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He looked up as if searching for something in the name, shrugged and gave me a further inquiring glance.
"We went to school together. Went out for a couple of years. When I say 'we' I mean"
"I understand. How did it happen?"
I told him about seeing Travis pass from the restaurant, following him. When he found out that I hadn't eaten anything since that abandoned meal he insisted on fixing a salad and asked, "Did you contact him?"
"Mentally." I shrugged, felt my shoulders sag tiredly. "He felt real. I don't know."
"What are you going to do?"
"See if I can find him, I guess."
"Hm." He pulled out a phone book; nothing. "That's last year's. This is the new one, just came out." He opened a second volume, ran his finger down the list of names. "Leone, Travis. He lives in Cambridge. Moved there at least ten weeks ago, to get his name in the new edition, and not more than a year ago."
"Thanks." I moved pieces of my salad around, nibbled a tomato. "So, how've you been?"
Not that great, as it turned out, and here I was trying to cheer the conversation up a little from daemonic gloves and my own potential nightmares. There had been bad omens and dreams lately; the stock market was in for a major shakeup, and he had a lot of bad feelings about the federal government.
"What about locally?"
"Locally, chaos," he replied somberly. I set my fork down and looked at him steadily while he told me about the frustratingly vague nature of the warnings he was receiving. "Avoid authority" was all he could tell me; he had taken the precaution of erasing his contact information from the police files, though he was willing to meet with Winters in a neutral setting to discuss her fears about my teammate. Some of his warnings, to my startlement, were about Promethean"there are too many layers between himself and what he's showing the rest of you"and he implied that "authoritative" might well apply to our newest teammate, giving me a distinctly uneasy feeling. I have to admit, he does sort of take charge of situations. And he still hasn't answered a real question about himself, or offered a topic of conversation beyond movies and telelvision, which means that, to date, we haven't had a conversation, since the only theater I go to mostly is the Brattle and I don't really watch TV.
A couple days ago I tried to convince Lucky that she should explain herself and her situation to the rest of the team, extend a little trust. She's willing to go into the basics of the Vincent affair, but not to tell them that she used to kill for a living; she doesn't trust Hans. This intimation that she might be right in that worries me.
"Well, I guess we'll keep an eye on Lucky and batten down all hatches, then. Thanks." I took my leave and headed home. As I passed over the dock someone waved at me; a uniformed policeman who had arrived with the picture of Mr. Mort that Cooper had sent along. He's tall, pale, and as far as I can judge from the rather poor photo, doesn't cast a reflection. Oh, not again, I thought.
I got a call from Scott; he had gone to see the Toy Man's sister and gotten some pointers there, then met up with Promethean and spoken with the Lepidopterist's old chums at their weekly poker gamenow that must have been an interesting chat. Now they were going to head over to see Mr. Mort and warn him that his possessions would likely become the target of a robbery soon. Did I want to join them?
"Sure, if you don't think all four of us would be overkill. Where's Lucky?"
"She was asleep upstairs before."
"OK. I'll get her and meet you there."
I headed up and knocked.
"Come in."
I opened the door and saw her sitting up on the bed, removing her headphones. "We're going to pay a visit to Sean Mort. Want to come along?"
"I guess." She blew out the collection of candles which had provided the only light. "Let me get my boots on. Turn on the light?"
I flipped the switch and looked around. Nothing like what I would have imagined, given what I know of her personality and her past. Her window has stained glass in it, a rather old-fashioned depiction of the Virgin Mary looking up at the crowned Christ, and against one wall I saw what could only be a small altar. I knew she was Catholic, but this was a bit of a shocker; after her memory ritual with Chandler she'd been going to church pretty regularly, but I think she's stopped again now.
The bed iswell, the only word for it is sumptuouslots of velvet and satin, many pillows, again pretty far from what I would have expected. Most of one wall is covered by a collection of newspaper clippings and photographs.
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© 1999 Rebecca J. Stevenson
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