Abithica (3 page)

“And now? Are we back to square one with her?”

“I want… to help her. It looks like we’re going to have our first overnight guest, probably at your place if she lasts that long. Right now she’s in my guest bedroom, where I keep all her stuff.”

“What? I thought you just said she was rude and angry and sounded like someone who—”

“That’s just it, Steven, she was and then she wasn’t. In-between shoveling these huge forkfuls of fish into her mouth like she hadn’t eaten in weeks, she was talking to herself, then all of a sudden she sort of pitched forward and heaved her face right into her food. What a mess! I thought she was trying to embarrass me or something, but when she finally lifted her head, all the anger was gone. I mean all her rudeness and antagonism had been… there was something beautiful about her, once you got past the fish plastered all over her face and the rest of her punk looks. It was the most serendipitous moment of my life, fantastic and bizarre all rolled up into one. I actually felt honored somehow to be sitting there with her. I can’t explain it. You had to be there. I should have let you come.”

“You don’t think it might have been some sort of drug she took before she met you there? Amphetamines sometimes induce a kind of euphoria that—”

“No, this was entirely different. It was a complete personality change.”

“So now she’s asleep in your home? That’s just great, Faith! I’m so happy for you.”

“But she has to wake up sometime, and what if it’s back to the old Sydney and she’s furious about being tricked into coming here? Something is seriously wrong, Steven. I’m not sure if I’m scared of her or for her!”

“Mmmmm. If only you could tell what she’s dreaming.”

* * *

Shaking… something shaking the bus… have to hold on… red driver… everything red… red… sliding, can’t hold on… where’s the ground? Pulling… let go… go away… turkeys… what are the geese saying… peacocks… giant peacock… what’s on the paper?… everything blurred. Red bus moving too fast… red… colors… red dirt… cactus… green… yellow grass… signs… television?… the TV is on… Sydney… who is Sydney… signs… mountains… mountains eating the sun… birds eating asparagus… birds… shaking… bus is shaking. Peacock… giant peacock! Can’t move… huge table…

“Sydney, wake up. Please, honey!”

* * *

It might have been the word “honey” that woke me. To my utter relief the red in my dream turned out to be the “woman in red” from Gillie’s, not a gigantic peacock. She was peering down at me, but the red suit had turned into a pair of torn jeans, with rhinestones sewn onto the seams, and a silky white button-up blouse. I closed my eyes once more, turned on my side, and tucked my hands under the pillow, hoping she’d leave so I wouldn’t have to tackle my new situation so soon.

“Sydney, do you need to be anywhere right now? Should I call somebody? Sydney, do you hear me? Do you have a job, a roommate, a boyfriend, somebody I should be calling to let them know where you are?”

“No, I’m fine. I just need rest.” I turned onto my stomach and pulled the pillow down over my head. An hour. That’s all I was asking for.

The pillow was suddenly taken away and the shaking returned. “Wake up, darling. You’re starting to scare me!”

She actually did sound scared. When I rolled onto my back she was leaning over me, looking quite frazzled, which was rather odd after her act at the restaurant. I’d have bet she didn’t frazzle easily, so it was something else. Maybe something I’d said in my sleep?

I sat up.

Sunlight was pouring into the room, bouncing off her rhinestones and creating tiny rainbows. Outside the open window, a flycatcher perched on an ocotillo branch. Somewhere a raven was calling with its coarse, gravelly song. When I’d last looked out the same window, there’d been a gorgeous sunset.

“Mother” sat next to me on the bed and touched my head, probably trying to see if I had a fever.

“What time is it?”

“I tried to get you to eat last night,” she soothed, “but you wouldn’t wake up. If I couldn’t wake you this time, I was going to call an ambulance and have it take you to the hospital.”

“What do you mean, I wouldn’t wake up? What hospital? What time is it, really?”

“You mean what
day
.
You’ve slept for over twenty-four hours. If somebody is waiting for you, one of your friends, and you don’t show up, they might call the police, and we don’t want
that
ugly scene again, now, do we?”

Police? Ugly scene? What was it I’d just stepped into? Now my question was a lot more than just who Sydney was. What on Earth had Sydney done?

* * *

Seattle, Washington

Alfred Thompson lost no time getting to the main topic of the meeting: Seattle gangs, specifically the Legnas.

“We don’t know where they came from,” he stated, reading from notes. “Don’t know the leaders by name or otherwise, don’t know where they hold their meetings—”

“How do you know they do hold meetings, Fred?” The questioner was Audrey Reynolds, special investigator for the Kings County Sheriff’s Office. “We’ve never heard a blip about it, and yet the other gangs are all pretty well known as far as meeting places and such.”

“It’s conjecture, but they appear to be organized so we’re assuming the meetings aren’t held in cars or back alleys somewhere. Ted, what do you say to that?”

Ted Forman, formerly from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, was the last member of the think tank group. He just shrugged, and Thompson continued his opening summary.

“So in the past six months what we think we’re seeing is a doubling of this gang’s influence in the county, particularly here in Seattle, but all around the Sound. Murders are nearly twice what they were a year ago, at least a dozen of which we can pin on the Legnas thanks to that little goat head they burn into their victims. Yes, Audrey?” he acknowledged the woman as she raised a finger.

“Fred, isn’t it possible that some of the other gangs are branding their victims to pin the blame on their new rivals? My understanding on this is that a lot of the mutilations are quite sloppy, as if they were done with a soldering iron. The real Legnas logo seems to be more like a tattoo, even if it’s burned into place. By the way, the goat’s head is a symbol for Satan, one of many.”

“Point made. Again, we don’t know. We don’t know their long term aims here, but they’ve shown up in other cities and crimes in those places have all risen uniformly. Robbery, drug dealings, rapes, murders, carjacking, everything except white collar crime. It’s all taking place on the streets, and as of right now we’ve never apprehended a single Legnas member, not one with the goat brand anyway.”

Forman got into it. “I haven’t seen anything approaching their kind of gang loyalty, unless it’s the Asians. These creeps are doing something to their members that turns them all into… there must be some kind of indoctrination that makes them zombies when it comes to—”

“Wait, wait, wait. How would you know that, Ted? We’ve never had one in custody.”

“
We
haven’t, no, but St. Louis had one a year or so ago. They brought him in on a vagrancy charge, of all things, and he gave them zip, including empty pockets. They let him go, but he acted weird all through their interrogation. Really weird.”

“Goat’s head?”

“Yep, on the back of his hand. Young kid, too, maybe sixteen. Wasn’t drugged, either. It was something else, like brainwashing. Either of you two see that movie called
The Mongolian Candidate
?”

“
The Manchurian Candidate
?” Thompson grinned. It wasn’t often he got to correct someone like Ted Forman. “With Frank Sinatra. Yeah, I have it in my old VHS collection.”

“That’s the original. There’s a remake, I think, with Denzel Washington. Anyway, this kid was like that.”

“So,” Audrey summarized, clicking off on her fingers, “we have a kind of zombeism in one St. Louis kid to use as an example, alarming increases in murder, robbery, rapes, drug dealings, carjackings, all within the past six months, and
we’re
supposed to figure out what to do about it?”

“That’s it,” Thompson nodded. “Any ideas?”

“We need more than we have. How about infiltration?”

“I think what Ted just said about brainwashing would rule that out. In my book, anyone trying to infiltrate might end up dead or converted.”

“So… the Legnas rule? We do nothing?”

Her question needed no answer. Something had to be done, but what?

Madera Canyon

Why in God’s name had I left Sydney’s purse at Gillie’s? And was I supposed to be
her
with the few clues I had? She’d had no problem talking for me at the restaurant when she’d butted in and talked about sleeping, so where was she now when I needed her? Was it another of God’s little jokes? And even if it was, why throw in hospitals and police? Wasn’t this latest switch going badly enough without them? Doctors scared me, especially psychiatrists. I wasn’t ready for anyone like that, or police, and here was my supposed mother ready to call in the cavalry just because I was sleeping a little longer than she thought I should.

I knew the bedroom must have been Sydney’s, because everything was alternating shades of black and gray. Posters of long-haired men holding guitars in suggestive poses hung from the walls. Mingled with the posters were stolen street signs: Danger, Curves Ahead, Do Not Enter, Stop, and Yield. There was even a green road sign that said Sydney Avenue. Even if I couldn’t dig into her mind, the room matched her aura perfectly. How could she be the daughter of this feisty, vivacious woman sitting next to me? It just doesn’t fit.

“Surprised I kept your things?” the woman asked. “Told you I would. This is the second house they’ve seen since the day you stormed out.

There—another piece in the puzzle. Sydney was the one who’d ended the relationship
.

“
You
hung these signs? And chose these colors?” I asked.

She nodded, looking proud, but with her next words she was off on another ramble.

All I really had to do was bob my head the right way at the appropriate time, and she’d swing from topic to topic like a kid on monkey bars. Show a little interest and she wouldn’t let go, and yet she was likable enough we could become friends. Was that it? She’d be another Claire, and I’d get attached, and Someone Upstairs would be laughing the whole time?

She must have read something on my face.

“Sydney, I’m trying here. Don’t pull away. Not now. I know you’re in some kind of trouble. I’ll help, if you let me. Just tell me what to do.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re my daughter, and I haven’t always been the perfect mother, and here’s my chance to make that up to you.”

She
could be the reason I’m here; only one way to find out. “Can I stay here for awhile until I sort things out… no questions asked?”

“Of course! Steven will be so-o-o-o happy to finally meet you.” She’d tried to make her reply sound casual, but it wasn’t. I decided it was time to try a smile, not a big one, just enough. As soon as I pasted it on, she visibly relaxed, letting out her breath in a whoosh. “Steven will have to wait until later, though. He’s at work.”

She got to her feet.

“In the meantime, why don’t you and I go back to Gillie’s and pick up your car? If you’re up to it, we can stop and eat there first. I would just love to see that waiter squirm some more, wouldn’t you?”

I felt the blood draining from my face. My car? My car was Sydney’s car, and Sydney wasn’t talking to me at the moment. The upstairs laughter was louder than before.

“Or we can eat someplace else if you prefer,” she offered quickly.

“Would you happen to know what my car looks like?”

“Honey, we haven’t spoken in three years. I barely recognized you with that hair of yours and those horrible shoes you had on…” She actually paused to make a clucking sound with her tongue. “…so how am I supposed to know what car you’re driving? The last time I saw you, you’d maxed out your traffic violations, and as far as I knew they’d taken your driver’s license. You didn’t even own a car. You weren’t… you know… high on something, were you? So that you can’t remember?”

“No questions, right? That’s our deal? Well, it turns out I don’t
know
if I was high, don’t know what my car looks like, and even if I did I wouldn’t drive it. I don’t think. At least, I can’t remember driving it.”

She nodded, but slowly. “Fine. Then there it will stay. Just answer me one thing: Is it stolen?”

“I don’t think so, but I’m not sure.” I hadn’t considered that.

“Then best we don’t go anywhere near Gillie’s for awhile. Since we’re being honest with each other for once, is there anything else I should know? Should you be at work?”

“I don’t know that, either.”

She put her hand over her mouth, thinking. Her nails were perfectly groomed and the tips were painted white. I hadn’t noticed them at the restaurant. “What exactly
do
you know?”