Always (64 page)

He couldn’t teach me how to be the Aud who had never been drugged, who still had her sense of taste, who had never thought of letting someone else do the protecting: but, just as my mother was a woman who had lived twenty-five years longer than I, just as Dornan was a man with blue eyes who understood what friendship meant, he knew more aikido than I did; and I could learn.

It seemed to last for hours, but at some point it must have changed, because now he was the one wrapping his massive fingers around my wrist, heavy as a manacle, and I was the one imagining a pinpoint between my radius and ulna, leaving that point in exactly the same locus of three-dimensional space and pivoting everything else around it: keeping the same distance between that point and my center of gravity, two finger-widths beneath my navel, yet stepping forward, and turning and breathing out, and extending the imaginary tea tray. He was the one who bent down and to the side like a tin soldier slumping under a blowtorch. We changed hands, changed roles again,
uke
to
nage, nage
to
uke
, and soon my joints moved like frictionless electromagnetic bearings and my autonomic nervous system hummed like a transformer reaching capacity.

NINE O’CLOCK.
The night was clear and I drove down the viaduct with the windows down, cool air sliding over my arms, tires hissing and splashing through standing puddles. In Atlanta the temperature would be about seventy-five degrees, and the air scented with jasmine and honeysuckle and laced with the creak and chir of crickets and tree frogs. There would be less atmospheric pollution, and the stars would be brighter and sharper. There would be less traffic.

Half the parking lot’s sodium lamps were dead, and what remained painted the dark with brass. The right-hand side of the lot was crowded. The two Hippoworks trailers were lined up neatly, side by side, Kick’s van next to them. The left-hand side of the lot was cordoned off and Janski stood in front of the cones, hyperalert, head swiveling this way and that, weight forward on his toes. I got out of the car. I could smell the metallic tang of adrenaline and testosterone.

“What happened?”

“Probably nothing, ma’am.” He scanned the shadows.

“When?”

“An hour ago. I thought I saw someone approaching one of these gas lines.”

“Gas.”

“Propane, ma’am. For the stunt tomorrow.”

My heart began to pump smoothly, powerfully.

“Just one person?”

“Hard to tell. They ran off when I challenged them.”

“And you’ve searched the area?”

“Ma’am, Mr. Turtledove’s inside, perhaps you’d like to speak to him about it.”

I listened, sniffed. Nothing. I nodded to Janski and went in through the side door. Everything seemed to glow, as though specially lit. The lock looked different: newer, bigger.

Rusen, Finkel, Deverell, and Philippa were huddled in a knot about ten feet to the left of the door. They straightened when they saw me. “You’ve heard about our intruder,” Finkel said.

I looked at Deverell. “Prowler,” he said. “I tried to call. Janski thought he saw someone near the pipeline in the lot. He gave chase. He called me. He and I searched the immediate vicinity while Philippa and the stunt coordinator, Kuiper, checked the lines. Nothing damaged. No sign of the prowler.”

“We used one of the production’s portable arc lights to check the lines,” Philippa said. “As far as is humanly possible, I can guarantee they haven’t been disturbed.”

There were no guarantees.
Beware,
my body said, but there was nothing.

“And the search?”

“Very close on the property itself,” Deverell said. “Foot canvassing on a slightly wider perimeter, visual and audio beyond that.”

Translation, they’d checked every window and door, turned over every garbage can and grate on my property, walked up and down the closer streets, and looked and listened. But
ware!
my back brain was shouting.
Ware!

“I told them we should leave that light out there,” Finkel said. “As a deterrent. ”

“No, sir,” Philippa said. “Not unless you’ll authorize more personnel. Remaining near the light renders night vision useless. We’d need more people to cover the perimeter.”

“There’s no budget for that.”

I looked from Finkel to Rusen. “I was here yesterday. The place was deserted. ”

The conflicting messages—everything is safe, and beware—were making me jumpy.

“That’s my fault,” Rusen said, embarrassed. “I’d given everyone else the weekend off and it seemed wrong to make Jan stay. I told him to go home.”

“Mr. Rusen suggested to Janski that he leave, so he did but, sensibly, he called me. I got here as soon as I could.”

“How long?”

“No coverage for four hours. No signs of attempted ingress.”

“The locks?”

He shook his head. “Not changed until this morning.”

Four hours. Turtledove seemed about to say more, but I shook my head slightly, trying to think. “Stan, Anton, we’ll need to talk later. The trailer? Thank you. Deverell, Philippa, walk with me.”

When Finkel and Rusen were out of earshot, I said, “Where is Mackie— Eddard?”

“I don’t know,” Deverell said. “Nor do the police. The younger one, though, Finkel’s son, has been back in New Jersey for two days.”

“Find Mackie. Hire whoever you have to. Start now.” Was that it? Something else? “I’m going to check with Kick about that gas line.”

Behind the food counter, Kick had her hands on her hips and Dornan was looking mulish. “. . . asked me to run things tonight, so that’s what I’m doing. You should rest while you can.”

“I have too much to do.” She wore jeans and a sleeveless, heathery-grey mock turtleneck. It must have been sunny in Anacortes; her skin was golden, her teeth and sclera very white.

“Then why are you pestering me? Look”—he held up his gloved hands—“I’m all hygienic.” He picked up Kick’s triangular knife. “The worst thing I can do is cut the sandwiches a bit crooked. Go. Take a break, for pity’s sake. I’ve got things—Aud.”

Kick swung round. “Where the hell have you been?”

“Here and there.” Trying to decide.

“Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

“I haven’t been carrying it. Taking a leaf from your book.”

Beneath the tan, there was a hint of the old graphite sheen under her eyes. Talking to the family had not gone well.

“My apologies for interrupting,” I said to Dornan, “but I need to talk to Kick a moment about the prowler, and gas line safety.”

“I’ve been over that,” she said. “They’re fine.”

“Humor me.”

“I would have humored you this weekend, if you’d bothered to answer your phone. Right now I’m pretty busy.”

“I got the impression that Dornan has things covered. Dornan?”

“Yes,” he said.

She had the grace to blush. “Oh, fine. We’ll take a walk.”

Outside, she paused in the dark and breathed the scent of damp earth and looked at the stars. “It stopped raining.”

“Yes.”

“Where did you go?”

“Nowhere. The lines. Are they truly safe?”

“Look, they aren’t even connected to anything. It’s just piping. The propane is safely under lock and key inside. I ran compressed air through the setup, twice, and there was no leakage. There’s nothing wrong. Nothing happened. I’ll run the same tests tomorrow, to be sure, as I would have done even without a prowler, but I’m telling you now, no one touched that pipe. And as part of my usual safety precautions there’ll be a double cordon around the area, and the camera operators closest to the flames will wear Nomex. Even if the whole damn thing blew up, we’d be okay. We don’t need much gas, and in the open air there won’t be atmospheric buildup. I called you from Anacortes. I was going to suggest we go to Rainier for the weekend. Just you and me. Nowhere, you say. Why didn’t you carry your phone?”

“I had some thinking to do.”

“And what did you think about?”

Paintings. Odds at a craps table. Love as a bear trap. Doing the best you could, then improvising.

The world shimmered. No, I thought, not now.

“Aud?”

“It’s nothing.” Do you see that silver cloud? Do you hear the silence? Do you feel the distinctness of every molecule, all at once? No. It was another brain chemistry cascade. It wasn’t real.

I shook my head. Neither of us moved to go back inside. Traffic sounds had drained away, sliding off into a bubble of silence. Even the trees were still. I could hear her breath.

“Is that real?” I said.

“Is . . .” She saw that I was listening, and tilted her head. “Wow. That silence. It’s like a magical moment out of time and space. Wait.” She listened some more. “Is that the river in our park? Let’s go see.”

“It’s not safe.”

She looked at me. “Listen. There’s nothing. No one’s out here. Are you all right?”

“I’m . . . not sure.”

She touched my arm. “Come with me, then. We’ll sit by the river.”

It was too dark to cut through the line of trees so we walked up to Diagonal Way. It was half past nine on a holiday evening in an industrial zone. Perfectly natural for everything to be quiet and deserted, to look and feel like something from a post-apocalyptic film.

“Cue zombies,” she said.

“You really want to go to the river?”

“Smell it,” she said. “On a night like this it will be beautiful.”

I nodded. “There’s an old rail track we could follow once we’re across the side street. I don’t know what the light will be like but the footing will be level.”

On the other side of the road, the Federal Center was silent and dark. The buildings appeared derelict. The wire fencing was torn here and there.

I crossed the side road. After a moment’s hesitation, so did she; I realized that on her own she would have walked to the light and waited for it to change. We found the track. The night smelled of trees and river. My land, I thought, and, just like that, I felt good. Something inside me had settled. I wasn’t sure what, yet, but something.

I smiled. “In some ways, you’re more—”

The only warning was the skittering of a can the taller one kicked as they attacked. Everything slowed down. Two of them. I noted Kick’s face, still and quiet, her relaxed shoulders. I saw the glint of something moving at my head, felt the wave front of air as a heavy body came at me.

This was a dream. Wasn’t it?

I stood, irresolute, stupid, while one of the shapes threw Kick to the ground.

Kick opened her mouth, but I didn’t hear a scream.

Would she do that if this was a dream? I couldn’t breathe. Something knocked me down. The dirt under my cheek felt real. I could hear my breath, now, and feel it. I breathed, long and deep. Something thudded on my thigh. I felt that. The body always knows.

“You asshole,” Kick shrieked. “Leave her alone!”

Is that what was happening?

I kipped up. Something wasn’t quite right with my left leg, but I ignored it. It was working well enough. Pain is just a message.

Two of them. One coming at me again, swinging something.
Kick,
I thought, and turned, and as easily as unscrewing a cap from a bottle I drew in the arm, twisted, and threw the attacker away. He and his crowbar landed on the concrete at the same time. They made different sounds.

Kick was half up, half down, shouting something, and this time the sound stretched and slowed, like whale song, and I stepped lightly to her side, and put my hands around that little waist and lifted her away, and laughed, and now the second attacker was behind me, and I pivoted and unfurled a back-fist strike, more to get the range, and then I was close enough for my favorite, which I gave him: a perfect elbow, driven hard and flat as a boar spear into his floating ribs. They broke like twigs. He went down with a querulous
oof?

Scraping sound, hoarse breathing; the first attacker hauled himself like a zombie from the concrete, one arm swinging limp. His eyes were like pools of tar.

I dived into a roll and brought my trailing leg in a great arc, heel into his breastbone, and he went down.

Some drugs make their users impervious to pain—able to ignore the message. I picked up his crowbar. It was rough and pitted.

“You really should take better care of your tools,” I said, and smashed his right kneecap. If you take out a support, the building can’t stand. He started trying to sit up. I considered. Even a hopping zombie could do harm. I smashed the other knee.

I walked over to the second man.

“Kick,” I said.

“Asshole!” she said, and kicked him again. “You asshole!” Her voice was shockingly loud.

“His ribs are broken. If you really want to hurt him, kick him there.” That made her pause. “Step aside a moment.”

It was Mackie. His eyes, too, were dark with drugs. “You,” he said.

“Me.”

“I knew you’d have to come. I knew they’d send for you.”

He was lithe and capable, ambidextrous, and chemically removed from pain.

“There’s some bits of broken wire over by the fence,” I said to Kick. “Bring them, please.” I turned back to Mackie. “The easiest thing, the most sensible, would be for me to break your spine, or crush your larynx, or smash your knees. Like his.” I nodded back at his friend. “But she wouldn’t like that. So your other choice is to lie still and be tied up.”

Kick came back with a few bits of wire. I selected the two longest, un-rusted pieces. “Turn on your stomach.”

“I can’t, my ribs.” His lips were dark.

“Turn on your stomach.”

The ribs crackled as he turned, and he groaned, but I doubted he could feel much. I sat on the back of his knees, facing his feet, and wired his ankles together. Then I sat on his thighs and wired his wrists. His breathing began to sound labored. “I wouldn’t struggle too much when we’re gone,” I said. “Something’s pierced your lung. Wait quietly for the police.”