“Hey, thanks, guys,” he said, peeling the lid from one of the cans and placing it on the ground next to the dog.
Henry looked at me, and then to the transient. “Excuse me, can you tel us how to get to the Denny’s on International?”
“Which one? There are two,” he said.
“I don’t know…the one closest to the airport, I suppose,” Henry said.
“Lived here my whole life. Know the place like the back of my hand,” the man said, holding up one of his hands in front of us, as if there were some invisible map etched in its surface.
“And…?” I said. He smiled, revealing gums devoid of teeth.
Money. We were going to have to pay him to get directions. Henry sighed and reached into his pocket for another bil. Maybe we should’ve just risked going into the store to buy a damn map. It would’ve been cheaper.
Once the man had his second ten-dolar bil in less than five minutes, he offered to personaly escort us to the restaurant, if we so desired. Desired, we did not.
“Directions would be great,” Henry said, irritated.
“You head over a few blocks, back to International. Then go north along the main drag, like you’re heading to the airport.
Sounds like you want the one across from SeaTac. You can’t miss it.” He spit a little when he spoke, when he hit the “S” in his words.
We thanked him and headed in the direction he advised. I looked back at the homeless guy, just as he picked up the dog food can and ran his finger around the inside, popping the finger into his mouth. My stomach lurched, and I turned away.
What I did not see, however, was the man watching us walk away as he puled a cel phone out of his pocket and dialed, giving the party on the other end the exact coordinates of our intended destination.
:43:
No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution.
—Niccolò Machiaveli, The Discourses
We found International easy enough, just where the homeless guy said it would be. We would’ve eventualy come across it on our own, even without wasting the twenty bucks, but it was easy cash for him, and if it meant the dog would eat, it was worth it.
My photograph was on the front page of the newspaper. I was wanted for questioning in a murder? This was insanity! I was so overwhelmed. My legs felt leaden, my head pounded. My prior grip on the sounds flying at me from every angle loosened, and I felt lightheaded and out of it. I stopped and pushed my hands over my ears. I’d momentarily forgotten about my burn and yelped when the gauze made contact with the scorched flesh.
“Gemma, honey, we have to keep going,” Henry said, trying to pul me along.
“Bradley’s dead and the police think I did it? Lucian did it! I saw him!”
“And that’s what you’l tel the police once we get to that point,” he tried to reassure me, but he looked around the street, his face anxious. “We need to keep moving. And we have to do something about concealing your hair.” He stuffed the length under my coat and puled my colar up high around my neck.
I let him pul me forward along the sidewalk, my body tucked under his arm to shield me from the plain view of cars zooming past on the main strip, my eyes fixed on the sidewalk so I wouldn’t have to make visual contact with anyone passing on foot. I counted the horizontal lines of the pavement slabs—a new one appeared with every third step—and managed to squeeze the noise into a single line of humming. It eased my anxiety to again have that under control.
It felt unfair to hear the planes streaking in overhead. We were so close to the runway that by the time a plane emerged from the cloud cover to land, it seemed you could grab onto a wing if you jumped high enough. It was maddening to be so close to freedom and not take advantage of it.
“Hey, you doing okay?” Henry said.
I shook my head. Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer.
No, I’m not okay! I wanted to scream. But I had to conserve my energy. One foot in front of the other.
“We’l eat once we get to Denny’s.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Yes, you are. You just don’t know it yet,” Henry said. “Once we stop, you need to eat. I can’t have you passing out from low blood sugar. People wil stare if I have to carry you around the city over my shoulder.” He reached over and kissed the side of my head.
Food was the easiest part of this gig. It was the sleep issue that riled me. We had to sleep at some point. I’d read a book once about sleep deprivation, and al the bizarre things that can happen when a body is denied rest. Within nine days, organ systems shut down and the individual can die. Mental disease sets in long before the ninth day, however, bringing with it paranoia, halucinations, and delusions. But I already had al that, and more.
What difference did it make, to sleep or not to sleep?
The Denny’s sign jutted from between two businesses on the chaotic strip, just across from the airport where the guy said it would be. Our pace quickened in the drizzling rain, and even though most of my hair was under my jacket, the dampness seeped into my scalp and chiled me. I wished I had a hat, especialy now that my picture was plastered al over the local newspapers. How the hel was I supposed to have known that was coming?
We waited for a booth, me standing behind Henry, my head down. He asked the waitress for one in an empty section with a clear view of the parking lot and the door, nearest to the back exit.
“What, you rob a bank or sumthin’?” she joked.
“As a matter of fact,” Henry said, winking at her and giving his best smile. It was the same heart-stopping grin he’d laid on Mrs.
Thyme and Ms. Spitzer that day in the attendance office. Worked like a charm.
As we walked toward a back table, I spotted a discarded newspaper left on the bench of one of the booths. There I was again, my face, taken from a photo Marlene had snapped after a recent performance, printed next to the school photo of Bradley Higgins. I needed Henry to get his hands on one of those papers so I could read the article.
The waitress brought coffee right away and I tried to act inconspicuous as I wrapped my freezing left-hand fingers around the mug. “You kids in town visitin’?” she said. She eyed our overnight bags on the opposite bench.
“Just waiting for a flight,” Henry said. “Long layover.”
“I hope you’re goin’ somewhere out of this damned rain.” She flipped a page in her order pad. “So, what’l ya have?” Henry ordered eggs Benedict, my second choice, and I got the same thing I always did. It was hard to get food poisoning from waffles.
Once the waitress had our selections jotted on her notepad, she busied herself with other tables and left us alone.
“There are newspapers al over the place!” I whispered. They were stacked on the corner of the eating bar, on the booth ends, along the shelves next to the benches.
“Relax, and just keep yourself low. We’re far enough back in the restaurant, hardly anyone can see us.”
“What do we do if it gets busy? If someone notices that I look awfuly similar to the girl in the picture? The girl who’s wanted for murder?”
Henry leaned into me. “You’re not wanted for murder. You’re wanted for questioning,” he said, taking a sip of his coffee. “There’s a difference.”
“Easy for you to say,” I hissed. “It’s not your face pasted al over the front page.”
“Gemma, please…” He reached a hand toward my cheek but I looked down. I was trying my best not to cry. My usual resolve against tears in front of anyone had been sandblasted out of my personality.
“I saw him do it, Henry. I saw him press the life out of Bradley with his foot.” I gestured to my chest to indicate where Lucian had pushed into Bradley’s chest, the vision of Bradley’s lips, then face, turning blue as he struggled for air.
“But you didn’t do anything, Gemma.”
“I hit him in the head with the bottle. What if he died from that?
What if
he bled to death?”
“You know that Lucian did it, however Bradley died, if he realy is dead.” Henry pushed the soles of his hands against his eyes and rubbed before looking back at me. “Jesus, Gemma, Higgins tried to…he could’ve hurt you, so, so badly.” Henry turned away from me, his face furious and sad at the same time. “You were only acting in self-defense. Look at you! He left a caling card the size of his fist on your cheek. There isn’t a judge in the land who wouldn’t side with you.”
I reached up and touched my cheek. It was sore.
“Does it look gross?”
“No, it looks painful.”
“I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have accepted a ride from Bradley. I was sort of…out of it.”
“Don’t apologize. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I hope people don’t think you did this to me,” I said, cupping my cheek.
“If they do, that’s their problem. What they don’t know is that if Lucian hadn’t kiled Bradley, I might have.” Henry grew quiet, his eyebrows wrinkled together.
“What did Ted’s guy say?”
“He’s coming down from Seattle as we speak, but he’s not sure how long it’l take him because of traffic.”
“Did he give a rough estimate?”
“Two hours max. If he’s not here by then, we’re supposed to find another phone and check in.”
A disturbing thought occurred to me. What if he got into an accident or had a flat tire or got puled over and then arrested for dozens of unpaid parking fines? What if someone saw the paper, recognized me, and caled the cops before the guy arrived? I needed to chil. I wished the damn waitress would hurry up with the food so I could concentrate on something else for a second. I could hear her in the kitchen, yapping at one of her cronies about some guy named Alen and how much tequila they’d finished off last night.
An elderly couple across the restaurant helped one another with separate sudoku puzzles.
A Spanish-speaking mom chastised her hyperactive brood as they climbed between adjacent booths while the oblivious dad poured over an open newspaper, the balpoint of his pen scraping across the newsprint.
Top ten hits played on a radio in the kitchen, interspersed with someone getting an ass-chewing about water-to-bleach ratios.
I again pushed my hands over my ears and pinched my eyes closed. Henry wrapped his arm around me and puled me into him.
“I can’t do this. Please,” I said, my eyes pleading. “There’s too much noise.”
Henry reached across the table and puled my iPod out of a front zippered pocket of my bag. “Just in case,” he said.
I stuffed the earbuds into my ears and kissed his cheek. Thank God he’d thought ahead.
After about ten minutes, our food arrived. I’d calmed myself enough that I was able to remove the headphones and consider engaging Henry in conversation. He’d been so patient, rubbing my back, sending his warm energy through me.
“What are we going to do without Alicia’s help?” Henry looked at me, forlorn. “I don’t know. We just have to keep moving.”
“How long is this going to last?”
“Until we get to Thibeault.” We realy were on our own. “I don’t know what else to tel you. This is new to me, too.” I felt sad for him. “Is that weird, you know, not to have her there?”
“Beyond weird. Like I’m missing a limb or something. I’m feeling a little lost—stuff is coming to me, but I don’t know what it means. She was like an interpreter,” he said, between bites. “But it’s not al bad. It’s definitely quieter.” He tapped a finger to his temple. I offered a sympathetic smile.
“I’m sure that big brain of yours has plenty to keep it occupied.
If you get desperate, you can always work on coming up with a believable argument as to why you think Shakespeare was a fraud.” Henry chuckled and shook his head. “Yeah, there’s always that old nut.”
As I thought of Alicia, her unexpected absence as Henry’s advisor, my heart skipped in my chest. Something that Marku had said, something he had given to me: Keep it safe. Keep it with you always. Show no one. And take it to Thibeault. He will tell you what to do next.
“Henry—Marku gave me this thing,” I said, moving for my bag.
“I left it on the shelf above my bed. He said I was supposed to give it to Thibeault.” One-handed, I wrenched clothes and toiletries out of the bag’s guts, piling stuff on our booth’s unoccupied bench. “It was heavy. Had a picture sculpted onto the top of it…” Henry put his hand on the back of my wrist. “Gemma, I grabbed it. It’s in my bag.”
“You did?”
“Marku told me about it.”
“Did he explain what it is?”
“No. He just said that you had to take it to Thibeault.”
“Why me? Why didn’t he just give it to you?”
“Because you’re his granddaughter. It’s yours to deliver, not mine.”
“Oh. Right.” I stuffed my clothes back into the bag. “But do you know what it is or what it’s for?”
Henry looked around the restaurant and leaned into me, whispering in my ear. “Thibeault wil explain it. This place is too busy.” He realy was being paranoid. Then again, if I could listen in on the conversations of the people in the kitchen, across the restaurant, and those sitting in the lobby whispering while they waited for their cab, what’s to say that someone else wasn’t listening in on our breakfast for lunch?
He finished his food and sat back, his head propped against the wal behind the booth, left arm draped over my shoulder. He twirled a clump of my hair between his fingers while I continued eating, but I felt him watching me. It made me self-conscious.
“Hey, what are you looking at?” I said, nudging him in the ribs.
“You.”
“Wel, stop. I’m trying to eat here, and you’re making me nervous.”
“I can’t help it. I can’t stop replaying what I assume happened in Higgins’ car, what almost happened to you.”
“Henry, please…don’t.” I put my fork down.
“I wasn’t there for you. I should’ve chased you out of the school. I shouldn’t have let you go off like that.”
“You had no way of knowing I was going to be stupid,” I said.
“I had no way of teling you about Marlene. I tried,” he said, his eyes weling with tears. “I tried. The storm, the seizure…I knew something was happening but I didn’t—I couldn’t—tel you. It was like my mouth wouldn’t let me tel you something that would hurt you so badly,” he said.
“How did you know, if Alicia wasn’t there to tel you?”
“I’m stil seeing these visions…I just don’t understand what I’m seeing. I never realized how much sense Alicia made of things for me. I didn’t know what I was seeing, with Marlene, not until Ted began to tel you.” Henry tightened his grip around my shoulders.
“I’m so sorry, Gemma, so sorry.” He kissed the side of my head and lingered for a moment. I pushed away my plate and hugged him back, crying into his shoulder. Marlene was gone, for real.
“We’re gonna get him, Henry. For Marlene. For Delia. For Alicia,” I sobbed. “We’re going to make this right. We’re going to end this, one way or another.”
Henry and I hugged and cried, the two of us mourning the mounting loss of the people so dear to us. We were going to have to find the strength, somewhere, somehow, to get through whatever was coming.
Henry released me from his embrace and I blew my nose on a napkin. He snickered at the honking noise; I stuck my tongue out at him. With the thumbs of both hands, he wiped the tears off my cheeks.
“I love you,” he said.
“Yeah?” It was the first time either of us had said it out loud, though I’d been feeling it since the moment I’d seen him in the office.
“Yeah, Gemma.” He kissed the end of my nose.
“I love you more,” I answered.
The waitress reappeared with coffee pot in hand. “Anything more for you kids today?” Kids.
She kept caling us that. I wanted to tel her that we “kids” were sort of trying to squelch tyranny and save the world, but she would’ve thought I was off my rocker.
Maybe she’d have been right.
Henry thanked her and asked for the check. She fished it from her apron and dropped it on the table.
“Have fun wherever you’re jettin’ off to, and drink somethin’
fancy, with an umbrela in it, just for me.” As she walked away, Henry puled a few bils from his pants pocket to cover twice the check’s total.
“Now we just wait?”
“Yup,” he said.
“What are we watching for?”
“A dark red minivan. A Dodge, with a soccer bal air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror.”
“Wow. Devil’s in the details, huh?”
Henry chuckled at me. I leaned into him. His warm body provided comfortable cushion in the worn vinyl booth. With a ful stomach and a human radiator seated beside me, it was hard to not succumb to the temptation of a nap. But faling asleep in a very public place was out of the question. Stay awake. Stay awake. I murmured it over and over under my breath.
I kept my head turned toward Henry, looking out the window for our ride. I didn’t want to be any more visible than necessary to the other diners. A pesky shade, a woman, intact, dressed like a waitress, hovered behind the counter. Guess she just couldn’t get the grease out of her system. She watched me, but didn’t speak or try to move in my direction. I played with the leather around my neck, and she folowed my fingers up and down the rope, like a cat watches a spider crawl across the floor. It was unsettling, but she stayed put. And my nose didn’t bleed.
The amulet was working.
Henry squeezed out of the booth to grab one of the newspapers.
He read the article, his voice inaudible to anyone except me. That was a nice perk—Henry could speak in barely a whisper, just enough to move the air over his lips to form words, and I could stil hear him.
“A young female performer with the Cinzio Traveling Players Company is wanted for questioning in the untimely death of local athletic superstar and son to business mogul Gerard Higgins. Eighteen-year-old Bradley Higgins was found in his car in the Eaglefern High School parking lot unconscious and slumped across the front seat of his severely vandalized
Sleight: Book One of the AVRA-K Page 30