by Lyn Brittan
Had Fazil found it among the great multitude?
Had he tossed everything in a fit of rage?
The wardrobe hummed a faint grumbling sound. Then, a drawer popped open. Tears blurred her vision. She’d cried more in these last few days than in the past five years. That she couldn’t control it was ridiculous, and yet, the story of their life together brought on the waterworks again. Here, she kept the tiny things of their love. A pressed flower from a fair in the nineteen forties. A hilarious collection of driver’s licenses. She cringed at the ones from the seventies, laughing at the scorch marks from when she’d tried to burn them in the eighties. Thank God, he’d stopped her.
The walls shifted again, lighting a new path. One might be persuaded into thinking it wanted her to see something. Weird things happened in this small and infinite space, but she’d chalked it up to Fazil’s presence and the general spirit of their love.
She missed you.
The words of her husband that she’d dismissed so thoroughly came back to her once more. She stepped on the glittering pathway. It flickered in response, growing in intensity the farther she went inside.
She’d explored this lamp for years, but never had the gall to say that she’d seen all of it. There had always been another room, another door, even a kitchen—though Fazil long claimed to have sent it away.
The air grew smoky, like burning wood, only it didn’t choke or sting her eyes. Another left turn and the silks gave way to wooden walls and a crackling fireplace, complete with a wagon wheel on the mantle. “Oh, good gracious!”
Underneath the antlers of some poor creature rested every manner of cowboy boots. This was a lesson in and of itself. Some with pointed toes, others rounded. And spurs—actual freaking spurs. Then there were the hats.
Black hats.
Brown hats.
Tan hats.
White hats.
She grabbed the largest she could find and popped it on her head. Before she could wish for a mirror, one materialized on the wall before her—right beneath the blinding display of belt buckles.
Something twinged in her chest. She’d screwed up on so many levels. But she’d woken up with a lot more hope today than yesterday. He hadn’t given up on her, and she sure as Arizona horse shit wasn’t about to give up on him.
Without warning a presence rested on her shoulder. Heavy and solid. It was every bit the sensation of being pushed out the door. Did the lamp want her gone? What was it ... what was she up to now?
Rosa held tight to the hat, wrapped her free arm around her legs, and tugged her head against her knees before wishing herself out of the lamp. Lesson learned the hard way long ago. She would wish herself inside the thing if she were close enough, even without seeing it. But the lamp always spit you out wherever it was. Top shelf, in a kitchen cabinet, wherever.
This time, though, she landed on a king-sized bed with a tray of orange juice and mango slices. Bless him. Fazil had never been one for love notes, but this counted as one in a mighty big way. She had a little of both before placing the tiny lamp on the side table and scurrying naked from the room and toward her husband.
She should have scurried a little faster. Or slower. But damn her timing. Just as she passed the top of the stairs, a group of men in cowboy hats and business suits walked from the living room to the front door. Fazil had his hand on the door, facing her.
He coughed.
One of the men followed his gaze, right to her burning red face. That guy coughed too.
In fact there were a lot of coughs and a lot of backward glances to the front door. She hoofed it down the hall, but Fazil’s laugh hit her like a two-by-four. Oh, she’d kill him.
“Honey?”
Damned if she’d answer him from her crouching position of burning humiliation at the edge of the hall.
“Rosa, baby, don’tcha wanna wish for something?”
Hmmm ... going back in time couldn’t happen. She very much doubted he’d grant allowing her to crawl into a hole and die of embarrassment.
Maybe.
He cleared his throat. “The longer you wait, the tougher it gets.”
Right.
Some of the men grumbled, asking Fazil what he meant, but she got it right away.
Memories were mercurial things. Terrible and exciting ones blossomed over time. The mundane ones had a tendency to burrow deep, erupting at the most inopportune of moments.
Djinn weren’t neurosurgeons. They could erase memories, but it could turn ugly fast. The less rooting around Fazil had to do, the better. She couldn’t stand the thought of driving these men to madness because of her idiocy.
After wishing the men lost the memory of her boobs flopping up and down, she spider-crawled back to the bedroom, pausing to thank the good, sweet Lord for a husband with such particular talents.
She threw a sheet around her and jetted to the window to survey the damage below. Apparently, there was none. Fazil and the men looked at maps and tablets as if nothing ever happened.
Her husband glanced in her direction, winked, and waved for her to join them. One of the men started to turn, but she dipped behind the curtain in time to avoid future embarrassment.
Seeing the men again ... rather, seeing them for the first time from their perspective, didn’t count as a fun time. But Fazil might have a good reason for it. They’d both need to know if the wish took hold.
The men were all out pointing off in various directions when she scurried down. Overly dressed in jeans, a long-sleeve plaid shirt, and baseball cap, she shuffled into the room and waved.
“Gentlemen, may I introduce you to my wife. She’s a little shy. Say something, sweetie.” He turned back to the men before she could open her mouth. “I tell her to imagine that everyone else is naked, but well, what are you going to do?”
She elbowed him but listened in as he finished up on some sort of oil-drilling deal.
“Your husband must have been born under a lucky sign,” the man in the tan ten-gallon hat said. His comrade, brown ten-gallon hat, agreed. “Yep, we did test drilling on Janet Dickey’s property, but it must have been a ghost deposit.”
Fazil clicked his tongue and sighed a sigh of biblical lamentation. “Shame. They’ve never seen anything like it. Poor woman went from a millionaire to right back where she was. Damndest thing though, that line somehow, someway, cut right through our property. I told them I don’t know anything about any oil, but I’d be happy to work out a leasing agreement. I just feel so sad for Ms. Dickey. Maybe you could bake her a pie or something?”
She frowned and bit her lip, one hand resting on her chin. “That might help.”
The ten-gallon crew joined in on this whole thing of faux-feeling-bad-ness for a good three minutes before shaking hands and going about their day.
Fazil didn’t say a thing as their cars kicked up dirt on their way down the winding path.
“On a scale of zero to one hundred...”
“Yeah?”
“How much of this is your doing?”
Fazil huffed and counted fingers on both hands, before cocking his head to the side. “Ninety. Well, one hundred percent my doing. Still, not my fault.”
She folded her arms and raised an eyebrow. “You just said that a hundred percent of it was.”
“I was content to let her have oil. She’d have her run, and I’d have mine.”
“Then she flipped your car?”
“Then she flipped my car.”
“I can’t imagine she’ll take this lying down.”
“I don’t want to imagine how she takes anything. Here’s what I do know. She deserves it. She spied on me. She almost killed you, and she’s crazy enough to believe that we’re magical creatures.”
“We are. You are. Me mostly by default.”
Fazil twisted with his hands on his hips, cracked his back, and then pointed to a wheelbarrow and a shovel. “That doesn’t mean she isn’t crazy. C’mon, help me clear this pen.”
“I wish the pens were clear.”
Fazil stopped dead in his tracks, whipping around and wagging an accusatory schoolmarm finger. “That’s lazy as crap.”
“But?”
“I’m so glad you’re back.” He ran and scooped her up, and she couldn’t help giggling as he twirled her around over his head.
Soon he had her on the ground, her stupidly still-clothed legs wrapped around his back. She didn’t care that dirt was in her hair, along with who knew how many bugs and microbes. The scent of the ranch? However impossible she’d thought it the first day of her arrival, she was almost used to it. In his arms, she didn’t notice it at all. Her only focus was this man above her, grinding his jeans into hers. She started to work on his belt buckle when his butt started to vibrate.
He pulled the offending phone from his back pocket and slammed it on the ground next to her. “Let’s ignore that.”
“Agreed.”
Only, they couldn’t. As her mouth attacked his, as she clawed at his shirt, the phone kept on vibrating. It stopped, presumably to go to voicemail, but picked up again seconds later.
The man knelt, gloriously. He plopped one knee between the apex of her legs, rough and hard against her damp pants. One hand grabbed the phone, the other worked on her shirt, before he froze above her, a cocky smile wrapped across his face. “Why, it’s little Miss Janet. Hello?”
She could hear the woman’s swearing from where she rested, and a niggle of guilt settled in. It must have shown on her face. Fazil mimicked a steering wheel swerving and shrugged in that Hell, No! Are You Crazy? way that men sometimes do.
Janet must have just received a phone call.
Janet was not pleased.
Janet was out for blood.
He ended the call before the raving stopped and licked at the small scar she had near her chin. “She says we used magic to take her oil, blah, blah, blah. She intends to make us pay.”
“And you’re not concerned,” she asked, smacking his bum for his gross underestimation of the situation.
“Bigger fish to fry than that.”
“No kidding. Hey, about that, what if we went back? Check things out for ourselves?” She’d left in a haze of terror but harbored no misgivings about returning with Fazil at her side. Things looked a lot better from there. He’d protect her.
And...
Well...
If he protected her, then she could protect Manny.
He saw right through her, and she read it all over his face. “She could hurt Emmanuel.”
Fazil sighed and rocked back, squatting over her. “Janet doesn’t know anything about him. One, we’d be putting him in more harm by contacting him. And two, before you ask, no, we can’t bring him here.”
“Move,” she said, rolling out from under him and rising to her feet. “I’m not going to abandon him now.”
“I’m not asking you to. Please, baby, let’s not fight about this. I’m going to send him the best doctors that money can buy. We’ll find an even better home and—”
“How dare you? You let me believe that—”
Her face burned, and her heart constricted, folding in on itself as Fazil once again focused on destroying her joy.
“I didn’t let you believe anything. I was pretty fucking solid on that point. He’ll have everything.”
“Except his family.”
“Rosa—”
No matter how many times he called her name, she didn’t turn around. If this was how he wanted it, fine. To hell with him.
And just like that, they were right back where they started.
Chapter Eight
It’d been a solid week of rolled eyes and unnecessary sighs around corners. He hated living like this, doing this to her, but it’d been her own damned fault. She didn’t leave him any room to maneuver, and now, he had to figure out how to make all this work.
And again, oh yeah, the dead guy.
He’d almost forgotten, until the random text message she’d received this morning. Rosa had come into the kitchen and damn near thrown her phone at his head. He stared at the screen again, but it hadn’t changed no matter how long he looked.
I know what you did. You’ll pay. Meet us where you committed the crime.
“What about your so-called contacts, Fazil? I wish us to the murderer.”
“No.”
“I wish the murderer dead.”
“No. We need to—”
“Fine. I wish us to the murder. Again.”
He threw back his head and growled. “Knock it off. An unanswered wish is not a walk in the park for me.”
“So, answer it.”
“And that’ll wind us up, where? For all we know, it’s a team of people. They’re probably recording everything. You want me to magically pop into that? If you want to wish for something so bad, I could use a glass of brandy.”
“No.”
“Ugh!”
She was a mirror image of him, arms folded and grimacing at the kitchen table. She wished for a rum, which he granted, and which she did not share. Typical. Her red nails rapped against the side of the glass. He was two seconds from yanking it away. “So, your friends are searching for a body?”
He didn’t answer, instead getting up and bringing over a bottle of black label cognac. He drank straight from the gold-flaked container. “That’s the plan.”
“Bad plan.”
“Because I thought of it?”
“Because the body is obviously well hidden. Although it’s not likely the guy’s going to keep it around.”
He took a swig and slammed the bottle down. “And therefore?”
“Therefore, we look for what people will still use. The body’s ... err ... the guy’s assets. The wife won’t know he’s gone. They haven’t spoken for months, and all the bills are paid by some financial guy,” she said, pointing with the same hand that held the glass. She finished it and motioned for him to pour.
“You shouldn’t mix your liquors.”
“I’m discussing a missing corpse with an Algerian genie wearing a cowboy hat. I’ll have the drink.”
“Point taken. As to the other,” he said, pausing to pour and reflect on the general absurdity of the situation, “I’m interested. Please continue.”
“His credit card accounts can’t be traced. I mean yeah, his wife would still be using her card, but not in New York. Wouldn’t the guy that pays the bills have noticed if his boss stopped spending all of a sudden?”
“Unless he didn’t.”
“Exactly,” she said, voice strong with a heaping of confidence.
“Or unless the bill isn’t due or he doesn’t check it. Don’t go getting your back heaving, gimme a minute and wish for my laptop.”
The second it arrived, and it really was less than a second, he started typing. He had no hacking skills, but he knew people who did, and they owed him. In eight minutes, a list of charges appeared on his screen. “Someone’s been using the man’s credit cards.”
“Where?”
“Still in New York. Manhattan. Your body thief isn’t straying far.”
“So we go to Manhattan,” she said, rising. Her once again empty glass clanged against his granite countertop.
He grabbed her hand and nodded back to the chair. “Not yet. New York hasn’t gotten any smaller since we were last there.” Then his laptop pinged again, and he zoomed in on the image sent from his hacker. Their target had been caught on a sports store camera using the card. He flipped around the laptop. “You know this guy?”
“Holy crap.”
“So, yes?”
“That’s Jimmy.”
“Jimmy the accountant? Jimmy the drug lord? Jimmy the...”
“Jimmy, the doorman.”
* * * *
They were on a flight that afternoon. Paranoia or caution, she didn’t know, but they’d agreed she’d travel the old-fashioned way—in the small djinn lamp tucked away in Fazil’s inner jacket pocket. She tried amusing herself with books and sorting through old clothes, but her
mind focused on one thing.
And it wasn’t Jimmy.
As a djinn rule, it wasn’t the best idea for a genie to go into a fight with his lamp on him. On the one percent chance someone got the drop on Fazil, the last thing they needed was for some goon to see something shiny and take off with his lamp.
When the plane touched down, Fazil walked them to the family restroom in the airport, and she was able to pop out of the lamp. It was always a bit disorienting, not knowing where she was for a second or two. Fazil’s presence made all the difference—a comforting balm in the crazy of all this.
“You ready?”
She shrugged. “I just need to get this over with.”
“We will. Just stick to the plan. Yeah?”
Fazil had placed the lamp on a golden chain around her neck. His plan, combined with the Neanderthal ooo-rah mentality Fazil suffered from, meant abandoning her in a restroom in the hotel across the street from the apartment building where everything had gone down. He’d given explicit orders to wait for him there.
Said orders were repeated every three steps.
“Fazil, if you tell me what to do one more time...”
“We’re too close to having this thing settled. Your room key is waiting for you at the front desk. Go rest, have a drink, and let me handle this.” His head swiveled from one side to the other. The man looked primed, almost eager for an attack. Surely, he didn’t expect one here on the streets?
“Because I can’t?”
“Because you didn’t. Or, because you caused it. Pick one.”
“Not fair.”
But Fazil didn’t answer. Not really. He put one foot behind the other and backed away, palms raised upward until she lost him in the crowd of New York.
Staying obedient didn’t suit her these days. She managed to stay only for as long as he could still maybe see her. She counted to twenty and turned to where he’d disappeared.
This was it. Her last chance to save Manny.
After popping the lamp in her front pocket, she threw her purse over her shoulder, and shot off for Grand Central and the train that would lead her to her brother.
Chapter Nine
He read the stupid on her face as plain as the time on his diamond-lined watch. She was up to something, but he couldn’t deal with it now. The best he could hope for was minimal collateral damage. Dollars to doughnuts, whatever she was up to included her brother.