by Rob Thurman
“Maybe you should try reading this instead.” Not precisely impressed with the threat, he held up a picture. It was rain-splattered in the dim light that spilled from the doorway, but I made it out. A face nearly as familiar to me as my own.
Glory.
My sister. The numbers she held up beneath a blindingly bright smile were almost a fashion statement for her, she wore them so often. With her perfect cheekbones, hair the color of a handful of new pennies, and eyes the unfathomable green of well water, she looked more like a beauty contestant than a criminal. Hometown girl done good in the big Peach Queen festival, or ex–high school cheerleader who was as fresh and sweet as the day she graduated.
But Glory hadn’t finished high school, leaving when she was fifteen some six years ago. The school board frowns on throwing your rival down on the bathroom floor, tying her up with her own bra, then cutting off all her hair with a switchblade. It wasn’t the first time my sister had terrorized her classmates, I would guess, not that I was around to know for sure. However, this time, she was caught in the act by a teacher, a female one. Otherwise, she would’ve wriggled her way out of it with an innocent fluttering of lashes and a not-so-innocent twitch of her ass. Glory had never been quite … right. Even at two and three, she made her own rules and flatly refused any others. Self-centered was part of it. Glory just didn’t connect with people around her much. Only one person could ever reach her: her sister. And Tess had been gone nearly as long as Glory had been alive.
I know she never listened a damn to me. Before or after. And by the time I was old enough to give what would probably be a futile try for custody, she was gone. Her foster family, and I use the word “family” in the Charles Manson sense, had disappeared with her and several other children. The state does such a great job at those background checks, don’t they? Despite years of searching and private detectives, she was the one who found me. That had been about three years ago. She’d asked for money and then robbed me blind when I was in the bathroom and took off. There hadn’t been any sisterly hugs offered, either, or touching of any kind. Not a hand on an arm. Nothing. Her personal space made mine look normal.
I’d only seen her a couple of times since … and on those occasions, I gave her money for a hotel. I was nothing if not a fast learner. Still, in the end, she was my sister. My last family, no matter how sociopathic. And she was a sincere sociopath, through and through. What to do about that when it slammed up against sibling loyalty, I didn’t have a goddamn idea, not one.
Attached to the photo was a stapled police report. I didn’t bother to read it, letting it all flutter down to fall half in, half out of the door. Balanced on the threshold, it rapidly turned to a soggy mess. “It’s a mug shot, big deal,” I said, bored. “She practically sends them out as Christmas cards.”
“Well, maybe that’s true.” He bent, picked up the papers, and tried to shake them out. “But has she ever been arrested for assault with a deadly weapon before … on a police officer? Or been nine months’ pregnant while she sits and waits for trial? Georgia has a three-strikes law, Mr. Eye. Glory has two other violent felonies on her record in addition to this one. She has the potential to go away for life without parole.”
For a split second, I thought that might be the best place for her, but then there was the baby. And the guilt. If I’d found her sooner rather than her finding me, maybe she wouldn’t be this way. Or at least not this bad. I’d done all I could, but all I could had fallen damn fucking short.
“What about the father?” I asked without emotion.
“Apparently, on that subject your sister isn’t talking.”
Or didn’t know. The baby would go to Family Services. What wouldn’t happen is giving it to me, a self-employed, unsocial psychic. I was nothing but a con man from their point of view, a single male ripoff artist, not precisely parent material. They wouldn’t be flashing their panties in joy to give the child to me, only relative or not. I wasn’t saying that the kid might not be better off adopted by a nice, carefully screened couple than being raised by Glory or me. Unfortunately, my sister’s life had shown that careful and screening didn’t always go hand in hand when it came to Family Services. They had taken a stubborn, wild, and defiant little girl and given her to people who had done … things to her. Those things had turned her into something predatory and treacherous to the world around her. They’d taken a wolf out of the wild and turned it into a man-eater.
I hadn’t been able to save her then, and it was too late to save her now, but maybe I could keep her out of jail. As for the baby … I grimaced to myself. Something would have to be done. If only I could buy the time to do it. I wasn’t surprised that Glory hadn’t called me for help. She had the unshakable conviction that she could control any situation, and until now, she’d been right. Given enough time, that still might hold true, but if so, it would probably involve a hospital guard beaten half to death with a metal bedpan during a faked labor. Something to be avoided if possible. Life and the things she’d done would catch up with Glory eventually, but it wouldn’t be now, not if I had anything to say about it.
“You telling me you can do something about this?” I said, my voice dangerously flat.
“Not me, but the people I work for, yes.”
“So you’re not really an academic, private or otherwise then.” A not-so-big surprise. My lips curled coldly. “You only play one on TV.” I’d known the ID in his wallet was fake. If my memories hadn’t told me, then the suspicious niggle in the back of my brain would have. I knew a liar when I saw one, no matter how practiced.
“You think I’m a blackmailer.” He folded the papers, tucked them into his jacket pocket, and set his jaw. “I guess you have every right.”
I thought I saw a flash of self-contempt in his odd eyes. His conscience was evidently pricking him as he rammed that knife into my back. What a good guy. Yeah, right.
“Extortion.” I remained in the doorway to block his way and enjoyed the tiny revenge of his continued soaking. “Manipulating the judicial system—all this over something that is mostly smoke and mirrors, Chang? I’d think you’d have better sense.”
“Oh, I have sense. I have all the sense you could want and then some.” The regret disappeared, to be replaced by an unshakable and ruthless determination. “People are dying, Mr. Eye. I have no idea if you can help us stop that or not. But if you can, you will, and I’ll do whatever it takes to make that happen.”
“Ah, it’s all in the name of truth, justice, and the usual crap, is it?” I leaned forward and said without emotion, “You’re a real humanitarian, there … Hector.”
Sometimes you don’t have to be psychic; you only have to follow your instincts. I watched as his jaw tightened in surprise. How’s it feel, you son of a bitch? I thought savagely. Surrendering to the inevitable, I turned away from the door and headed for the fridge, knowing he’d follow me. Thanks to Glory, he had his foot in the door and there was no getting him out now. After retrieving a beer, I said impassively, “Charlie said I’d like you. Guess what? He was wrong.” I still remembered it clearly. Charlie wanting to be my friend, wanting to make a family out of the three of us when I got out of the home. Hector didn’t seem to be as kindhearted as his brother.
“And Hector, psychics, real psychics, don’t like liars. It means you’re trying to deceive us and insult us all in one.”
I popped the tab on the beer and took a swallow. “Don’t sit on the couch. You’ll ruin it. And if you’re looking for a towel, you’re not going to get it.”
“How did you read me? You never touched me,” he asked grimly.
“Read you? Christ. How many half-Japanese guys with pale blue eyes are running around Georgia? And drop the fake Chinese name. First time you run into someone who speaks Chinese, you’ll embarrass the shit out of yourself.” I took another swallow. “It was obvious the second you walked into my office that you’re Charlie’s brother, but without his personality.”
Hector ignored t
he snipe, standing unmoving with the door at his back. “You remember Charlie?” he asked neutrally.
I shrugged. There was no percentage in lying, and hell, hadn’t he filled the daily quota already? “I remember.” Staring down at the can, I could see the distant shimmer of golden liquid. I remembered Charlie, all right. A few months of rooming together, studying together, eating together, and every moment of it, I’d spent denying that he was my friend. I’d say I’d been a real asshole, but that would imply a change had taken place, wouldn’t it? “Enough to recognize his brother when I see him. His lying, blackmailing brother. Charlie must be so proud.”
“Charlie’s dead.”
Two words. Only two.
Then again, wasn’t pink shoe just two words? Sky falls. World ends. Amazing what you could do with a mere two words.
Not once had I ever thought I’d see Charlie again. Not once had I entertained the notion of looking him up. That would’ve been breaking my own rules, rules that had been in place since I was fourteen, and I didn’t do that. Abby had broken a rule for me, but I wouldn’t have done it. I would never have taken that step. I’d had a family, then lost it. I wasn’t going down that path again. I wasn’t running to another abandoned well or a drowned sister, not for the rest of my unnatural life. I’d known Charlie wasn’t for me, as a friend or a brother, simply because no one could be. But I had liked knowing that he was out there somewhere. An insatiable appetite for knowledge, a heart wholly undamaged by life, and a crooked smile under a crooked nose, that was Charlie, and a Charlie Allgood in the world could only be a positive thing.
Now … now it was a darker place. Shadowed.
In some ways, a lot less worthwhile.
I closed my eyes and drained the rest of the beer. I’ll call you, he’d said stubbornly. So just take the damn calls. And he had called. I’d been long gone, over the fence and down the road, but I didn’t need to have been there to know that. He’d called. Unlike his brother, Charlie hadn’t lied to me. Not once. Sorry, I thought silently. Sorry, geek boy. Just … so goddamn sorry.
“I’m not much of a memorial for him, is that what you’re thinking?” Hector’s emotionless voice hit the stillness like a bomb.
I ignored his question, although he was right. It probably was what I would’ve thought, but right now, I wasn’t thinking much of anything … at all. Opening my eyes, I looked blankly at the can in my hand, the thin metal dimpled from my tight grip. “Do I need a jacket, or is this something we can do here?”
There was a moment of silence, and then he said quietly, “Pack a suitcase. I don’t know when you’ll be back.”
And just like that, all my plans, all my rules—my whole damn life—went right out the window.
6
We dropped Houdini off at the vet’s. Hector, otherwise known as the blackmailing son of a bitch, said I could bring him if I wanted. Yeah, well, I didn’t want, thanks so much. God knows where I was going to end up in this shit-fest, but I did know where Houdini would. Safe with Abby. I told the vet I’d had a family emergency, if you could call it that, and could she board Hou for the next few days until Abby came home. I left a corresponding message on Abby’s answering machine. She knew the only family I had left could cause a five-alarm emergency without breaking a sweat if she wanted and wouldn’t be unduly worried if I was gone for a while trying to sort it out. She’d take care of Houdini as long as he needed it.
I had a feeling that might be a long, long time.
“For a psychic, you’re not especially curious, are you?” There was an edge to the question. It was the real Hector now, in glorious living color. Impatient and used to being in control, a real alpha bastard through and through. No wonder he’d had trouble pulling off the easygoing professor routine. And that short haircut—not a cop, I’d been right there. Cops didn’t blackmail … well, not usually. No, not a cop, but something similar. Add that fake ID he’d been sporting, definite government involvement. And in Hector’s case, probably military.
As if it mattered one way or the other. I was still screwed. Grimly, I continued to count the raindrops on the passenger-side window. It was a habit I’d never really broken. Ceiling tiles, driveway pebbles, the polka dots on my fifth-grade teacher’s dress, drops of water on a dark car window, whatever it took to let your mind wander. To disengage.
“When you’re All Knowing and All Seeing, who gives a shit about curiosity?” I commented without interest. In the gleam of a passing streetlight, I saw my reflection in the glass, but it was Glory’s face that stared back. The same pale skin, the same red hair, although mine was several shades darker. I didn’t grin, but Glory did, delighted by the trouble she’d caused me. And wasn’t that my baby sis all over.
He snorted, tapping fingers against the steering wheel. “Charlie talked about you, you know. That’s how I found you. How I even knew you existed.”
Damn it, Charlie, I thought, I liked you whether I wanted to admit it or not, but would it have killed you to keep your mouth shut about me? An internal stab reminded me with relentless fervor that if he hadn’t revealed me, something else would have eventually. Pushing it down, Glory, Charlie, all of it, I focused on the window again.
Two, six, eight …
“He told me years ago what you could do. At least, what the other kids said you could do,” he amended. “You weren’t one for showing off, apparently, because he didn’t see anything firsthand.”
Pushing. He was pushing, because you couldn’t tell me good old Hector was one for idle chitchat, just shooting the breeze. Whatever this son of a bitch wanted, he didn’t even want to wait until we reached our destination to start prying it out of me. A liar, a blackmailer, and now let’s add rude as hell to his résumé. No, Charlie really had missed the mark on that one. I didn’t like Hector one goddamn bit. “How long?” I asked, eyes still on the window.
“How long?” he repeated. “How long what … oh.” His jaw worked. “Ten months. He’s been gone ten months.”
I knew from experience what ten months was. It was the blink of an eye and forever all rolled into one soul-killing whole. Giving up on the rain-splattered window, I folded my arms and watched the windshield wipers instead. Hypnotic, the back and forth of it. Dependable, reassuring. So very unlike life itself.
“You know, you don’t much seem like a believer,” I pointed out, changing the subject. I had no idea where we were going or how long it would take to get there. Maybe I shouldn’t be wasting time sulking and instead try to gather some information of my own. I’d like to survive this not-so-little fuckup if I could, and “forewarned is forearmed.” Just because I’d gotten that out of a fortune cookie didn’t make it any less valid.
“Charlie is …” I cleared a suddenly thick throat. Damn humidity. “He was an open-minded kid. I imagine he was the same as an adult. But you?” I didn’t bother to look at him. My assessment was already done. “That shit I just don’t buy.”
“Really?” It was an abrupt, humorless laugh. Harsh and bleak. “Well, Charlie always did have a way of changing my mind.” Apparently, both the pushing and the conversation were over with for the moment, as with a savage twist of his wrist, he turned on the radio. Country and western filled the car, and I slid down in the seat with a silent groan. Oh, hell no. Blackmailed, all but kidnapped, and now subjected to audio torture.
As some of my more full-of-shit colleagues would say, some days it doesn’t just pay to leave the astral plane.
Sometime later, a hand on my shoulder shook me back from a light doze to consciousness. Rubbing my eyes, I grimaced at the taste of stale beer in my mouth and checked my watch. Two and a half hours. We were still in Georgia, then. Nice to know. “We there yet, O fearless leader?” I sniped.
“We’re here,” he confirmed, opening the door and climbing out. I followed, more stiffly, and took a look around. The rain had stopped. It allowed me to see my accommodations in excruciating detail. There were several low concrete buildings, blazing bright security
lights, and more concertina wire than Gitmo. Oh, joy. Opening the door to the backseat, I retrieved my duffel bag and grunted. “Which way?”
“You’re one cool son of a bitch, I have to give you that,” Hector said with the faintest thread of reluctant admiration. “Either that, or you’re too stupid to live. I haven’t calculated the odds between the two yet.”
He expected questions. He expected demands. Expected the flailing of a drowning man. But I’d learned long ago that when life dumped you in the riptide, you had to ride it out. Tread water until you saw an opportunity; float, keep your eyes open, and wait. Sometimes it was all you could do. I was barely wet. Struggling now would only sink me for good.
“Calculate.” I lifted my eyebrows and added a sarcastic smirk. “Maybe you’re more like Charlie than I guessed, Doc. Maybe that haircut isn’t as military as I thought.” I shot a pointed look at the twelve-foot fence that surrounded us. “Yeah, maybe.” I threw the strap over my shoulder. “Point out home sweet home for me, would ya? Wait, better make that cell sweet cell.”
Not waiting for an answer, I began to trudge toward the cluster of buildings.
“I didn’t have a choice.” The words that came from behind shocked their author almost more than me, I guessed. He bent to explain himself, in an attitude that fit Hector like an ill-fitting shoe. Could be there really was more of Charlie in him than I expected. “People …”
“Are dying,” I finished for him, still walking. “So I heard.” It might be the truth. At this point, who knew? What I did know was that Hector had lied to me in the beginning. Why should I believe he wasn’t lying now? “So I heard. And from such an honest guy, too.”
I had a way of ending conversations myself. Hector moved past me, spine stiff, and led the way to one of the buildings on the right. He may have been several feet in front of me, but I didn’t delude myself into thinking he wasn’t aware of my location at every moment. In other words, decking him with my duffel bag and making a run for the fences was pretty much the fantasy realm of action movies. Even if it weren’t, there was still Glory to consider. Glory and the baby. My sister—she’d shoplift anything that wasn’t nailed down, but apparently she’d missed the birth-control aisle.
