The Mirror Maze

by James P. Hogan

  Sitting at the bar was a pale, blond-haired man who had been watching them in the mirror since they sat down at the table. Also, he had seen the two Puerto Ricans leave. He knew how the three of them operated, and didn’t like it. And there was still a score to be settled with them over the deal on the hot BMW that they’d cut him out of… Besides, this was only a kid. The pale man got up and sauntered out of the bar and down the steps that led to the basement and toilets. He went to the pay phone outside the men’s room, lifted the receiver, and tapped in a number. “Police,” he murmured quietly, covering the mouthpiece with a hand.

  At the table upstairs, Mel got unsteadily to his feet, with Juanita holding an arm to assist. “You go now,” she whispered. “I see you at Star in five minutes. We have good time. You see.”

  “Gotta go downstairs first.”

  “Is okay. I wait.”

  On the way down, he passed a pale-faced man coming back up, who ignored him. He relieved himself in the tiny men’s room. It smelled of urine, and its floor was awash with overflow from the blocked toilet in its single cubicle. He splashed water on his face and went back upstairs. Juanita, still at the table, winked at him and nodded in the direction of the far end of the room. He nodded back at her, made his way to the rear entrance, and left.

  Outside, he found himself in a narrow, poorly lit alley. It led to wider streets at both ends, extending for a greater distance to the left. He headed in that direction, staggering uncontrollably now, and unable to focus on the lights he could see at the far end. They seemed distant, then near all of a sudden, and then far away again. A wall bumped him in the face unexpectedly, grazing his cheek, and he meandered on, wondering vaguely how he’d managed to walk into it… There were two figures ahead of him, in the shadows… men… big men, just standing there…

  Then a shout: “Hey, I think that’s him guys.” It had come from behind him, back at the far end of the alley. “Yes, it is. Mel!… Mel, it’s us.” It was Bretts voice. Mel turned and looked back dazedly. They were coming along the alley at a run. Brett and Chuck were in front, Harry and Scottie following. “What in hell are you playing eh? We’ve been looking for you all over the place. ” Then they were all around him, taking his arms and babbling. He didn’t know what was going on.

  Moments later, a police cruiser slid into view across the end of the alley just in front of them. It stopped, and its spotlight came on, directed straight at them. “Oh shit,” someone muttered behind him. He also registered vaguely that the two men he’d seen a moment ago had vanished.

  Then everything was lights and voices, and the whole world was revolving in confusion. He had a hazy impression of two officers in Pensacola city police uniforms, while other arms held him steady on his feet.

  “Are you guys okay here? What’s going on?”

  “Oh, he’s in bad shape, but he’s okay. We’ll take care of him. He’s getting married tomorrow… You know how it is, officer.”

  “Were you planning on driving tonight? Seems to me you need a cab.”

  “Oh no, it’s okay. We walked. He lives with me. It’s only a few blocks.”

  “Where?”

  “Pace Avenue, just off Sonia Street.”

  “How about you three?”

  “We’re out at Cordova. We’ll get a cab.”

  “Well, look at him. He’s out of it. So there’s just you and him?”

  “Right.”

  “Come on, get him in the car. We’ll take you there.”

  “Gee, thanks a lot, officer.”

  Then hands were propelling Mel toward the police cruiser, and a black-sleeved arm was opening the rear door. Suddenly Mel giggled. “Offisher, do you know… what’s the difference between a Pens’cola police offisher and a proc—proc… tolo-gist?” But the answer seemed so hilariously funny that he was laughing too much to be able to get it out. He was being dumped on a cold leather seat…

  And that was the last he remembered until Brett woke him with a mug of hot, black coffee at one-thirty the following afternoon.

  CHAPTER 31

  It was the last day of November when Mel and Stephanie flew south to Pensacola after arranging to see the Brodsteins. Their story was that they were simply visiting the city again for old time’s sake. They had decided not to complicate matters or mar the atmosphere by mentioning anything about Brett or “Stephanie.”

  Paul Brodstein hadn’t changed at all in appearance, and after the election was even more ebullient than Mel remembered. “Well, goddam, we did it!” he laughed, thumping the countertop in the familiar cluttered kitchen, with its view out over the Gulf. “All those years… Didn’t I tell you we’d make it in 2000? Oh boy, are we gonna see some differences now!” Mel grinned. Anyone would have thought that the election had been yesterday. Brodstein looked at Stephanie. “And you look as if you’ve lost a couple of years… even after all the work you people must have put in. It’s no wonder we haven’t seen you for so long.” He looked across at Martha, who was preparing some cheese snacks to go with the coffee. “How long has it been since we saw Eva?”

  “It must be getting on for a year,” Martha answered without looking up. Compared to Paul’s, her manner had been cooler, Mel had noticed. She hadn’t sounded as enthralled over the election, which seemed strange, considering her seeming involvement with Paul’s work at one time. But then he recalled that she had seemed to be withdrawing, even during the two years he had remained in Pensacola after the evening he had first come to this house. People, like things, changed, he supposed.

  “Well, it’s good to see that you two are still together,” Paul said. “The last time Eva was here, she said she hadn’t seen you for ages. Isn’t that right, Eva?”

  Stephanie smiled. “Oh, we’ve had our ups and downs like anyone else, I guess.”

  “Another drink?” Paul suggested.

  “Sure,” Mel said.

  Paul took their glasses and turned to the counter that he had used for mixing the cocktails. “You know who I wish was here right now,” he said over his shoulder. “That tall guy with the beard that you used to live with, the one who was always saying it’d never happen—Brett, that was it… just to see his face now. Is he still with that sister of yours, Eva? The last thing I heard, they were going to… Where was it, Martha?”

  “California,” Martha replied.

  They had expected something like this, and Stephanie was ready for it. “They moved to Denver,” she said evenly. “Steph went to work for a nuclear research company there.”

  “Wasn’t Brett going to work for the defense industry out there?” Martha asked. It was the first real curiosity she’d shown.

  “He quit that,” Mel said. “I guess it just wasn’t his line after all.”

  “How long are you and Eva going to be in Pensacola?” Paul inquired.

  “Only until tomorrow,” Mel said “It was just an impulse trip to see old places… you know how it is. I have to get back, though.”

  Paul turned back and handed them their drinks. He stirred his own and looked at Mel. “A lawyer in the end, eh? I’d never have guessed it. It just shows how life can be full of surprises.”

  “Actually I was here a couple of weeks ago, researching a case,” Mel said. “I tried to call you then, but you were out of town on one of your trips. The guy who took the call said Lebanon or some place, wasn’t it?”

  Paul nodded. “We must have got back just afterward. So was that what gave you the idea of bringing Eva back for a visit?”

  “Yes, exactly,” Mel said.

  “Well, we’re glad you remembered us.”

  “Of course. How could we not?… So, how was Lebanon?”

  “Good,” Paul said. “Oh, which reminds me. We picked up a new curiosity. Come and look at this.”

  He put down his drink and filled another glass with plain water. Then he handed an empty one to Mel and led the way out of the kitchen and through the eternal confusion of books and papers that the Brodsteins somehow managed to live
among, to an alcove on the far side of the lounge. Standing on a shelf in the alcove was an oriental-looking two-handled vase made of brass, on a circular base. Paul picked it up, turned to face the others, and in full view of them, emptied the glass of water into it. “Care for a drink?” he asked Mel.

  Mel looked confused. “What is this?”

  “Hold up your glass,” Paul instructed. Mel did so. Grinning, Paul tipped the vase over it, and red liquid the color of burgundy wine poured out. “Neat?” he said.

  “Astounding!” Stephanie exclaimed.

  “Try it,” Paul invited. Mel did. It was burgundy wine. He sipped approvingly and passed the glass to Stephanie to try.

  Paul turned the vase around and showed them two small vents near the base of one of the handles. “The trick is knowing which air holes to cover with your finger,” he said, grinning. “There are compartments inside. Changing water into wine was one of the favorite wonders worked around the eastern Mediterranean in ancient times. Heron of Alexandria in his Pneumatics, and Philo of Byzantium described fifteen kinds of apparatus for performing the trick. Does it sound familiar?”

  Stephanie raised the glass. “Well then, to the future,” she said.

  Just then the sound of a car drawing to a halt came from outside. “We’ve got visitors,” Mel remarked.

  “It’s probably Dave Fenner coming back,” Martha said.

  The smile froze on Stephanie’s face. Mel turned slowly. “Dave Fenner?” he repeated.

  Paul put a hand to his forehead. “There was so much to talk about after all this time that I clean forgot he was here.” He motioned toward Stephanie. “He called a couple of days ago, asking if we’d seen anything of you, Eva. Apparently he’d been trying to get in touch with you over something urgent. It so happened that Mel had called only the day before to say you were coming to Pensacola. When I told Dave that, he decided to take a break and come down here as well. He arrived in town yesterday.”

  Martha was watching Stephanie with a strange look on her face. Mel got the feeling that she hadn’t forgotten about Dave’s being there at all.

  Footsteps sounded on the wooden steps up to the front deck outside. A few moment later the door opened and Dave Fenner came briskly into the house. “So, they’ve arrived already. It’s been a long time.”

  “Hello, Dave,” Mel said mechanically.

  Dave slipped an arm around Stephanie’s waist and kissed her lightly on the cheek. Then he sensed her confusion, drew away again, and looked at her oddly. “Didn’t they tell you I was here?”

  “I clean forgot,” Paul confessed. “It was only hearing your car that reminded me.”

  “See what you get with absent-minded professors,” Dave said, laughing. “In that case, surprise, surprise.” He turned toward Mel and extended a hand. “Good to see you again, buddy.”

  Mel felt a surge of relief inside as he took the hand and shook it. As long as thing didn’t get too personal, Stephanie had passed the ultimate test. “You too,” he replied.

  “Did you and Eva decide to take a nostalgia trip or something?”

  “Exactly.”

  They went back into the kitchen, and Paul made Dave a drink. There was more talk about the election, Dave asked about Brett and Stephanie, and Mel told his earlier story again. Finally Dave asked, “What plans do we have for eating tonight?”

  “We hadn’t talked about it,” Paul said. “I guess we could go out someplace. Would everybody like that?”

  “To be honest, I’ve had too much eating out lately. I was hoping we’d stay in,” Stephanie said.

  “Suits me, too,” Mel agreed.

  Paul nodded. “That’s fine. I could cook up some steaks.”

  “Why don’t Mel and I go get a couple of pizzas?” Dave suggested. “I just picked up a few packs of beer and some wine. They’re in the trunk. It’d go great with the evening.”

  “I’ll go for that,” Mel said. The others agreed.

  “We’d better get the booze into the refrigerator first,” Dave said. “Want to come down and give a hand, Eva?”

  “Sure.” Stephanie got up.

  “I’ll toss up a salad while you’re gone,” Martha said.

  Dave went back down to his car, followed by Stephanie and Mel. He opened the trunk and took out a couple of twelve-packs, which he placed in Mel’s outstretched arms. Stephanie stood aside as Mel went past her to the stairs. Dave lifted out a liter flask of Chianti. She took it. “Wait, there’s another one somewhere,” he said as she started to turn away. “Now, where was it?… Thought I put it under here.” Mel reached the top of the stairs and disappeared out of sight across the deck. “Remember Redman, Eva?” Dave asked casually as he rummaged in the trunk. “Who did he work for?”

  Stephanie hesitated for just a split second, then answered lightly, “That was awhile ago, now. I’m not sure I remember.”

  “Oh, it doesn’t matter… Ah, here it is: one Chablis.” He lifted the flask out, and Stephanie hooked a finger of her free hand through the ring at the neck.

  Mel reappeared at the top of the stairs and came down. “We’ll see you guys later, then,” Stephanie said, turning to go back up. “Have fun.”.

  Dave indicated the front of the car to Mel with a nod of his head. “Jump in.”

  Stephanie went up to the house, and Mel let himself in the passenger side of the car. It was a Chevrolet, rented, from the document folder lying in the tray between the front seats, and smelled clean and new. Dave slammed the trunk lid, came around the other side, got in, and started the motor. “It’s been a while, Mel,” he said, looking over his shoulder as he backed up. “So, how are things going?”

  “Oh, pretty good. Yourself?”

  “Can’t complain.”

  “Still purchasing consultant in D.C.?”

  “Uh-huh.” They came to a sandy road fringed by sea oats and turned west toward Sikes bridge, which would take them across to Gulf Breeze.

  “What does that involve, exactly?” Mel asked. “It’s been six! years now, and I’ve always wondered.”

  “Oh, a little bit of this, a little bit of that. What about you? Did you make it in law?”

  “Yep. I moved north. I’m with an outfit in Boston now. A small firm.”

  Mel sat back and enjoyed the warm, lazy sensation of driving by the sea in Florida again. They lapsed into silence. Dave’s eyes were moving constantly, scanning the mirror and the road ahead. They came to an isolated stretch of road, and he slowed the car and pulled over to wave on another car that had been behind them, the only other sign of life. As it passed, he checked the mirror again, and then, without warning; wrenched the wheel over to steer into a narrow trail leading down between the sand dunes. “What the—” Mel exclaimed, startled, as Dave braked to a halt and switched off the engine.

  Suddenly Dave’s joviality had left him, and the eyes confronting Mel from the other side of the car were hard and humorless. “Okay, talk,” he snapped.

  “What? I don’t—”

  “I want to know what the hell’s going on, and I’m not in a mood to play games. I’ve been trying to get in touch with Eva all week. I called the place in Denver where Stephanie worked, and they told me she killed herself three weeks ago. I didn’t mention it to Paul and Martha until I got to hear what Eva had to say…” Dave gave a slight nod back over his shoulder to indicate the direction they had come from, and shook his head. “But she isn’t Eva.”

  CHAPTER 32

  Stars were coming out as the sky darkened. The water beneath the Sikes Bridge shone in the light of an early-evening moon. Dave drove in silence, eyes fixed on the roadway flowing through the headlamp glow ahead, mouth tight, preoccupied in thought. Mel sat dejectedly beside him, waiting for whatever outcome Dave was about to pronounce. It was the same feeling of inferiority when Dave was around that had made sharing Eva intolerable, but which Mel had been powerless to change. He’d thought that times were different now, that he was different after the years. But nothing had ch
anged.

  When it was obvious that the attempt at deceit had failed and there could be no question of trying to bluff further, he had abandoned himself instead to total honesty and told the whole story. He had told of Brett’s suspected manipulation by a Soviet-managed espionage ring that involved prominent people, and his “accident” when he tried to break away; how Eva had been murdered in mistake for Stephanie, and the death rigged to look like suicide; about the incident at Devil’s Slide, when the two Constitutional agents had mistaken Stephanie for Eva; how Eva had worked for Newell’s organization and learned of a plan to compromise it somehow, before the inauguration; and finally, of the plan for Stephanie to impersonate Eva in order to find out more, and the idea of using the Brodsteins in a dummy run to test it out. “And it was a good thing we did, too,” Mel had concluded in a tired voice after they had been talking for almost an hour. “Obviously there’s a lot we don’t know. It this had been the real thing…”

  “If it had been the real thing, you’d have gotten her killed,” Dave had completed. It hadn’t been for any dramatic effect. Mel had the impression that he’d meant just that.

  They came off the bridge and followed the road for three quarters of a mile to Northcliffe, where there was a small mall consisting of some stores, a steak house, a pizza parlor and bar, and a gas station. Dave pulled into the parking lot outside the pizza parlor and switched off the motor. He made no move to leave the car. “Now I’ll tell you a few things,” he said, breaking his silence at last. “They don’t go any further than you, and when we get a chance to talk to her alone, Stephanie. Is that understood?”

  “What about the Constitutional people that we’re working with?”

  Dave shook his head. “For the time being, no.”

  “Okay,” Mel said.

  “I don’t think it’ll come as any big surprise if I tell you that what I do doesn’t have a lot to do with purchasing or consulting.” Mel had already pretty much figured that out. He said nothing and waited. Dave went on. “All I will say is that I’m with a department of the government.”