99 Gods: War
Page 16
Korua said.
“Remember my old stories, Ken. In a way they don’t live and think in our reality,” Nessa said. “Think of this as a story.”
“Nessa?” Ken said.
Nessa sent.
Nessa sent.
Nessa sighed.
“Did you get your penchant for crazy schemes from them or did they get it from you?” Ken asked. Nessa spat seawater at him.
Korua said.
Nessa sent, grumbly grumbling.
The two minds faded out of contact. Nessa laughed.
“They’re impossible!” Ken said.
“I’m beginning to think this is a common trait of their kind,” Nessa said. “Okay, Mr. Telepath Private Investigator, your turn to play idiot. Your job is to find this Alton whateverhisnamewas.”
Ken splashed water at her.
““Mr. B., I have got a grand humbug in my head which I shall put in practice within a year, and it shall double the sale of my pencils. Don’t ask me what it is, but within a year, you shall see it for yourself, and you shall acknowledge Monsieur Mangin knows something of human nature. My idea is magnifique, but it is one grand secret.” … But, poor fellow! Within four months after I bade him adieu, the Paris newspapers announced his sudden death. … I confess I felt somewhat chagrined that the Monsieur had thus suddenly taken “French leave” without imparting to me the “grand secret” by which he was to double the sales of his pencils. But I had not long to mourn on that account; for after Monsieur Mangin had been for six months … “mouldering in his grave” judge of the astonishment and delight of all Paris at his reappearance in his native city … It now turned out that Monsieur Mangin had lived in the most rigid seclusion for half a year, and that the extensively-circulated announcements of his sudden death had been made by himself, merely as an “advertising dodge” to bring him still more into notice, and give the public something to talk about.” – P.T. Barnum, Humbugs of the World
“You know, there’s a trend here.”
13. (Dave)
“Life’s not been treating me well recently,” Dave said, explaining why he had to lie down and rest his ac
hing head.
“In your shoes, I would have already cratered and done something stupid,” Steve said. He strolled into the kitchen, snagged a bag of chips from the counter, and strolled back. “I mean, gimmie a break. You’ve been tossed from the company you founded, your job-related chronic illness from cadmium poisoning is causing you severe problems, and Tiff’s giving you such wonderful support she now thinks you’re Peter Pan. That’s a hell of a lot to handle at once. You thinking of moving out on the B?”
Steve didn’t like women socially, either, unlike Marty, who exuded ‘safe’ and who had more women friends than everyone else Dave knew, combined. Dave thought about Steve’s comment and realized Steve had a point. Dave’s life had gone totally south, more than he had ever believed possible. What a ducking fisaster!
“The thought’s crossed my mind, but, no. We’re just going through a rough time. I’m sure we’ll patch things up. We always have before.”
“Mr. Nice Guy, as always,” Steve said.
“Some people who used to work at Hernandez would disagree with your assessment.”
“Okay, you’re a hard ass bargainer and you can get into people’s faces when you need to, but you’re still a nice guy.”
“I want the full story,” Marty said.
“I didn’t come over to vent, just to visit,” Dave said.
“Vent away,” Marty said.
Dave sighed, and vented. At length.
“…so, without me realizing, she’s become the Princess of Darkness,” Dave said, eyeing ceiling. “She’s more machine than woman these days…”
Steve tried to look sympathetic, but he couldn’t keep a ‘this is what you get for marrying a woman’ look off his face. Marty did a much better job of appearing sympathetic. “Okay, I understand. You’re feeling betrayed. Come on, continue talking. I’ve done enough counseling to know the benefits of expressing your feelings.”
Dave didn’t know Marty had done any counseling, but didn’t doubt it. Marty’s chaotic life had led him through all sorts of strange places. Inside sales for a company selling only to shoe repair companies had been the most obscure job Dave knew about. “What’s to say? It’s a disaster,” Dave said.
Marty didn’t accept his explanation, but he didn’t say so. Instead, he said: “So tell me…how’d you and Tiff get together, anyway?” Marty hadn’t been around in those days, only circling into Dave’s orbit five years ago, after he and Steve had partnered up.
Steve laughed. “You won’t believe it,” he said. “I was there. Well, not physically there, but Dave and I were already doing amateur chamber music. I heard about it firsthand.”
“So do you want to tell the story?” Dave said. Steve opened his eyes, mock frightened, and shook his head ‘no’. Dave smiled. “I’d broken off an affair the previous night, with… what was her name, anyway?”
“Donna. The geologist. Worked in a different department at Clochard,” Steve said, deadpan. Dave had worked at Clochard after getting his PhD from Mines; when he left Clochard he had hooked up with Pete Dias and started their consulting firm.
“Oh, right. It hadn’t been much of an affair; I broke it off before it got too serious,” Dave said. He had attended a drunken industry party with her and had woken up the next morning alone in a hotel bed, and found Donna asleep, curled up on the floor in the other room. That had set off alarm bells in his head, not about infidelity but about the strength of Donna’s commitment to him. Not the first alarm bells, either. He had decided Donna had been lying to him about being serious. “Then I ran into Tiff. Literally.”
Steve laughed softly. He tossed a potato chip into the air and caught it in his mouth.
“This sounds interesting,” Marty said, pointedly ignoring Steve. “Tell me.”
“I’d checked out early and was out walking on the Cheesman Park jogging trail, trying to straighten out my mind and walk off a hangover. I had my briefcase tied to my backpack and the damned thing had come loose, and I was trying to reattach it with my bungee cords without having to stop and take it off, and I blundered into Tiff on her morning walking commute and knocked her down. After I apologized and helped her up, we got to talking. She’d never seen anyone with a lunatic arrangement of backpack and briefcase like mine, and I was intrigued about someone who worked in an IT department and was a professional athlete.”
“What did you have in common that attracted the two of you to each other?” Marty asked.
“We both worked with computers,” Dave said. “We both liked ballet. We were both reasonable people who didn’t like the nasties we worked with.” He sighed, remembering the early times and the early love. “We were both, uh, smart.” Frustrated with the idiots around them might be a better way to explain how they felt, but Dave didn’t want to phrase it that way.
“It took them forever to get into bed with each other,” Steve said. Dave nodded. He and Tiff had been wary, both burned badly in their previous relationships. “I practically had to order them into bed.”
Dave laughed. “That’s not quite what I remember.”
“I figured if I dropped enough hints about Dave’s hot bod around her, that would do the trick,” Steve said.
Marty looked away. “Well… Then you both got older. You’ve been married, what, thirteen years.”
“Not for a couple more months,” Dave said, after doing a quick mental calculation. His life with Tiff felt longer, much longer.
“If you don’t mind an official counselor question, how’s your sex life these days?”
“What sex life?” Dave said.
“In the past month?” Dave didn’t twitch. “Year?”
Dave sighed. “I’d say every other month or so.” He paused in thought. “It’s a combination of my illness and, well, Tiff’s lack of interest since Stacy’s birth.”
“Uh, Dave? Stacy’s seven, isn’t she?” Marty said.
Dave nodded.
“That’s over half your marriage, Dave.”
He nodded again.
“What changed about then?” Marty asked. “Besides Stacy’s birth.”
“Well, lots of things,” Dave said. “Miguel Santos bought into DPJ and we became DPMJ about then, and that’s when Hernandez became our biggest client and I dropped my other clients. That’s also when Tiff, after her pregnancy leave cost her her previous position, took a new one at Donner, which changed its name a year later to Prime Data Services, and a year later to Smith Masters.” Still the name of the rough beast she rode as it slouched toward wherever. “She hadn’t gone overboard at any of her other jobs before then.”
“So you’re saying you have your life and she has hers, and they no longer meet often?”
Dave nodded.
“You started your extensive travel then, didn’t you?” Marty tapped his fingers together, now lost in thought.
“I’ve always traveled, but my other clients had been local to central and southern Colorado. Hernandez is all over the world, and the only client of mine that I couldn’t do all of my trips out of a car. Before then, Pete and Jose had handled the long trips.”
“So both of your lives were consumed by work,” Marty said. “Who does the housework?”
“Maids. Same for most of the cooking.”
Steve sighed as he paced around his and Marty’s living room, trying and failing to remain calm. “Too much work, too much money, too little time for each other.”
“You’re probably right,” Dave said. Looking at the events of the past half-dozen years from the outside, he picked up the whiff of failure, on his part, in his personal life.
“Then you got sick and she lets you down,” Steve said.
“Ignore him,” Marty said. “I’m betting your illness drew the two of you together and kept things from getting worse. Right?” Dave nodded. “Next nasty question: any infidelities?”
“Neither Tiff nor I are that sort of people,” Dave said.
“You’d be surprised. How many lovers did you and Tiff have before you hook
ed up with each other?” Marty asked. Dave turned to him and frowned. Marty elaborately shrugged. “It’s a common question…”
Dave sighed. “Four each. Tiff and I have always had a giggle about the fact we’re each other’s lucky fifth.”
“So few,” Steve said. “One wonders how you breeder types cope…”
“Steve,” Marty said, tossing a pillow at his life partner. “Hush up.” He turned to Dave. “All long affairs?”
“No, all short. Okay,” Dave said. “Short from Tiff and my perspective. Both of us expected better of ourselves and were guilty about how short our previous affairs had been. Our respective guilts were one of the reasons we were so slow about getting together.”
“Hmm,” Marty said. “Not a very exciting romantic career, then.”
“Au contraire. You didn’t have the pleasure of meeting one of his ex’s,” Steve said. “She was a knockout. Not at all the sort of person you’d think Dave would have ever had an affair with.”
Another pillow from Marty thudded into Steve’s stomach. “You’re not helping, you know.” He paused. “You met one of Dave’s exes? When was this, anyway?”
“Hell, I’d almost forgotten about that,” Dave said, lying. “Tiff’s pregnancy with Ron had slowed her down, to where she didn’t want to come with on a trip to New York to see Itzhak Perlman at the Lincoln Center, so I asked Steve to go with me. I used my connections to get us into a party to honor Perlman and ran into Elorie…”
“Hmm. Her name you didn’t forget, did you?” Marty said.
Dave blushed. “Uh, no. Steve didn’t like the way we were getting along with each other so he, ah, presented himself as my…”
“You didn’t,” Marty said, turning to Steve. “That’s evil.”
“You had to be there,” Steve said. “Young Dave, all brilliant, successful and still incredibly good looking…”
“Hey!” Dave said. He looked down at the offending potbelly and glowered. He had always been good looking until middle age set in and his illness made him nearly sedentary.
“…and still with a full head of hair; and he and this stunning Jewish glamour puss run into each other and fall totally into each other’s eyes…”