“I know it’s hard, sweetheart, but remember how much Richard always loved you and all the good times you had with him. Remember when he took you to the beach?”
Lois nodded and couldn’t help smiling. She had been four at the time and had spent the whole afternoon with him, building a pyramid in the sand. She had insisted on complete accuracy, forcing him to keep smoothing down the sides until they were just right. Later he let her bury him in the sand and “discover” him after a half-hour of playing archaeologist. “I miss him so much already,” she said.
“So do I,” Mom said. Her mouth twitched as if she were having another nightmare. She gave Lois’s hand another squeeze. “It’s getting too dangerous for you here. You should get out of here. Go back to Texas. Or wherever you want.”
“I won’t leave you, Mom. Not this time. Not like this.”
“There’s nothing you can do for me.” Tears dripped down Mom’s cheeks. “I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you too.”
“I’ll be fine. I can take care of myself.”
“I know. That’s why you should go. You don’t need me.”
“Yes I do,” Lois said. “You’re all I have left.”
Mom sighed and then said, “You have to make me a promise. If you hear Richard or Betty or even me in your dreams telling you to find something, you mustn’t do it. Understand?”
“Not really. What do you mean?”
“I can’t explain. Just promise me. Please?”
Lois gave her mother’s hand another squeeze. She didn’t know what Mom was talking about, but it couldn’t hurt to make an idle promise. “I promise, Mom.”
“Good.” With that Mom’s eyes closed and she went back to sleep.
* * *
Rahnasto leaned back in his chair and looked out the window. The previous night he had slept for six hours, the longest in one stretch in thirty years. He hadn’t even needed any antacids to get through the night. Before long he might even risk trying spaghetti with wine to see if his acid reflux were really cured.
He owed it all to that strange man calling himself Set. With the Silver Seraph gone, Rahnasto had been able to bring in a shipment of heroin unmolested. According to his soldiers at the museum heist, that other do-gooder had escaped unharmed, but he remained hidden at least for the time being. Not that he could ever be more than an inconvenience without the woman to back him up.
From the latest reports, Dr. Jessica Locke remained in serious condition at the hospital. Rahnasto’s spies said she was paralyzed from the waist down with extensive burns that had necessitated a double mastectomy. He had considered paying her a visit to finish the job, but the thought of her lying there deformed and crippled was far more pleasing than the idea of smothering her. Let her suffer, wallow in her failures for what remained of her pathetic life. In the meantime he was back in business.
On cue someone knocked on the door. His latest lieutenant Andropov stuck his head inside. “Mr. Dominguez is here to see you, sir.”
“Good, show him in.”
A little Puerto Rican in a white linen suit shuffled in moments later. Rahnasto waved him to a seat. He took a cigar from the case on his desk and offered it to Dominguez. “That’s a real Cuban,” Rahnasto said. He hadn’t smoked one in five years, but decided to take one from the box for himself. A victory cigar would be just the thing at the moment. “Is everything ready for tonight?”
“The shipment is on schedule. Will you have the payment?”
“Of course. What kind of businessman would I be otherwise?”
“And will there be any entanglements?”
“Our mutual friend has been taken care of. She’s in intensive care if you want to pay her a visit.”
“I had heard such was the case. What of the other?”
“There’s nothing he can do to us.” Rahnasto lit his cigar and then took a puff on it. He held the smoke in until tears came to his eyes, savoring the flavor of it. “We’re free men.”
Dominguez nodded and blew out a cloud of blue smoke from his cigar. “These are good. Been a long time since I had one of these.”
“Me too.” Rahnasto motioned to the box. “Take a few more while you’re at it. I can always get more.”
“Thank you, Senor Rahnasto—”
The door exploded then, splinters of wood flying everywhere. Rahnasto ducked beneath his desk, reaching for the pistol he kept taped underneath the drawer for emergencies. He smelled the same odor of charred flesh from the museum robbery and then heard a heavy thump. From beneath the desk he could see Dominguez lying dead on the floor, the smoking cigar still clenched in his mouth while the hole in his chest smoldered.
Rahnasto peeked over the desk to find Set standing at Dominguez’s feet. The staff pointed at Rahnasto’s head. “You and I have business to discuss.”
“What business? You got your stick and your headdress. That was our agreement.” Rahnasto summoned the courage to plop onto his chair again. He set the pistol in front of him, knowing it wouldn’t do much good against Set. “Did you have to kill him? We have a shipment worth thirty million coming in tonight.”
“Your petty enterprises do not concern me. I have much greater things in mind.”
“Like what?”
“You will find out. You and all of your minions. Gather them tomorrow night at the old Kunzel Building. Then you will know what you are to do.”
“Wait a minute—” Rahnasto broke off, seeing the dog’s head staff pointed at him, its red eyes glowing.
“Do not attempt to betray me, fool. Do you understand?”
“I get it,” Rahnasto said. As quickly as he had appeared, Set was gone, leaving Rahnasto alone with the corpse. He sighed and then reached into his desk for a bottle of Maalox.
Chapter 12
Mom woke up a few more times that day, for just a few minutes each time before she passed out again from fatigue or pain or maybe just the sadness of Dr. Johnson’s death. After visitor’s hours ended, Lois found Dr. Pavelski outside, as if waiting for her. “Is she sleeping?” the doctor asked.
“For now.” Lois looked back in the room and then at the doctor. “How is she? I mean, really.”
“To put it bluntly, I’m surprised she’s alive at all, let alone awake and talking.” Dr. Pavelski must have seen Lois flinch at this, because she put a hand on Lois’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. I meant that as a compliment. She’s a remarkable woman.”
“I know.”
“She’s going to get through this. The way things are going, she might be home in a couple of months.”
Lois tried to imagine that. Mom wouldn’t even be able to get up the front steps, not without Lois carrying her. They would have to install a ramp so she could be pushed up. There wasn’t room for an elevator or anything, so they would have to move her bedroom downstairs, maybe into the dining room they rarely used. If she needed specialized care, Lois would have to hire a nurse.
Besides these practical concerns there was the question of how Mom would spend her time. She couldn’t go back to work, at least not for a while. Even if she could do some work by computer, Lois and Dr. Pavelski would both want her to take it easy, to finally get some rest. But what would she do? Sleep all day? Watch TV? They only had one set, an ancient 25-inch console model that was mostly used for stacking books because neither Lois nor Mom had ever watched the thing. Mom could always read books—or get audiobooks to listen to—but how long before she tired of those? Her job at the museum had been her life, her dream as she’d told Lois often enough; what would she do once that was gone?
Dr. Pavelski squeezed Lois’s shoulder again. “How about you? How are you holding up?” The doctor no doubt could smell Lois and see the state of her face and clothes.
“I’m fine. I don’t need any anti-depressants or anything.”
“I wasn’t thinking of that. The hospital runs some support groups for relatives of victims of violence. There’s some brochures in my office. I could bring them next time.”
/> Lois considered this. She imagined sitting in a dank church basement on a cheap folding chair in a circle with other people, all of them looking sad and haggard. They’d spend an hour or two bawling and passing tissues around. She shook her head. “I’ll be fine.”
“You don’t have to go through this alone, Lois. Other people want to help.”
“I don’t need any help. I need you to make Mom better.”
“We’re doing everything possible.”
“I’m sure you are.” Lois brushed past the doctor and made her way over to the stairs, not wanting to let Dr. Pavelski catch her by the elevator. Everything possible my ass, she thought. They had pulled the bullets out, slapped some bandages on, and then doped her up; that was the extent of “everything possible” to them.
As she reached the bottom of the stairs, she considered going to the library to find some books on spinal injuries. Or maybe she could find a specialist on the Internet. Or an experimental treatment to fix Mom’s spine, stem cells or something. There had to be something they could do, something she could do instead of sitting beside the bed all day holding Mom’s hand.
Walking down the sidewalk, she shivered, feeling someone watching her. Having some experience in evading pursuers, she didn’t look behind her. Instead, she kept walking until she reached a newsstand. She bought a newspaper and a Snickers bar, her stomach reminding her she hadn’t eaten anything all day except a tuna sandwich from the hospital cafeteria. As she handed over the money, she glanced down the sidewalk, but didn’t see anyone tailing her.
By the time she reached the Palladium Motel she had finished the candy bar and dumped the newspaper into a wastebasket. She still didn’t see anyone following her. They might be a professional, or more likely it was just her imagination.
Approaching the front counter, she decided it would be better to err on the side of caution. She went up to her room and then grabbed what little she’d brought with her. With the bag slung over her shoulder, she went back downstairs to check out.
A city like Ren City had plenty of places for someone who didn’t want to be found to hide out. There were hundreds of flophouses like the Palladium where she could stay. If someone were looking for her, though, they would probably check those places first. Dumps like the Palladium didn’t use computer records or even paper ones most of the time, but a few bucks might jog a manager’s memory.
There were alternatives to motels, though. These involved living like a bum, sleeping on a bench or under a bridge or in an alley. She’d tried them all; they were fine as long as the weather was fair and you didn’t have a trick back.
Or given the real estate market in the city there were always a lot of abandoned buildings. She found such an abandoned building about six blocks away. Along the way she kept changing directions and even crossing the street once to try and elude anyone who might try to follow her. Once she decided it was safe, she stopped in front of an old brick apartment house with its windows boarded and doors chained shut.
That didn’t prove to be a problem for her. Two months spent in Detroit had taught her how to find her way into abandoned buildings. If she didn’t have a crowbar or hammer handy, there was usually something she could wriggle through.
In this case she found a basement window around the back that hadn’t been boarded up. It was already shattered, meaning someone had probably been squatting here before her. With a stick she swiped the leftover pieces of broken glass away. Then she was able to crawl through the window, grateful that she hadn’t inherited Mom’s spindly frame.
She dropped about two feet, onto the soggy carpet. She reached into a pocket for the cigarette lighter she kept even though she didn’t smoke. There was no one in the room, just an abandoned apartment with mold on the floors and the walls along with piles of rat feces. It certainly wouldn’t smell very good, but it wasn’t much of a downgrade versus the Palladium.
She crept along a dark hallway, trying not to shiver as she heard things scurrying all around her. She had to stop once when she ran face-first into a spider web and attempt to get it out of her hair. If she didn’t shower tomorrow she would probably have baby spiders crawling from out of her hair.
By the time she finished searching the basement she was yawning. She hadn’t got much sleep the night before, or many nights before that. She opened the door of one apartment and made sure no one was inside. She tossed her bag down inside a closet, following closely after it. She curled into a ball and then closed her eyes.
* * *
Lois had never had a lucid dream before. She didn’t remember most of her dreams and those she did remember tended not to make any sense. Yet she knew she was dreaming because not only was Mom walking, she was holding Lois’s hand and about twice as tall as Lois. Did that mean Mom was a giant or that Lois was tiny?
The answer to this question came when Mom opened the doors of the Thorne Museum. Pink bunting had been taped to the ticket desk with pink balloons tied to the nylon ropes marking the line. More balloons had been tied around the great hall and someone had even gone to the trouble of tying three to each of Jeff’s tusks. A banner dangling from the mammoth’s mouth read, “Happy Birthday Lois!”
Now that she had seen the decorations, Lois remembered this birthday. Mom had told a rare lie, telling the staff the museum was being fumigated on Lois’s birthday. That had kept everyone out, so that she had the museum to herself. As the most unpopular girl in the fifth grade there were no friends waiting to sing to her or give her gifts; only her makeshift family of Mom, Dr. Johnson, and Aunt Betty were here. The latter appeared from one of the side doors, wearing a cardboard party hat. She blew on a noisemaker and then shouted, “Happy birthday, kid!”
As a child Lois had found the whole day exciting. She could explore the whole museum without anyone getting in her way! In this dream, though, she realized the sadness of it, the loneliness of her life. Since this was a lucid dream, maybe she could conjure up some friends, younger versions of Melanie and Tony to play with. She closed her eyes and focused as hard as she could. When she opened her eyes, everything was still the same. Maybe she wasn’t experienced enough of a lucid dreamer for that.
There was nothing she could do but let things play out the way they had before. Mom steered her over to Aunt Betty, who patted her on the back. “All right, kid, get ready for the big surprise!”
It wasn’t a surprise, not now, when Dr. Johnson came through the side door with a cake shaped like a mammoth, only pink. There were six candles and the same message as on the banner written in white frosting. It was a lot more cake than necessary for four people—one a child and two others who hardly ever remembered to eat—so that it would take a full week to finish off the last piece of it. Still, at six Lois hadn’t cared about that. She had waited with anticipation while the grownups sang to her, thinking of what she should wish for.
There was only one thing six-year-old Lois could have wished for: a daddy. Many of her classmates had divorced parents, but at least they knew their fathers, albeit only on weekends in many cases. A few others had fathers who had died; Lois would have preferred that to having no idea who her daddy might be. At least then she could have gone to a graveyard and seen his name and learned a few things about him.
As an adult, Lois still wished to know her father, but she knew what she should really wish for. When it came time to blow out the candles, she wished for Mom to be healthy and Dr. Johnson alive again. She doubted that would happen; her dreams were the closest she could get to that anymore.
Betty clapped loudly and then said, “What did you wish for, kid?”
Before Lois could say anything, Dr. Johnson said, “She can’t tell you, Betty, or else it won’t come true.” He winked at Lois and she couldn’t help smiling.
Throughout this exchange Mom patted Lois’s back. She knew what her daughter wanted. She could have provided it at any time, if not for whatever stupid ethical hang-up that kept her from doing so. As a child Lois hadn’t known this; she
had never thought Mom would be that cruel. No, cruel wasn’t the right word for it. As was always the case with Mom, she had a reason, maybe even a good reason to keep the truth hidden.
They each ate a piece of cake and a scoop of strawberry ice cream in the cafeteria. Though she knew it was a dream, Lois savored being around her little family, knowing before long two would be dead and the third nearly so. Lois didn’t say anything, letting the adults talk while she watched them. She promised herself to hold on to this dream for as long as she could, not let it slip away like most of her dreams.
When they finished, Betty and Mom stood up. “We’d better clean up,” Betty said.
Mom patted Lois’s shoulder. “How about if Dr. Johnson shows you around? Would you like that?”
Like a gleeful child she clapped her hands together. “Yes!” Lois said and sprang from her chair.
Dr. Johnson took her hand, not offering to carry her since she was much too old at six for that. “Can we see the mummies?” she asked as she had that day.
“Of course we will,” he said. Then he stopped and bent down to look her in the eye. “But first I want to show you something really special.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a surprise.” This Lois didn’t remember from her sixth birthday. What was going to happen? It depended on if this was a pleasant dream or a nightmare. Either way she didn’t see where she had any choice.
Dr. Johnson led her to the elevator. She wasn’t tall enough to reach the highest buttons, but that didn’t matter in this case. “Press the one for the subbasement,” he said.
“Why?”
“It’s a surprise,” he said again. She stared at him and he winked again. With a shrug she pressed the button. As soon as she did, the elevator dropped as if there were rockets on top of it. Dr. Johnson bent down to press his body against hers, shielding her as they plunged. She screamed into his ear, wondering why she hadn’t woke up yet.
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