You Again

by Peggy Nicholson

  She was looking at a paragraph that began with a man’s name in bold caps-—the name of no one she knew. Bisexual, Raye had noted after his name, address and phone number. Came to me, hoping to quit. Terrified his wife will find out and take the kids. Terrified his wife will contract AIDS. He’s a professor, Brown Univ., salary low forties, paid twice monthly, few debts. My present take, $400 per payday. Aim higher next year if he makes tenure. Voice tape from his first session in strongbox J. (He’s crying, but his voice is clear enough for his wife to recognize.)

  Her fur fluffed out till her goose bumps ached. “Oh, you bitch. You greedy, horrible, hurtful bitch!” A blackmailing predator who might, this very moment, be sinking her teeth into Sam. Jessica let out a whimper and scrolled down.

  Another name, a state politician whom even she, a newcomer to Rhode Island, could recognize. Sent to me by Larkin Raye had noted, in lieu of six payments.

  “My God.” One of Raye’s victims had sent her another victim in place of cash. “Nothing like patient referrals to grow your practice!” The politician had a nasty cocaine habit. If that ever became public, his career was finished. Apparently, for the past two years, Raye had been helping him cut back on his usage—a good chunk of his available income now went to her, instead of his dealer. The politician’s voice tape was stored in strongbox M, wherever that might be.

  Jessica scrolled up and found Jon Cooper, listed logically with the C’s. His videotape was located in strongbox N. (Will have to edit if I ever use it, Raye had noted. My face shows twice.)

  “If she has strongboxes A through N, she’s blackmailing half the state!” Jessica glanced up at the wall clock to find the minute hand had swung a quarter way round the dial since she’d last looked. And I still haven’t even found the e-mail function, much less typed Sam a—

  Wait. She didn’t need to type Sam a letter! She had this, instead. Let him read a page or two of Raye’s how-totorment-and-extort list, then he’d know what Raye was. He’d be safe, if nothing else. This was the best vaccination Jessica could give him—if he hadn’t been infected already.

  She opened the top menu, selected the print function, hit a command key. A few feet away, the printer awoke with a whir. Print, print, hurry and print. Jessica high-stepped along the counter, tail flaunting itself with excitement, her exhaustion held at bay by an adrenaline tide. The printer was an older model, not likely to be fast. Lights blinked. Data should be pouring now from the computer into the printer buffer. When it had ingested enough, then—The machine purred. Jessica purred and glanced anxiously at the clock. Come on, come on!

  Page one crept into view, then dropped into the rack below the printer, while page two inched its way into the machine. Hurry, he’s been in there almost half an—

  A door opened in the distance with a pistol crack. “…only hot, wet thing I want right now is maybe a fish sandwich,” Sam drawled, his voice half an octave below normal and comically husky. “Maybe I’ll send out for oyst—Nooo, cancel that. They don’t have those suckers up here in Rhode Island, do they? Or do they?”

  The second page dropped out of the printer as Jessica stomped the print cancel key. Damn, oh, damn, I almost had her!

  “Actually, pizza’s more what comes to mind,” Sam continued. “A nice pizza pie. Damn. I think I better wander on out of here, Raye. My mouth’s runnin’ away with me and my feet better follow, ’fore they trip down my throat.”

  He’d had—what?—maybe two drinks. And she had two pages, maybe enough proof if she could get them back to her bag. Sam still sounded as if he stood at the far end of the hall by Raye’s office door. She might have time, if the printer would only stop printing. Page three of Raye’s file was nosing its way into the machine, and the print menu still filled up the computer’s screen. Quit, blast you, I told you to quit!

  “Anyway, thanks for the drink and the couch time. It’s been quite an eye-opener. Had no idea psychotherapy had advanced as far as it has, or in the directions if, uh…hmm.”

  It was the buffer, that was her problem! The printer had gulped pages of data into its own memory bank, called a buffer, and now it intended to spit them out before it quit printing. Page three was three-quarters done. It would do her no good, but Jessica jabbed the print cancel key again, then kept on stomping. Quit! Quit, damn you, you mindless, malicious machine! Quit!

  “Sam.” Raye’s voice held a note of laughing indulgence—you silly boy. “What are you afraid of?”

  “Specifically? You mean what’s my blackest, most subterranean angst?”

  Whatever it is, don’t tell her, Sam. Don’t! Page three was done, and the printer was munching on page four. She couldn’t wait for it. Jessica clamped her teeth on the edges of pages one through three and dragged them out of the printer’s hopper and onto the counter.

  “My deepest, darkest fear is that my cat’s going to yell at me if I don’t take her out for a walk. Critter’s been cooped up in that bag for—”

  “Sam.” Raye laughed. “Sam, we’re both adults, aren’t we?”

  Like a jujitsu master, he didn’t resist, but rolled with her and kept right on rolling. “Well, actually that’s a matter of intense debate amongst the cognoscenti. Some of the women I’ve dated will swear, and for that matter, my three sisters and my mom—and moms should know, shouldn’t they?—anyway, all the above gaggle of feminine wisdom and pulchritude hold that, actually, my mental age is somewhere between fourteen years, eight months and two days, and fifteen years…” Word by drawling word, he was erecting a wall of inpenetrable nonsense between himself and his pursuer while he retreated along the corridor. Had Jessica’s teeth not been clenched on the papers she was dragging backward across the desk, and had she not been a cat, she would’ve laughed aloud with delight. But to someone with no sense of humor—

  “Sam, would you just…shut up? Come back here. Touch me, please.” I need to be touched. Just touch me…here?”

  Somehow Jessica made it up to the shelf below the glass slider. Her last glimpse of the printer showed her that it was working on page five. But mercifully the computer’s screen had returned to the main menu. Head twisted to one side to hold the papers away from her paws, Jessica toppled off the shelf and hit the waiting-room floor.

  Landing, she stepped on one page, and it tore loose from her teeth. Rats, oh, rats, oh… It fluttered to the foot of a chair, ended halfway beneath it. Rats! Get these pages into the bag, then go back for that. Then go back for the stuff in the printer, if she had any time left.

  “I’d love to, Raye, but I can’t. Gotta go. Prior engagements, y’know, and there’s this man I gotta see ’bout a dog and—But anyway, thanks for the drink and the nap on your couch. Sorry I faded on you like that, but—”

  “Sam!”

  Rearing, Jessica tried to stuff her papers into the bag. The bag flopped over onto its side. Swearing with her mouth full, she rounded it to reach the entrance, dragged the papers inside, spun to go out again—

  The door to the inner hall burst open, and Sam crossed the room in three strides, Raye hot on his heels. “What the…” he muttered, grabbing the carrier’s handles and jerking it upright. “Damn cat.”

  Inside, Jessica fell on her back amidst her plunder. That’s done it! But there was no going back now. She let out a squawk as he shook the bag once, apparently determining that she was indeed still in residence, then she clenched her teeth as Sam and the bag swerved wildy around.

  “Damn you, Sam!” Raye’s voice cracked with frustration.

  “Probably. In fact, doubtless, but what can a manAnyway, pretty lady, you be good, or if you can’t, then be, er—Yikes, cat, exit stage left.” The door slammed behind them.

  “Pursued by a bear,” Sam added under his breath just as Jessica thought the words. Her whiskers quivered, he laughed, and they swung off down the corridor.

  But, Sam, she thought after a moment, while scuffing her papers into a catnap nest. I wouldn’t call her exactly … pretty.

  “Lo
t a cat knows ’bout that.”

  WARM HANDS SMOOTHED around her and lifted her into the light. She pressed her face to his shoulder as he carried her. “I’m so tired, Sam.” Could one die of exhaustion? The candle burns at both ends till the flames—cat and womanmeet in the middle? And then what? Poof—burnout? “Let’s go to bed.” She would show him Raye’s papers in the morning.

  Instead of the bedroom, they went straight to the bathroom. Sam set her on the counter, scratched her ears, then stripped off his clothes. If anything could have revived her, it was this. She fought a losing battle with her two-ton eyelids—till he stepped into the shower.

  “Yow, that’s cold!” he groaned through clenched teeth, revolving beyond the glass. “Ow-wow! Eeee!”

  “Serves you right,” she told him, curling into a ball. “Any man who’d fall for a line like ’Come lie on my couch’ deserves to suffer:” She shivered, remembering. “I wonder if Raye will spot that page in the waiting room under the chair?” That was the most damning clue she’d left, but as furious as Raye had been, she was likely to sweep past it without noticing.

  “And if I’m lucky, when she turns off the light in the receptionist’s office, she’ll assume Tiffany left the computer on. Odds are good she won’t notice those pages in the printer rack.”

  Come morning, perhaps Tiffany would bring them to her boss’s attention. Or perhaps she’d miss their significance and blithely toss them. Either way, by morning Sam would know the score. She’d show him her evidence at breakfast. Jessica yawned and curled her tail over her nose.

  She came halfway awake when Sam carried her to the kitchen. Clean clothes, she noted, pressing her nose to his ribs.

  He set her down on his chair. “What’s the matter with you, Jez-babe? Behind on your catnaps? It was a long, frazzlin’ day, wasn’t it? What d’you say, BLTs for supper, heavy on the bacon for you?”

  “Not hungry.” Curling back into a ball, she wafted away on a delicious fragrance of sizzling bacon fat and hickory smoke.

  “Whew! Smoky in here. Hope you like your bacon welldone.” Nearby Sam opened the lower section of the giant window that overlooked the fire escape. “Pretty warm out tonight. Indian summer. Jess used to love this season.” The comforting, homey sounds of supper preparation wove into her dreams, then a distant sound intruded. A buzzer, nasty tone, nastier implications. But she was too tired to deal with it. She dived away from its significance, back into dreams. Sam’s voice came from a distance. “Sam?” Not talking to me, she decided, and drifted off.

  Then voices, coming closer. A woman’s voice. Hard heels in the hallway. “I’m so embarrassed,” Raye Talbot confessed as she walked into the kitchen. She was dressed all in black—black jeans, black turtleneck, high-heeled black boots, a black mink jacket thrown over all, an enormous black purse slung from one shoulder. “I am so ashamed. The way I behaved this afternoon was so…so unprofessional, I cannot believe that was me!” She held a pizza box balanced on her forearms.

  “It was no big deal,” Sam said behind her. “Already forgotten.” He held a bottle of red wine she must have handed him.

  Jessica struggled to a sitting position. This isn’t real. This must be a nightmare. Tell me I’m dreaming!

  “But forgiven is what I’m after, Sam. I feel such a fool. So…this peace offering.” Raye waggled the pizza box, then set it on the table. “I decided no anchovies—you don’t look like an anchovy man. And a Chianti,” she added, touching the bottle in his hands. “From my very own cellar.”

  “Nooooo!” Jessica yelled, rearing to stand, her front legs braced on the table’s edge. At least she tried to yell. Her overtaxed voice came out more of an agonized squeak. Raye flinched violently at the sight of her, but held her ground.

  “You didn’t need to do this, Raye.” Sam looked thoroughly uncomfortable. “I reckon that scotch went to both of our heads. At this point, I can’t remember a thing that happened.”

  “You are such a sweet liar! Jessica is so lucky to have you.”

  “And Jessica plans to keep it that way! She’s up to no good, Sam, coming here, can’t you see that? She must have found the page I dropped.” Heaving herself to the tabletop, Jessica advanced, her ears flattened, eyes flaming, a tiny, moaning song of menace weaving out of her throat. “Don’t you even think of hurting him…not while I have claws…while I have teeth…while there’s one last breath in my body…”

  Sam plucked her off the table and draped her over his shoulder, pinning her there with one flattened hand. “Hush, you. Sorry, I don’t know what’s gotten into her. She’s been kinda skitzy all day.”

  “I know just how she feels.” Raye laughed as she retreated a step. “So have I. I wanted to explain to you…the reason I…I came on so strong today—”

  “No need to explain a thing.”

  “The reason I came on to you like that was, well, the man I thought I was going to marry broke our engagement just last week. Jessica warned me—she thought he was a stinker, but would I listen? I was convinced he was Mr. Wonderful.” She laughed painfully. “Boy, did I know from nothing!”

  “This is her con, Sam!” Jessica yowled in his ear. “She’s playing on your pity, just like she played on mine. There’s no fiance, wonderful or otherwi—Oof!” she gasped as he thumped her ribs, turning her yell to a series of bagpipe squawks. “D-d-dammit, l-l-listen to m-me!”

  “So I guess today, I was just trying to wipe a bad taste from my mouth with somebody truly wonderful.” Raye cut a wide detour around them to reach the hall. “But I’m sorry I came on so strong. I get pushy sometimes.” Giving him her smile-for-a-shrug, she backed a step toward the living room. “Well…you enjoy. I’ll see you tomorrow at the—”

  “Wait a minute,” Sam protested. “You’re not going to just drop this monster pizza on me and run, are you?”

  “I think I should, shouldn’t I? I mean, I don’t want you to think that—”

  “I don’t think anything of the sort. Stay and have a piece, and help me brainstorm ’bout how I’m going to handle Jess’s family.”

  “I can’t believe you’re this stupid!” Jessica raged. “She’s playing you like a hooked trout! Listen to me. You think her danger is that she’s a sexy woman, trying to seduce you. And since you love me, you think you’re perfectly safe. But that’s not where she’s coming from!”

  “Well, if you’re absolutely sure, then…” Raye shrugged prettily, then swung her purse off her shoulder to drop it on the counter. “All right.”

  “Like, ask her what she’s carrying in her purse that’s so heavy!” Jessica pleaded, ears wincing at the metallic clunk. “Please listen to me.”

  “What d’you carry in there? A folding bicycle? Silverware service for six?” Sam nodded at her bag as he moved past it to the stove. He picked five pieces of blackened bacon out of a pan, set them on a plate, headed for the window.

  “Oh, just a few odds and ends.” Raye went straight to the drawer that held the utensils and pulled out a corkscrew. “Oh, and I bought a hammer today. Mean to hang some pictures when I get home.”

  “Wait!” Jessica shrieked. But Sam leaned out onto the fire escape, set the plate of bacon down near the flowerpots, then deposited her on the iron flooring before it. Below the bars of the grid, six stories of black yawning space seemed to suck at her toes. Spinning around, she lunged for the window, but he held her off and closed the sash.

  His voice came faintly from beyond the glass. “Supper al fresco, fur-ball. When you’re ready to be polite, you can come back inside.”

  Behind his turned back, holding the wine bottle, Raye gave her a long, level stare that was worse than any smirk. She dug the razor tip of the corkscrew into the cork. And twisted.

  I have to stay sane, I have to stay sane. How can I save Sam if I go stark, raving bonkers? Panting, Jessica leaned her forehead against the glass and tried to think. Her mind was a reeling squirrel cage inside a tornado. Think. Be calm and think.

  Beyond the glass,
Sam left the room. Raye wrenched the cork from the bottle, dropped it aside, almost ran to a cabinet and selected two wineglasses. Groping in the pocket of her jeans, she pulled out a tiny glass vial. Head cocked toward the hallway, she dumped the vial’s contents into one of the glasses.

  Jessica shrieked and threw herself at the glass.

  When Sam returned a moment later with a chair from the living room, Raye was topping off his wineglass. She smiled, set it before his place, poured her own.

  Don’t drink it! Jessica pleaded, her nose pressed to the glass, her body trembling. Don’t drink! Focusing all heart and soul on that single command, shutting out the scents of the night breeze, the cold iron beneath her pads, the roar of blood through her veins, she closed her eyes and aimed. Don’t drink, Sam. If you love me, love your life, then don’t drink.

  When she opened her eyes, she seemed to see through a gathering darkness—exhaustion thick and clingy as fog. Sam lifted his glass to his lips. He frowned, hesitated, started to set it aside. “Y’know, after that scotch this afternoon, I don’t think I—”

  “I knew it!” Raye laughed. “You haven’t forgiven me, have you? You’re probably planning to call the hospital ethics committee first thing tomorrow—another doc puts the make on her patient.”

  “Don’t be absurd, Raye. It’s just that—”

  “This is a peace pipe, Tex. A twenty-dollar-a-bottle peace pipe. And I fibbed about having it in my wine cellar. I went out and bought this especially for you. Now, are we at peace, white man?”

  Not even turning his head at Jessica’s screech, Sam clinked his glass with hers and nodded. “Peace, then—but only one glass worth of peace.”

  “I imagine that will do.” Raye took a sip of her own, licked her top lip from corner to corner, then smiled. “Have some pizza?”