“Great,” Gelfman continued, “Shall we get right to it?”
“Let’s,” Bolan said. He turned to face me. He looked at me as if I alone existed in the room. “Mr. Cooper would like to express his most sincere apology for his conduct the other evening and would like to offer you a monetary settlement in exchange for dropping all charges against him, civil and criminal. He now realizes the error of his ways and promises that he will never display such insensitivity with any woman ever again.” Bolan reached into his portfolio and withdrew a check. I made no attempt to look at the amount inscribed on it. “I have a check which my client has instructed me to deliver to you, if it meets with your approval. We only ask that you drop all charges against him and sign a simple release, preventing you from discussing the matter in public.”
“A gag clause?” Gelfman asked.
“That is the generically accepted term. Gag order has a harsh sound to it. My client simply wishes to settle this matter and not have it haunt him any further. He knows he has made a terrible mistake and hopes this cash offer will be viewed acceptably.”
How much? How much? I hoped they could not hear my heart banging against my rib cage. I wanted to punish the guy for what his friend Vincent almost did to me. Cooper had already been taught an acceptable lesson.
“May I present the offer?” Bolan continued, still cordial and still damn charming.
Gelfman nodded, and Bolan slid the check toward him. I could see Gelfman’s eyes widen. He tugged at his necktie to loosen it and then exhaled heavily through his nostrils. He handed me the check.
Fifty thousand dollars? OH-MY-GOD. I couldn’t believe it. I only wanted to scare the guy. He had been stupid, very stupid, and very irresponsible. He dropped a pill into my drink through the instructions of his friend, Vincent. He was an accomplice and he was a jerk, but he had never attempted to rape me. I felt a little guilty.
I did an amazing job of controlling my emotions. I maintained a poker face that Lady Gaga would have been proud of. I placed the check on the conference table and slid it back to Gelfman without lifting my eyes, giving Bolan—and yes, even Gelfman—a moment to wonder which way I would go. The first thing that came to mind was the Allie-like BMW I had always wanted and a new air conditioner to replace the unit in the condo that was perpetually on the fritz. Ax’s car was no better than mine. He was constantly at the junkyards looking for parts to swap out. Fifty grand would take us a long way. Neither Ax nor I ever imagined anything like this happening. We figured Cooper would spend a couple of nights in jail and then we would drop the charges. That was all we had hoped for, to scare him straight. Vincent, the true criminal, had already paid the tab with his life.
“Excuse us for a moment,” Gelfman said. “We would like to confer privately.” Gelfman stood. I followed him to the door.
“Take your time,” Bolan said. We made eye contact. He was very impressive. For a moment, the silly idea of kissing him popped into my head, and then we were in Gelfman’s office again and the idea was gone.
“Do you know if Cooper comes from a wealthy family?” Gelfman asked.
“Wealthy?” I was sure Gelfman could read the question mark on my face. “I—” Was he wealthy? His bullshit story raced across my mind. Was his father really the inventor of the cell phone? No, I knew better. We had checked him out thoroughly. The story about being a cell phone heir was all BS. He came from a broken home and made his money by tending bar. Fifty grand, really? “No. I mean, I don’t know . . . I don’t think so.”
“So who’s putting up 50K in an initial offer to squash an attempted rape case? Believe me if they’re showing their cards this early on, they’re prepared to go higher.”
“It’s really not about the money.”
“That’s true. Sorry. I have no problem trying this case. If you want to see Cooper go to prison, then that’s what we’ll do. They obviously know how strong the case against him is.”
“How strong?”
“Strong.”
I thought for a full minute. It was fifty-nine seconds more than I needed. “I’ll take the money.”
Eight: Living Large
How good does fifty grand feel? It feels so good it’s ridiculous, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Especially when your existence consists of an incredibly modest lifestyle with only the bare necessities ever making it into the shopping cart.
Gelfman was true to his word. He contacted the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office and stayed on the phone until they agreed to drop the criminal charges against Cooper. I actually waited in his office while the paperwork was prepared and signed. I left his office with the check in my purse.
Yeah, it was that quick.
Too quick?
Yeah, maybe too quick.
My head was still spinning over my newly found serendipity. I had driven to Gelfman’s office in a rent-a-wreck and was considering paint colors for a new BMW on the ride back. Cherry red? Banana yellow? No, nothing that screamed “look at me”; I needed a color that would not turn heads, perhaps a metallic sky blue or a gunmetal gray. My life was not exactly the kind of thing I could shout about. For me, it was low-key all the way. Okay, a new BMW is not exactly low-key, but there were so many Bimmers on Long Island that they didn’t really stand out all that much. Does it sound like I’m rationalizing?
I had gone into the ladies room down the corridor from the Legal Aid office and changed back into me. I had come with “Lexa duds” in my oversized bag and left the office in shorts and flip-flops. Allie disappeared right after signing the paperwork and would likely never be seen or heard from again. She had gotten enough attention and definitely needed to live among the missing—at least for a while.
So where had Keith Cooper’s 50K come from? The mystery of my newfound fortune was eating away at me relentlessly. If Cooper didn’t have that kind of money, who did? Who wanted to protect him from a criminal charge so badly they would pony up fifty large? I found it troubling, and it caused me to hesitate as I scanned the check into the ATM machine, bringing my savings balance to $50,321.62. Who parts with that kind of money?
I stopped before I got back into the car to give the old bucket of bolts a final disapproving once-over. It had served me well from a utilitarian perspective, but aesthetically . . . it was tough to look at, a mosaic of rust and body filler. The car sat so low on its springs it bottomed out every time I hit a driveway. Yeah, definitely, the old clunker had to go.
I wanted to put my concerns behind me and enjoy the newly found wealth, so I decided to do something nice for myself.
I had been window shopping for a pair of Bollé sunglasses for the better part of two weeks, and I would be darned if I wasn’t going to give my debit card a workout. There was a store in the Smith Haven Mall that carried all of the latest shades. I had been there before and found a salesgirl there that was very friendly despite knowing that I was not a serious shopper. I figured that she deserved the sale.
The shades were still on display in the store’s window, and the same salesgirl was waiting for me behind the counter. It was her lucky day.
“They look awesome on you,” she said. “I knew you’d be back for them.”
The shades were also featured on a counter stand, and the model wearing them looked quite a bit like me. I could have made myself look exactly like the model, but the similarities were striking without any efforts on my part.
Lexa, you look fabulous in these, I was thinking. I would sport them home and wear them into the house to see if Ax would pick up on my new accessory. He would no doubt lecture me about the dangers of deviating from our original plan, and how I should have conferred with him first before taking the money. Ax was the deep thinker in our relationship. I was hoping he wasn’t going to torture me with worries and brooding—I mean the money was already in our bank account. I certainly didn’t want to send him into a funk. Ax had no materialistic aspirations and would be content driving his bucket of bolts forever. Me on the other hand . . .
I was reaching for my debit card when the lovely salesgirl said, “We’re giving free eye exams this week. Would you like us to check your vision?”
“No thanks, I see fine.”
“Really, you’re going to pass up a free exam? You can’t believe how many people think they see fine and we find something.” She turned her head to the side and struck a congenial smile. “No waiting. It only takes five minutes.”
All right, so I’m an easy sell. Salesgirl extraordinaire was right; as promised, the optometrist was quick and courteous. He switched off the lights and started flipping those lens thingies back and forth in front of my eyes with amazing speed. I don’t think I was in the chair more than five minutes.
“You’re fine,” he said.
“I have X-ray vision. I can spot a fly on an elephant’s butt at a thousand yards.”
He laughed. “Most young people can. Still it never hurts to check. You know what they say about an ounce of prevention.” He leaned over to the wall switch and turned the lights back on.
“All done?”
“All done,” he repeated. I was half out of the chair when he said, “Oh wow.” He was looking at my eyes. He leaned in for a closer look. “That’s so cool.”
“What’s so cool?” The way he looked at me made me nervous. He didn’t say “cool” as in I had just been nominated for an MTV award; he said “cool” as in that’s freaky and strange. He was still staring at my eyes. “What the matter?”
“Heterochromia.”
“What?”
“Two different eye colors. You’ve got one blue eye and one hazel eye; that’s very rare.”
There was a mirror on his workbench. I grabbed it and took a look for myself. “What the hell?”
“You’re surprised?”
“I sure the hell am. When did this happen?”
“You’ve haven’t noticed one of them changing?”
“No. My eyes have always been blue.”
“Blue, really?”
Now what? This was really starting to creep me out. “What does this mean?”
“It’s possible for one eye to change color but it’s usually the other way around; hazel eyes have a tendency to change, but a blue eye changing to hazel, that’s very uncommon.”
I was still staring into the mirror. One eye was still blue and the other was not. “This is freaking me out.”
“Don’t get nervous. Eye color can change. The traits that determine eye color are many and varied. The concentration of melanin can rise or fall during our lives, and that can affect many things, including your eye color. Still, I’m surprised that you didn’t notice the left one changing; it’s a pretty marked difference. You never noticed it while you were putting on your makeup?”
“No.”
He leaned in for a closer look. “Your eyes look healthy. If you had dark rings around the iris I would tell you to visit an ophthalmologist, but your irises are light and even, and there’s nothing to worry about.”
“What would dark rings mean?”
“It could be a sign of liver disease, but I see no evidence of that here. You haven’t been in an accident have you? Sometimes trauma can have a sudden impact on eye color.”
I was still looking into the mirror when his words resonated with me. Trauma. I hadn’t been in accident per se but the changes, all the changes, the way I studied my subject’s eyes and copied them down to a micron, forcing them to be the color I needed them to be, certainly that was trauma.
“I can recommend a very good ophthalmologist if you need one. You should go, if only to put your mind at ease. Better to err on the side of—”
“Neurosis?”
“That’s funny: neurosis. I’ll have to remember that one.” He reached into his drawer and handed me a business card. “I recommend Dr. Avery very highly. Go see him if you’re concerned.”
I didn’t need a doctor, highly recommended or otherwise. I stared in the mirror again and knew exactly where the hazel eye had come from; it wasn’t mine, it was Allie’s.
Nine: Blue Mood Rising
It was dark when Ax finally came home. I had so much to share with him, so much I needed to convey. I had been rehearsing for hours, trying to determine how to get the message across without sending him into a panic. My brother was a worrier. He looked at things much more deeply than I did. He was the conscience. He was the straight arrow. With Ax, it was black or it was white. It was good or bad. There was no middle ground, and there would be no middle ground tonight.
I had the lights switched off. Ax opened the door into a silent, darkened home. He stood in the doorway sniffing the air, savoring it for the slightest nuance, like Hannibal Lecter upon his first visit from Clarice Starling. “You use Evyan skin cream, and sometimes you wear L’Air du Temps, but not today. Today you are determinedly un-perfumed.” Yes, Ax was that good. He was CIA Special Ops good. He was a ninja and a warrior and could rely on any of one of his finely tuned senses for strategic detail.
“Why are you smoking?” Ax closed the door and switched on the lights. “If you’ve got to do that, could you please do it outside and not destroy my lungs too.”
“I only had one.”
He approached me and sat down next to me on the worn leather sofa that we had scored from Craigslist. “Cigarettes, sitting in the dark, and wearing sunglasses. Let me guess, bad day?”
“Awful.”
“Tell me about it. What happened at the attorney’s office?” Ax tucked his legs, assuming the lotus position. He always did that when he needed to concentrate. “I’m waiting. Did Cooper’s attorney give you a tough time?”
“On the contrary. He was very nice.”
“They wanted to plea?”
“Yeah, I’m the end-all and the be-all of legal opponents. We dismissed the case, and they gave me a big fat check for my trouble. I kicked ass!”
“That’s not what we discussed.”
“Who cares what we discussed. This worked out better.”
“You couldn’t call me before you gave them a decision? You couldn’t excuse yourself for two minutes so that we could talk this through together?”
“I couldn’t think. They offered me fifty thousand dollars; all the brain cells devoted to logic died at once.”
“What?”
“They gave us fifty grand to keep quiet.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t ask. You know that expression about not looking a gift horse in the mouth.”
Ax was so upset that he shot off the couch and began to pace. “Where does a guy like Cooper get that kind of money?”
“I don’t know. You did the research. You said he doesn’t have any money. You said that story about being a cell phone heir was all bullshit.”
“It is. I checked him out thoroughly. We figured no one would miss him if he spent a few nights in jail. This is not good.”
“Why are you so bent out of shape?”
“What do you mean ‘why am I getting so bent out of shape?’ How can we take that kind of money, not knowing where it came from? We just framed a guy for attempted rape and have another body cooling in his apartment on the other side of town.”
“I bought new sunglasses.”
“Changing subjects are we? I can see you have new sunglasses. Very nice.” Ax’s comment was dismissive. It was not flattery.
“I figured we’re fifty grand richer, what the hell, let’s go on a shopping spree.”
“So now what, you’re being evasive? I need some fresh air. I need to think.” Ax started to walk toward the door.
“No, don’t go.”
“I won’t be long. I need to concentrate, and I can’t think in this smelly apartment with you sitting there with your sunglasses on like some kind of eccentric recluse.”
“I have to show you something before you leave.” I took off the new sunglasses.
Ax was unnerved and unfocused. “What? What do you want to show me?” I pointed to my left eye. He leaned over and
examined it. Then he backed away a little to compare it to the right. “Now I understand why you’re wearing the dark glasses.”
“Did this ever happen to you before?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“But you’re not sure?”
“Not one hundred percent. I don’t vex over the eyes like you do. I get them as close as I can without losing my mind. But you, you’re a fanatic. You have to copy the iris like it’s the blueprint for a microchip.”
“Who knew I would have trouble changing back. Like I said, I don’t think it ever happened before.”
“There’s so much we don’t understand about this. It’s not as if there’s a textbook we can read. You and I, we’re one of a kind. I mean we talk about this all the time—we worry that one day, one of us will change and not be able to change back. You even joke about it. You told me just this afternoon about the weirdoes you saw in Toontown, and how it frightens you that one day you’ll get stuck in a body like that. I mean we have to consider the possibility, and now with this . . .” Ax was getting worked up, which was very uncommon for my Zen brother. “We’ll have to think long and hard before we copy anyone again. I mean we might get stuck like that forever.”
“Now you’re the one who’s getting paranoid.”
“We can’t treat this like a game anymore, not after this. We’re getting older. As we age, our bodies lose flexibility. We lose resiliency. Maybe this is the end of the line. Maybe we’re too old.”
“Well, if this is the end of the line, I’m going out as Scarlett Johansson. That girl has the looks, the money, and the body guys die for.”
“You don’t have enough body mass to copy her exquisite rear end.”
“I’ll put on a few. Nothing’s impossible.”
“What about me?”
I suggest you take a run at Zac Efron.”
“Too pretty. I’m more of a Taylor Lautner kind of guy.”
“Solid choice. It has nothing to with his ability to become a wolf, does it? You’re not jealous, are you?”
“I can’t believe we’re laughing about this.”
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