Mind Games (33 page)

I stand.

He stands, disappointment showing all over his face.

I say, “I’m sorry. I really do have to go.”

“I wish you didn’t. This was an enchanting encounter …”

Precisely why I have to leave. I hold out my hand. “It really was such a treat to spend a night at the opera with you.”

Lightly, he wraps his fingers around mine. I struggle not to feel it, not to feel him. “The pleasure was all mine. Can my driver and I give you a lift home?”

“No thanks.” I extract my hand from his and clutch my purse and wrap. “Thank you, though.”

“Wait—what are you doing this Thursday evening?”

I freeze, except for the heartbeat in my throat. “I don’t know.”

“Do you mean that you don’t know what you’re doing? Or do you mean that you don’t know if you should want to accompany me to a late-afternoon, invitation-only dress rehearsal of
Carmen
, and perhaps a bite afterwards?”

“I don’t know because I’m getting over a painful, painful breakup, and if you’re asking me on a romantic level, I’m sorry—”

“No, no, purely platonic. A fellow opera lover, a fellow health sufferer, but we won’t talk about that. There won’t be a repeat of this pathetic scene.” As if to reinforce the platonic aspect, he adds, “Helmut is more than welcome to come. I’d love to have him along.”

I contemplate this. “Actually, it sounds fun, Otto. I’ll talk to Uncle Helmut.” I thank him again and leave, trying not to smile like a lunatic all the way to the door.

          Twenty-nine

T
HE NEXT MORNING
I stop by Mongolian Delites to give Packard my progress report, as I promised I would. He’s with Carter, who greets me gruffly, then returns to scowling at the newspaper before him, opened to the big article on the special mayoral election they set for January. I can’t imagine that’s what got Carter so riled.

Packard barely makes eye contact with me. He’s focused on Carter, too. Something’s wrong.

I sit down and launch into my report about the night, minus the bonding moments. The effectiveness of my zing cheers Packard. “I definitely didn’t want to risk going to the ER with Otto,” I tell him. “I’d never pull it off.”

“You could’ve pulled it off,” he says.

“This guy is observant.”

Carter flips a page angrily, nearly tearing it. I raise my eyebrows at Packard:
Is something up with Carter?

Packard returns my gaze and shakes his head minutely, green eyes pale in the morning light. He’s aware of Carter’s state and he’s on it. Packard and I are able to communicate silently more and more these days; our ragingly unhealthy attraction causes us to observe each other closely.

Packard pours me the last of the coffee and goes around to the other side of the bar to rinse out the coffeepot.

I stir some sugar into my mug. “He really is good at seeming genuine and forthright.”

Packard sets a towel on the bar between us. “How do you think he got to where he is today? He’s a master at it.”

“I suppose.”

“He probably lied to you all night.”

“Right.” But I know he wasn’t lying about his longing to be normal, or that little name: silent smite.

“All of our targets are lying scoundrels,” Packard says. “Dangerous and evil, yet thoroughly unimpressive.”

“As opposed to all the dangerous and evil, yet thoroughly
impressive
people?”

Carter pipes up. “One of our old targets, Mr. Chapeau Rouge, thought he could predict the weather by smell. He tracked his forecasts against TV weathermen, and he had a consistently higher success rate.”

Packard turns to Carter. “Yes, that was impressive.”

Just like that, Carter’s face turns red and a vein on his neck springs out. “Stop patronizing me! I think that was very goddamn impressive.”

Packard places his hand on the bar in front of Carter. “You’ve waited too long between zings.”

“Fuck you, Packard. I’ll tell you if I need a zing.”

I just stare at Carter. He’s like an overtired kid who’s too upset to sleep.

Packard leaves his hand there and turns to me. “The consequences of failure here are extreme. I wouldn’t have put you in here if I didn’t think you could prevail, but please, promise me you’ll be careful.”

“I will,” I say.

Carter shoves at Packard’s fingers. “Get away.”

“Carter, you’ll feel much better,” Packard says.

“Don’t fucking patronize me!” With that, Carter whips his coffee cup at the wall behind the bar; shards
of mirror and ceramic rain onto the liquor bottles below. “Don’t look at me like that!” He hurls another coffee cup.

I slide off my seat and back away.

“No! Justine”—Carter shows me his palms—“it’s nothing to do with you.”

“Why shouldn’t she be scared?” Packard says. He takes a deep breath as an example for Carter, who mimics him childishly. Then Carter puts his fist to his very red forehead. Packard rounds the bar and comes to his side, wraps his arms around him, holding him tight, eyes squeezed shut like his heart’s a little bit broken to see Carter suffer. I never saw it before, but it’s suddenly plain—Carter’s like a son to Packard.

Carter stays stiff, but he doesn’t push Packard away. Finally he grabs onto Packard’s arm with both hands, holding it like he wants to break it in two, but also like he’s clinging to him for safety. Then he bows his head, fringe of ash-blond bangs covering his eyes. His shoulders fall. His whole body softens. Zing complete.

Carter smiles sheepishly. “Oops.” I’ve seen lots of dis-illusionists zing Packard over the months, but none look as satisfied as Carter. “Man! Sorry about the mirror, Packard.”

“I’m not,” Packard says. “Go ahead. Have some fun.”

Carter stands. “You sure?” Packard nods. Carter picks up his pack. “Want a lift home, Justine?”

I look at Packard.

“We’re finished here,” he says.

I pull on my jacket. “You going to be a nice driver, Carter?”

Carter nods.

“Justine. Good work,” Packard says as we’re leaving. “Good work.”

          Thirty

T
HERE ARE MANY
factors to balance for my Thursday outfit.

It’s a dress rehearsal, so that’s casual. However, it’s still the opera, and there’s dinner after, so that’s dressy. But then, it’s not a date, so that swings it back to casual. But then there are Otto’s many charms, which swings it to pretty, and then there’s the fact that he’s a dangerous killer, which swings things to casual, if not dowdy.

The outfit I wind up wearing is a blue cashmere V-neck sweater that feels like kitten fur, with huggy brown suede-textured pants and kicky brown kitten-heeled sandals. Looking in the mirror, I have to say pretty won out, yet that crucial balance between casual and dressy was achieved.

I’m not bringing Helmut along. Needless to say, I’m a bit conflicted about that.

In preparation for our outing, I study the photo of the man with the gouged eyes, trying to rekindle the fear and revulsion I had for Otto before, and how tricked I feel by him, posing as this great crime fighter.

The technique works until I actually see Otto on the opera house steps, smile as big as Texas, brown trench coat waving wild in the wind, brown beret atop luscious dark waves. He holds out a hand as I approach, and it feels like the most natural thing in the world to pop up
the steps and take it. I try not to smile but fail, and my stomach lifts as he tightens his big soft fingers around mine.

I force myself to touch my purse with the other hand, to feel the outline of the stun gun. He’s a sociopath, I tell myself. He’s fooled you and the whole city.

I watch his face as we go in, trying to imagine him not smiling, trying to imagine his warm brown eyes cold. I picture him standing over a bound man—a double-crossing cohort, kneeling before Otto, sobbing, begging for mercy. And then Otto walks up, places his hands gently on either side of the man’s head, holding it like it’s a basketball, and slowly he presses his meaty thumbs right into the man’s eyes, gouging them out. But they wouldn’t pop out like in cartoons—the eyes would more extrude, misshapen and broken, to hang from bloody strands of ganglia and tendons. Feeling quite ill now, I imagine Otto’s cruel smile as he shoves the man away, watches him stumble to the floor, writhing in agony, dying as blood and tissue seep from his eye sockets.

“This place is magical in the daylight.” Otto says. “Do you see how that chandelier casts rainbows on the ceiling?”

I sigh. “Lovely.”

Carmen
is colorful and exciting, and I like it even more than
Tosca
. During the first intermission, Otto and I make up a silly anecdote about the man in the little side booth who opens and closes the curtains, and we laugh and laugh about it, probably more than the joke warrants; it’s laughter twisted high by the excitement and pleasure of each other’s company, along with a whole lot of nervousness on my part.

During the second intermission we eat grapes and build new details onto the story. Otto has a big laugh to match his big brown eyes and his big personality.

After the show he has to sign only one autograph. The
second we step out into the dark, drizzly night, a sleek black sedan appears; Otto opens the back door for me.

I get in. “Do you always get driven around?”

He settles in next to me and shuts the door. “It comes with being chief. I can’t say I prefer it.”

I’ve never known somebody with a chauffeured car, much less ridden in one myself. Otto introduces me to the driver, whose name is Jimmy. Jimmy wears a cap with a rigid brim, like a policeman, and he speeds off without being told where to go, which I find odd. We’d planned to grab a bite to eat after, but I thought we’d discuss it.

I study the locks on the doors. Are they the kind you can unlock from the inside? This is all starting to remind me of the Alchemist situation. What’s more, Otto seems uncomfortable. Again I trace the outline of my stun gun through the side of my bag, wishing I’d worn it on the holster. On crime shows, they say that when you get into a car with a criminal, your survival rate plummets ninety percent. They say you’re better off letting yourself be shot on the sidewalk.

“I shortchanged that man,” Otto says, low so only I can hear.

“What?”

“Usually I write my motto, ‘Guarding citizens from evildoers of every kind,’ and then I sign my name, but I confess I wanted to get on with our night, so I just scribbled, ‘Protect and serve,’ with my name. And ‘Protect and serve’ is not even that much shorter.”

“‘Protect and serve’ is good,” I say, “because you run the police force and that’s their motto.”

“But people who want my autograph are looking for me to write my motto.”

“I’m sure he felt your kind intent,” I say, thinking how twisted all this is. It’s like the Alchemist having a motto like ‘To ensure the safety and happiness of ladies.’

We turn onto increasingly obscure side streets.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“My favorite restaurant in all the world.” He points out interesting features on the different buildings we pass. For a police chief/crime boss, he certainly knows a lot about architecture.

A few minutes later, we pull up between rows of vine-covered brownstones. Otto gets out and offers me his hand. I take it and find myself at the top of a long, thin stairwell that leads down to a brightly lit basement-level door below. The rusty metal sign hanging over it says
CIAPPO’S
. A lone candle burns in the tiny window next to it, like a secret signal.

We go down.

Ciappo’s candlelit, grottolike interior is all white plaster walls and dark beams. A busy front bar and cashier area thins into a narrow dining room with tables on either side, filled with diners. Popular place. The space stretches so far back, I wonder if it doesn’t go the length of the block underground. We’re seated at a table next to a highly textured painting of a toga-clad woman feeding geese.

Otto takes the liberty of ordering a bottle of Prosecco and both our meals, too. Yes, the waiter very clearly approves of his selections, but still. I decide it shows Otto is a man who doesn’t care what anybody else wants.