Blind

by Francine Pascal

  Tom walked across the room and reached for the doorknob. Before he could touch it, there was a soft click from behind his head. He turned and saw a barrel-chested man in a yellowed T-shirt. In the man’s hand was a gun so small, it almost looked like a toy.

  “Hey, my friend,” the man said. “You don’t have any business in there.”

  “I’m here to see a woman named Noel.”

  “Everybody loves our Noel. Right now she’s busy, and I don’t think… I don’t…” The gun came down a couple of inches. “Hey, don’t I know you?”

  Tom turned slightly so he could get a better look at the man. The guy was short, but he was wide across the shoulders and thick in the arms. A tough guy. A guy that was used to pushing people around and getting his own way. Only there was a look of fear on this tough guy’s face. Tom took a guess about what was making the man afraid and decided to go with it.

  “That’s right,” he said. “I think you do know me. I’m called Loki.”

  The man’s eyes opened so wide, it was a wonder they didn’t fall from his head. Immediately the gun came down. “Sorry, sir. Mr. Loki. Sir. I, uh, I didn’t recognize you at first. I mean, I only saw you the one time and that was from a long way off, and I never expected to see you here, so I—”

  “That’s all right,” said Tom. “I take it you have no objection if I go on inside?”

  “Of course not, sir!” said the man in the T-shirt. “I’ll stay right out here and watch the door.”

  Tom smiled at him. “It’s good to have such welltrained associates.” He gave the man a final nod. Then he grabbed the doorknob, pulled it open, and stepped inside.

  The room was small. There was a round card table with the surface covered in stained green felt. Around the table were four chairs. Three of them were already occupied. The woman, Noel, sat on the opposite side, facing the door. Though the light in the room was far from bright, she wore a pair of pink-tinted sunglasses. On her left was a thin, dark-skinned man with a neat, sharply creased dress shirt and a pencil-thin mustache. On her right was the man who had been carrying the speargun on the beach.

  All three of them turned toward the door as Tom entered. The reactions were quite different. The woman looked at Tom curiously but said nothing. The man with the thin mustache stood up quickly, his arms at his sides. He had the look of someone that had recently been released from the military and was used to jumping to attention every time an officer entered the room.

  “Good evening, sir!” he barked.

  The man from the beach also stood. He took two quick steps back, his eyes never leaving Tom, until he was pressed against the concrete wall of the bar. There was a wide series of bandages running across his broken nose, but the eyes above it showed a mixture of fear and hate. “That’s the man who attacked me!”

  “Really,” said the woman. Her voice was cool. “That’s interesting.”

  “He nearly killed me.”

  The man with the mustache gave a short bark of laughter. “Shut up,” he said. He made a sharp nod toward Tom. “This is Loki.”

  Broken Nose stared at Tom again. Now his primary emotion was simple confusion. “If he’s Loki, then why did he attack me?”

  “Maybe because you’re an idiot?” said the other man.

  “This man is not Loki,” Noel explained.

  It was the mustache man’s turn to be afraid. He looked at Tom again, and his right hand crept closer to a bulge under his shirt. “Then who is he?”

  The woman tilted her head. “I don’t know. But it should be interesting to find out.” She pulled out a lighter from somewhere below the table, lit a thin, black cigarillo, and placed it between her lips. “Are you coming over here to join us?”

  Tom took another step into the room. “I’m only looking for some information. Once I get it, I’ll be quite happy to leave you to enjoy the rest of the evening.”

  “Information,” the woman repeated. She let out a long streamer of blue smoke. “Seems to me that you’re more interested in trouble.”

  “The information will be enough,” said Tom. “You can keep the trouble.”

  “We’ll see,” said the woman. She blew out more smoke and looked at Tom through the cloud. “What is it that you want?”

  Tom took the back of the last chair, twisted it around, and sat with his legs straddling the chair and the wooden back against his chest. He studied the thugs for a moment. Broken Nose had a German accent. The mustache man had something of a Cuban look. Noel. Noel he couldn’t place at all. Tom wondered briefly about the background of these three, but it didn’t really matter. Only one thing mattered tonight. “I’m looking for someone.”

  “For Loki.”

  “That’s right.”

  The woman studied him for a few minutes, her eyes like red coins behind the tinted glasses. “You are twins.”

  “Something like that,” said Tom. “So, why don’t you help out a wayward relation and tell me where to find him?”

  It took the woman two long pulls and two slow exhales of smoke before she answered. “Why don’t you share a little information with me? Once I know some more about you, maybe I’ll be willing to share.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “We could start with your name.” It was a simple enough question, but as the woman asked it, she was no longer looking at Tom. She was looking over his right shoulder.

  Tom didn’t make an attempt to answer. Instead he kicked hard to his left, tipping over his chair, coming down on one shoulder and coming up with the wooden chair in his hands. A gunshot snapped past the side of his head, and he felt and splinters fly from the surface of the table.

  The man with the mustache was on his feet. Behind him the broad-shouldered man in the T-shirt was starting into the room, his gun drawn. The woman was up. Broken Nose was moving. Everybody was moving.

  A knife came from Tom’s left. He swung the chair hard against a skull. The chair broke into a dozen pieces. Mustache fell like a sack of potatoes. Tom dropped and took down T-shirt with a sweep of his leg. He then tucked and rolled as another gunshot chipped at the ancient floor tiles. Back on his feet, Tom put a stiff hand into Broken Nose’s gut and a fist into the already injured face. Broken Nose screamed. Then he went down and stayed down. All three men were out of the picture. That only left…

  A blow struck Tom in the side with such force that it spun him around and sent him staggering against the concrete wall. He shook off the effect and turned toward the woman.

  Despite everything, the little black cigarillo was still in Noel’s mouth and a faint smile was on her lips. “You not only look like him,” she said. “You fight like him.”

  “I hope not,” said Tom. He came at her in a crouch. Aimed a kick toward her thigh.

  The red-eyed woman blocked, countering with an elbow that sent Tom’s breath burning back up his throat.

  He avoided a follow-up blow, put a fist into her side, and drew back to the other side of the scarred card table.

  It wasn’t until an incredible pain bloomed on Tom’s left arm that he realized that (1) the woman had a pistol, (2) she was shooting at him, and (3) he was hit.

  Before a second shot could find him, Tom grabbed the edge of the round table and flipped it toward the woman. Bullets punched through the tabletop, showering Tom with splinters, but he rushed forward, pinning the woman against the wall. There was a satisfying grunt as she struck the concrete, followed by the clatter of the gun striking the floor. The woman scrambled free and made a dive for the gun. Tom kicked it away. He aimed a second kick toward her, but she grabbed his foot and gave his leg a painful twist that forced Tom to stagger back.

  He winced as he watched the woman climb to her feet and turn to face him. Twenty years ago, he thought, this would have been over in a second. But it wasn’t twenty years ago, and the warmth spreading along Tom’s arm meant that blood was flowing from his wound. He had to end this soon.

  The woman went on the attack, launching a quick
series of kicks, jabs, more kicks. It was all Tom could do to stay on his feet. He circled left, protecting his injured arm. He was breathing very hard now, and his arm was throbbing. The woman darted in again. This time Tom struck back. He landed a quick, sharp fist to the woman’s chin, then spun and laid a roundhouse kick that caught her high up on the right leg. The woman fell.

  Tom was on her before she had a chance to recover. He pinned her legs beneath his weight and held her down with a forearm against her windpipe. “Tell me where he is,” he said.

  The rose-colored glasses had been lost in the fight. The woman’s eyes were now a very ordinary light brown. “He’ll kill me if he finds out I told,” she choked out from beneath Tom’s grip.

  “Maybe.” Tom pressed down harder. “But if you don’t tell, I’ll kill you right now.”

  The woman’s face turned an alarming shade of purple before she finally nodded. “McHenry.”

  “What is that? A town?”

  “Medical… school. McHenry… Medical… School.”

  “Thanks,” said Tom. “If you’re lying, I’ll be back to ask you again. Only next time I won’t be so polite.” Then he doubled the pressure on the woman’s throat.

  Her brown eyes bulged, and she bucked against him wildly. But only for a moment. When she stopped moving, Tom checked her pulse. It was still there, still strong. There was blood on her blouse, but as far as Tom could tell, it was his.

  He stood up and looked around the room. Three men and one woman lay unconscious on the floor. I should kill them, he thought. As soon as I’m gone, they’ll be hurrying off to tell Loki that I was here.

  He had no doubt that if the roles were reversed, that if it were Loki who needed to protect himself, the deaths of four people wouldn’t even cause him to think twice.

  It wasn’t that way for Tom. He looked down at his bloody hands. He paused for a moment and wiped his palms against the broken remnants of the green card table. Then he headed for the door.

  It was time to go to school.

  Guide to Offshore Institutions, 14th Edition

  McHenry Medical College

  Cayman Islands

  14 Sea Bee Road

  Overview

  McHenry is considered one of the best institutions in the southern Caribbean. It has more modern equipment than most such schools, and the teacher-to-student ratio is unusually adequate. Unlike some institutions, McHenry has met with moderate success in finding stateside residencies for its graduates. The school has some reputation in cytology and genetics, with several notable research grants being awarded throughout the last decade.

  McHenry closed its doors in 1999 for remodeling. However, the college spokesperson insists that the school is still in business and will reopen with the newest, most up-to-date instruction and facilities possible for the 2002 fall semester.

  YEAR STUDENTS

  1995 113

  1996 121

  1997 130

  1998 130

  1999 0

  ED

  If you ever get to the point where you don’t like breakfast food, you are one poor excuse for a human being. All the best junk comes at breakfast. Doesn’t matter if you’re going for your high-end eggs Benedict or your basic brown sugar cinnamon Pop-Tart-it’s all good.

  Consider this amazing but true fact: Breakfast is the only meal of the day where a doughnut counts as the main course.

  Think about the sheer variety of breakfast goodness. Giant-size biscuits loaded with sausage and eggs. Put them in a sack, and it’s rendered transparent from all the oil by the time you leave the counter. That’s how you know it’s good. Bear claws. Pancakes with syrup. Western omelettes. Cereals made from ninety-five percent real sugar and five percent artificial color. Who wouldn’t want to eat this stuff?

  I think breakfast is more of a guy meal. From what I’ve seen, girls like dinner. They like a meal that requires them to be seated and comes off nice plates. Salad. That’s a girl food. Anything French? Automatically way over on the female side. Except maybe for the fries. And the toast. Left to themselves, most guys honestly prefer food that comes out of styrofoam packages and where the only decision on protocol is whether to dunk the hash browns in ketchup or just scarf them straight from the bag. There are very few girl foods at breakfast.

  There are, of course, exceptions to these strict gender lines. I’ve also seen the girl risk life and limb—literally—for a Krispy Kreme. An attitude that seems perfectly reasonable to any guy.

  I’m not saying that her guy-like breakfast attitude is what makes Gaia attractive. The whole so-beautiful-you-think-you-might-die-just-from-looking-at-her thing helps with that. The breakfast food appreciation is a bonus. Another part of the whole big Mystery That Is Gala.

  In my case, that might be more Misery than Mystery. The Misery Of Not Being With Gaia. Not getting to watch her pull the last slivers of cheese from a McMuffin wrapper. Not witnessing her scrape the last drops of chocolate and stray jimmies from a doughnut box using nothing but her tongue. It’s painful.

  Of course, there’s a simple reason for the pain. Gaia hates me.

  Okay, maybe that’s putting it too simply. Gaia can’t stand to look at my ugly face and wouldn’t be with me for all the Krispy Kremes in New York. There. I think that’s closer to the truth.

  The Gaia-hates-me thing seems pretty clear. It’s the why of it that keeps me beating my head against the wall. Gaia was with me. Then she wasn’t. And I don’t know why.

  Any guy with anything that even remotely resembled a brain would drop this mess and get together with Tatiana. Tatiana is beautiful. A knockout. She’s not beautiful in the same way that Gaia is beautiful, but that doesn’t mean she’s less beautiful. Like Gwyneth Paltrow is beautiful, but so is Jennifer Aniston. Beautiful, but very different.

  And not only is Tatiana easy on the eyes, she’s also smart. She’s got talent. Her drawings are amazing. And then there’s the real bonus: She likes me. How often does that happen? Exotic beauty from the other side of the planet comes to New York and homes in on Ed Fargo. Trust me, this is not an everyday event.

  Only I don’t think Tatiana would ever be caught dead licking cheese off a McDonald’s wrapper or shoving down a bucket of The Colonel’s chicken. No matter how beautiful she is, no matter how much she likes me, Tatiana eats three well-rounded meals a day, using silverware. Tatiana is not Gaia.

  And Gaia is still what I want. Breakfast, lunch, and twenty-four hours a day.

  a nice hard shot

  Ed looked at her and felt a little nervous. Heather’s pilot light definitely seemed to be burning low.

  Burning Low

  ED PUSHED HIS POTATOES FROM ONE side of the plate to the other, then pushed them back again. They were genuine American fries. Prepared as only a diner could make them. Crispy at the edges, soft in the middle, and guaranteed to contain enough grease to lube a four-speed transmission. So why couldn’t he work up an appetite to eat them? He scowled down at the brown fries. Any girl who could keep him from enjoying a plate of potatoes and grease was a girl to be avoided.

  A cold breeze ran through the diner as a handful of breakfast latecomers slipped inside. Ed glanced at them, looked back at his food, then raised his head again. In the group of people milling around the counter was a face that Ed didn’t expect to see in such a bright, early, and artery-clogging situation. Heather Gannis.

  Ed raised a hand and started to call her over, then he hesitated. Was it really Heather? The face looked basically right, only this girl had sunken cheeks and dark circles under her eyes. Heather’s hair usually looked as though she were ready to do a shampoo commercial. Swirl left, swirl right, big shower of Chestnut Brown Number 37. But this girl had hair that was definitely on the “before” side of any before-and-after ad.

  It wasn’t until the girl turned toward Ed and gave a weak smile that he was absolutely sure it was Heather. He waved. “Hey,” he said. “Looking for a seat?”

  Heather dropped her purse onto the
table and sat down on the chair across from Ed. “Morning,” she mumbled. Her eyes were half closed. She opened them long enough to glance at Ed, then let them close again.

  Ed wasn’t sure what to say. He understood that no girl was ever prepared to hear, “Wow, you know, you look like total crap,” as constructive criticism, but that was certainly what Ed wanted to say. Not only did Heather look like death—she also looked wrong. While he was no expert, he was pretty sure that her striped green-and-yellow pants did not go with her fuzzy red sweater. And her hair wasn’t just flat—it was uncombed. The whole situation gave Ed a bad feeling. It was as if the zero-fashion-sense spirit of Gaia Moore had taken over the totally style-driven body of Heather Gannis. From the look on Heather’s face, the transplant wasn’t going too well.

  “Are you hungry?” Ed asked. He couldn’t remember Heather ever eating the diner’s grease-drenched breakfast fare, but she sure looked like she needed something.

  Heather shook her head, her eyes still half closed. “I only came in for some coffee.”

  Ed managed to wave down a waitress and get Heather a cup of steaming black coffee. Without pausing to add any milk or sugar, Heather snatched the cup in both hands and took a long gulp. Ed half expected her to scream—the diner kept their coffeepot at a temperature that Ed estimated to equal that of the surface of the sun—but Heather only paused long enough to take a breath, then went back to swallowing coffee. Finally, when the cup was nearly empty, she opened her eyes and looked down at the chipped mug with a scowl.

  “This stuff is terrible.”

  “Then why are you drinking it?” asked Ed.

  Heather stared at the empty cup. “I need something to get me going.”

  “I thought you were more of a caffé latte type,” said Ed. “Don’t you usually do your coffee consumption over at Starbucks?”

  Heather lifted the cup and slid the last of the coffee into her throat. “I needed something stronger this morning. Besides.” She paused and wrinkled her nose. “All my friends are over there, and I don’t really want to deal with them this morning.”