Rift (7 page)

“Actually, it was okay. I was nervous about it, but to be honest you don't feel much. You just get naked and sit down in a cold metal chair. Then you're here.”

“So how do you feel now? Did it screw you up at all?”

“Of course not.”

“I've heard rumors,” she says. “Like some animals they sent came through pretty fucked up.”

“Rumors, huh? I don't know how much stock I would put in rumors you heard on the Internet.”

“Hey, at least I knew about it. And I don't even work there.”

Crystal is smiling, but I detect sharpness in her voice that wasn't there before.

“Now you're picking on me.”

She pats my hand. “I'm sorry, Cameron. Ever since I heard about your machine I've thought it would be cool to try it. I guess I'm a little jealous of you.”

“Even though you read rumors about animals coming through scrambled?”

“Ah, who knows if that's true? You read all kinds of garbage. In fact, according to some of the posts to alt.transmit.conspiracy, mystery man over there is a covert agent watching to see if you go berserk.”

“‘Alt.transmit.conspiracy'?”

“You bet. Of course, it's hard to know what to believe.”

“I don't understand. If this is common knowledge on the underground Internet, you'd think
60 Minutes
or something like that would be all over it.”

“You think they would let the news media ruin their precious little invention?”

“They? Who is they?”

“Whoever is paying to develop the technology.”

“How could ‘they' conceal bad transmissions from the press? That sounds a little hard to believe.”

“Not really. Guys with power—I mean
real
power—can do whatever they want. It's like a network—government leaders, corporate chairmen, televangelists—they're society's demigods, only instead of Mount Olympus they have Aspen. Or Switzerland. Or the Caym—”

“Sounds like you've thought about this before.”

“Sure I have. I mean, a lot of people would say, ‘She's just an erotic dancer. What does she know?' And maybe they have a right to, because my line of work isn't exactly the noblest vocation in the world. But that's what those big shots do to guys like you. Maybe you make a hundred thousand dollars a year, have a four-bedroom house, and say, ‘Hey, I've made it. I'm living the American dream.' But still, the
really
big shots rule the food chain. You eat me for lunch, but they eat you.”

“Being an erotic dancer doesn't mean anything when it comes to brains,” I say. “Sounds like you're smarter than I am.”

Her smile makes me feel like a pubescent boy. I could fall in love with those teeth, let alone the rest of her bodily wonders. But at the same time I can't get past the fact that she's familiar with NeuroStor and their transmission technology. I mean, how unlikely is that? How many others have the same information she does?

“I just can't believe you know about this. Imagine how much of a moron it makes me that
you
knew but
I
didn't. I work there, for Christ's sake!”

“I wouldn't beat yourself up over it, Cameron. I read all kinds of conspiracy shit. Usually it's alien abduction and JFK assassination trivia and stuff like that. I didn't even know for sure that the transmission thing was true until you verified it for me with that poker face of yours.”

Crystal smiles at me as she finishes the strawberry daiquiri. She has beaten me and she knows it. I didn't even know there was a contest.

“Before I forget,” she says, “why don't you drop me a line when you get back to Houston? I'd really like to know how the return trip goes. You
are
going back the same way you came, right?”

“I am.”

“How long are you going to be in Phoenix?”

“A couple of days.”

“Anyway, my e-mail address is easy to remember: [email protected]. Spell the word
two
, don't use the number.”

“Two peaks?”

“It's a play on words. Sounds like my breasts, but actually I moved here from Flagstaff. The San Francisco Mountains are north of town, and we call the biggest one ‘The Peaks.' It's a private joke.”

“The San Francisco Mountains are in Arizona?”

“Yep. A couple hours north of here. It's actually very beautiful. Mountains and trees and everything.”

“All right,” I tell her. “I'll let you know how it went when I get back to Houston.”

“Great,” she says. “Looks like your friend is on his way back.”

Tom is talking to a brunette onstage. He points toward our table, and she nods. Then he strides over to us, smiling ear to ear.

“Looks like you two have hit it off,” he says, as if this is a singles bar instead of a strip club. “Michelle told me you guys work on the side. Private dances. At home.”

That Crystal would dance privately surprises me. She seems too proud to take her show out of this semiprofessional arena.

“Sometimes,” she says. “And always with a chaperone. But not tonight.”

“Why not?” Tom pleads. “Michelle said—”

“Michelle's not me, is she? She doesn't know my schedule. I have things to do tonight.”

Crystal abruptly stands up.

“Cameron, thanks for the drink. It was very nice to meet you. Come see me again sometime.”

She glares at Tom as she leaves the table, and soon disappears behind a curtain near the stage. Gone in a flash.

“Thanks, Tom,” I say. Only half seriously, though, because I don't really feel like spending all night here. And I'm curious to see if Mystery Man follows me out the—

Wait a minute. Crystal never pointed him out to me. How am I supposed to watch for the guy if I don't know what he looks like?

“That one's kind of new,” Tom says. “Michelle, she's been around for a while. Does private dances all the time. And I thought maybe . . . well, since you guys seemed to have built a little rapport and all . . .”

“Tom, you embarrassed her. If she's new here, then private dancing is probably a little too extreme.”

“Why? She makes good money doing it here. What's the difference?”

It wouldn't do any good to explain to Tom what Crystal and I were talking about. The food chain thing. He wouldn't understand that we had found a common ground and were communicating outside this topless arena. Instead he would just laugh and accuse me of having a crush on her.

“It's no big deal,” I say. “But do you mind if we leave? I'd like to try Misty again.”

This disappoints Tom, but he knows when to cut his losses.

We call a waitress to the table and settle the bill. I ask her if there is any way she could call Crystal back out for just a moment.

“No can do, honey-pie,” she answers. “These are working girls. If they're not on the floor, it means they're on break. Off-limits to you.”

“But—”

“There are plenty of butts for you to look at out here. Crystal's is off duty.”

And then she walks away.

Tom looks at me as if he knows something I don't, which kind of pisses me off. He thinks I have a crush on her. I could tell him that Crystal knew about transmitting, but for some reason I don't think he would give a shit. He doesn't care how I got here or that I risked my life to test new technology. He just wants to play golf. That's the kind of nuts-and-bolts guy Tom is. A man whose life is devoid of subplots. He works, he plays, he sleeps. Everything else is clutter.

For the first time since Crystal mentioned Mystery Man, I turn around. There are more customers now, perhaps thirty sitting between our table and the door. All of them are men except for the occasional dancer. I scan this smallish crowd nonchalantly, spending just fractions of a second on any one person. They are blue-collar men, white-collar men, and greasy men wearing slick hair and synthetic shirts. None of them stand out. None of them look at me any longer than I look at them. In a moment, we walk out the door and into the warm, dry air.

The sun is still high in the sky. My watch tells me it's seven fifteen, but here in Mountain Time it is actually one hour earlier. The parking lot is mostly full now.

“So how often do you come here?” I ask him.

“About twice a month.”

“Do you come alone?”

“Sometimes alone, sometimes a couple of us go. Why?”

I'm trying to stall him, of course, to see if Mystery Man will burst out the front door looking for me. We get into the car.

“Just curious. I kind of like this place.”

Tom starts the ignition.

“You like that girl,” he says.

He's about to put the car into gear. No sign of Mystery Man.

“Tom, look at me for a second.”

This finally stops him. “What?”

“Do I look any different to you?”

“Different how?”

“You tell me.”

“I haven't seen you in a year and a half, Cam. How am I supposed to remember what you looked like then? Maybe you're a little heavier.”

“Heavier?”

“Yeah, a little in the face, I think. Hell, I don't know. Why do you ask?”

“That girl in there, she knew about transmitting. Can you believe that? A corporate secret so obscure that I didn't have a clue about it, and
she
knew.”

He looks at me strangely. Like he has something to say but isn't sure how to begin.

“How?” he asks finally.

“Read about it on the Internet.”

“The
Internet
?”

“That's what she said.”

He just looks at me again.

“Well, I have to admit that's kind of weird. Still, what does it have to do with how you look?”

“Crystal said that she's heard weird stuff about the transmission machine. Like some of the animal test subjects came through pretty fucked up.”

“I think she was playing games with you,” he says. “What would a stripper know about transmitting?”

I'm about to answer him when the front door opens. A tall, sturdy man with a black goatee steps out. His eyes appear to scan the parking lot, and I try not to stare as his gaze heads our way. After a moment, he turns around and goes back into the building.

Was that him?

“You're right,” I say to Tom. “She wouldn't know anything about transmitting. I guess she just got me curious.”

He puts the car in gear and heads for the street.

“She's a beautiful woman, Cameron. We should come back tomorrow. She invited you, after all.”

I look back at the door again, watching for the man with the goatee.

“Yeah,” I answer. “We should definitely come back.”

         

When I call Misty from Tom's house, she is surprised to hear from me a second time. When I ask why, she gives me a one-word answer.

“Tom.”

“You know him well,” I say.

Everyone says total honesty is the key to a successful relationship, but I don't want my paranoia to needlessly worry Misty, so I don't tell her about Mystery Man. Instead we talk about everything else, which is to say nothing at all. It started raining an hour or so after I left Houston. Her mom is coming a week early this Thanksgiving. She saw another roach in the house again, so we better hire a different exterminator. The building blocks of life.

Our conversation winds down, and I promise to call her again tomorrow.

“And don't worry about me,” I tell her. “I'll be back so soon, it'll be like I was never gone.”

         

When we were younger, Tom and I both wanted to be professional golfers. He played a year in college and then quit because of a personality conflict with the coach. I didn't even make the team.

You have to work your ass off to be good at anything, but you really have to work your ass off to be good at golf. After college we spent our weekends competing in local tournaments, won a few, and drew the attention of club pros around town. Tom made a hole-in-one in a local fund-raising event and the next day found his picture in the paper.

And when Barton Creek, one of the finest golf facilities in Texas, invited us to play in a qualifying tournament for their annual PGA event, Tom and I couldn't wait. I was already dreaming about who my playing partner might be—Greg Norman, Nick Faldo, or maybe even Jack Nicklaus. I couldn't believe it. I was twenty-two and about to stand on the tee with real professional golfers.

What I did instead was learn a bitter lesson. See, there are a lot of talented people in the world. Not just in golf, but in every arena where talent can be measured. Maybe you're the best football player on your high school team, but when you get to college you go straight to the bench. Or maybe you turn out to be the starting quarterback on that same college team but don't get drafted by the NFL. It happens all the time, because when you round up all the people who are good at something, you realize just how ordinary you are.

“I'm thinking of trying out for the U.S. Open,” Tom tells me now as he addresses the ball. We're playing this morning at Sandy Canyon Golf Club, standing on the number two tee box. Par three. The sky is dark with clouds, and rain is expected by noon. This is why, even though we stayed up half the night drinking beer, Tom and I are roaming the course at six thirty
AM
.

“The U.S. Open? You've already tried three times. Haven't you had enough?”

He strikes the ball. It flies high, straight, and lands only a few feet behind the pin.

“Look at that shot, Cameron. I play nearly every day now. I hit five hundred balls a week at the range.”

“Five hundred is nothing. And even if you hit five
thousand
balls at the range, all perfect, it doesn't matter if you can't produce on the course.”

“But I do produce,” he says. “I shot sixty-four here last week.”