Mind Games (8 page)

Francis demands my mobile phone. I hand it over and
he programs in a panic sequence—an activity that seems to cheer him.

I wait, uncomfortably warm in my green skirt suit—part of my new web of lies for Cubby. I told him I’d be interviewing today, which I feel guilty about. On the plus side, I’m zinging so much hypochondria fear into Packard these days, it seems more possible that I’ll run out of it, or somehow get over it. I privately hope I can end my secret life as a disillusionist before Cubby knows anything.

Strongarm Francis says, “Hit the panic sequence and all disillusionists in the vicinity will rush to your side. Me, too.”

“What’s your disillusionist specialty, Francis?”

“I’m no disillusionist, little missy. I’m a regular guy. Boss’s right-hand man.” He goes into his briefcase and presents me with a slim metal box that’s cool in my palm. “Zam! Stun gun. I made it. This’ll knock anyone out.” He shows me how to work it and gives me a holster, which he also made.

I zap a coffee cup and nothing happens.

Francis taps it with his finger and it shatters.

“Gosh,” I say. “You think I need all this?”

“When you need it, you need it.”

Day manager Ling bustles out of the back room, all in black with several pens stuck into her bun like chopsticks. “I’m opening the place up, people.” She slaps the bar as she passes. “Get rid of this stuff.”

          Seven

M
Y TRAINING
for the Silver Widow is finished by the time Shelby and I arrange to meet at Mongolian Delites for our long-awaited girl outing. She’s been out of town, something about a target called El Gato.

I find her at the back booth with Packard and a wiry, forty-something black man with a pointy chin and a smattering of gray at his temples.

He stands up and we shake. “Vesuvius. Self-esteem issues,” he explains. “Don’t be impressed.”

“Great to meet you,” I say, pushing out to his surface, which feels soft and uneven, like tangled yarn.

“That was a lame joke, I know,” he says. “The ‘don’t be impressed’ bit. Being that I’m self-esteem issues.”

“No, it was clever.”

“It wasn’t.” He picks up a saxophone case. “Here goes nothing.” He stalks off.

My gaze meets Packard’s, and he tips his head in the direction Vesuvius went. “Rips their pride to tatters.”

“With astonishing speed.” Shelby stands. “Fastest of all disillusionists.” She takes my hand and I push easily out to her surface, smooth as polished obsidian, knowing she’s probably doing the same to me. I wonder what my surface is like.

And then she pulls away and grabs her coat. “We are late.”

“Late?” I turn to see a pale, dark-haired man sauntering up the aisle, dressed all in black.

“Simon,” Packard says.

Simon squeezes past us, slides into Shelby’s former seat, and flicks a heavy chunk of black hair out of his eyes. His eyelashes are so thick and dark that if he were a girl he wouldn’t have to bother with mascara, though he might do well with a bit of blush—his skin is way too pale, and not Packard’s healthy, milky pale, either. Simon looks ninety-eight percent unwholesome.

“Justine, this is Simon,” Packard says. “Simon’s our gambling specialist.” Simon goes for the breadbasket like I’m not even there.

“Nice to meet you,” I say.

“Simon,” Packard says. “Say hello to Justine.”

Simon inspects a piece of bread and puts it back in the basket. Then he looks up at me, eyes a beautiful royal blue. “Fear of disease, huh?” So unimpressed.

Shelby nudges me. “We are late.”

“That wasn’t a hello,” Packard says.

“Since when do we need such a specialized function?” Simon asks.

“Since we have cases that require it.”

“We already have fear so well covered. What use—”

“Simon, have you suddenly developed highcap powers that grant you infallible psychological insight into our targets?”

“I don’t need a highcap power to know when I’m being bullshitted.”

Packard gazes pleasantly at Simon. “Disgruntled?”

Shelby pulls at me. “Come on.”

“Wait,” Packard says, not taking his eyes from Simon. “Simon wants to greet our newest squad member.”

More tense silence. I almost empathize. Not too long ago I sat there, wanting to walk off and not being able to. Shelby pulls at me again, and this time I go with her.

“Shit! What was that?” I ask her once we’re outside.

She shakes her head, like the answer is too vast to verbalize, and walks faster, shirt and floral scarf clashing in the evening breeze. “Is stupid. They are always in fight.” The streetlights are just flickering on, and a bus appears in the distance. “This is us,” she says.

“What did Simon mean by being bullshitted?”

“Oh, Simon, you know, he is like teenager, I think. Always somebody is lying, always Daddy is wrong.”

We find a seat together in the front. The bus is air-conditioned to arctic extremes; all I have on is a black cashmere tank top with a slim green skirt and strappy sandals. I rub my arms. “So Packard would never bullshit us?”

“I do not say that. I think everybody is liar. However, is not for us to become agitated about it. There is nothing to be done.”

I smile at her grim attitude.

“The time for Simon to question Packard is before he joined, that is all,” she says. “After you join, pffft. You cannot decide not to be disillusionist as one would decide to change shirt, you know?”

I nod like I would never dream of that and turn my attention out the window. We rumble north past warehouses and machine-parts fabricators. Midcity makes a lot of things that go in other things.

“Simon, he is also jealous, I think. He imagines you and Packard have special relationship. I have heard him say you joke together, and that Packard drinks from your coffee cup.”

“Well …” I try to remember when we started sharing a cup. “Packard hates the coffee at Mongolian Delites, so sometimes I let him have mine. You know how training is. You talk about stuff, get sort of buddy-buddy. Packard has that dry sense of humor. He likes to joke around, you know?”

She regards me strangely.

“What?” I say.

“Packard does not joke around. Especially when training. Training is arduous.”

“Well, of course, yes, it’s arduous, too. …”

“You joke together?”

My face flashes hot when I realize what she’s thinking. “There’s nothing romantic going on!”

“This is why. This!” Shelby narrows her eyes. “He has seemed lighter and I did not understand.”

“Trust me. Cubby is the only man I want.”

She smiles and says nothing. Pointedly.

“Cubby is the only man I want where I will
act
on that want. Okay?”

“You and Packard,” she says, like it’s a crazy new concept.

“And even if Cubby weren’t around, I wouldn’t go after the boss. The whole power imbalance issue, it’s wrong in every way.”

“Yes, that would be very much power imbalance. Very much.” She nods. “I never see Packard with girlfriend. But then, what would he do? Take her to Mongolian Delites?”

“He certainly is a workaholic,” I observe.

She shoots me a look. “He jokes?”

“Not overly.”

Shelby dings the stop signal in a neighborhood of giant used-car lots that are lit up like circuses, and tiny Asian groceries and manicure places. We step out and almost get knocked down by a pack of boys on little bikes, then pass by a pair of young girls in huge motorcycle helmets playing hopscotch.

“Oh, that is so sad,” I say.

Shelby links her arm in mine. “I will never wear helmet. You do not wear helmet either.”

“I can’t wait until Chief Otto Sanchez gets that guy.”

“Police will never catch him.”

“Sanchez’ll catch him.”

Shelby says, “He is only a man.”

“I know.” I shrug. “Still.”

“If Brick Slinger is caught, it will not make city safer. Another will emerge to kill.” In spite of her words, there’s very little charge to Shelby’s grimness today; she must’ve zinged recently, I think. That’s what disillusionists say when a fellow disillusionist seems saner than usual.

I say, “If another emerges, Chief Sanchez will get that one, too. And the next and the next. He’ll take them all down.”

“I think you wish Chief Sanchez would take
you
down.”

I laugh.

After the next block we head into a cavernous warehouse that’s honeycombed with retail and restaurant stalls, a kind of high-tech bazaar.

We walk around and I quiz her about other disillusionists, like Jordan, the woman she’d mentioned that first night. “Very unpleasant, Jordan the Therapist,” Shelby says, inspecting a decorative fan. “Steer clear, you know? Her mania is”—she wrinkles her nose—“aggressive. And then there is the Monk, most dangerous disillusionist. Destroys people’s faith. None of us have met him. Sometimes Packard must contact Monk through wilderness guides.”

I forgot how fun it was to shop with a girlfriend. We try on dozens of pairs of shoes. I buy a Chinese dress just like hers. Afterward, we go for a late dinner of spicy noodles at a Thai restaurant back in the Delites neighborhood. We talk and laugh and discover we like similar books and music.

Over mango shakes, I learn that Shelby came to Midcity as a mail-order bride at the age of fifteen, left
the guy at eighteen, and went to work as a maid at a hotel on the edge of downtown, just below the river. I know it. It’s near Cubby’s condo.

“I would save my pay to drink and eat alone at Mongolian Delites, and that is how I met Packard,” she tells me. “I still love kebabs. Packard and other disillusionists hate them, of course.”

“If they hate them so much, why do they always eat them? And if Packard’s so damn sensitive about the restaurant, why not change it, or sell it?”

“Nobody has told you?”

“Told me what?”

“About Packard and restaurant.”

I look at her blankly.

Shelby parts her pretty lips in surprise and leans close, all dusky intensity, as if this tidbit demands an extra flourish. “Packard is prisoner there. He is prisoner at Mongolian Delites. He has not been outside restaurant for eight years.”

“What? Are you talking about some sort of house arrest?”

“No, Justine, he is prisoner of another highcap. I cannot believe nobody told you this. Packard, it is hard for him to speak of it. Nemesis imprisoned him there for life.”

I blink at her, dumbfounded.

“Have you seen Packard out of restaurant? No. He can go into kitchen, bathrooms, dining areas and broom closet only. He is thirty-three, I think. So he has been inside since age of twenty-five.”

“That’s insane. It’s impossible!”

“It is not impossible. There are highcaps with such powers.”

“So he can never leave? Ever?” And suddenly I see it. I see the caged animal in him. “Oh my God. That is horrible. He has to get free.”

Shelby shakes her head. “He cannot. Packard’s nemesis is highcap with power of force fields. It is as if he can speak to building, interface with building. He can make force fields, even change shape of walls. Nemesis spoke to Mongolian Delites building. He said, ‘You must never let Packard leave.’” She describes how an invisible wall traps Packard, even if the door is open. The sadness of it steals my breath.

“Packard cannot change menu; that is why we must eat same things. He cannot change hours or layout of space to make private place in back. Always he lives in public. Even silly decor, if he smashes knickknack or burns a wall hanging, tomorrow it is back. Force field creates, what do you say? Continuity. You should look on Internet. There is something on Internet of this high-cap mutation. You have studied highcaps on Internet, right?”

“Yeah,” I say distractedly. I looked up Packard’s mutation, of course. Seeing psychological structure. There was hardly anything on his type. “How could I not know this?”

“He loathes to speak of it.” The waitress brings the bill, and Shelby snaps her credit card over it. I can tell she’s tired—it’s after midnight—but I ask her more questions. I need to know everything.

She tells me how Packard purchased the restaurant from the owners after his imprisonment, and about his unsuccessful attempts to escape, to remodel. “We believe Packard sleeps on little bedroll that he lays out next to booth. He is cut off from world. From friends and loved ones,” she says.

“They can’t come and visit him?”

“All those who knew Packard—or knew of him—think he is dead. Even if they saw him, they would not see him, would not believe it is him. If I saw woman who looks like my dead nana, I would not think it is her.
Strongarm Francis says nemesis worked with powerful highcap revisionist who revised minds and memories of those around Packard. This is part of imprisonment, you see. He is isolated in all ways.”

Packard doesn’t seem so teasable anymore; his darkness and gravity have new significance. “Who is this nemesis?”

Shelby shakes her head. “Packard will not tell. Nobody knows.”

“Have you tried to find out and, like, do something about it?”

“Packard forbids it. He says nemesis is evil and dangerous. Such investigation could alert and anger nemesis. What if nemesis decides to put Packard where we cannot find him? What would happen to him? To us?”