Dangerous (43 page)

“Hello mystery girl,” was his warm greeting.

“Hey, Paul. Sorry I didn’t get back to you earlier. To answer your question, I’d
love
to see the movie with you, but I’m helping out a friend who needs a place to stay for a few days.”

“No worries. That’s really kind of you, to help your friend.”

“Things will free up by the weekend, though. I’ll let you know. I just didn’t want you thinking I blew you off, okay?”

“I’d never think that. Little fish gotta swim.”

He was referring to my tattoo, but the endearment sounded too much like Val the Keeper. I hoped it wouldn’t become a habit. Then the dryer announced its end-of-cycle with a buzzer twice as irritating as the legal limit.

“I gotta run, my laundry’s finished. I’ll call you before the weekend.”

“All right, Koishi. Take care,” he said cheerfully, and we hung up.

§

It was almost ten when I got back. After putting the warm, fresh-smelling comforter away in my closet, Val and I made chamomile tea and chatted lightly. The trip had tired us both, and we decided to turn in early.

Once again I found myself tucking her in, and spending a moment with her, in light of the aquarium, before going to my own bed. I thought I saw The Girl peering out through her eyes. But I said nothing, for fear she’d vanish like the moon’s reflection in still water, rippled by a stone.

Why couldn’t I shake this feeling of doom?

The sleep that took me in my lonely bed was not rest, but surrender.

31     
questions

SUNDAY MORNING DAWNED bright and cool. For the first time in weeks, the sky was graced with soft cumulus clouds, tinted pastel by the rising sun.

Val had already risen when I emerged from the bedroom. The couch was folded up and she had dressed in jeans and a blouse.

“I’m driving ho—” Val began, and caught herself. What had been her home had flown away on the wings of the Phoenix, leaving only charred spoor behind.

“I’m going to check for anything worth salvaging,” she said, by way of correction.

“I’ll get dressed,” I said.

“No, stay. I don’t expect to find much. Do you have an empty cardboard box?”

That was a sobering thought: one box to hold what remained of her possessions. To tell the truth, I wasn’t sure I could handle seeing the smoking hole that had been Val’s home. Yet I insisted, as I handed her one of the spare boxes I kept folded flat in my studio closet.

“Really, Val, I’ll go.”

“I need to do this alone. There will be other trips, and you may come then.” Very nearly her Keeper voice. I could only acquiesce.

“Well, won’t you at least eat breakfast first?”

But she was determined to go, and after touching my cheek and giving a kiss, she was gone.

In the ensuing silence, I poured myself a bowl of Cere-O’s and ate them at the counter, sitting on a stool.

Then I surfed the web.

Made a grocery list.

Took a shower.

Went to the store.

§

It was nearly 11 o’clock when I pulled up to the parking lot gate and waited for it to roll open. The Batmobile was parked at the curb. I’d given Val the spare key so she wouldn’t be stranded outside.

I thought about calling upstairs to ask for help with the bags, decided to handle it myself. After parking, I opened the trunk and began to hang the bags on my left forearm, starting near the elbow, heaviest items first. It was a trick that let me carry several bags of groceries upstairs in one go. The two bags that wouldn’t fit on my arm I gathered in my right hand, and used my elbow to close the trunk.

At the top of the stairs Val opened the door and took the bags from my right hand, leaving it free to lift and carefully lower the grocery bags onto my counter. When I wriggled that arm free, it was marked by lines from the bag handles.

“Well? What did you find?” I asked as we put the groceries away, a process complicated by having a second person in that small kitchen. We bumped into each other a couple of times.

“As you’d expect. Not much worth saving,” she said frostily. I could hardly blame her, given the circumstances. I didn’t press for details. Later.

Once the cupboard and refrigerator were stocked, I collected all the flimsy plastic bags and stuffed them under the counter, where I had amassed quite a collection.

Being Sunday, there was absolutely nothing on TV, not even cable. We sat on the couch as I flipped through five hundred channels of utter dreck. A dozen talking-head shows, with swollen pundits shouting at each other from their corners of the screen. A stupid pre-game show for the Lakers vs. the Jazz. A behind-the-scenes look at the movie
Twilight
. A food-channel travelogue about bacon. It just went on and on, until I heard a small sound of interest from Val. It was a program about skinny, bitchy fashion models being made up for a bizarre zombie pinup shoot, in the most incongruous high-society settings. I let it run.

“That crap just baffles me,” I said with a sneer. “It’s like the whole fashion industry gets off on mocking their audience.”

“Oh?” Val said in a challenging tone. “Why do you say that?”

“Fashion’s just an engineered cultural virus. It's the Emperor’s new clothes, turned back on ourselves. And what’s with the whole death and violence thing?”

“You don’t approve, I take it,” Val said, in what I thought was a darkly amused tone.

“It’s either a total failure of imagination, or a test to see how much crap we’ll buy before we wise up. Which apparently is a whole lot,” I said, waving at the screen with disgust.

“Careful, now, can’t have our little Eloi thinking too much. Have you considered they might do it because it’s profitable?”

“Whatever. The whole fashion business is stupid.”

I rose and stuck my head in the fridge to look for something to drink. The options weren’t numerous. At the store I’d spontaneously resolved to cut down on soft drinks, and now regretted it.

“You didn’t say that about the photo shoot I did for that art magazine a few years ago. I recall you rather liked it.”

My kingdom for a Coke
, I thought, pushing condiment bottles aside, searching in vain.

“Because you were in it, silly,” I said over my shoulder. Indecisively, I fingered the six-pack of Perriers I’d bought as a healthier alternative. “That was art, not fashion. Hey, you want a mineral water?”

She laughed. “I think you were more interested in my friend Gary.”

I gave up and took a Perrier from the carton, twisted the top off and put it in the trash beneath the sink. “Gary? The guy? You mean Gabri—”

I’d walked into the living room, around the divider that ran from floor to ceiling, to find Val standing beside the couch, her eyes locked on me like the sights on a gunship.

Oh shit.

We had never spoken about the
Chamber
shoot.

I froze, a deer caught in bright headlights.

“That’s right, his name
is
Gabriel. And I’m curious how you know that.”

“I…” I began to protest.

“He and I are still friends, you know. We talk now and then, as we did this morning. Imagine my surprise when your name came up. Now: how do you know about my Gabriel?”

My mind whirled as I tried to rewind the story to a meaningful starting point. It was the scrapbook. It was…

“Milton,” I blurted. “The pictures, at Milton’s…”

Another step closer. “Milton, hmm. So you’re poking around his things, too.” Her voice was unnaturally flat, controlled, yet I heard something feral behind it, fangs bared.

A tear rolled down my cheek.

“Last night you used a pay phone at the laundromat to call my work.”

I raised my hand to my mouth in shock. This was all going horribly, horribly wrong.

“Who. Gave. You. That. Number.” Each word a dagger.

I began to tremble. “I…I peeked at your phone. I know it was wrong. I’m sorry!”

Hypnotically she drew closer and closer, eyes aflame. Without looking, she pointed toward the phone on the wall.

“And now, messages from someone named Paul. Who is Paul. What does he want. What did you tell him about me. Who does he work for.”

Her words were measured, low, filled with menace. Terror rendered me mute, and each unanswered question was an admission of utter betrayal.

“Are you
fucking
him,” she hissed. Her face clenched like a fist, and I saw cold fury in her eyes.

In a blur of movement, a jackhammer seemed to strike me in the chest, knocking me back. My arms shot out instinctively, and I felt an electric shock in my left forearm. The Perrier bottle, now gone from my hand, struck the wall.

Discontinuity.

My next perception was paralyzing pain in my chest, as a great weight pressed my ribs. My chin was being forced up and back, and something sharp pressed against my exposed throat. A woman’s laughter coming from the TV. A liquid chugging sound to my right:
Blorp blorp blorp.

But the center of my universe was the demon face above me, its features twisted into a hateful mask. Val’s knee pressed harder, so hard I thought my ribs would crack.

The sharp thing pricked my neck as I vainly tried to breathe past the agony.

No, please, no.
My mouth formed the words, with no air to give them voice.

Starry black crowded the edges of my vision. There was wet carpet under my right hand, and I remembered the Perrier. Something smooth and hard met my groping fingertips: the base of the bottle. But as I fumbled for a better grip, it slipped and rolled away. I tried to pull Val’s hand from my chin, but it was no use.

Darkness coiled about me. I knew with absolute certainty I was going to die.

A spasm took Val. Her eyes widened in sudden horror and she gasped, “Oh my god.” Then she was off me, stumbling into the kitchen, out of my narrow cone of vision. I heard a knife clatter in the sink.

The agony in my chest blunted slightly and I lay gasping like a fish, taking thin sips of cool, sweet air. My hand went to my throat; slickness there, but no great injury that I could detect.

There came another sound, so foreign that at first I couldn’t identify it. Val was weeping: deep, soul-wracking sobs that spoke of infinite remorse.

Get to the door. Get out of here.

When I rolled over to get up my left arm gave out, forcing a mew of pain. I moved across the carpet on three limbs. I crawled past the threshold to the kitchen, and the sobbing ceased. Val had seen my attempt to get away.

She came at me.

I squealed and scrambled away from her. My progress was checked by the aquarium stand, and then she was there, grabbing for me. I beat at her with my one good arm, holding the other close to my body.