by Frank Sibila
“That’s her real name and she uses another onstage.”
“Are you telling me that just to make me feel safe or because it’s true?”
“It’s true. Honest.”
The slight headache had now once again become a pounding one. “Now tell me that the name she uses onstage is Felicia Starlight.”
“I’m sorry, boss, I can’t tell you that. She uses the name Anastasia Lasalle.”
“Dammit. Is there any chance that she’s using the name Felicia Starlight?”
“I suppose there’s a chance,” Destinii said. “I mean, some of these girls change names like you and I change underwear. Shut up, you, or I’ll give you such a hit your dead great-aunt will feel it. Sorry, that was Max again. I’m on the phone, Max. But like I was saying, I know Anastasia, and she sure as hell wasn’t using that name or anything like it when she called to check in only ten minutes ago.”
Frank rubbed his forehead as if trying to crack a shell and get at the nice, juicy meat inside. “She called ten minutes ago?”
“Isn’t that what I just said?”
“What did she say?”
“She said that she got to the Excalibur, located George, rented a car, and was already well into Arizona territory.”
“Of course she did,” said Frank, who found, as if from a million miles away, that he really wasn’t surprised at all. “And did she, at any point in this conversation, mention meeting me this morning?”
“Ummmm … come to think of it, no.”
“Do you know what this means, Destinii?”
“I’m getting the picture, but I’m afraid to say it out loud.”
“So am I,” Frank said, “but just for giggles, I’m going to say it out loud anyway.”
“I wish you wouldn’t.”
“I wish I didn’t have to. In essence, however, our client is being driven east by an unknown woman who doesn’t really work for us, and the woman who does work for us is driving east with some poor unknown schmoe who isn’t really our client.”
Destinii said, “Ummm.”
“Ummm what?”
“Ummm,” she said, “pretty much sums it up. How the hell did this happen?”
“I don’t know,” Frank said. “But you know what?”
“What?”
“I think you oughta get in touch with your friend Anastasia and find out who the hell our agency just accidentally kidnapped….”
Having dropped, the other shoe proceeded to tap dance. Further Sky phone calls to Destinii established that her attempts to follow up received no answer at the cell phone numbers the agency had listed for George Yorick and for Anastasia Lasalle. Frank’s phoned pleas to call in as soon as possible, just to let him or Destinii know what the hell was happening, went straight to voice mail and were left there to languish alongside a host of subsequent messages to the effect of “We’re really serious; we need to know.” The Wrong Monica endured Frank’s end of these conversations for close to an hour, at one point putting her book away and following the twisted skein of dilemmas with an expression that suggested a concerted effort to grind a millimeter or two off her molars. There was no telling how much she put together, but it was clear she knew enough when she turned to Frank after the most frantic of these calls and announced to him, “You are screwed.”
LaGuardia. It felt like early afternoon but looked much later, thanks to the time zone difference, the sky itself as purple as a bruise.
Frank bolted from the plane at a velocity greater than any he’d ever achieved in an airport, one so frenetic that his bag, following him on rollers, made several attempts to achieve flight itself and came close to following him at shoulder-level, like a superhero’s cape. Only the sweet bars of “Tell Me Lies” erupting from his cell and offering a modicum of hope just as he passed the final outpost of Hudson News slowed him before he placed himself in danger of being taken down in a flying tackle by the crack forces of Homeland Security. “Tell me you have something!”
“I have something,” Destinii said, followed by, “Shut up, you. I know where Keith Custer is staying.”
Thirty minutes later, Frank sat dazed and fuming in the lobby of the Times Square Marriott, watching the scenic elevators zip up and down on their pillars like torpedoes being loaded into position for firing at distant enemies. They could have been aimed at an alien invasion fleet massing in orbit. The way he felt, he wouldn’t have written off the possibility.
A man with see-through blonde hair and a complexion about three shades lighter than milk, strolling alongside a woman of precisely the opposite shade, did a double take as he saw Frank and performed a U-turn so neat that the woman failed to notice he was gone and continued talking to herself as she continued toward the exit. “Excuse me,” the pale man said. “but didn’t I see you on TV? Aren’t you that guy?”
Frank did not want this conversation, not now. “I’m one of several possible guys.”
“Come on, man. You know which one I’m talking about, right? The lying guy! The I-wasn’t-having-an-affair-I-was-on-a-business-trip guy! Right?”
He realized he should have admitted it the first time. Pale Rider’s exuberance was beginning to draw attention from the other people sitting around the atrium. Heads were turning, and people were pointing. “Yes,” he said. “That’s me. How can I help you?”
The pale man bobbed up and down, enjoying his moment of close proximity to a sort-of celebrity. And then he said, “I knew you were that asshole,” before flitting off to rejoin the companion who had just marched back into view, hands propped against angry hips.
Yes, Frank thought, as he leaned back and watched the atrium elevators glide up and down like baked-bean cans on bungee cords. It wasn’t the first time a total stranger had accosted him in public that way. If he counted his various encounters with the real Monica, whose particular means of accosting him had been more memorable than most, it wasn’t even the first time this week.
It was also true that whenever he hadn’t found profit in either ignoring the charge or cheerfully agreeing with it, he’d devoted quite a bit of eloquence to defending himself, justifying the service he provided, and even claiming, with some justification, that the alibis he’d established had saved more marriages than the adulteries behind them could have possibly broken up. As he’d said more than once, there were plenty of couples still enjoying wedded bliss today because he’d given the individuals experimenting with unfaithfulness the means to satisfy their curiosity and then return, sated, able to slip back into their half of the bed without inflicting any permanent wounds on the spouse still sleeping. Seen in that light, as he’d also said more than once, as he’d even said to Monica, you could even interpret what he did as a good thing. Really.
But was that really incompatible with what the pale man had said? With what any number of angry letters from betrayed spouses had said? From what contemptuous e-mails and savage editorials had said?
Could he be simultaneously just another businessman whose services were entirely defensible on legal and moral grounds … and still an asshole for doing something that remained scummy?
He liked to believe he had a sense of honor. Well, he was not alone there. Professional thieves are reputed to have a sense of honor. Gangsters are reputed to have a sense of honor. Even hit men are reputed to have a sense of honor, though when it manifests as high moral dudgeon over whether it’s preferable to shoot somebody face-to-face as opposed to using a high-powered rifle from several blocks away, the dividing line had to be subtle at best. He supposed that a man who helped wives cheat on their husbands and husbands cheat on their wives, and between those actions helped to preserve marriages that, in many cases, might have otherwise sunk to the floor of the North Atlantic, should also be able to lay claim to a sense of honor. But how would that sense of honor manifest? Were there times when contracts had to be broken and truths told, regardless of consequence?
Or would breaking promises made to assholes make him more of an asshole himself?
A familiar voice said, “Gee, Frank, you look ready to be embalmed.”
Frank realized that his eyes had closed. He whipped his head back up and focused on the smarmy expression of the square-jawed, charmingly roguish man who had just slipped into the chair opposite him. He gauged his own exhaustion by the fact that it took him all of half a second to attach name and face. “Hey, Keith, how’s the wife?”
Keith Custer was dressed in tan slacks and a shirt with a pattern that suggested a determined, even defiant, sense of fun. He wore the expression of a cat proud of itself for successfully scarfing down everything in the communal bowl before any of the other felines in the household could gain access. He held an umbrella drink from the lobby bar, something scarlet with a lemon wedge. “I dunno. Haven’t seen her since that Tiffany debacle. Never did get to hit that, you know.”
“Hit what?”
“You know,” Keith said. Nudge-nudge, wink-wink, say no more.
“Tiffany,” Frank guessed.
“Yes,” Keith sighed existentially. “Monica really screwed that one up, which is too bad, but you know how it is, right? You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.”
“So Tiffany’s an egg,” Frank summarized.
Keith sipped his drink. “Yeah, why not?”
“Like those you should be walking on around your wife right about now.”
“Naaaaah,” Keith assured him, “I’m okay. You see, Monica’s tough, but I think I’ve learned her schedule. She catches me fucking up, gets pissed off, spreads her cape, turns into a bat, and flutters off, sometimes for days at a time. So, you see, this thing I’ve figured out, you see, is that it’s almost, like, worth the trouble of getting into a little trouble once in a while, just a little, so she’ll leave, and I can get a couple of days of freedom to, you know, do worse things and not get into trouble after that. Capiche?”
That was so demented Frank could practically understand it. “I see. It’s why Tiffany was the egg you had to break to make the omelet.”
“You make me sound like a terrible person,” Keith said, without looking very put out at all. “Like I was just after, you know, exploiting Tiffany for a moment’s advantage. But it wasn’t like that at all. I liked Tiffany. I thought she was a sure thing, and I was looking forward to, you know.”
“Cooking an omelet.”
“Yeah, exactly. That’s a lost opportunity I’m gonna mourn for the rest of my livelong days. But really,” Keith brightened, “you’ve got to look on the bright side. As long as Monica did show up and ruin things, and as long as she’s done one of her powders and left me with a couple of days to run around without having to explain myself, I might as well take advantage of her absence, you know? I’m not going to blow that opportunity, especially since there’s another prospect I was, you know, deeply committed to setting up anyway.”
“Another omelet,” Frank said.
Keith’s eyebrows knit. “Yeah, even if the metaphor is getting a little overextended.” Now he waggled his eyebrows. “A very nice omelet.”
Frank had never wanted a handful of cow manure suitable for flinging so much in his entire life. “And Monica? You’re not worried about Monica?”
Keith peered around apprehensively. “Why? She’s not, like, around here, is she?”
“No. I don’t mean being caught by her. I mean hurting her.”
Keith’s eyes flared. “I don’t believe this. You’re actually getting self-righteous with me.”
Frank held his thumb and forefinger half an inch apart. “Just a little.”
“Yeah, well, maybe you better not. You’re the guy giving away the licenses to fuck.”
“Actually, no.”
“No?”
“No.”
“Well, what would you call what you do?”
Frank thought about it. “You ever play Monopoly?”
“Not since I discovered girls.”
“You remember it, though?”
“Yes, I remember thinking that it was a retarded game. What’s the point?”
“I call what I sell ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ cards. You use one, you lose one. You don’t count on finding another right away, and you don’t act like there’s an endless supply in the deck.”
Keith shook his head. “I’m getting bored. Is this what you wanted to see me about, Frank? Because, really,” he made a move to stand up, “I got a spicy little omelet waiting for me upstairs, and the last thing I want is for her to get cold.”
“No,” Frank said. “There is one other thing.”
Keith plopped back down in his chair, looking aggrieved, his eyes rolling with so much vehemence that they might have been dice in a game of craps. “Yeah? What?”
“I want to talk about what you’ve done to George Yorick. The husband of the spicy little omelet you have upstairs….”
EIGHT
MANY ARE THE OPPORTUNITIES for dining alongside the American highway system. You’ve got your McDonald’s, your Wendy’s, your Arby’s, your KFC, and then a little bit farther down the road your McDonald’s, your Wendy’s, your Arby’s, your KFC, and then still farther down the road, for variety, your McDonald’s, your Wendy’s, your Arby’s, and your KFC. Which isn’t quite fair because you’ve also got your Pizza Huts and your diners, which are mixed bags because they don’t operate at precisely the same level of predictable quality control and can be anywhere from transcendent discoveries to opportunities for food poisoning.
The particular diner where Yorick and Felicia stopped for a late lunch only a couple of hours into the fine state of Arizona was a squat glass enclosure with a parking lot gritty with windswept sand from the surrounding desert. Their arrival raised a picturesque cloud of brown dust that settled over them even as they pulled into a parking space, thus illustrating the chief drawback inherent to the great American dream of piloting an open car through a landscape dominated by sand. Yorick said, “Kaaaaa!” Felicia said, “Oh, yeck.” And the two of them assumed distinctly unhappy expressions as the cloud settled and became part of their respective complexions.
It was their fourth stop in three hours, as Felicia had taken the directive to slow Yorick down with a professional zeal she brought to few activities that didn’t involve dressing up like a high school cheerleader. Had she needed to pee more often, or had he been less motivated by lust, Yorick might have been tempted to take her to an emergency room and demand an immediate test on her failing kidneys.
Felicia got out of the car and ran her fingers through her hair, managing to dislodge much of the grit. “You know what?”
“What?” said Yorick, who had never been any good at guess-what games.
“I think we need to put the top up for the rest of this trip. I’m getting a bad burn.”
Yorick’s crest fell. He’d been hoping for the night of sensual delights that still eluded him, having suffered coitus not-on-your-life-us not once but three times now: the first disappointment thanks to the flakiness of the girl his good friend Keith Custer had set him up with, the second thanks to Frank showing up to banish that strange Monica woman from his room, and the third when Felicia had needed to flit back home and pack for their cross-country trip. Now, with sunburn an issue, even tonight was in jeopardy. “Really?”
“I’m not really a day person, George. I work nights, and I’m usually asleep this hour of the afternoon. Another hour or two on the road and I’m going to start hallucinating giant insects.”
Well, he thought, at least it’s the right neighborhood for it.
The diner was empty but within shouting distance of appetizing, most of it cordoned off by a “wet floor” sign indicating that some thought had been given to mopping it today. Yorick suspected that it had more to do with herding the few available customers nearer to the counter so t
he lone waitress, a plump redhead with a speed bump of a nose and enough freckles to qualify as a map of the Milky Way, wouldn’t have to walk too far from the kitchen to keep them all supplied with carbs and caffeine. There were only two other customers, sharing a booth. One was a beautiful and petite young woman with bubblegum-pink hair, too much eye shadow, and enough bracelets to set off every airport metal detector in her time zone, even when she wasn’t flying. The other was a rather bemused fellow in his late twenties, prematurely balding, with eyes like poached eggs and a chin that offered little in the way of demarcation between the left and right hemispheres of his face. He watched his companion’s ravenous consumption of french fries with an expression suggesting that he didn’t quite know who she was or why she was spending time with him. As Yorick and Felicia sat down, the woman with the pink hair was saying, “Oh, don’t worry about me, George. I don’t need sleep. I’m, like, a genetic mutant or something.”
“Hey,” Yorick said cleverly, as he and Felicia settled into the booth next to their doppelgangers. “That guy’s named George, too!”
The other George overheard and raised an eyebrow of interest at this. “You’re named George, too? Really? What’s your last name?”
“Yorick,” said Yorick.
This flabbergasted the other George for some reason. “Spell that.”
Yorick spelled it: “Y-O-R-I-C-K.”
“Wow. I’m George Urich. U-R-I-C-H.”
“That’s amazing,” said Yorick.
Felicia was not impressed. “What are the odds?”
But Yorick wouldn’t let it go. “We’re headed for New York. What about you guys?”
“New York!” said Urich.
Felicia tried to hide in the menu. “Swell. We have a caravan now.”
The woman with the bracelets actually seemed a little unnerved and told Felicia, “I swear if your name’s Anastasia, too, I’m so out of here.”
Another car, passing the diner from the west, slowed down, pulled a U-turn a hundred yards down the road, and then came back and pulled into the parking lot, summoning the same sirocco. It was a rental, more generic than theirs, white in theory but a sandy brown by the time the detritus settled. The lone woman who got out wore a shoulder-length black wig and wraparound amber sunglasses. She wore a suit just a hair too large for her, an affectation she made work and which made Yorick wonder about hidden shoulder holsters.
