Mind Games (20 page)

“Couldn’t you just go back and check for me?”

This does the trick. They both scream and come out to hug me. We catch up on store gossip, and I give them vague details of the secret job that covers my secret job, and then I buy three pretty dresses I never could’ve afforded in the old days. I probably seem like Cinderella to them.

The truth is probably closer to Little Red Riding Hood. Possibly even the wolf.

   I’m wearing one of those dresses two weeks later when Helmut picks me up for the card game. It’s a green
long-sleeved number with a black embroidered V-neck; I’ve paired it with black boots. Greens, browns, and blacks look best with my new dark hair. The whites, pinks, and blues I used to wear are out. Baby colors.

We head toward Elmvale where our hosts Leann and Leroy live. Helmut’s suit and shirt and tie are all the same shade of brown—a sort of exotic look when you add in his black villain’s beard. He does sort of look like an opera singer.

“Helmut, don’t you ever feel uncomfortable about how much power Packard has over you? You’re totally dependent on him.”

“I know. But I couldn’t have gone on as I was.”

“What if he died?”

“I think he would send us to another highcap with a power like his.”

“You sure there are others like him?”

“There would have to be.” He turns down the radio. “Do you understand how the highcap mutation works? How different highcaps get different powers?”

“No.”

“The mutation involves a kind of wildcard DNA that’s blank until you tell it what to do, like stem cells. That’s why it’s impossible to test for. The highcap baby who first wants a toy from across the room, that high-cap baby becomes a telekinetic. It has told its gene, I want to cause objects to fly through the air. Which explains why most highcaps are telekinetics. A different highcap child might try to divine its mother’s thoughts, so its mutation would take the form of telepathy. Another might strive to interact with its napping father. That one turns into a dream invader. The impulse to hide the truth creates a revisionist.”

“So as a child, before trying to get toys or communicate, Packard tried to … understand?”

“Exactly. Which forever determined his power. If one
child went that route, others must have.” Helmut looks over. “Of course, this isn’t helpful to you. You want to know how to leave us.”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry. If I knew, I’d tell you.”

I nod; I believe him on that.

“For the record, you should’ve had a choice,” he adds.

We enter Elmvale, an old first-ring suburb that kept its 1950s features—like Big Boy restaurants and tilt-roof drycleaners—intact.

I watch his face, wondering how much he knows. “So what’s the deal with Packard’s overall plan? The whole business about phases?”

Helmut shoots me a look. “What do you mean by phases?”

“As in, this phase of Packard’s plan.”

He pulls up in front of a wood-and-limestone bungalow, shuts off the engine, and turns squarely to me. “Do you know something about Packard’s plan?”

“Do you?”

Helmut pulls the keys from the ignition, evaluating, I’m guessing, whether to tell me what he knows. “I have thoughts.”

“I do, too.”

“Why do you say there are phases?”

“It’s just something he said last week after our card game, when I stayed behind. He was worrying about me up against the Alchemist and he goes, ‘Maybe I’m rushing this phase.’”

“He specifically used that word?”

“Yeah. Like the Alchemist is a phase. And when I gave him shit, he acted like that’s not what he meant.”

“This
phase.”
Helmut stares at the steering wheel.

“And Jordan the Therapist implied he has a larger purpose.”

“You can’t listen to Jordan,” Helmut says.

“Why? Is she a liar?”

“No,” he says simply, “she’s not.” He turns to me. “It’s interesting she implied he has a larger purpose. I agree, and I feel it directly involves you.”

“Because of the way he tricked me into joining?”

“That, and because the Silver Widow and the Alchemist both materialized out of nowhere the instant you came on board. I know they’re not ordinary cases, yet I haven’t been able to discern anything particularly extraordinary about them.”

“Except the client is secret on both.”

“The Silver Widow client is secret, too?”

I nod.

Helmut looks thoughtful. “The obvious idea is that these projects relate to his freedom or his nemesis, but I don’t see how. They don’t relate to each other, either. You know, I’ve long wondered why Packard would devote his considerable powers of insight to assessing and rebooting criminals. I can assure you, justice is
not
a topic he feels passionate about. As a psychological hit squad, we do indeed make a great deal of money, but there are ways he could use his gift to make far more. And why does a man trapped in a restaurant need money anyway? Now these cases.”

“Here’s a theory: Packard has been in there for eight years, right? So we know the nemesis became active eight years ago. And that’s when the crime wave started.”

Helmut draws back. “Interesting.”

“It is, right? What if the nemesis started the crime wave? And Packard fights him indirectly by fighting the crime wave?”

“Packard himself as the client? Fighting crime just to stick it to his nemesis?” Helmut chuckles.

“Why not?”

“Seems a tad oblique. And how does that involve you?”

“Maybe health anxieties completes his set.”

“Then why hasn’t he bothered to replace angst? Jarvis went off the deep end years ago—he was one of the first disillusionists. Come.” We get out of the car. Helmut links his arm in mine as we proceed up the walk. I wish I could tell about Henji, but I gave my word to Shelby. We stop on the stoop under a wooden plaque with the names
LEANN & LEROY
burnt into it, and Helmut presses the doorbell. Cheerful chimes sound. “If you notice anything else … if he says anything …”

I nod.

“You disarm him, you know.”

“Apparently not quite enough to get free.”

The door opens, and Leann—a handsome, redheaded woman in her forties—ushers us into a living room that’s stocked with frail Victorian furniture and glass figurines. This highly breakable environment increases my nervousness. Leann introduces us to Leroy, and then to Enrique, whom we pretend not to know. Jay we supposedly do know. After that we meet August, a small, gray-haired fellow in a hand-knit sweater who might actually
be
an old-time farmer. And then there’s Connor, a.k.a. the Alchemist. As we shake hands, I try to touch the surface of his energy dimension. To my total horror, I find it every bit as repellent as Simon’s.

I reclaim my hand as quickly and as naturally as possible. Whereas Simon’s energy dimension was offensive, Conner’s is scary. This is a problem. I lock arms with Helmut as the four of us get acquainted.

Connor’s around my age, maybe thirty—a shortish, stocky fellow with fuzzy light brown hair and eyebrows and a square of whiskers on his chin. A soul patch, it’s called, though every time I look at it I think of pubic hair. He stands proud, eyes bright—a demeanor that
seems more cop or soldier than shampoo chemist. Or psycho—though Francis and his file convinced me otherwise on that point. Connor wears a suede vest over a Nehru collar shirt, and tells us he grew up on a base in Germany; that’s where he learned sheepshead. When I reveal I’m a nurse, he falls silent and bends slightly backward. Then Leann’s there with drinks.

“What kind of nurse?” Connor asks in a gravelly tone.

“RN, neuro, ortho, medical/surgical.”

Connor does a fake shudder and walks off. I see now how to work him; I just have to get over the repellence. I have to.

I turn to my fellow disillusionists, lowering my voice. “I need to sit next to Connor, and I need you and Enrique to pitch me medical questions. But wait until after I visit the bathroom. Enrique, did you have any trouble with this guy’s energy dimension?”

“Nah.”

We head toward the table as a team. Jay settles in and spreads out, looking every inch the decadent man of leisure. Helmut maneuvers it so he’s next to me and I’m next to Connor. Leroy’s the first to rotate out.

We throw our fives to the pot and Jay deals. August picks up the blind, which means he plays against the table with or without a partner. Leroy comes in with Bugles, warning us new players about August’s prowess, and in fact August does win the hand, using Jay as partner.

I visit the bathroom with my purse during the next deal and stoke up a hot, prickly mass of fear that mingles unpleasantly with my nervousness. I have got to zing this guy!

It’s during the fourth hand that Enrique asks me about my job. Do I work in an emergency room like in the movies?

“Oh, the ER is sometimes like the movies,” I say. “But to me, the real drama is the chronic degenerative condition. We had a young poet in with aplastic spindler neuroma last month. It started in his foot!” I look around. “I mean, who of us hasn’t had foot pain?” Connor stares at the delicate crystal pretzel bowl. “Before he knows it, he can’t get around without a walker because his muscles are that atrophied, and then he’s in a wheelchair …” I have hold of my fear now. I just need to touch the Alchemist’s energy dimension and burn the hole. “He could feel himself weakening little by little, but he couldn’t do anything about it.”

I turn and rest my hand on the Alchemist’s bare arm. “Could you pass the pretzels, please?” I feel sick when I push near his energy dimension.

He passes the bowl, casting a cold look at my hand on his arm. Quickly I let go. I stuff a few pretzels into my mouth. “There’s nothing worse than witnessing your own horrible degeneration.”

August and Leroy are rapt. Connor keeps his eyes down.

I eat another pretzel; then I hand the bowl back to him, placing my hand on his arm again, my heart pounding like crazy. “Sorry, I can’t have these in front of me anymore.” Again I fail to connect.

Connor slams the pretzels down in front of August and turns back to me, glaring at my hand and I have to let go. Then he excuses himself to go to the rest room.

I shake my head at Helmut as the guys argue:
I didn’t get it
. Enrique sees. I twirl my finger:
I need another go
.

Leann pulls up a chair next to August and turns the conversation toward the brick attacks. Elmvale’s been spared, but she worries all the time that maybe they’re due. She ought to weed her garden, but she’s scared.

Leann’s been so sweet, so welcoming, it steams me to
think of her being frightened to go out into her own yard. She shouldn’t have to live in fear like that. Nobody should.

Farmer August informs us that he doesn’t believe the highcap hogwash, but he’s hard-pressed to imagine a catapult shooting a curveball.

During the next hour of play, Connor makes himself big. He invades my space with his elbow, splays out his knee so I have to move mine, and sometimes he looks at me with disturbing directness. It will be weird to touch him again, and it’s getting uncomfortable to hold all the fear.

Jay brings up the subject of the hospital an hour later. Again I touch Connor’s arm, pretending to be extra animated in my description of a painful exploratory procedure. No go. He looks at me, at his arm, then back at me. We’ve entered a creepy silent conversation.

Two deals later, Connor picks up the blind. You only pick up the blind when you feel you have the strongest hand, or when you’re bluffing, which I know he is, because I have all the good cards for once and the blind should’ve been mine. I’m in a position to crush Connor, but I don’t want to be aggressive toward him. So when the play starts up, I squander my trumps on junk for two hands in a row.

“Hold on, hold on,” Connor says when I lay my last card on the last trick. “What are you doing?”

I freeze. “What?”

“Did you just let me win?”

I paste on a face of confusion. “No. I thought … I was …”

“You forgot queens are top trump? No.” He shoves the money back to the center of the table. “I’m not taking the pot. Hold it over.”

“It’s your pot,” Leroy says.

The Alchemist bores right into my eyes. “You didn’t play that natural, lady.”

“It was a mix-up,” I insist, shaky from holding so much stoked fear. My blood pressure has to be spiking.

“Connor,” Helmut says, “she hasn’t been playing all her life like we have.”

“She wastes a red queen when she has a ten?”

“I was thinking diamonds were trump,” I say.

Connor shakes his head. “No you weren’t.”

“Why would I let you win?”

“Because you wanted me to think you can control the game.”

Helmut puts his arm around my shoulder and leans forward, addressing the Alchemist across me. “Take it from me, friend, she’s not that good a player.”

I make a jokey surprised face. “Helmut!”

August gathers up the cards for the next deal. “Don’t quibble, kids. I’ll have all your money by midnight.”

Jay makes a toast to that, and challenges everyone to sweeten the pot by five bucks each for the next round. A sullen Connor throws in. Will I ever be able to zing him? My cohorts don’t ask any more nursing questions. Simon’s words echo through my mind:
You’re not a dis-illusionist; you’re a decoration
.

“Maybe you should ask your boyfriend Helmut to teach you a little better,” Connor says at one point, endowing
teach
with creepy significance.

“Yeah well …” I look away, wondering what Packard saw inside him.

Later on, Leroy appears wearing a train conductor’s hat. He wants the group of us to go down to the basement to see his model train set. I duck into the bathroom instead. I need to be away from everyone for a minute.

I nearly run into Connor on my way out. “Oh!”

He puts up his hands, as if to enforce his personal space.

“How’s the train set?” I ask.

Connor stands up straight; he’s a hair taller than me. “You talk about nursing too much,” he says. “Your mind is in the medical gutter and you need to pull it out.”

“It’s my profession,” I say, underarms and spine drenched with sweat. Something tells me not to touch him now.