need your wits about you as a disillusionist.” Packard pours most of my coffee into his mug. “You get that much.”

I stare into my nearly empty cup, thinking it’s never a good sign when somebody informs you that you need to keep your wits about you.

The first order of business is how I’ll explain my irregular hours to Cubby. Packard’s suggestion: I’ve landed a job as an assistant in a security consulting firm. Packard has business cards and a phone number and everything; apparently I’m not the only disillusionist who’s needed a cover. Packard expects me to quit Le Toile, of course.
When I protest, he slides out of the booth and walks off. I hear a ding from the dining area. He comes back and counts out twenty hundreds. Two thousand bucks—far more than I make in a month at Le Toile.

“First week’s paid training. Give a month’s notice if you want. That’s how long training will take.”

“Wow, thanks,” I say. “But wouldn’t it be okay if I kept a few hours at the shop?” I’m thinking I’ll need something to fall back on after I quit the disillusionists.