Mr. Real

by Carolyn Crane

  He lowered the gun to show he wasn’t a threat. He wasn’t the lunatic. He just wanted to gather her up in his arms and take her away from here.

  “Were you looking for me? I don’t understand how you’re here.”

  He thought about his strange impulse to get to Malcolmsberg with new wonder. Why was he there? But thank goodness he was. “I don’t understand, either,” he said. “I just had this sense I had to get here.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Oh.” She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry about all this. I can only imagine how horrible it must be to come here and this guy has your face.”

  “You’re sorry?! He was attacking you,” Paul said. “But you have a witness. We need to call the cops. He is done.”

  “He was tickling me.”

  “You were screaming.”

  “In laughter.”

  “You were begging him to stop. You said don’t. When a woman asks a man to stop the way you were asking that man to stop, the man stops.”

  Her face went red. “It wasn’t what you thought.”

  He swallowed with difficulty. This was like a nightmare. “No, I know what I saw. What I heard. That wasn’t okay.”

  “It’s fine. I’ve got things under control.”

  He didn’t believe her. She was frightened, feeling ashamed—he could tell. He could see it in her eyes. Probably didn’t help that Paul had almost killed the guy. He needed to seem calm if he was going to gain her trust and help her. “Look, maybe I got a little intense, but I know what I heard.”

  “No, I’m handling this.” She planted a hand on her hip. “It’s my responsibility. You have to let me—”

  “This shit only escalates,” he interrupted, “and it ends with you in a pine box. Bottom line, that lunatic is done attacking you. And he’s done with the Sir Kendall act. I won’t have it. This is how it’s going to be…I’m telling you how it’s going to be.”

  “You’re telling me? You can’t just go busting into people’s homes and telling them what to do. This is a free country, where you can look and act however you want. This situation—you need to just leave it.”

  “Leave it? The man looks like me. I think that gives me a stake.” A horrible thought came to him. “Did you have a part in this? Making him look like that?”

  “Oh, please. Please!”

  Had she? “How did you even get hooked up with him?”

  “I uh…” she sputtered. “It doesn’t matter. We’re fine, okay? Please trust me, okay?”

  “So a man who has gone through insanely drastic plastic surgery, and voice training, and who knows what else, to style himself as super-spy Sir Kendall, a character from a commercial, has you handcuffed and screaming. Do you not see a red flag anywhere?”

  She flicked a shock of bright hair from her eyes. “Am I getting a lecture on sane behavior from the man who attacked my guest in my home and is now holding us at gunpoint?”

  Yes, he’d done that.

  “God—” she stared at him with an expression of wonder. “Look, I know this must look completely weird and bizarre to you. I’m sorry, too. And I get it. I get that you thought I was in trouble.”

  “I know you were in trouble.”

  “It’s Sir Kendall who’s in trouble—”

  “Stop calling him that.”

  She pointed at the house. “He’s in trouble, he’s somebody I’m trying to help, and this whole thing is my responsibility—”

  “You think it’s your fault he was attacking you?”

  “Stop it! Stop acting like…this is not battered woman syndrome, okay? And I’m not the person you remember from class. I take my duties seriously now, and I have a solemn responsibility to the man in there, and part of that is keeping you away from him because it’s pretty obvious you have a violent rage against him and…well, hell if I’m going to explain it to you, because you need to leave. I agreed to talk with you. You can see he’s not coercing me.”

  She remembers the class, too, Paul thought with stupid excitement. “I’ll help you help him,” he said. “We can get him psychological help. Do you know what his real name is?”

  She looked alarmed.

  He swallowed, hating the fear in her eyes. “We’ll find it out,” he said. “I doubt he’s changed his fingerprints. And somebody crazy like that has probably been in the system. There’s probably family somewhere that wants the real guy back.” Paul was starting to feel hopeful. They would make this guy stop being Sir Kendall, get him away from her. “There’s a million ways we could get him help—”

  She straightened up, seemed to steel herself. “Listen up, Rambo 2000, here’s a better plan—I’ll forget about the breaking and entering and property damage you’ve created here, and you’ll go around the driveway and leave in whatever monster truck you rode in on.”

  He didn’t buy her bravado. It was forced—he could tell. It was as if he could read her in some deep and essential way.

  “I will not leave you here with him. I’m going to call the cops and report the assault I witnessed, and I’ll report this guy pulling a gun on me, and guess what? I bet this thing isn’t even registered, and I bet the cops aren’t going to be very happy about a mentally ill person waving around firearms.”

  “I’ll say it’s your gun.”

  “I wonder who they’ll believe? The reputable athlete? Or the man who is claiming to be a TV character? Or maybe the girl with the raw wrists because he was handcuffing and assaulting her?”

  “Uh!” She glanced at the screen door. “Why can’t you leave it alone?”

  Of course she didn’t want interference. The woman never did. “The man’s deranged, and he needs help. He needs to be committed.” He turned back to climb the stoop.

  “No—” She raced around and jumped in front of him, pressed a hand to his chest. “You can’t!”

  “I can.” Actually, he wasn’t so sure about that, but Alix was buying it. He’d do what it took to get her away from that man. He’d play the heavy. Maybe this is why he’d been drawn here—to save her. He still couldn’t believe it was her.

  “There must be something I can give you to leave. I’ll give you money to leave us alone. I have tons of money. If you give me twenty-four hours.”

  “You think I would accept money to leave you in danger?”

  She dropped her hand. “I’m not in danger. Listen, I could have a million bucks for you in twenty four hours. I’m serious.”

  Was it possible she was a little bit crazy, too? Sadness sliced through him. “I don’t care about a million bucks. The only thing I want is for that man to never threaten you again. And to stop being Sir Kendall.”

  “So you’re going to go tattling on us without knowing the situation and totally screw us up.”

  “Call it what you want. My phone’s in the car.” He started off the other way, heading around the house.

  “Wait.”

  It was like an out-of-body experience, watching himself be this asshole. People often tried to ban UFL matches because they perceived the fight to be violent. Interfering douche bags who didn’t understand the sport. Now who was interfering? But he’d heard what he heard. Her screams still rang in his head. And if she was crazy, all the more reason to get involved.

  “Wait up!” She grabbed his sleeve.

  He stopped. “What?”

  “Money and I help you get him help. He trusts me. You know that would make all the difference. For a delusion.” She made air quotes for delusion.

  He crossed his arms.

  “Look, here’s my offer.” She looked over at the house. “Crap,” she said.

  “I’m waiting.”

  “You think he’s this deranged guy. I can see why you think it—I’d think it too in your place. And I will be on your side to get him help, I will pay for extensive therapy for him, whatever you decide—but only if you think he needs help after you fully understand the situation. So here’s my deal: you will let me explain it to you and give me one day to prove what I say. O
ne day.”

  “Prove what? What is there to prove here?”

  She glanced up at the house. “That something supernatural is happening here. And he really is Sir Kendall.”

  “Do I look like a total fool to you?” He turned and walked on, feeling disheartened. She was lying or crazy. Maybe he couldn’t read her after all.

  She grabbed his sleeve. “Paul, please.”

  He hating the pleading look in her eyes, hated that he was the one putting it there.

  “I don’t expect you to believe me,” she said. “That’s why I’m asking you to let me prove it. I have this power, okay? It’s the power to make anything and anybody appear. And that man in there really is Sir Kendall.”

  “You have magical powers.”

  “Actually, it’s my computer. Please.” She seemed flustered, desperate. “I discovered this thing with my computer—it’s weird—I don’t know really how it works, but it makes things appear. I brought Sir Kendall as a sort of test. It was a mistake to bring a man to life. He’s not exactly equipped to be in the real world, but now that he’s here, I have to help him. I won’t let him wind up in a mental institution.”

  She seemed to believe the story. Or was she just buying time?

  “I know you don’t believe me. It was hard for me to believe, too,” she said. “My friend and I think it’s from a computer program my aunt wrote. She was into the whole occult thing. But I tested the magic a bunch of times. I got a necklace, a barrel, an outfit, and then Sir Kendall. I know it sounds bizarre. He’s a perfect replica of you physically. You think that’s plastic surgery?”

  “That’s exactly what I think.”

  “Okay, tell me this, do you have a scar—” she touched her right thigh— “a white line right here?”

  Paul narrowed his eyes. “How does that prove anything? Some of my fights are televised. The camera could’ve picked it up.”

  “You fight on TV?”

  He snorted and turned.

  “Wait!” She grabbed his arm and gestured toward her thigh again. “You have a little bend. When you’re, you know.” She crooked her finger out from her pelvis.

  Hard. “Jesus.” He pulled from her grip. It seemed impossible that she’d know this. Had she spoken with some of the women he’d slept with? Had he? “A creepy amount of information about my body isn’t going to convince me your computer is magical.”

  “That’s why you have to let me show you. Look, you find me a jpeg image of anything you want in the world, and I’ll make it appear on my doorstep in exactly twenty-four hours. Think of something impossible. A robot, a unicorn, a Medieval suit of armor. I mean, what if? What if it’s true? Isn’t there maybe something you want? You choose any image, and if it’s not on the doorstep in twenty-four hours, I am your ally in whatever you want for Sir Kendall.”

  He thought about this. Use your opponent’s energy against him, Master Veecha had always said. He could select something impossible, and when it didn’t show up, maybe she’d cooperate.

  Or make excuses.

  “Please.”

  He could feel himself crumbling. She seemed so unhappy, so conflicted, so desperate, and covering it with bravado, just as she’d done in that martial arts class four years ago.

  He held all the cards, but he found he wanted to say yes to her. Ever since kicking her out, he’d yearned for another chance to say yes to her.

  It was her. Alix.

  He sighed. Fine, he would make this good faith gesture. He would give her this. And they’d spend this time together—there was that, too. Somehow he would get to the bottom of all this and find a way to help her. “Twenty-four hours. You promise you’ll help after that. No excuses. No do-overs,” he said.

  “Same for you. No do-overs. When you get your thing, you leave us in peace.”

  “Deal.” He held out his hand. She took it. He tightened his fingers around hers, suddenly, acutely aware of the fact that the lunatic who had his face had been fucking her. It made him crazy to think it.

  “When you see that it’s true, you can’t tell anybody,” she said.

  “Mum’s the word. If I see it’s true.”

  “Promise? You cannot breathe a word, including to Sir Kendall. He doesn’t know he’s not real.”

  “Promise.”

  A tiny smile crept onto her face. “Paul, you are going to freak.” She said the word a full octave higher than the rest of the sentence. Freak. It was so her to say it like that. He’d interacted with her for such a short time all those four years ago, but certain things had become very her for him.

  She turned and led him back into the house and through the kitchen. He took the opportunity to pull the clip out of the gun and pocket it. Then he checked the chamber. Empty. He hated loaded guns. He shoved it back into his waistband just as they walked by the entry to the living room. The man was still there, sitting against the radiator, smiling like a Cheshire cat as they passed.

  Paul stayed cool and followed her down a short hall into a colorful office lined with bright posters and bookshelves that held a messy profusion of old toys, quirky figurines, and trashed paperbacks. Total Alix style, he thought.

  Rambo 2000. He smiled in spite of himself.

  He’d found her again. What the hell had happened to her?

  “Come on, Lindy.” The dog came in and Alix closed the door, pulled an extra chair to the desk, and sat down. “What’ll it be, el cap-ee-tan?”

  He took the chair next to her and watched her wake the machine. He had the exact same system, except she kept hers messy with icons strewn everywhere. Her short hair was messy, too, falling in pieces, instead of a smooth fluff like other girls. And pink now. Spicy and carefree, just like her. It was nice to sit with her. He wished she wasn’t crazy or messing with him or whatever was happening. She really didn’t seem crazy, but who would make up such a story?

  “Whatever you get, you need to be able to take it when you go,” she added. “I don’t want the Empire State Building in my front yard, if you know what I mean.” She created a clipboard. Lindy came around and rested her chin on her thigh and Alix scratched the dog’s ears.

  He smiled. “So you want me to believe that you sat down here, suspecting you might be able to choose anything in the world, and have it appear before your very eyes, and you chose Sir Kendall Nicholas the Third.”

  “That’s right,” she said, staring fixedly at the screen.

  He stifled a smile. “Interesting.”

  Her cheeks went nearly as red as her top. “Shut up.”

  He grinned. “No, seriously—you’re telling me you ordered a man? Like takeout? A man who looks like me?”

  She swallowed. “It was a test.”

  He paused, enjoying her embarrassment. He shouldn’t be having fun, but he was. Everything about her was fun. “I don’t know what’s crazier—that you’re asking me to believe that your computer has this special power, or that, assuming it does and you could’ve chosen anything or anybody in the world, that you’d go for a fake spy character from an obscure TV ad instead of, say, George Washington, or somebody worthwhile.”

  “Oh yeah, George Washington. That would be awesome. We could play whist.”

  “It’s okay, you don’t have to explain. I get it. A man-sized sex toy—” Again she reddened. It was too fun to tease her. “In the image of me. I suppose that’s understandable—”

  “I didn’t order you,” she snapped. “I ordered Sir Kendall.”

  “Fine. Well guess what? I’ve decided what I want.”

  “What?”

  “I’m going to find a hot sex slave to satisfy my endless, kinky desires. I’m going to do exactly what you did and find a photo of the hottest person I can possibly imagine…”

  “Shut up. And, it’s not funny. No people.” She gave him a level stare, and he realized, right there, that she fully believed in this computer. “Things or animals only. But if it’s an animal, be ready to care for it. When you get an animal, it’s your responsibilit
y for the rest of its life.”

  “But it can do people.”

  “Come on, Paul, don’t you have enough imagination to come up with a non-human, impossible thing?” She waited, petting Lindy. The cursor pulsed in the blank Google-search rectangle.

  He considered getting something that had to be imported from Asia, at least a twenty-hour plane ride away, but anything could be fabricated.

  “You can get more than one thing. When Sir Kendall showed up on Friday night, he had his car,” she said. “I didn’t mean for him to come with a car, but I guess it was in the background of the photo. I’ve gotten entire outfits with accessories.”

  “Lucky this powerful magic didn’t fall into the hands of somebody who would use it merely for her own self-gratification.”

  She turned to him, eyes flashing. Had he hit a nerve? “There are people out there who would order guns and bombs,” she said.

  “True enough.” He crossed his arms, sat back, and stretched out his legs. What would be impossible to fabricate? “What if I ordered something from my youth? Say, a piece of sports equipment. Would I get a new version of that thing, or that exact thing from the past, flaws and all?”

  “As far as I can tell, the flaws and whatever else come with it.” She told him about some barrel she’d gotten, how the dings and dents looked the same.

  He told her to type in the Web address for Master Veecha’s school up in Oakland. Some of the old students had taken it over. A good group, and they had an image-rich site. He had her click through the photos. “I’m going for training equipment,” he said. “Not just any equipment. I know every nick and scratch on some of this stuff.”

  “So you’re really a fighter on TV now?”

  He shifted, avoiding her eyes. Was, he should probably say. But instead he grunted. “Mixed martial arts. The UFL.” God, was he trying to impress her now?

  “I’ve heard of that.” She clicked through the slideshow of the school. “A fighter and an actor.”

  “I’m done acting. The acting was supposed to serve the fighting.” Paul’s breath caught as she hit a photo of Master Veecha in his prime. He would’ve been thirty-one. Just two years older than Paul was now.