Mind Games (32 page)

Sophia’s back to say good-bye, and how wonderful it was to meet us, but she cannot stay. Off she walks.

Helmut touches Otto’s arm and mumbles in low tones.

I watch Sophia go, green silk coat flowing under flickering candelabras. She merges with the crowd pressing through the gilded doors.

          Twenty-eight

O
TTO’S CLUB
, the Merovingian, is a short stroll away, and soon he and Helmut and I are ensconced in velvet furniture in a darkly paneled and leathered atmosphere drinking very old Scotch. Helmut improvises anecdotes about our extended family, one after another. I try to catch his eye because it’s starting to be a lot to keep straight, but Helmut doesn’t notice. He’d mentioned Otto makes him nervous. Lots of talk and details is a classic sign of nervousness. Otto, as a superstar detective, would surely get that.

Finally Helmut’s phone rings, as I knew it would. He pretends to have a quick conversation, then informs us he must go.

Otto implores me to stay just a bit longer. Helmut kisses my cheek and trundles out.

Otto gives me a pointed look and holds it, like he’s considering something. Then, “It won’t work in the end, you know.”

My mouth goes dry, and I tilt my head quizzically. “What?” I’m not safe even here, in the Merovingian, I realize. Otto could carry me out kicking and screaming and nobody would stop him.

“How can any wild species survive the coming years?” He sinks into the divan. “I don’t mean to seem hopeless, but something about this project with your
uncle gets into my bones. The bleakness of it. Still, one has to persevere.”

Warily I settle back into my chair. “He’s always been dedicated.”

He touches the spot on his head again, staring vacantly across the room in the general direction of an oil painting of a man in a pince-nez.

It’s a look I know well. Otto’s not seeing the portrait at all. Rather, he’s focusing on the network of blood veins under his skull. He’s imagining weakened vascular walls bulging out in the telltale star shape, like I have a million times.

“I take him as something of a model, a mentor, somebody worth aspiring to,” Otto continues. “Don’t tell him I said that. He’d be embarrassed—”

“Oh, he thinks the world of you, Otto. He is so impressed with you.”

“He shouldn’t be.”

“What do you mean? Of all people, Otto—even just this week, catching that Brick Slinger …”

Otto nods distantly.

“Is something wrong?”

“I’m sorry. It’s nothing, I’m sure.”

“Do you have a headache?” I touch my head where he’s been touching.

He pulls his white bow tie loose as if he’s not getting enough air. He’s panicking, and fighting not to show it. “Of course, you
are
a nurse,” he says, more to himself than to me. He undoes the studs at the top of his shirt, and then two buttons, which affords me a better view of his thick, solid neck and the sprinkling of dusky hairs on his smooth chest just below. “I don’t want to alarm you, but please know that if I pass out, my precipitating symptoms were prickling sensations on a highly localized area of my head, here”—he touches the area—“and at times a dull pain that seems to pulse. As
a nurse, I think you can appreciate the importance of this information.”

“If you pass out? Otto, what’s wrong? Are your eyes sensitive to light?” This was easy. But then again, he’s a perfectly analogous vessel.

“It’s not a migraine.”

“It’s dull pain, not sharp?”

“For now. No, no, I’m fine.” He leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees, supporting his face on his fingertips. “This is nothing. I simply wanted to tell you in case …”

“I understand,” I say quickly, remembering all the times I embarrassed myself by reporting my symptoms so that they could get relayed to the medical staff once I was unconscious. “I understand. It’s smart of you, Otto. Those sorts of symptoms can be troubling.”

“I know what you’re thinking. That it was your story about your mother. I’ll confess I can be suggestible around vascular maladies.” He looks up. “I hope this conversation stays within medical confidentiality.”

“Of course.” I move over and sit down right next to him on the divan, put a hand on his arm. I’m frightened of him and sorry for him all at the same time, like he’s this dangerous wounded animal. But I have to push him further.

“I don’t know why it’s so intense,” he says. “I’ve had this problem since I was a boy, but—”

“You’ve worried about vein star syndrome since you were a boy?”

“Since I learned what it was. Yes. A boy.”

Just like me, I think. “My mother was worried about them since childhood, too.”

Otto turns to me, naked horror in his eyes. “And then she actually
had
one?”

“Yes. Nobody believed her. I mean, she had all the scans. She’d go to the ER when things seemed dire, but
people believed it was hypochondria. Even she came to believe it. Now there’s new thinking—I probably shouldn’t be telling you this …”

“Please, tell me. Really, Justine. Go on.” He smiles warmly, like nothing’s wrong.

His smile doesn’t fool me; I used to do the same thing—hide my fear in order to get the maximum information from a medical professional. He’s convincing. He’s had plenty of practice, of course.

“Please, do go on,” he says.

“Well, there’s growing evidence that people can intuit their future conditions. A mind-body connection phenomenon.”

Otto looks pale.

“And then there’s the ‘theory of negative visualization’ camp. Specialists who believe that constant meditation on a specific illness can actually
cause
that illness.”

He takes a labored breath.

“I’m so sorry. I hope I’m not scaring you.”

“No, no! I wanted to know.” He takes off his jacket, folds it over the armrest. “You’re saying you know of specialists who say thinking about a disease can create it. …”

I nod. “Theory of negative visualization.”

“Jesus.” Light perspiration covers his neck, his cheekbones. His heart rate, I’m guessing, is significantly elevated.

I ask the waiter for two waters, no ice.

Otto undoes the buttons on his velvet vest; then he undoes his cuffs and rolls up his sleeves to reveal brawny, olive-skinned forearms. He’s descending into a full-blown attack, the same flavor I used to get. Otto feels familiar to me on so many levels. His gaze wanders around the room, then back to me. My guess is that he’s wondering whether he should try to go home now,
while he’s relatively ambulatory, or wait for it to pass and risk having to be helped out.

“I wonder if I need medical attention.”

I stiffen. He’s thinking ER already?

“Oh, Otto …” This is bad. If he goes, it would be logical for me to go along. And once we’re there, he’s sure to ask me questions about machines and hospital procedures—all the things people like us wonder about in the waiting room. And what if he introduced me to the medical professionals as a visiting nurse, and they ask me questions I can’t answer? If they became suspicious of my credentials, he’d see it in their faces.

The waiter delivers the two waters.

“Thank you,” I say, placing one in Otto’s grip. “Drink it. Slowly.”

He complies. “What do you think?”

I take the glass from him. “I think I told you a couple of terribly disturbing things.”

“You were responding to my questions.”

I take his hand and squeeze it. “Look at me.”

He obeys, wanting me to say the magical words—why this couldn’t possibly be vein star syndrome. He’s so vulnerable, it’s hard to picture him murdering people. All I can think of is African elephants, cool and powerful and beautiful. That’s the sense I got from touching the surface of his energy dimension.

“You’re okay, Otto. You do not have a vein star. Do you understand?” He needs more. “I am a highly skilled nurse,” I continue. “I’ve seen hundreds of people with vein stars expanding, leaking, blowing out. You’re not having an episode like that.”

“How do you know?”

“After a while, you just know.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Don’t you have that? As a detective? You arrive on a crime scene and you just know?”

His gaze intensifies.

“I can’t say exactly how I know; I just do. It’s your color, the way you describe your symptoms, your demeanor, your energy. And wow, what a coincidence that I’d tell that disturbing story, and then that very thing happens to you. Especially”—I raise my eyebrows—“when you yourself confessed that you are suggestible in that area.”

Faraway look. I’m losing him.

“Anybody would find what I told you to be disturbing.”

“Not you, Justine. You grew up with unimaginable tragedy and you rose above it and turned your life toward helping others. Not toward an inane obsession with your health.”

I look down, remembering the shame of it all. We have so much in common, it’s difficult to keep him walled off as an enemy. “I worried about it all my life, just like you. Obsessed about it with distressing, debilitating consequences … Otto, I’m no different than you in this.”

He searches my face.

“Honestly,” I say. “In fact, in a contest for who has the most vein star health anxiety here, I would, as they say,
kick your ass.”

Otto laughs a deep, warm laugh that makes me feel wonderful, like there’s a direct line running from his laugh to something good inside me. I should probably take it as a warning. I don’t.

“Believe me,” I continue, “I know what it took for you to tell me your symptoms. The embarrassment versus the risk of presenting at an ER unconscious.”

He closes his eyes. “Exactly.
Exactly.”
I can feel his relief as sure as I can feel his hand under mine. His eyes look even larger closed than open.

“Do let me assure you, Chief Sanchez, that being a
nurse gives you no immunity to the late-night visits to the ER. It certainly never did for me.”

“The late-night visits.” He opens his eyes, smiles slyly. “I always tell people I’ve been called out on a case.”

“Convenient,” I say. It’s suddenly awkward that our hands have been touching for so long. I let go and take up my glass of water. “Have you ever had a positive scan?”

“No. But it’s my understanding that that doesn’t mean anything, considering the way the vein stars expand and contract.”

“That’s the special hell of it.”

“But as a nurse, at least you know how to decipher the information and the spin the doctors put on it.”

“Actually, no. It just adds a new layer of second-guessing and paranoia. As a nurse, I have extra information to be paranoid about.”

Otto smiles. “Oh, forgive me. That is …” He doesn’t have a word for it.

“I know.”

Otto’s warm smile crinkles the edges of his brown eyes. “I’ve never met anyone else who worries about health as I do, who suffers … who knows. You understand.” He says this like it’s this wonderful discovery. “You
know.”

“So do you.” And I smile, because it
is
wonderful.

He shakes his head. “The constant longing to be free of it.”

“The longing to be normal,” I whisper. “A normal person for once.”

“Yes.
Normal
. The quest for normal.” He closes his eyes. “If only for a day.”

I sigh. “And talking and smiling like everything’s okay, even though you can practically feel the blood dribbling down through your cranium.”

He looks at me sideways. “The silent smite.”

“You named it?”

“A bit silly,” he says.

“No, I like it.” The truth.

“You can borrow the name if you like,” he says.

“Maybe I will.” I slide down next to him. “The silent smite. That’s good.” It’s brilliant. The Engineer understands as no one else could.

“Well,
slow and silent smite
might be more accurate,” he adds, “but since I use it only to myself—” He pauses, looks at me. “If you have any ideas for improving the term—”

“It’s perfect as is.”

“Okay, then,” he says.

We say nothing for a minute or so, but it’s an easy, enjoyable silence. Packard’s words echo through in my mind:
If you find yourself feeling too comfortable with him, walk away
. But I don’t want to walk away. This is the Chief Sanchez I always imagined. Better.

“I noticed that you spoke of it in the past tense,” Otto says.

“Did I?” I’m taken aback by his powers of observation.
Had I?

“Do you feel you’re cured, Justine?”

“I wish I was cured. You don’t know how badly I wish for that.”

His gaze softens, brown eyes endlessly sad. “In fact, I do know,” he says quietly.

“Right. Of course you do.” Suddenly I hate lying to him, and I recall, with a wave of regret, how I lied to Cubby. There’s a little bit of Cubby in Otto, I realize. “It never really goes away,” I say. “I just move it around.”

He nods.

I finish my water. I can’t remember when I’ve felt so instantly bonded to a person. I need to walk away. It’s the last thing I want to do, and the one thing I have to do. I point at a grandfather clock in the corner. “Does that thing work?”

He nods. Midnight.