B003J5UJ4U EBOK (14 page)

He stopped dead as he glanced into one of the rooms. A quiz show was playing on a TV in the far corner. There was a kid in the first bed who looked familiar. The kid kept shouting out answers, even though nobody was in the room. After each answer, he’d moan and grab his face, which was all bruised and puffed up. Lucky was sure he knew him.

He thought about calling out, but the nurse gave him a gentle tap on the shoulder. “Give him his privacy. He’s had a rough time. Let’s go, Dominic.”

Lucky moved on. He knew he could remember who the kid was if he tried hard enough, but he was happy to stop thinking and just drift back into the haze. The real world was far too harsh to visit for any length of time.

haunting the hallways

WE STOPPED AT
the information desk and found out what room Cheater was in, then took the elevator to the fourth floor.

“You’d better let me go in first,” Martin said.

“Why?”

“You want him to think he’s seeing ghosts, dead boy?”

“Good point.”

I followed Martin down the hall to Cheater’s room, but waited out of sight while he went inside. A moment later, I heard Cheater shout, “He’s alive!” I couldn’t help smiling. It sounded like a line from one of those old horror movies he loved.

That shout was immediately followed by a howl of pain, which also could have come from a horror movie. I guess Cheater’s face was sore. I stepped into the room. One bed was empty. The other had a kid who resembled a badly sculpted version of my friend.

“You look good for a ghost,” he said through puffed lips.

“You look awful for a living person.” I could see why it would hurt him to shout. He was so bruised, he could have
passed for the twin brother of an eggplant. “Though you don’t look bad for a corpse.”

Cheater nodded. “Exquisite corpse.”

“What?” Martin asked.

That was one piece of trivia I knew, since it involved some of my favorite artists. But I didn’t want to spoil Cheater’s fun, so I let him explain.

“Exquisite corpse is the name of a word game the surrealist painters played,” he said. “They’d write a phrase on a piece of paper and then—” He stopped and scrunched up his face in pain.

“Hurts to talk?” I asked.

He nodded again.

“Maybe you should let us do the talking.”

“Like Cyrano de Bergerac?” he asked.

He had me with that one. I was clueless. But I didn’t wait for an explanation. “So, you’re okay?” I asked.

“Yeah. I have a new understanding of some of the finer aspects of physics. Astronomy, too. I saw a lot more than stars. Constellations, at the very least. I think I might have also witnessed the big bang. Ouch.” He grabbed his face and groaned.

“You keep talking, I’m going to have to smack you,” Martin said.

Cheater grinned at him, which also seemed to hurt. “I miss the way you always kidded me. It reminds me—”

“I’m not kidding,” Martin said. “Give your face a rest. Trash has a lot to tell you.”

I described how I’d been abducted, and Martin told him
about running away. Cheater tried to keep his mouth shut, but he couldn’t help interrupting us every minute or two to toss in some essential facts.

“Now what?” he asked when we were done.

“Not sure,” I said. “Hide out, think up a plan.”

“It better be a good plan. This disrupter is really bad news,” he said. “Are you going to stick around Philly?”

“Not sure about that, either,” I said. I was tired of hunching down and waiting for someone to shove me in a van or shoot me in the neck with another dart.

“I think we have to stay around,” Martin said. “That’s the only way we can find out what’s going on. The answer isn’t in Trenton. Or in New York. It’s here. Even if they can block your power, or maybe even all of our powers, this is where we need to be. This Bowdler guy sounds like someone who won’t give up until he gets what he wants. You can’t run from that.”

“Besides,” Cheater said, “I think Lucky is down the hall. And I’m pretty sure he’s in worse shape than I am.”

“You saw him here?” I asked.

“Just a little while ago,” Cheater said. “I just caught a glimpse, but the nurse called him ‘Dominic,’ and it sure looked like him.”

“Let’s check it out.”

Martin and I went down the hall and tried to find out about Lucky. The nurse at the desk wouldn’t tell us anything.

I was about to give up when Martin said to her, “You look familiar.”

He stared at her for a moment, then said, “Were you in
Guys and Dolls
last month?”

She beamed a huge smile at him. “Yes. At the community playhouse. You saw it?”

“You were marvelous. I went with my friend Dominic Calabrizi. He loves musicals even more than I do. You should sing a song for him when you have the chance.”

“I will. The poor boy. He’s been through so much.” She gulped, glanced around, and added, “I shouldn’t talk about the patients.”

“Of course.”

Martin turned away.

“That was amazing,” I said once we’d moved away from the desk.

“It’s no big deal.”

We went back to Cheater’s room. “Lucky’s definitely here.”

“I’ll see if I can learn anything,” Cheater said.

We talked a bit more, but I could tell Cheater was pretty tired. I figured he’d get more rest if we left. On my way out of the room, I paused and looked back. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m a quick healer. The human body is amazingly resilient. There was a book about a guy, Phineas Gauge, who survived getting a spike through his head. And I heard about this woman whose parachute didn’t open, but she survived her fall. There are even cases of spontaneous healing. Little kids can sometimes grow back a severed finger.”

“I’ll take that as a yes,” I said. He might have gotten stomped, but it hadn’t crushed his enthusiasm for weird facts.

“At least we can rule out brain damage,” Martin said after we’d left the hospital.

“Yeah, he’ll be fine.” I sniffed the air as we walked down the street. “But you’re getting kind of ripe.”

“I’ve been on the road a bit.”

“Crawling through Dumpsters?”

“Nothing that luxurious.”

“Got any other clothes?”

He shook his head. “Just what I’m wearing.”

“We may have to burn them. With you in them. I’d share my stuff, but there’s no way any of it would fit you. Looks like we have some shopping to do.”

After we’d bought clothes for Martin, I said, “Let’s get a room. We need to figure out what to do. And you need a shower.”

“How are we going to get a room? Nobody’s going to let a couple kids check into a hotel. Especially not Stinky and Spikey.”

“Sure they will,” I said. “And I think you’re going to like the place.”

checking in

“NO WAY THEY’RE
going to let us in here.” Martin pointed toward the hotel entrance, where a half-dozen doormen greeted people driving luxury cars.

“Sure they will,” I said. I watched a long, white limo leave the hotel and pull into the street. Two cabs tried to shoot into the opening.

“Looking like this?” Martin asked.

He had a point. Money talked. But some things could still drown it out. “Hang on.” I pulled out the fake rings and took off the wrist band. Then I slicked down my hair as much as I could. There wasn’t anything I could do about the color. I was glad I’d gone with black.

“Presentable?” I asked Martin.

He nodded, then pointed past me. “Hey, that guy looks like Flinch.”

I watched the guy who was walking out of the hotel. “Yeah. Sort of. But older.”

We headed into the lobby. “Play along,” I said. “Feel free to use your talent. Just stand far enough behind me so the clerk can’t smell you.”

Martin stared around at the lobby. “I’m feeling a little out of place.”

“That’s their plan. Hotels like this want to intimidate unwelcome visitors. Our plan is to ignore that.” I walked right up to the front desk, trying very hard to pretend I was someone like my dad, who was comfortable anywhere. He’d told me more than once that money, by itself, didn’t earn respect.

I was hoping the clerk didn’t feel that way. He eyed me from top to bottom, looking for clues to whether I would be a good or bad part of his day. I could be anyone—a lost kid, a guest who had already checked in, a scammer coming in off the street, or, as far as I wanted him to believe, the son of a very rich and slightly odd woman.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

I nodded, trying to give out the proper mix of annoyance and embarrassment. “Mother decided to go shopping. Like she doesn’t already have enough stuff. At least she dropped us off first. We’re so sick of watching her buy shoes. But she forgot to make a reservation.” I shook my head and muttered, “Typical.”

“Did she give you her—”

I cut him off. “Mother doesn’t believe in credit cards.” I looked him right in the eye so we could exchange annoyed glances and let each other know how inconvenient this was. “Mother believes in cash. She adores Mr. Franklin and Mr. Jefferson.” I pulled a fistful of bills out of my pocket. “She asked me to check us in.”

He stared at the cash. I could see him thinking it over. The whole world revolved around plastic. Cash was unusual.

“Sorry,” I said. “I know it’s a pain. You should see when she buys a car. She makes us lug in bags of cash. It’s thoroughly ridiculous. I thought I’d pull a muscle when she bought that Maserati. You know what one of those things costs?”

The man nodded, but I could see he still wasn’t completely buying the act. I looked over at Martin, hoping he’d say something to make the guy like us, but he seemed to have turned to stone. Then I glanced past him to the left wall, where a copy of an old painting hung in a heavy wooden frame.

“Caravaggio,” I said, identifying the artist. “Very nice.”

Art is one of the common languages of people who stay at overpriced hotels. They know Diirer, Klee, and dozens of other passwords. I’d just showed the guy I was a member of the right group. I could have told him the title of the painting, but I didn’t want to overdo it.

He smiled and slid a form across the counter for me to fill out. “One night?”

“Let’s make it two, for now. Of course, Mother might decide to stay longer.” I made up a name and address, slid back the form, and paid for the room. I added a tip, since that was also part of our common language.

A minute later, I had my key card. Five minutes after that, Martin and I were standing inside a very comfortable room, fifteen stories above the streets of Philadelphia.

“Sorry I didn’t help,” he said.

“You helped. I don’t think I’d have had the guts to do that if I was by myself.” I pointed toward the shower. “Feel free to use all the soap. They’ll make more.”

I ordered some food from room service while Martin washed up. I felt bad for him. He’d had a lousy time on the road. I’d bet he could have used his talent to make things more comfortable. He could have talked people into giving him stuff, because he knew what they were proud about. I think most people, if you stroke their egos, can’t help liking you.

My dad was a master at that. He didn’t have any special power—he just knew how to make people like him. But Martin never had as much faith in his own talent as he had in everyone else’s. And he had this problem with using his power for his advantage. I didn’t see anything wrong with it. If I could add numbers faster than anyone else, I’d make use of that talent. If I could jump higher than anyone else, I’d jump whenever I could. If I can move things with my mind, why not use my talent?