Trader

by Charles de Lint

  She looked up from his hands to his face and then she stopped in her tracks.

  “Johnny?” she said.

  It couldn’t be. But when he lifted his face to meet her gaze, Johnny Devlin’s unmistakable features were looking back at her. There’d been a welcoming smile on his lips until he recognized her. Something changed in his eyes and then he schooled his features into a carefully neutral expression. Watching the smile fade, Zeffy felt a pang of disappointment that she couldn’t explain.

  “I don’t have your money yet,” he said.

  Zeffy found herself shaking her head. “That’s not why I’m here. I was just...” She waved a hand back in the direction she’d come from. “Playing some music over there.”

  “That was you? You're good. Really good.”

  There was no reason that she should care in the least what he thought about her or her music, but Zeffy couldn't help but warm to the compliment. For a moment it was as though she'd never met him before, as though he was as much a stranger to her as had been the fortune-tellers and the boy on his skateboard. But then she remembered who it was sitting there on the ground, making his little stick men.

  Little stick men.

  She put her guitar case down so it was standing on its side and sat on it. Looking more closely at the small figures, she had to marvel at how much expression he managed to pull out of the wood with just a minimum of carving. Her gaze returned to the dog. It returned her gaze, a nervous twitch around its eyes, as though picking up on Johnny's reaction to her. It looked like some scruffy stray that nobody'd want, little say Johnny.

  Zeffy couldn’t figure it out. None of this made sense. Johnny was openly contemptuous of craftspeople who worked the streets. “Talentless losers with needy faces” was how Tanya had told her he'd described them once. “Why don't they get a real job instead of subjecting us to the pathetic crap they're trying to sell?” And apparently he hated animals. Cats, dogs, budgies, goldfish, whatever kind of pets people kept.

  “What’s happened to you?” Zeffy had to ask, curiosity overcoming her natural inclination to simply get up and walk away.

  “What does it matter?” he asked.

  He continued to work as he spoke, gaze moving from the carving in his hands to her face when he spoke, then down again. Around them, the lunch crowds had thinned so much that many of the vendors were beginning to pack up and leave. No one was paying attention to either them or their conversation, not even the weaver right beside them. He'd been putting his scarves away in a cardboard box but seemed to have become hopelessly distracted by a well-built spandex-clad woman on in-line skates who was doing slow circles around the pigeons by the War Memorial.

  Zeffy returned her attention to Johnny, still trying to figure out this apparent complete change in his personality and habits. She thought of Tanya’s insistence that something had happened to him—personality disorder, aliens, whatever—and couldn’t suppress a shiver.

  “That was some business you laid on us yesterday,” she finally said. “Tanya thinks you’ve turned into a pod person and to tell you the truth, you almost had me believing it for a while. The thing I can’t figure out is why you’re doing this. You trying to stiff Tanya for her money is a pretty cheap shot, but acting as though you’ve never met her...that’s really low, even for you.”

  His head lifted again. There was an expression in his eyes that was unlike anything she could imagine Johnny feeling, a lost, hopeless, despairing look. The look of someone at the end of his rope.

  “You want to know the truth?” he asked.

  Zeffy nodded.

  “I never met either one of you before yesterday morning.”

  “Oh, please.”

  “I really don’t much care what you believe,” he said, resignation weighing down his voice. “You came over here to ask me. It’s not like I went looking for you.”

  This was true. And Zeffy hadn’t been looking for him. She had better things to do with her time. But now that she had run into him, she’d hoped that he’d come clean with her, not continue this stupid game. Why she even wanted to know, she wasn’t sure. Because the whole business irritated her, she supposed.

  She watched him lay down the knife and carving he’d been working on. The dog stirred at his side and he put an arm around it, ruffling the stiff fur under its chin. That little show of affection irritated Zeffy even more.

  “Well, since we’re discussing the ‘truth,’” she said, “I have to tell you that I’ve never much cared for you. Never have—doubt I ever will.”

  “Fine.”

  “Oh, come on. Let’s cut through the BS. Why are you going through with this elaborate charade? I could care less for myself, but you’ve got to know it’s really messing up Tanya. You want to break it off with her, okay. It happens. So break it off. But don’t play these games. You’re not being fair to her.”

  “Fair. That’s a laugh.”

  Zeffy was trying to be calm about this, but she could feel her temper fraying.

  “What the hell’s gotten into you, anyway?” she demanded. “You were always self-centered, but the way you’re acting now goes way beyond normal.”

  He wouldn’t look at her. Head bent, he stared at the ground, stroked the dog. She could see his fingers trembling in its fur and had the sudden feeling that he was about to cry. This was so not Johnny that she got the creeps all over again.

  “Okay,” he said finally.

  Zeffy had been about to retreat from what she felt was turning into a seriously weird situation. Now she waited. Johnny finally met her gaze, a haunted look in his eyes.

  “You really want to know what’s going on?” he asked.

  She nodded, although now she wasn’t so sure.

  “To start with,” he said, “my name’s not Johnny Devlin. I know I look like him—Christ, I woke up inside his body yesterday morning, so I can’t blame any of you for thinking I am him. But I’m not. My name’s Max Trader. I’m a luthier. Until yesterday morning I’d never heard of Devlin, you, or your friend Tanya before. Until yesterday morning I had a good life, but now it’s all gone, shot to shit, just like that.”

  He snapped his fingers and the dog started nervously. He calmed it absently, fingers combing the dirty fur. Zeffy really wanted to leave now, but the weight of his gaze seemed to pin her to the spot.

  “If you want to talk to Devlin,” he went on, “go to my shop in the Market. He’s got my life—my apartment, my shop, my tools, my money, my friends. He’s got everything I spent a lifetime building and he’s not giving it up, now that he has it. All I got in exchange is what you see: no home. No money. No career. No friends. Nothing. Just Buddy here.”

  Zeffy could only stare at him.

  “You say you’re Max Trader,” she repeated slowly. “Of Trader Guitars.”

  “I was. Now I don’t know who I am anymore.”

  “I see...”

  Zeffy had never met Trader, but she’d seen articles about him in the papers and in Acoustic Guitar, lusted after one of his beautiful handmade instruments. She knew what he looked like, if only from pictures, and it was nothing like Johnny Devlin.

  She shook her head. “This is insane.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “No really. This isn’t funny at all.”

  “Do you see me laughing?”

  “So what are you trying to say? That somehow you and Max Trader switched bodies?”

  He shook his head. “Devlin and I have switched bodies. I told you. I’m Max Trader.”

  “Jesus,” Zeffy said. “You’re really sick, you know that?”

  He shrugged. “You asked. And nobody’s making you sit there and listen to me.”

  He turned his attention back to the dog, leaving Zeffy to fume. She wanted to hit him with her knapsack, let the heavy weight of all those coins knock some sense into him. She wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him until he owned up to the truth. Instead, she continued to sit there watching him fuss over the dog—k
nowing that he hated dogs—and didn’t know what to do.

  “So tell me something that Johnny wouldn’t know,” she said finally. “Something only Trader would know.”

  Anger flashed in his eyes. “How the hell would I know what Devlin does or doesn’t know?”

  “You know what I mean. Prove it to me.”

  “Why?”

  “So that I’ll believe you.”

  The anger left his eyes. Only the resignation remained. And a sadness. “There’s no way you can believe me,” he said. “Half the time I don’t believe me.”

  “But—”

  “Look, this is my problem, okay? There’s nothing you or anybody else can do about it. And there’s no point in pretending that you care about what happens to me because so far as you’re concerned I’m Johnny Devlin, and we already know how you feel about him. If I’d met you under different circumstances, maybe things’d be different, because I quite like you. But we didn’t. I don’t have a life and yours doesn’t include me except for the fact that I owe your roommate some money.”

  It was plain to Zeffy that he believed what he was saying, wholly and completely. He spoke with such conviction that she almost believed it all herself. The difference was, she knew the truth. What he was saying was impossible, so there were only two possible explanations. Either he was lying, or he was sick, and the longer she spoke with him, the less she thought he was lying.

  “You’re right,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “You and I never got along. But that doesn’t stop me from wanting to help you when you’re in trouble. I’d do the same for anyone.”

  His lips shaped a wry smile that she’d never seen on Johnny’s face before. It didn’t reach his eyes.

  “Even when you think I’m Johnny Devlin?” he asked.

  “Even when I—” Know you’re Johnny, she’d been about to say, but she caught herself. Play along with him for now, she told herself. “Even when I think you’re Johnny.”

  “I guess your beauty runs deeper than the skin,” he said.

  She blinked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “That you’ve got a good heart. It’s obvious that you despise Devlin, yet you’re still willing to help him. Not many people would do that. Most people would sit back and watch him take his fall.”

  Zeffy wasn’t sure what he was up to now. She’d almost think he was making a pass, but his present charm was nothing like what she was used to seeing in Johnny. Natural, instead of oily. Or was it only because she was on the receiving end of it this time, instead of watching it work on Tanya?

  “I think you should get some medical help,” she said.

  He nodded. “I’ve thought of it. I know it would be the smart thing to do. I think I’m crazy myself, half the time. But I know all these things—I have a lifetime of memories of being someone else and I’ve got to trust that they’re real or I’ll lose it completely.”

  “I guess.” Zeffy was still trying to be careful with what she said to him, still not sure why she even cared what happened to him. “But maybe it’s a disorder of some kind—something they can help you with through therapy.”

  “And if it’s not a disorder?” he asked. “What happens if I’m right?”

  “But that’s...” She hesitated.

  “Impossible,” he said, finishing her sentence for her. “I know. So they’d lock me away in a padded room and I’d probably be there for the rest of my life because I know who I am and I’m not going to pretend to be somebody else, I don’t care what it costs me or what people think. I’ll admit I’ve had my doubts, but if I’m not who I believe I am, I don’t think I could go on. I couldn’t be Johnny Devlin. Everything he stands for is repugnant to me.”

  Zeffy knew exactly what he meant. She felt the same way about Johnny. Except this was Johnny and he didn’t seem at all repugnant to her right now. He seemed lost and hurting and filled with a deep despair, but there was still a strength underlying his pain, a strength she’d never seen in Johnny. One of the things she’d disliked the most about him was the weakness he couldn’t quite hide under his bravado and charm—at least not from her. Or not until now.

  God, this was confusing.

  She’d heard of this sort of thing before, multiple personalities, many of them unaware of the others’ existence. But it was something you read about in a magazine or a book, or saw on Geraldo; not something that showed up in your own life. She had no experience with this sort of situation. No idea at all how to handle it. She didn’t even know why she was involving herself, except there was something so vulnerable about the man sitting across from her that she was beginning to have difficulty thinking of him as Johnny.

  He even looked different. A little scruffier. Clothes rumpled, two days’ worth of beard, hair loose, all mussed up instead of combed back. He held himself differently, too. The way he moved, his posture, his facial expressions. Then there were the carvings and the dog...

  “Kind of leaves us at an impasse, doesn’t it?” he said.

  The rueful smile was back, a sweet smile that worked its way through Zeffy’s already crumbling defenses. This was crazy, she thought, as she caught herself smiling back.

  “So...how’s business?” she asked, just to change the subject.

  He shrugged. “So-so. But I’m actually enjoying myself. The last time I did this kind of thing was too long ago.”

  “You used to do wood carving before?” she asked.

  “Not Devlin,” he said. “Me. Max.”

  “Oh, right. So how much do you sell them for?”

  “Whatever people want to pay.”

  Zeffy dug into her knapsack and came up with a few dollar bills.

  “You don’t have to buy one,” he said.

  “No, I want to.”

  She chose one that looked like a little toadstool of a man with a raggedy peacock’s tail and enormous eyes. Afraid that it would break in her knapsack, she held it in her hand as she stood up.

  “I have to go,” she said. “To think about all of this.”

  He nodded. “I don’t expect you to do anything. I just want to say thanks for listening.”

  “Right.”

  She felt as though she was deserting him, but she had to go. There was too much going though her head at the moment for her to make sense out of anything.

  “Will you be here tomorrow?” she asked.

  “Probably. Unless I figure out a way to switch us back. But even if that happens, I’ll make a point of being here if I know you’re coming.”

  “Right.”

  Why did she keep saying “right”? Zeffy wondered. It made her sound like a broken record. Then she had to question again why she cared what Johnny thought of her and started to get confused all over again.

  She swung her knapsack onto her shoulders and picked up her guitar case.

  “So I’ll see you,” she said.

  “I’ll look forward to it.”

  She left quickly, grip too tight on the handle of her guitar case, carving safely cradled in her other hand. Her pulse sounded loud, thrumming against her eardrums. Her breath was short. She didn’t know how he was getting to her, she thought as she hurried out of the park, but it was working. And the worst thing was, she didn’t know how she felt about it. She knew what she should be feeling, but seemed incapable of calling up that anger anymore. She couldn’t hang on to it at all.

  7 LISA

  Just after eight, Lisa called in sick to work. She wanted to tell her employers the truth, that her daughter was missing and she didn’t think she’d be much good for anything until Nia had been found, but Julie talked her out of it before she made the call. “Don’t give them fuel,” she said. “If they think you can’t handle a crisis in your personal life, they’re going to equate that with how you perform under pressure when you’re in the office.”

  “But—”

  “And you can kiss goodbye to any hopes of advancing. Believe me, I’ve been there.”

  Lisa hesitated
, hand still on the phone. “I hate being dishonest.”

  “Save the truth for those who deserve it,” Julie told her.

  There was something in her voice that drew a sharp look from Lisa, but Julie turned away as though she didn’t notice the sudden hole of silence left in the wake of her pronouncement. Her gaze went distant, held by something that lay on the far side of the kitchen window’s panes, and Lisa felt unaccountably bereft. Julie had so much presence, she filled the space around her with such vitality, that her abrupt preoccupation lay like a heavy veil between them, not only creating distance, but making her almost unrecognizable.

  Lisa wanted to reach through that veil, to bring Julie back from whatever dark place it was she’d gone, but she couldn’t find the words she needed to bridge the distance. They didn’t know each other well enough for her to feel she could pursue it at the moment and it was too confusing to try to deal with it on top of Nia’s disappearance.

  She sighed and picked up the receiver, forcing herself to approach things one at a time. Call in to work. Check off that piece of business. Deal with the next item on the list.

  When the connection was made and she spoke to the receptionist at work, she realized that Julie had been right. If she had tried to explain the real reason for absence, she didn’t think she would have been able to stop. So she kept it brief, cradled the receiver once more.

  Julie turned from the window, the distance gone from her eyes. It was like the sun coming out from behind a cloud cover, as though, in those few minutes while Lisa made her call, Julie had confronted whatever darkness it was that she’d had to visit and now it was banished to trouble her no more. She was so much her usual, warm self that Lisa began to question what, if anything, it was that she’d thought she’d seen.

  “My turn,” Julie said.

  It took Lisa a moment to register what she meant.

  “I can’t let you stay with me all day,” she said.

  “Can’t let me or don’t want me to?”

  “You know it’s not that. It’s just, this is my problem. I really appreciate your staying as long as you have, but I can’t let Nia’s taking off like this disrupt your whole life, too.”