by Bill Walker
Chapter Nine
Miami, Florida
22 April 1994
“I don’t think you should be going to work, Jack. You’ve had a very rough time. You need rest,” Leslie said when they pulled out of the hospital’s parking lot.
She was right about that. It had been a week of hell. After his “Awakening,” for that was what he called it, an abrupt return to consciousness after forty-three years of ignorant bliss, the doctors put Jack through every flaming hoop imaginable. There were blood tests, neurological tests, cell degeneration tests, tests to test the tests’ reliability, x-rays, scans, and enemas every day at 1300 hours. Old Peter Lorre was having the time of his life. Jack hoped he never really got sick. God knows what they’d do then.
After all of that, Dr. Manstein released Jack at 0700 the following Monday with two prescriptions and a big smile on his face. He’d gotten his damn MRI after all.
“Are you listening to me? I don’t want you going to work today.”
“Leslie, I’m fine. Hell, the doctors had a field day for a week, they didn’t find a thing. I need to do something.”
“No, you don’t. You’ve had a trauma and you’re going home.”
Jack was in no mood to argue. He would just let her drop him off and then do whatever the hell he wanted.
“Fine. Just take me home,” he said.
She stared at him, her brows furrowed in concern. He knew he should be grateful she cared, but right now all he wanted was to get away from her. Ever since the night at the restaurant, she’d become different somehow—bossy and meddlesome. Every moment she visited him felt like a subtle inquisition. Besides that, what she’d told him about Malloy still rankled him.
“I called Reece and he said it was all right for you to take some time off.”
This really surprised Jack.
“I’ll bet that was a Kodak moment,” he said.
“Now, Jack, you really don’t give him credit. He’s a reasonable man—”
“Reece? Reasonable? Are you sure we’re talking about the same person? Jesus Christ, Leslie! The other night at dinner you were calling him a toad.”
“I know, but I was angry about that Malloy woman, and he did apologize for his behavior at the Party meeting, said he’d had too much to drink.”
“Now that sounds like the Reece I know.”
“Anyway, he said it was okay for you to take off next week. They’d get someone to take up the slack for you.”
“Great,” Jack said angrily, sliding down into his seat. He actually had no intention of ever going back to the Ministry again. Not now, not ever.
They crossed over the Julia Tuttle Causeway and turned left onto Biscayne. An old man dozed on one of the bus benches and a piece of tattered newspaper blew along the gutter. The streets were just waking up, the traffic still light. Being Monday, the road would be clogged with cars in less than an hour. Hard to believe it could ever be this peaceful.
In the distance, the traffic signals blinked in unison from red to green, like a line of ever-vigilant soldiers marching cadence. He reached over to the dash, turned off the air conditioning and opened the passenger window, letting the warm wind blow in. The air smelled of hibiscus interlaced with the aromas of saltwater and gasoline fumes.
Morning.
Even as a small boy growing up in Connecticut, he’d loved this time of day, a time when the sun was low, and the shadows were long. He would get up early every day, make bread and butter sandwiches and take a walk around the neighborhood. While chewing on his makeshift breakfast, he marveled at the rich smells of new-mown grass, the sparkle of everything under a crystalline coat of morning dew, the cheery sounds of birds singing to each other, and the buzz of countless insects. In the newness of each day, the whole world belonged just to him.
“What’re you thinking?” Leslie said.
“Oh, nothing. Just bygone days and lost youth,” he said, a wistful smile playing across his face.
He’d expected a smile or a cute remark, but not the blank look he got.
Soon they came to the drawbridge, which marked the transition from Biscayne to Brickell Avenue. Fortunately, the subs were not yet on their way out to sea. The tires made a roaring sound when they drove over the metal bridge, and he thought he saw a flying fish splash in the river. The bridge was deserted.
Thirty years before, middle-aged black men with their bamboo fishing poles stood shoulder to shoulder, laughing and drinking their beer from paper bags, trying to catch their lunch. They’d had all been resettled. And now Jack knew what that meant. He knew the Resettlement was a sham, like everything he’d ever been taught. Names like Auschwitz, Dauchau, and Treblinka came to mind. What were their names here, he wondered? Where were the death camps here?
Jack still marveled at the two lives he carried in his brain, still half-believed he’d gone insane. But he knew that was not the case. That other life, the one where Hitler had died in 1945 in a bunker in a bombed-out Berlin, where Nazis were only a hated fringe group, where freedom of speech was guaranteed, where no one need fear their government—that other life was real. He’d lived it as surely as he was now living this one.
He remembered Wiley and all their times together growing up: scraped knees, first loves, high school and college, their first jobs at the agency, joining the Anderson Club, Armand Bock, the Nine Old Men, Werner Kruger, Chessman, and... Curly Williams.
The meeting was tonight, somewhere in Coconut Grove, and Jack intended to be there come hell or high water. He had to know if Curly remembered as well. He had to know for sure that all he remembered wasn’t really the result of some busted blood vessel in his head that Peter Lorre couldn’t find.
Leslie put on her turn signal and steered the car into the driveway of 444 Brickell. Jack nodded at the guard, who smiled and waved back, his arm making a lazy arc in the air. The car slowed under the pillared overhang in front of the glass entrance.
“Would you like me to come up?” she said.
He grasped her arm, leaned over, and kissed her lightly on the lips.
“That’s okay. I think I want to take a nap.”
She nodded, unable to hide the look of disappointment on her face. He felt guilty.
“I’ll see you tonight?”
“Uhh, maybe we should take a rain check on that too,” he said.
She nodded again as he climbed out of the Mazda and headed in through the glass doors. Leslie hesitated a moment, watching him, then stepped on the gas and rolled out of view.
The mailbox was jammed so full, he could barely pull anything out without ripping it. Inside were the usual Party circulars exhorting everyone to be vigilant against terrorists and wrong thinkers. Christ. If they only knew. There were also telephone and gas bills, the Party magazine STRUGGLE, and a get-well card from Denise. He smiled and shook his head. He was lucky to have such a good friend.
Good friend...
Suddenly, Wiley Carpenter’s earnest face sprang up in his mind. Jack wondered if Wiley were still blissfully unaware of the past, the real past. He supposed Wiley would have tried to contact him in some way. Then again, maybe not. In the rigidly controlled society of Nazi America, all forms of communication were tightly monitored. No one could ever be sure their phones or faxes weren’t tapped. And no one could travel as they had before World War Two. World... War... Two. He liked the sound of that. It sounded so much better than the pompous and ego-inflated “Great Struggle.” Before that time, everyone could cross state lines, travel to other countries—do practically whatever they wanted. Now to travel anywhere required a ton of paperwork and a million rubber stamps.
America’s institutions remained in name only. The constitution had been revised in 1946 after two years of repressive martial law. Curfews remained in effect for ten years. Only after the sixties did things settle down into this stifling homogeneous quagmire they called society.
God, the Sixties.
Both versions of that remarkable decade contrasted in his
mind, like black on white. No Rock and Roll existed in this version of the present. Only state-sponsored drivel. There’d been no Elvis, no Beatles, no Rolling Stones, no Jimi Hendrix. Jack choked back a tear as he imagined that great guitarist dying in some unnamed concentration camp, where all his people had no doubt perished.
Driving those thoughts from his mind, Jack stepped into the high-speed elevator.
“Floor, please.”
The sterile, electronic voice sounded especially annoying at this moment.
“Fuck you, please,” Jack said.
“That request does not correlate. Please state your—”
“All right, all right,” Jack said, feeling foolish. “Fifty.”
“Voice print access accepted. Thank you, Mr. Dunham.”
The elevator shot up the shaft, making Jack light-headed. He watched the LED readout scrolling through the numbers, so fast the individual digits blurred into each other. Presently, it slowed and stopped, the steel doors sliding open with a hiss.
Pulling out his keys, he walked to his door, stopping halfway there.
It was open.
Jack looked up and down the hallway, afraid the burglar might still be there, then decided to risk it. He walked inside and glanced around. Nothing appeared out of place, but State Security were experts at searching. With their highly specialized Search and Seizure Team, they could go through someone’s entire house in an hour and leave virtually no trace of their presence. A sweat broke out on his forehead. If they’d been here, what were they looking for?
“Hi, Jack.”
He whirled around and saw Denise standing in the doorway leading to his bedroom, her eyes like round saucers. She had a glass in her hand and even across the room he could see she’d been drinking. His eyes swiveled to the bar, where his previously unopened bottle of Thulian Vodka was now half-empty.
“Gott, Malloy. You want to give me a cardiac? What are you doing here?”
She crossed the room and stumbled into his arms. Her hair smelled of lavender and fermented potatoes.
“Whoa, hold on, what is this?”
“Oh, God, Jack. I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “State Security came this morning. I barely got out the window. I—I think they got Cecily.”
“How, why?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know what to think or who to believe. I think maybe Cecily ratted me out.”
Jack shook his head. He still felt woozy.
“Wait a minute. I thought you said they got her?”
“We had loads of time to get out. She wouldn’t go, said something about stalling them. Jack, we both could’ve gotten clean away.”
“Jeez, I’m sorry.”
“Me too. She didn’t use her head.” Denise took a deep breath. “Can I stay here? At least until the meeting?”
“What about after that?”
“You don’t need to worry about that.”
Jack gripped her shoulders. “I do worry. What are you going to do?”
“It’s time for me to get out—go underground. Lambda has a network that will get me to Canada. A lot of us are there now. They’ll take care of everything.”
“You want some coffee?”
“Please.”
Denise sat on the small couch while Jack went into the tiny kitchen. Soon the heavenly odor of coffee laced with vanilla beans filled the apartment. Jack brought out two cups, handing one to Denise. She sipped it and sighed.
“Oh, that tastes good.”
Jack sat next to her and put his feet up on the glass coffee table.
“So how did you get up here, Malloy? Make a date with the guard?”
She held up a key.
“Don’t you remember Christmas?”
“Except for you, most of it’s a blank.”
She smiled then, erasing the recently etched worry lines from her face.
“Well, let me refresh you. After the party we came back here, and you pressed this into my hand while professing your undying love.”
“You make it sound so silly.”
“It was, but it was also very sweet.”
“What about the elevator?”
“You used your access card to add my voice code.”
Jack shook his head and smiled. Sometimes recklessness paid off.
“Well, I’m glad you had this place to come to. I’m glad you’re here.”
“Me too,” she said, grabbing his hand.
It was suddenly very hard to breathe. He looked into her eyes and saw both fear and desire there. He also noticed for the first time that there were bright green flecks inside the blue of her irises, and that she had a light smattering of freckles across her nose.
Before he knew it, he was kissing her. Her lips felt warm, soft, urgent pressed against his. He felt her tongue wash over his, probing, almost desperate. She moaned deep in her throat, then pulled away.
“Jack, we don’t have to—”
“Ssssh,” he said, putting a finger to her lips. “Come on.”
He took her into the bedroom and he slowly, deliberately, stripped her of clothes. She trembled at his touch, something that really turned him on. Shedding his own clothes, he came to her, their bodies melting into each other. She was not as tall or as amply endowed as Leslie, but her taut, muscular body—the result of hours of workouts with free-weights—felt perfectly at home against his, like a second skin. He kissed her neck, licked her large, brown nipples, and ran his hand down to her thick, dusky mane of pubic hair. His hand teased the soft lips of her vagina and she moaned again, louder, more insistent. Breaking the embrace, Denise pushed him back onto the bed, straddled him, and guided him into her warm wetness.
She thrust, slowly at first, a look of closed-eyed ecstasy on her face. Licking her lips, she pumped faster. Jack thrust upward to meet her, his hands on her slim, curvaceous hips. They both moaned as the pace increased. Suddenly she threw back her head and screamed, then collapsed onto him, spent and sweating.
Jack turned her over and began to kiss her all over her body. He reveled in the muscular lines of her arms. He ran his tongue down the tautly defined muscles of her stomach, each one standing out like a washboard. Writhing, she parted her legs, allowing him access. He bent down and lost himself within her.
“You know, you really know how to wear a guy out,” Jack said, smiling lazily.
It was now late afternoon. They’d spent the entire day exploring each other’s bodies and now, as the sun sank in the west, he felt a warm glow spread through him that he’d never felt before.
“That’s because you’re in such lousy shape, Dunham.”
“Yeah, but what a way to go.”
“Oh, brother.”
He kissed her and looked into her eyes.
“Marry me, Malloy.”
She sat bolt upright, the sheet falling away, exposing her breasts.
“What!”
“Marry me. We’ll live in Montreal, eat wine and cheese, make babies.”
“Jack, have you lost your mind? What about Leslie?”
His face clouded over. “She doesn’t matter anymore. Maybe she never did.”
She stared at him, her mouth hanging open in shock.
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Dead serious.”
“Aw, shit, Jack,” she said, tears coming to her eyes.
He sat up and put his arms around her. “What’s so wrong with that? I love you. And I’m pretty damn sure you love me.”
“Damnit, I do love you. But you know what I am.”
“I don’t care.”
She looked at him then, her eyes probing his. Jack suddenly felt more naked than he’d ever been.
“Tell me something,” she said. “Could you ever share me?”
“I—uhh.”
“No, Jack. Tell me the truth. Could you share me with other women? Because I can’t give them up. Loving women is part of me. Could you come home at night expecting to find me and, instead, find that I was out with one of my girl
friends?”
“I could try,” he said.
She smiled wistfully, caressed his face, and kissed him lightly on the lips.
“You’re a liar,” she whispered.
He looked out the window, unable to respond to that, knowing in his heart she was right.
“You’re also the most wonderful man I’ve ever known, Jack Dunham. If I could ever be completely straight, I’d marry you in a heartbeat. But—”
“I know,” he said, fighting back his own urge to cry. Why did he have to be such a sentimental idiot?
She squeezed his hand and glanced toward the digital clock radio.
“We’d better get going. The meeting starts in an hour.”
Chapter Ten
Coconut Grove, Florida
22 April 1994
“Where’d you say this place is?” Jack said, trying to see through the overhanging trees. They had passed through the main drag of Coconut Grove and were now on a narrow two-lane road that led into Coral Gables, the name of which he’d forgotten. In his other life the Grove had been a lively village, with quaint streets lined with cafes and art galleries, and filled with a decidedly mixed crowd of bohemian artists, ex-hippies, yuppie entrepreneurs, society matrons having lunch, and pretty girls in T-back bikinis.
Here the streets lay deserted, bathed in the sickly-peach glow of crime lights. Garbage lined the streets and every storefront lay in shadow, its glass replaced by rotting plywood bearing the stenciled legend: Gerhard’s Board-Ups/305-555-7672. This had been a ghetto for the Blacks, much like the one in Liberty City. And like that other place, it was now a ghost town.
“The meeting’s been moved,” she said, glancing repeatedly in her rearview.
Presently, they found themselves on a small residential cul-de-sac lined with cars. A house at the end, lining the small turnaround, had all its lights on and music pouring out its windows. The music, Jack noted, was the typical state-sponsored crap that somehow remained popular in spite of its mindlessness. Denise pulled into one of the few empty spots.
“Won’t this party attract attention? I’d think your people would be nervous about that.”