Life on the Preservation, US Edition (17 page)

“I’m serious, Ian.”

“I
feel
dreadful,” he said, “and I don’t know why. Zach wants me to go somewhere with him, but I think it’s kind of crazy. I told him I wanted to talk to you first. He’s at the Market, waiting for me. I’ve been hanging out here, hoping you’d show up.”

“For how long?”

“I don’t know, quite a while.”

“Good grief. Do you want to go find your friend? I’m meeting a client in a half hour, by the way.”

“Oh–”

Vanessa appeared to evaluate him, then said, “One minute.”

She rummaged her cell out of the handbag, turned it on and pressed a memory dial. She told whoever answered that she was in the middle of a family emergency and that she would call back to reschedule and she was
so
very sorry.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Ian said. “This isn’t an emergency. I don’t know
what
it is.”

“I always follow my intuition, Icky. It keeps me on the path, you know?” She looked at her watch. “The Pink Door is open. Let’s have a bite and talk. I’m famished.”

As soon as they sat down in the bar a distracted air came over Vanessa. She tilted her head, as if listening.

“What?” Ian said.

“The strangest déjà vu.”

Ian’s stomach muscles tightened. “What’s strange about it?”

“It’s not passing. Usually you get that feeling for a moment, then it’s gone, and you’re not even sure it was real. This one is lingering. Oh, my. I could swear we’ve been right here at this table talking about your friend, Zach.” She leaned forward. “Icky, is he all right, your friend? Did anything happen to him?”

“
No
. I told you, he’s hanging out. I’ll call him.”

“Do.”

Ian punched up Zach’s number. After a couple of seconds, a phone in the bar began playing the theme from
Bonanza
. Ian turned in his chair. The bartender held up Zach’s phone.

“You calling this number?”

“Yeah.” Ian closed his phone.

“Customer left it here about an hour ago. Tall guy with a shaved head?”

“Right.”

A pen stuck out of the bartender’s shirt pocket. A black stain about the size of a dime bled through the white cotton. Ian couldn’t take his eyes off the stain.

The bartender said, “He was sitting over there by himself, drank a couple of beers, and left.”

The ink stain appeared to hang in front of the shirt, an optical illusion. Vanessa was saying something. Ian heard the words distantly and in a way disconnected from meaning. A wave of dizziness overwhelmed him. He swayed, and closed his eyes on throbbing darkness. Instantly he was floating above himself, looking down on the room, everything in sharply defined focus. He could have counted the individual hairs on his own head. In his absence his body continued to perform as if he were still home. It turned back around and spoke to Vanessa. Meanwhile, the bartender was wondering whether he should let Ian take the guy’s cell phone. Not that Ian had asked for it, but if he did the bartender (whose name was Robert) would have to decide what to do. Better to keep the phone rather than risk–

Ian pulled himself out of the bartender’s head, frightened of his consciousness diffusing into the mind of a stranger. He became heavy, then, and plunged through the top of his own head and found himself in the middle of a sentence, looking out of unfocused eyes at his sister.

“–acting weird, but it’s probably…”

“Probably what, Icky?”

He breathed slowly and let the strangeness fall away. In a moment he felt as though he’d just awakened from a vague, confusing dream that he could barely recall.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t remember what I was saying.”

Vanessa looked at him closely. “You were saying your friend was behaving oddly.”

“It’s more than that.”

“Icky, are you all right?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re worried about Zach, but I’m worried about
you
.”

“You don’t have to be.”

“Of course I don’t
have
to be. Icky, I know I wasn’t much help after Mom died. But I’m here for you now, and have been for years.”

“You were okay,” Ian said. “That was a long time ago.”

“Not so long. My own life was coming apart back then, you know. But I was older than you and I should have helped you, especially when I saw that dad wasn’t going to be able to handle it.”

“He handled it all right. What was he supposed to do? I don’t really want to talk about this stuff, Ness.” A knot kept bobbing up in his throat. He struggled to keep it down.

“We’ve
never
talked about it,” Vanessa said. “Don’t you think
that’s
odd?”

“I’d rather forget what happened.”

“But you never forget these things. I work with people all the time whose lives are wrecks because they never processed their trauma.”

“Hypno-therapy. I’m not putting it down, but it’s not like real therapy, is it? I mean traditional therapy, like with a psychiatrist or psychologist, somebody who’s spent eight years or whatever going to school and then passing a licensing board.”

Vanessa smiled. “I’m licensed, Icky, and what I do is real. Not everybody benefits from ten years on the couch – or at university, for that matter. I’m not qualified to conduct what you call ‘real’ therapy. But sometimes that isn’t what’s needed. Sometimes it’s better to expose the nasty core and be done with it.”

“I guess.” Ian stood up. Vanessa watched him. “I better find Zach.”

“Do you know where to look?”

“I think so.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“No, that’s okay. I better talk to him myself. I mean, I appreciate it, and I’m sorry about lunch and your client and everything. I don’t even know why I wanted to bother you.”

“I don’t care about lunch, Icky. I care about
you
.”

Ian thought she was about to stand up and hug him again. He forestalled her by leaning over and awkwardly patting her shoulder. She looked at his hand. “Well, Icky. Go find your friend. And
call
me, please.”

“Sure.”

“I mean it.”

“I’ll call, I promise. And thanks for talking to me. I was feeling pretty whacked out.”

“I know.”

Outside in Post Alley Ian mumbled, “I’m whacked, all right.”

A couple entering The Pink Door glanced at him, and Ian hurried away. Zach’s bottle fly green VW was gone from the parking lot where they’d left it a couple of hours ago. On the way down from Capitol Hill Zach had tried to explain where Triple X Girlz was located. Ian was mostly unfamiliar with that part of the city, the no-man’s land between the International District and Pioneer Square. But if he wandered around he might find the place.

He wandered for almost an hour, without luck. Then on a dingy trash-blown corner, he spotted the car. He walked up to it and looked in the window. The door was unlocked, and the passenger footwell was a garbage dump. Zach’s car, all right. He glanced up and down the street. At the end of the block a derelict building presented a dead Vegas-style sign.

XXX GIRLZ.

Reluctantly, he walked toward the building. If this was Ground Zero, it was pretty God damn low-rent. He tried to decipher the angry tangle of graffiti tags but recognized none of them. The closer he approached the more ill at ease he felt. The uneasiness increased with every step, a repelling force emanating from the building itself.

The invisible dog fence.

Ian remembered. He stopped walking. Images over-lapped in his mind’s eye. He and Zach had been here before. On at least one occasion, Zach had disappeared into the building. There had been a scream.

The wind hustled a Burger King bag out of the recessed doorway. For a moment Ian wasn’t sure whether he was seeing the bag or remembering it. He felt nauseated, wanted to back away. Instead, he began moving forward against the repelling force and his instinct. His legs were leaden, his steps halting. He had the idea that he must
do
something to prevent the scream from occurring. He pushed against palpable waves of anxiety. Then, when he was half a dozen yards away, the waves ceased, and Ian stumbled off-balance.

He leaned against the building, shaky. Something in the sky captured his attention. Multiple green blisters appeared and a moment later half a dozen pinwheels of light burst through and scattered over the city. They took up hovering positions. Ian stepped away from the building, craning his neck, staring. The decks began spinning faster, transforming into blinding pinwheels. One descended toward the Columbia Tower, the tallest building in Seattle. An energy beam stuttered downward – and the top of the building exploded. Debris rained into the streets.

“Fuck!” Ian pressed back against the wall. The other pinwheels descended and began randomly destroying buildings. Screams and sirens rose up. On the next block a burning man ran across the street, waving his arms frantically.

Ian turned, looking for shelter. The door to XXX GIRLZ dissolved in a shadow. Ian fled into the building. The door resumed and he was entombed in silence. Then there was a sound of running water, and he turned in that direction. An old claw-foot bathtub stood on a green tile floor. The gooseneck faucet ran at a trickle. Cloudy water slopped over the edge of the tub. His mother’s waxen face seemed to float on the surface, black hair fanning around it, dead eyes staring.

Ian screamed. At that moment he realized he had been remembering his own scream, not Zach’s.

But that was a rational thought and unrelated to the primitive urge toward panic. He turned. A man stood between him and the door. A man in a deerstalker cap. It was the “…I like hats…” guy. The Boogeyman.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

ON THE ROAD, 2013

K
YLIE GRABBED A
broken chair and held it up like a lion tamer, but the skin-and-bone woman shuffled past her as if she didn’t exist. Billy appeared at the empty window with his revolver drawn. Kylie dropped the chair and ran to him, jumping over debris. She clambered out the window and into his arms, almost knocking him over.

“It’s okay. She won’t hurt you.” Billy was breathing hard, as if he’d run two miles instead of crossing fifty yards or so from the Goldwing. There was a sick, yellow smell about him.

“How do you
know?
” Kylie said. She bent over, reaching into her boot, and came up with her good-for-a-girl gun.

“I’ve seen a lot of them,” Billy said. “They’re harmless. This one’s stuck in the diner. Probably been in here a long time, like a windup toy, bumping into walls and furniture and crap.” It was kind of pathetic, really. A roof beam had fallen, probably after the SAB entered the diner, and blocked the open door. Even a kid would know to move the beam, or duck under it – or climb out the window, as Kylie had just done. But not the skin-and-bone woman.

Kylie looked seriously at Billy and said, “Ray was here.”

“What?”

“He grabbed me then let go when the SAB came out of the kitchen. He’s even more chickenshit about SABs than I am.”

“Where’d he go?”

“I don’t know. He ran away.”

“Shit. Stay here.”

Billy made his way around the side of the building. Kylie followed him. He glanced back at her, his face pale as curds, beaded with sweat, looking like he was about to fall over. “I guess you’re not staying there.”

“I guess not.” Kylie could see no reason why she should. She had her little gun, and it didn’t seem like a half bad idea to put a bullet in Ray Preston’s ass.

“There he goes,” Billy said, pointing with the Magnum. Preston was halfway up a bare hillside behind the diner. “Can’t believe that fucker came after us. At least he was alone.”

“He said Jim was coming.”

“On foot they’ll never keep up with us.” Billy holstered his gun and wiped his eyes. The bandage on his head was sodden. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“Wait.” Kylie put her gun away in her boot, stepped back into the cafe and got her arms around the roof beam blocking the SAB. “I want to let it out.”

Billy nodded. The beam was heavy. Together they pulled it rather than lifted it. The upper end came free of whatever had snagged it and crashed down. The SAB turned toward them, hesitated, and stumbled out into the light. Its ragged clothes were some kind of uniform, like a waitress would wear. There was even a grimy name plate pinned to the pink blouse, LINDA, just barely discernible.

“You’re welcome, Linda,” Kylie said.

LINDA started down the middle of the road, heading south.

“Where’s
she
going?” Kylie asked.

“Same place we are, probably. Lot of SABs go back and hang around the Dome.” Billy spoke slowly, as if hunting for the words. The uttering of them seemed a huge effort.

Kylie put her hand on his shoulder. “Billy–?”

“Let’s get moving, huh?” Billy took a step toward the bike, paused, swaying. Kylie reached for him too late as he pitched forward and rolled onto his side, legs drawn up.

“Billy!”

Kylie dropped beside him but didn’t know what to do. His eyes were closed, his breathing raspy, labored. Sweat beaded his face and neck. “God, Billy, don’t die.”

Billy opened his eyes. “I’m not dead... just felt like resting.”

“You
fell down
.”

“What’s that got to do with it?” He smiled wanly. “Help me up, will you?”

On his feet, Billy wasn’t so funny. He leaned heavily on Kylie. “God I’m dizzy,” he said.

“I’m sorry.”

“My head’s fucking killing me.”

“I’m
really
sorry, Billy.”

“Never mind. But listen. I think you’re going to have to drive.”

“I don’t know how.”

“It’s easy.”

She steadied him while he mounted the Goldwing’s passenger saddle. Once he was settled she climbed on in front of him. “Take it slow,” he said, “and you’ll be okay.”

“I’ll try.”

The Goldwing was too big. She had never ridden anything but a bicycle. Billy handed her the key. She slotted it and turned it over. The powerful engine rumbled up between her legs.

“Throttle on the right grip,” he said. “Brake under your right foot. Move out slow, experiment a little. Get the hang of it.”