Trifecta (81 page)

Omar sat and watched her without expression as she put
on her clothes.  When he spoke, it was totally without emotion.  "Perhaps I
rushed you?  There's no need to do anything tonight.  Maybe we can see each other
tomorrow evening."

"I don't know," Michelle said.  The awareness
of what would happen tonight had been an understanding implicit between them, almost
like a disavowed promise she had made, to him and to herself.  She felt like a failure.

"The scar doesn't detract from your beauty,"
Omar said.

Michelle smiled at him sadly.

Later that night she cried herself to sleep.  What she
had feared was finally proven true.  She would never be a normal woman again.

Omar paced the living room for a few minutes like
a caged animal as he waited for the arrival of his vassal, Ginger.  He had called
her, the second night in a row, for the purpose of ridding himself of the sexual
tension created by Michelle. 

This woman, Michelle, was proving more of a problem than
he had anticipated.  Usually women melted after a ride in his helicopter. 

He had to soften her up.  And what better way to do so
than with a darling, innocent pet?

M
ichelle heard the early-morning knock and opened
the door, bleary eyed, expecting Heather with her empty coffee cup.  Instead, Omar
was standing in her doorway, impeccable as usual.  Michelle felt disheveled and
messily unattractive in an old robe covering her pajamas, with no makeup and her
hair tied in the ponytail she wore at night.

"Good morning."  His smile was calculatingly
brilliant, but she missed it entirely because she was looking at an adorable kitten. 
It was fuzzy white with a tiny pink triangular nose.  The eyes were like blue porcelain,
the whiskers and eyelashes coal black.

"This little guy is Lucifer," Omar said.  "I'm
only going to be gone one night.  I was wondering if you could take care of him?"

Omar smiled because Michelle was already reaching out her
arms.

"I'll be at work all day."  Michelle petted the
tiny creature, who was rubbing his head under her hand.

"He's used of my absence during the day.  But I worry
when I'm gone all night."

After Omar left, Michelle carried the kitten into the kitchen
along with a bag of cat food Omar had provided.  "Are you hungry, Lucifer? 
Maybe a nice saucer of milk.  You couldn't be more than a few weeks old with all
that darling fuzzy hair."

Michelle continued talking to the cat as she took milk
out of the refrigerator and warmed it, testing every few seconds with her finger. 
Lucifer prowled the floor.  His tiny tail lashed back and forth as he daintily sniffed
the milk.  He swatted the dish.

"Okay,"  Michelle said, wiping up the spill. 
"Maybe Omar feeds you something else."

She looked into the paper bag, examining a plastic bowl
inside.  It contained some kind of organ meat, like liver.  It looked bloody and
smelled strange but Michelle put some in a bowl.  Omar had advised her not to cook
it, but it was raw and revolting so she put it in the microwave.

Lucifer whacked the dish across the kitchen floor with
a dainty paw.

Michelle finally put the raw stuff in another bowl, wondering
why Heather hadn't arrived.  She was usually here by six.  As Michelle watched the
miniature cat eat, laughing at how it growled furiously, shaking each piece in his
mouth, and then ravenously gobbled it, she called Heather.  Again, no answer."If
you're getting laid, I hope you eventually exhaust yourself and call your answering
machine.  I'm getting worried."

Michelle practiced karate for an hour, really working up
a sweat, while the tiny kitten watched her with unblinking, concentrated attention,
like a serious owl.  Then she tried Heather again before showering and changing
for work.

"You better call me soon.  You have to come over and
see this kitten Omar gave me for the night.  It's darling, but it doesn't play. 
Just sits and watches me.  Anyway, call me at work.  We have to talk.  I'm moving
to Japan."

Michelle thought that message would impel Heather to respond,
but when she looked at her watch later, at the office, it was almost one in the
afternoon.  Really worried, she decided to use her lunch hour to go back to the
condominium and use the key Heather had given her.  They had traded keys ages ago,
for emergency purposes.  Nether had an occasion to use the other's before.  But
Heather had sustained a serious concussion.  Now she was missing.

Nakamura popped into her office.  "If you haven't
eaten yet, let's get lunch.  I want to tell you about living in Japan and your new
position."

When Michelle explained why she wanted to go back to her
apartment building, Nakamura insisted on driving her.  They could talk on the way
and pick up a sandwich.

Nakamura escorted her into a big black Lincoln limousine
in the parking garage and got behind the wheel.  "I hate these enormous boats. 
Heroshi insists, for insurance reasons.  Also, I love racing cars.  My boss won't
let me near a little sports car when I travel on business."  He propelled out
of the underground parking lot at breakneck speed, skidding around curves in enormous
controlled four-wheeled slides, into warm Hawaiian sunshine.  Michelle laughed and
held on.

"I haven't even visited the beach this trip." 

"Because of all the disasters in my department,"
Michelle murmured.

"That's okay.  But it's very strange.  Almost like
all the buildings got bewitched or something, the way everything happened at once. 
Which reminds me.  You'll have to find a replacement for your job here."

Michelle nodded.  She had to face the realities of moving
to a foreign country and finding a place to live, when she hardly spoke the language. 
It was suddenly daunting.

"Don't worry about where to live at first," Nakamura
said, almost as though he had read her thoughts, driving from the downtown area
toward Waikiki, scaring the tourists.  "Heroshi owns several condominiums. 
You can live in one of them until you get to know the Tokyo area."

When he quoted her new salary Nakamura laughed at her astonishment. 
"Even without paying rent, Tokyo is one of the most expensive cities to live
in, in the world.  Your salary is  nice, but not as outrageous as it sounds."

Michelle sat in silence, digesting the information Nakamura
imparted about living in the Japanese culture.  He thought she would be fine because
she had beautiful manners and spoke softly.  She'd been learning the language, but
decided she would have to be much more diligent, even though most of the people
working for Heroshi spoke English.  Nakamura said he thought she should make the
move in a couple of weeks.

When they arrived at her building, Michelle took Nakamura
to her own apartment to wait while she went to check Heather's.  As they entered
Michelle's apartment, the tiny white cat, Lucifer, was at the door.  He backed away
from them as they entered.  He was growling and spitting.  The kitten's back was
hunched up and his tail swished back and forth as he retreated before them.

"This is my neighbor's kitten.  I'm taking care of
him for the night."  Michelle was surprised at the cat's hostile behavior.

"I don't think the cat likes..." was all Nakamura
got out. The diminutive cat had pounced on his shoe and was furiously pulling on
his shoe strings with tiny sharp teeth.  Then the cat ran straight up his leg, using
it's sharp claws for purchase, as though climbing a tree.

"Lucifer!"  Michelle, shocked, reached to grab
the kitten, but he had made his way up the jacket of Nakamura's business suite and
was staring right into his eyes.  The kitten spit directly in his face.  That was
staggering enough, but the cat also started a high pitched howling yowl, like a
female cat in heat, as though preparing to attack.

The yowl meandered down range to a furious low growl by
the time Michelle finally pulled it off of Nakamura's coat, which it had adhered
to with tiny sharp claws like a clinging burr.

Michelle took the kitten into her bedroom and put it on
her bed.  "Now you have to stay here."

She quickly walked out of the bedroom and closed the door,
but she wasn't fast enough.  The kitten leapt off the bed and streaked through the
closing door.  It was again upon Nakamura,  started up his leg.  As he tried to
intercept the cat on its way up toward his face, it swiped with unsheathed claws
on his hand, raking bloody furrows.

Michelle plucked the kitten off Nakamura as it was swiping
toward his eyes.  This time it bit at her and struggled when she took it back to
the bedroom.  The cat wasn't soft and cuddly anymore, it felt heavy and hard, composed
of sturdy squirming muscles.  She softly threw it on the bed.  She slammed the door.

When Michelle came back into the living room, Nakamura
was covering his scratches with Kleenex.  "Animals usually like me." 
He looked stunned.

"I'm very sorry.  Omar didn't tell me the kitten would
attack strangers."

Michelle went into her bathroom and got a bottle of peroxide
and some wash cloths.  "I mean, it's so small.  Who would ever think it would
behave like that?" 

When she saw the amount of blood, she took Nakamura into
her bathroom to wash off the hand before flooding it with peroxide.

"I can do that," Nakamura said.

"Let me.  I feel guilty as hell."

Nakamura laughed and allowed her to tend to the deep scratches.

"That was downright scary," Michelle said, when
she had finished disinfecting.

"You said its name is Lucifer?"

"Yes," Michelle said, frowning at her handiwork
and then going into the bottom cabinet for bandages.

"Very apt.  A little devil."

"Is your leg all right?"

"No.  But I'm not going to take off my pants right
now," Nakamura said, smiling.  "Hurts like hell."

"You better disinfect the puncture marks.  Little
cats scratch in their sandboxes and everything.  I want to go over to Heather's,
anyway."

Michelle left him in the bathroom and went down the hallway.
She knocked and then waited a while.  Finally she used her key, feeling like a thief
as she went into the deserted hallway that led to the living room.  Heather was
an abnormally neat person, but Michelle felt like she was entering an empty apartment
because there were absolutely no sounds whatsoever.  No air movement.  She felt
silly when she found herself tiptoeing into the kitchen and she walked more naturally
from there to the bathroom.  All was neat and scrubbed as if no one lived there. 
If Heather had been planning to go anywhere there were no overt signs, like makeup
on the bathroom counter or clothes strewn over the side of the bathtub, as in her
own typical mess.

Michelle felt guilty and unnatural being there without
her friend and quickly entered the bedroom so she could glance in and leave.  She
stopped dead in the doorway. 

Heather was lying on the bed, on her back, with her head
tilted back over the edge, her long blond hair flowing almost to the floor. 

Knowing you're not supposed to move a person in case of
injury, Michelle ran to Heather, picked up her head gently, and moved it so it wasn't
hanging over the side so unnaturally.  Her own heart was banging so fast she could
hardly breath.  Finally  she could see that Heather was alive.  Michelle whispered
Heather's name a few times, anxiously.

Heather opened her eyes, smiled momentarily when she recognized
Michelle, and then closed them.  There was a nasty smell in the clean room and Michelle
looked down.  She was standing in a puddle of vomit.

Shit, Michelle thought, Heather should have stayed in the
hospital.  She must be having complications from the concussion.  Michelle reached
for the bedside phone to dial 911, while gently shaking her friend's shoulder. 
When she missed the telephone receiver, she looked around at the bedside table. 
Her hand paused on the phone.  There was one paper on the night stand by the phone. 
It was a lab report.  There were complicated white blood cell counts and other medical
terms.  The outlined words that leaped out were on the bottom:  Leukemia, positive.

The other item on the night stand was a bottle of pills. 
Michelle couldn't make out the name of the medicine, but the directions were clear: 
Take at night, only as directed.

As Michelle talked on the phone, ordering an ambulance,
Heather groaned and blinked.  "I feel like shit."

Michelle looked at her friend.  Evidently Heather was coming
around.  She stepped out of her shoes, striding over the place where Heather had
vomited and ran to the bathroom to get a wet towel.

"Did you order an ambulance?"  Heather asked
as Michelle put the towel on her forehead.

"Yes."

"Cancel it.  I'm fine."

"No, you're not!  You've been asleep at least twenty-four
hours.  And it looks like you took some sleeping pills."

"No, I didn't."

"Look here."  Michelle held up the bottle.  There
was one pill left at the bottom.

"I don't take them.  They make me feel brain damaged
the next day."  Heather groaned and turned over.  She reached out and poured
the one pill, a big yellow tablet into her palm.  "Really, I didn't take any
pills.  Even with the bad news."  Heather took a big breath and shook her head. 
"You know, the worse part is that I'm going to lose all my hair again.  I hate
that.  They used to call me baldly."

Michelle felt like crying for a minute, Heather sounded
so sad and she bit her lip and blinked furiously.  Then she looked at the pill Heather
was holding in her hand.

"You can't take those things," Michelle said,
realizing that Heather really couldn't have swallowed them.  They were much too
big, judging from the size of the one that was left.

"Of course not.  I just went to sleep after I got
that notice in the mail."

"This is the way they tell you?"  Michelle wanted
to be angry and pounced on the hospital and all doctors in general.  "Fuckers."

"It is odd.  Usually a doctor calls with disasters
like this."  She picked up the lab report and said, shit and damn a few times. 
Then she wondered about the horrible smell.

"You threw up."

Heather tilted her head over the side of the bed.  "Whew. 
Well.  I did take the pills.  Look.  There's little yellow pieces in the mess. 
But I don't remember.  And would you please cancel that ambulance.  They'll put
me in a psycho ward." 

Michelle watched Heather get up with surprising energy.

"Where are you going?" 

"Lysol spray.  And lots of soap.  My beautiful
bedroom will never smell the same."  She hurried out of the room after
opening all the windows.

Michelle called 911 and said she had made a mistake.  Then
she took the lab report and called the number under the address.  She asked for
the person in charge of the cancer lab.  She waited and watched Heather clean her
rug.  When she finally got an officious sounding nurse on the line, she related
the circumstances of receiving the lab report.  She wanted to know if they made
such a barbaric practice of informing their patients when they contracted a serious
disease.  She was told to wait.  The woman was checking her computer.