08 Illusion (24 page)

It was self-serving, he knew, but he asked, “May I ask when you were born?”

She had to think a moment. “Umm, January fifteenth, 1991.”

Mandy’s birthday except for the year. He tried and failed to hide how that caught his attention. “January fifteenth?”

She nodded and reemphasized, “1991.”

“Where?”

She made a face as if she didn’t get the point of the question. “Spokane.”

“Are your parents still around?”

“No. They’ve both passed away.”

Something told him he was being silly. Maybe he was. “What were their names?”

“Arthur and Eloise. I was named after my mother.”

That hit him in the stomach, and he knew it showed. “Arthur and Eloise?” He would have touched her had it been appropriate, just to be sure she was there. He shook his head ever so slightly before he realized it and stopped.

She saw his reaction, and her eyes filled with … it looked like hope. “Did you know them? Arthur and Eloise … Kramer?”

“I …” He actually chuckled at himself. “No,” he said. “I’m sure I never met them.”

She sank back.

The robe she was wearing. It was his blue robe, the one she—the woman he saw upstairs, the vision, the hallucination, whatever she was—was wearing.

She was looking at him, getting concerned.

“Just thinking,” he said.

As he watched, a smile formed, widened, and filled her entire face with a glow he remembered. “Bet you’ve never done an interview like this one.”

He laughed, and what a relief. He put his hands over his face, rubbed his eyes. “Oh, no, I sure haven’t.”

She laughed, too—and she
did
have Mandy’s teeth.

He talked in order to wrestle every thought and word back onto the rails of reality. “But since we’re being honest, you need to know I’m not in a good place right now—and I’m becoming more and more aware of it.”

The words still stuck in his mouth, difficult to force out. “I’ve just lost my wife …”
Well, Dane? Are you going to tell her what an emotional wreck you are? That you can’t trust your feelings, or even your perceptions? That you have trouble looking at her and seeing only Eloise Kramer, born in Spokane in 1991?

He spoke the next safe thought he could find. “My wife and I were professional magicians; we were a team. We designed and wrote our own show. We could read each other, anticipate every move, every gag. We did shows in the States, in Europe, in Japan, Australia, New Zealand. We were together for forty years.
Forty
years. And for us,
that
was the magic. That was what it was all about.

“But now she’s gone. She’s really gone, and I’m having to deal with that.” Looking at the girl’s quiet attentiveness, he realized afresh that she was only nineteen. He could try to explain how it felt, but she still wouldn’t know, not really. “It’s been an unbearable surprise, like our life was an epic movie and right in the middle the film broke and I’m thinking ‘Now what?’ and … and I don’t know, and what really drives me crazy is, I’ll
never
know. I’ll never know how the story could have turned out.”

He jerked his head in the direction of the barn. “Our unfinished story’s out there in the barn: all our shows, all our inventions and memories, all the skill we put into it, all the years and dreams and concepts, they’re all out there, boxed up in crates under tarps, and I’m running on memories. What’s coming up, I don’t know. How the rest of my life is going to turn out, I don’t know.

“So anyway, whoever you are, or whoever you think you are, I’m not the mentor you’re looking for. You need a guide who isn’t lost. You need someone whose head isn’t … well, ‘scrambled’ isn’t a bad word.

“I have no doubt you’ll do well—uh, the hobo thing, if you ask me that’s like the Gypsy thing, you keep slipping into characters who aren’t you, I don’t know why unless it’s part of your being crazy—but
you
”—he sighted down his finger as he wiggled it at her—“you have it in your
self
to be truly delightful and I really mean that. You just have to find out who you are, and once you do, you’ll be unstoppable. You don’t need me.”

He thought it was a pretty good speech, hopefully enough to establish truth so the mirage would go away. He was honest with her, and most important, honest with himself despite himself. It felt like dragging a sharp rake sideways through his guts, but it was honest.

Without a moment to contemplate she said, “You can’t stop now.”

Oh, right.
He chuckled.
Youth.
How little she knew! “Young lady, things can look a lot different from this end of your life.”

This time she digested his words for a moment, her head tilted, her eyes narrowed.

“Once you’ve paid your dues, you’ll—”

“Excuse me?” Was she bristling at him? “ ‘Young lady’? ‘Paid my dues’? For your information, I’ve lost
everyone
I’ve loved! I’ve got a whole life behind me that may not have happened. I don’t know who I am now, and—
aww
!” With a burst of anger she clapped her hands to the sides of her head—punishing herself? Giving herself a make-believe shock treatment? “You’ve got
me
doing it! No. No, no,
no
!” She shot to her feet, fumbling with the robe, pacing in her bare feet. “I’m
not
going there.” She pointed right in his face. “And you can’t make me! Nobody can, not anymore!”

He knew what she was going to say next. He just knew it.

And she said it. She found a
slightly
kinder voice somewhere and she said it. “Mr. Collins, I respect your pain and your grief, but you can’t just sit around feeling sorry for yourself, it’ll give you a case of leadbutt, just sinking into the bottom of your chair in this big, empty house making nothing happen and going nowhere, whining about the good old days like some, some
old man.
”

If this was a delusion, it was stunningly accurate. He never liked it when Mandy got like this, and yet—

“Sure, grieve, but … May I sit down?”

He gestured to the couch and she perched on its edge.

“You think your wife would want that, after all that traveling and magic and adventure, you just chucking the whole thing and turning into an old raisin? I know what she’d say: buy some testosterone, get a motorcycle, do whatever it takes to get living again, but don’t waste the years God still has for you. You believe in God?”

“Yes.”

“Well, so do I, and I think you should give Him some credit. He
might
know what He’s doing.” Then, as if realizing her mouth had run off without her, she rolled her eyes heavenward in amazement and horror at herself. The deer-in-the-headlights look that fell over her face was so comical it amazed him. “Oh-oh. Big oops.”

And yet, when Mandy got like this, she was always right. As long as he had ever known her, and in some of the darkest times, even through tears, Mandy could find this jarring, “Get real” way to be right.

Eloise didn’t just have Mandy’s teeth.

She cringed, ashamed, and withdrew into her robe like a tortoise into its shell. “Guess I’m waking up now.”

All he could do was sit there, trying for the life of him to fathom what just happened.

She got up from the couch. “Like you said, my clothes must be dry.”

He wanted to laugh, and she made him feel that way. She was almost to the hall. “Could you let me think about it?”

She stopped. “Think about what?”

“The … whatever it was you wanted?”

She studied him, raised one eyebrow slightly, tilted her head, and then … there was that smile again.

chapter

22

M
ortimer was driving the SUV. Stone sat in the passenger seat, bandage in front of his right ear, bruises darkening. They were heading for Vegas, driving straight through.

“We heard back from Kessler,” said the voice on the speakerphone. “She was ready to wring our necks—and I’m ready to wring yours. The subject is in the house, all right, no doubt talking with Collins, so instead of preventing any contact you’ve done exactly the opposite.”

Stone winced, in enough pain already. Mortimer tried to counter, “Sir, no one briefed us on what we were dealing with.”

“There was no need because you weren’t to have any physical contact with her.”

“But how else could we prevent them from contacting each other? She was at his gate.”

“And he turned her away.”

“Yeah, this time.”

“Watch your tone!”

“Sorry.”

“If you two had checked in before acting on your own you would have saved yourselves a beating. Orientation to the Machine is intuitive, and she’s figured things out. You weren’t up against her, you were up against tens, possibly hundreds of her, as many as she needed.”

Stone and Mortimer exchanged rueful glances.

“So tell me about the tire.” The tone of the voice was derisive. “Tell me no one’s going to find that bullet hole.”

“We have the tire,” Stone answered.

“You don’t think she’s going to miss it?”

“In any case, it won’t tell them anything,” said Mortimer.

“Fingerprints on the tire iron?”

“Wiped clean,” said Mortimer. He didn’t mention Stone’s blood on the tire iron being the initial reason they wiped it down.

“And what about the Hansons?”

“They’ll be back after they finish their week in Mexico. The house is back the way it was, like we were never there.”

“So what do we do now?” asked Stone.

“You guys better get out of the loop,” said the voice. “We’ll find something else for you to do—something less important.”

Thanksgiving Day. Twenty-eight degrees, four inches of snow on the ground, and light snow falling. The trees were white and drooping. The pastures lay under an undisturbed mantle, and the usual flitting, breezy, lowing sounds of the valley were muffled to a wintry quiet that made Dane stop and listen.

He got a fire going in the fireplace, put on some classical guitar music, and set the dining room table with a white cloth, formal silverware, and place setting, and a dinner wrought by his own hand: a small turkey that would provide plenty of sandwiches afterward; dressing, gravy on mashed potatoes, French-style green beans, a lavish salad he chopped, tore, diced, sliced, and anointed with his own homemade vinaigrette; two thick slabs of cranberry sauce, two wheat and sesame dinner rolls (they came from a bag), sparkling cranberry apple cider, and a glass of Pinot Noir. He would follow all that up with a dessert of pumpkin pie (store-bought) and fresh coffee he roasted and ground himself.

Mandy always served up Thanksgiving dinner at three in the afternoon, and he took his seat at the table right on time, spreading the cloth napkin across his lap. With Christmas card scenery outside the windows and a cheerful fire burning, he bowed his head and gave thanks.

The meal was so good it was emotional. He was tasting again, enjoying again, savoring the work of God and his own hands. What a concept. It wasn’t testosterone or a motorcycle, but it was working. He took it slow, imagining how a meal like this would taste in heaven, especially with Mandy sitting in that other chair. Twice he raised his glass to her picture on the wall: “Here’s to you, babe.”

Eloise was right. Mandy would have wanted it this way.

“Cadillac, purple, zebra,” Eloise said. “See? I still remember.”

Seamus smiled but still needed more explanation.

“Mr. Collins and I only found the spare tire. The flat tire was gone. Clarence and Lemuel or somebody else took it, I don’t know, but Mr. Collins was looking at me like I had a bad memory, so I just told him the three words Bernadette gave me.”

“Cadillac, zebra …”

“Purple.”

“Purple. Right. Was he impressed?”

“I think he believed me after that.”

“So then what happened?”

“He helped me put the spare on and then he followed me in his truck all the way to my apartment.” His silence and raised eyebrow made her add, “And then he saw me to my door and left and drove home.”

“But you showed him where you live.”

Well. He was Seamus. He was bred to look after her. “Well …”

“I’m just teasing you a little. For your own good.”

“He’s not that much of a stranger.”

“But how much do you know about him?”

He meant well, didn’t he? She didn’t want to get defensive. “He saved me from ‘Clarence’ and ‘Lemuel.’ When I was out on the street he gave me his hat and his sweater and he took the time to coach me with a card trick. He’s been a professional magician for more than forty years.”

“
And
he’s a widower,” Seamus reminded her, “and he told you himself how he was going through some emotional issues.”

“Which was very honest of him, don’t you think?”

“Fair enough. But I’d be careful. As long as it’s business, fine, but I’d stay away from any personal conversations until you know him better.”

She sighed, if only to breathe out some tension. “Actually, I’d say he reminds me of my father, if anything.”

“So he’s a father figure.”

“Sure. Is that so bad?”

“No. No, that’s all right. But you’ve told him everything you’ve told me?”

“Pretty much.”

“Well, I wouldn’t tell him any more. He does deserve our gratitude, absolutely, but we need to keep your life private and you safe and secure.”

“But that’s just the thing. Am I? I’m not so sure yet.”

“I’ve been looking into it.”

She locked eyes with him, awaiting more, but he smiled like somebody hiding a secret and spread his arms toward the table. “Let’s eat before it gets cold.”

Eloise took her place at one end of the table, blown away by the care Seamus had taken with every detail: the fine china, the silverware—a soup spoon
and
a dinner spoon, a salad fork
and
a dinner fork, a butter knife
and
a dinner knife!—the autumn leaves and colors centerpiece, the lit candles, the napkins—no, the
serviettes
—in silver napkin rings. His dining room was like the rest of his quaint bungalow near the lake: warm, embracing, with dark wood beams and leaded windows, a setting fit for a Jane Austen novel. She’d dressed in the best blouse and slacks she owned; she should have been wearing an empire-waisted dress.