Craving

by Kristina Meister

  “Isn’t the purpose of a greeting to initiate contact?” His arm curved around my head and poked me in the forehead. “It would be rude not to open my eyes. Are you hungry?”

  Rubbing my forehead, I shrugged. “I could sure use some of that coffee.”

  He opened the wardrobe and set the stack of my folded clothes on the end of the bed. “I’ll go down and get you some food. Take a shower and get ready to tell me the story again from beginning to end, with all the detail you can recall.”

  I gave him a sly glance. “I never could summarize.”

  He smirked. “Then I will be sure to ask pointed questions.”

  He left the apartment and I could hear the stairs creak as he descended. While he was gone, I took a quick shower and as I pulled my T-shirt over my head, realized he had had my clothes laundered.

  “Seriously, people like him don’t exist.”

  I wondered what his story was, if he had done or experienced something horrible enough to push him into such a careful and insightful life, or if he had sprung from his mother’s womb that way; the quiet boy in class, the child who rescued baby birds, the teenager who made friends with everyone, the young man who traveled the world doing good deeds. Where was his family? Did he have siblings? Why a coffee shop?

  As I came out of the bathroom in a daze of romantic reflections, I heard a voice garbled by the mechanical erosion of a loudspeaker, and in one moment, my blood ran cold.

  “I can check,” it rasped, grating off my neuronal insulation.

  I slipped down the hallway and concealed myself behind the wall, disgusted with myself and everything else for conflicting reasons.

  “It won’t do any good. She’ll want to go there herself,” Arthur replied quietly.

  “It’s dangerous.”

  I closed my eyes and listened carefully. It was definitely the voice from the phone call in my first vision, the voice of Eva’s stalker.

  “She is determined and I will not stand in the way of what she believes is right.”

  “But that place is . . .”

  Arthur made a soft sound of disapproval in his throat. “It is a private hell, and if she is willing to tread through it to save another, I am willing to follow.”

  There was a pause and while I tried not to breathe too loudly, I wondered if he was speaking of me, of Club Trishna, and if he was, why he was talking to the man I had thought attacked Unger?

  “It’s just as dangerous for you.”

  I heard the swish of pages being turned. “I will be careful.”

  The gruff voice mumbled something unintelligible.

  “Your affection is appreciated and returned, Sam,” Arthur said with a smile in his voice.

  “So what are we going to do about him?”

  Arthur chuckled. “He’s been sitting out there all night. Surely he’s tired and hungry. Send out some coffee and a cinnamon roll.”

  “He’ll come in,” Sam warned.

  “Sam, we are not a fortress.”

  Sam grumbled again, but said he would do it. I heard a click and knew the conversation had ended. In the silence, I tried to make sense of it. Was Sam a bad person? He couldn’t be if he was concerned about Arthur, for even with the association, my opinion of my constant hero had not diminished. If anything, I respected him more for being so incredibly judicious in his dealings with the man who at least had it in him to injure a police officer. Most importantly, though: who was the lucky recipient of the cinnamon roll?

  “It seems that your future is coming true,” Arthur said into the empty room. “Detective Unger has been staking out the shop since you came in, but never left. No doubt he has added another name to his list.”

  Caught eavesdropping, I stepped out from behind the wall sheepishly. Arthur was sitting at his desk, several books open and receiving his undivided attention.

  “I’m sorry,” I offered, for all the crimes against him that I had perpetrated.

  He shook his head. “None of it was your doing, except spying on me.”

  “I wasn’t . . . I mean,” I looked at the kitchen counter. A tray with a cup of coffee and a cinnamon roll waited for me. More gifts to make me feel inadequate. The least I could do was tell the truth. “I recognized Sam’s voice.”

  He turned suddenly and without looking for me, latched his eyes onto my face. “Unusual, since he rarely speaks.”

  “He’s the man in the suspenders at the coffee bar.”

  Arthur smiled. “The manager.”

  “I heard his voice in my first vision.”

  His eyes stayed on me and picked apart my thoughts with that unerring precision that would have made my skin crawl, if not for the tenderness and sympathy I saw there.

  “I will assume that the context was bad, since you were suspicious enough to hesitate.”

  I nodded, my hands clasped in front of me. The last thing I wanted to do was make him question the trustworthiness of his employees, but I had made a decision to rely upon the visions.

  “Sam would never hurt anyone,” he professed. “Think carefully about what you remember and ask yourself if there is room for misunderstanding.”

  “And if there isn’t any room? He called me while I was calling Unger and I heard Unger’s phone ringing in the background, right after I heard someone jump him.”

  Arthur turned away. “‘Someone’ is a loose term.”

  It was true, but the likelihood of Sam happening upon Unger’s phone right after it had been dropped was very small unless he could see the future too.

  “I will remind you that what you saw was only a possible future,” he said quietly. “The Sam I know is kind.”

  It hadn’t seemed that way to me when I had encountered him in the shop. He had appeared withdrawn and nervous, but what could I say? Arthur was impossible to question. In fact, I could never imagine him being wrong.

  I decided to let it go and maneuvered so that I could glance over his shoulder. What I saw on the pages was unreadable. It seemed there were books of mathematical equations and several texts in various languages.

  “Arthur?”

  “Yes?”

  “How many languages do you speak?”

  “As many as I need to.” His eyes were sliding from book to book, without a discernible rhythm.

  “You’re not very forthcoming, are you?”

  The eyes found me. “You are a solver of mysteries, Lilith. Would you be half so interested in me if I revealed myself to you?”

  For a moment, I couldn’t interpret what he said. There was no tone to it, no context. I couldn’t believe he would spurn me when he’d so easily accepted my affection earlier, but I wasn’t sure what he meant.

  He gave a catlike blink. “You are interested in me. You would have gone, otherwise.”

  “True,” I said ambivalently.

  “Since you are a woman of discerning taste, that interest is a compliment that I appreciate, and am hesitant to destroy by seeming less awesome.”

  The laugh spasmed out of me before I even knew I found what he said funny. “Discerning taste? Have you been listening at all? I have no taste.” He frowned and my hands flew up. “I didn’t mean it like that! I meant that I . . . I don’t know. I’m giving up.” I heaved a sigh and walked toward the window.

  “Whatever questions you have,” he said, “I will answer.”

  “Cryptically,” I shot back.

  “I will tell you whatever will make you happiest.”

  “Meaning you’ll deceive me if I might not like what you say?”

  “Meaning that I will give you more mysteries to solve.”

  As I parted the curtains, I grumbled as Sam had done.

  His laugh was soft. “When you are free from graver concerns and can be happy with the finer points, then perhaps we will discuss them.”

  “Hmm,” I intoned. He was right; I was interested, but it wasn’t pure interest. Part of me wanted a distraction that I somehow knew he’d never be willingly.

  I blinke
d in the light. Unger was sitting in his car, directly across the street, looking as stressed out and pensive as usual. As a girl in a red polo shirt delivered the coffee and pastry curbside, a thought came to me.

  “How did you know that he was Detective Unger?”

  Arthur’s head tilted. “Were you expecting any other stalkers to drop by today?”

  The words reminded me of Eva’s complaint. If Sam wasn’t the stalker, who was? Or maybe he was the stalker, but wasn’t really a stalker, just got mistaken for one. I sighed in frustration.

  “Not really.”

  Arthur stood up just as Unger’s car door opened. As the detective crossed the street and opened the door beneath my feet, Arthur patted my head.

  “You have lost faith in me.”

  I turned and glared up at him flirtatiously. “No, I’m just constantly impressed by your deductive reasoning.”

  “Elementary, my dear Lilith.” He sighed. “We can’t pretend you aren’t here, so should I greet the detective, or will you do the honors?”

  “I need to stay out of this.”

  His laughter surprised me. “She says to the man who told her the very same thing.”

  With a playful punch, I pushed him toward the door. “I just want to watch him for once. If it’s possible, mention the man at the club,” I instructed. “I want to hear his reaction.”

  At the door, Arthur turned and eyed me. “You’ll be spying again? That’s very dishonest.”

  I reached up and poked his forehead. “He’s sitting in a coffee shop. He has no expectation of privacy. How is that dishonest?”

  Touching his face gingerly, he led the way down the stairs. I waited at the landing until I heard the Dutch door open and Unger’s voice introduce itself. It was a busy day; shoppers and business people were traipsing in and out, clattering dishes, chatting loudly, and so it was not surprising that a few moments later, I heard the top half of the door shut and lock into place.

  He’s trying to make you feel dishonest. No, there were no half-truths with Arthur and I marveled at how quickly he was teaching me to interact with him.

  “Yes, Detective, I’ve been expecting you.”

  “Oh? How’s that?” I heard the little notebook flip open and the pen click into the ready position.

  Arthur said nothing. There must have been an expression on his handsome face, because a few seconds later, Unger made an annoyed groan.

  “Don’t tell me, she pulled the Great Karnak again?”

  I barely suppressed my snort. In the juxtaposition of the two men, I came to see exactly how unbalanced the scales were. Unger was good, but not good enough to tell that Arthur was not the type of person to get obscure references to Johnny Carson.

  “The Egyptian Temple?” Arthur murmured in confusion.

  “The psychic, Karnak!” Unger blurted out in incredulity. “Never mind. Not important.”

  I heard the metal stool scrape across the floor.

  “How do you know Ms. Pierce?”

  “Which one?”

  “Take your pick,” Unger said sardonically.

  “Eva Pierce was a repeat customer and friend. Her sister and I met at her funeral. I was the only guest.”

  Unger shifted in embarrassment. “So you two started hanging out?”

  “She came here yesterday by chance. That was the second time we met. She passed out in my shop and I let her stay upstairs. Whatever she saw in her vision frightened her.”

  Unger, still feeling badly about his absence from the formal good-bye, did not bite back as harshly as I anticipated. “You believe her then?”

  “She knew my name. I never told her.”

  “You could be mistaken.”

  “I’m not. I only give my name to people who will need to call me, Detective. She knew it and I am now glad that she does.”

  Unger persisted, ever the rational cop. “Then maybe her sister wrote it down and she saw it.”

  “This is a book bindery, Detective. What do you imagine it is that I do here? If she’d written it down, I would have seen it and known how she might have seen it.”

  “Remind me to never bring my diaries here,” Unger muttered.

  “If you’d like your notes preserved with confidentiality, I could manage it, though I confess I find the concept of justice to be indecipherable,” Arthur offered, and again I tried not to chuckle at how well he could read people. The job was Unger’s life and it brought the detective’s lack of depth to the forefront to be examined closely.

  “No thanks. I’d rather not have them to look at when I retire.”

  “A man like you could never retire,” Arthur insisted in his softest voice.

  An understanding of some kind was reached in the awkward moment of silence.

  “So you read her journals then?”

  “Eva wanted me to. She needed someone to see her, but have no stake in her life.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Tell me, Detective, does every victim you encounter want your sympathy?”

  Unger paused. “No.”

  “Eva was too sensitive to allow anyone to look at her thoughts, but someone had to see or she would be a non-person. You can understand that, I trust.”

  “Yes, I suppose.” I could hear him shuffle his feet. “What did Lilith see in her vision?” he finally asked, as if he didn’t want to, but had no choice.

  My opinion of him was evolving rather quickly; once he had been the one stake tying my hot air to the ground, then he was a nail in my sister’s coffin, but now I could see he was a square peg in a round world. He was a nice man with a difficult job that he probably did very well, when he wasn’t dealing with the extraordinary.

  Arthur sighed. “Why don’t you ask her yourself? Though, I can understand if she’d refuse to speak to you, since in her vision you seemed to be suspicious of her.”

  “Has she told you anything about the circumstances?” Unger demanded a bit defensively. “Her sister had a lot of money and though she had access, it wasn’t hers to do with as she pleased without her sister out of the way.”

  My mouth fell open. With all the fabulous suspects that existed, he was going for me, when not two days before he had insisted it was a suicide. I was the one who had tried to convince him of wrongdoing in the first place!

  “I can assure you, Detective, money is the last thing Lilith Pierce cares about right now and the bank records will prove it,” Arthur defended. “Many people claim to love their siblings, but what they feel is the pull of relation. They are alike in some part and it is expected that they will support one another, but that doesn’t mean that there is affection. Eva Pierce was more than that to Lilith.”

  My mouth shut. I closed my eyes and leaned against the wall.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Lilith sacrificed her happiness for Eva, and even though it didn’t work out as she planned, even though there was some resentment there, even though they had their differences, each knew what the other felt.” His voice lifted and I knew he was speaking to me, tucked in concealment, trying desperately not to cry. “Lilith wanted her sister to succeed and regretted that she wasn’t able to give more, that her stamina gave out. Eva knew she was a disappointment and regretted that Lilith had felt so protective of her. Each wanted the other to live for herself and it is a sad irony that neither did.”

  Then I knew I didn’t just value Arthur, I respected him immensely and would have followed him anywhere.

  “What are you saying?”

  “I am saying that Eva killed herself and left the money as a gift.”

  “And why should I believe you? For all I know, you argued with Eva about the money, pushed her off a roof, and the two of you are upstairs celebrating. For all I know the vision stuff is a hoax.”

  Arthur was silent for some time. If it had been me to speak next, I know I would have had some kind of spiteful retort, but like any lover of art, I wanted to watch the master put Unger in his place so gently that the man ap
preciated the correction.

  “There is not a single person,” he said softly, “that will tell you Eva was harmed. She took her own life and right now, Lilith is mourning what she perceives to be her own failure to prevent it.” He said nothing about the affront. True to form, he let it slide, forgiven, and put Unger again in his debt. “You should be asking yourself, not ‘what happened to Eva?,’ but ‘why would Eva do it, when everything else was turning out so well?’”

  “How long have you been a detective?” Unger countered.

  “How long has it been since you recalled that humans feel things to a distraction? Rational thought is not important in such times and often what they do and say makes no sense to any of us.”

  Both men were silent and I could imagine the battle of glances that was taking place; Unger would attack and push forward, but never gain any ground. Arthur had no ground to take. Eventually Unger would be sapped of energy and give up, and Arthur would take his hand and call him a friend.

  After a while, Unger huffed in surrender.

  “What did she see?”

  “A murder.”

  “I can’t dispatch uniforms on a premonition.”

  I was sure Arthur was shrugging. “If she goes tonight, a man will die at Club Trishna, by the river. Of this I am certain.”

  “Because she knew your name?”

  “The same way she knew yours. Tell me it does not make an impression.”

  Unger coughed. “Where is she?”

  I stepped into the doorway. “Right here, Unger, and you’re lucky Arthur’s teaching me composure.”

  Chapter 12

  He stared at me. “You realize what you’re telling me sounds completely . . .” I gave him a wry look. “Of course you do,” Unger finished and swiped his hand over his unshaven face.

  “I have to stop it,” I declared.

  Arthur’s eyes were closed and he was turned away from me slightly, but his aura was so strong I could tell when he did not agree with me.

  “What, Arthur? Say it.”

  Unger glanced at him, a look of trepidation on his face.

  “Ursula did what she did to frighten you. If you do not go, there is no proof she will do anything, but if you do, you will certainly do something you’ll regret, because she is certain to strike.”