Signwave (12 page)

In one world, people will speak glowingly of a man who never breaks his word. A man with such a reputation can be trusted, whether to repair your car or to tell you what medications will prolong your life. You can even look up a reputation on the Internet. That such reputations can be purchased never occurs to the trusting.

“Trust” is situational. A reputation for always keeping your word is your only protection—it fills what otherwise might be taken as hollow threats with actual menace, and menace changes behavior. Whether that filling comes from honor, ego, or treachery doesn't matter. Nor whether the threat is screamed, whispered, or unspoken.

Dead is dead. No difference whether the body rests in a mausoleum or is never found.

No difference to the dead man, sure. Not necessarily so to his killer. A “No Trespassing” sign could be a hollow threat. But a village surrounded by heads impaled on stakes sends the clearest of messages: only the skulls would eventually become hollow—never the threat.

—

I
've known a lot of men whose students called them “sensei” or “sifu.” I've seen knife fighters up close, and snipers at a distance.

Combat covers all that, and more. But it always narrows down to this: pattern recognition and balance disruption.

In the field, you are both aggressor and defender—a balancing act with only a hand-held pole to keep you centered. When that same pole must be used to strike or to repel, its
next
move must counteract precisely or your median is lost. And you fall.

The mother bird who fakes an injured wing to draw predators away from her nestlings is acting on instinct. The soldier who deliberately changes the pattern the enemy expects—visual or audio—has been trained to draw predators closer.

You might lure an enemy squad into an ambush, but you wouldn't call in an air strike on your own position.

Without information, patience is useless. You could be waiting for the enemy to walk across your trip wires, but if you don't know what's coming, you might be patiently waiting for your own death.

I'd never use my Dolly as bait. But if I asked her to call off whatever she was up to this time, I'd have to explain why…and I couldn't.

I could ask her to just trust me, and I knew she would. But the next time? And the time after that?

I could spend the rest of my life behind layer after layer of protection, but Dolly couldn't. Or wouldn't. With her, those were the same thing. The life she'd dreamed of in this little village on the coast was a life of peace, not confinement.

Telling her to “be careful” would be like telling a screaming maniac to “calm down.”

I couldn't pretend I was interested in attending those endless meetings she was always going to. And I couldn't hang around the kitchen when her crew was working—that would spook
them bad enough to leave, and then I'd be alone with Dolly. Alone with Dolly and her questions that I couldn't answer.

So I got Mack to invite us over.

—

“M
r. Dell!” Franklin blurted out his surprise.

“He didn't come alone,” Bridgette said, flashing her bright, confident smile.

“Dolly!”

“MaryLou,” Dolly said, ignoring Franklin as she pulled MaryLou's head down to kiss her once on each cheek. She'd taught all her girls that French nonsense, but at least it wasn't some phony air kiss—MaryLou wasn't a girl you had to be delicate with.

My wife introduced the two other women to each other, leaving me and Mack and Franklin to do whatever we were supposed to do. I guessed that would be to sit down, so I did.

Bridgette didn't make any big deal out of the cold cuts and greens she pulled out of the fridge. Dolly had brought along a big tote overflowing with fresh baguettes. MaryLou pulled one apart, scooped out the inside, slathered on something that looked like mustard, and stuffed it full before she handed it to Franklin. The giant blushed. Nobody noticed.

Bridgette and Dolly did pretty much the same…only they were already into their third bite before it dawned on me and Mack that we were on our own.

There was a pitcher on the table that looked like one of those cans you carry to the gas station, except it was glass. Franklin picked it up by the handle and filled everyone's glass—MaryLou's first, then all the way around until he got to himself. MaryLou gave him a wink…the only thing that made that weight tremble his wrist even slightly.

“Do you know a French toast, Dolly?” Franklin asked. But
instead of answering the way she did her girls when one of them had asked the same question years ago—“Yeah. Maple syrup”—she said, “Sure I do:
Mon ami
”—she tipped her glass slightly toward each of us in turn
—“ami des nôtres.”

No translation required.

—

“Y
ou know what you'll be doing after graduation?” Dolly asked MaryLou.

The tall, rawboned young woman shook her head. “I don't know. I mean, I could try out for the Olympics—they're supposed to be reinstating softball—but it might be a long time to wait. Maybe go after a master's, then find someplace to coach.”

“You'd be great at it,” Dolly assured her. “When we used to watch games together on TV, everyone got an education just listening to you.”

“Probably have to take a course at finishing school first.” MaryLou smiled. “I don't have the right style to handle pampered little princesses who worry more about their makeup than their stride.”

“If they didn't listen to
you
, they'd be just…stupid,” Franklin said, stumbling a bit over the word that had been his unspoken middle name most of his life. Not always
un
spoken inside that house he was raised in. The only reason his drunken excuse for a father stopped beating on Franklin was that he didn't need tea leaves to read his future if he didn't.

MaryLou was supposed to be gay. I say “supposed to be” because that's what she played herself as. All through school, the same way. Maybe it was a “You don't like it, just make your move” thing, maybe it was just her way of keeping distance. But Franklin had saved a damn fortune to take her to the senior prom. And Dolly told me MaryLou never had a girlfriend.

Mack doesn't give away much, but Bridgette was like a tough charm-school graduate who could send off messages with the smallest gesture. And all hers read the same: “Gay, straight, whatever, why would I give a damn?”

Even Minnie and Rascal seemed to get along. They weren't pals—not yet, anyway—but as much as they loved to snatch chunks of roast beef out of the air, they didn't fight over them.

“I know you don't have smoking in your house,” I said, standing up and pulling a pack of cigarettes from my jacket. “I'll be back in a few minutes.”

Mack knew I didn't smoke, but he'd seen me smoke when I needed to be someone else. And when MaryLou got up to follow me outside, Franklin's face told me he wasn't surprised. So, either he was a lot smarter than anyone thought, or MaryLou had gotten the message to him.

Maybe even both.

I walked a short ways off, far enough so that our voices wouldn't carry. Then I fired up a smoke without offering one to MaryLou—she'd been an athlete since she was a child, and I wasn't going to insult her intelligence.

“Franklin's not going to get hurt,” I told her.

Her harsh face told me that I'd guessed right. And every word she spoke next underlined that. “Because you're going to protect him?”

“I'm not going to
use
him,” I said, echoing what I knew was always in MaryLou's mind when it came to the man who loved her.

“You could pass any lie-detector test, couldn't you?” she said. It wasn't a question—she was making sure I understood she wouldn't believe anything I'd say.

“I'm not taking one. I haven't lied to
you
, have I? About anything?”

“No, I'm not saying you have. But something's…off about
you. I don't know what it is, but I know nothing's going to get between you and what you want to do.”

“Need to do,” I said, underlining the difference.

“Yeah, I get that. But Franklin would do anything you asked him to do, ‘Mr. Dell,' ” she half sneered. She wasn't disrespecting Franklin's trust, just warning me off.

“There's no part for him.”

“Then what were you talking to Spyros about?”

“Nothing that you have to worry about.”

The tall girl with the pale-blue eyes turned to face me. I matched her stare, minus the warning.

“Tell me something,” she said, very softly. “If you thought Dolly was in danger, and you could protect her by killing Franklin, you'd just do that, wouldn't you?”

“Him, you, anyone else.”

“Easy as that for you, huh?”

“Yes.”

“And if you were planning to do that, you'd lie to my face, right?”

“Yes.”

By then, I'd lit another cigarette. Just in case.

“You know I'm gay, don't you?”

“No.”

“No?! You think, just because Franklin—”

“No, I think you played it like that because it was the only way you could be yourself in that school. You didn't need a girlfriend, but you needed a way to make boys keep their distance. And a way to tell everyone to go fuck themselves if they didn't like it.”

“I…I'm not sure what I was. Am, I mean. It's not like boys would be beating down the walls to get at me, anyway.”

“Franklin would be a lot harder than any wall. And Franklin, he sees you beautiful.”

“ ‘Sees me beautiful'—what is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that's the way his eyes work: they connect to his heart. He loves you.”

“And I love him. But…”

“I'm not going to get him involved in any—”

“You want to know the truth?” she said, clasping her hands behind her, as if she was afraid she might do something stupid with them. “I'm a…I'm a virgin. I never much liked boys. Or girls, either.”

I didn't say anything. I wished she was having this conversation with someone else.

“Franklin wants to marry me,” MaryLou said.

“He's wanted to do that for a long time. But he wasn't ready. In his mind, I mean. He's only got his father for a model when it comes to being a husband. And he'd rather die than have you live like that piece of garbage made
his
wife live. But now he's found something he's good at.
Real
good at. He makes a nice living, too. And he's got his own—”

“Damn!”

“What?”

“I can't do it.”

“Do what?”

“Not what you think. I can't come back here. Not after what…”

Her voice trailed away.

“It's not the same place, MaryLou. There's no trace of any of them left. Your so-called father moved out probably ten minutes after she took off. He can pick up his Disability check anywhere.”

I didn't have to spell out “she” for her—MaryLou was never going to hear her baby sister's name out of my mouth.

“It's a paradise, now, this place?” she said, not sparing the sarcasm.

“No. And it'll never be one. You believe in Paradise, go to church. You only have to remember one rule.”

“Rule?”

“Rule,” I repeated. “You can handle just about anything. But I know, if you hear some punk make a crack about Franklin, you're going to throw down.”

“Be better than asking
him
to.”

“That can't be your job,” I told her. “Franklin may be slow to pick things up.
Some
things. But once he does, he doesn't drop them.”

“All through school—”

“I know. Punks said things. Boys and girls, both. But behind his back, not to his face. So he ends up with the same job you do.”

“You mean the ‘rule' thing? Not to…?”

“Right. He's got a little apartment, and he's saving every dime, MaryLou. Just like he did for the prom. Only, this time, it's for a house he's going to build.”

“Oh!” She brought her big hands around to the front, clenching and unclenching.

“I would never
use
Franklin,” I said. Thinking,
Not unless I had to
.

She was silent.

“Dolly would kill me,” I said.

MaryLou's smile was her own. I hadn't seen it before. But now I could see a piece of that beauty Franklin had always seen.

—

I
t was well after midnight by the time we left.

“Hold my hand!” Dolly demanded, as we walked ahead of Franklin and MaryLou.

I didn't ask why, just did it.

When we got back to our place, she explained it to me.

But it wasn't the first thing she did.

—

N
othing from the cyber-ghost in the morning.

I didn't know what time it was wherever he was, or even if it mattered…just so long as he knew it mattered to me.

That thought brought me up short. I was getting so lost in what I had to do when I encountered the target that I was in danger of not paying enough attention to how to get there.

More of La Légion's training:
Always approach with caution, but never with fear. Caution will protect you; recklessness will kill you. Fear will only paralyze you, but the result will be the same
.

Dolly knew everyone in town, but asking for her help would tell her too much. I didn't know anyone I could talk to that I hadn't already asked, one way or another.

I don't trust the Internet. Not because I was worried about some “hacker”—the ghost had a real-time monitor on all the lines going in or out of our property—but because I couldn't rely on it. One person says…anything at all, I guess. Another person sees that, and writes an article that quotes the first person like he was some legitimate source. Then someone else refers to the article in what
he
writes. It keeps picking up speed, spinning around and around like a centrifuge, splattering what's inside all over its walls.