by Laurel Dewey
“Gingers,” Jane said out loud.
“What’s that?” Harlan replied, turning the TV on Mute.
“Gabriel told Nanette to watch out for them. It was an odd comment from a guy who seemed pretty free-thinking. But he wasn’t talking about red heads in general. He meant these guys,” she motioned to the TV news conference that was about to end.
Harlan continued to rub the back of his neck.
“Why do you keep doing that?” she asked.
“You sure I don’t have somethin’ stuck back there?” he asked, turning his back to Jane.
She looked again. “You’ve rubbed it so hard, you’ve got a blister forming.”
He growled. “I just want to get a knife and dig at it.”
“Jesus, Harlan. Get a hold of yourself.”
He stopped rubbing his neck and stared at the television. The news conference was wrapping up and Rudy put his hand on Steve Crandall’s back as if to guide him out of the room. But the gesture imparted a lot more than guidance to Jane. It looked more like a man putting his hand up the back of a puppet.
She shook her head. “You really couldn’t see through him, Harlan?”
“I was raised not to judge people.”
“Oh, fuck. It’s not judgment, Harlan. There’s a huge difference between judging someone’s lifestyle and looking into their eyes and seeing their truth.” She turned to Harlan. “Or their lies. Or their sickness. Or their intentions to hurt you.
“How do you figure out people, Jane?”
“I observe them. Every single day I watch them and I keep little notes in my head about things I see and then I sort the little notes into some little files. Generally, everybody who is in the same little file usually has the same big issues. Finally, I filter my observations even more and break the files down until I’m able to see between their lines.”
“You mean read between their lines?”
“No. I mean see. It’s hard to explain. I’ve read all the psych books but there are things you can’t really put into words and if you did, it would sound bizarre. You have to see it and when you do, you understand it because you’ve seen the same colors and shapes before in someone else.”
“Like what?” Harlan asked, truly interested.
“I know what abuse looks like. That’s an easy one. I know what being told you’re no fucking good looks like.” She hesitated, drawing up a dark memory from her past.
“How?”
“It’s in the way they walk. They’re really tentative, not wanting to invest themselves in the next step because they’ve been told so many times they’re a fucking failure.”
“How do you help them, Jane?”
“You can’t help most of them.”
“How come?”
“Because they don’t want help. They’re too fucked up by the time I meet them. I know that when I deal with a woman who has been repeatedly physically abused by a long line of partners, she keeps attracting the same assholes because she believes she deserves the abuse. She likes the drama that comes out of it. Hell, she feeds off of it. She loves playing the victim and she’ll never change. Because the dirty little secret is that on some level, she actually craves abuse. It’s the only time she feels alive and loved. She never got the memo that in all relationships, the woman is always in charge. Even the ones who are on the floor getting the shit kicked out of them, even those women are still in charge of the relationship.”
“You mean that?”
“Harlan, I’ve seen it a million times. Women rule every single relationship, even the ones that are toxic. The abused woman has the power to leave but, because she thinks she’s a piece of shit, she chooses to stay with the bad guy because a good man is weak in her eyes. A good man hates the drama. A bad man requires it.”
“Humph,” he said. “Never thought of it that way.” He paused for a second. “Can you walk into someone’s house and figure them out if they ain’t there?”
“Sure. I do that all the time. You can tell a lot about a person from being in their house. Somebody once said that a person is only as good as what he or she does when nobody else is watching. That’s true. But since that’s unseen, it’s my job to perceive what other people either can’t see or refuse to look at.”
He leaned on his thighs. “Like what?”
“You can determine a lot about a man or woman by how they treat their animals and their houseplants. If the dogs are cowering and the plants are dead or need water, that’s a ‘tell.’”
“Ha! That makes sense.”
“I don’t trust people who are happy all the time. And the ones who are deliriously happy 24/7? Those are the ones who are hiding the biggest secrets. I don’t have a lot of confidence in a man who always has a clean desk. They’re usually very sterile individuals. A cluttered desk shows me a mind that is engaged in more than one pursuit and interested in many. I prefer people who drink their coffee black. They aren’t afraid of tasting something bitter. When I meet someone who insists on dumping sugar into their brew, I know they need to sweeten the bitterness of their life. And those who pour cream into their coffee need to dilute the bitterness of life. Those are the ones who don’t want to believe that life can be acrid and unpleasant. If you want a no nonsense person who can deal with a problem head on, find a coffee drinker who takes it black.”
“You drink it black, Jane?”
She smiled. “I drink it black.”
“What if they prefer tea?”
“What kind of tea?”
“Sweet tea?”
“That a cultural thing. But a man who opts for chamomile tea at night over decaf leans toward being a pacifist. Those are the people pleasers—the ones who have a difficult time making a decision because they’re afraid of offending others. Lots of Libras, Pisces and Cancers love chamomile tea at night.”
“What about the folks who don’t drink tea or anything else?”
“You mean the purists?”
“Yeah. The teetotalers.”
“The ones who brag about how liquor or drugs have never touched their lips? I don’t like them. They see themselves with a false superiority. They like to believe that if they don’t dip into the coal, they’ll be removed from the soot. But they don’t realize that it’s the soot that creates the character and the compassion and fills all those nooks and crannies with hard-earned mistakes and lessons. The purists are so afraid of soiling themselves that they don’t see the payoff from the redemption. I like people who have allowed alcohol and drugs to pass their lips and gone into the bowels of hell and then come out the other side. I like them when they stop the drink and drugs and find their souls. Because unlike the purists, the ones who have seen hell and survived it will never judge those who continue to struggle. The purist will judge from sheer ignorance because he’s allowed himself to believe that there is some sort of prize gained from abstention. But he limits himself to a rose colored world that isn’t real and holds no fire. A man or woman with no fire is easily manipulated Harlan, and they’ll believe whatever supports their narrow-minded agenda. But you want to know the ones I really stay clear of?”
He leaned forward, clearly intrigued. “Who?”
“The ones who like to tell you that there’s no ‘I’ in ‘team.’ I’m aware of that fact and, in my opinion, therein lies the problem with that word.” She smiled.
He laughed. “Hell, Jane. I’ve never met nobody like you before.”
“Well, Harlan, ditto. Right back at you.” She glanced at the TV screen. A graphic showing the Anubus crash flashed on the screen. Jane quickly turned on the sound.
“Police tell us there will be an update in the next few hours regarding the bus explosion that occurred south of Denver several days ago. The horrific accident that claimed all passengers on board is still thought to be caused a faulty fuel line.”
The news shif
ted to another story and Jane muted the sound. So, they were sticking with the faulty fuel line ruse. Who paid off the investigators, Jane wondered. Or were the investigators specifically chosen because they were already bought and paid for? She could easily see how all-consuming this deception could become. In order for it to work, you’d have to have people in place who were from all walks of life and in all kinds of employment. It must be like a giant Rolodex, Jane determined. Each time a fire had to be put out or started, the man at the top spun that Rolodex and like Russian roulette, pulled the trigger on the next asset in the complicated chain.
“Hey,” Harlan said. “You hear that? No more hubba-hubba comin’ from the second floor.”
Jane nodded. “Don’t get too excited. They’re probably just resting before the bell rings on round two.”
Harlan found the rest of his chocolate milkshake from the drive-thru and finished it. He enthusiastically knocked back six raw eggs after that, along with half of the yogurt from the dairy farm. He capped off his odd meal with a bottle of the pine needle beer, smacking his lips like a satisfied glutton. By the time Harlan was through, he rubbed his bloated belly and lay back down on his bed. Seconds later, he was snoring like a seasoned pro.
Jane brought out the two ball caps, along with the LED lights, wires, electrical tape, switches and batteries she purchased. Using a knife to poke ten holes in the seam right above the visor, Jane then wrapped the wires onto the LED lights with the proper positive and negative connections confirmed before poking them through the various holes on the cap. She then taped the loose wires together, affixing them to the nine-volt battery, which she secured in the back open seam of the hat. She repeated the same thing with the second hat. In fewer than thirty minutes, she had the perfect foil for the standard security camera. Her creation wouldn’t be effective for blowing through the NSA, CIA, FBI or any other alphabet organization. But for the typical, run-of-the-mill security camera at gas stations, supermarkets, etc., this would do the job very well. Jane had to give all the credit to a smarmy little two-bit hack she’d met on the job during one of DH’s investigations. When she noticed his ball cap was lit up, she asked him about it. He informed her that the LED lights blind cameras, creating a ball of light around a person’s face when they are on camera, thereby making it impossible to clearly identify them. With the advanced facial recognition software that Jane knew was out there, this low-tech answer to becoming invisible seemed like the perfect plan.
She ate the last hamburger, even though it was cold, and drained the last of her chocolate shake. Looking over at Harlan, he was sound asleep. Jane wished she could do the same but her head raced too much for sleep to overtake her. She eyed the case of beer that sat next to Harlan’s bed. That always helped her sleep. Sure, it took at least six of them, followed by several generous shots of Jack Daniels to guarantee the results. But it slowed her head down and that was worth its weight in gold. She glanced at Harlan again and then carefully reached down to the case. Opening the flap, Jane slid one of the tartan labeled bottles out of the box. Cradling it between her palms, she felt the sensuous slender neck of the bottle between her fingers. That’s where she’d always hold the bottle between her first and second fingers. It was comforting right then. Almost too comforting.
She turned to Harlan and saw the bottle opener that had fallen into the folds of the comforter. A strange, high-pitched whistle began to ring in her right ear. She quickly shut off the television, thinking it was coming from there but the whistle continued unabated. One is too many, she heard in her head, and a thousand is never enough. Why that old AA saying suddenly crept into her consciousness was anybody’s guess. But there it was and it kept repeating in her head like a broken record. Finally, she put the bottle back into the case and held her ear. The whistle stopped and the pain disappeared. Jane turned back to the case and leaned toward it again. The whistle commenced again and she sat back on the bed. The whistle stopped, this time with a defined finish.
Jane glanced around the room. The air felt curiously thick and probing. Harlan continued to snore, happily lost in deep sleep. She pushed the pillow into her low back and sat up, still canvassing the room. It looked as if the light was dimming slightly. She waited and watched and then waited a few minutes more before she spoke. “Gabriel?” she whispered, feeling somewhat insane at that moment. The light in the room appeared to gradually return to normal. She donned her refurbished ball cap and pulled it low over her forehead. Flicking the switch that was attached to the nine-volt battery, the pinprick LED lights glowed softly against the fabric. She sunk down against the headboard, squashing her body against the pillow and imagined herself invisible.
After about a half hour and with Harlan still sleeping, Jane turned the television back on. Maybe, she thought, if she watched some bad TV, she’d drift off to sleep. Scanning the channels, she landed on an obscure cable channel from Europe and a show titled, “The Future Is Now.” From what Jane deduced, the program featured segments where the host—an affable, if not quirky, freckled guy in his mid-forties—traveled the globe and reported on individuals and companies who were dedicated to developing new products and innovative breakthroughs. Some of the inventions were ridiculous and some were clever. But the segment that got Jane’s attention had to do with something called a “spider goat.” She learned there was a spider that spun a silk thread that was stronger than Kevlar. The idea was that if there was enough of this exceptional silk thread, a fiber could be created that was stronger than steel but very flexible and could revolutionize the materials industry. The silk could also be inserted into the human body to strengthen or support ligaments, tendons and limbs.
The problem was that the spiders were cannibalistic so they couldn’t be farmed for their silk. But researchers figured out how to bypass this pesky issue. In the lab, they genetically altered a goat’s embryo with the DNA of the spider and proudly produced what they called a “spider goat.” It looked just like a regular goat but when these genetically modified animals lactated, they produced a “spider milk protein.” When the milk was filtered in a lab, the proteins were separated, leaving clear strands of silk, visible to the naked eye. Jane leaned forward, staring in stunned disbelief at the TV screen. It seemed impossible but there it was—silk fibers coming out of a Frankenstein goat. Talk about a commodity, Jane thought. It was one thing to breed a sheep to get superior wool or to breed a chicken that laid huge eggs. But in her mind, there was something quite disturbing about creating a four-legged creature that shared its body with another species.
But that fact didn’t seem to bother the scientists who gushed about the “breathtaking potential of innovation.” Jane sat back on the bed. All well and good, she said to herself, but who’s keeping checks and balances on the ones who are envisioning these genetic freaks of nature? That wasn’t brought up during the show. Jane kept waiting for someone to raise that question but it was as if this development was the new normal and people just had to get used to it. One doctor on the program said, “Our scientific pursuits are only restricted by biological truths and our vast imaginations. If we can conceive it in our minds’ eye—even if it sounds impossible—we know we can create it in a lab.” There was an arrogant confidence in his tenor, a sort of “ethics be damned” attitude.
But when the program’s host left the spider goat farm and journeyed to NASA’s Ames Research Center, Jane realized she was blissfully unaware of how fast technology had jumped into a brave new world. Visiting the medical director at the research lab, the freckled-face host excitedly faced the camera and explained that the future of our world lay in the hands of Biotech companies who were “engineering our lives for the better.” There was technology that allowed NASA scientists to develop organisms and cells that could be converted into therapeutic molecules. These molecules were then injected into the body of astronauts to combat the potentially fatal poisoning that happens from exposure to the sun’s intense rays when they travel in
space. “Like it or not,” the host proclaimed, “the future is here right now and this is just the tip of the iceberg!” And he said it with a strange, gleeful cadence that struck Jane as being damn near pathological. The program never brought up the moral issues around these experiments. Nobody once asked, “What happens if the spider goats get loose and mate with other goats? Won’t we eventually have a world of spider goats, thereby erasing any memory of an original and true goat?” It didn’t matter to any of them. At least that’s the way Jane read them. These white-coated men and women couldn’t wait to produce the next genetically modified anomaly and state that it was another “new normal” as well as “a benefit to mankind.”
Jane clicked off the TV. She’d seen enough. In her quest to find something boring that would induce sleep, she had instead stumbled upon a group of freaks who were probably right now crossing a Chihuahua with a gnat and creating a dog that was even more annoying. She checked the time. 8:00. If she could get to sleep right away, she might be able to grab eight hours of rest. And if the couple upstairs kept it down, she might even be able to enjoy an uninterrupted slumber.
Turning off the light, Jane slid under the covers and closed her eyes. She willed herself to sleep, demanding it. After a few minutes, she felt her body floating over itself. Yet, it was odd because instead of falling into a void, she suddenly felt very awake. There was a moment of feeling suspended in mid-air right before she was rocketed through the darkness and dropped onto a walkway. Jane couldn’t see her feet or anything around her. The only thing visible was a brilliant spotlight in the near distance and a simple folding chair. She walked toward the spotlight and sat down in the chair. It didn’t feel like a dream. There was a palpable urgency surrounding her as if a thousand people suddenly needed to talk to her all at once. She heard footsteps coming toward her. The way the soles hit the ground, Jane knew it was a man. A figure appeared at the edge of the spotlight and sat down on another chair that appeared out of nowhere. It was her partner on the job, Sergeant Morgan Weyler. He was dressed in his usual dapper, navy blue suit with the crisp soft blue shirt underneath. His ebony skin looked brilliant under the light as he leaned forward on the chair.
