Double Threat

by F. Paul Wilson

  They exited the center onto the sidewalk where the tarry stink of hot asphalt assaulted them as a crew worked at repaving this section of Lankershim. The bright sunlight cast stark shadows on the mostly nondescript buildings, reminding her of a Hopper painting.

  Wait … Hopper? Who was Hopper? And then she knew: Edward Hopper, a painter who used bright sunlight and shadows to great effect. The chiaroscuro lighting of House by the Railroad and Cape Cod Morning flashed through her memory.

  Chiaroscuro?

  Have you been reading up on art while I’m asleep?

  Pard fell into step beside her. (“As a matter of fact, yes. By the way, your laptop is much better for research than your phone. The bigger screen is excellent for art—“)

  Daley could barely hear him over the construction racket.

  You’re wasting my sleep time looking at pictures?

  (“And storing them in your memory. Your education was disturbingly deficient in so many areas, but almost nonexistent in art history—or any history at all in any measurable depth. What did they teach you in all those years?”)

  I didn’t go to school until I was thirteen.

  (“What? No wonder I can find no early school memories. Why not?”)

  It wasn’t the Family way. They didn’t trust schools. When my father was murdered—on the day I was born, by the way—his family wouldn’t let my mother and me go. The Family insisted on raising me their way. All my cousins were illiterate. If my mother hadn’t taught me reading and simple math, I’d be just like them.

  (“But you have memories of high school.”)

  When my mom was dying of cancer, I managed to slip away from the hospital with my gram. The Family kept trying to steal me back but she officially got sole custody—no way was the Family going to appear in court to contest it. Anyway, that stopped them from trying to get me back. They didn’t want the FBI on them for kidnapping. Gram sent me to a proper public school.

  (“But what did they teach you there?”)

  After I got through all my remedial courses? Not much. Mostly how to get high enough scores on tests to move on to the next grade.

  (“I’m amazed that you live in this culture and yet you know next to nothing about it.”)

  I know what I need to know.

  (“And now you know a little more. You even know what chiaroscuro means.”)

  Well, thank you so much. I simply don’t know how I lived this long without that.

  (“You’re welcome.”)

  You do understand sarcasm, don’t you?

  (“I should, as it’s your default mode.”)

  A black Stetson hat suddenly appeared on his head.

  What’s with that?

  (“I’m accessorizing. The hat keeps the sun out of my eyes and—”)

  You don’t have eyes, and this—she touched the brim of her Dodgers cap—keeps the sun out of our eyes. Lose the hat.

  The Stetson turned white as he stretched to a six-footer and became Timothy Olyphant as his character in Justified.

  (“I bet you like the hat now.”)

  Oh, God, he’s gorgeous, but you’re not him, so quit it.

  Pard shrank to his usual self, but kept the Stetson and added a red scarf.

  Come on, lose the hat and the scarf, okay?

  (“It’s not a scarf, it’s a bandana. And I think it’s quite fashionable.”)

  She stopped and stared at him. “Are you gay?” she said aloud.

  A passing woman gave her a strange look. “Did you say something?”

  Daley gave an apologetic wave. “Sorry. Just thinking out loud.”

  Wait a sec.

  She pulled out her phone and plugged in her earbuds.

  (“You’re making a call? Now?”)

  “No. If I’m looking at you, I feel I should talk to you. So I’m just disguising our conversation. As long as the earbuds are in, people will think I’m on a call.”

  A man walking his dog passed by and didn’t give her a second look.

  “See?”

  (“Clever girl. I notice people seem to be obsessed with these phones, especially those your age. Can’t get their faces out of them. And yet you…”)

  She started walking again. “My whole generation grew up with the Internet. But I’m an exception. The Family wouldn’t allow us kids to have our own phones. We’d be given burners to use when we were out scamming—just to stay in touch or report trouble—but we had to turn them in when we got back home. We weren’t allowed on Instagram or Snapchat or any of those because kids lose their filters online and the Family kept all their business under tight wraps. So I reached my teens knowing nothing about social media and never really got into it.”

  (“Did you feel left out?”)

  “Sometimes, yeah. I wanted to join the online crowd in high school but the iPhone was only a couple years old when I moved in with Gram and she wasn’t about to spring for one of those, so I wound up with a flip phone. I could text and that was about it. When I finally did get online, I had to struggle with what was all second nature to everyone else. I never caught up.”

  (“Still, you’re online.”)

  “Sure I am, but not as me. I’m not one for sharing personal info.”

  She had a bogus Facebook account under another name for when she ran a game—marks tended to get suspicious when they couldn’t find someone online. But it really came down to not wanting the Family to be able to find her if they came looking. And they had an eye out for her—no doubt about that.

  “But enough about me. Back to you: Are you gay?”

  (“You mean homosexual? I’m above all that sexuality stuff, although I will say those orgasms you had two nights ago were quite astonishing, speaking on a purely sensory level.”)

  Which reminded her that she needed to make amends with Kenny for kicking him out the other night.

  “So, you’re not gay.”

  (“I’m pure mind, Daley, with no hormones and no procreative urges, and no attraction to either sex, so I’m neither heterosexual nor homosexual.”)

  “Well, damn. I always wanted a gay guy as a friend.”

  (“To give you fashion tips, I suppose.”)

  “Why do you say that?”

  (“Oh, nothing.”)

  “You’re not getting off the hook that easy. Explain.”

  (“Let’s just say you could do with some sartorial guidance, but save that for some other time. I want to know how you can be concerned with my sexual orientation after I’ve just accomplished a miracle cure. Well, not really miraculous, but it’ll seem that way.”)

  “I only have your word for this so-called cure.”

  (“It’s not ‘so-called’ in the least. I guarantee it.”)

  “Well,” she said, “no point in arguing now. You’ve yet to prove you can cure anything. I have to go back tomorrow anyway, so I’ll expose your bogus cure then.”

  (“Quite the skeptic, aren’t you.”)

  “When you’re raised on hokum, you develop a nose for it.”

  8

  The rest of the day passed in relative quiet with Pard keeping to himself. Daley wasn’t sure if he was in some sort of snit or processing the results of all his speed reading last night.

  Whatever.

  Eventually the clock struck five: cocktail hour on Friday night. She didn’t want to risk the Dew Drop with Pard—who knew what she might blurt out?—but she had vodka and she had orange juice. She made screwdrivers.

  She looked up the psychiatric test the receptionist had mentioned. MMPI stood for Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Index, used by shrinks to measure a patient’s level of wackiness. With all she’d been going through, Daley figured she could red-line the MMPI if she answered even half honestly.

  Was she crazy? Not just quirky-crazy but deeply, off-the-rails, broken-from-reality insane? It had grown into a serious question, because Pard’s current radio silence had given her time to think, and she realized she’d started accepting Pard as a separate entity—a per
son, for Christ sake. How had that happened?

  Maybe because he’d been her constant companion for two days straight. Familiarity supposedly bred contempt, but it also bred … familiarity. People exposed to an odor or a sound long enough will stop smelling it or hearing it. Pard had totally freaked her out at first, but after two days of continuously seeing and hearing him, the strangeness of it, the insanity of it, had worn off. Real or not, he’d become part of her reality.

  Acceptance of the impossible … two minds sharing one brain … whoever heard of such a thing?

  Trouble was, the brain was hers.

  Hers.

  Daley didn’t want to share her brain.

  Maybe that was why she felt so on edge.

  … you will never be alone …

  Juana’s words haunted her.

  Never? Never again? This was a freaking nightmare.

  I should have some say in this, shouldn’t I?

  The screwdrivers began to take hold. Somewhere along the way she lost track of how many she’d had, but the orange juice was gone and the vodka bottle was damn near empty.

  (“Please don’t consume any more ethanol,”) Pard said. (“I’m having trouble thinking.”)

  I thought you were “pure mind.”

  (“I am, but the mind depends on the brain. A brain doesn’t need a mind, but a mind needs a brain. And a malfunctioning or impaired brain means a malfunctioning and impaired mind. Your brain is impaired at the moment.”)

  Daley wasn’t feeling so good herself. She wasn’t a big drinker. Usually she nursed a margarita and was fine with that. Vodka definitely wasn’t her drink. She kept the bottle around for the rare occasions she had visitors. But she’d felt a need for it tonight.

  I think I’m going to lie down for a while … just to rest my eyes …

  She flopped back on her bed, closed her eyes and …

  SATURDAY—FEBRUARY 21

  1

  (“So … this is what they call a hangover.”)

  “You’re still here?”

  (“I have no place else I can be. But about this hangover—”)

  “Shut. Up.”

  Daley didn’t have much experience with hangovers because she rarely overdrank. She wasn’t sure which was worse—the headache or the nausea.

  No, wait. Yes, she was sure: the nausea. Definitely the nausea.

  (“No need to be testy with me. I’m not the one who overindulged in ethanol. For a while I’ll admit the effect was rather pleasant, but then…”)

  “Aren’t you feeling any of this?” she rasped. Her voice sounded like a frog’s.

  (“No. For the time being I’ve blocked my awareness of the sensory input from your meninges and your upper intestine. Shall I do the same for you?”)

  “You can do that?”

  The headache and nausea abruptly disappeared.

  “Oh, my God! You’re kidding me! You can cure a hangover just like that?”

  (“You’re not ‘cured’ in any sense of the word. You still have a toxic level of acetaldehyde circulating through your system, and until your liver clears that, you are still officially hungover—the price one pays for intemperance.”)

  “It’s also called drowning your sorrow.”

  (“Is my presence so awful?”)

  Here we go, she thought. He’s getting right down to the real nitty-gritty.

  “You’re not so bad in small doses, Pard. It’s just that … it’s just that I was never given a choice.”

  (“Neither was I.”)

  “You dropped on my head, not the other way around, damn it!”

  (“And you entered my cave. My act was that of a nonsentient creature following instinct. I could have wound up sharing the brain of a coyote or a mountain lion or whatever else wanders that desert. In those cases I’d have wound up with no more awareness or intelligence than my host. But I landed on a sapient being who is very intelligent and—”)

  “Flattery won’t work.”

  (“I don’t deal in flattery, I deal in fact. And the fact is you’re an exceptionally intelligent human who was never challenged by her school and has never challenged herself and thus has no idea of her potential.”)

  He sounded like every teacher she’d ever had: Stanka is not performing to her potential …

  She shook her head. “Won’t work.”

  (“Take it or leave it. But here’s the bottom line: We are stuck with each other, Daley. We must find an accommodation that allows us to coexist with some modicum of harmony.”)

  Maybe the toxic level of acetaldehyde or whatever was to blame, maybe all that she’d been going through, or maybe the pervasive feeling of goddamn helplessness … Whatever the cause, she began to sob. She hated herself for it, but couldn’t hold it back.

  “I need alone time! I need time with just me, to be just me, with nobody watching, nobody judging. If I can’t have that, I might just as well just, you know, end it all.”

  Pard made no reply.

  “Do you hear me? I know you’re listening, but do you hear me?”

  (“I do hear you, Daley. And I understand. I’m thinking … what if I can find a way to wall myself off from you for a set period? I won’t know what you’re doing and you won’t know what I’m doing? Would that work?”)

  “Is it possible?”

  (“Maybe. I’ll work on it.”)

  A ray of hope. A lifeline. Enough to pull Daley through for now.

  “Okay. Maybe I can live with that. But right now I need to wash up. We’ve got a test to take.”

  (“‘We’?”)

  “Well, you can stay here if you like.”

  (“Very funny. But you’ve accepted me as real—we’ve established that. Why take a test to see if you’re crazy?”)

  “Mostly it’s an excuse to get back in that building and find out if your ‘cure’ from yesterday is real.” She shrugged as she entered the bathroom. “And who knows? It might show I’m bipolar or some—Oh, my God!”

  The mirror showed new hair, maybe an inch long, filling the former bald spot. But white—snow white.

  (“Oh, dear. I worked hard all night stimulating those hair follicles, but I didn’t—“)

  “It’s white! How’d it turn white?”

  (“So sorry. I had no idea. I was working in the dark, after all. Apparently all the melanocytes in that part of your scalp have been killed off. They make the pigment for your hair, so there’s no eumelanin available to color the strands.”)

  She stared in horror. “I look like a freak!”

  She rushed back to the bedroom and began pulling on her jeans.

  (“What are you doing?”)

  “Going out.”

  (“Where?”)

  She knew of a CVS a quick walk away.

  “Getting some hair dye.”

  (“Are you sure? I think it gives you a rather interesting look.”)

  “Forget it, Pard. I’m not going around looking like a goddamn skunk!”

  She put on the Dodgers hat, slipped into her warm-up, and dashed for the door.

  2

  The patch of white hair wanted nothing to do with the dye, shedding it like water off wax.

  “I don’t believe this!” Daley cried after the third failure. “Look what you’ve done to me!”

  Pard hovered next to her, looking anxious. (“I’ll work on it. I’m sure I can coax some melanocytes back into those follicles and get your hair back to normal. Just give me a little time.”)

  “And meanwhile?”

  (“As I said before, I think it’s rather interesting—sort of emo, don’t you think?”)

  “Do you hear me playing Jawbreaker?”

  (“I’m just saying—”)

  “Just say nothing for now.”

  Furious, Daley jammed on her Dodgers hat and stomped outside. Not only was she going crazy but she now looked like a Lily Munster wannabe. Her life was so totally out of control she wanted to scream.

  When she reached Lankershim she was surprised to se
e the construction crew working on a Saturday. Maybe they had a deadline. They’d advanced to the front of the medical arts building and were hard at work rolling the fresh asphalt flat.

  Inside, up on the second floor, the psychiatrist’s medical assistant was waiting with the MMPI ready to go. To Daley’s surprise, Dr. Holikova was waiting as well.

  “I knew you had an appointment for testing,” she said without preamble. “I need to speak to you.”

  “Oh?”

  Daley was having trouble reading her expression, unsure whether it was guarded or hostile. She needed to feel her way here.

  The doctor said, “What happened with Grace yesterday?”

  Pard hovered beside the doctor. (“Oh, yes, I’ve got a good feeling about this.”)

  Hush.

  “Well, it looked like she, um, had a convulsion.”

  “Yes, that much was obvious. It ended abruptly after you grabbed her arms. And then you told her she didn’t need any more medication because you’d cured her.”

  Uh-oh. She’d forgotten she’d said that. Had something gone wrong? Best to play it cool.

  “Yeah, well, I may have shot my mouth off a little.”

  (“You spoke the truth!”)

  Hush!

  Dr. Holikova said, “You also proclaimed that her EEG would be normal.” She stepped closer and lowered her voice. “How could you know that?”

  Pard did jazz hands and a little happy dance. (“Aha! Told you so!”)

  “So, you’re saying it’s now normal?”

  The doctor gave a slow nod. “She’s always had an abnormal focus on her right parietal lobe—a leftover from a childhood head injury. That is gone now … as if it had never been.”

  Daley could only stare back at Dr. Holikova. Pard had lived up to his boasts. He’d done it—cured Grace’s epilepsy. She hadn’t truly believed he’d lie, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be mistaken.

  He’d actually gone inside that woman and changed her.

  “That’s … that’s wonderful,” she finally managed to say.

  “It’s more than wonderful, Ms. Daley. It’s unheard of. Now, I don’t for a second believe that you caused that focus to vanish, and yet it is gone, just like you said it would be.” She leaned even closer. “How do I reconcile those two positions, Ms. Daley? Hmmm?”