“How about Intensive Care?”
More typing. “I’ve searched the hospital database for the entire week. No one named Hakeem has been here. Maybe he was admitted under another name.”
Why would Ravi do that, unless Hakeem really wasn’t his last name? Just because I saw it on his business card, I shouldn’t have accepted it as fact.
I was a pretty poor detective. For all I knew, the nurse was lying to me, or someone had tampered with the hospital records. Agatha Christie endowed her characters with the ability to separate fact from fiction. If only I could get inside her head, maybe I could get somewhere.
“Is there another hospital where he might have been taken?” I asked.
“The only other is the VA, but they don’t take emergencies.”
A drive over to the VA hospital confirmed what the nurse had said. Their records showed Alec’s time spent recovering from his war wounds, and nothing more.
A hand-lettered sign hung in the barbershop window:
CLOSED
All appointments canceled until further notice.
It was just after lunchtime when I unlocked the front door. Entering the empty shop, I saw the door to the secure hallway standing ajar. I could hear Ravi at work in the lab. I should have gone in there to ask him about his note in Hubert’s book, but there were more important questions to consider first. For one, what had become of Alec? Why did his ambulance fail to reach the hospital? If he was indeed missing, why wasn’t Ravi out searching for him? (Finally, I was thinking like a real mystery novel sleuth.)
I searched the shop for clues to the answers. I inspected the mirror that had presumably come from the Amazon jungle. I rummaged through some drawers. Being alone, I didn’t have to worry about getting caught, until I heard a man’s voice say:
“So, you’re Amy.”
I spun around, ready with excuses to justify my snooping, but no one was there.
“Over here!”
This was getting creepy. Hearing disembodied voices only happens in horror movies.
I sat in the barber chair, and as I waited to hear what the voice would say next, I caught something in the mirror race across the room. “Who’s there?”
Staring at my reflection, a man slowly stood up behind my chair. Dressed in a gray suit and tie, I figured him to be a supply salesman, come to replenish Ravi’s stockroom.
“Thank goodness,” I said. “You scared the bejesus out of me. Should I get Ravi for you?”
But when I turned my head to look back at him, the man was gone, as if vanished by magic. Even spookier, turning back toward the mirror, the reflection showed him still standing behind me!
“How can you be in there, and not be . . . I mean, how is that possible?”
He place his hand on my shoulder. Feeling the touch of his fingers, I glanced down at them, but no hand was there!
“What is this,” I said. “I see your reflection, but you’re not here to be reflected? Are you invisible or something?”
He came around to face me. “Certainly not,” he said. “Otherwise you wouldn’t see me at all.”
“Then, whose hand did I feel on my shoulder?”
“Mine. Everything on your side of the mirror is on my side, too. You felt my hand because you’re in here with me.”
He reached for a spray bottle and picked it up. The same bottle on my side rose into the air, as if being held up by an invisible hand. “Everything in your world is duplicated exactly the same in here. I can move about in my space as you do in yours. The only difference is that everything here is flip-flopped. To you, this bottle reads Hair Spray. In here it reads yarpS riaH.”
“You’re not dead, are you?” I asked.
“I’m very much alive, thank you, Amy.”
“How do you know my name?”
“Perhaps I should introduce myself. I’m Harley Fink.”
This was crazy! I had been looking all over for him, and here he finds me instead. This wasn’t quite how I imagined our first meeting. It was like talking through a big hole in the wall to someone in the next room.
“Harley Fink?” I said. “The same one I talked to on the phone? The same one the police are looking for?”
“In the flesh . . . sort of.”
“Does Ravi know you?”
“Very well. He’s been removing my guilt for years.”
“But how can you be here? You drove off a cliff. You tumbled to the bottom of Grand Gorge. I saw it happen.”
“That you did, and by all rights I should be dead. But the Guilt Remover has a handy little side effect. With extreme guilt comes suicidal thoughts. When that happens, you’re whisked away into this mirror before you can cause yourself deadly harm. To the outside world, you’ve simply disappeared.”
Alec tried to overdose on pain killers. If Harley was right, then Alec was in that mirror, too. No wonder I couldn’t find him.
“Is there any way to get out?” I asked.
“There is! Look in that cupboard above the rinse basin. There you’ll find a green bottle.”
I opened the cupboard door and found a bottle labeled Back Splash.
“Is this it?” I said, holding it up to the mirror.
“Yes. All you have to do is shampoo my hair with it and I’ll be outta here.”
No question. This was definitely the Wickagua’s jungle mirror. Arthur Gimbal claimed that it could bring the dead back to life. Apparently, the near-dead had an all access pass, too.
“How can I shampoo your hair when you’re invisible to me?”
“Just watch my reflection. It’s easy.”
Easy, maybe, but not desirable. Harley Fink had given me no reason to trust him. His lies had turned my world upside down. If I release him from his glass prison, what then? I knew little more about him aside from what I learned from Debbie. But, he was in a rush to get out, and needed my help to do it. That left me an opening for a little tit for tat.
“Is there anyone else in there with you?” I asked.
“You mean Alec?”
“You know him?”
“Of course. I’ve been watching everything that’s gone on in this shop.”
“Then you know that he’s missing.”
“And you think he’s in here. He isn’t, but I know where to find him. Let me out and I’ll tell you where he is.”
“Why should I trust you?”
“If you want to see Alec again, you’re going to have to.”
“Maybe I should bring Ravi out here to check out your story.”
He looked me in the eye. “There’s something you need to know about him.”
“What something?”
“You’re not going to like this, Amy. Ravi is the Devil!”
“What are you talking about? He’s the nicest man I know—strange, but nice.”
“Don’t kid yourself. He’s a modern-day Dr. Jekyll. You’ve seen the types of people who come through here: power-hungry politicians, greedy executives, corrupt congressmen—each of them guilty of some grievous act. Do they care? No. Are they ashamed? Of course not. After Ravi removes their guilt, they go back to their fancy offices and do it all over again. They return to their evil ways with a clear conscience.”
As much as I wanted to deny it, Harley Fink had raised a valid point. I was already having serious doubts about Ravi’s honesty. He misled me into believing that Alec was in the hospital. How many other untruths had he told me?
I stared at the bottle of Back Splash in my hand, unsure what to do, when I heard the door down the hall close.
“You’ve got to get me out of here, Amy,” exclaimed Harley. “Don’t let your feelings for Ravi fool you. Consider this: he gave you the Guilt Remover without your consent. You may be in here next.”
The sound of footsteps echoed down the hall.
“Come back tonight,” Harley whispered, then ducked out of sight.
I hid behind the reception desk as Ravi came in. He crossed the room and opened a drawer, then noticed the bot
tle of Back Splash I had foolishly left on the sink.
Ravi picked it up, then slowly scanned the room. I held my breath as he put the green bottle back in the cupboard. Passing the mirror, he studied its reflection, then went back to his laboratory.
I waited until I heard the lab door close before venturing back out into the shop. It was time I got home. But before leaving, I crept up to the mirror, and whispered, “I’ll be back.”
Chapter 10
Back Splash
Fathers of teenage daughters possess a unique gift. A sixth sense kicks in whenever we try to avoid them. I was hoping to keep my after-hours appointment with Harley Fink a secret. Experience told me that my covert operation wouldn’t sit well with my dad.
I carefully peered around the kitchen doorway. With his back to me, Dad was leaning over the sink, washing the dinner dishes. With him distracted, I crept quietly to the front door. But just as I reached for the door handle, I heard: “Kind of late to be going out, isn’t it, Amy?” Did I mention that dads have eyes in the back of their heads, too?
“I’m just going out for a while,” I said.
“Isn’t tonight the Junior Prom?”
I pulled a sweatshirt over my head. “I’m not going, remember?”
“Do you mind if I ask where you are going?”
Scrutinizing my every move was one of his parental responsibilities. I respected that. Interfering in my mission, however, was something I couldn’t allow. If Dad knew what I was up to, I would be grounded for who knows how long. I hoped that I wouldn’t have to deceive him, but saving Alec was simply too important.
Dad leaned against the kitchen door frame, drying his hands on a towel. I prepared myself for a thorough inquiry, but instead he gave me an unexpected smile.
“No need,” he said. “Have a good time,” then went back to his dishes.
I was shocked and relieved at the same time. Rarely was I permitted to go anywhere without a drawn-out description of my planned activities. For some reason, tonight I was free to go my own way. This was way to easy.
I stood beside Dad at the sink. “I’m going to a party to do drugs,” I said.
“Yeah, right.”
“I’m going out to rob a liqueur store.”
“Nice try.”
“Why are you so trusting of me all of a sudden?”
He turned off the tap. “That’s hard to say. Trusting people takes a kind of blind faith. You don’t feel 100% comfortable with what they’re doing, but you go along with them anyway. You’re still young, Amy, but you’re not a child. You’ve got good instincts. I’ve seen them. That night the police came here. You demanded to see their IDs. I argued the point, but you stood your ground. I admire that.”
What a jerk I was. I should have confessed everything to him right then and there. He was being totally up front with me, and I wasn’t returning the favor. I felt horrible, but promised myself to tell him everything when all this was over.
I headed out of the kitchen, free to carry on with my operation. But I suddenly felt concern for my dad. I went back over to him. “Are you going to worry about me?”
He looked at me as if it was for the last time. “If I live to be a hundred, I’ll always worry about you. It’s a curse that comes with being a parent. But there’s an old adage about rearing children: Until you let them spread their wings, they’ll never learn to fly on their own.”
I had waited so long to hear that. I wanted to wrap my grateful arms around him, but I didn’t want to turn this into a weepy moment. Fact is, his remark scared me. Soaring skyward toward independence is one thing. Falling back to Earth on your tush is another.
There was a spookiness to the old downtown after dark. Most of the streetlights were burned out. Few people ventured there after sundown, so the city saw no point in fixing them. No light came from Ravi’s upstairs apartment, either, indicating that he had retired for the evening.
With the full moon at my back, I quietly inserted my key into the front door lock. Carefully muting the doorbell with my hand, I tiptoed across the threshold. I made certain that the blinds were closed tight before switching on the lights.
“Mr. Fink?” I whispered. “Are you there?”
Harley’s face leaned into view in the mirror. “The coast is clear, Amy.”
Without hesitation, his mirror-self crossed the room and sat down at the rinse basin. I swung around to see the empty chair recline by itself—just the kind of thing you’d see in an old Invisible Man movie.
The Back Splash was still in the cupboard. Reaching for the bottle, I stopped short just as I was about to pick it up.
“Having second thoughts?” said Harley.
“Are you a terrorist?”
“One thing you should know by now is that I don’t do anything that doesn’t turn a profit. Terrorism is for ideological fools. It accomplishes nothing.”
“What if something goes wrong?”
“It won’t. You think I’d put myself through this if I thought it was hazardous?”
He had a point. What did I have to worry about? The worse that could happen to me was getting wrinkly fingers. Then again, there was no telling what that stuff was made of.
“Maybe I should wear rubber gloves,” I said.
“You’re stalling. If it won’t hurt my scalp, it won’t hurt your hands. But it might hurt Alec the longer you take to get me out of here.”
That was our deal: rescue Harley, and I find Alec.
I took the bottle down off the shelf, then remembered that Harley had maneuvered a similar-sized bottle.
“Why are you having me do this?” I asked. “You could just as easily do it yourself.”
“I tried that already. I shampooed my hair with the bottle in here, but all I got was a clean head of hair. I didn’t cross over to the other side like I should have. Apparently, what happens in the mirror, stays in the mirror.”
Harley leaned his head back. I opened the faucet, then pointed the spray nozzle into the sink. The water splashed off the space where Harley’s invisible head was.
“Do you mind not getting water in my eyes?”
“Oops! Sorry.”
Focusing on his mirror image, I redirected the spray, and got the hang of it pretty quickly. Feeling invisible wet hair between my fingers was a little harder to get used to.
I uncapped the bottle of Back Splash. “How much do I use?”
“That I don’t know. Better use a fair amount. I’d hate to leave half of me in the mirror from using too little.”
I worked the shampoo into his hair. The lather hovered over the empty sink like a soapy cloud.
“Anything happening?” asked Harley.
“Nothing yet.”
I rinsed away the suds, and as the shampoo drained off of Harley’s head, strands of his hair appeared in its place!
“Here you come!”
His face then slowly faded in. It was like watching a materializing ghost—first a thin vapor, then gradually becoming more solid.
“I see something!” said Harley. “The ceiling! It’s blurry, but I can see it.”
“Give it a minute. You’re eyeballs still look like little fish bowls.”
It didn’t take long before his whole head had completely transformed. I poked his cheek with my finger. It was real skin!
He rolled his eyes toward me. “I can see perfectly now. Where’s the rest of me?”
“Be patient. Your shoulders are just coming through now.”
Little by little, from his neck downward, his body solidified. And when I saw the shine on the tips of his shoes, I knew the job was complete.
“Done!”
I wrapped Harley’s head in a towel. He immediately ran over to the mirror. I now saw both Harley and his reflection.
“I’ll be damned!” he said, toweling his hair dry.
“How do you feel?”
“Refreshed, like I just came from a dip in the ocean.”
He picked up a comb and dragged it over
his head, then made a troubling comment: “Gotta look good for our guests.”
“What do you mean, guests?”
I heard the flip of a switch. The stairway light to Ravi’s apartment came on. “Who’s down there?” called out Ravi.
The sound of footsteps on the stairs followed.
“What do we do?” I said frantically.
“Let me handle this.”
Ravi entered the shop in his bathrobe, and seeing Harley Fink, said, “So! You were in the mirror all along.”
“I have been ever since my accident.”
“How did you get out?”
I lowered my eyes as Ravi looked over at me.
“Amy . . . You?”
Ravi’s look of disappointment wounded me like an arrow through the heart.
“You should have told the police about me when they questioned you,” said Harley. “They’ve been following Amy hoping she would lead them to a terrorist. You were already a suspect. All they need now is the evidence to link you to the attempted bombing.”
That “fink!” He was out to frame Ravi from the beginning. He had tricked me into believing that he was the victim, when all along he was the aggressor.
“Your evil plan won’t work,” said Ravi.
“Oh, won’t it? I’ve been watching you. I followed you around the shop unnoticed. I know all about your laboratory. I even know the security code for opening the door.”
He strolled over to the front window and peeked through the blinds, then with a flick of his wrist, he unlocked the front door. Flinging it wide open, in charged a dozen policemen with guns drawn.
“Freeze!” shouted the lead officer. We immediately put our hands up—all but Harley, of course.
“What is this?” protested Ravi.
Through the open door marched my chubby friend from the FBI: Policeman #1. “Don’t you know a police raid when you see one?” He placed a search warrant in Ravi’s raised hand. “Here’s my invitation.”
“On what grounds have you the right to break into my shop?”
“Suspicion of plotting a terrorist attack.” He took his eyes off Ravi and nodded to me. “Fancy finding you here, Amy. Get any unusual phone calls lately?”
The Age of Amy: Mad Dogs and Makeovers Page 8