“No,” the scholar answered, hands deft as he sorted his silverware. “Have you seen mine?” He jerked his head sideways, at the rapidly diminishing pile on the tall man’s plate. “I have no idea where he puts it.”
The Russian, already chewing, kicked his partner lightly under the table. The American’s mouth closed with an audible snap, and he stuffed a bite of bread inside it to keep the words plugged up. “So,” the American said, when he’d washed his mouthful down with steaming coffee, “can somebody explain to me why we think it’s wise for all four of us to be sitting in a public place when we’re on the hunt for a rogue agent?”
“Simple,” the athlete answered, without looking up from his plate. “We’re bait. This Cobb salad is the best. And it’s huge. You should try some.” He leaned back from his dish, raising his fork as if he expected his tablemates to lunge for the salad like a pack of feral dogs.
“If we’re bait, who’s our backup?” The American leaned forward, interested now. “And how did we wind up drafted?”
“You were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Also, the Department briefed us on New York.” A grin on the scholar’s face as he lowered his voice—not to a whisper that might attract attention, but rather to a murmur. “The backup is classified, but they’re from an agency that has an interest in protecting MI-6’s reputation even if MI-6 won’t do it itself.”
“A team the assassin won’t expect,” the athlete finished for his partner, resuming his relationship with the Cobb salad. “Because he thinks one of the partners is badly hurt.”
The Russian chuckled. “The English girl. It is good to hear she’s on her feet again.”
“We heal fast.”
“So I’ve noticed. That doesn’t answer the question of why we join you in serving as—bait.”
The scholar nudged his partner, who gave him a dirty look from under a falling dark forelock. “You’re not going to fit into your tennis whites if you keep eating like that.”
“Perhaps we can play, later,” the Russian said.
The athlete looked up, a predatory grin creasing his face. “Five dollars a game?”
“On my salary?”
“My partner is cheap,” the American said, and the Russian rolled his eyes.
“Who is it that is always borrowing money from whom?”
“Cheap, but well-spoken—”
The scholar coughed, twining his fingers together over his plate. He had enormous hands, boxer’s hands, the skin dark on the backs and pale across the palms. “You wind up helping because your faces are recognizable. Your identities are public and you’re already targets. And it’s not like you two have to maintain a cover. So it doesn’t destroy your usefulness if you’re made.”
“Our controller put you on to us, didn’t he? We’re supposed to be here on vacation; the home office takes no responsibility for this mission.”
The scholar grinned around his buttered bread. “Our home office does. At least State is staying out of this one—”
“They can have it, if they want it. But it’s not exactly their cup of tea. They’re better with conspiracies.” The American turned his fork in his fingers, contemplating the light reflecting from the tines. “I don’t know how you two live undercover all the time.”
“Oh, it’s not so bad. See the world, meet interesting people—” The athlete spoke with his mouth full of salad.
“—and be captured and tortured by them,” the Russian finished. “Are you going to eat that dinner roll?”
“No,” the American answered, and pushed him the bread plate, then looked across the table at the scholar and shrugged as if to say, what are you going to do? “I don’t suppose you know what the assassin is playing at, do you?”
“Our English friend has a theory.” The athlete’s fork described a trembling circle in the air as he washed his salad down with sparkling water.
The Russian poured tea from the little pot on the table, surprised at the quality. Most Americans seemed to think that adequate tea was a matter of dunking a paper bag full of fannings into water that had been allowed to over-cool. This was brewed properly, boiling water over loose leaves. Earl Grey. He softened his voice, holding the cup to his lips to conceal the outline of his words, and modulated his tone to hide any trace of concern. “Will we meet the English team?”
“Not until the affair is over, if everything goes according to plan.” The athlete forked through his salad, ferreting out crumbles of bacon and egg. “With any luck, the assassin will think they’re incapacitated in England.”
“Tell me the theory.”
The athlete offered them both a wry grin. The American put his fork down and reached across the table for the saltshaker, idly leaning it at an angle in a vain attempt to balance it. It wobbled and fell; he caught it and tried again.
“You’re doing it wrong,” the athlete said, before he could make a third attempt.
The American looked up. “Ah, excuse me?”
“You’re doing it wrong.” His capable hand brushed the American’s square-fingered one aside; the Russian glanced up for a moment and saw the wry, almost patronizing twist of the scholar’s lips. The Russian traded a quick flash of a grin with the scholar, sure their partners were too engaged in their ridiculous competition to notice.
The athlete lifted the salt shaker from the American’s fingers and tilted it upside down, letting grains scatter on the tablecloth. He pushed them into a pile with his fingertips and angled the base of the shaker against it lightly and precisely. The Russian held his breath as the athlete opened his fingers like the teeth of a crane and lifted his hand away.
The shaker never moved.
“Bravo,” the American said, softly, and the scholar slapped the edge of the table and made the salt shaker clatter down on its side.
“Oh,” he said, “the wonderfulness of you.”
The Russian hid his smile behind his palm until he got it under control, set his teacup down, and leaned forward, elbows on the table as he drew a licked finger through the tumbled grains. The hairs on his nape shivered; they were being watched. “You American spies are all alike.”
“Pampered?”
“Pah.” The tea got cold quickly in these little china cups. Glasses were better. “Americans know nothing of pampering—Smug, I mean,” he said, interrupting himself.
“You were worried about the widow?” The athlete dusted his hands together, lips pursing.
“The Englishman’s partner is an old friend. I was concerned.” Ignoring his partner’s amused, sideways blink. “Share the theory, if you would.”
The scholar’s expressive lips twitched. “We think it has a bunch to do with your partner, in fact.” He darted a glance at the American, who choked on his coffee. “Your partner, the widow’s partner, and my partner—”
“Why would she and I be the targets, then?” The Russian leaned forward, intrigued.
“The widow, you, and myself. Work with me, man.”
The Russian glanced at the American to see if perhaps he understood. The American raised his shoulders and tipped his head in his trademark exaggerated shrug.
“Because the assassin works alone.” The scholar’s tone made it seem as if the answer was obvious.
The Russian pursed his lips slightly and shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I just don’t understand what that has to do with anything. He works alone, so he thinks other agents must, as well?”
“Sure, if he’s going to consume them.”
“Con—” The American set his coffee cup down with a rattle that betrayed the unsteadiness of his hand. “Like, ‘Two Bottles of Relish’?”
“Munch munch. Yum yum.” The tennis player’s grin widened cartoonishly. “Our partners are too different. But you and I—” an eloquent gesture with his fork “—have a great deal in common. And in common with the assassin.”
“And the Englishman,” the scholar added.
Something still tickled the back of the Russi
an’s neck, and he gave the appearance of paying rapt attention to the conversation while, in fact, his eyes flickered from one reflective surface to another. He sat back in his chair, gnawing on a fingernail as the American protested. “But what does that have to do with any—”
And then the scholar and the athlete exchanged a look that the Russian knew very well: it was a look he had traded with his own partner many, many times. And the scholar shook his head, and said, “Pal, they don’t know.”
The athlete’s eyes got wide, and the fork moved back and forth again. You-me-them?
The American ran a thumbnail along his jaw. “We don’t know what?”
The Russian cleared his throat as a flash of movement in a silver cream pitcher on an adjoining table finally resolved itself into the image he’d sought. The black-haired young man in the strangely cut suit who had accosted them on the casino floor. Watching over his shoulder from a dark table in the corner. “Gentlemen,” he said. “Explanations may have to wait. I believe we are being observed.”
The American glanced over his shoulder, abrupt and unsubtle. The Russian felt him about to rise from his chair and braced himself to stand, but the athlete reached out and placed a hand on the American’s sleeve. “Talk to us before you talk to him,” the athlete said, when the American’s golden-brown eyes locked on his own near-black ones.
The American hesitated, glanced at the Russian, and shook his head. “I’m just going to go make friends,” he answered. “You can stay here if you prefer.”
Silence, and then the athlete shook his head and withdrew his hand. “I think my man and I had better be there to hear this.”
#
The Assassin is troubled. Las Vegas. Summer, 2002.
The assassin squinted through a telescopic sight which, for once, was not attached to a firearm, cursing convenience. Too convenient, rather, that all of his targets should gather in one place, at one time. Too convenient, and a bit unsettling that they had followed him successfully to Las Vegas.
He must have been careless. Carelessness would not do.
He would have to manufacture a convincing errand here in Sin City. The spies couldn’t be permitted to discover the purpose of his visit, to discover his links to Angel. At least not before he could remove the Russian and the scholar, and…prevent their partners from reporting in.
He needed them. But he didn’t need them here, and he didn’t need them now. What he needed here and now was a sacrifice—and a ghost would not suffice. He pushed his forelock out of his eyes irritably and frowned. “All stories are true,” he muttered under his breath, pocketing the scope and fading behind a half-wall as the four men slid their chairs back and stood, as one. “But some stories are truer than others.”
Which made him think about pigs.
Which made him think about the Russian, and laugh.
#
One-Eyed Jack and the Four of a Kind. Las Vegas. Summer, 2002.
He didn’t really look that much like Stewart. Not really, not now that I was studying rather than reacting. Broken nose, sure, but the jaw was different, and the way he moved, and the muscle on his forearms, and the exact shade of his hair—
I got caught looking, of course.
All four chairs slid back as if they were wired and all four men stood at once as if somebody had pulled on their strings. I didn’t rise.
Instead I let the city lights shine in my eye and fixed their apparent leader with a stare. He didn’t stop short, which impressed me. I can be pretty intimidating, when I try.
Instead he tucked his hands into the pockets of his trousers without bothering to unbutton his slate-gray suit-jacket first. “We’re still not whoever you thought we were,” he said, an American with a flat Midwestern accent. He slouched, dropping his chin against his collar, his forehead wrinkling as he looked at me through his lashes. “But seeing as this is a second date, I thought it might be interesting to find out a little more about you.”
The direct regard was meant to be unsettling, the body language disconcerting. He was good at it, and the blond with the accent hung back right where I would catch his cold blue stare any time my eye happened to slide off those of the spokesman. I wasn’t about to let that happen, though.
I stood up and extended my hand. “I’m Las Vegas,” I said. “But you can call me Jackie.”
He drew one hand out of his pocket. His jacket pulled taut, momentarily, over the bulge in his left armpit, and I knew he saw me see it. “Las Vegas,” he said, brow creasing more as he straightened and extended his hand. He glanced left and right, as if looking for the cameraman. “You’re named after the city?”
“He is the city,” the black man said in educated tones. “That’s what my man here was going to explain to you before you got all hot and bothered.”
The American’s clasp was dry and callused, and he didn’t flinch, although he angled a disbelieving glance at the taller men. Obviously, he thought he was used to getting some pretty strange things in his breakfast cereal.
“Pleased to meet you, Las Vegas,” he said, eyes meeting mine again as our hands dropped apart. “I’m the Wreck of the Hesperus. Now that we’re acquainted, do you mind explaining why you’re following us?”
Oh, what the hell. These are the good guys, right? Always the good guys, modern day knights in their modern-day armor of suitcoats and shoulder holsters. That’s why the world remembers them, hummed under its breath like the rhythm of a rhyme learned in childhood after half the words have been forgotten. A little something to kick the darkness back.
Sin City’s not afraid to talk turkey, even to ghosts. Little ghosts can be a problem; a lot of the time they haven’t got much of themselves left, and the ones that do are generally real angry about something or another. They might not even be people anymore: just collections of energy patterns. Legendary ghosts, like the John Henrys, are strong because they’re made up of so many layers of fact and myth and memory. Media ghosts are really just modern legendary ghosts, but they’re usually not as powerful, not having been…laminated out of the stuff of story for so many years. On the other hand, based on their games with the salt shaker, apparently media ghosts can do what legendary ghosts cannot, and lay hands on things.
And like Doc Holliday, all four of these carried guns. “Well,” I said, keeping my hands in sight, “how much do you gentlemen know about animae and ghosts?”
“Animae?” the Russian asked, just as the scholar glanced over his shoulder at his partner and said, “some,” out of the corner of his mouth.
“Geniuses,” the athlete said, his eyes very dark. He held out a hand and I took it; his had ridged callus, like somebody who spends a lot of time holding a golf club or a tennis racket.
The scholar shook his head and shrugged apology at me. “Genii is the word the tennis bum is scratching his head over.”
“Hey, man—”
It was a game, I realized—and the other pair knew it too, from the sly communicating smile they shared. The Russian stayed a little behind the American, covering his back, as the athlete stepped away. “All right,” the American said, scratchy tenor voice and an arched eyebrow. “I’ll play the idiot child. What are animae?”
The scholar coughed, and licked his lips. “This was the thing we were just going to explain before we came over here”—he shrugged, and looked helplessly at his partner, and tugged the American’s sleeve a little to turn him away—“y’see, you and me, man…all of us, really. We’re not exactly real.”
#
Part III
The American and the end of an era. Somewhere in Las Vegas. Summer 1964/2002.
The American looked at the Russian, who crossed his arms and tilted his head before nodding slightly–a gesture that encompassed a fifteen-minute conversation, brought them into concord, and formalized a plan. <>We’re not exactly real. “You have five minutes,” the American said. “Go.”
The kid knotted both hands in his strangely cut hair. “It’ll take more than fiv
e minutes, sir. Look–can we maybe sit down? Join me at my table–”
“We have to settle the bill,” the athlete said, with a glance back at the spies’ own table.
“I run a tab. I’ll pay for it. Please. Just sit.” He stepped aside and tugged a chair away from the table, turning it to display its seat. “You see, I think it’s half my fault you’re all here in the desert, and I’ve got problems of my own. And I’d like to buy you a drink and sort things out.”
“My man doesn’t drink.” The athlete glanced over his shoulder.
The scholar wasn’t smiling, and his brow had furrowed a little deeper. He leaned forward and crossed his arms. “I’ll take a coffee,” he said, and placed himself very definitely in the chair Jackie had drawn out.
“I’ll take a coffee too.” The Russian sat down across from the scholar.
The American watched, unsettled. We’re not exactly real. He pulled out the chair beside his partner, while the athlete retrieved one from an empty nearby table, tilted it, and spun it around. The American leaned forward on his elbows once everyone was settled; the chill in his gut wouldn’t slack. “All right,” he said. “So you’re the whole box top. Let’s, ah, hear it. Explain to me why we’re not–”
“–exactly real?” The young man smiled, showing even teeth above a pronounced jaw. “When it comes right down to it, I’m not exactly real either. We’re conjured beings, embodiments of the collective unconscious, if you will.”
“The zeitgeist.” The Russian, sounding unwilling, but fascinated. The American shot his partner a look; he shrugged. It wasn’t an apology. “Funky.”
“Prove it,” the American said.
“Well, for one thing,” the scholar said, leaning back in his chair and stretching his legs, “there was no Brown Derby in Vegas in the sixties–”
“You say ‘in the sixties’ as if it’s something else now.”
“It’s two thousand and two,” the athlete said. “Don’t look at me like that, man. I only know ’cause they woke us up again. We were walking through all the old ghosts and dreams same as you, caught up in our story.”
“Who’s they?” the American asked.
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