by Jay Brandon
Jack looked at the interviewer. The Chair had already said too much in front of a civilian. Looking at the woman in the chair opposite him, Jack said, “Go Hornets?”
The woman nodded.
“Damn.” He turned his attention back to Gladys. “But people got away.”
She gave him another tiny nod.
“So what Bruno told me about Craig Mortenson—?”
“That, sadly, was true. Craig is dead. I think.”
“You think?”
Gladys wore a little frown, the way she did when confronted with something inexplicable. For an old Indian shaman, she had absolutely no supernatural beliefs. “Alicia says he’s not dead. Oh, his body is certainly deceased, we’ve confirmed that. But Alicia escaped, as you surmised. And after she dispatched his murderers, she would not leave without her husband. She says she didn’t. Alicia says she caught Craig’s dying breath, and took his mind into her own. No one ever understood their symbiosis. Now it’s complete. She says Craig was tired of his body anyway, and is quite happy in hers.”
Jack was staring at her. Gladys shrugged irritably. “You should hear her talk to herself. But it’s a harmless psychosis, and makes her happy.”
In a toneless voice, Jack said, “Alicia told me where the conference was going to be. That college in Virginia. That’s how I was able to set up there before anyone else.”
“How could she have known that?”
“She said she and Craig figured it out.”
They both stared into space. Then the Chair shook her head and her eyes drilled into Jack again. “But none of this excuses what you’ve just done, Jack. You can’t be trusted.”
Jack stood perfectly still. He wondered if she was going to arrange his death. That’s probably what it would have to be. Mere lifelong incarceration wouldn’t keep him from talking. She had the power to do it any number of ways.
He could tell from Gladys’ expression that she hated what she had to do. “I kept listening for some sign that you knew, that you were just leading us on, knowing we were the ones interrogating you. But I never did.”
The woman in the chair sat up straight. She had begun taking off her makeup, removing implants from inside her mouth. Her face slimmed down. She took off the lifeless wig, shook out her hair, which was much shorter than the last time he’d seen it, but the same light brown. She removed contact lenses and her eyes were their old piercing blue. Arden stood up and unselfconsciously reached up under her dress, pulling out the padding. Jack just watched her.
“He did know, though,” she said matter-of-factly.
“What?” Her grandmother’s head snapped toward her.
“He was dropping clues all along, Granny. Didn’t you catch any of them?”
“When?”
“Oh, please. That part about making love to me. The detail.” She rolled her eyes. “Implying that I wasn’t very good at it. Please. That was to goad me out of my role.”
Gladys was thinking hard. “No. You’re making excuses for him now.”
Arden said nonchalantly, “Plus he’s been playing me the chess match I won against the computer when I was in school in Grenoble. Move for move.”
Gladys sat there, only her eyes moving. Obviously she’d been seeing the scribbles on the pads and hadn’t bothered interpreting them. Now she ran back in her memory all those moves of the last three hours. “My God, you’re right.”
Arden said, “It is only the deep respect in which I hold you that prevents my saying, ‘Duh.’”
Jack stood at ease, letting the women work it out. Gladys Leaphorn obviously hadn’t been persuaded. “You told him,” she accused her granddaughter. “You gave him some kind of signals. You winked at him.”
“I did not! Run the tape.”
“I’m sure you would have it altered somehow by the time we played it back. But it doesn’t matter. He has proven he can’t be trusted.”
Jack finally stepped in. “What are you going to do then, Granny? Mind-wipe me?”
Gladys sounded disgusted. “I doubt it would take in your case. You would be left a drooling idiot roaming the streets babbling insanities. Questions would be asked. No, Jack. You are out.” She shot a look at her granddaughter. “Both of you. You deserve each other. You will never again be privy to our councils. The Circle is dead anyway. You are the last remnants. We are disbanded.”
Her eyelid flickered, so swiftly it could never be caught on videotape.
Jack hung his head. He put up a little argument, but Gladys Leaphorn was adamant.
Arden said, “I guess I have to re-frump.”
“Put it on,” her grandmother said. “When you look like that you become one of the women men don’t see.”
“Really?”
“Just do it.”
Arden reconfigured her disguise, lifting her skirt to put the padding back on. Jack watched her without pretending to do otherwise. She sighed as she reinserted the contacts and cheek pads. Then the three of them left the interrogation room. No agents waited outside. Gladys escorted them out of the secured area, flashing her badge a few times—sure enough, the men glanced at Arden then she seemed to become invisible to them— to a waiting car that had no driver. “Go,” Gladys said, and turned and rolled back into the building without ceremony.
Jack drove. In a few miles they came to a small town, and abandoned the car. They walked toward a tiny train station. If there wasn’t a train due soon, Arden would get a car for them.
She transformed herself back into Arden again. This time Jack watched appreciatively as she reached under her dress and pulled out the padding.
“Thanks for the signals,” he said as they started walking again.
“Thanks for entertaining me with that BS about me being lousy in the sack.”
He turned and looked at her in surprise. “Such language from a nice schoolgirl. I have never used such a crude expression in my life.”
“But it’s what you meant.”
“No, I didn’t.” He put his arm around her. “I think you have talent. And enthusiasm, which—”
“Shut up.”
“All you need is—”
“Practice,” they said together, then Arden added, “Then let’s hurry up and get to a large population center so I can—”
“Oh, right. As if anyone could—”
“There would be—”
He laughed. She jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow. They were both laughing. By the time they got to the train station they were interrupting each other’s sentences after one or two words. It sounded as if they were talking in code.
— THE END —
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jay Brandon is a successful attorney and a prolific, award-winning mystery novelist. He holds a Master’s Degree in writing from Johns Hopkins University and a law degree from the University of Texas. Except for The Real History, all of Brandon’s novels are set in San Antonio and South Texas. His extensive experience as an attorney with the District Attorney’s office in Bexar County and with the Fourth Court of Appeals has provided him with plenty of insights into the workings of the legal system, and how what is “accepted history” is often a long way from the “real history.” A native Texan, Brandon lives in San Antonio, Texas.
Wings Press was founded in 1975 by Joanie Whitebird and Joseph F. Lomax, both deceased, as “an informal association of artists and cultural mythologists dedicated to the preservation of the literature of the nation of Texas.” Publisher, editor and designer since 1995, Bryce Milligan is honored to carry on and expand that mission to include the finest in American writing—meaning all of the Americas, without commercial considerations clouding the decision to publish or not to publish.
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