Earth Thirst (22 page)

“When was the last time you took someone to dinner?” she asks, trying to make the question seem casual as she looks over the menu. Making small talk. But I feel a tiny tremor running through her body. Her heart rate seems elevated, though I can't be sure I'm not hearing echoes of the music.

“Several years,” I say. “You?”

She shakes her head. “We're not talking about me.”

“We're not?”

A waiter glides up to our table, seemingly legless in black trousers and a red shirt that glows in the indirect light of the restaurant. He starts in Spanish, switches smoothly to English when Mere offers him a rustic “Hiya,” runs us through the specials, and then glides away in response to her request for a couple of caipirinhas.

Mere puts the menu down on the table and rests her head on her hand so that she can give me her undivided attention. “Yes,” she says, “we're talking about you. Because I'm in Chile—illegally—where I'm probably being targeted by a bunch of ex-military heavies, while chasing the biggest story of my life. Oh, and there's this whole semantic game we're playing about the word ‘vampire,' which, yes, is another story
entirely
. And probably even bigger than the first one.”

“Is this an interview then. Like that book?”

“No, not like
that
book.”

“Off the record then?”

“Are you out of your mind?”

The waiter returns with our drinks and hovers, waiting for us to order food. Mere glances at him, frowns, and reaches for the menu. “
Tapas
,” I tell him. “
Exquisitas combinaciones
.” I pick up my drink. “
Más bebidas, por favor
,” I add.

“
Gracias
,” he says, collecting our menus and disappearing again.

“What was that about?” Mere asks.

“I ordered.”

“I figured that much out. What did you order?”

“Tapas. Chef's choice.” I give her a guileless smile. “And more drinks. It sounds like we're going to be here awhile.”

TWENTY-FIVE

I
t's not hard to get her drunk. She's tired, jetlagged, emotionally wrung out, still recovering from being doped by Secutores, and hasn't had a decent meal in more than twelve hours. What surprises me is that it takes as many drinks as it does.

After we've cleared a dozen plates and half as many drinks (of which I had one and a half), I have our waiter get us a cab. Mere's already half asleep by the time I coax her out of the booth. Once in the cab, I tell the driver to drive around for twenty minutes or so, and it only takes Mere five to fall asleep, her head resting against my shoulder. Fifteen minutes later, confident that we're not being followed, I tell the driver to take us to the hotel I had spotted near the open air mall.

I leave her in the car until I have a room, and then I carry her in. The concierge gets the elevator for me. “Thank you.” I nod toward Mere's limp form. “Too much to drink.”

“It happens,” he replies with that nonjudgmental air that good hotel staff learn. I smile, trying to make it seem like I'm the long-suffering one in the relationship, as the elevator doors close.

We're on the eighth floor, in a corner room. I key in, arrange Mere on the bed, and cover her with the sheets. I prowl around the room for a few minutes, pausing to peek out at the parade of lights that are strung along the side of San Cristobel, and then I acknowledge that I'm too restless to sit and wait. I leave Mere a note and go back downstairs.

The mall is still open and I find a telecom shop where I buy a few international phone cards and a new pay-as-you-go phone. I get a small laptop too, using the debit card that I got from the bank in Adelaide. It creates a money trail, but I don't have any choice right now. I don't have enough pesos to pay for it, and changing the rest of my Australian money is going to require a bank.

If we're going to keep moving, changing money is going to be a problem. I'm going to have to trust that the bank channel is secure for the time being. If it isn't, it's better to find out now rather than later when I really need it.

Afterward, I find a quiet bench off the main thoroughfare of the mall and sit down to figure out how to make the phone cards work. Australia is on the other side of the International Date line, and with the time difference, it is tomorrow morning there. I follow the directions on the card and then punch in Ralph's cell phone number.

He answers on the third ring. “Hello?”

“Did I wake you?”

“What? No, no. No, I was just… is this—?”

“It is.”

“Are you…? Is…?”

It's hard to ask questions when you're worried about who might be listening in.

“We're fine. Enjoying our honeymoon,” I tell him. “How are the neighbors?”

“Restless. Some of the natives are getting curious too.”

“Sounds like a party.”

“I think the neighbors are leaving soon, though. If they haven't gone already.”

“Any forwarding address?”

“Just the one on file.”

“Well, sounds like that party is almost over. Should be nice and quiet after that.”

“So, ah, look, the neighbors.” I can almost hear him thinking through the code phrasing we've adopted, trying to fit it to what he wants to tell me. “The landlords—the ones who own the place the neighbors have been staying at—I think they pulled the lease.”

I parse what he's telling me. “Interesting. Any idea on who the landlords are? Is someone else moving in?”

“Nada,” he says dejectedly. “I got zilch.”

“I was thinking about buying my new bride some hyacinths,” I tell him. “But it's the wrong time of year. Could you look into it for me? Where I could find someone who could grow them out of season? Get them to hold them for me? Until we get back.”

He's quiet for a minute. “Yeah, sure,” he says eventually. “Holding on to some hyacinths. I can do that.” From the stress he places on certain syllables, I think he's got my request figured out.
Hyacinth Holdings.

“Great, thanks. I'll call later.” I hang up.

I call Callis next. Rather, I try to, but he doesn't answer. I let the call ring for a long time, wondering why it doesn't go to voice mail. All I can imagine is an old rotary phone in a dusty room somewhere, in a house that no one lives in anymore.

I end the call and shove the phone in my pocket. I don't need to talk to Callis, and maybe this is his way of reminding me that I need to stay away from making contact. If I'm isolated, then not only am I safe from whatever is poisoning Arcadia, Arcadia is also safe from me.

Mere says this isn't personal, but I can't help but think of Talus's warning on the boat.
She's not family. Remember your priorities.

The matter
is
personal, though. It has been for a long time.

I need to remember who the steward was on Rapa Nui.

I start walking toward San Cristobal. There will be trails, walking paths through the trees. If not, I'll just find my own way through the woods. I've done it before. All that really matters is that I get under the trees for a while.

They don't judge me. They still accept me as family. They'll let me rest, and maybe they'll even help me put my mind back together.

* * *

Mere is still sleeping when I return to the room. Her hair is mussed around her head and her shirt is twisted around her body. The only part of her that moves is her chest and her throat. Watching both becomes hypnotic, and I can feel the thirst tickling at the back of my throat.

How many times have I been in a room like this, watching someone like this? There were others before Val, a long list of faces that are all out of focus. But it was different with the others. None of them knew about Arcadia. None of them knew
how
I was different. I was a man with an exotic past, loath to talk about family and where I had been before I met them. I lied to them all. I was good at dodging questions, at coming up with false emergencies and interruptions to derail persistent questions. After a while, most of them gave up trying. Some of the relationships failed for that reason. Some of them flourished because the exotic and unknown were perpetually exciting.

Mere knows too much already, and I fear that learning more is only going to make her want to stay.

I peel the plastic wrap and dozen stickers that constitute packaging on the laptop and switch it on. As it boots up, I figure out how to work the in-room coffee maker. The sound of the computer churning and the smell of brewing coffee work to bring Mere out of her stupor. She sits up slowly, trying to push her hair into a semblance of order. A lazy smile spreads across her face when I offer her a cup of hot coffee. She takes a large sip and then lies back in bed, the cup resting between her breasts. “Ah, you know how to greet a girl in the morning, don't you?”

“I bought you a laptop. It's got a Spanish operating system preinstalled, but there's an English version on the DVD that comes with it.”

“Now you're just trying to get into my pants,” she says.

“I don't think you're wearing any,” I say, recalling a crumpled heap lying on the bathroom floor.

She lifts her head and peeks under the sheet. “Well, then,” she says, taking another sip of coffee. “I guess we must have gotten along pretty well last night.”

I ignore her comment and put the cell phone and the extra calling cards on the table, next to the laptop. “New phone and calling cards,” I say.

“In case I want to call my girlfriends and talk about the awesome night I can't remember?”

“It couldn't have been that awesome if you can't remember it,” I point out.

“Spoken like an experienced amnesiac,” she says. She winces as soon as the words come out of her mouth. “Sorry.”

“It's okay,” I say. “I'll take acerbic as a sign that you're going to survive.”

“It's the caffeine kicking in.” She takes another large sip from the cup, her attention drifting toward the table with the phone and laptop. “By the way, when this headache goes away, I'm going to get out of bed and kick your ass.”

“Why? Because I took your shoes off before I put you into bed last night?”

“
And
my pants.”

I shake my head as I point to where her shoes are neatly arranged next to the dresser. “There are your shoes. Do you see your pants?”

“Well, they're not
on
me,” she says.

“They're on the bathroom floor, where you must have left them when you got up to pee in the middle of the night.”

Some expression flashes across her face, and I'm not sure if it is disappointment or outrage, but it is gone before I can really decide which it is. “Regardless of the location of my pants,” she snaps, “that's not why I'm going to put my foot up your ass.”

“I shouldn't have plied you with drinks while I was dodging your questions?”

She makes a gun with two of her fingers and slowly shoots me with it. “Bingo.”

“Call Ralph,” I say. “Maybe he'll play nicer.”

“At least he'll play,” she says. “You owe me some answers.”

I shrug. “I'm going to get some breakfast,” I say, heading for the door.

“Silas. Don't you run away from me.”

I stop and look back at her. “I'm not. I'll be back in a bit.”

“Why don't you stay and call room service,” she says, “instead of running away?”

“Why don't I go get some food while you solve your lack of pants problem?”

“Why don't you throw me them since you're standing right there?”

I glance over at the pair under discussion. “I could take them with me,” I suggest.

A wicked smile curls her lips. She leans over and sets the coffee cup on the nightstand. With a sweep of her arm, she throws the sheets back and hops off the bed. She wobbles slightly as she stands up, but she manages to not lose her balance. Wearing nothing but her sleep-wrinkled shirt and a pair of pale green bikini briefs, she walks over. Standing very close, she leans toward me so that her face is almost touching mine. “Go ahead,” she says. She grabs the top button on her shirt. “You want this too?”

“I'm going to get breakfast,” I growl. “More coffee?”

“Please,” she whispers, locking eyes with me. Daring me to look down to see what her hands are doing with her shirt.

“And a tart,” I say. “A very fresh fruit tart.”

Her laughter follows me out of the room and all the way down the hall to the elevator. Only when I'm securely behind the closed doors of the elevator, do I look down at the marks my nails have made in my palm.

There is still alcohol in her blood. That, I tell myself, is the only reason I held back. Otherwise, I would have done something foolish.

I want her to stay too.

* * *

She's wearing pants when I return, and appears to have been upright for most of the time that I've been gone. On the wall beside the dresser and TV unit, she's attached a white sheet and has been covering it with circles, lines, and scribbled writing.

“I asked the staff for tape and a marker,” she says, stepping back from her work as I put my bags on the table. “In case you didn't get my psychic messages.”

“I did,” I reply glibly. “But I also knew you couldn't wait for me to come back with them and would badger the concierge instead.” I open a small box filled with round, sugar-coated objects and hold it out to her. “
Berliner
? Or as the Germans call them:
pfannkuchen
.”

“A what?”

“Jelly donut.”

“Why didn't you say so in the first place?”

“When in Rome…”

“Is that an Arcadian saying?” She takes one and bites into it, discovering the jelly center. “Like, the First Rule of Arcadia is: pretend you're in Rome.”

“It's the other way around,” I say. “The First Rule of Rome is to pretend you're in Arcadia.” I pause thoughtfully as I pluck a
berliner
from the box. “Though that may have been Nero.”

She wrinkles her nose as she finishes the first
berliner
and reaches for another. “Before my time,” she says.

Chewing my donut slowly, I look over what she's done on the sheet. “This seems a bit more recent,” I say. “Corporate connections.”

She nods. “Ralph gave me a bunch of it, and while I'm waiting for him to call me back, I started making notes.”