More Deaths Than One (7 page)

His head came up. “It seems as if lately
that’s all I do.”

Light dancing in her eyes, she shook a finger
at him. “You’re evading.”

He sighed. “It’s too bizarre. I feel as if
I’ve stepped into a maze of mirrors, and I can’t tell if what’s
reflected back at me is real or not.”

He busied himself with his chocolate, but she
leaned forward and stared at him until he finally gave in.

“When I came home from a walk yesterday, I
found two men searching my room for papers. Apparently, they’ve
been looking for me and those papers ever since I arrived in
Denver.” Spoken aloud, it sounded paranoid even to him.

She straightened. “What men? What papers? Why
you?”

“I’ve been asking myself those very
questions.”

“What did you do?”

“I left, of course. Spent the night in a
motel. I went back to the boardinghouse this morning and discovered
a couple of men staking my place out. They’re still there. I
checked before I came here.”

“What’s that?” Kerry asked, indicating the
shopping bag on the seat next to him.

“I bought some clothes and toiletries since
it doesn’t look like I’m going to be able to get into my room for a
while.”

She gave him a considering look. “Does this
have anything to do with your other self?”

“I don’t see how, though two completely
different strangenesses centered on a single individual are a bit
much to swallow.”

“Could the obituary have been a hoax after
all? To lure you in?”

He wanted to smile at the way their minds
seemed to be working in concert, but his face wouldn’t cooperate.
It felt rigid, as if made of brick.

He worked his jaw. “I’ve been playing the
funeral over in my mind, and it sure seemed real. I also went
downtown today to the offices of the newspaper the obituary was in
and found out the notice was paid for by Jackson. I located him,
but I walked away without saying anything. Then it occurred to me
that maybe the other obituary held the key.”

“The first one,” she breathed.

He nodded. “I checked both the News and the
Post, going through a month’s worth of obituaries—two weeks before
my mother died the first time and two weeks afterward—and I didn’t
find a funeral notice.” He stole a look at her. “You probably think
I’m as delusional as the rest of the denizens of Colfax.”

Laughter gleamed in her eyes. “I can adjust.”
Then, “What are you going to do now?”

“Find a motel for the night.”

“You can stay with me.” She seemed as
sur-prised by the words as he did.

“I don’t imagine Pete’s Porches would
appre-ciate that,” he said.

The light in her eyes fractured into a whole
galaxy of stars. “I didn’t get a chance to tell you. I left the
cheater. I’m staying with a friend, and she’s out of town for a
couple of days, so no one will know you’re there. Maybe together we
can figure this out.”

Bob felt the hollowness in his chest
ease.

She slid out of the booth. “I’ll be right
back. I need to make a phone call.”

Returning, she announced, “I got someone to
cover for me tonight. She’ll be here in an hour or two.” When the
door opened to admit several customers, she added, “It looks like
I’ll be busy until then. Oh, no! What’s he doing here? He’s been
eighty-sixed.”

Catching sight of the foil-helmeted man
loping toward him, Bob held out a hand to Kerry. “Let him stay. He
can keep me company while you work.”

She gave him a dubious glance. “You know
him?”

“Not really. But on some level we seem to
connect.”

She pushed back her hair. “Okay, but if he
bothers anyone, you have to get rid of him.”

“All right. When you get a chance, will you
bring two meatloaf specials? Also a cup of coffee for him?”

She nodded. Writing the order, she hurried
off.

The man in the foil helmet neared and shoved
something toward Bob’s face.

Bob’s hand shot out reflexively and he
grabbed the object.

The man jumped back. He looked at Bob for a
second before sliding his gaze away. “Sissy will get you. Sissy
gets everyone in the end.”

“Probably,” Bob said, gesturing for the man
to sit.

The man furiously shook his head no.

“Why not?”

The eyes darted back and forth. “They don’t
like me here.”

“Tonight it’s okay.”

The foil man hesitated, then lowered himself
onto the seat as if he were afraid it would blister him. He gripped
the edge of the table, trembling with the effort to hold himself in
check.

Bob examined the object the man had given
him: a red nametag about the size of a credit card, with a nickel
alligator clip attached to it. At first glance, the card seemed
imprinted with only the name Herbert J. Townsend, a barcode, and a
photograph bearing a vague resemblance to the foil man, but when
Bob slanted the card, he saw the words Information Services,
Incorporated encircling a holographic eagle with the letters ISI
inscribed on it.

The last time Bob had seen the man he had
asked for his name. Showing the nametag seemed more than Herbert’s
way of responding; he seemed to want Bob to know he had once had a
real life, been a real person.

When Herbert’s hand inched its way across the
table, Bob gave him back the card. As Herbert carefully stowed it
in his shirt pocket, it suddenly dawned on Bob the man didn’t
harangue about a girl named Sissy, but about ISI, which he
pronounced Issy.

Kerry paused by the booth long enough to
place a cup of coffee on the table and give Bob a look that clearly
said, “I hope you know what you’re doing,” then she moved on to the
next customer.

“Are you Herbert Townsend?” Bob asked.

The foil man gave a start as if it had been a
long time since he’d heard the sound of his own name. He hunched
over his coffee, shoulders curved forward. After a long moment, he
bowed his head in a tiny nod.

“You worked for Information Services,
Incorp-orated?”

Again that barely perceptible nod.

Bob studied him for a minute. The photograph
had shown a man with slicked hair, a fleshy face, and a cocky
smile, while the man sitting across from him, noisily gulping from
the cup he held in both hands, was gaunt, almost skeletal, as
though his mission consumed him physically as well as mentally. He
dressed in threadbare jeans and a torn tee shirt, and despite the
nippy weather, he wore no jacket.

Townsend looked down at himself then up at
Bob, a slight deprecating smile smoothing away his usual glower,
and Bob caught a glimpse of the man he must have once been.

“What happened?” Bob asked softly.

Townsend shrugged and drained the rest of his
coffee. Bob noticed he seemed less twitchy with the caffeine in
him.

By the time Townsend had worked his way
through meatloaf, whipped potatoes with gravy, salad, a chocolate
sundae, and copious cups of coffee, he acted subdued. Bob
remembered coffee used to have a reverse effect on his father, too.
Edward had always guzzled several cups of coffee before going to
bed, claiming it helped him sleep.

After Kerry had taken away the dishes and
refilled the coffee cup, Townsend gave Bob a sidelong glance and
whispered, “They put a microchip in my brain.”

“Who did?” Bob asked.

“Smeary people.”

“Smeary people? You mean they looked
blurry?”

A nod.

“Were you drugged?”

Townsend seemed to give this some thought.
“Must have been,” he said at last.

“Why did they put the chip in your
brain?”

“So they can control what I’m thinking.”
Townsend touched the aluminum foil helmet. “This protects me so I
don’t have to believe what they want me to believe.”

Bob stared at him, not knowing what to make
of the words. They sounded crazy, but said in that quiet, apathetic
voice, they were also chilling.

“What do they want you to believe?”

“They said I saw aliens, but I didn’t.”

“Why would they want you to think you saw
aliens?”

“I don’t know.” Townsend looked at Bob in
surprise, as if he’d never asked himself that question. “Why would
they?

“I don’t know either,” Bob replied.

Townsend’s gaze wandered, and all of a sudden
his eyes grew round. He scrambled out of the booth.

Bob held out a hand. “Don’t go.”

“I have to. It’s the mean one. She yells at
me.”

Looking around, Bob saw a frizzy-haired,
dark-skinned woman in a waitress uniform, scowling at the fleeing
Townsend.

“What was he doing here?” she demanded of
Kerry.

“I let him,” Kerry responded. “This
once.”

The scowl faded, but the voice remained hard.
“If he comes in here again, I’m calling the cops.”

***

The porch was old, solid, made of stone like
the house. Its waist-high wall lined with potted plants hid a
wooden swing from passers-by. Forsythia flanked the stone
steps.

“Pete didn’t build this porch,” Kerry
commented as she unlocked the front door of the house. A mocking
smile glimmered in her eyes. “As old as it is, I bet it will
outlast anything he makes.”

“What does your friend do?” Bob asked, taking
note of the expensive-looking décor in the living room. Except for
the brass lamps and the touches of turquoise, rust and black in the
throw pillows and in the abstracts hanging on the walls, he saw
only tints of ecru.

“She’s a property manager for a
multi-national corporation based in Germany.” Kerry tossed her keys
and purse on the blonde wood coffee table. “We met in an accounting
class at Community College where I went to learn how to do the
books for Pete. Neither of us has a college degree, but she has a
great job and travels all over. She also owns this house, stock in
the company she works for, and a BMW. All I have are a few boxes of
clothes and books, plus my car, which I’m still paying off. Life is
strange at times, don’t you think? God, what am I saying. Of course
you think life is strange.”

She took Bob on a quick tour of the house,
explaining that she used the guestroom, but that he could stay in
her friend’s room.

“You look exhausted,” she said. “Why don’t
you get some sleep? If you need me, I’ll be right next door,
changing out of my uniform.”

Bob stood in the center of the gray-furnished
room. The heavy musk perfume in the air made him feel
claustrophobic, and he decided he’d rather sleep on the couch in
the living room. As he left, he caught a glimpse of himself in the
mirror over the dressing table. He moved closer to study his
mirrored reflection and was reassured to see the same lean body,
the same unimpassioned brown eyes, the same unremarkable, unsmiling
face framed by shaggy brown hair in need of a trim.

He tried to superimpose the other Robert’s
image over his own. Was the resemblance as remarkable as he had
first thought? The shape of their face, nose, chin seemed to match,
as did their height and eye color, but there were differences, most
notably weight, posture, skin tone.

He sat on the couch in the living room and
got out his wallet—the same wallet he had carried with him ever
since college. He left his money untouched, but one by one laid the
rest of the contents on the coffee table. A 1970 Colorado driver’s
license. An ancient Denver Public Library card. A yellowed social
security card. Lorena’s picture. Her Dear John letter written on
tissue-thin paper. Dunbar’s business cards.

“I thought you went to bed,” Kerry said,
but-toning her shirt as she entered the room. She perched beside
him. “What’s this?”

“All I have to prove that I am myself.”

She picked up Lorena’s picture. “This is
Robert’s wife.”

“And my college girlfriend.”

“What was she like?”

“Kind, gentle, unable to say no. Whenever
anybody needed help, they went to her. I remember once we planned
to go to the mountains for the weekend. We both looked forward to
it, but she cancelled out at the last minute because a friend had a
crisis with his mother.”

Kerry took one final look at the picture, set
it aside, and reached for the letter. “‘Dear Bob,’” she read aloud.
“‘I know I promised to wait for you, but our being apart has given
me time to think about what I want out of life. I now realize
you’re not the kind of man I want. I’ve found someone else. By the
time you receive this, we will already be married. I’m sure you
understand that things are different now. This is the last letter I
will ever write you. Don’t contact me. Sincerely, Lorena.’” Kerry
turned her head toward Bob. “She doesn’t sound kind and gentle to
me or like someone who can’t say no.”

Bob took the letter from her and reread it,
though he didn’t need to; he remembered every word.

“You’re right,” he said. “I never noticed
that before.”

Kerry gave a little laugh. “No wonder you
have headaches. Thinking about how she broke up with you to marry
another you makes my head pound.” Her voice grew soft. “Did she
hurt you?”

“I don’t remember.”

“How can you not remember?”

“Right after I got the letter, I had an
encounter with a landmine. Some of my memories from that time are
fuzzy.”

He could feel the alarm radiating from her
suddenly still body. “You were blown up?”

“I sustained no major injuries. My brain got
a bit jostled is all. The doctor said I shouldn’t have any
problems, but there might be some minor memory loss.”

“And was there?”

He shrugged. “I don’t think so, but if I
can’t remember, how would I ever know?”

She nodded. “Good point.” Turning her
attention back to the contents of Bob’s wallet, she grabbed
Dunbar’s business cards and flipped through them.

“Who’s Robert Dunbar? Oh, right. The golfer.
Why do you have so many of his cards?”

“Every so often he’d hand me a card, tell me
if I’m ever in Denver to call him and we’d go to one of the golf
courses around here. I always stuck the card in my wallet. I didn’t
realize I had so many.”