Mind Games (34 page)

After our waiter pours the wine, Otto offers a toast to our imaginary curtain guy, and he peppers me with questions about my intentions to search for a new nursing position in Midcity. It’s an easy conversation to have because I know a little bit about every area hospital.

Otto tells me the Ciappo’s building was constructed over a century ago as a funeral parlor for a secret brotherhood. “The processions came through here,” he says. “The services were held in the larger area up where we came in. They held them in some odd language.”

“Is architectural history one of your hobbies?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

Just then our first course comes: spiced breads and baby vegetables. It’s so delicious that I decide I should wait until after dinner to zing him, because if he’s anything like me, he’ll lose his appetite once he’s in an attack. And we might have to leave prematurely.

A dish of bruschetta and olives arrives next, followed by roasted artichoke hearts with cheeses, nuts, and capers. We talk and laugh and feast.

During a pause in our jolliness, Otto falls silent and puts his fingers together, just the tips, like something’s wrong. I bite my lip, studying his brown beret, which is nearly the same rich chestnut shade as his hair.

“What’s
your
motto, Justine?” he asks.

“I don’t have one.”

“Everybody needs a motto.”

“I can see why you’d need one, Otto, but I’m more of an everyday person.”

He laughs his wonderful laugh. “Come, come, Justine. That’s the last thing you are.”

I give him my most neutral expression. “What do you mean by that?”

“You know exactly what I mean. Let’s think of a motto for you. Tell me, what exactly is your goal here?”

I freeze. Is he toying with me? Would a normal person say that?

I’m saved by the arrival of our next course: crepes filled with caramelized onions and chardonnay jelly.

I focus wholeheartedly on the food. “This is one of the most delicious things I’ve ever eaten,” I say, anxiously rerunning his words.
Not an everyday person … What exactly is your goal here?
Why did I let myself get so comfortable?

“Do you think you’re getting out of the motto discussion?”

“Honestly, Otto, what would I do with a motto?”

“A motto guides you. It’s something to refer back to in times of decision and dilemma. A kind of touchstone. Everybody should have one.”

“Okay, let me think.” I put down my fork, resigned to playing along, whatever this is. “My goals tend to change, is the thing,” I say, opting for the simple truth. “My goal used to be peace of mind, being that I was tortured by constant health worries. But later, I suppose it evolved into peace of mind within cocoonlike comfort.” I’m thinking of my hoped-for life with Cubby, and I’m surprised that it’s lost some of its luster. “That’s not a very noble goal, is it? Just to feel serenity for once.”

“It’s a very human, very hopeful goal. It’s my goal for the citizens I protect. But I suspect you desire more than that. Perhaps your current life purpose relates to being a nurse.”

“Hmmm.” I press the side of my fork into a fat section of crepe. Jelly and onions squish over the whisper-thin pastry. I bring the morsel to my mouth, savor its bright, warm sweetness, just a hint of rosemary. Am I overreacting? Maybe this is a normal conversation.

“What moved you to become a nurse? Compassion?”

I turn the question over in my mind.

He says, “Perhaps your motto could be, ‘To help and heal the citizenry.’ What do you think of that?”

“That doesn’t really fit. That’s more the goal of the medical community.” I’m starting to become more interested in the motto idea now. Why not? Why shouldn’t I have a motto?

Otto looks happy. He’s a pretty fun date when you forget about his evil nature. He looks at me a little bit sideways. “Start with what you want. What is your heart’s ideal?”

I ponder this privately. I want to be free from worrying about my health, and free from Packard, of course;
that’s the main thing. And I want people to be free from fear. And in spite of my lingering reservations, I sometimes feel sort of good about being a disillusionist, especially since Foley’s transformation. I like that my pathetic existence could actually have a positive effect on Midcity. I play with different words in my head, switching combinations.

“You have an idea. It’s all over your face.”

I put down my fork. “This will be a two-part motto.” I go back over it in my mind. I want him to like it, I realize.

“Out with it.”

“Okay.” I take a breath and raise my hands as if to frame it in the space between us. “Promoting freedom and transformation.”

He gets a serious look, seems to roll it around in his mind, to savor it. “Very interesting,” he says finally. “Tell me more.”

Obviously I don’t tell him about being a minion of Packard, but I talk about other freedom-related aspects. Like how hypochondria, and really any disease, keeps you from being free—physically free, and free of fear, too.

He nods vigorously. He understands.

Freedom from fear of crime is a bit part of my goal, too, but I don’t say that. “As for the transformation part, if I do my job well, the person I’m working with goes out better than they came in.” This last works for a nurse or a disillusionist.

Again Otto is silent, and I wonder if he has a problem with that part. Then he shakes his head. “‘Promoting freedom and transformation.’ That is absolutely magnificent.”

I grin, way bigger than I should. “You think so? Are you sure you’re not just saying that?”

“No. It’s simple. Genuine. Powerful.” He has that
gaze of discovery again, and it makes me feel special. “Freedom and transformation—it’s good for an individual, and it’s something society as a whole strives for, assuming transformation is positive, which I suppose I do.”

This is what I’d imagine the old Otto saying, the Otto who believes in making things better.

“I love your motto,” he says.

I feel my face flash red. “Thanks, Otto. And you know what? I love having a motto. My motto could apply to any situation and any area of my life.”

“As a good motto should.” Otto gives me a mischievous look. “It’s almost as excellent as mine.”

I laugh and kick him lightly under the table.
“Almost
as excellent as yours?”

“Almost.”

I kick him again, and this time he’s ready: he grasps my ankle and lifts it onto his knee. I catch my breath. Time slows and simmers as he slides his hand, little by little, up and under my pant leg, resting it on my bare calf, sending effervescence though my pelvis.

“Is this okay?” he asks.

It’s so okay, and so not. My mind fuzzes out. “Yes,” I say.

Slowly he slides his hand back, touches my foot through the spaces in my sandal. The charge between us builds, thick and humid, and his sociopathic status matters less and less. It’s here I know I should walk away. For real.

His fingers move, teasingly light on my instep. He’s removing my sandal. “Is this okay?”

I can’t breathe, and I don’t have an answer.

He holds my gaze with his. My sandal clatters to the floor, and the next thing I know, he’s exploring the tenderest parts of my foot; the subtle way he moves his fingers is stunningly erotic.

“The feet are the most ignored erogenous zone in our culture,” he says.

“Aah,” I manage to say.

Waiters appear, plates are removed, and still he keeps my foot, like it’s his own thing now. I don’t want him to give it back.

More wine is poured, but I’m drunk on the feeling of the Engineer’s fingers sliding slowly and wantonly around my foot, and sometimes my calf. His communication could not be clearer:
sleeping with him would be an absolutely mind-blowing experience
. At least that’s what I’m getting out of it. I look around at the other diners, grateful the tablecloths hang low. This definitely isn’t the sort of interaction Packard had in mind.

“So what made you think of getting a motto?” I ask this mostly to get him talking, because I need to collect myself. I remind myself that he’s smarter than the Alchemist. And he has my foot. And I don’t want it back.

“Oh, it’s a very long story.”

“Tell me,” I say. “I want to know.”

He gets this crooked
What the hell
smile. Then, “Just between us?”

“I give you my word.”

He strokes my sole with his thumb. “Back when I was younger, I made this decision to change the course of my life. …”

I smile. “One of those.”

“Yes,” he whispers. He seems very serious suddenly. “I wanted to make something of myself, hone my skills—”

“Your crime-fighting skills?”

“In a sense. But the wisdom I sought wasn’t to be found in any sort of school. So I set off trekking around the world by boat, train, camel. I visited remote villages and enclaves on every continent.”

“Wow.”

Otto goes on to tell a travel tale full of interesting people and shocking hardships. He keeps his hand on my foot as he speaks—a warm, live presence. He describes his eventual arrival in the remote cave region of the Vindahar mountain range where he apprenticed with a master sage.

“Are you telling me you learned about crime fighting from a master sage in a cave?”

“I learned how to better use my powers of observation, and to become more …” He searches for the word. “More effective. And that’s where I determined my purpose in life, and my motto.”

“How long did you study with him?”

He leans in slightly. “Over a decade.”

I raise my eyebrows. “Gosh.”

“This isn’t something I publicize, you know. As far as public record goes, I was just traveling. The truth is, well, a bit exotic for people. I don’t know why I’m telling you. I feel as though I know you. …”

The zing, I think.

“And I feel like I can count on your confidentiality.”

“Of course you can,” I say. “A decade in a cave and a master sage. That
could
sound a tad exotic.”

“You wouldn’t have recognized me when I walked out of there. I had hair to here—” He indicates a spot near his elbow. “A big, thick, long beard.” He draws his hand down from his chin, completing the motion with a flourish that could only indicate a curl on the very end. My heart nearly jumps out of its socket as I picture Otto with long hair and a beard with a curl at the end. And no hat. It’s a face I know well. It’s
the
face. I bolt my attention to the tablecloth.

Henji.

He draws a fingernail across the tender underside of my foot, releasing a wave of shivers that sail clear
through me. I think back on everything Rickie had told us. Packard and Henji as abandoned boys, living with other boys in an abandoned school. The epic battle between the two of them, and Henji leaving on a ship at the age of eleven.

“When I finally arrived at the guest house on the edge of the Moolon Basin and caught sight of myself in a steel-slab mirror, it was a shock.” He laughs.

I don’t.

“Justine?”

“That’s such an amazing story,” I effuse. Henji and Otto Sanchez, one and the same. Of course! I meet his eyes, praying my terror doesn’t show. “I never knew anybody who did such a thing.”

There’s this weird silence.

“I can count on your confidence …”

“Of course. It’s incredible, that’s all. All the places you were, and … I feel like I haven’t been anywhere,” I say stupidly. “In fact, I haven’t. Except Canada.”

“Canada’s somewhere.”

I nod fervently. “Oh, Canada’s wonderful.” The more I look at him, the more obvious it is that he’s the face. How could I not have seen it? I slip my foot out of his hand and locate my shoe on the floor beneath the table, manage a smile. “Could you excuse me for a moment?”

He rises. “Certainly.”

I take my purse and proceed, in a stunned fog, toward the front, near where I’d spied the rest rooms. I duck into a corner near a plant and pull out my phone.

Shelby answers. A lot of talking in the background. “Where are you?” I ask.

“Delites,” she says.

“Don’t say it’s me.”

“Okay.”

“Shelby—” I don’t even know what to say.

“Where are you?”

“A little place called Ciappo’s. Where I’ve been enjoying a five-course Italian meal with Henji.”

“What?”

I explain to her that the Engineer is Chief Sanchez. I wasn’t supposed to tell anybody, but I don’t care anymore.

She laughs incredulously.

“Shelby, Sanchez is the Engineer, okay? And I’m at dinner with him, and I always thought he looked familiar, and we just had this whole conversation where he told me he went off at a young age to travel the world and he emerged from his whole wisdom-quest thing with long hair and long beard with a curl on the end, just like on the faces. And now it’s so obvious—it’s his nose … it’s him. I don’t know what to do. He’s the face. Henji’s fingerprint is his own face of ten years ago when he emerged from some cave and—”

“I am going out door right now. Give me address.”

I grab a matchbook off the bar and give her the address. “It’s this basement place. Easy to miss. Just walk through like you’re looking for somebody and stop and say hi. See what you think; maybe I’m going crazy. I’ve got to get back.” I look around. “Hurry.”

My many years of smiling and pretending nothing is wrong while secretly freaking out—years of
silent smites
, as Otto calls them—come in handy as I take my seat across from him.

He tilts his head. “Is everything all right?”

“Oh, yes. Very much.” I smile and sip some wine. And then some more.
I create and my nemesis destroys
, Packard had said.

“I’m so fascinated, Otto. You must have been quite young when you set off.”

“I was just a boy,” he says.

“So the world was your classroom.”

“Yes,” he says.

I cajole him into telling me more and he complies, describing how he lived on bark and roots, carrying out impossible trials set for him by the master sage. Keeping him talking is the best way to handle him right now.

“The experience helped to expand my sense of what’s possible in a life.” Otto settles back, wine in hand. “I came back and joined the force, worked up to detective. My first case was of a homicide connected to a diamond necklace.” He proceeds to tell a story full of surprising turns and red herrings, and he tells it enchantingly.