Fire & Frost

by Meljean Brook

  “So out of curiosity,” he asked, “what would you get if you ordered Don Johnson?”

  “It depends on what picture I ordered him from. If I ordered him from a tabloid picture of him dining out at a Hollywood restaurant or something, I’d get the actual man. But if I ordered him from, like, a TV Guide picture where he’s being Detective Sonny Crockett? I’d probably get that character.” She snorted. “Ordering a character off the TV. That would be so irresponsible.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “A character isn’t human. It would just be insane, that’s all. A Pandora’s box.” Then she looked at him, getting the real meaning. “You’re human. A real man in every way. Every way, Max. You have no idea—” she seemed about to say more, but stopped herself, realizing, maybe the flimsiness of her arguments. He was neither real nor human. A man, yes, which made it all the more excruciating. Being with her.

  They’d stopped at a camera store in Paupesha yesterday and purchased a camera with a telephoto lens. They would take a photo of the file cabinet in Salvo’s lawyer’s office, get it developed at the one-hour place, and go home and conjure it. Then he’d raid the thing for information nobody was supposed to have. They’d be able to blackmail the entire Salvo family with it. The plan would protect Veronica forever. It was a good plan.

  Except they might not have time to carry it out.

  And what if he did catch sight of Teresa?

  Stay away from her, he told himself. Photograph the cabinet and leave.

  Frozen wetlands turned to snowy fields outside the window. Dead, brown corn stalks popped up from the unbroken white here and there.

  With her rosy red cheeks and dark, pretty hair under that hat, Veronica looked like something off an old-fashioned Christmas card. Almost innocent.

  He thought about her leg in the bath, under the water that danced with candlelight. Her leg was outrageous and wrong and wild and unconventional and it refused to behave, just like her. He’d wanted to warm her that night with everything he had. And to kiss every inch of that hated, misshapen leg, and the rest of her, too—exploring her, tasting her. He’d wanted to pull her to him and slide his hands under her wet tank top and touch her breasts, and take over her body and invade her senses from every angle and fuck her until she screamed his name.

  He’d contented himself with keeping her from drowning. He was a gentleman, however ungentlemanly his thoughts had been.

  She tucked her coat over her lap. Then she looked at him, caught him staring. “What?”

  You’re beautiful and hard and a little bit bad, he thought. Instead he folded up the front section of the paper. “Want this?”

  “Nah.” She turned back to stare out the window.

  Chapter Eight

  THE FREYER-KOPPS TOWER HAD BEEN 80% vacant when Max’s men had taken over the 26th floor in order to stake out the 26th floor of the Griggs Tower across the street.

  Three months later, the Freyer-Kopps was still mostly vacant.

  Max hit the elevator button.

  Veronica had glamoured them both before they’d left the train station. It was hard for him to get it through his head that the woman standing with him—the suntanned blonde with her red polka-dot power suit and giant shoulder pads—was Veronica. It put him off balance.

  “Dare I ask what you bespelled me to look like?” he said.

  With an impish smile she pointed at a mirrored section of wall beyond a potted plant. He walked over and groaned at the image of a young buck in a fedora and an oversized jacket with rolled-up sleeves. His frosted hair dipped over one eye. He gave her a dark glance. “I’m that Hungry Like the Wolf guy.”

  “Not exactly. But…” She shrugged. “…inspired by.”

  “Thanks a lot.” The elevator door opened and they got in. He stabbed the button for twenty-six and the door slid shut. She’d made him into the kind of guy she wanted to be with, fresh off MTV. “Make me more regular. This is conspicuous.”

  Veronica switched her briefcase to her other hand. “We look just right. FYI, there’s an ad agency and magazine offices in this building.”

  “You call this just right?”

  “I didn’t want you looking like a cop,” she said.

  “The only alternative to cop is a ridiculous man-child who can’t even fill out a sports coat?”

  She screwed up her eyes and lips in mock anger. He couldn’t help but smile. The face wasn’t hers but the expression was. He resisted the urge to grab her and kiss her.

  She said, “Any more lip out of you and you’ll find yourself staring at Boy George in the mirror.”

  The 26th floor was full of abandoned cubicles and cabinets, just as he and his men had left it after surveillance ended that past summer. He rolled a couple of chairs to the window. She sat in hers and spun around. He cranked up the back of another chair and knelt behind it, using it to steady the camera’s bulky telephoto lens. “There it is. Still in full view.”

  He snapped a few photos. “Gotcha,” he said. He stood up and had her look through it. “The window to the right of the one with the blue blinds is Salvo’s lawyer’s office.”

  “You sure they can’t see us?” she asked.

  “This building has mirrored windows. Find the blue blinds?”

  “Yes. Marble wallpaper?”

  “Yup. It’s the middle cabinet stack we need. That cabinet holds the name of every judge, cop, and congressperson on the Salvo payroll, plus planted guys. We did everything we could to get a warrant. There was even some move to break in that I wasn’t supposed to know about. Couldn’t even breach the ground floor. So we had to sit here and salivate.”

  “Push me up to the edge,” she said.

  He pushed her to the window bank and she snapped a few of her own pictures.

  “That’s all we need?” he asked.

  She grinned. “It’s alls we need.”

  If this worked out, she wouldn’t need him for protection anymore. He wondered if she was thinking about that. “Let’s get back to the station.” They had tickets for the seven o’clock. It wasn’t even four.

  “You could see her.”

  “It’s not rightful,” he said.

  “It could ease your mind. She wouldn’t know.”

  “I’d know,” he said.

  “She won’t recognize you.”

  “It’s not just that,” he said. It’s what he might see.

  “Kids are resilient.”

  He closed his eyes. The idea of leaving and not at least catching a glimpse of Teresa made him feel jumbled up. “I can’t.”

  “I think you have to.”

  “Don’t.”

  She limped to him—even glamoured, she limped. It was one way their enemies might recognize them. He hadn’t said that, though. He didn’t want to frighten her.

  She rested a hand on his shoulder and set her chin on her hand. “I’ll be the devil for you if you want,” she whispered. “It’s okay for you to hate me.”

  “Veronica—”

  “Shhh.” She flicked around her free hand. Scrying for Teresa. “Not very far,” she whispered. “Teresa plays the oboe?”

  He hissed out a breath. “Friday after school band practice.” She’d had Friday band practice before his death. It struck him as strange that she’d still have it.

  Veronica straightened up. “She’s at her school. In the gym. We could be there in ten minutes. I’ll make us repairmen. There’s a panel on the wall near the stage.”

  “It’s not rightful.” And he didn’t want to see his death in her eyes. So many kids were walking around destroyed. He couldn’t bear that Teresa should be one of them.

  “You need to give yourself a break sometimes,” she said. “You need to see that she’s okay.”

  “Did you see? Is she okay?”

  “I don’t know her.” She fixed him with a gaze that was all cold, hard fire. “You need to see for yourself.”

  He pulled away. “I’m a ghost. I don’t belong around a lit
tle girl.”

  “You’re a man, not a ghost.” She took his hand. “Come on.” He felt a strange pull, like a magnetic river, urging him out of the space and back to the elevator.

  He went willingly…yet not.

  She hit the button and the door opened. Down they went, down, down, and then they walked across the lobby and out into the icy wind that whipped between the gray buildings and over ice-crusted sidewalks.

  He recalled Veronica once telling him that she could compel people—she’d explained that she did it by repelling them from every other available option. In this way, she created pull. She was doing it now, he realized. There was only the school now. Teresa.

  “Wait,” he said.

  “We’re going.” She signaled for a cab. There was nowhere else to go.

  A cab neared. He would give the address of the school, almost like it was pre-ordained.

  “Wait,” he said. “Turn off the spell.”

  “No.”

  He pulled his hand from hers. “Turn it off.”

  “I’m making you go.”

  “I’ll live and die by my own sword, dammit.”

  She looked unsure. He felt when she cut it.

  A cab pulled up. Max motioned Veronica in and got in after. “Park Elm Elementary on Fourth and Zieman.” He sat back with an oof. He was really doing it.

  “You’ll be glad.”

  Max kept an eye on the side and rearview mirrors to make sure they weren’t followed. After a few blocks he told the cabbie to make a loop, claiming he wanted to see a favorite steakhouse.

  Veronica gave him a conspiratorial look. She knew what he was doing—she always keyed into the cop stuff.

  Without thinking, he draped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. He felt grateful that she allowed it, but then again, he looked like one of her music idols.

  She snuggled into him. It felt good. Right.

  It didn’t matter why she allowed it; he needed to hold her. It shook him to see how all the shops and restaurants and people had all kept going. He didn’t know how it could be that a man could lose so much so quickly and violently as he had the night he got gunned down, but the streets and restaurants he loved would look perfectly humdrum afterwards. He couldn’t decide whether it was a monstrous joke or a kindness.

  He paid and they stepped out.

  The school was a long, low brick building with a fenced-in yard at one end. Veronica did the magic that would alter their glamour. She was in a ComEd jumpsuit, jacket, and cap with a badge on her pocket. She had the face she’d had in the tower. The camera she carried looked like a clipboard now, and she’d turned her briefcase into a toolbox, which she handed to him.

  He took it, realizing he was dressed the same way.

  They walked in. She went over and spoke with the night guard at the desk off to the side, showed him something on the clipboard and he waved them through. The halls were empty aside from a janitor mopping the floor behind a yellow Wet Floor sign.

  Voices echoed down the hall as they neared the gym. A loud female voice rose above all others—something about starting where the horns come in. Strains of music went up. A march of some kind.

  He and Veronica walked into the massive gym, melting into the darkness around the edges.

  Up at the end was a brightly lit stage full of children. He saw Teresa right away, sitting at the edge of a row.

  “That’s her,” he whispered, frozen in his tracks. She wore her favorite pink sweater with a black T sewn onto it. A massive tube of her favorite bubblegum lip gloss hung from a cord around her neck. She held her oboe in her lap and sat still as the horns blared on, then she leaned over and whispered to the girl next to her. He recognized the girl as her best friend, Patty. Patty whispered back and Teresa pinched her own nose—something she did when she wanted to keep from laughing aloud. Her little body convulsed with silent giggles, though, and his heart burst with emotions he couldn’t name.

  She was beautiful and perfect and lovely. And she was laughing. She’d always been a resourceful, happy girl, good at bouncing back from things. Could he trust this? Was she really okay? He couldn’t see her eyes. He needed to be closer.

  A tug at his hand. Veronica pulling him. He allowed it, forcing his gaze away from the stage. Yes, they were inspectors of some sort. They needed to inspect.

  She limped at his side. Before he knew it, they were on the far end of the gym. Veronica opened a gray panel. Then she took the toolbox from him and set it on the floor and took out some tools.

  He could see Teresa’s face more clearly from there. His girl had grown bored. The teacher had the horns repeat a section. Patty kicked Teresa’s foot, and Teresa gave her an arch look. Ah, that arch look. Something of significance had happened in the horns section. A missed note?

  The teacher had seen them by now—a few of the kids had, too, and Max knew they had an audience. The teacher had the children take out the next piece. A flurry of activity and chatter rose up from the stage. Patty and Teresa shared a music stand; Patty turned the page and Teresa looked in their direction. It was then he saw her eyes.

  They didn’t hold his death.

  She’d be okay—she really would. He felt like shouting in gratitude.

  “I suppose we’re watching the whole practice,” Veronica said wearily.

  “The whole damn thing,” he said.

  “I could take a picture,” she offered.

  Horror shot through him. “No photos.”

  “Not to conjure,” she said.

  “Still. I want it like this.”

  The songs were played roughly, but with heart. He tried to maintain the role of the inspector, fussing with things from the box now and then, but watching all the while. His girl was a symphony of nuances and memories; every movement and expression heartened him and devastated him all at once. She was going to be okay.

  Suddenly it was over, and the stage was a bustle of backpacks and chatter and instructions from the teacher. Teresa and Patty were among the first off the stage and out the door. Running.

  Just like that she was gone.

  He watched in a daze.

  Veronica motioned to the teacher. “We got the lights,” she said.

  Five minutes later, the gym stood empty.

  They stayed for a long time. Locker slams rose and dwindled. Voices faded. Doors squeaked. A hush fell.

  The school was vacant now, except for the janitor.

  “She always runs places when she’s excited,” he said when he realized how long they’d been standing there. “Happy.”

  Veronica put a hand on his shoulder. “She’s happy. And you’re okay.”

  Max wasn’t sure if it was a question or an observation, but he wasn’t okay. He loved that little girl. He’d lost so much. He slid to the floor.

  “No.” She kicked him.

  “Ow.”

  “You get up. You help me. You’re going to help me put these things away, Max.” She motioned at the tools she’d pulled out of the box. Veronica. Always ready with a fix. He started gathering them up and putting them back.

  “Don’t just throw them in. Put them back in order,” she said.

  It was him she wanted orderly. He was unruly with emotion, and it frightened her. Veronica, with her temporary playmates and her carefully controlled world, the woman with the power to turn people on and off like water from a spigot. She’d never know what it was to be devastated by love, he thought with sudden sadness. The magic that protected her cut her off from all that.

  He set a wrench into a slot with other wrenches. She didn’t even understand tools.

  “What?”

  He looked up to find her watching him. “You pulled out a wrench to pretend to fix an electrical box?” he asked.

  “So?”

  His laugh sounded overwrought even to his own ears.

  “Max, are you okay?”

  “I’m all torn up inside, Veronica.”

  She regarded him helplessly. She hated
him suffering, in part because it touched off her suffering, he suspected. Her pit bull, her Jophius, messy with emotion.

  He forced a smile. “I’m okay, baby. We need to catch our train.”

  A silence. Was she relieved? “Okay, Max.”

  They caught a cab to the station, joining the late commuters traveling back to Milwaukee. They’d ride on through the night to St. Paul.

  Inside the ornate and cavernous lobby, Veronica bought a detective novel from a used book stall, and she found a Louis L’Amour western for Max. She held it out. “You read this one yet?”

  “No,” he lied, because he knew she wanted him to have something nice for the ride, something to console him.

  “Excellent,” she said.

  They settled into their seats for the journey home, restored to their regular appearances. The train lurched slowly through the Chicago yards, picking up speed as they neared Wisconsin. Max re-read the first few chapters of his book while she read hers.

  The Milwaukee commuters disembarked some time later, leaving the car half empty. The lights were dimmed as the train set off once again, heading northwest. The horn blew whenever they approached populated areas—every few minutes at first, but less and less as they went on. Still Max would look up every time he heard the sound, desperate to get a glimpse into the lit-up windows of the homes and taverns they passed, as if he could find some life out there to latch onto.

  Eventually the terrain turned rural. He felt hemmed in by the endless darkness, trapped in a train car with all the passengers and their murmurings and everyday lives and places they belonged.

  As if she somehow felt his distress, she reached over and took his hand in hers. Gently, softly. “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” he lied, trying not to crush her bones out of wanting to hang onto her. She was all he had left, and he was about to lose her, too. His usefulness would be over once the Salvo bit was settled.

  “That was hard for you,” she said.

  “Yet good.” He looked out the window. At least he could rest easy knowing his girl was okay. “All this emptiness, does it ever make you feel all alone?”

  “Max,” she whispered. “You’re not.”

  He looked over at her and saw the struggle in her eyes. Not saying all she thought, as usual. Regretting whipping him up, maybe. Dreading a slow goodbye. He pulled his hand from hers and made a show of flipping through his book, then he shoved it into the seat pocket.