Remember the Future (15 page)

“Look it as a down payment for services not yet rendered to generations of tourists you have yet to meet,” Maddy told him.

“Sounds reasonable enough,” he responded, pushing the bill down into the inside pocket of his brown suede jacket.  “Guess I’ll get busy and start with you folks.  Any requests?”

A scruffy-looking man in his thirties shuffled up next to Maddy.  “Bet you twenty bucks I can tell you where you got them shoes.”

“Ah hell, Grimey,” the blues man groaned.  “Why don’t you leave these good people alone?”

“It’s okay.  Tell me,” Maddy said.

“You got them on yo feet,” Grimey replied, giving them a huge laugh and setting his shoulders expectantly as he awaited his reward.

“Double or nothing says I can do that trick for real and tell you where you
actually
got your shoes,” Maddy countered.

“Naw naw naw,” he uttered.  “I’ll just take my money.”

“No no no, Grimey,” the blues man cut him off, two twenties appearing in his hand as if by magic and holding them in the air.  “I got her forty bucks right here.  And Hell!  Since I already know the answer to her question, if she don’t guess right, I’ll tell her anyway just for the fun of watching you squirm!”

“Sure thing, Deacon,” the con man sang out.  “Your money’s good with me.  Take your shot, lady.”

Pausing a moment as if to recall, Maddy looked Grimey directly in the eye and answered, “Last week you stole them from a drunk that passed out on a Jackson Square park bench.”

Deacon, the blues man burst into laughter as Grimey backed away from them urgently--eyes bugging out in wonder.  Finally, he turned to retreat, casting a few suspicious looks back over his shoulder as he disappeared into the crowd.

“Don’t know how you guessed that, but it sure was satisfying to see a man get what’s coming to him,” the blues man said, slapping the two twenties down on the pavement at Maddy’s feet.

“We can’t take that, sir,” Maddy told Deacon.

“Well, you better take it, sunshine,” the blues man shot back.  “You done won that bet fair and square.  Besides, I couldn’t buy me a better story for forty bucks.  Hell, for a hundred you already laid on me, I should have given you his entire rap sheet.”

Maddy traded a look with Grant before scooping the money up.  She started to toss the money in the case, but the old mutt lifted its salt and pepper snout and leveled an almost offended look at her.  Instead, she clutched the money protectively in her fist and rose to her feet.

“Thank you, sir,” she replied, starting away.

“Please, call me Deacon,” the old man responded jovially.  “Now, how about that request?”

Maddy shrugged and looked back at Grant.  “Any Louis Prima will do,” she said casting a playful look back at Grant.

The blues man began to sing “Just a Gigolo” as Grant started after her.  “What just happened here?” he ventured to ask.

“Well, you gave a blind man with a generous nature a hundred dollars, and because I provided him an entertaining story, Fate gave us forty dollars change,” she replied.  Then considering the two twenties she still held, she corrected herself.  “Personally, I consider it more than Fate.”

She pocketed the cash.

“Hey, I know better.  That wasn’t just a wild guess.  How did you know about the shoes without his ever telling you?” he asked as he caught up to her.

“That’s the thing, though.  He
did
tell me.  Or he
would
have told me.  He said so himself.  Remember?”

Grant considered a moment before shaking his head in confusion.  “Nope.”

“Okay, follow the yellow brick road of logic.  I would have lost that bet.  I just learned from my mistake before I made it.”

“So, you changed reality,” Grant shot back.

“Well, if you want to get technical,” she concluded, grabbing Grant’s arm and linking hers around his.  “The generosity of strangers never ceases to amaze me.  It’s folks like Deacon that are protecting us right now.  This crowd is our shield.”

20

Just as an elderly couple rose from their seats beneath the covered patio of the famous Café Du Monde, Maddy and Grant slid into their still warm seats, setting down the two paper cartons of beignets and two cups of jet-black chicory coffee freshly ordered from the windows.

Maddy dumped the change she received in the center of the table and considered it.

“It’s kind of amazing when you think about it,” Grant said, taking a bite of his beignet and washing it down with coffee.  “We meant to give away every penny to that man and still managed to get coffee and beignets.  We even got some change out of it.”

Maddy held a beignet up and eyed it as if it were made of gold.  “‘Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?’”  She took a huge bite and closed her eyes in ecstasy.

Grant narrowed his eyes at her and shook his head.  Despite how hungry he was, he set the fried dough back down in its container and pushed it aside.

“What?” Maddy asked, opening her eyes.

“Too sweet for me.”  Looking away from Maddy in obvious irritation, Grant wiped the sugar off of his hands with a napkin and grumbled, “Were you raised in a convent or something?”

“No, Grant, I was not.  I was raised in Florida by Mr. and Mrs. Murphy,” she replied plainly, assessing him patiently.  “My folks weren’t the church-going type.”

“Can we talk about something else, please?” Grant snapped, tossing the wadded napkin to the table.

“Oh, I see.  Never discuss religion, politics, or the Great Pumpkin, right?”

Grant stared down at his coffee.

“I guess this is the first opportunity we’ve actually had to talk about something other than a direction to run.”

“And there’s been little discussion on that topic lately,” he interjected grumpily.

“We’re safe for the moment, Grant.  Deal with it,” Maddy told him, finishing her last beignet and eying Grant’s untouched stash.  After a brief hesitation, he slid his beignets over to her.

“So, you’re from Florida originally?”

Maddy smiled.  “You have been listening,” she replied, reaching out and attempting to wipe the powdered sugar from his lips.  “It’s hard take a man in makeup seriously.”

Snatching the napkin from her, Grant swiped the powdered sugar from his face.

“You have family back there?” he asked.

Maddy stopped chewing and wiped the sugar off her own face.  “No,” she stated simply.  “Not anymore.”

Crowd noise settled around them as they grew quiet.  Maddy sighed heavily and glared at the beignets as if they’d just threatened her with bodily harm.  “Yeah.  Too sweet,” she muttered.

“Look, Maddy, I didn't mean to...”

Maddy straightened in her seat, her eyes locking on Grant’s.  “When I say that the men who are following us are capable of murder, I am speaking from experience.”

Grant’s eyes slowly moved back to her and remained patiently silent as Maddy struggled with whatever she wanted--no needed--to say.

“They killed my family. Murdered them all.”

Someone dropped a glass bottle a few tables away and cursed.

Grant stared at her with wide eyes.

“They held me at this facility just outside of Georgia.  They told me if I tried to escape, they'd kill them all,” Maddy continued, her eyes never leaving Grant’s.  “That’s how they were able to get me to cooperate for so long.  But eventually, I discovered the truth.  They had killed them a short time after they had kidnapped me.”

Unable to maintain eye-contact any longer, Grant looked down to the careworn hands folded upon the tabletop, registering their condition for the first time.  For a young woman still in her mid-twenties, she had the hands of a forty year old.

He could muster no words of comfort for her.  “God, Maddy,” was all he could manage.

“But they didn't tell me right away.  They sent Jeremy’s high school football scores and the improvements Daddy was making to the kitchen. They tried to make me believe that everyone was so supportive. Like I was in summer camp.”

“I'm so sorry,” he managed in a small voice, his eyes finding her face again.

“Daddy…” she began then stopped abruptly when the emotion got the better of her.  She took a deep hitching breath and continued.  “He was the one who liked Louis Prima and Chicago.”  She laughed through the tears that streamed down her face.  “He used to play it so loud that the house would shake with the sound of that brass.”  She closed her eyes and put her hands over her ears.  “But it was like a sanctuary of sound, y’know?  A strong protective wall.  Just like Daddy.”  She opened her eyes and dragged a sleeve across her face in irritation.  “I guess Sadie read me like a book,” she chuckled.

Grant studied her with a fresh perspective.

“There were even pictures of them sent to me.  It was so... grotesque what they did, so creatively evil, that I began to think that these people weren't human. Maybe they were demons. Maybe I was in Hell. Maybe I'm being punished.”

Gamblin’,
Grant could Sadie say clearly in his head. 
That’s your demon, is it?

Grant nodded, feeling guilty for all the moments he may have harbored ill will toward the girl sitting with him.  Here he was thinking that he was a victim of circumstance when, unlike her, he had brought everything down on himself.  “Sounds familiar,” he muttered.

“Are you still married, Grant?”

Grant just stared expressionlessly at Maddy.

She reached out and touched his ring finger and he twitched slightly but managed not to withdraw his hand.  “I never asked before because I know it's none of my business.”

Grant lowered his head, nibbling his lip slightly. For the first time, the possibility of sharing the source of his pain occurred to him as a possibility.

Maddy blinked and sucked in a breath, her eyes going out of focus.

She knew.

What he had just witnessed was an honest reaction on her part.  She had reacted as if he had uttered the actual words instead of conceiving the thought.

Despite that, he knew he had to say it aloud.  After all, it was a foregone conclusion now, wasn’t it?  If she knew now, then he must eventually tell her, right?

The unassailable logic paired with the implausibility of the thing made his temple throb.

If nothing else he had experienced today had already convinced him of these abilities that she claimed, this singular moment did.

Grant felt a sudden heat around the edges of his eyes and he fought to maintain control over his emotions as he formed the words.

“She was murdered by Rudy’s boss.  A man named Arturo Torres,” he told her.

When he looked up again, Maddy wore a shocked expression, her face pale, but just below that surface he could see that she wasn’t completely surprised.  In fact, her expression seemed to say:
Now it makes sense.  Now I understand
.

She waited patiently for him to elaborate, but he returned to his coffee instead.

After a while, Maddy realized that there would be no more.

“Was she your soul mate, Grant?”

Grant patiently collected his thoughts, trying to pull them into a shape that resembled words.  It had been a long, long time since he’d attempted to articulate his feelings to a woman, any woman.

“I didn't know I was capable of being a man until I found her,” he finally told her.  “Since she died, nothing in my life has made sense.”

Including the last two days
, Grant contemplated darkly.

Grant dragged the container of beignets back over to his side of the table and began to eat again until he had finished them all.  After he had wiped his face, he realized that she had been watching him the whole time with a sad smile on her face.

“I think the key to finding your soul mate is finding someone who is like a family member you've never met.  When you do, it's like, ‘Oh, it's you. I remember you now.’”  After a moment, she lowered her eyes.  “I’ve never found anyone like that,” she lied.

She peered up to see if he’d bought her thinly veiled deception, but he simply stared in a thoughtful stupor down at the empty beignet container.  Had he even heard her?

Gazing at the man before her, she recognized that he was losing himself in memories, slipping further and further away from her.  But she couldn’t allow that.  She needed him.  For her own survival and…

Examining her feelings she realized, that what she was feeling was actual jealousy.  Not a general kind of jealousy at the fact that she had never had a relationship as passionate as theirs had seemed to be.

But instead, that the other woman had had
him
.  This man sitting before her.

Oh no
, she thought. 
How could I let this happen?  I tried to be careful.

Then the answer came back to her.

Of course, you’ve developed feelings.  He’s your lifeline.  You’ve been relying on him since you left Houston.  It’s natural that you formed a bond with him.  But you have to realize that this is simply your survival instinct kicking in.  Nothing more.

Maddy took a long drink of her coffee and tried to subdue the feelings of envy rising within her heart.  “What was her name?” she said a little too accusatorily.

Grant looked up after a few moments as if regaining consciousness.  “Lara.  Her name was Lara.”

“Tell me about her?”

This other woman.

“She was five six. Dark hair.”

“Something private, Grant.”  Then when she realized that she had asked with a bit of a tone to her voice, she added, “Please.”

His eyes came unfocused and he stared beyond her.

He’s looking through me
, she realized. 
As if I’m not even here.

“She used to trace words on my arm with her finger when a dinner date with other couples got too boring,” he told her.  “She always seemed to know the exact moment when my tolerance was at its breaking point.”

Maddy watched Grant with a sad smile until his eyes eventually refocused on her face.  “Would she have found me a boring date, Grant?”

Grant gave a little ironic chuckle.  “No, you would have been a memorable one, Maddy.”

“Thank you,” she said, reaching out to touch his arm but drawing just short.

What the hell is wrong with you,
she questioned herself.
  Nothing has changed between you both.  If you start acting erratically, you’ll only give him a reason to leave.

He’d never do that
, she answered herself.

“Well, that explains why you still wear it,” she said, pointing at his ring finger.

He examined it at a distance and gave a sad smile.  “You see now why you bet on the wrong horse?”

“No,” she said resolutely, “I didn’t.”

“Well, then you’re naïve… and wrong,” he answered, looking away.

She wanted to tell him how romantic he was.  That his image of a broken down horse was seen by her instead as a chivalrous steed.  But all that sounded only beautiful echoing through her exhausted mind, swollen with emotion.  She knew the moment the words left her mouth they would sound hallow and infantile.  So, she keep her silence.

“I wish that was all there was,” he replied with a deep sigh.  “Oh, don’t get me wrong, there was no shortage of romance.  But the reason I wear the ring is to never forget.”

The way he said the words “never forget” felt bitterly cold to her.

There was a dread to her voice when she finally asked the question: “Never forget what?”

“That I was the reason she was murdered,” he stated bluntly, his eyes meeting hers.  “Because I was addicted to gambling.  Torres entered our lives because of me.”

It was exactly as Sadie had warned her.

Death has taken his soul a long time ago and he's been courting it like a jilted lover ever since
. 
Sugah, that man just ready to die.

Now she felt like an idiot for dredging up the memory just when he was starting to act like a human being.  Served her right, she thought, for being selfish enough to want to know his past.  About Lara.

Well, it was too late to take it back now.  It was as good a time as any to address the elephant in the room.

“Grant?”

The way she said his name triggered an alarm somewhere in his soul.  “What?”

“Do you
want
to die?”

Grant stared blankly at her, feeling like a child caught messing with something dangerous that he knew he shouldn’t have touched.

She could see that he was calculating the best way to lie to her.  “After everything we’ve been through, the least you can do is be honest with me,” she shot, injecting a bit of venom into her tone.  “Once I’m out of the picture, you’re going to go right back to slowly poisoning yourself, aren’t you?”

Grant lowered his eyes.  “I don’t want to talk about this.”