To Sleep Gently (8 page)

"Hold on," Clark said, trying to interfere.

"Shut up," Dempster told him. He looked at each of them individually, then as a whole, and sighed once more. "Pack your shit and get out."

"What?"

"You heard me."

"Now wait a minute—"

"I'm tired of waiting. Get going."

"Now come on," Jimmy said. "We have just as much right on this thing as you do. Mister Skeele hired us all. We need this job. We all need this job."

"That's right," Dempster said, "and you said you would do anything to make sure it goes right. So here's what we're gonna do." He poked his finger into Evan's chest. "You've been given a chance to split. If you stay, mark my word, I'll kill any one of you that doesn't do what I tell them, got it?"

"Yeah," Clark said stepping between everybody, the peacekeeper. "Yeah, we get it. Nothing like this will happen again, right guys?"

Evan and Jimmy glared at one another.

Then, "Right," Jimmy said softly, defeated.

That sinister grin returned to Evan's face, larger than before. "Right," he said, "no more trouble." He looked into Dempster's eyes. "I promise," he said.

Dissatisfied but forcing himself to let it go, Dempster stepped aside and watched Clark and Evan pass by, leaving the room like punks being herded from a classy restaurant.

Jimmy stayed behind, fingers fidgeting. He wiped his face, then rubbed his neck. "I really wasn't going into his bag. I was just moving it. I don't want anything to do with his stuff; I don't give a crap. Honest. Why the fuck would I care?"

Dempster looked at him. You really don't know what you're doing, man, he thought. You're way out of your league. This isn't the line of work for you. You're too good of a person inside, you dumb bastard.

"Jimmy, have you ever read Nietzsche?"

"Huh?"

"Friedrich Nietzsche. Ever read him?"

Jimmy moved his head slowly from side to side, then wiped his face again.

"'He who fights with monsters should take care that he himself does not become a monster'." He looked into the hallway and then to Jimmy, who stood confused and concerned, eyes narrowed, brow furrowed, face red.

You fool, Dempster thought. The dumb look in your eyes. Things can't go on this way for you. Get out while you still can—
if
you still can.

He looked away and told him, "Get out of my sight."

Jimmy got up and stumbled out of the room.

Dempster stood there a moment and regarded the two bags, each nondescript and uninteresting. He couldn't help wondering about Evan's bag, though, given the man's reaction to it being touched. He left and made his way back through the hall to his own room, picturing in his mind the image of himself he'd seen earlier in the bathroom mirror.

"'When you gaze long into the abyss,'" he concluded, "'the abyss also gazes into you'."

3

Hours later, after going over the escape route three times and checking out a couple of alternate routes, Dempster found himself pulling into the parking lot of De Vargas Mall without even thinking about it.

Stupid asshole, he said to himself, knowing exactly why he'd come here. He'd come to see his old friend Mike Goodman, like he said he would. His best friend since the first grade. The friend he'd smoked his first cigarette with. First discussed girls with. The same friend who once punched him in the face to get his car keys away when he was too drunk to drive. Who stayed up all night to help him with his math homework, and when he still couldn't get it right, let him copy his. Someone who had remained his friend over the years in spite of his many flaws. That's why he was here at the mall, he told himself. To see his best friend.

More powerful than this, however, though he tried not to admit it, was a desire to see the redheaded girl he'd seen the day before. A burning desire, like match heads flaring. He remembered exactly how she looked. Her soft, clear and pale skin, the only make-up a small bit of lipstick, red to match her hair. Her blue eyes tired and frustrated, giving them an air of indifference that Dempster found appealing. The way she moved, slowly and with a certain poise that went well with the rest of her presentation. She stirred something ferocious and primitive inside him, and he wanted her in incomprehensible ways that brought about an unsettling ache which started in his chest and went down to his knees.

Contradictory to this, however, he also felt fear. There had been something that drew him like a magnet, while at the same time repelled him.

He climbed out of the car, pocketed his keys, and made his way to Essentials.

The music hadn't changed since the day before. Still the same terrible dance song. The lighting was still awful, the atmosphere worse. Instead of heading straight for the book department, this time he took the long way around, through the video section, moving slowly, deliberately, browsing the new releases and others around him. Not a sign did he see of her.

Mike was in the literature section with some sort of beeper gun, using it to scan barcodes on the backs of books. When the gun made one sound, he placed that book back on the shelf, and when it made another sound, he tossed the book onto a cart.

"Hey, Perky."

Mike scanned another book, tossed it onto the cart and looked up. "Hey, Jerky. You have a good night?"

"Could've been worse." He pulled a copy of
The Moviegoer
from the shelf. "What about you?"

"Wasn't bad," Mike said. "Mostly spent the night watching TV."

"Anything good?"

"Is there ever anything good on TV?"

"I dunno. I haven't really seen it in years."

"There's nothing other than crappy reality shows these days," Mike told him. "Even worse are the reality game shows, where they do things like have ten women each pick an envelope that could have anywhere from zero to a million dollars in it. Then they all date the same guy, and if the guy rejects them, they're out of the game. No love, no money, nothing. If the guy falls in love with one, then that girl has to pick between the love of this man or the envelope." He shook his head and tossed another book onto the cart. "Lame."

Dempster replaced
The Moviegoer
on the shelf. "Guess I haven't missed much in that area," he said.

"You haven't."

"Say, Mike, I wanna ask you something and it's gonna sound stupid."

"Won't be the first time."

"That's true." He reached for a Chuck Palahniuk book then stopped and let his hand drop. "There was a girl working over in the video section last night. Real cute redhead."

Mike scanned another book, put it back on the shelf. He nodded slowly as he reached for yet another. "That would be Carly," he said.

Carly. He liked the name.

"What's her story?"

"I don't know."

"What'd you mean you don't know? You work with her, don't you?"

"Lots of people work here, Demp, and just about everyone hates working here. As a result, we all associate with each other as little as possible."

"That seems weird."

"Yeah, maybe, but that's how it is."

"So you don't know anything about her?"

"I know her name is Carly. Carly Whittaker." He shrugged. "She seems pretty cool." He threw another book onto the cart and looked up at him. "She's a bit younger than you."

"She can't be that much younger than me."

"Don't forget, you
did
age while you were locked up."

The statement struck a painful chord inside him. He realized he had no choice but to brush it off.

"So that's all you can tell me about her."

"Unfortunately, yeah, I don't have anything else to offer on the subject." He scanned another book. "Sorry."

Suddenly Dempster's mind clouded with guilt for pushing Mike unfairly.

"All right, cool," he said. "Whatever. You get your lunch any time soon?"

"In another twenty or thirty minutes, yeah. Where you wanna go?"

"So far I've eaten at the pizza place and that's it. We could go there again, or you could pick something else. Doesn't matter to me."

"Okay, well, I've still got a little while here. I'll think about it."

For the next fifteen minutes Dempster browsed around the store. He read the backs of a dozen books, found a couple that interested him, but decided not to buy them. He sampled CDs at a listening station and discovered that he didn't like contemporary pop music with the exceptions of Liz Phair and the Hollis Wake. He studied the movie rentals. Some looked good and some looked bad. Some looked abysmal.

He was reading the back of a video box when his arm bumped the shelf and knocked several movies to the floor. He crouched down to pick them up, and as he gathered them into his arm a pair of feet entered his vision.

He looked up, then stiffened, staring at the red hair and blue eyes of Carly Whittaker.

They were quiet for some moments, ogling one another, each trying to read the other's mind. Up close she was even prettier, and though he felt that it was high time he looked away, he found it impossible.

"I saw you in here yesterday," she said.

"Could be," he told her, "given that I was in here yesterday."

Once again he tried looking away. But her eyes were like magnets that pulled his eyes to hers. He watched her place a hand on her hip, and shift her weight to one leg. She was wearing jeans today, and a white blouse, which made the redness of her hair stand out like flames on a snow hill.

"Well?" she said.

Dempster looked deeper into her eyes. She was daring him. "Well what?"

"You gonna put those movies back on the shelf?"

He felt the videos in his hands. He'd forgotten he was holding them, and suddenly they were very heavy. He managed to break eye contact, turn, and put them back on the shelf.

He wasn't sure what his thoughts were, but he didn't want to look at her again. He was afraid that if he turned back and looked into those blue eyes, he would never see anything else as long as he lived.

"You okay?"

"Sure."

"You seem nervous," she said. "Am I scaring you?"

"I don't scare easily." He knew that much was true.

He could smell her, feel her electricity. Only now did he realize that she wasn't wearing her green apron. He told himself not to, but looked back into her eyes. And cursed himself.

"It just seems," she said, "that your I.Q. has suddenly dropped to doorknob status."

"Thing is." His voice was tight, though he did manage a grin. "I like redheads too much." There was nothing complimentary in the way he said it.

She smiled as sparks came into her eyes. "In what way?"

Before he could come up with the proper phrasing, his cell phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket, looked at the Caller I.D., and saw that the number was Charlie's cell. Connecting, he said, "Charlie, hang on a second." Then to Carly Whittaker, "See ya."

She smiled, then turned on her heel and vanished.

He brought the phone to his ear and asked Charlie what was up.

"We're in Dallas," Charlie said. "The flight out of here doesn't leave for another hour." He cleared his throat. "We're suddenly having a bit of an issue. Freddy hasn't completely explained it to me but it looks like our fence man in Albuquerque is no longer our fence man."

"What?"

"Guess Freddy got some dirt on him and gave him the boot."

"That's not good," Dempster said.

"I know, it's a bit unsettling but don't worry about it. Not like it's never happened before." Charlie paused and cleared his throat again. "He just lined someone up in Corrales. Guy by the name of Frazier. Here, wait, I'll give you the new information."

"Call me with that when you get to Albuquerque, if you don't mind," Dempster told him. "I'm out and about right now."

"Yeah, sure thing."

"This Frazier guy—you know anything about him?"

"Not really. Freddy's apparently worked with him before, says he's a good guy, can move the stuff real fast. Said he'd almost wished he'd gone with him in the first place."

"Wonder why he didn't."

"I'll call you when we get to Albuquerque."

"All right."

They disconnected. Dempster looked to where Carly had been standing. She wasn't there but he could still see her, even when he closed his eyes. She had branded herself onto his brain, and that annoyed him. With everything else going on, the last thing he needed was to have some girl thrown into the mix.

Suddenly Mike's voice came over the store's loudspeaker. "Jack Dempster, please come to the book information desk. Your party is waiting with a message for you."

He didn't like being beckoned over the P.A. like that. The second he started walking over he saw people looking at him. Now they knew who he was. They were saying to themselves, "That's Jack Dempster."

Mike was at the computer, typing away. "Hey, Jerky, I'm sorry. Turns out Philip just went to lunch, so I'm actually stuck here another hour. I dunno if you wanna come back or not, but I don't imagine that you want to spend another hour here."

Dempster had no idea who Philip was. "That's cool," he said. "I've got some other stuff to do. How about we play it by ear. If I can, I'll stop back by, and if things work out, they work out."

"All right. Again, I'm sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry about."

"Hey, how about dinner tonight? You still haven't seen Angela."

"What are you thinking?"

"I dunno, we could make something at home." He quickly raised his hand. "Don't worry, I know how you are—nothing too formal. You know that's not our style. Hell, we could even order a pizza or something like that, if you like. Or we could go out."

Dempster thought on it a moment, then said, "Yeah, all right. That sounds good. I don't have anything going on."

Mike wrote down directions to the house. Dempster glanced at them, and then stuck the paper into his pocket and asked, "What time you want me there?"

"When is good for you?"

"Whenever."

"How about eight?"

"Eight it is."

They said goodbye, and Dempster walked through the store, thinking and wondering—worrying—about the change in fence men, but finding his eyes searching for the intriguing redhead who apparently frightened him. When he didn't find her, figuring it to be a good thing, he made his exit, and met his car halfway across the parking lot. It was nice and sunny out. He fished into his pocket for his keys, and as he did, he heard the two-tap honk of a car horn. Looking over his shoulder, he saw a red Toyota Tercel stopped directly behind him, blocking in his Honda. Behind the wheel, staring at him with those magnetic eyes, was Carly Whittaker.