Two for the Show

by Jonathan Stone

  She smiles gently, resigned. “The same life, with one big exception.”

  And I hear my own words—“thinking, obsessing, about the same person”—and I know it, sense it, moments before she says it, so her saying it merely confirms my stomach-sinking awareness.

  “I sleep with him.” Looking expressionlessly at me. Adding nothing more for the moment. No further commentary or punctuation needed.

  And the moment I saw her, when I saw the sudden and disarming beauty, I should have realized it. I should not have plunged headlong into my own fantasy of the two of us, of my double, my other half, this romantic notion . . . I should have taken a breath, taken a step back.

  And the instant question, of course: Where do her loyalties lie? Will I be reported? Has she been leading me on, gathering her own data?

  I look at her. She looks at me. And now I see how completely wrong I was. I thought I knew her completely. But I don’t know her at all.

  “Well, I don’t know if I’m glad I learned this, or not,” she says quietly, just above a whisper, really. “I’m going to have to think about that. You and I, we deal in the power of information and knowledge every day, but I’m not sure that information and knowledge are always such a good thing.” She sips her coffee, and without looking up, says, “Strange, how well we know each other, and how much we don’t.” And then looks at me, smiling ruefully, mimicking her boss lightly, faintly, profoundly, and in a way she knows I’ll recognize. “Connection. Connection. We’re all connected.”

  And it is only in leaving Dominique’s kitchen, passing through her sparsely furnished living room, as devoid of artifact and the past as my own, that I see the one exception, a silver-framed faded photograph of an attractive, smiling couple at an amusement park. And something about its place of honor on the shelf, the empty space around it projecting a kind of unspoken holiness to it, inevitably unleashes the detective in me. It is obviously her parents. A single, old photograph, surrounded by no photos more recent. I lift my index finger to point to it, to ask her about it, but she anticipates my question, answering flatly, factually, as if to head off any further discussion.

  “My parents. Deceased. Both killed in a train crash, when I was nine.”

  Any sympathy I might have felt is overwhelmed by my mind’s sudden whirring.

  Connection. Connection. We’re all connected.

  NINE

  Obviously, the fake detectives, Armondy and Hammer, had not caught up with Archer Wallace, because he delivered his next blackmail message, and it was quite a variation on the oblique, nearly invisible, easily deleted e-mail he had sent earlier. Its cousin. Its opposite. Because this message ran on the news zipper that girdled the New York, New York hotel, sandwiched between national events and sports scores, and was crafted in a way to create mystery and startlement but give away nothing. Cheerful sounding. Revealing nothing, and everything—in that, the message was its own bit of stagecraft.

  A.W.—I’m in town with Dave and Sandi, but working independently. You know I know. Let’s get together on it.

  An intimate koan, sent out across the zipper. Sitting mysteriously between marriage declarations and buckeye ads for auto dealerships. Now of course, anyone was free to look into the message. To do their own bit of detective work—though “A. W.” and “Dave” and “Sandi” probably wouldn’t get them very far. Archer sent me a private e-mail—subject line: “NY NY zipper, 2:50 p.m.”—just to make sure I didn’t miss it.

  Jesus. The news zipper, used for blackmail. The world moves forward in unpredictable ways.

  Was it a volley intended to drive the Amazing Wallace crazy? After the fake detectives, to show commensurate recklessness? Anything you can do I can do crazier. On getting over my initial shock—seeing the note there on the zipper, watching it circle, and then disappear after its allotted few repetitions for the next set of electronic messages—I calmed down and realized that the odds were likely that no one would think twice about it. They would go on uninterrupted with their Vegas lives, assume it was merely the message of an old friend reaching out Vegas style to another old friend, and quickly forget it. But wasn’t there the risk that someone would be curious, look into it, begin to insert themselves into the story?

  Its second audience, and further intention, was clearly the Stewartsons. To say to them in flashing neon, Look how far I will go, I’m in charge here, this is mine, back off, don’t mess with me . . .

  It also may have been meant to inspire, to formulate in fear, what might be the next step. If Archer leaped like this from message one to message two, what would he do for message three?

  It is a game of chicken, I realize, a tightening circle of move and countermove, poised to spiral upward. Neither side wants to actually go to the police—if Archer Wallace does, it exposes and brings down Wallace the Amazing, yes, but then Archer will never get his blackmail money, so both sides lose. And if Wallace the Amazing goes to the police, the blackmail ceases, and yes, Archer is prosecuted, but in the process, there is a closer look, an investigation, of the Amazing Wallace, and when the truth of Archer’s claim becomes clear, the Amazing empire eventually crumbles, and—again—both sides lose.

  And speaking of money: Why hasn’t Archer Wallace made the ask? The zipper indicates that he hasn’t. He hasn’t assigned an amount, proposed a figure. Hasn’t gotten to that. Why? Something in me already knows the answer to that. Because it’s actually not about money. Because Archer wants something besides, beyond, the money. And if it’s something other than money, it may not be payable. There may not be any transaction that will satisfy. No earthly exchange that will suffice.

  In light of those fluently fake detectives, and Dominique’s very existence (parallel to mine yet unknown to me), and the shifting identities of the Stewartsons, and ghostly Dave/Archer, and Wallace the Amazing himself—in light of all these inversions of expectation in my previously narrow, orderly, comprehensible life, and, most of all, of that framed photograph of her deceased parents in Dom’s condominium, I began to think again about my father’s highway accident and my mother’s cancer. How Wallace had approached me at my moment of greatest vulnerability. A master of psychology, of human frailty, right from the start. I had left for college just a few weeks before, in the wake of a fierce argument between us. My mother had a locked trunk full of my dad’s belongings in the attic, and I had always wanted to see what was in it, and she had always insisted that I was not old enough. I argued that now that I was going off to school, I should be allowed to look through it, and she still refused. Said it was still not the appropriate time. So I left with the angry notion—ironically prescient—of returning only for absolutely necessary appearances: holidays, weddings, deaths.

  I came back from college straight to my mother’s funeral. She had obviously kept her illness to herself, because it was a complete surprise to her small handful of friends and acquaintances who were there and who, like me, had only just learned of her illness too. They were friends I didn’t know—women from her bridge game, clerks from local stores, apparently, people from the church services I had never attended with her (feeling remorseful about that now)—but I was relieved to discover she had all of them in her life, close enough and meaningful enough to be there for her. We had no living relatives. (As you know, that was part of the reason Wallace picked me. Few if any familial obligations or commitments. Relatively free to make him my family.) And my mother had largely kept to herself. Had always been an extremely private person, which I attributed to my father’s early, sudden death. In its wake, she had drawn inward, enveloping herself in grief, and then, self-sufficiency. Although I was too young to remember, I had probably done so myself in some unconscious way—probably a natural human reaction, a hard-wired defense, to the disruption of my father’s sudden death. When I left for college, she must have taken the opportunity of the sudden silence and time on her hands to put some household affairs in order, to be
even more organized than she already was. Because there in a desk drawer when I opened it—alongside bank and financial statements organized neatly in a folder—were her instructions and arrangements for a funeral and cremation and disposal of ashes, should anything happen to her. And whether she had done all this before or after the discovery of the aggressive cancer—highly organized, or simply bored and alone, with an eerie sense of approaching fate?—I’d never be able to say.

  I did my part, though in a fog, understandably, and without much grace or experience; I was a college kid after all, and only by a few weeks. I hastily organized and administered the funeral, according to her explicit instructions. Followed her sheet of directions precisely. Dialed the numbers of people I didn’t know and delivered the news. I contacted the bank officer on the card in her folder, as her folder said to.

  Which allowed me to leave the funeral, pack my few remaining possessions into a couple of duffel bags, return to school, and never look back. I didn’t even bother opening the locked trunk. At that point in my life, I decided, I didn’t want to know. I didn’t care. I wanted to turn my back on all the sorrow of my past. I swore I’d never return to such sadness.

  And then, there was Wallace with his offer. He was very frank. He had read about the funeral, and about me. He was looking for someone like me. Here were the advantages. Here were the disadvantages. Take it or leave it. But please—for you and me, Chas—take it.

  And over the years, of course, the question would nag at me. Should I go back? Should I go back? It was always a question fraught with pain, and morality, and contemplation, and a wash of emotion.

  But never with suspicion.

  TEN

  Of course, I am a fake detective too. I am just as fake as the two who paid me a visit. A real detective solves things. Puts clues together. Places the puzzle pieces reverently on the table, presses them into place with satisfaction. Constructs a chain of logic as secure and unassailable and reinforced and irrefutable as an actual chain. A real detective seeks and finds justice for victims, defends us at the fraying edges of the social contract, is justice’s own catcher in the rye. A real detective either doesn’t sleep because of an injustice or an unclosed case gnawing at him, or sleeps utterly and soundly in the knowledge that his function is moral and essential. A real detective knows the camaraderie of teamwork, of a common goal, and even the detective who is in style and habit a loner knows the satisfying connection to the common good, to the moral loners before and after him. To something even greater and more vital than camaraderie. To a brotherhood of relevance.

  Whereas I am a detective for the sole purpose of entertainment. For the purpose of stagecraft and turning a profit. A vital cog in a powerful and relentless wheel of revenue. I am a detective—but do I share any camaraderie with real detectives? Sure, plenty. Seeker of facts. Seeker of truths. Follower of the trail. A core connection. But then, let’s face it, our paths diverge . . .

  I am a detective who gets at little truths quickly, but then hides them in the context of a larger lie. I am a rare and oxymoronic creature—a criminal detective. Clearly illegal, in my online reach and methods. Though our only purpose is entertainment. We never use the information I find for anything nefarious; we get rid of it, delete it, electronically shred it afterward. Responsible. But still illegal.

  A perfect job for a fake detective is merely pretending to look for someone. After finding Wallace at Golden Care, I now have to avoid him—while appearing to be looking for him, since the Stewartsons expect me to locate him. I double back over streets, switch direction, venture into the deepest hidden corners of Las Vegas (ancient, cluttered pawnshops run by big-bearded bikers or yarmulked, trim-bearded Jews; SRO residences stinking of men with stained clothing, broken suitcases, and broken souls; bankrupted half-built developments at the city’s outermost edges, like mankind’s defeated colonization of a far planet), always making sure that the Stewartsons are never far behind. Or just far enough that it appears as if I have no idea they are there. It occurs to me that it is the inverse, the mirror, of when I was first following them and it turned out they knew. I go into gleaming new markets and filthy beat-up convenience stores, wallpaper-peeling motel entrances and soaring skylighted hotel lobbies, am in them just long enough to ask questions, then come out, catching glimpses of the Stewartsons’ car. I want them to see me working, diligently.

  But the habitual falseness of my strange occupation—the generalized, overarching lie of it, temporarily exaggerated by my fake investigative movement around the city—is suddenly assailed by the all too real. The actual, the physical, invades the cerebral. Because I’m alone at my computer one minute, and I’m being knocked around my own condominium the next. Roughed up, slapped hard around the ears and the back of the head, shoved hard against my own bare walls. No handcuffs, no duct tape this time—as if to show me they don’t need it. As if to show me their control is just as effective, just as total, without them. This time, it’s pure intimidation—simmering irritation finally unleashed in my little living room. A minute ago, I was alone, but now it is a very lively, crowded scene in here: me, the Stewartsons, their fury, my fear, my careful answers competing with my dumb terror. I’m still shaking off the last blow to the side of my head, the hardest one yet, the one that has me sliding down my own wall, from which I’m looking up at Dave Stewartson. A post-blow grogginess hangs over me; that’s all I can feel or think about, and yet there’s a strange contrary sharpness and alertness inside it, a sharpness and alertness to survival, to reality’s sudden robustness, its new crisp edges and colors and sights and sounds, despite the groggy throb of the blow.

  Stewartson bends down to me. “Where is he? Fucking albino, knock-kneed, skin and bones, wandering the street. Where the fuck is he?”

  I shrug.

  Slap! A reminder slap, meant to jar and stir the memory of the previous blow. It works. “You know! Don’t pretend you don’t! Don’t insult us!”

  This is quite a partnership, I’m thinking. An ironic, detached observation that seems to help me bear the pain.

  Also helping me bear the pain, handle the crowded scene is the fact that Debbie, at least, does not seem to be part of it. Her continuing absence from the Stewartsons’ orbit doesn’t guarantee her safety. But she doesn’t seem to be available to them to use as leverage against me. A good sign.

  “You’ve checked the hospitals?” I ask innocently, neutrally.

  Slap! “We’re not idiots. You know where he is.”

  I feel myself drift out a little—now the pain is all I’m aware of. The room throbs, pulses. Consciousness is becoming a challenge.

  Why am I doing this to myself? Why am I allowing this? Why am I protecting Archer Wallace? I should stay out of it, make it between the Stewartsons and him. But I am involved. Why do I feel I owe this to the real Wallace? It’s ridiculous. But as I’m about to tell them where he is, as I’m about to say “Golden Care,” two simple words—slap! Which only slaps me further into awareness—of fear, of reality, but also of anger, resentment, alertness, and commitment. Their violence backfires. Only draws me closer to my doppelganger, makes me identify with him.

  “Either you found him and aren’t telling us or you haven’t found him and aren’t holding up your end of the deal.” Stewartson shakes his head mournfully, ominously—making clear this deserves another slap, either way.

  Jesus. This treatment, and they didn’t even know if I knew anything.

  “Find him!” commands Stewartson. His face contorted with rage. “We’re cutting you in. So no more bullshit!”

  Nice partner. Nice partnership. Clearly they see their offer of partnership as providing certain physical privileges to them.

  Okay. Okay. I’ll find him.

  And I realize:

  They’re telling the fake detective to get real.

  An hour later, as I recover from the shock and insult and challenging conditi
ons of my partnership, as I down aspirin for the headache, soak my head in cold water to regain my equilibrium, I have the sense—despite or because of their violence—that the Stewartsons, correctly or not, must really feel they need me. They would hardly tolerate my “bullshit,” as Dave called it, if they thought they didn’t. Which tells me they understand, intuitively if not explicitly, what I can do at the keyboard. That I am, for them, a kind of maestro there. Their violence would only go so far—was only a stage show of its own. For now, anyway.

  And once again, the maestro sits back down to the keyboard. Picking up where I left off, before the rude interruption—back to hacking databases, doing the research, packaging and providing it as always to my employer, nothing amiss, nothing out of order. Because through all this, I still have to deliver the goods to the Amazing Wallace each night—even though I know now, he doesn’t seem to need my goods. But if I give up the preparation of the show, he’ll question my absence. He already suspects my life has intersected with the extortionists—he sent Armondy and Hammer my way, after all—and he doesn’t know, has no way to know, how much involvement I have with the Stewartsons, how much I’ve learned about his past, where my loyalties lie. And even if I had a secure way to communicate with him on this, whatever I would say, he wouldn’t know if it was the truth or only a cover-up. He wouldn’t know where my loyalties lie, for a very good reason. Because I don’t know. I wish I could just observe. Do what I have done my whole life—stand aside, lean in from the sideline, see what happens, watch the action, watch it play out. But I am under the lights on this. I am onstage. And there is no curtain, no stage wings, no exit.

  The Amazing Wallace stole the real Wallace’s identity. But he has made the identity worth something, which is why the real Wallace is coming after it, retribution in the form of extortion. So neither one is innocent. Both are criminals—one long established, the other waiting eagerly in the wings. And I need to take a side, place my bet and play the odds. Welcome to Vegas.