Icarus. (23 page)

"The big guy. Your shadow."

"Yeah. Smaller now since he cut out the steroids."

"Helluva blocker. I remember."

"Well…" Kid was back to being jittery. "Maybe I can bring him. I mean, after you read this plan. For a meeting."

"You can bring whoever you want," Jack said. "I'd like to see him again. Be like old times, you guys eating enough for ten, me paying. As long as I can be just as honest. And just as blunt."

Kid looked relieved. "Yeah," he said. "That's perfect. That's completely perfect." He took a deep breath now, nodded to himself a couple of times, and Jack thought he was calming down. Kid turned away from Jack, stood near the wall at the end of the terrace, peered out curiously at something. As Kid stepped closer to the edge, Jack felt his stomach clench.

"Hey," Kid said. "Do you know you could actually walk to the next building from here?"

"No," Jack said. He didn't know if Kid could hear it, but there was definitely a tremor in his voice. As Kid bent to look over the edge, Jack felt his throat tighten. "I never-"

"Seriously. The buildings are connected. Someone could walk along this ledge and get to that rooftop. You'd have to be kind of nuts but…"

"Kid…" Jack's mouth was dry now. The image in front of him – Kid standing by the wall, leaning over – turned wavy and fuzzy, like a TV set with bad reception.

"And these gargoyles. Unbelievable. These are scary-looking motherfuckers. I never even noticed them before! God, they're huge."

"Kid…"

And then it happened. Kid took yet another step closer to the restraining wall and with one sudden motion, one fluid jump, leapt up to stand on it.

Jack screamed.

Or at least he thought he did. He tried to scream but no sound came out. He saw Kid perched on the ledge, standing on the precipice, and his own legs turned wobbly. He wanted to call out but he couldn't. It was as if a hand had clamped down over his mouth. He looked up at the sky and saw the bright sun shining down, only it was spinning, going sideways, whirling around the clouds and getting brighter, turning everything a bleached-out white. And he saw a figure – he knew it wasn't real, couldn't be real – but he saw it anyway: a boy with feathered wings, flying by the sun, then falling, plummeting, waving his hands wildly trying to keep himself aloft, but failing. Falling even faster. Falling…

Jack felt himself choking, no air was coming in, and he remembered: Look down… Look straight down… Grab something, hold on to something and look down…

Jack gripped the bench he was sitting on, forced his head down to look at the floor of the terrace. He closed his eyes then and waited for the dizziness to pass, for the heaving in his stomach to stop and the panic to disappear.

He heard Kid's voice calling his name. Jack took a deep breath, then another, and a third. Without looking up, without opening his eyes, he tried to speak, didn't think he could, but he was surprised when he heard the words in his head come out of his throat.

"Down…" he gasped. "Get down…"

Still with his eyes shut tight, he heard Kid's voice, totally calm and unhurried. "Jack," he said. "Jack. It's okay."

Jack opened his eyes. The dizziness had passed. But still he didn't look up. His mind took him, without looking, to the ledge, and he pictured Kid standing there, looking over the city, nothing to stop him from toppling, and Jack thought he was going to throw up. He shut his eyes again, tried to force the image out of his head, the image of Kid tumbling in a free fall through the air, down… down… And then it wasn't Kid who was falling, it was Jack. In the image, his eyes were open and he was screaming, but there was nothing to see and there was no noise…

"Jack." It was Kid's voice. "Open your eyes."

Jack didn't move.

"Nothing's going to happen, Jack. I'm not going to fall."

Jack's eyes fluttered open. But he didn't move. Didn't look up.

"You only fall if you want to fall," Kid said. "Please. Just open your eyes and look."

Jack breathed in slowly. He knew it was foolish, he felt weak and stupid. But his brain had no control over what he was feeling. This was pure terror, an uncontrollable phobia. The idea of being so close to the edge…

"You only fall if you want to fall, Jack. Please. Just look up."

Jack exhaled now. He felt as if he'd been holding his breath forever. Slowly he lifted his head up. Kid was standing on the wall of the terrace, facing Jack. His back was to the park, to the city and the street below. Jack trembled, forced himself not to turn away. He could see the sky in the background, the blue with white clouds, Kid silhouetted against the distant green of the park and the brown peaks of the West Side buildings. Jack's hands were shaking. And his right foot couldn't stop tapping.

"I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking. I forgot about… everything. But I'm not afraid of heights, Jack. This doesn't bother me."

Jack's voice was faint. It was as if he had a fever, some deadly flu that had weakened his body, sapped him of any muscle control. "Come down now, Kid. Please come down."

This time Kid listened. He hopped off the wall, planting himself firmly back on the terrace. He walked over to Jack and as soon as he was away from the edge, Jack's whole body relaxed. The sweat on his neck turned cold and clammy and he wiped it away. His foot stopped moving and his hands were steady.

"I'm sorry," Kid said again. "I didn't realize… I didn't know it was so bad."

"I feel like an idiot," Jack said. "Jesus. But I can't help myself."

"I didn't think… it just doesn't bother me. I like being up there. I like looking down."

"Kid," Jack said, his voice still shaky. "You said you only fall if you want to fall."

"Yeah," Kid nodded. "If it's just you. If there's no one else pushing you. That's right."

"Well, that's what terrifies me. When I get close to the edge, when anyone goes too close, I see myself – I don't just feel it, I see it – I'm hurling myself over. I can't stop it, it feels like a magnet pulling me there. I throw myself over and I see myself falling. And falling…"

"I'm sorry, Jack. I didn't understand."

"It's okay." Another deep breath. "I'm okay now."

"You want me to get you something to drink?"

"No," Jack said. Now he forced himself to stand. He could manage, but he was not at full strength yet. "Let's just go inside."

Kid took his arm, opened the sliding door that led into the living room.

"You only fall if you want to fall," Jack repeated slowly. "Is that really what you think?"

"Yeah," Kid said. "That's really what I think."

"I don't want to fall," Jack told him. "I really don't. But I just don't think I can stop myself."

How could this be? Wasn't this plan so brilliant? She was sure it was. It had been fucking simple and fucking brilliant.

She'd been amazed that she'd ever been so fucking smart to have thought of something that was so fucking simple and brilliant.

Even now she was still amazed. It was a fucking brilliant plan; that's all there was to it.

Except it didn't work.

What a motherfucker.

Oh, well. It had been that kind of a day all around. Nothing fucking worked. No big surprise there. Every day was pretty much that kind of day, now that she thought of it. That's what had made her plan so great. It was gonna make the days a little more bearable. Or make one day more bearable, anyway. That would've been enough, wouldn't it? You bet it would. Fucking A. That would've really been something. One bearable fucking day in America…

Wait. Now that she thought some more, yesterday was not a bad day at all. Yesterday was pretty damn good. She'd seen Mr. Wonderful. That's what she called Kid. He was pretty goddamn wonderful, too. Almost wonderful enough to make her forget that her fucking plan hadn't worked.

She remembered how powerful she'd felt when he was finished with her. How, when he was so tired and ready to fall back on the bed and lie there, she'd fucked his brains out all over again. God, yes. She'd wrapped her legs around him, squeezed him practically to death, but it didn't matter because he was so strong and so hard. So hard. And she remembered how surprised he was when, right in the middle, she'd whipped out those handcuffs and there he was, chained to the fucking bedpost. KGB handcuffs, she told him. Real and official and oh, man, he was angry. And she'd laughed. She hadn't laughed that hard in, what, days? Maybe even months. Because what could he do? He couldn't do anything. He sure as shit couldn't go anywhere. He had to let her fuck him again. And even harder, even longer. He had to…

How could the plan not have worked!

It was a can't-miss.

Lots of dough. Lots of dough. All hers for the taking. The American dream and as easy as fucking pie.

A great plan, no question about it.

Okay, maybe it had been a little risky. Shit. Now that she thought about it some more, it was even a little dangerous. Maybe a lot dangerous. And probably pretty stupid.

Good thing Mr. Wonderful was so reliable. Reliable was good. And he was more than that. He was strong. Christ, was he strong. That was even better than reliable. At least in this case.

Because maybe, just maybe, he was strong enough and reliable enough so he could stop them from killing her since her perfect plan hadn't been so fucking perfect after all. Since she'd fucked it up like she fucked up everything else.

God, it had seemed so good.

But it was just another thing that had blown up in her goddamn face, just like every other fucking thing on every other unbearable day in her goddamn unbearable fucking life.

– "-"-"THE MORTICIAN He had just left, her beautiful boy. She watched him saunter down the walkway and disappear into the garden. She caught a glimpse of him again through the trees as he walked down the driveway and then again as he stepped into the waiting town car. She stared after him from the window until she realized he'd been gone for several minutes, and even though she was alone, she felt self-conscious, like a schoolgirl writing something naughty in her diary.

She could still smell him, he was still in the air, and that smell sent a shiver of excitement through her entire body. She took four quick steps, skips, really, and threw herself back onto the bed. She buried her face into the top pillow, took an enormous, deep breath in, felt her lungs swell and was overwhelmed by his scent – the light touch of the lemony Balmain cologne she'd bought for him, the powdery fragrance of his deodorant, the wonderful harshness of his sweat. Although they had just made love, hard, passionate, glorious love, she was aroused again. Squirming, she felt between her legs and she was dripping wet. She remembered running her fingernail down his arm, the way the bicep bulged and tightened. She touched the bandage there and he'd flinched. She liked him flinching, it practically made her come seeing him so vulnerable, but she told him she was sorry. Said she'd lost control. She didn't tell him that she wouldn't lose control again, though – she didn't want him to get too comfortable – but he had accepted her apology. He reached up and grabbed her and now she pictured herself on top of him, bending low, kissing his chest, working her lips down to his hard stomach…

She tried to force herself to think of other things but it did no good. She wanted him again. Now. But she couldn't have him, and for a brief moment she was angry, furious, and she hated him for leaving her. Then she inhaled again, face back down in the pillow, and, feeling light-headed, she laughed out loud. She was laughing at both her exhilaration and her foolishness.

She had tried to convince him to stay for dinner. He had work to do, he said. Other clients. Real clients.

She was a real client, too, she reminded him. And she even offered to pay him overtime if he'd stay, shocked at her own offer, but she didn't care. She wanted him that much and she knew money was important to him. It was not important to her and she realized she was happy to throw it at him, happy to give him whatever he wanted, but he said he had to leave, that he was tempted, how could he not be tempted, but he had to be strong. He had another client who needed him and when she pouted and asked who it was he said he couldn't talk about his other clients, even with her. Yes, it was a woman, he told her. And, yes, she was young. But, no, this woman wasn't nearly as attractive as she was. And, no, there was nothing between them, she was just a client. If she needed a name, think of her as the Entertainer. That's how he referred to her when talking about her to clients. The Entertainer, because she was a dancer-slash-actress.

How do you refer to me, she asked coyly, when talking to your other clients?

I don't, he said. Then he smiled and pulled her toward him and kissed her.

And then he was gone, out into the garden and down the driveway and into the limousine that was waiting to take him away back to the life he led without her. The life she knew so little about.

She decided to learn a little bit more about his other life. She decided she needed to know more about it.

Now she thought about that last kiss and her giddiness disappeared. The more she thought about it, the more it seemed passionless. Like an attempt to appease her. A means of escape.

She threw her head back into the pillow one more time, hoping to breathe him in again, but his scent was gone now. There was no trace of him.

She was all alone in her room.

– "-"-"THE ENTERTAINER From nine to ten that morning, she was on the StairMaster.

From 10:03 until 10:23 she was on the treadmill. Exactly two and a half miles.

After that, she did fifteen minutes of abs, fifteen minutes of stretching, then a fast one thousand meters on the rowing machine. It took her three minutes and fifty-two seconds, just seven seconds off her best time.