By the end of the week, the miserable weather was due to return, but for now, it was perfect.
It seemed that a weight had lifted from the city along with the heat, that everyone had gotten up that morning in an exceptionally fine mood. David wondered if the ills of society were more tied to the weather than anyone suspected.
He parked blocks away from the Mind Institute and sat in his car. Two boys with chains hanging from their belts, divots of hair in the back, and a top stubble on their heads, gave David what they likely thought was a hard look. Then one of them smiled, sweet and friendly.
Weird day.
He had parked at a distance on purpose, feeling the urge to walk through the Psychic Fair, an area he had avoided for years. It was nothing more or less than a few city blocks offering a labyrinth of storefronts, boutiques, and parlors for those seeking advice, guidance, and diversion from psychic phenomena. Signs showing a black palm glowing on white background were common.
David passed a house with a front door painted like a tarot card—the card of love. A sign in the window said APPOINTMENT ONLY. Beneath the sign was a hand-lettered note that said WALK IN—SPECIAL HALF-OFF READING. The note had yellowed with age.
Candy Andy’s place had no such sign. His business was brisk, and all word-of-mouth, and he had the cachet of catering to clients in the know. David stood outside the glass door leading up to Andy’s apartment, looking inside at the dusty staircase, sporting those worn brown rubber treads. It was all so familiar. He felt bad for the young police detective he had been, looking over his shoulder as he traipsed up those stairs for another fix of hope.
He had decided years ago that Candy Andy had been nothing but a con, but maybe Teddy was right. A little bit of talent and a lot of panache could go a long way toward manipulating vulnerable people.
David blushed to think of the things Andy had made him do—stand under the shower for fifteen minutes with the water as hot as possible. Cleanse your body, your heart, your mind. The deferential way Andy had accepted his fee, as if financial transactions were embarrassing and beside the point. The limits he had set—you may come no more than every two weeks, but you may call every week.
The man had wanted the money, but he had enjoyed the power.
A curtain twitched in an upstairs window—the kitchen, as David remembered, smelling again the cloying fragrance of the tea laced with whisky that Candy Andy liked to drink.
One of these days, David thought, looking up the dark staircase.
The area picked up as he closed in on the Mind Institute. David passed two hookers heading the other way. One of them shook her head sadly.
“He’s a john, honey, he’s not going to fall in love.”
“But it’s in my palm, Vanna, she said—”
David kept moving.
The Mind Institute did not blend—not possible, it was complete Elaki design, a milky-white dome of thick glass over a snarl of small, narrow rooms. A billboard blinked with moving images—an Elaki behind a table reading scales. Elaki did not trust people to read.
The front door was not a door at all, just an open space, tall and narrow, Elaki-shaped. David went inside.
A feminine voice echoed. “Pleassse wait. Pleassse wait.”
It was dark in the foyer. Heavy wood latticework had been layered under the dome, blocking the light. David stood under diamond-shaped patterns of muted sunlight, remembering Teddy’s advice. Perfectly okay to be nervous, she’d told him, but watch that hostile edge. Some hostility is normal, but your best bet is to keep your mind on your daddy.
Your daddy. Such a Teddy thing to say.
It was harder to do than he imagined. He had perfected the art of putting his father out of his mind and was rusty now, when it came to calling him up.
David realized that an Elaki was in the room with him.
“Please, do you have the appointment?”
Male, David decided. Old. “My name is Silver. David Silver.”
And yes, indeed, he had the appointment. The Institute had accepted his initial call with a cautious nonchalance, but after they’d had time to check his financial records, they had been eager to accept his business.
“You are to be exsssspected, David Silver. Pleassse follow.”
The Elaki crept ahead, hunched over to one side, the right fin making rhythmic, jerky motions that looked involuntary. Gravel beds lay in strips on either side of a walkway that was uncomfortably narrow by human standards. The light here was blinding, no latticework beneath the glass, and David blinked, eyes aching. He knew his every move and physical reaction was being monitored by Peterson, Clements, Mel, and String, but he wished his partners were there with him. He missed Mel’s crude but effective way of diffusing situations by making vulgar remarks. Mel was like Alice in Wonderland—he had to say three outrageous things before breakfast.
The Elaki stopped, and David skidded to keep from running into him.
“Pleassse to go to the right, onward this way.”
David moved through an open doorway and squinted, eyes adjusting to the gloom. The room was covered in some kind of brown fabric—walls, floor, ceiling, like a sensory deprivation chamber.
“You are the David Silver?”
“Yes, I’m Silver.”
“You are made welcome. Please, do come all the way forward. I am Jordiki. Be hospitable here. Will you not have this chair?”
David went, nearly blinded by the change in light. The Elaki was hard to see, but David had the impression of unusual bulk, heavy, almost muscular eye stalks, stark white belly encased in a black outer section. David stepped up onto a platform and sat down. The chair and table were simple bleached oak, and the elevation allowed the Elaki to stand while David sat, eyes and eye prongs at a level.
Which meant the clientele was human, David thought. Prey was the word that came into his head.
David looked down at the desk. A collection of Elaki scales fanned across the top.
“When you have given information for this Institute, David Silver, it was not of the personal nature.”
No, David thought, it was of the financial nature. Which was really more to the point. You didn’t afford the Mind Institute on anything like detective’s wages—not if you had a family and the usual load of debt.
“These scales are of my person, and I must ask that you do not touch.”
David nodded. The Elaki twitched an eye prong, casting a look over David’s shoulder. The old Elaki came in with a mug, steam rising from the top. The smell was familiar. The same brew of tea used by Candy Andy.
The old Elaki set the tea on the table, a good ways from the scales.
What if I spill it? David thought.
“Please to drink. It will relax you, this liquid warmth, and is only tea leaves-in water.” The Elaki waved a fin. “No drugs of caffeine or any other toxin to pollute the body and mind. Please to forgive me that I do not join. I eat, drink, and smoke abstinence before scale reading, so the focus is complete and full circle.”
David picked up the mug and sipped, finding the tea hot and weak. He wondered if there were any extra additives, knew Miriam would be monitoring his blood chemistry.
The things he did to make a living.
“You have questions,” the Elaki said. A statement.
“I want to—”
The Elaki waved a fin. “No, please to wait. See this scale in the middle? This one you will pick up, you will handle. Please. Do not be shy with this. It is fragile, but can be manipulated safely. You may please put it here and when you leave, you will take this scale. You will keep it with you, and the future readings, if you desire such, will improve and intensity grow. Yes? This is understood?” The Elaki folded David’s scale in with the others, then fanned them back out again.
His voice became matter-of-fact. “I see two women, one dark, one light. I see one heart, your heart, which goes in two directions.”
David thought of being monitored. He could shrug it off, tell everyone it w
as bull.
“This is a difficult path, but worth the journey.”
Does this mean things will work out with Teddy? David wondered. And realized how vulnerable he was:
“The missing pet is in danger,” the Elaki said.
“Elliot?”
“I do not know. I see danger.”
“But he’s alive?”
“For now.” Jordiki paused. “Missing. This is a theme for you, David Silver.”
David nodded. “My—”
“Please, do not feed. Must not confuse what you will tell with what I will see. I see your makers, your parents. A cloud of dark for the mother. I see her eyes. She is deceased?”
Cruel, David thought. So very cruel.
“And the father is … alive.”
“Is he?”
“You do not know?”
“He left when I was ten years old. Disappeared. We haven’t been able to find him.”
“Ah. Please, a moment. Think of this man, this father, as you remember him. In the out loud, for my own benefit.”
“A tall man,” David said. “Broad-shouldered. Brown eyes, like me, we were … alike. He has—he had a large smile. A sense of humor. He liked playing jokes. He was religious. He had a code of morals and ethics which—”
“He held in reverence,” the Elaki said.
“Yes.”
“I see him.”
The statement, so matter-of-fact, so convincing, made the hair stir on the back of David’s neck.
“He is alive, David Silver. The father is alive.”
“Then where is he? Why didn’t he come home?”
“This I do not know.” The Elaki gathered the scales together slowly. “Perhaps another time, we can discover the answers that you seek. Good of the day, David Silver.”
FORTY-TWO
That night David dreamed of his father. He went into work feeling shaky and ill.
“Nothing in the tea,” Miriam told him.
“Nothing?”
“Just tea. Good notion, spilling it and wiping it up on your shirtsleeve. Don’t you carry a handkerchief?”
Mel gave him a sympathetic look. “Everybody’s a critic.”
Rose stood over him, shaking his shoulder. “David? Aren’t you working today?”
He opened his eyes. He had been dreaming again, something about his father and a baseball game. “What do you want?”
“David, it’s late, you—”
“Don’t ever wake me up again.”
She looked as if she was going to say something, then turned and walked away.
The phone rang and he picked it up. “Yes?”
“David? Mel. Where the hell are you?”
“Home, Mel, obviously.”
“Still sick, huh?”
David coughed. “Yes.”
“When you going back to the Institute?”
“Next week, probably. He said not to come till then.”
“Be sure you get in here first and get the monitors set up.”
“Sure, Mel.”
“Feds have Tatewood staked out, trying to get some kind of connection there. Peterson’s trying to get a warrant to search the Institute, get into their records, get a paper trail going. Nothing so far, so a lot is riding on you. Oh, and Teddy called again. You ever get back to her? She says—”
“Look, Mel, can a man be sick without all this fuss and bother? I’ll be in tomorrow, and I’ll deal with it then, okay?”
“Yeah, okay, sorry. Get well, David. We’re counting on you.”
David hung up and got dressed, making sure the scale was safe in his pocket.
FORTY-THREE
David sat in the small brown room, facing the Elaki. He dreamed of this room.
“I have found the father for you.”
David bowed his head so Jordiki would not see the tears that filled his eyes.
“Is time of much emotional joyousness, do not be the shame, David Silver. You must ease this well of hurt. This father does not know you.”
David cleared his throat. “I don’t understand.”
“He has experienced the permanent memory lapse.”
David’s head went up. “Amnesia?” Somewhere in the back of his mind, warning bells went off. Amnesia. No memory. Very pat.
But it made sense, did it not? There had never been a body, yet his father had not come home. He would never have abandoned them, never. Every milestone, David had expected to see him. Graduation from high school, then college, then the police academy. His marriage to Rose, the birth of his daughters, the suicide of his mother. Amnesia explained it all away.
He is telling you what you want to hear, came the thought.
“Where is he?” David said.
The Elaki waved a fin. “He is alive, but he does not thrive. His health has not been good, since this blow to the head of amnesia. He is a long way from here with the menial work. And on the list, the long list, for medical care.”
David felt a chill like ice. “He’s not going to die?”
Jordiki’s scales rippled, like a shudder. “Without the treatment of medical he needs, death is a possible outcome.”
“Where is he?”
“He is south in a New Orleans satellite town.”
“Rough places,” David said.
“He has been there some time and survived this.”
“Which one?”
“The one of the south loop. It is called Meridian. He brings the fish to a place of restaurant.”
“Name?”
“Crawdaddy’s. I do not know what this is, the crawdaddy. We will contact him for you.”
“I want to go myself.”
“As you wish it.”
“And I want to get him his treatment. Bring him here and—”
“David Silver, this father has been gone many years. He is an abuser of substances. He may not desire the homecoming. He may not desire the help.”
“I’m going.”
“I wish you well. Perhaps we can help with him—to arrange the treatment, if you cannot bring him home. Pleasse to go, to see. And to come to me if there be troubles. I wish you well; David Silver.”
David nodded, picked up his scale, and left.
FORTY-FOUR
No one here spoke english, David thought, not the way he knew it. And it was hot, really hot, the kind of heat that would make you gasp, if it hadn’t sapped your energy first. The day before, David had seen a woman slump against a wall and slide down dead to the ground. Heat.
It was a bad place, Meridian; a place where nobody who had anything ever wound up. As was the way in places like this, places where life dealt you nothing or worse and said take it or die, people took it, and gave it a dirty spin, creating a complex underbelly that had its own set of rules, its own pecking order, its own class of haves and have-nots.
People were the same, really, top to bottom.
David turned the faucet of the sink in his room and the fixture came off in his hand. A thin stream of rusty yellow water dribbled into the mildewed drain.
What had he been going to do? Wash his face?
He looked in the mirror, seeing with some surprise that he had not shaved in a while. Sweat glistened in the heavy growth of beard, giving him a grey look of illness. There were deep swollen circles beneath his eyes, and his hair was long and thick.
His shirt was not clean. The collar was grimy, the underarms yellow with sweat stains.
What would his father think?
Not your father, came a voice in his head. Not your father.
It would be so good just to see him, just to say hello. He would show him pictures of the girls, even of Rose. He would explain about Teddy, ask him, man-to-man, what to do.
He would take his father home.
He himself was a long way from home, that he was sure of, and he could not think how to get back. He felt homesick for something, he did not know what. The names of his daughters went through his mind. Lisa. Kendra. Mattie.
Fir
st he had to find his father.
He did not know how to turn the water off with a broken faucet. He left it dribbling into the sink.
FORTY-FIVE
It was him, no doubt, though he looked younger than David expected. Everything was right—the way he moved, intense, focused, wired. A trademark self-confidence that was so very attractive. A handsome man, dark and energetic, out of place here in this hot Southern city full of wispy sunburned men who moved languidly, as if they walked through soup and not air.
David decided then and there, no matter what, to help him. Even if things did not work out between them, even if there was no spark. It could only be a good thing for such a man to get another chance at life—such a man as his father.
Hi, Dad! Hey, Pop! That you, Daddy? Hello, you used to be my father. I look familiar to you, sir? How do you do? You don’t know me, but … Excuse me, I know this is going to sound strange … Could I just have one minute of your time?
David realized that the man was speaking.
“Sorry, I know this seems strange. I just got the oddest feeling I know you somehow?”
David felt warmth in his chest, right where the bullet scar throbbed. He knew that if he opened his shirt, the tissue would be red and livid.
“I beg your pardon,” the man said.
Then he smiled, and David knew that smile. He’d pay money for that smile, he’d lay his life down for it. If his mother could have seen that smile again, would she still have felt the need to string that rope and die?
The man inclined his head to one of the outdoor tables. “You look kind of shaky there. Sit down for a minute.”
The chairs were black spindly wire. David sat on the tiny round seat, hooked his toes on the precarious legs, and rested his elbows, making the table wobble back and forth.
His father steadied it with one hand, and his look was kind.
“Tell me,” he said.
The warning voice that had come and gone went away for good. David knew that his hands shook, that he looked ill and dirty. He sighed deeply and tried to smile, not quite sure what to say, but knowing that words didn’t matter all that much.
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