Hosts

by F. Paul Wilson

  "Why not?"

  "Well, he doesn't exactly come across as the warm cuddly type."

  "He's not." Sandy remembered the murderous look in the man's eyes. "In fact…" A vague impression had just congealed into a suspicion. He stood silent, trying to get a grip on it.

  "What?" Beth said.

  "I wonder how much of what he told me I should believe."

  "You think he was lying?"

  "Not completely. I'm pretty sure the part about being a Navy SEAL is true. I remember one of the cops on the scene saying things about the second shooter being well trained, but I don't know about doing secret work for government agencies. He hinted that he's involved in black ops and showing his face will blow his cover. But what if he's not undercover? What if he's hiding for another reason?"

  "Such as?"

  "Like he's a wanted man."

  "If that's true, I hope they never catch him."

  "Even if they did catch him I bet I could get him off."

  "You? I think you're great and all, Sandy, but how on earth would you manage that?"

  He grinned. "By mobilizing the people. The pen is mightier than the sword, my dear. Never underestimate the power of the press."

  2

  "This is our guy, Stan."

  Not this again, Stan Kozlowski thought as he looked up from his bagel and shmear.

  They'd returned to Moishe's this morning and were back at their usual table. His brother Joe was hidden behind The Light's screaming headlines, with only his hands visible. Both of them. Joe wasn't bothering to hide the scarred left this morning.

  "Where's it say that?"

  Joe lowered the paper. His dark eyes glittered in his puffy face. "Right here where he says he freelances for government agencies but can't say which ones or what he does for them."

  "So?"

  "Think about it, Stan." He leaned forward and lowered his voice. "Maybe ATF traced the components of one of our little devices back to a point where they suspected us but couldn't make a case. So they hire this ex-SEAL to find our stash and blow it. That happens, what's the first thing the locals do? Call in ATF of course. Bang. They've got their case. Works for me."

  Stan thought about that. He had a sense, what with how Waco took so long to go away, that ATF would be a bit shy about burning or blowing up buildings. But if the job was done by an outsider, someone who couldn't be connected to them…

  "That would be illegal, Joe," he said, deadpan. "I refuse to believe that an agency of our government would stoop to something like that."

  Joe smirked. "Yeah, of course. What was I thinking?"

  "What are you thinking?"

  Joe pulled a newspaper clipping from the breast pocket of his shirt and unfolded it on the table. Stan recognized the article from the other day—the eyewitness account. Joe stabbed a finger onto the photo of the writer.

  "See this guy? Same one as talked to this fucking Savior in today's paper. What I'm thinking is I go hang around The Light offices and see what this microturd's up to."

  "You mean follow him?" Sounded like a major waste of time.

  "Yeah. Why not? Not like I got much else goin' on in the toilet I call my life these days."

  Wasn't that the truth. For both of them.

  And now that Stan thought about it, maybe this would be good for Joe. Even if he came up empty handed—as he most likely would—at least he'd be out and about instead of sitting in his chair in that litterbox apartment staring at the TV all day.

  "Maybe I'll tag along," Stan said. "Just to keep you out of trouble."

  He said it lightly, but he was dead serious. Joe was like a carelessly wired block of C-4 these days. No telling what might set him off.

  3

  "You look awful," Kate said to her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Pale, dark circles under her eyes… at least her eyes showed no signs of conjunctivitis. She'd been worried about adenoviruses lately, and that was a common symptom.

  She checked her palm. The tiny puncture had healed. For a while, with the aches and malaise Kate had experienced two days after the wound, she'd feared she'd been infected with something. But today the aches were gone.

  Not so the fatigue. The dreams had something to do with that, she was sure. Last night's had been the strangest by far. She'd spent the night flying over a landscape of coins—pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters, all the size of sports arenas, and all face down. And droning in her head a babble of voices, mostly unrecognizable except for Jeanette's and one that sounded like Holdstock's, drifting in and out, calling her name.

  And then the dream had stopped.

  Not too long afterward she'd heard Jeanette come in and go directly to her room.

  And now here she was facing another morning feeling exhausted—physically, mentally, emotionally.

  Part of her wanted to run. The emotional abuse from Jeanette—she'd found a way to make silence and indifference abusive—was almost more than Kate could stand. But she kept telling herself this was not Jeanette. Somehow her brain had been affected and her true self was crying to get out. The need to rescue the real Jeanette was the only thing keeping Kate here.

  A buzzing sound… she opened the bathroom door. The vestibule bell. Someone down front wanted to get in. Jeanette had stopped answering bells of any sort—phones, doors—so Kate knew it was up to her.

  Who on earth? she thought as she pressed the button and said, "Hello?"

  "Kate, it's Jack. We need to talk."

  Do we? she thought.

  "Okay. Come up for coffee."

  "Can you come down? We'll find an Andrews or something."

  He sounded so serious. What was on his mind?

  "Let me throw on some clothes."

  Minutes later, dressed in jeans and a sweater, she stepped out of the stairwell into the building's lobby. Kate had left a note to Jeanette saying where she'd be. Not that Jeanette would care.

  She found Jack, also in jeans but wearing a flannel shirt, waiting outside on the sidewalk. He didn't look too well rested himself. He stepped up to her and enfolded her in his arms.

  "I know about you and Jeanette," he said in a low voice, "and it doesn't change a damn thing. You're my sister and I love you."

  And suddenly Kate found her face pressed against his chest and she was crying—quaking with deep-rooted sobs. She tried to stop them but they kept coming.

  "It's okay, Kate," he said. "Don't be afraid. I won't tell a soul."

  She pushed free and wiped her eyes. "That's not why I'm crying. I'm glad you know. You can't imagine what a relief it is to stop hiding it from you, to come out to someone.'1''

  "Oh… good. I spent half the night trying to figure the best way to word it. I didn't know how you'd react. I—"

  She stretched up on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. "You did just fine."

  She clung to him a moment longer, almost dizzy with relief and lighter in heart than she'd felt in years.

  "Let's walk," he said. "I'm not yet properly caffeinated."

  "But just let me hear it again, Jack," she said as they ambled arm in arm toward Seventh. "Does my being a dyke really not change a thing for you or were you just trying to make me feel better?"

  He made a face. "You're not a dyke."

  "Sure I am."

  "No. When I hear 'dyke' I see a fat broad in work clothes and boots with a bad haircut and a load of 'tude."

  She laughed. "It doesn't mean superbutch anymore. It's what we call ourselves. As Jeanette says, 'We're taking back the word.'" Or what Jeanette used to say, Kate thought as a wave of sadness brought her down. "But you're not answering the question."

  "Okay, the question seems to be since I lie about myself to just about everyone every day, how can you be sure I'm telling you the truth."

  "Not at all—"

  "Or is it about whether I'm one of those politically correct liberal types who knee-jerks to this sort of thing?"

  Had she offended him?

  "Jack—"

  "So let'
s get a few things straight, Kate. I'm not PC and I'm not liberal—I'm not conservative or Democrat or Republican either. I operate on one principle: you own your own life, and that means you're free to do anything you want with that life so long as you don't interfere with other people's freedom to live their lives. It means you own your own body and you can do anything you want to it—pierce it, fill it with drugs, set it on fire—your call. Same with sex. As long as there's no force involved it's none of my business how you get off. I don't have to approve of it because it's not my life, it's yours. I don't have to understand, either. Which, by the way, I don't."

  As he paused for breath Kate jumped in. "But that doesn't tell me how you feel."

  "Feel? How does surprised and baffled sound? If you'd been a tomboy all your life and had never dated I could see it. But you had one boyfriend after another."

  "Right. But no steady."

  "Is that significant?"

  "I didn't think so then, but 1 do now."

  They found a little place on Seventh called The Greek Corner. She saw no one looking even vaguely Greek behind the counter, but the coffee smelled good. They took a table in a largely deserted glassed-in bump-out that would have been a solar oven if the sun had been out.

  Jack sighed. "To tell the truth, Kate, I don't understand same-sex attraction. I know it exists and I accept that, but it's alien to me. I'm not wired for it. And then, of all people, you."

  "You can't be more surprised than I was, Jack. But it's here. It's me. And there doesn't seem to be a darn thing I can do about it."

  "But how? When? Where? Why? Help me here, Kate. I'm completely at sea."

  "I'm still trying to figure it out for myself, Jack. You want to know when? When I knew? I'm not sure. Gay guys seem to know much earlier. With women it's not so easy. We're much more fluid in our sexuality—not my term, something I read. But it's true. We're much more intimate with each other. Sure I liked boys when I was a teenager. I liked dating, being courted, pursued. I even liked the sex. But you know what I liked more? Pajama parties."

  Jack covered his eyes. "Don't tell me there were teenage lesbian orgies going on just a few feet down the hall from my bedroom and I didn't know."

  Kate gave him a gentle kick under the table. "For crying out loud, Jack. Cool it, okay? Nothing ever happened. But there was a lot of contact—the pillow fights, the tickling, the laughing, the sleeping three to a mattress, two to a bedroll. Back then that was all considered normal teenage behavior for girls, but not for guys."

  "I'll say."

  "And it was normal for me. I loved the closeness to the other girls, the intimacy, and maybe I loved it more than the others, but I never connected it with sex."

  "When did that happen?"

  "When did I know I was a dyke?"

  Jack drew in a breath. "That word again."

  "Get used to it. I found out about two years ago."

  "Two years? You mean you never once…?"

  "Well, in France—you remember my junior year abroad—"

  "I missed you terribly."

  "Did you? That's nice to know. I had no idea."

  "Big boys don't cry."

  "And that's a shame, isn't it. But anyway, I had an 'almost' or a 'pretty near' experience there but never gave it much thought afterwards because things are different in France. You remember that Joni Mitchell song, 'In France They Kiss On Main Street'?"

  "Vaguely."

  "Well, it's true. In France the girls kiss on main street—straight girls. They kiss, they hug, they walk down the street hand in hand, arm in arm. It's just a natural thing there."

  It's February and her name's Renee, dark hair, dark mysterious eyes, tall, long-limbed and, at twenty-two, a year older. She's invited Kate to her family's country place in Puy de Dôme for the day. The two of them are wandering one of the adjacent fields, talking, Renee so patient with Kate's halting French, when it begins to pour. They're drenched and half frozen by the time they reach the empty house. They strip off their sodden clothes, wrap themselves in a huge quilt, and huddle shivering before the fire.

  Renee's right arm snakes around Kate's shoulders and pulls her closer… for extra warmth, she says.

  And that's good because Kate wonders if she'll ever feel warm again.

  Your skin is so cold, Renee says. And she starts to rub Kate's back… to warm her skin.

  And it works. Only a few rubs and Kate is flushed and very warm. She returns the favor, sliding her hand up and down Renee's smooth back, her skin as soft as a baby's. Renee's long arm stretches to where her hand can rub Kate's flank, stretches farther still until it reaches her breast. Kate gasps at the electric sensation of Renee's finger's caressing her nipple and holds her breath as lips nuzzle her neck and the hand trails down along her abdomen. She feels as if something deep inside her is going to burst—

  And then the sound of tires on the gravel outside—Renee's mother and little brother, back from the market with the makings for tonight's dinner. The spell shatters with shock and then a mad laughing dash to Renee's room where she lends Kate some clothes to wear until her own are dry. They go down to greet Renee's mother… and neither of them ever speaks of that afternoon again.

  "What 'almost' happened?" Jack said.

  "The details aren't important. It all receded into my subconscious—or maybe it was pushed, I'm not sure which—but the end point was that when I allowed myself to remember it, I looked on it as nothing more than an interesting but anomalous event. After all, I was free, white, and almost twenty-one, and it was the seventies when it was cool to experiment. I saw it as a brush with lesbianism but I knew I wasn't a lesbian. I moved on."

  "To medical school."

  "Where I met Ron. He was a good-looking, sensitive man and we had so much in common—middle-class backgrounds, similar families, both headed for medical careers. And he was crazy about me so it seemed a perfect match. I loved him, maybe not as much as he loved me, but there was a genuine attraction there and getting married was what was expected of me. So that's what I did. Ron's a good guy. A lot of formerly married women who've come out can tell horror stories about abusive relationships. I don't have that. I can't say I finally came out because I was mistreated. If anything, I mistreated him."

  "As I heard it from Dad, he cheated on you."

  "And I don't blame him. After Elizabeth was born I lost interest in sex. It's not that unusual, at least on a temporary basis, but for me it went on and on. Ron and I had a good marriage for a long time. I was a good wife and he was a good husband. But as the years went by, I kept feeling less and less fulfilled. That's a terrible word, but it's the only one that fits. Something was missing, Jack, and I didn't know what it was. Until I met Jeanette."

  "You mean Sybil."

  "Please don't do that, Jack," she said, feeling a flush of anger. "You didn't know her before this virus thing. She's the most exhilarating person I've ever met."

  "All right. I'm sorry. You're right. I only know the Moony version of Jeanette. But still, is she worth all this turmoil in your life?"

  "Jack, you can't imagine what I was like. I was no fun. Seeing my patients and doing okay as a mother, but I wasn't cutting it at all as a wife. Ron's a good man, and he was a considerate lover, but no matter what he did, it wasn't right. And I wasn't giving Ron what he needed, so finally he went elsewhere. I don't blame him, but he blames himself. And that breaks my heart. We'd been best friends. He thinks he broke up our marriage, but really, it was me."

  "You, or Jeanette?"

  "I didn't meet her until after Ron and I were separated. My pediatric group had decided to computerize and I knew nothing about computers—Ron was into them and so were the kids, but somehow the things never appealed to me. I figured I'd better get up to speed, so when I saw an ad for a computer course at the local Marriott designed for women novices, I signed up."

  "Let me guess: Jeanette was the instructor."

  "She moonlights from her programming job to do stints with a firm t
hat runs seminars all over the country. She designed her own course, aimed strictly at female computerphobes. It's a bit of a cause for her, so women won't be relegated to the sidelines during the digital revolution."

  Kate felt her throat tighten at the memory.

  "You should have seen her, Jack. She was wonderful. Took control of the room with her presence. She kept it light but we could sense how she truly cared. And she was so funny, Jack. Hard to believe from what you've seen, I know, but she cracked us up with tales from the days when she worked for a computer problem hotline."

  "Was there some sort of instant chemistry?"

  "I couldn't take my eyes off her. She tended to wear tennis shirts and slacks and sandals; her hair was shorter then—she looked more butch than now, but at the time I chalked that up to computer geekiness. I wouldn't say I was in love, but when the class was over that first night, I was so captured by her I couldn't bear the thought of leaving her and going home. I wanted more. I approached her and asked if she gave private lessons…"

  Jeanette gives her a long look, a little half smile gently twisting her lips.

  "Lessons in what?"

  "Why, um, computer lessons." What a question. "I need some sort of accelerated course."

  "Why don't we discuss it over dinner?"

  Kate loves the idea. The kids are home; she left them money for a pizza delivery. A hot meal with this fascinating woman is so much more enticing than snacking alone on a leftover slice or two when she gets home. She'll just have to let them know that she's going to be a little later than she'd planned.

  "Sounds good," she tells Jeanette. "I just have to make a call first."

  They settle on the Italian restaurant right in the hotel. Jeanette starts with a light beer while Kate has a Manhattan. Jeanette protests when Kate orders a veal dish so she settles for spaghetti puttanesca. Over the meal, during which they split a bottle of Chianti, Jeanette does a lot of asking and Kate does a lot of answering.

  When they're through she invites Kate up to her room where they can use her laptop to determine how much she knows and how much tutoring she's going to need. Wonderful idea. Kate's feeling so warm and relaxed and comfortable with this woman that she doesn't want the night to end yet.