All Through the Night

by Davis Bunn

  What he said was, “I’ve got my own stories, Tatyana. The kind that leave me feeling like I’ve gargled acid after I’ve told them. However you want to make this play out. Just say the word.”

  The lady stopped a third time. And inspected him very carefully.

  Wayne kept his eyes focused steady upon hers. Which, given the way this lady looked, was about a billion miles away from punishment detail.

  Tatyana reached some internal decision. She nodded once, to herself. She took a half step toward him. Close enough he could hear her breathing. Feel the occasional brush of her shoulder upon his arm. She kept tight hold of his gaze as she reached over, her hand searching out his own.

  The instant her fingers touched his, Wayne felt the charge. Like he was standing not in the foyer of some fancy club but a power station. And himself straight into the main grid.

  Her fingers were surprisingly long. Her touch amazingly soft for a woman with so many barbed edges. She spoke in a voice Wayne had not heard before. “All right.”

  “You ready?” He did not need to say it. But the moment and this side of her took some getting used to. Not to mention the fact that his body practically hummed.

  “I think …No. Yes.” She actually moved in closer still. Reached over with her other hand. And took a grip of his arm. Just molded to him. So tight he could feel the hem of her skirt, the press of her calf upon his, the bone of her hip. She said, “I’m ready.”

  Wayne took it very slow. Not really walking. More like floating down a cloud carpeted by Persia’s best and lit by crystal. A couple of the old guys with their wives dripping jewels as big as life’s mistakes paused to watch them. Wayne resisted the urge to look down, see if his feet were actually connected to the earth. He’d just let the lawyer lady take care of such details. As in, the lady who matched her stride to his, who breathed as slow as their tread, who made the walk into a dance that went way beyond cheek to cheek. Yes sir.

  They passed through a bar filled with people who had boardroom training in gawking without showing it. But they were watching. Wayne was certain of that.

  The headwaiter stood like a dislocated prince behind the little wooden station. He gave them a professional smile and asked, “Do you have a reservation?”

  Wayne did not realize Tatyana was leaving it up to him until her head leaned against his arm. His voice actually shook a little when he said, “Afraid not.”

  “Are you members?”

  “The name is Kuchik. We’re here as guests of Easton Grey.”

  “Ah. Of course. We’re very busy tonight but I’m sure …Yes. Table fourteen. Right this way.”

  They continued their weightless waltz across the oval restaurant, with tinkling silverware and soft conversation for music. Wayne knew he was taking everything in. Knew also he’d lay in bed that night and relive it and see things he was missing right now. But for the moment, his attention, his entire being, was focused on the lady walking next to him.

  The headwaiter led them to a table by the outer wall. To his left, cream drapes framed twenty-foot windows. When the headwaiter reached for the back of Tatyana’s chair, Wayne said, “I’ll handle that.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  He selected the chair so that Tatyana’s back would be to her ex. Tatyana released him with a dancer’s grace, her lingering touch the finest thank-you he had ever known. When he was seated, the head guy offered Tatyana a menu only slightly smaller than the table. She waved it away. “The gentleman will decide.”

  The gentleman agreed to basically everything the headwaiter suggested, which was Wayne’s only choice, since he couldn’t understand most of what was on the menu anyway.

  They were seated at an angle to each other. Not touching, but within groping range. That is, if the lady in question had ever in her entire life done anything like grope. If Tatyana had looked over her right shoulder, she would have been able to return the glare her ex was speeding across the room. But she didn’t. Wayne knew, because he did not turn from her, not even to blink.

  She said, “We need to talk business for a moment.”

  “Sure.” He started to draw away, move back into a professional distance. But she made no move herself. So he remained close enough to taste her perfume with every sense, every pore. “Fire away.”

  “Can I ask you what you found?”

  “You can ask me anything you want.”

  A waiter came and poured something and stood by Wayne’s chair, clearly expecting him to do something. Tatyana looked up and said, “That’s fine.”

  “Thank you, madame.”

  She had tiny flecks of golden in her dark grey eyes. Or perhaps it was merely that her gaze was made for crystal and candlelight and silver. “I trust you, Wayne Grusza.”

  He had no response to that one.

  “You asked me who else I had working on the inside, inspecting the company’s books. There are two others. An accountant and an aide to the board.”

  “They didn’t find a thing.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “Your company’s books are totally clear, Tatyana. If people wanted to hide something, they’d start by shutting off some segments. Tangling up fragments of real stuff with myth. Weaving in knots and convolutions. There’s nothing. The data couldn’t be any more well laid out if it had been carved into the crystal block over the security desk.”

  This time, she leaned back. “That is what Easton wanted. A company without financial secrets. Books that would say to anyone who looked, This is who we are.”

  “You like him.”

  “More than that. He gave …” She breathed hard. “Easton gave me my life.”

  “Can I ask something that isn’t business?”

  She nodded slowly. “I don’t want to talk business anymore. I haven’t had a night away from work since …”

  “Since Easton met the man, whoever he is.”

  Laughter boomed from the long table running by the side wall. Tatyana’s gaze started to shift over. She held herself back with a strength of will that turned her rigid. “Longer than that.”

  Wayne closed the distance between them. “I haven’t had a date since my wife divorced me.”

  That turned her focus back to the table and to them. Which was the only reason Wayne had said what he did. She asked, “How long ago was that?”

  “Almost four years.”

  She did not respond, unless a blink was communication. But her silence was as nice as a caress. “What did you want to ask me?”

  “Where are you from?”

  “I was born in Kamchatka. Do you know where that is?”

  “Yes.” Matter of fact, he had actually touched down at an air base on the peninsula once. He had a fleeting image of ochre hills with razor edges, so high and sharp they threatened to shred the sky. Or shatter the dreams and hopes of small girls.

  “I came to America when I was eleven. Easton had set up a charity for adopting …”

  The laughter sounded like a barrage. Artillery fired by human throats, intended to break the moment apart. Wayne heard a voice rise above the others, and knew who it belonged to by the way Tatyana winced.

  She kept her focus on him, though. And she waited. Her expression was open enough to reveal two things. First, she would tell him whatever he asked. Second, to speak about it would hurt her badly.

  So Wayne leaned a fraction closer still. Even though it hurt him to do so. Even though he knew he would wake up in the middle of the night now and remember not the good times, but how he had opened the raw boiling pit and showed it to another. For no good reason. Because no reason was good enough, no matter how nice the moment might be.

  What he said was, “When I got out of the service, all I had was a pocketful of back pay and a kit bag full of stolen munitions. I had some crazy idea of heading to Florida and doing the job on my wife’s new guy. Instead, I spent two years minus two weeks avoiding the place. Bumming rides and sleeping rough.”

  “You were a
hobo?”

  “Nowadays the word is homeless. But the answer is yes.”

  Her gaze knitted back together. Almost as though he had actually come up with the right thing to say. No matter that it left his chest feeling like he’d used a power mower on his heart. The way she leaned forward, forgetting the questions he was not going to ask her was enough.

  Almost.

  “What was it like?”

  “Good in some ways, bad in most. The worst thing is how you start to believe what people say or don’t say with their eyes. How you’re not worth anything. How you’ll never …”

  Wayne stopped because her hand reached over and settled upon his. Then the other. Even though the waiter chose that moment to approach with their dinner. She did not move, did not even shift her focus. She just held him with her hands and her eyes and made the waiter work around them. When they were alone again, she said, “Tell me you no longer believe those lies.”

  For some reason, he felt his eyes burning. As in, if they had not been surrounded by a roomful of money and power and witnesses, he would have broken down. He clenched down. Just gritted everything.

  Tatyana must have noticed. Which would have shamed him terribly. Except for the fact that she reached across the impossible distance. And kissed the point where his lips joined his cheek. A soft gesture of a caring friend. He told himself that in a mental shout, a quick reality check. Her gift worked, because when he lifted his gaze he was able to see her without the burning sheen.

  She saw he was okay, and gave him a very peculiar smile. One that did not touch her lips, and scarcely showed in her eyes. But one he knew was there.

  She said, “Let’s eat.”

  TWENTY

  As luck would have it, they left the clubhouse the same moment as Tatyana’s ex did. Which, truth be told, Wayne did not mind at all. Because Tatyana kept a double-handed grip on his arm as they stepped into the night.

  Which was when the idea came to him.

  Tatyana started down the stairs, taking aim for the distant lot. But Wayne stayed immobile upon the bottom step. Tatyana halted in the process of walking away and gave him a questioning glance.

  The valet chose that moment to appear.

  Wayne took in the white jacket with the ridiculous gold braid and the shorts and the running shoes, just the sort of getup some rich lady would design because she liked the idea of handsome youths doing a cabaret. He drew the key from his pocket and said, “It’s the red one in the far lot.”

  The guy’s eyes went round at the sight of the prancing horse upon the gold-plated seal. “For real?”

  “Tell me you can handle a stick.”

  The kid beamed. “I’m a fast learner, sir.” He did not run. He vanished.

  Tatyana rewarded him with a chuckle so low and throaty Wayne felt it in his gut. He had never heard her laugh before.

  A man’s voice rose from the group to Wayne’s left. It was the voice of someone who never asked twice, never waited for anything. “Where are my limos?”

  In response, a motor whined into life. One moment the Ferrari was out beyond the light’s perimeter. The next the valet was popping out the door and springing out and racing around to open the passenger door.

  The door into which Wayne helped Tatyana settle.

  Wayne reached into his pocket and handed the kid a bill he did not bother to look at. The kid pocketed it without taking his eyes off the car or the lady. “My dad’s always telling me to find a goal in life.”

  As Wayne settled behind the wheel, a petulant voice behind them yelled, “Can we have some service here?”

  He revved the motor a little more than was required, then eased away at a crawl. Tatyana rewarded him with another of those laughs. One drawn from Siberian honey and dust the color of unrefined gold.

  TWENTY-ONE

  The magic remained with them on the ride back to her town house. Tatyana rode with her head resting on the seat back, so relaxed her eyes glittered half shut in the streetlights. She spoke only to give directions. The security guard at the entrance must have recognized the sound of her car, because the gate swung open before Wayne turned off the highway. She did not stir until Wayne pulled into the parking space and cut the motor. “You don’t mind driving yourself home?”

  “That has to be a joke, right?”

  She kept hold of her little smile as he rose and went around to open her door. As they walked the path of pale bricks, she asked, “Any thoughts about what happened today?”

  “Tell the truth, it’s been nice to step away from it for a while.”

  She did not disagree. “I’m supposed to speak with Easton tomorrow. I just wish I had something to tell him.”

  “You do. Just no answers.”

  Wayne assumed she spoke about business to re-orient herself away from what had just happened at the club. He minded, but he knew it was futile to object.

  Which made what happened next doubly surprising.

  She stepped up on the broad stair that made the front-door landing, bringing her to almost eye level. “I’d forgotten how nice it was to walk close to someone taller and stronger than me.”

  For once, Wayne had the right words there at the ready. Perhaps on account of how his heart had suddenly leapt into hyperdrive. “Taller, maybe. But definitely not stronger.”

  He knew he had done well when she leaned forward and kissed him. Then touched his lips as she drew back, sealing inside both the kiss and anything he might have said to spoil the moment.

  He stood there a long moment after she had vanished inside the house. Waiting until his world stopped rocking.

  Wayne made his own coffee the next morning. Which was good, as it gave him time alone to get his head around the dream.

  The vile apparition had come again. Only this time with differences.

  Wayne was still a little too rocked by the images rattling inside his brain to be certain, but standing on his front porch with a steaming mug in his right hand, it seemed that any change was good. Even one this extraordinary.

  The dream had started in normal fashion. He’d been walking the ridgeline, up above the eagles. Almost able to touch the sun. A place so alien it was hard to call it Earth. Only this time, he had been aware that he had been dreaming. Aware that this was a memory twisted by pain and regret and guilt. Aware that in the next moment his squad would be hit by two incoming RPGs. One of which would take out his best buddies. The other fragging him in the thigh and shoulder. Aware that he’d wake up in a sweat, heaving for breath, almost sick to his stomach with remorse.

  Then the strangeness had intensified.

  He looked to his left. The side from which the shoulder-fired missile had been launched. And instead of the streaking trail and the rushing dot of death, he had seen only sky. Then a figure had appeared. One walking in line with him. Only it had not been the other guy on left point. Oh no.

  The guy walking there on the ridgeline’s far side had been the stranger. Tall, dark as onyx. Hard as a major calling his troops out on review. The stranger had looked at him.

  And Wayne had woken up.

  No heaving chest. No sweats. No guilt. Nothing.

  Except for the whisper of a voice, the final tendril of a dream that had already weirded him out. The voice said one word. “Choose.”

  The rain had started while he was asleep. The morning was made timeless by its wet grey sheath. Wayne returned inside to recharge his mug. The AC purred softly, drying out the cottage’s air. The clock above the stove read half past eight. Which was strange for two reasons. First, it meant the nightmare had come long after dawn. And second, the boys were late. But the dream impacted him so hard, Wayne was midway through his second mug before he realized the four-wheeled reason why he was still alone.

  He wore stone-washed jeans and a sweatshirt with the sleeves cut out. He slipped his bare feet into a pair of rubber-soled boat shoes and padded down the rain-washed lane. The wind blew off the eastern water and carried a strong flavor of sea salt
. He saw Julio standing on Victoria’s porch and slowed enough to ask, “You doing okay?”

  The kid did not have his arms crossed so much as clutched across his chest. “Quiet.”

  “Why don’t you come over, I’ll fix us some breakfast.”

  Victoria chose that moment to appear. “Julio has kindly offered to walk me to the Saturday chapel service. I can’t hold the umbrella against this wind. Why don’t you join us?”

  Wayne had a number of reasons not to. And seeing that it was Victoria doing the asking, he also knew no excuse was required.

  Maybe it was the dream. Maybe the sight of the kid rocking back and forth slightly and clutching his upper body. Maybe the reason didn’t matter.

  What he said was, “I’d like that.”

  Her smile conflicted with the grey day. “You’d best hurry. We’re already late.”

  “Be right with you.” He strode over to where Foster and Jerry sat on Jerry’s front porch. Wayne said, “It’s okay, guys. You can go on over.”

  Foster spoke to him but was watching Wayne’s cottage. “We’re just fine where we are.”

  “Tatyana isn’t here.”

  Jerry asked, “The lady gave you her wheels?”

  “She didn’t feel like making the drive.”

  “She gave you a hundred-thousand-dollar car because she was wore out?”

  Wayne turned to where the car sat in the corner space, just visible between the cottages. “That pretty much sums it up.”

  Jerry pushed open his screen door. “All I got to say is, she must see something in you that I don’t.”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “I don’t know what you two are talking about and I don’t care.” Foster didn’t actually creak as he entered the wet. But he moved like he should have. “What I want to hear is, when are you taking me for a ride?”

  “Later.” Wayne turned toward the community center. “I’ve got to do something first.”

  Wayne caught up with Victoria and Julio when they were approaching the parking lot. “Can I have a minute?”