by Stephen Frey
“What are you talking about?”
“I thought we were getting along so well yesterday at the bar, then out of nowhere you blew me off. Now you break into my desk. I should tell Seaver what you’ve done and have you barred from this place Monday morning.”
“It’ll be your word against mine.”
“Why do you hate me?”
Mary and I kissed in her car yesterday afternoon until the rain let up. Then she drove me to where my car was parked, ready to follow me home. As I was about to get out, I turned back and told her I couldn’t go through with it. One moment I couldn’t wait to have her body wrapped around me, the next it was the last thing in the world I wanted.
“I don’t hate you,” I say gently. “Just the opposite. I like you very much.”
“Don’t give me that.” Her voice trembles as she turns her back on me. “Everything was fine one minute yesterday, then the next you told me you didn’t find me attractive. Now you’re breaking into my desk. What am I supposed to believe?”
“I never said I didn’t find you attractive.” I move to where she stands and try to caress her shoulders, but she steps away, her back still to me.
“You didn’t have to say it. It was obvious when you told me I couldn’t come home with you. That was terrible, Augustus.”
I take a deep breath. I don’t want her going to Seaver to tell him I’ve broken into her desk, but I want to understand why she lied to me about the size of her Teletekk purchase, learn the real reason she didn’t want to go to her house in McLean yesterday, and try to find out why she’s come onto me like a hurricane. “Mary, I thought you told me you had purchased a hundred thousand dollars of Teletekk.” I want to know why I haven’t seen that Jag of hers either.
She turns around slowly, an irritated expression on her face. “Excuse me?”
I hold up the Teletekk order I found in her desk. “This purchase order is for a thousand dollars, not a hundred thousand.”
“What’s your point?” she snaps.
“Is this all you bought? A thousand dollars’ worth?”
“Maybe.”
“Why did you tell me you bought a hundred grand?”
“None of your business.”
“Mary, how much did you lose when MicroPlan’s stock crashed this past spring?”
“None of your business,” she says again.
“How much did Jacob really leave you when he died?” I ask. Now I know how Reggie feels when he’s interrogating someone.
“I told you, two million dollars.”
“Why didn’t you want to go to your house in McLean yesterday after we left the bar?” I press.
“What?”
“You were willing to drive all the way to my place in Springfield. That would have taken us an hour in rush-hour traffic. But your house is five minutes away.”
“Why am I being made to feel like a criminal?”
“Answer me!”
“I told you,” she says, seething. “There were men at the house working on the living room.”
“You said it was the kitchen yesterday.” I pause. “And I have yet to see that Jaguar. What kind did you say it was?”
Her eyes turn to slits. “I didn’t.”
“Where did you tell me you were from?” I ask.
“I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did. It was Kentucky.”
“Is that why you don’t like me all of the sudden?” she asks angrily. “Because I opened up and told you that I’m nothing but trailer trash? Because you can’t be with a woman who grew up dressing in rags and eating leftover meatloaf for Christmas dinner? Is that what this is all about?”
“That’s ridiculous, Mary, and you know it. We haven’t been friends for that long, but by now you know I wouldn’t let—”
“Then why wouldn’t you let me come home with you yesterday?” she sobs, her eyes tearing up.
My gaze drops to the carpet. “I’m not over my wife yet. I didn’t feel right about it.”
“The man who kissed me yesterday wasn’t missing his wife.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Oh, I think I do,” she says, her voice chilling. “Slammer warned me about you right from the start. He told me he thought you had killed your wife, and that I needed to be careful. That we all needed to be careful. I guess he had you pegged.”
“That’s absurd.”
“He checked out the stories about your wife’s murder on the Internet, and he said he had you all figured out.”
“Slammer was a lunatic. Yesterday should have proved that to you. Besides, what could he possibly find out on the Internet? He was just jealous. He didn’t like how quickly we got close.”
“Which is exactly what I told him, but now I’m not so sure.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Exactly what you think it means.”
It’s my turn to stare her down. I can feel my anger building. Mary has no right to accuse me of these awful things. “If you’re so worried, why don’t you go ask your psychic about me?”
“Maybe I will.”
“Sure, Sasha will have all the answers. She did one helluva job warning you about yesterday. What a load of crap all that is. I don’t know how you can delude yourself that way.”
Mary swallows a sob. “I hate you.”
“Is there anything you want to tell me about that call you got while we were driving back to Bedford from seeing Sasha?” I ask.
“What are you talking about?”
“You told me it was an old friend from home. You sure you want to stick to that story?”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“Why did you go through my desk?” I ask.
“What! You were the one going through mine.”
“What were you looking for?” I push. She’s not answering anything, but if I press, maybe I’ll break through. “Was it just the letter from the insurance company, or was there something else you were hoping to find?”
“You’re crazy!” she shouts at the top of her lungs.
The sound of the circular saw in the conference room fades, like it’s been turned off and the blade is slowing down. “You’ve been lying to me all along, haven’t you? There was no two-million-dollar inheritance, no house, and no Jag. Probably no marriage either. Were you his mistress? Was that the real deal? Did the guy’s wife find out about you and threaten him with divorce if he didn’t stop seeing you?”
“You bastard! You goddamn bastard!”
Two guys with tool belts hanging low around their waists appear at the conference room doorway. “You all right, miss?” one of them calls.
Mary doesn’t answer. She just stares at me, shaking.
“Miss?”
I step past her and head straight for the door, hoping she won’t come after me. Or tell the workmen that I went through her desk and have them try to stop me.
Thankfully, she doesn’t do either. But as I open one of the glass doors leading out of the Bedford lobby, I almost run smack into Roger coming in. We stare at each other silently for several moments.
“What was all of that about yesterday at the bar?” he finally asks. “Why the Perry Mason routine?”
“I wanted to know why you lied about going to Maryland and working at the DOE,” I answer evenly, glancing back over my shoulder at the swinging doors leading to the trading floor, expecting to see Mary emerge. I ought to blow past him, but I can’t resist asking one more time.
“Listen to me, Augustus. I don’t like people digging into my past. Not that I have anything to hide,” he adds quickly. “I’m warning you,” he says, pointing a bony finger at me, “stay away from me from now on. There’ll be trouble if you don’t.”
We both know he can’t threaten me. He probably couldn’t punch a hole through a wet paper towel. “You didn’t work at the DOE, did you?”
“What difference does it make?” he asks.
“Maybe none, but I want to know.”
“T
en years. Doing budgets, like I told you.”
“No way. I called over there. They have no record of a Roger Smith ever having worked there.”
“Oh, yes, and we all know how good the federal government is at keeping records.”
“There was no John Embry either.”
His face goes pale. “Huh?”
“Are you really married?”
Roger shakes his head, trying to regain his composure. “You can’t quit, can you, Augustus? You can’t accept the fact that I’m an average guy, and that this day trading gig is just me trying to save myself from a grind of a life before I end up doing what Slammer did.”
“Then why all the lies?”
“You’re—”
One of the swinging doors opens suddenly and Mary appears. She stops short, her eyes flickering from Roger to me. “Better check your desk, Roger,” she says fiercely. “Augustus doesn’t seem to have much respect for personal privacy.”
Sticking around right now isn’t going to do me any good. Neither one of them is going to answer my questions, and I’ll just end up taking a verbal ass-beating. So I push past Roger, and instead of waiting for an elevator, I take the stairs. Nine stories down, and with each step all I can think about is how far it is and how desperate Slammer must have been to jump. How there must have been so much more going on in his life than I knew about. And then there’s Mary …
It doesn’t make sense to me that a woman who seems to have so little, and, by her own admission, grew up poor, would waste money on a psychic. Before I can reconsider, I decide I’m going to the source to find out what’s really going on. I make the fifteen-minute drive to the small side street where Mary took me the other morning.
“Hello, Sasha,” I say calmly, standing in the open doorway beneath the tarot sign.
Her eyes widen as she looks up from her desk. She hadn’t heard me coming down the steps to her substreet lair. I close the door behind me, and now the room turns quiet and the street noise fades.
“What do you want?”
“I want to know about your relationship with Mary Segal.”
“I’m her psychic,” Sasha answers, standing up. “That’s all.”
“Don’t screw with me!” I shout, slamming my hand on the round table in the middle of the room where we all sat a few days ago. “I’m tired of these damn lies.”
“Get out of here,” she orders, her voice cracking. “Or I’ll call the cops.”
When I don’t react she reaches for the phone on her desk, but I step across the room and rip the cord from the wall before she can finish dialing. “Tell me what’s going on!”
“Get away from me,” she hisses, backing up until her body meets the wall.
I take several steps around her desk and now we’re only a few feet apart. “Talk to me.”
“Get away,” she pleads again, turning toward the wall and shutting her eyes. “Please don’t hurt me.”
“Why would I hurt you? What have you done that would make me want to do that?”
“Nothing, I swear.”
“Why did you call Mary on her cell phone a few minutes after we left here the other day? She said it was an old friend from Kentucky, but we both know the truth, don’t we?”
Sasha’s eyes open and she slowly turns her head back to look at me.
It was a gamble, but I’ve definitely hit a nerve. “I got a quick look at the inbound number on the screen of Mary’s cell phone,” I continue. “I didn’t catch it all, but I saw the 703 area code. I have no idea what Kentucky’s is, but it isn’t 703 because that’s right here in northern Virginia.” I take another step toward her. We’re only inches apart. Her back is flat against the wall, and I can see she’s terrified. “How long have you been offering your services as a psychic?”
“Ten years.”
“But you’re not in the Yellow Pages. I checked. All good psychics advertise in the Yellow Pages because they, better than anyone, know that copper and glass phone lines are the only real transmitters.”
“I … I put the ad in there last month,” she stammers. “The new book hasn’t come out yet.”
“Why did you wait ten years to advertise?”
“I came to this area only recently.”
“Where did you come from?”
“Florida.”
“Problems with the law down there?”
“No, nothing like that.”
She swallows hard as I reach up and wrap my fingers around her thin neck. This is crazy, I think. This isn’t me.
“What are you going to do?” she gasps.
“You’re the psychic,” I say, gently squeezing the soft skin of her throat. There’s no escape, and she knows it. I’m so much stronger than she is. “You tell me.”
“I have an appointment coming,” she whimpers. “He’ll be here any minute.”
“I doubt that. It’s Saturday, it’s summer, and it’s a beautiful day. Most men are playing golf or cutting their lawns right now, not visiting psychics. If you had said she was going to be here any minute, I might have believed you.” I play her game—the game of probability. There’s no appointment coming. I move my hand up her throat until my thumb and forefinger rest tightly beneath her ears, then I squeeze even harder and push her chin toward the ceiling. A strange excitement overtakes me.
“Mary told me she had been coming to you once a week since her husband died. That was last Christmas. Seven months ago. But when I drove her over here a couple of days ago she was paying very close attention to where we were. She was checking landmarks off as if she wasn’t sure where she was going. A woman who had been coming to see you for seven months wouldn’t do that.”
Sasha’s eyes flash from side to side. She puts one hand on my wrist, but doesn’t attempt to pull my fingers from her throat as she struggles to breathe.
“When did you move here from Florida?”
I ease the pressure on her throat so she can reply. “Two months ago.”
“Mary hasn’t been seeing you since Christmas like she told me she has.”
“No, she hasn’t,” Sasha admits. “Please stop,” she begs.
“Keep answering the questions and everything will be fine.” Should I be enjoying this? Shouldn’t this just be about getting the facts? “When did Mary come to see you for the first time?”
She coughs and winces.
“Tell me!”
“About two weeks ago.”
“Exactly when.”
“I’d have to look at my date book,” she says, gripping my wrist with both hands now. “I don’t know exactly.”
“Think!”
“It was a week ago this past Wednesday,” she says. “I remember now. I exercised at a gym around the corner for the first time that morning, and Mary came in after that. She was my first appointment after my workout.”
A week ago Wednesday. My third full day at Bedford. “What did she want?”
Now Sasha is trying to pry my fingers off her neck, but she can’t. “She said she was going to bring you over to see me on her next visit, and she wanted me to say that I envisioned you and her together. That was all we talked about during her entire visit.”
“Why did she want you to see us that way?”
“She thought it would help make you feel about her the way she feels about you. She’s very attracted to you, Augustus. Is that so terrible?”
“You called Mary on her cell phone after we left to give your vision credibility,” I say, squeezing a little more tightly. “If your prediction about the call from Kentucky came true, then I’d be more inclined to believe your vision about us, right?”
“Mary’s just a lonely soul, like so many others. She told me it was love at first sight when she saw you.”
I’m about to tell Sasha that there is no such thing as love at first sight when I think back on how I felt in that high school hallway the first time I saw Melanie. I don’t know if it was love, but it was a powerful emotion. “She told you about my wife too, didn’t
she? That was the terrible loss. She primed you, right?”
“Yes, yes!” Sasha whines. “You’re hurting me. I’ve told you everything I know. I swear! God, I can’t breathe!”
I grit my teeth and squeeze Sasha’s throat even harder, gazing into her terrified eyes. I’m enjoying this. I can’t believe it.
Suddenly the door creaks on its hinges and I whip around, releasing my grip on Sasha’s neck. Standing in the doorway is a young man who reminds me of Daniel. He has wild, multicolored hair and a ring in his nose. The probabilities have failed me.
“Get out of here!” I roar.
He stumbles backward, then turns and scrambles up the stairs. I take one quick look back at Sasha, who has dropped to her knees and is gasping for air, then race for the stairs myself.
Inside of five minutes I’m back in the BMW, heading for home around the Beltway. I try to call Reggie at his office, but he doesn’tpick up so I try him on his cell phone. He scrawled that number on a scrap piece of paper at the morgue and told me to use if I ever really needed him.
“Detective Dorsey.”
“Reggie, it’s Augustus.”
There’s a slight pause. “Hello.”
I hesitate, wondering if it was a mistake to have called. “What’s going on with the investigation? I hadn’t heard from you in a few days, and I’m getting worried that you’re losing steam.” I want to put him on the defensive. I want to establish who’s in charge of this call.
“Not at all. I’m working on several promising leads.”
“What are they?”
“I’d rather not go into them right now,” he says, “especially on an unsecured line like this. Why did you call me on my cell number? Something wrong?”
“No,” I answer defensively.
“Is there anything else? I’m very busy.”
“I have a favor to ask.”
“What?”
“I need you to check someone out for me.”
“Why?”
“I think a woman I know has figured out that I’m going to be coming into some money.”
“So?”
“She’s been following me. Stalking me.”
“Stalking you?”
“Yeah, she’s showed up a couple of times out of the blue,” I say, trying to say something that will spark Reggie’s interest.