I might have gone right on sleeping, straight through my shop hours—no big loss there—if not for my phone. From somewhere in the pile of discarded clothes, it rang. And rang. And rang some more.
“You gonna get that?” Red’s words played over my bare chest in a way that made answering the phone the very last priority on my list. I rolled onto him and stretched myself to cover as much of his naked body with mine as I could manage. The comforter was tangled around my thigh, my half-hard dick was trapped at an unfortunate angle and our laughter was tinged with morning breath. It was perfect.
Except for that damn phone. Which was still fucking ringing.
Regretfully, I shoved myself off Red and snagged a jeans leg from the clothing mound to drag the thing into my range without actually leaving the bed. The pile shifted and the phone made a chattering sound where it now vibrated against the hardwood. It stopped ringing for a moment, then started again.
Normally, whoever was disturbing me, I’d rip ’em a new one. But I was too chock full of endorphins and lovingkindess to do anything worse than turn on my Do Not Disturb. Before I could flip the switch, though, I saw it was Drunk Tony who’d been harshing my buzz, and I supposed I had a neighborly obligation to see if he was wasted on the landing in his underpants again. I picked up the call and said, “This had better be good.”
“Oh fuck, sweet Jesus,” he yelled over the whoop of a siren. “Thank God you’re all right.”
My bliss evaporated. In its place, an ugly calm took hold. I’m on the phone night and day, but the only call that’s stuck with me over the years was the one where Maxine begged me to sit down, and her voice was all tight and funny—even more than usual—when she tried to make a joke out of asking me to come home during finals, and then dropped the bomb that the big occasion was my father’s wake.
I suspected my current call would be just as memorable.
“What happened?” I managed to say.
“A fire, the whole building up in flames. Where the fuck are you?”
“Out.” I put him on speakerphone, jumped up and started rooting through the clothes, though it was impossible to separate one thing from another in my panic. “What about Lydia, is she okay?”
“Yeah, she’s fine—I can hear her bitching out the cops from here. Everyone was accounted for but you. Holy fuck, what a relief.”
“I gotta get down there. I gotta….” I paused to take the underwear Red had pulled from the pile and struggle into it. My whole world had been knocked so far out of alignment I could barely figure out how to stick my feet in the right holes.
“Naw, don’t bother,” Tony said, while Red laid out my jeans and T-shirt, then started pulling on his own clothes. “It’s a clusterfuck, man. Just so long as you’re okay.”
“What about my store?”
Sirens blared. “I dunno, man, it’s—shit, they’re making everybody move now—” More crowd sounds, and then the line went dead.
I stood there with my jeans half-on and stared at my phone like an idiot. Red took me by the shoulders and said, “Look at me, Curtis—you got this. Hear? Everybody’s scared of change, but that’s all it is. I know you can handle change. Look how different you are now…even when I thought you couldn’t be any finer. You can do this. I have faith in you.”
Any other time, I’d be snickering over the fact that Red Turner had called me “fine.” But at that particular moment, the best I could do was take a breath and try to stop shaking. And zip my fly. “Okay, right. Damage control. If I can’t do anything down there, I can make some phone calls here.”
Vic was the first one I called. Either I picked him because he’s a good listener, or because he seems pretty invested in the store. Or maybe to see if Miss Mattie was okay. Which was dumb. Because it’s not like he ever talked to her on the phone…at least not that I know of. I got his voicemail.
“There was a fire. The store is gone. I’m okay. I’m…yeah, I’m okay. I wasn’t home.” Weirdly enough, talking to the PsyCop’s voicemail was not unlike talking to him directly. When Red stepped away to take a shower, beneath the sound of the running water, I said, “You know, it’s funny. I thought I’d just made a great big change in my life, since I decided, What the hell? Might as well go for it. With Red, I mean. Just goes to show, my idea of change is jack squat compared to what the universe had in store.”
No more Sticks and Stones. I sighed. “I’ll bet it went up like a fucking bonfire. The incense, the resin, the books, the herbs, the charcoal.” As I unburdened myself on Vic’s voicemail, the ramifications sunk in. What would I do with myself? And Lydia—on the heels of that break-in, how would she cope? “Shit. I hope Lydia’s okay.”
I touched base with Carolyn next, and she did pick up—in fact, I had a hard time convincing her to stay put at work. Unfortunately, there was nothing she could do for me at Red’s place, and nowhere for her to sit, either. I told her to hang tight.
When I called Jacob, I got his voicemail, naturally. And my annoyance flared up, just like it always had. If ever there was a man to drive me batshit crazy, it was him. But then Red emerged from the bathroom in a towel, all thoughtful and serious, even though he looked like he was walking onto the set of a porno. He paused as he passed me to press a soft kiss to my shoulder, and as his lips brushed my skin, I realized Jacob was no longer my problem. True, he’d played a major role in my life, and yes, we shared a lot of history. But he’d found someone who could actually tolerate him outside the bedroom, and I wished them nothing but the best.
There’s a saying that gets tossed around a lot at Rainbow Dharma: forgiveness is the best revenge. Probably wouldn’t have been endorsed by the Buddha, but realizing it was okay to release those resentments did make me feel somewhat better.
Maxine just about lost it when I broke the news, and I had to switch to video chat to reassure her that I was alive. In fact, I spent the rest of the morning on the phone, to the point where I used up all its juice. According to my insurance agent, if I kept my receipts, I’d be reimbursed for some basic stuff: a toothbrush, a change of clothes, and most importantly, a new phone charger. The low-battery beep interrupted her as she warned me not to replace my computer with anything more expensive than my current box unless I wanted to be stuck paying the difference, then the phone died completely as she began suggesting motels where I could temporarily relocate.
“Forget the motel.” Red took the depleted phone from my hand, set it aside, and said, “Stay with me.”
A man with no home falls for a man with no furniture. Sounded like the setup of a profoundly unfunny joke. But if we had each other, maybe that plain futon was all we needed.
Red and I had been an item, if that was what you could call us, for less than a day—and although we’d known each other pretty well back at Luscious, that was a long time ago. I’d changed since then. So had he. I waited for my gut to insist I make tracks to the nearest motel, but it just gave a little rumble to let me know lunch was long overdue. And since the part of me that had balked at moving in with Jacob during my last time of need was strangely silent, I meshed my fingers through Red’s, and pulled him into a kiss.
Chapter 53
Given the overwhelming variety of stuff I needed, the fact that my plastic was nearly maxed out, and the suspicion that it might take insurance a while to churn through the pipes, we decided SaverPlus was our best bet. There was a time I’d only go there for clandestine meetings—either tossing conspiracies back and forth in the bathroom with Vic, or ogling the guy at the return counter—but oh, how the mighty had fallen. This time, I’d actually need to buy something.
Red and I made the rounds. Menswear for jeans, tees, socks and briefs. Electronics for a phone charger and a Chromebook—last year’s model, surprisingly cheap. There was even a robust clearance section where, for a mere ten bucks, I scored a couple of camping chairs that folded themselves into a fabric tube. I was all for having a fresh and unencumbered start, but there’d be a staggering amount of com
puter time in my near future, and I wasn’t about to do it seated on the floor.
I hadn’t intended to buy a toy, but since Christmas was right around the corner, it was impossible to avoid the various gifty displays. A kitschy tower of retro goodies blocked my way to the checkout, and something among the Sea Moneys, Slinkys, ViewMasters and Spirographs caught my eye. Gingerly, so as not to cause an avalanche, I pulled down a purple box, asked, “Will Lydia dig this?” and turned it over to get my reply.
The inky water in the Magic 8 Ball’s window bubbled, then parted, as an answer floated to the top: Reply hazy try again.
“Sounds just like her,” I said, but I waffled about spending another six bucks on something that wasn’t an absolute necessity.
Red took the box from my hand before I could wedge it back into the teetering display. “Either you act from a place of fear, or a place of love. Show your friend how much you love her. If you don’t, you’ll regret it…a lot more than you’ll regret spending six dollars.”
Coming from anyone else, that might’ve struck me as preachy, but I didn’t take it that way, not with Red. His advice was like Carolyn’s truth. An acquired taste for non-empaths, but given the emotion I now felt behind it, easy to digest for me. “C’mere.” I grabbed his pleather jacket by the lapel and pulled him across the shopping cart. When I laid a kiss on him, I felt him smile. And I felt his heart swell with all sorts of giddy feelings, too.
It seemed like it should have felt pathetic, me with no home, no job, and my earthly possessions fitting in the trunk of Red’s car with room to spare. But it didn’t. It felt liberating. What if I was ready for a nomad’s life, and all I really needed was a chair, a change of clothes, and a 2-pound laptop that cost less than I used to spend on drinks and dinner? Could be that clearing the physical slate was opening me up emotionally, too. Not that I’d ever say anything like that aloud. But it was definitely food for thought.
Once we were done at SaverPlus, we headed down to Wicker Park, but Tony hadn’t been exaggerating when he described the scene at the building. In fact, I’d participated in clusterfucks that were a hell of a lot more organized. But it was clear that we wouldn’t get near Sticks and Stones anytime soon, so we retreated to Red’s apartment.
Our apartment.
Red and I fell into a rhythm there that was as easy as it had been two years back, when we’d toned Carolyn’s hair from Orange Sherbet to Vanilla Ice. Actually, it was easier, without that dickbag Ralph between us…or, to be totally honest with myself, my own obnoxious immaturity.
Thanks to the cloud, all my records were intact, and I had receipts for all my very flammable inventory. I was in the midst of the daunting process of filling out my claim when Red’s intercom buzzed. Not only was it startlingly loud in the mostly-empty room, but baffling, too. Because judging by the puzzled look on Red’s face, none of his old Chicago contacts knew where he lived.
“It’s probably Carolyn using her powers of detection,” I told him. “She is a professional, after all.”
Red leaned in to the intercom, pressed the button, and said, “Hello?”
What came through was not Carolyn’s voice, not by a long shot, but the gravelly rasp of someone I usually bantered with in 144 characters or less. “I’m looking for Crash. Seen him?”
Red raised an eyebrow at me. I hesitated. Not because I was afraid of BornSkeptic—hell, he regularly sent me links to stupid goat gifs—but the sheer incongruity of it all was like spotting your high school gym teacher at a gay bar. I joined Red at the intercom and pressed the “talk” button. “Fancy meeting you here,” I said into it. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Can’t a friend check on a friend to see how he’s doing?”
“Indeed he could, though it begs the question—how, pray tell, would that friend know where to look?”
“Said friend would love to stand around shucking and jiving, but would prefer to end the day with his hide intact. Let me up and I’ll fill you in.”
I looked to Red for permission to let my melodrama into his life, but he just gave me one of his imperturbably cryptic looks, and said, “It’s your place now too, Curtis. You do what you see fit.”
With no excuse not to, I buzzed the buzzer.
Constantine is the type of guy you wouldn’t mistake for anyone else. From his voice to his sense of humor to his truly brave corkscrew ’fro, he’s memorable, to say the least. Backlit from the hall, his silhouette was familiar. At least until he stepped into the light, and I got a load of his face. Same ironic smirk as always, but punctuated now by a split lip and one hell of a shiner.
“I’d say you should get a load of the other guy, but since he outranked me, it wasn’t worth fighting back. Well, then.” He dragged in a big suitcase with a garment bag on top, parked it beside the door, and clapped his hands together. “First things first. The fire? An accident.” I hadn’t even considered the possibility it wasn’t. Red and I exchanged a look. “How long it’ll take authorities to come to that conclusion, I have no idea, especially given the way gang activity has been heating up lately. But I wanted to make sure you knew the score. Hard enough to get a good night’s sleep without wondering if someone’s out to torch you.”
“That’s…comforting.” I wondered where he got his facts. And I suspected he wasn’t about to volunteer his source.
“So you’re safe, you’re sound…let’s keep it that way.” He plucked the Magic 8 Ball off the counter and peered into the inky window. “No more psychic testing—you need a piece of paper proving you’re psychic like you need a ten-pound shit in a five-pound bag. And your online research about anything more psychic than this?” He tossed the 8 Ball to me. “It ends. Here and now.”
“So Big Brother really is out there.”
“I always figured, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. But as you can see, they turned the beating on me. Thing is, the only reason you’re not popping up in the same shooting gallery is my massaging of the data. And with me out of the picture, you’ve got no one to cover your tracks.” He took a handful of ice in a paper towel from Red. “That goes for you too, Red. Promise me neither of you will turn around and Google the FPMP the minute my back is turned.”
“Can’t imagine why it would interest me,” I said with mock indifference. “Bunch of stuffy guys in suits pushing paper. Right?”
He laughed humorlessly into the icepack as he pressed it to his lips. “Exactly. So now that that’s settled, can I hit you up for a little trim? I’m going to a wedding. Mine.”
Chapter 54
As a rule, I’m not a weeper. But BornSkeptic whisked us off to a clandestine location for his haircut, and some big realizations sank in. He was marrying a dear friend of mine—that part was fine. But then both of them were about to go so deep into hiding, I might never see either of them again.
Tears were indeed shed.
We were holed up in a private room at a spendy restaurant, Lisa and Con, Red and me. Lisa’s sister too, though she was running in and out on a constantly revolving supply run. She’d managed to procure basic equipment: brushes and combs, styling mousse and spray, shears that were at least marginally sharp, and a brand new set of hot rollers. Once I reined in my waterworks, I slotted myself in beside Red to work on setting Lisa’s curls, sectioning and rolling, rolling and sectioning. And just as we had when we’d color-corrected Carolyn that fateful night so long ago, the two of us worked together like a well-oiled machine. At least until I couldn’t deny that I might never run my fingers through Lisa’s hair again.
“You’ve got the sí-no to keep you one step ahead of Big Brother,” I said, “don’t you? Why not just change your email addy and move to Evanston?”
She dabbed her eyes with a sodden, lace-edged hankie that I suspected was meant for decoration, and shook her head. “I haven’t been tested—not even at PsyTrain. For all that everything fell apart there, at least they didn’t do any of the traditional ratings. But they still took notes, so the FPMP knows
I’m a precog. They just don’t know how accurate. And Constantine….” She trailed off and glanced at her groom-to-be, who was hunched in the corner with a phone to his ear. I’d always figured he was kinda schlubby under all those baggy sweats and that crazy mop of hair, but I’d figured wrong. With the new close undercut I’d given him, plus his dark fitted suit, he was all angles—hard and lean, and poised to snap into action. He finished his call, ripped out the SIM card, dropped it to the floor and ground it beneath his heel. Then he snapped in a fresh card and made another call.
“That’s one way to get out of your contract,” I said drily.
Lisa lowered her voice, even though Con obviously had more to do than listen to us, and said through a fresh round of tears, “He was so careful all these years. But all it takes is a single leak, and all the precautions in the world don’t matter anymore.”
You’d think having Lisa at your side would make you invulnerable. Guess not, if you don’t ask the right questions.
I hadn’t cashed in the sí-no she owed me, and I couldn’t help but wonder if I should get it now while the getting was good. This thing with Red and me—what if it was doomed to fail? Once the new endorphin rush wore off and I was faced with a stack of bills and a teetering pile of dirty dishes, I might not be ready to play house.
Then again, we only owned two dishes. We’d figure it out.
Red pinned the final roller in place, then stepped around to crouch down at Lisa’s knee. Gooseflesh rippled down my arms as he assumed the position, since I could feel what was coming next.
He gathered Lisa’s hands in his, and with his voice velvety low, said, “Listen, Babygirl. It’s time to stop crying. You’re getting married today, and you don’t want your eyes all swollen up so that every time you look at your wedding pictures, you’re sad all over again.” He squeezed her hands for emphasis, and she nodded. “Now think back to when you were young, and you saw yourself getting married. Really see yourself as that child fantasizing about her special day.”
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