Kaleidocide (40 page)

 

36

INNUENDO

When I left Angelee that night and escaped to my room, I closed the door and leaned my back against it. I couldn't believe the effect she was having on my usually well-ordered psyche, not to mention my usually well-disciplined body. To address both problems, I took a cold shower and tried to make some sense of all the thoughts and feelings swirling around inside me.

Some of the thoughts I had were the typical rationalizations and excuses that started when Angelee was offering herself to me: “I'm under a lot of duress right now,” “I've been away from my wife,” and “Anyone would understand if I fell.” The last one reminded me of what the double had said earlier about Tara, and that plus the cold water did wonders for stopping any thoughts of going back out to the living room. But then I also realized how bad I felt for Angelee—she was so desperate for someone to love her and Chris, and for me in particular, that she was deaf to my hints that it might not work out between us. And I felt bad about being the cause of her inevitable misery, because I really didn't give her any serious hints and shouldn't even be hinting about this at all—she was an innocent who deserved the truth. But again, I justified myself by saying that I was a slave to the bigger issues of saving my life, the future of BASS, and the free world even—whatever made me seem like less of a villain. I also tried to think of some ways I could make it up to her, but none of this really made me feel better about the situation.

The memory of what had happened with the double and Tara didn't help with my feelings of regret; neither did the fact that when I got out of the shower, my wall screen was flashing with messages from Terrey and Lynn, who was the last person I wanted to talk to right now. But I had to—I couldn't just go to bed without talking to her, because then we'd both have trouble sleeping, and I'd get an earful the next day.

As it turned out, I got an earful that night, because Lynn had watched a netcast of the double and Tara making their statements to the press at the castle, and she had a recording of one part ready to show me. It was a moment in Tara's statement where she said that she was “looking forward to working very closely with Michael,” and she smiled at the double like they were sharing a private joke between them. Lynn rewound it twice, pausing on Tara's sultry smile and even playing it once in slow motion.

“And that wasn't the only time,” Lynn said. “She also looked quite pleased with herself when she said ‘I've always had a good relationship with Michael,' ‘We have a kind of chemistry between us,' and—this is my favorite—‘As his representative, I will do my best to satisfy his needs at all times.' Michael, I don't want to read too much into this, but she looked to me like a woman who had just gotten her man, or something like that. And I don't want to be a jealous wife, but since I know about your past relationship with her, I'm wondering if there's something I don't know about it now.”

I had noticed the unintentional innuendos in both the speeches, and cringed at them, but that was only because I knew what had just happened between the double and Tara. I didn't think it was anything that Lynn or anyone else would notice.

“No, Lynn,” I said. “I think you're just being oversensitive.” Then after I saw her facial expression, I added: “But I wouldn't call you a jealous wife.”

“You wouldn't call me a jealous wife, but that's what you're calling me.”

“I just think you're the only one who's gonna see something in what she said, because of what you know. It's understandable … I don't blame you.”

“Michael,” she said, “are you having an affair with that woman?”

“No, Lynn.”

“Then why was she looking at you like that?”

“She wasn't looking at me, Lynn. She was looking at Jon.”

“But she thought he was you!” She shook her head. “Have you been flirting with her? Is that it? You can tell me, I can take it.”

“No, Lynn. I have a purely business relationship with her. Listen, your life has been completely upset by these attempts on my life, you're six months pregnant—”

“Seven.”

“What?”

“I'm seven months now. Just turned seven.”

“Oh. Well, anyway, you'll have to trust me on this thing with Tara. We don't have time for domestic intrigue right now.”

“You're not at that woman's house, are you?”

“Lynn, you know I can't tell you where I am.”

“Oh, so you
are
at her house.”

I could see there was no way out of this except telling her the truth, which I wasn't ready to do without a lot more reflection, so I changed the subject.

“How are Hilly and Jessa doing?” I asked. “Have you figured out where they can go yet?”

“Not really,” she said, thankfully taking the bait. “But I was thinking the Presidio might be the best place, at least for a while, when I'm ready to go down there and get involved.” I assumed by that she meant when the threat against me was over, and we had returned to a more normal life. “Until then, they're okay here. Tyra has been a big help … it's like having a nanny.”

Mob Nanny, I thought.
I can already see the reality TV show.

“But the biggest issue right now,” Lynn continued. “is that they need to see their brother sometime soon. They've been asking about him now that the shock of losing their mother has worn off, and it's only right. And I know we have big-time problems presently, but if we don't take the girls to see him ourselves, that would put an even bigger wall between us at a really bad time for him.”

I was impressed again by Lynn's compassion—she even cared for a punk who probably wanted to kill me almost as much as General Sun did.

“I'll talk to Terrey about it,” I said, grateful for the excuse to move on from this conversation. “I have to call him anyway.”

We said our good-byes, which were rather cold because of the lingering specter of the Tara situation, and I called Terrey.

“What was that all about?” he said without ado. I soon found out that Lynn was
not
the only one who noticed Tara's not-so-subtle expressions, and the double's slightly embarrassed ones, at the press conference. Terrey picked up on it himself, and so did various media outlets. He said that BayNet had broadcast a twenty-minute exposé on how I dated Tara before meeting my wife, and showed the innuendo-laden statements over and over again, implying that there was “something brewing or already boiled over” between us.

“I know it's only tabloid news,” Terrey said, “but it's the kind of attention I didn't want on you while Jon is taking your place. Sooner or later people like this might even start comparing this film with others of you, and catching on to our little ruse. There have been a few high-profile cases since the Makeover was perfected, and savvy people in the media know about it. I guess the only good thing about this is that all the attention is on the tidy spunk, and she's getting all the screen time. Can't say I blame them, and can't say I blame you for having a little of that on the side. But what was going on with her and Jon all that time they were in the office? I tried to pry it out of Min, but if he knows he's too tight-lipped to tell me. The only hypothesis I can think of is that you were getting some kinky pleasure out of riding with him while he was riding her.”

“No, that's not the way it was,” I said, guessing that he would probably not believe me, but telling him the truth anyway about how I had an emergency at my hiding place and lost contact with the double long enough for him to be seduced by Tara.

“I don't believe you,” he said. “But everyone lies about sex, so I suppose you're entitled to some of that too.”

“I'm actually not lying this time, Terrey, believe it or not.”

“Well, either way, I find it really interesting that your wife recognized the double as soon as he walked in the room, but that Sheila shagged him and still thinks it's you.”

That
was
interesting, now that I thought about it. Going into the meeting with Tara in my office, I had a backup plan in case she realized that the double was not me. Because Tara and I had been so close at one time, I thought it was unlikely that the deception could survive the two of them talking, let alone what they did together. So it now shocked me to realize how substantial the difference was in my relationship between the two women. It made me feel more grateful for Lynn, and made me think that I should treat her differently than I had been. But the idea of fooling Tara also brought to mind something that made me feel sorry for her.

“Speaking of the shagging,” I said, “Jon may still have AIMS, so she could have gotten it from him.”

“Not my problem,” Terrey said right away. “I don't get paid to protect her.”

“But Terrey, think about it. She could end up dying, or not being able to be with anyone the rest of her life. And she thought it was me, so she was trusting
me.
And this all was your plan—I think we have at least some responsibility here.”

“All right, I have an idea,” he said. “I'll give it to you, but then we have to get back to our business.”

He suggested that I require all high-level staff at BASS to be tested for AIMS, for some humanitarian purpose, and have the results sent to me alone. If Tara tested positive, I could break the bad news to her and offer her the treatment, which I would have to buy from Protection G. If she was negative, Terrey said, then “No worries, mate.” I was impressed by Terrey's mental acumen again, but also a bit surprised that my old friend was being such a cutthroat businessman, with very little human compassion. Which made me think of Lynn again, not just because of her compassion, but also because of how my life had gone in a different direction from Terrey's, probably because I married Lynn and had two children with her.

“The idea that you might be having an affair,” Terrey said, getting back to business as he promised, “also draws attention to your wife, and the media are talking about the fact that she hasn't been seen since the fire, or even before. And since our photo op at the cemetery didn't work out, I'm thinking we really need to get her out somewhere, even briefly. I know you don't want her near the double unless it's necessary, but if they both could do something together, it would go a long way to lessening the media scrutiny.”

Terrey didn't say it, and I didn't know it until later, but he also was hoping to draw out any assassination attempts that were still pending.

“Now
I
have an idea,” I said, thinking back to my last conversation. “Lynn feels very strongly that both of us should take the twins to see their brother John. And I think if we don't do that fairly soon, we may actually have a lot more of that media scrutiny you're worried about. John is John Rabin, of course, the son of Paul Rabin, who I killed last year. John is angry at me and anything to do with me or BASS, blaming us for the death of his father and grandfather, and I'm sure now for his mother. Lynn is driven by a sense of ethics, but it would also be good PR for us to visit him with his sisters, and put out an olive branch. At least it might head off another round of stories about how we are ignoring and mistreating him.”

“Sounds like a possibility,” Terrey said, “if it can happen someplace safe.”

“There's the rub … John refuses to set foot in any BASS property, so he won't come here or to the castle. And he's living in a seamy part of Marin.” There were very few seamy parts of Marin County before the big quake, but the flood of refugees from the city had changed all that.

“Think about it some more,” Terrey said, “And I'll have the
Trois
look into it. Maybe we can find somewhere that works. In the meantime, in light of the possible risk involved in an outing like that, and other dangers, I wanted to ask you again to do a
ban lan
colors ritual with me. In case it might help us.”

“You've been doing that?”

“Yeah, mate. I did it three times.”

“What did you do?”

“I got some recitations off the net, in Chinese because that's the only place this cult exists, and transliterated them on another site so I could say them. And I just programmed the net room to display a bunch of different colors while I read them out loud. That's it. According to the literature, I was supposed to experience the spirits coming over me for confirmation, or something like that, but I didn't really feel anything.”

“Didn't
really
feel anything?”

“Well, the last time I guess I did feel something.”

“This is bizarre, Terrey,” I said. “Next you'll be into snake handling.”

“Ah, you laugh, but they actually do that sometimes as a part of the rituals. Really. And there's a rare snake around here called a San Francisco Garter, which is one of the most colorful in the world. I was thinking of getting one and using it, but I don't believe in this enough to get bit, and I don't see how it's that much of a confirmation anyway, because the venom's not lethal.”

“Has anyone else been doing this with you?” I asked, still shaking my head, but in the back of my mind wondering whether there could be something to it. I
was
still alive, and against the odds all the assassination attempts had failed so far.

“No,” Terrey said. “I've asked, but nobody's interested. The
Trois
and Min are as stubbornly scientific as you think cyborgs would be, plus Min wants nothing to do with anything associated with Zhang Sun. Korcz just laughed and Stephenson is into his dream thing too much to try anything else—that's his religion. Tyra has some Catholic in her background and is worried about demons entering her if she did something like that. And of course I didn't even ask Lynn.”