The Angel & the Brown-eyed Boy (19 page)

“Listen, you’ve got to leave me alone. I don’t want you to cuddle up to me, or try to be close to me. Do you understand? Stay away from me. I’m not good for you.”

“Jeremy bad person?” Her forehead wrinkled and her head cocked to one side. She worked so hard to understand him that he wanted to laugh.

“I’m not good for you. You need to stay away from me.” She looked so bewildered that he kept talking, trying to explain. “I’m autistic. My mom took me to a shrink after my dad died. He said I was autistic.”

“Jeremy artistic?” she said, brightening.

“No, autistic. I have trouble relating to people and feelings. I’m better with objects—like computers.”

She looked perplexed.

“Look, I’m screwed up. The most famous shrink in the country said so. Everyone says so.”

She looked at him with an accepting, kind expression. He went on without thinking, “Not only that, I’ve got the most screwed-up family in the world. My father was Chaz Edgarton. Have you heard of him in outer space?” He mimicked an announcer introducing his father. “‘It’s Mr. Chaz Edgarton, Mr. Jazz. Chaz is Jazz. Break my heart, Mr. Chaz.’ You never heard of him?”

She shook her head.

“That’s what I like about you, Eliana. You don’t understand a thing I’m saying.” He never talked about his family, but he felt safe with Eliana. She was utterly trustworthy. He’d felt it in the car and he felt it now.

“My dad was the most sought after musician in the world. And the sexiest man on earth, the magazines said.” Jeremy sighed. “I guess he was, from the way he acted.

“My mom was the perfect wife for him. Being married didn’t slow either of them down. They had boyfriends and girlfriends all over the place. Do you know what that means?”

She shook her head.

“You didn’t miss anything. My mom got a big surprise when they got married.” He made a movement like injecting something into his arm. “He was an addict!” Jeremy spit the words out. “He died when I was nine. He stole my allowance. He earned tons of money performing. Mom gave him more than he could count. He spent it and then ripped her off. He was a thief and a junkie, and she’s a slut.

“So that’s my family.” He felt furious. She’d wheedled it out of him. He grabbed her forearm and shook it.

“Jeremy angry.” She pulled away. “No hurt Eliana.”

“Oh, no. I’m sorry.” He yanked his hand away from her. “I didn’t mean to do that. I brought you out here to tell you to stay away. I’m fucked.”

“Fucked?” Her eyes were squinched up as she repeated the word.

He laughed. “Whoever taught you English didn’t know that word. I’m no good to anyone.

“Being autistic isn’t all bad. I need to work all the time or I get nuts. My mom’s friends bent the laws and let her buy me all the toys I wanted so I could keep busy. They let me construct an underground shelter under the lawn over there. My jungle gym, my mom called it. Mom and that shrink gave me the keys to the kingdom.

“Everything I’ve got here, and everything I had at the school, was legal. They put people in camps for having a laptop, but I had two major computer labs. That’s what happens when you have Veronica Piermont Edgarton for a mom.” He kept talking. Eliana’s sweetness made it easy.

“You wouldn’t believe what growing up with her was like. She was this fertility goddess running around the house in dresses cut down to here.” He indicated his waist.

“Her boyfriend has killed more people than anyone in history. I had this huge fight with her about him when they started going together, but nothing changed.” He frowned. “Doesn’t that make you want to get close to me?”

“Yes.” She nodded, eyes innocent.

“You’re as crazy as I am.”

“I crazy as Jeremy.” She beamed.

For the first time in ages, Jeremy laughed. “You are really funny. By the way, what you did in the car today was so cool. You mimicked my mom perfectly—and the president. How did you do it?”

She shrugged. “My people help me.” She put her hand in the coat’s pocket, fingering something.

Jeremy was very interested. What did she have in that pocket?

“You may be able to help more.” He looked at her hand, working away in the pocket. He could see light coming from the opening in the coat’s seam.

“I’m glad you’re here, but don’t try to cuddle up with me.”

“I no try cuddle up.”

“Yes, you did. You did something when I was falling asleep. I could see your people in my mind. They’re gold, aren’t they?” She ducked her head, indicating he was right. “I saw them. They want
something from me. They can’t have it. Don’t think you can make me fall in love with you. That’s what you were doing in the car, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. But you no like me. I no try more. I love my mother, no you.” She fumed while tears welled in her eyes.

“Well, we’re all set,” he said. “You love your mother, and I’m in love with my mother.”

“OK.” She looked over her shoulder toward the house. Henry was calling for them. “We go to house.”

“Not yet. There’s one more thing. Take off your shoes.”

She didn’t understand, but when he started undoing the laces, ripping at them, she understood very well. “No!” She pulled at his hands. “No! They say no!”

He stopped when he saw that she was really upset.

“The people on your planet say you have to leave them on?”

She nodded.

“OK. Don’t worry about it. I just wanted to know what your feet look like. I’ve seen dancers’ feet. They look awful. All that grace and beauty, and their feet look like Frankenstein’s monster’s.”

He lowered his voice and leaned closer. “I’ve got some pictures of what Chinese girls’ feet used to look like. A long time ago, they bent their feet in half and then tied them so they were about four inches long. That was supposed to look sexy. Without the bindings, they look horrible.” He made an expression of disgust.

“So I won’t say your feet are ugly or anything, because I’ve seen worse. It’s OK.”

She clutched her foot with one hand. “Is OK?”

“Yeah. Maybe your people told you not to show a human your feet because we’d do something like shoot you.”

Eliana looked at the gun. “Shoot me?”

“No. Let’s forget it. We’ll go back. You can wear those ratty shoes in my mother’s ballroom. Everything’s cool. Forget it.”

But she’d changed her mind. “My people say you no like me if I show feet. But you no like me now.” The girl sat back on the bench. Slowly, she stretched one leg out on the bench. A beautiful dancer’s
leg, with perfect proportions and muscles like silken granite. Keeping her eyes on him, she untied the pointe shoe’s laces, and then pulled the laces off, tracing diagonals around her leg. Her eyes were on his when she pulled off her slipper and the sock under it.

His eyes bulged. “Oh, wow, Ellie! You really are from outer space!” The top part of her foot looked like a human foot, but where her toes should be—the problematical area for anyone dancing en pointe— was a neat little hoof.

He lifted her foot and leg off the bench, marveling at it. “Wow. That is so adaptive.”

She said, “Dancer,” pointing to herself proudly.

“You sure are. Can I take the other one off?”

She nodded, and put both feet across his legs. He carefully removed the shoe and then the stocking. He caressed her feet and fascinating little hooves. His hands moved up and down her insteps, along her arches, touching the tops of her feet where they became hooves. Moving over her heels. He stroked her ankles and ran his hands over her calves.

Shaking, he said, “I think we’d better get back. They’ll be wondering where we are.” He felt drunk. He didn’t know that girls could make you feel drunk.

“Leave your shoes here. No one will say anything about your feet at the house, I promise. Let’s go back.”

He got up and marched away from the bench.

“Gun,” she said.

“What?”

“Gun. You forget.”

“Oh yeah. I forgot.” He picked it up and walked next to her. How could he get his hands back on her feet?

Her feet and legs tingled where he’d touched her. He was all she could think about. She wanted him to touch her. And she wanted to dance.

L
incoln Charles stood at the edge of the cylinder of light thrown from the ceiling. His commandos and secret service men had oozed out the door, scarcely needing to be dismissed. The metal rotunda enclosed him and Tsar Yuri. Linc wasn’t too afraid, because he figured his commando suit would protect him from anything a dead man could dish out.

His heart pounded with excitement. Finally he got to do something besides sign bills and say words his writers gave him. He crept forward and addressed the figure. When he moved, it turned to face him.

“Hello, Tsar Yuri!” Linc carefully examined Tsar Yuri, or whatever that was. Electricity crackled above, forming a pulsing web that spiraled from the ceiling to the figure’s head. Yuri stood on an illumined disk about four feet wide, in the center of the room’s metal floor.

Linc knew what “Yuri” was—a hologram. His scientists had shown them their versions of what he was seeing. They weren’t this good, but Linc knew the other man was an electronic apparition that couldn’t get out of the glowing circle on the floor.

“Gee, you look great.” He smiled broadly, aware that Yuri probably couldn’t see him behind his bulletproof helmet, but wanting to
appear friendly. “It’s great to meet you. You’re the guy who brought the Great Peace. I want to thank you on behalf of the American people!”

“You are”—the voice paused as though being fed his name— “President of the United States Lincoln Charles. Please talk to me, President Charles. Tell me what is important to you.” Another pause. “Tell me your dreams...”

Linc smiled. The great liberator cared about people. “Well, Yuri— I may call you that?” The hologram nodded. “I’ve devoted my life to happiness. I want to help as many people as I can achieve their full potential. I’m concerned about self-esteem, motivation, making the best out of any situation—”

“That is enough,” Yuri said. “Do you feel that everything is all right? Even now?”

“Well, shoot, Yuri, everything’s OK for us, isn’t it? For you and me, Ron and Martha. For everyone down here in the shelter. We’re just fine and will be, no matter what. I’m not worrying about a thing. Besides, maybe there’s a way out... we’ll have a chat and figure things—”

“Enough.” Yuri cut him off. Linc heard noise coming from outside the room where his guards were waiting, then silence.

“What’s going on?”

The hologram stood smiling, apparently looking at the doorway.

“Linc! Linc! Are you all right?” It was Ron’s voice, his chief of staff, coming through speakers.

“Everything’s OK, Ron.” Linc heard his own voice answer.

“The door locked and sealed itself. We can’t get in.”

“I’m not worrying about a thing. We’re OK down here.”

The hologram, or maybe a huge computer, had recorded his voice and was replaying it to Ron and the guys, making them think he was safe!

“Are you sure?”

“Ron, I’ll make the best of any situation. There’s a way out.”

“We’ll be here, sir.”

“We’ll have a chat and figure things out.”

“OK, sir. We’re here.”

The hologram looked at him, its true malignancy apparent. “Do you feel safe now, Mr. President? Are you happy?”

“Now look here!” Linc sputtered.

“SHUT UP. I’m not going to hurt you. We are going to have a talk. Then I will let you go.” Linc was relieved to hear that. “You will never be the same after this chat. In fact, you may take your own life.” The creature—it seemed more alive than anything Linc could imagine–—laughed, the sound ricocheting off the metal walls.

“You are here because you have failed.” The voice was deep, reverberating through Linc’s consciousness. “You would not see me if you had succeeded... the minute your scientists disarmed the nuclear devices, I would have self-destructed. But you couldn’t disarm anything.

“Tomorrow morning, your world will cease to exist. The atomics will detonate and the real Great Peace will begin. My peace—death.”

Before Linc could object, Yuri spoke again. A sound of popping electricity and grating metal accompanied his voice.

“You thought I got rid of the atomic weapons, didn’t you?” The hologram stared at him as though it could see him. Linc nodded vigorously. “No one can get rid of them; their waste lasts forever. I hid them, and set them to kill everyone on Earth.” Linc’s jaw dropped.

“How could I do this? Easy. Your technology is horse piss compared to mine. Your technical people and your computers could have saved you, but you outlawed them.”

Linc was appalled. He had worked his whole life to increase people’s self-esteem and now he was being manhandled by a really nasty—

He shook at the next blast of words.

“You think of me like children. ‘Good Tsar Yuri will take care of us.’ You think I am a nice guy. I have never been a nice guy!” the image screamed. The sound echoed round the room and electric sparks flashed from the ceiling. “I am not good Tsar Yuri. And you and your
people are not lovely children who deserve protection and love. You don’t deserve anything, you piece of shit.