“What are you working on these days?”
“Nothing fancy. Pouring sidewalks and driveways for a new housing development up north.”
“One of the few I’m guessing.”
“Work’s been a little lean, but not bad.” A. C. rubbed his hands on his jeans. “How about you?”
“Still the same. Skeletor lean.”
“Sorry.”
“No worries. People will start buying again.”
“Do you believe that?”
“No.”
They both laughed.
“How was the weekend hanging out at Disneyland?”
“Fun. Sticky, but fun. Kids loved it. Dineen loved it. I loved it.” A. C. ambled over to the coffee pot, grabbed an oversized cup, and filled it to the rim with black tar.
“That coffee’s six hours old.”
“Perfect.” A. C. glanced at his watch. “I should hit the pavement. I want to avoid afternoon rush hour if possible.”
“Before you go, let me ask you something.”
“Sure.”
“Are you scared of anything?”
“What?” A. C. gave Corin his trademark crooked grin. “Did you pick up a copy of Psychology Today recently? How to examine your friends for cracks in their psyches?”
“No, I have a reason for asking.”
A. C. threw back a big swig of his coffee. “How long have you known me? Twenty years? You ever seen me scared of anything in all that time?” He smirked. “How about you? Is there anything that keeps you up nights?”
Corin’s face instantly felt scorched. He’d never told A. C. about the drowning or even about his fear of tight spaces, but if A. C. noticed he didn’t say anything.
“Nothing? Public speaking? Heights? Clowns? Death?”
“That’s it, clowns.” A. C. nodded. “You got me.”
But Corin had seen the fear in A. C.’s eyes when he’d said “public speaking.”
“Talk to me, buddy. I have a real reason for asking.”
“What did you smoke today?”
“I want you to try something for me.” Corin rubbed his knees and leaned toward A. C. “Something that might get rid of that fear.”
“You picked up a hypnosis course on the back of a matchbook, right?” A. C. folded his arms and laughed. “And I’m your first patient.”
Corin took his keys out of his pocket and walked toward the vault at the back of the store where the chair now rested. When he reached it he inserted a key as A. C. strolled up behind him.
Corin spun the combination on the vault door and swung it open.
“What’ve you got in the inner sanctum these days?” A. C. said.
Corin motioned with his eyes for A. C. to follow and stepped inside the room.
“Nice chair.” He joined Corin inside the vault.
The chair sat in the center, nothing else within ten feet of it.
“I want you to sit in it.”
“Oooooo.” A. C. grasped at the air with his hands. “Let me guess. After I sit you’ll say the magic words and instantly I’ll be over whatever fear you think I have.”
“Precisely.” Corin smiled. “So tell me the fear and we’ll get started.”
“Nah, I don’t think so.” A. C. shook his head.
“What?”
A. C. rarely held anything back. Even the uncomfortable things. My Life Is an Open Book should be a bumper sticker on his car.
“I’m not sure I want to admit that fear to anyone.”
Corin studied his friend. There was no one more loyal than A. C. As well as wise, heroic, and larger than life. No wonder the kids on his son’s football team called him Mr. Incredible. He even looked like the Pixar creation. Corin wouldn’t ever try to push him into something he didn’t want to do. As if he could push A. C. into anything.
“No worries. You can tell me about it another time or never. This was just a stupid experiment.”
A. C. didn’t move. “You’ve brought up a memory I rarely think about.” He rubbed his face and frowned. “In fact, if I didn’t like you, I’m not sure I could resist the temptation to break your face for making me think of it.” The frown turned into a smile.
“Face-breaking day is tomorrow, isn’t it? So let’s—”
“But maybe I should talk about it.” A. C. folded his arms and suddenly grew an intense interest in his tennis shoes.
“Nah, later.”
“I’m okay, Cor. Really.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.” A. C. gritted his teeth, shook his head, and after another ten seconds began speaking. “When I was in sixth grade we did a unit on speaking. I liked doing it. Three speeches to the class, and I nailed every one of them, but then we gave our fourth talk in front of the whole school. The kids in my class were cool, they liked me, but . . .”
A. C. glanced up at Corin. “I had a pretty bad lisp back then. The rest of the year, every time I stepped on the playground for recess kids said things like, ‘Howth it going lithpee?’ I beat a few of them up which felt good, but it landed me in the principal’s office every other day. I stopped hitting kids but they didn’t stop saying things.”
A. C. unfolded his arms and locked his hands behind his head. “That summer I worked on getting rid of the lisp and by fall it was gone, but so was any ability or desire to get up in front of a crowd. Scared for life.” A. C. tried to laugh but it died on his tongue. “So even thinking about speaking in front of a group makes me want to mainline Prozac.”
“Sorry.”
“Forget it.” A. C. straightened up and rubbed his shoulder. “I’m over it.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Fine, I’m not. But since no one is demanding I go on the motivational-speaking circuit, I’m not too worried about it.”
Corin eased up to his friend. “Do you want to get rid of the fear?”
“You’re serious.”
“Yes.”
“What, I sit in your chair here and suddenly I’m booking a show at Madison Square Garden and making like Demosthenes?”
“Exactly.”
A. C. looked at him, his crooked smiled mixed with a frown that said, “Do you need a white jacket with thick leather straps?”
“Are you reading the local news these days?”
“No.”
“Let me show you something.” Corin handed him the story on Brittan.
A. C. studied the article, then stared at Corin, a quizzical look on the big man’s face. “You’re saying your chair healed this kid?”
“I’m not saying it; I’m just wondering. And I am saying it’s a pretty interesting coincidence, and why not try it with someone else?”
A. C. stared at him for twenty seconds before answering. “You are serious.”
“Yep.”
“And I’m your guinea pig?”
“Yep.”
“Have you sat in it?”
“Yeah.”
“And what happened?”
“Nothing, and that might be what happens with you.”
“Right.” A. C. looked back at the story and tapped twice. “You don’t really believe this, do you?”
“Most of me, no I don’t, but again, what would it hurt to try?”
A. C. ran his fingers along the back of the chair then moved to the front and stared at it for a good thirty seconds. “What the heck, let’s do it.” He turned and eased onto the chair. “Where’d you get it?”
“It was donated to me last week from some lady. Totally out of the blue.”
A. C. gazed up at him. “What was her name?”
“She wouldn’t say.”
“Was she cute?”
“She’s probably in her seventies, may
be eighties.” Corin thought back to her eyes that had no age. “But yes, beautiful.”
A. C. grinned up at him. “You’re not going to chant anything, are you?”
“Maybe I’ll sing you ‘The Pickle Song.’ The extended concert version. If you’re lucky.”
“My eardrums can’t afford that kind of pain.”
Corin folded his arms and leaned back against the workbench along the back wall of the vault.
“What am I supposed to do?”
“I really have no idea, but I’m going to suggest thinking about what you want healed. That’s what I think the kid did when he got healed, and from studying the Bible that’s what people who got healed by Jesus did.”
“You’re studying the Bible?”
“I’m almost a scholar, baby. I’m now up to fourteen verses in my entire life.”
“Okay, here we go.” A. C. leaned his head back slightly, took in a deep breath, and let it out slowly. A second later an emotion flitted over his face. Surprise? Peace? Corin couldn’t tell.
“Not bad. This is more comfortable than I thought it would be. It’s a perfect fit.” A. C. patted the sides of the chair and breathed deep again.
“Nice to know.”
As Corin watched, his friend’s countenance slowly changed, as if a layer of worry was melting off of him, revealing the little boy A. C. had once been, before the concerns of life had etched themselves into the lines on his face.
“Wow, I like this.”
“Like what?”
“I just . . .” The transformation continued. A. C. looked more relaxed than he’d seen his friend in years. A look of contentment was smeared all over his face. “It feels like I’m sitting on a beach in Costa Rica with nothing to think about but how my tan is developing.”
It was the same type of reaction Brittan Gibson seemed to have had. So why hadn’t Corin had the same sensations when he’d sat in the chair?
“Anything else?”
“Not at the moment. Other than I think I could sit here forever.” A. C. let out a contented sigh. “What happens now?”
“I go back into the store and wait for a customer to come in and drop ten grand on a chair and desk set from the mid-1700s and you hang out in here as long as you want.”
“That’s it?” A. C. frowned. “Don’t I have to recite some prayer or something? Something to make the magic work?”
Corin smiled. “Whatever you feel like doing.” He walked out of the vault. Yeah, why didn’t it heal him? It healed the kid.
If his theory was right, it couldn’t heal him unless he thought of what he wanted to be healed from while he sat in the chair. And when Corin had sat in it, he didn’t know.
After helping a customer buy a pair of cuff links from the early 1920s, he wandered back into the vault to check on A. C.
His friend’s eyes were closed, the peaceful look still on his face. As soon as Corin cleared his throat, A. C. looked up, his face groggy as if he’d been asleep.
“Anything?”
“This is a great chair. Don’t sell it. I could sit in it for hours.”
“Did it do anything?”
A. C. laughed. “Other than make me relax for the first time in forever? Yeah, absolutely. I have a sudden urge to talk to the UFC about being a ringside announcer.”
“I guess it worked then.”
“Sorry.” A. C. stood slowly. “But I liked sitting in it.”
“Thanks for trying it.”
“No worries.”
SIX HOURS LATER as Corin drove home he called A. C. “Anything now?”
“You mean did I get healed?”
“Yeah. It took four-plus hours for the chair to work on the kid.”
“Listen, Corin. We’ve been friends forever, so let me shoot straight. With the financial problems you’ve got screaming in your ear, this isn’t the time to get distracted with ideas of chairs that heal people. Like I said, nice chair. It really did feel comfortable, but I’d leave the X-Files and Fringe fake-healing stuff for the movies and the televangelists, okay? It’s a good-looking chair. People will like it. Sell the thing and make a little cash or a lot of cash if you can. You need it.”
Corin sighed and hung up. A. C. was right. He’d put it on the floor tomorrow.
It would take a neon sign to convince him otherwise.
CHAPTER 17
Corin pulled the covers over his chest and sank into the dream almost immediately. He stood in his store staring at the chair, a short man, slightly hunched over, stood beside him.
“That chair is valuable. Worth a great deal of money. And we both know you need money. I believe you could sell and wipe out a good portion of the debt you currently swim in. That’s the wise decision.”
“How much is it worth?” Corin said. The figure of the man wavered like Corin was looking at him through water. “How much could I sell it for?”
“Tell people the chair was made by Christ and let the religious fanatics bid its price up into the hundreds of thousands.” The man shrugged. “Or I could take it off your hands for you. In fact, I’ll confess, that is most assuredly the best plan.”
Corin turned to face the man, but in the next instant he sat in the back corner of his store, a cup of coffee in his hands, the lady sitting directly across from him.
“We should go from here,” she said, and in the next moment they stood side by side on a cliff overlooking a stretch of ocean, wind whipping through his hair.
The water seemed to pull at him as if it wanted to seize him and wrench him over the edge. Pull him to the bottom and hold him in dark arms.
“You must protect the chair with everything in you. You must guard it with all your heart. Do you understand?”
“Why?”
“You must. Do not let it go. Ever.”
“Why did you give it to me?”
“You are the one.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I know. I am sorry I cannot say more.”
“Who are you?”
“Someone who has waited long to know you.”
Was it the woman? The one who gave him the chair?
An icy wave crashed onto the beach in front of them . . . or was it—?
He woke to a strong, cold wind pouring through his open window, the blinds smacking into his sill like waves.
Corin sat up, rubbed his eyes, and sucked in a deep lungful of air.
Great, now the chair was invading his dreams.
He pushed the dream out of his mind, turned over, and started counting chairs. No help. After ten minutes of doing the alligator roll, he threw off his covers and staggered into his kitchen. The green numbers on his microwave read 1:55 a.m.
He tapped his laptop to bring it out of hibernation and glanced at the e-mails that had stuffed his in-box since he last checked it.
Junk.
Junk.
Junk.
Corin carried his laptop over to his tan couch where he settled down and stared out the window at the wind whipping through the cottonwood trees.
Why couldn’t he get that stupid chair out of his head? Or his dreams? It was just a chair. Just a chair no one else would be interested in.
But he knew that wasn’t true.
Not even close.
CHAPTER 18
Corin had just finished restoring a mahogany bookcase from the early 1900s when a man walked into the store with a light brown leather notebook under his arm, a venti-sized drink full of something of a raspberry color in his other hand, and a furtive look on his face.
“Hello, may I speak with the owner?” He set his drink and notebook on a Victorian burr walnut round dining table, shoved his hands in his pockets, and rocked back and forth on his heels.
“Speaking.” Corin wiped the stain off his hands and looked at the man. Five eight or nine, white polo shirt, pressed khaki pants, pointy Italian shoes that looked uncomfortable, and dark red preppy-boy eighties-styled hair. The hair didn’t fit. “What are you selling today?”
“Selling? Nothing.” The man glanced around the store as if looking for something specific, then frowned.
“Most people don’t come in here looking as polished as you do carrying a notebook unless they’re selling something.”
The man shook his head. “Like I said, I’m not selling.”
“Then can I help you find something?”
“I’m not buying either.” The man strolled forward, grinned, and stuck out his hand. Corin didn’t shake it.
“I see. So what can I do for you?”
“You’re the owner?” The man brushed his hand on the side of his pants as if pretending he hadn’t been dissed.
“Yes.” Hadn’t he just told the guy that?
“You’re Corin Roscoe?”
“Who are you?”
“I represent the senior pastor of a church in southern California who would like your cooperation, and in turn we would like to assist you.”
“Assist me with what?”
“Whatever you might need.”
Interesting. Maybe this was fortuitous. Maybe this guy would be able to fill in the considerable blanks in his “Does This Chair Heal?” dissertation. But something about the guy bothered Corin. Phony? Yes, but it was more than that. Something used-car salesman about him seeped through the GQ clothes and looks.
“Whatever I need? Uh-huh.” Corin tossed the rag he’d used to clean his hands into a bright orange plastic bucket. “And why did this pastor send you? He didn’t want to be seen in public with me?”
“Whatever you say to me will stay in strict confidence. I will not repeat a word of it. You have my honor on that count.”
“I’m thrilled to know that.” Corin walked behind his sales counter and leaned forward, his hands spread wide on the counter.
“I’m not someone who abides sarcasm well.”
“And I don’t abide well someone who comes into my store and insinuates I have to accept his counsel when I’ve never met him before.” Corin stared at the man.
Jim Rubart Trilogy Page 72
