by Jeff Abbott
The federal witness and the homeless drunk stood between the two cars, having spoken their orders into the microphone, and now were waiting patiently in line to reach the order window.
Behind him, the pickup’s engine revved in motorized machismo. Miles heard the laughter, hollow and cruel, of stupid children.
‘Hey, losers!’ a girl called. Miles glanced over his shoulder. The girl sat close to the driver, a thick-necked kid with a shaved-close head. Miles saw the girl was the brain, the boy the brawn. She was beauty-queen pretty but an ugly, taunting sneer slashed her face. Three other kids crowded the cab.
‘Hey, losers!’ Beauty Queen yelled again. She wore a cocky confidence born of her loveliness and her knowledge of how to use it. ‘Get a car, why don’t you?’
The pickup jolted an inch closer to his leg. He ignored it.
‘They’d leave you alone if I wasn’t here,’ Joe said in his low, beaten whisper.
‘No, she wouldn’t,’ Miles said. ‘An ass is an ass.’
The girl, secure in the presence of her personal grizzly bear, laughed. Loud enough to be sure that Miles heard. ‘It’s a drive-through. Not a walk-through. What’s the matter with you?’
Miles thought he looked normal. Not mental. But he wondered, in the sidelong glances he often earned, if there was a mark on him, a shock in his eyes, that announced damaged goods to anyone seeking a victim or a mark. Joe walked in slow retreat to the other end of the lot, eyes riveted to the pavement. The pickup jerked closer, barely nudging the back of his knee. Miles stood his ground.
The Mercedes in front of him pulled away from the order window, revved out into the traffic along the loop of Paseo de Peralta.
Miles didn’t walk forward to claim his order.
The pickup’s horn blared. ‘Hey! Move it along!’
Miles stayed still. Andy, next to him, said, ‘What’s your damn problem?’
‘Retard! Move it along!’ Another long honk. The bumper edged into his leg again, forcing him to take a step. Laughter.
Slowly, Miles walked up to the order window. Luisa, the owner, worked the window and she filled a plastic bag with Miles and Joe’s meal, beef and chicken tacos wrapped in thin foil, cups of beans and rice.
‘Hey, there,’ she said. ‘How are you? What’s all this honking?’
‘Just kids,’ Miles said.
‘Asshole!’ Beauty Queen leaned on the horn. Now Miles looked at them; the football player grinned. ‘Move it along, Two Wheels,’ the boy called.
Miles handed Luisa the money, in exact change. He noticed she kept the napkins, the salt, and the homemade salsa packages and the sugar packets on a shelf.
‘Just a second, Luisa, and I’ll be back,’ he said, grabbing several sugar packets and a straw. He walked around the pickup, shaking the sugar packets at the football player and Beauty Queen.
He popped the gas cap open and wedged the first sugar packet in place to shove it inside when the driver’s brain cells clicked in unity and his door flew open, the kid staring at Miles in shock.
‘I’ll beat your ass into the ground!’
‘Not another step,’ Miles said, ‘or you’ll have one sweet ride.’
The football player stopped. ‘Don’t, man!’
‘Then drive off,’ Miles said. ‘Why do you want to be an asshole?’
‘What’s the matter?’ Beauty Queen pushed on the boy’s broad back. ‘Just go beat his ass.’
‘Sugar in the tank. Ruins the car,’ Football Player said to her in a low, strained voice.
Miles suspected it wasn’t enough sugar to do real damage, but Football Player didn’t know that. ‘Etiquette lesson for today, be nice to people who don’t have a car. I dump the sugar, the no-car group includes you.’
‘Smack his ass, Tyler,’ Beauty Queen yelled.
‘Yeah, Tyler, try to smack my ass. Maybe you’ll win or maybe I’ll show you how to respect your elders. But one more step, it’s definite you’ll be truckless.’
Tyler froze with indecision, stuck between Beauty Queen’s braying enthusiasm for violence and a sureness that Miles would poison the gas tank before Tyler reached him.
‘Tyler. Kick his ass!’ Beauty Queen screamed.
‘Tyler, use your brain.’ Miles started whistling ‘Sugar, Sugar’. He saw DeShawn’s sedan wheel hard into the lot, pull into a parking space.
After a pause of five seconds, brain won. Tyler got back into the truck, peeled away. Miles could see the girl hollering and gesturing at the boy.
Miles walked back to Luisa’s window, put the sugar packets and the unopened straw back on the counter. ‘I cost you their lunch business,’ he said, sliding her an extra twenty. ‘Please accept my apology and this as payment. And three Cokes, too, please, Luisa.’
She got him his food and the Cokes without a word.
He walked a bag of tacos over to Joe, who stood with hung head and shamed frown.
‘Here you go,’ Miles said.
‘Thanks,’ Joe said. ‘Sorry I left you alone. Them kids. I just can’t take it. The meanness.’
‘No worries. They’re gone. You come see me at the gallery if they bother you.’
‘I set foot on Canyon Road, the fancy-asses call the cops.’
‘Not if you come see me, okay?’
‘Thanks.’ Joe took the bag of food and the Coke, gave a polite nod, and walked down the street.
Miles got into the Ford sedan and handed the taco bag to DeShawn. Pitts was a big-built guy, an ex-college football player, with a shaved-bald head. The sedan fit him like a too-tight suit. He wished he’d read Allison’s note before he called DeShawn, because he wouldn’t have asked the inspector to have lunch with him.
She wants your help. Not anyone else’s, so keep your mouth shut. Don’t bring DeShawn into this. You can be the man you once were. Help her, on your own.
‘Thanks, man. But feeding bums and fighting with kids?’ DeShawn said. ‘You know, bud, the idea is to not draw attention to yourself.’
‘Good to see you too.’
DeShawn handed him a chicken taco, snagged a beef one for himself. They started to eat. DeShawn demolished the first taco, wiped his mouth clean. ‘First things first, Miles. I did a quick check. There’s not a psychiatrist or a medical doctor or a psychologist licensed in New Mexico named James Sorenson.’
Miles swallowed soda. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Maybe you got his name wrong.’
‘I… must have. I haven’t been sleeping good, I must have misheard.’ He didn’t know what else to say. ‘I tried to call Allison back this morning, to find out more about the program, but she’s not answering her phone.’ That part was truth; he’d tried to reach her, repeatedly, after getting her note. But he’d only gotten her voice mail, and he just asked her to call him back. But Sorenson wasn’t a doctor – why had she introduced him as such?
Why had she lied to him? Why had she let Sorenson lie to him?
Because Sorenson had forced her to lie.
I’m in real trouble.
DeShawn chewed on his beans, sipped at his Coke. ‘Therapy must not be sailing smoothly if she’s bringing in a backup shrink.’
Miles was now frantic to get back to Allison. He stuck his unfinished lunch back in the bag.
‘What’s your rush?’ DeShawn asked.
‘I’m not in a rush… You don’t have to worry about my therapy, I’ll be ready to testify, DeShawn.’
‘Man. The first go-round in court wasn’t your finest moment, but you’re going to be aces for Big Man Barrada’s trial. I have faith in you.’
‘Don’t say that to me if you don’t,’ Miles said suddenly. He had broken down twice on the stand when cross-examined about the shooting, about the deal made with him to testify. The defendant – a junior Barrada member the feds had chosen to put on trial first in hopes of cutting a cooperative deal, which the guy refused – got a reduced sentence because Miles hadn’t appeared, to the jury, to be an entirely reliable witness. ‘I
need people to have faith in me.’
I need your help… I’m in real trouble.
‘Miles, m’man. Total faith from Big D. You not seeing folks who aren’t there, not hearing voices again, right?’
‘Right,’ Miles lied. ‘Only in my dreams, and everyone should have a crazy dream now and then, right? I’ll get this doctor’s correct name for you.’
‘All right. But I want to know details of this program, Miles, before you agree to anything.’
‘Sure,’ said Miles. ‘I don’t work this afternoon. Would you mind dropping me off at my apartment?’
Miles hurried into his building with a quick wave to DeShawn. He ran upstairs, retrieved a tool he figured he might need. He ran down the stairs, thinking, You take this step, you can’t go back. He headed toward Allison’s office.
FIVE
‘I’m not going on Oprah.’ Celeste Brent put the small razor back under the computer mouse pad, where she kept it. She didn’t need to feel the blade against her skin right now. ‘I can’t handle… being on television again.’
Victor Gamby’s voice boomed from the speakerphone. ‘I understand your hesitation. But think of the people we could help, sharing our stories with millions.’
‘You sound like a commercial.’
‘I’m selling an idea, Celeste. Being back on television might get you past your fears.’
‘I’m not leaving my house. And I’m not having a media zoo here.’
‘Do me a favor. Open your door, stand in the doorway. You don’t have to step outside. Just try it.’
‘No.’
‘I could ask them to do a satellite link with your house when I’m on the show. That way we could both appear together. Celeste, we could get America’s moms talking about post-traumatic stress disorder, make it a real health-care issue, encourage people to think about it the way they do depression or cancer. Please.’
‘Victor, you go. You’re an actual hero.’
‘Oh, please.’
‘I’m just someone who had a really bad fifteen minutes.’ She leaned close to the plus-sized computer screen, read the words that a young girl half a country away had posted to Victor’s online discussion group this morning: Most days I’m so sad sadder than anybody should be and I just want to curl up amp; cry forever and the bite of the blade into my skin is the only way I can feel does anyone understand?
‘Celeste. Reconsider. Millions of people watched you on Castaway. They know you, they rooted for you,’ Victor said. ‘It’s Oprah, for God’s sakes. You cannot say no.’
‘No.’ Celeste reread the girl’s words on the computer screen and thought: I understand, sweetie, I truly do. She clicked to the next message in the forum. Jared T, having soul-emptying dreams about the Battle of Fallujah. She wished she could give Jared T a hug. She swiveled the chair away from the computer screen. ‘Did I tell you I got an offer for another reality show?’
‘Celeste, that’s wonderful.’
‘Brace yourself, and imagine the possibilities: Group Therapy.’
‘Please be kidding.’
‘I couldn’t make this up. They want me, and Denise Daniels, the child star from Too Cool Kimmy – she had a nervous breakdown last year – and that college basketball star who’s supposedly bipolar, and a couple of other celebrities who have had mental illnesses, all living together in a house with Doctor Frank, the talk-show host, and, yes, it gets better, once a week a player gets booted out of the house.’
‘ Castaway for crazy people,’ Victor said.
‘Oh, no one says that,’ Celeste said. ‘They just think it.’
‘But that’s what we’re fighting every day. This perception that people with traumas aren’t really sick, that they just need to buck up and get over it. They wouldn’t do a show like that for people who had cancer, would they?’
‘No.’
‘So stop acting like a person with PTSD and act like a famous person with PTSD. Let good come from your fame. Help me, Celeste.’
The sensor that alerted Celeste whenever anyone entered her front yard chimed and opened a video window on her computer’s monitor. It showed Allison Vance, hurrying up the stone walkway. Odd. She didn’t have an appointment scheduled with Allison.
‘Victor. I have to go. I can’t do the TV appearance with you, but I know you’ll do a wonderful job.’
‘Celeste-’
‘I’ll call you soon, Victor, take care,’ Celeste said, and hung up. TV again. Leave the house? Or have strangers gawking at her? Or wanting to hurt her again? No, never. The doorbell buzzed. She pulled hard at the rubber band looping her wrist and let it snap against the tender skin. Once, twice, the pain brief and sharp but settling her nerves.
She went to answer the door. She unlocked it, released the dead bolts, said, close to the wood, ‘It’s open,’ and took five steps back, just so Allison couldn’t pull her out of the house and into the open air. Not that she would, but Celeste didn’t take chances. Allison came inside, clutching a briefcase bag close to her hips.
‘Hi. Did I forget an appointment?’ Celeste asked.
‘Not at all, Celeste, but I have a favor to ask of you, if it’s not an intrusion. How are you today?’
‘Extraordinarily stupid. I just declined a chance to meet Oprah,’ she said with a tone of defiance.
‘I’m sure it would have been exciting. But also a tremendous spotlight to be under.’
‘You don’t think I’m making it up?’
‘You’re famous.’
Celeste shrugged. ‘Used to be.’
‘We could up your antidepressants. It might make leaving the house easier.’
‘Other than not wanting to leave the house, I feel okay. I don’t want more pills.’ Celeste toyed with the rubber band, popped it against her skin.
Allison pointed at Celeste’s wrist. ‘And how’s the rubber band working out?’
‘Saccharine when you want sugar.’
‘But you haven’t hurt yourself today.’
‘No. Not today.’
‘Great. And yesterday?’
‘Once. Just once.’ She fingered the thin slash on her arm.
‘Have you eaten today?’
‘I did. Bowl of cereal for breakfast, salad for lunch.’
‘Wonderful.’
As if eating two simple meals and not slicing your skin meant sanity. Celeste twisted the rubber band tight. A spark of pain, nothing more, just enough to remind her she was alive and Brian lay dead and buried, shut up in a coffin, unable to see the sun, breathe the air.
‘I’d like to borrow your computer,’ Allison said. ‘I know you have a really powerful setup, and I need a machine for quick number-crunching. It’ll only take a few minutes.’
Celeste almost said, No, no, and hell no, she didn’t care for the idea of anyone touching her computer – her precious and only link to the rest of the world. But this was Allison, the twice-a-week bright spot of hope. So she swallowed and said, ‘No problem.’
‘My system got nailed with a virus this morning. Down and dead.’
‘Bring it to me and I’ll see if I can fix it,’ said Celeste.
‘That’s kind of you. I just have research materials I need to compile for a report. I have the programs and the data I need on disk.’
‘My computer’s in the study. Would you like some coffee? Or a soda?’
‘No, thank you. I really don’t want to intrude.’
‘You’re not. It’s down the hall to your right. The system’s already on.’
Allison thanked her and headed down the hallway. After a few moments Celeste heard the click of the keyboard, the hum of the CD drive.
Suddenly she wanted the razor against her skin, to know its gentle bite. It hit her like a fire, smoldering, then bursting into fresh flame. Sure you do, she thought, just because Allison’s here and you’d get immediate attention. You want attention, call the television producers back and tell tbem you’ll do that new reality sideshow. Now, that’s attention. She
stretched the rubber band and it snapped in half. She dug in her purse for another, past the vial of pills Allison had given her the previous week, past the little razor she kept hidden at the purse’s bottom. Her fingers closed around the razor case.
Just a nip of a cut. Just enough.
She closed her eyes and the world folded around her, and she was trapped in the sun-hot house, her and Brian’s dream home, bought with her Castaway prize money, and she was bound and crying and begging the Disturbed Fan not to hurt Brian, to leave him alone, to hurt her please God not him and the Disturbed Fan blew her a kiss and bent over Brian, the knife bright in his hand.
Celeste sank to the chair. The memory tore into her worse than the razor, and when the flashes came she couldn’t gouge her skin fast enough. But now she stopped herself, she caught her breath, the only pain the heat of grief at the back of her eyes.
‘Celeste?’ Allison’s hand came down on her shoulder.
‘Don’t touch me.’ Her voice didn’t sound like her own, but lower and beaten.
Allison withdrew her hand. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes.’ She stood up and the purse tumbled to the tile floor, spilling its contents in a clatter.
‘Celeste. You were having a flashback.’
‘Past tense. It’s gone.’
‘You’re safe.’
‘Yes, thank you, I know.’ She wanted Allison gone, a flush of embarrassment creeping up her skin.
‘What triggered it?’
‘I think… the sound of you typing. I never hear anyone on a keyboard except myself and then I don’t notice it. The Disturbed Fan – after he’d gotten into my house, after he’d tied me up, he got on our computer. He hacked my fan Web site.’ Her throat felt rough as sandpaper. ‘The first step of not having to share me with the world.’ She shuddered.
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘I’m all right.’ The urge to cut started to fade, from fire to smoke.
‘I’ll stay with you so you don’t hurt yourself.’
‘No need. I might cry. I won’t cut.’
Allison nodded. ‘You’re making real progress.’
‘I hope.’ She hoped. Progress. Baby steps. She still couldn’t imagine opening the front door and walking out into the grander world. Too much.
