Despite myself, I smothered a grin. Maybe he wasn’t a complete doubting Thomas, but he did have some common sense about him. That would be nice to know—if I had any plans on knowing him at all. I didn’t. “Yeah, lights would dim all over the state with what you’ll dredge up.” I checked my watch. “Sorry, Doc. Like I said, no poking or prodding for me. I don’t like it, and I don’t see any profit in it.”
“You don’t have any interest in furthering the understanding of the paranormal field?”
None whatsoever. I couldn’t be less interested if it did involve electricity with a proctologist and an IRS audit as a cherry on top. Besides a near-pathological love of my privacy, just the thought of yukking it up with my so-called colleagues gave me a headache. If I wanted to rub elbows with that many nuts, I’d hit the peanut butter factory over in Macon.
And all of that wasn’t counting what the contents of his wallet meant, and they meant a great deal.
“We’ll make a psychic of you yet.” I grunted, tapped the face of my watch, and stood. “Time’s up. It was nice shooting the breeze with you. Tuesdays are two-for-one readings. Tell all your friends.”
“You won’t even think about it?” He seemed disappointed. “I have to say you seemed one of the more promising candidates. I talked to the woman who left just as I arrived. If it hadn’t been so ungodly hot standing there on the sidewalk, I think she would’ve gone on for hours praising your work … and other attributes.” He quirked another half smile at that, then came to an inner decision. “It shouldn’t take more than a day, and we would pay you.”
“Pay?” I still wasn’t wild about the idea of being put under a microscope. Wasn’t wild meaning that my spine twitched uncontrollably at the thought, but my traitor palm itched almost as much. I ignored it.
“You couldn’t mention it to the other subjects. They’re doing it for the academic good,” he pointed out with a slightly critical air.
“Doing it for the publicity, you mean.” Naiveté, thy name is Chang, except it wasn’t … on so many fronts. And whatever was lurking behind those pale eyes had not even a passing acquaintance with gullibility.
“There won’t be any publicity. This is a serious study. It will be years before anyone besides other researchers see it.” He stood, too, although he was obviously reluctant to leave, while I couldn’t wait to see him go. I thought I might treat myself to that beer after all in celebration.
“Do my fellow psychics know that?”
“Ah … no,” he commented blandly. “Not exactly.”
“Yeah, thought so.” I indicated the door with one dark gloved finger. “You can ponder the selfless quality of human nature on your way out, Dr. Chang. And if that gets you too down, Luther makes a killer apple pie at the coffee joint three doors over. Best you’ll ever have. It’ll fix you up, right as rain.” I changed my mind about hearing the exact cash offer. It would only tempt me in a stupid, stupid direction.
He could’ve been a professor with nothing more than knowledge as his goal. Could’ve been, but he wasn’t. It wouldn’t have mattered either way. I wasn’t a rat in a maze; I wasn’t a subject. And I wasn’t going to be under anyone’s thumb again, no matter for how short a period of time. Look at this, show me that. No, thanks.
“You get a percentage there, don’t you?” he said without surprise. “For every slice of pie sold, I’d guess.”
“You know it.” It was free meals, actually, but I didn’t mind some shining of my reputation. “Watch the door, Doc.” I didn’t mention the glass. “The spring’s loose. Wouldn’t want it to hit you in your academic ass, now, would we?”
He left. He didn’t want to. I expected him to argue further, but he didn’t. He either read my set expression correctly, or it was the saliva dripping from Houdini’s muzzle as it edged out from under the desk and around the corner to flash bared teeth. One of the two did the trick.
The rest of the day was spent doing what I liked best: making money. And I made it with no one looking over my shoulder, no one telling or even suggesting to me what to do. I made it without owing anyone or depending on anyone for anything.
Just the way I liked it.
5
Home.
If you’d asked me when I was fourteen what my perfect home would be, it wouldn’t have been this. And I’d thought about it then—a lot. A mansion with a manicured lawn pampered against the heavy-handed Georgia summer. Not that I would do the pampering. I’d leave that to the professionals. After all, didn’t they come with the big house? People to take care of the outside, people to clean the inside. Surely they were part and parcel when the bank handed over the keys. The neighborhood would be as fancy as they came, with towering gates, paved roads, and not a single kid selling half-fermented berries from a four-board stand. The dreams of a fourteen-year-old. A place like that would’ve driven me nuts. Associations, rules, fees for anything and everything … hell, they probably even had one against scratching your ass after ten P.M. No, once I grew up, that dream wasn’t for me.
My reality now was better than that. Worlds better. My house was average-sized but paid for and was outside of town, north. It sat directly on the Chattahoochee River. The road was paved, barely, but my neighbors were out of sight around a bend in the shoreline. I saw them only rarely. Most likely they rented their cabin out to tourists the majority of the year. Many river folk did. It was all right. I valued my solitude. After delving into the private lives of people all day, every day, the quiet, the stillness, was welcome. Sitting on my deck with a frosty beer and watching the undemanding river flow by, it was the closest thing to heaven I was ever likely to experience.
The house itself was nothing to look at, not from the outside. Weathered cedar siding worn to a nondescript silver blended into the surrounding yellow poplar and sweet gum trees. You could be a hundred feet away and almost not see it, if not for the betraying sun-spangled glitter of a window. The inside, however, was more eye-catching. The ceiling was high and paneled in poplar, reddish brown wood with mellow streaks of gold. There was a lofted area edged with a banister over which were thrown two blankets of red, black, and gold. The walls were painted the same gold, the color of the late-afternoon air.
There were two leather couches—one for me and one for Houdini. I was willing to share, but he wasn’t as agreeable. Evil dog.
The kitchen was just that, a kitchen. When I cooked, I tended to try to burn the place down. Spending money on shiny new appliances would be a waste. The oven had been singed but good on only its second day, and it had only been downhill for it from there. The refrigerator was defrosted on a nearly daily basis. Houdini would sneak in the middle of the night to open it and root his big nose in the cold cuts–drawer. In the morning, I’d find a puddle on the tile floor and the stink of spoiled milk. I’d tried blocking the door with a chair. That lasted about two seconds. Then I’d tried securing it with a chain and padlock. That morning, I woke up to another puddle, and this one wasn’t water or melted ice cream. It was yellow and pungent, and it soaked through my socks before I saw it.
Houdini won that battle. As a rule, he won them all. A brain the size of a fist, and he outmaneuvered me every time.
The bedroom was in the loft, which made nighttime bathroom breaks a bitch of stumbling stairs and stubbed toes. But it was worth it when I woke up every morning to the green, yellow, and blue explosion that lay outside six-foot windows. Earth, sun, and sky—it was all that was eternal. In comparison with the rest of us, at any rate. In my business, you saw everything that was fleeting, you were shown that most things pass. It was nice to be reminded of the few exceptions. Abby had helped me with decorating the entire place. I might cultivate my personal look, but when it came to decking out the house, I was like most guys. I bought what was functional and closest to the checkout counter, so to speak. If I could sit on it or sleep in it, that’s pretty much all that mattered. Or at least so I thought. Abby straightened me out quick on that front.
I’d
liked what she did with the rest of the house. It was bold and masculine and comfortable. The bedroom had been a different story. She and Gemma, her British girlfriend at the time, had wanted to do the room in white. For peace and moral purity, they’d said, Gemma in all her feng shui seriousness and Abby with a naughty wink. I think Abby was under the impression that I got more action than I actually did. I’m not saying I hadn’t gone through my share some years ago. After a while, that kind of tomcatting had gotten old, but not for the more noble and mature reasons most might eventually reach. I simply had gotten tired of the trying to tune out women’s life stories—stories they’d be horrified to find out I knew. Some guys, dumb-asses usually, bitch that their dates won’t shut up. Try multiplying that by a thousand, a million. I’d learned over the years to hold things off to a certain extent in my day-to-day life, keep it at arm’s length where it was a persistent whisper instead of a loud, constant drone. I’d gotten good at it. But during sex, all bets were off. All that skin-to-skin contact combined with the usual brain shutdown, arm’s length was hardly an option. Try doing your business with a person shouting her life story in each ear. I’m not saying it isn’t doable, but it’s a challenge, no doubt about it.
Abby, on the other hand, worked both sides of the fence. Men or women, they were both fair game. She was monogamous and honest to a fault with whomever she ran with, but there was no denying she had a healthy dating and sex life. And she wasn’t averse to sharing the details. Half the time, I didn’t need that nudie mag in my desk. Abby was all the entertainment that money needn’t buy. Once-long hair was now cropped to short platinum curls. That and the tiny diamond stud in her nose had changed her style considerably, but she was still Abby through and through. She had just grown up, and grown up damn fine.
Was I jealous? Hell, yes, I was jealous. Being a human ask-the-eight-ball wasn’t exactly compensation, no two ways about it. The moment when scarlet stars burst behind your eyes and the base of your spine melts into warm pudding, to feel that and nothing else—how could I not envy that? To hold someone tightly in a tangle of warm limbs and heated breath without seeing the cheap green tile of an abortion clinic and hearing the sobs of a scared and sad sixteen-year-old girl, I couldn’t even begin to imagine it. That was the thing. To her, that memory might be ten years old, melancholy but faded to a rain-washed watercolor. To me, it was fresh as the day … the very minute it had happened. The sound of the vacuum. The nurse’s hand warm and tight on hers. The fact that her boyfriend hadn’t shown up even though he had promised. The ache, strange and different, like none she’d felt before. That was just one memory, one among numbers uncounted. Good, bad, indifferent. Everyone had them. If that weren’t bad enough, and it was, the women who knew what I did for a living always had this look, this wary, corner-of-their-eye expectation, when we were in bed. Whether they actually bought the whole psychic package or not, they still had the look. Does he know I wore the underwear with the ripped elastic because it was laundry day? Yeah, I did. Does he know who I’ll marry? When I’ll die? No. Thank God or the lack thereof … no.
So, moral purity was less of a problem than I wished it were.
For the bedroom, I’d vetoed white. Anything but white, I’d said. I should’ve been more specific. They went for the country look. Not surprising, considering where I lived. Imitation oil lamp, braided rug, and quilt, it was uncomfortably familiar. Of course, the quilt was hunter green, wine, and cobalt blue on a cream background. Nothing like the one I’d slept under for nearly eleven years. That one hadn’t come from an upscale department store. It had been sturdy and ugly as hell. Drab brown, rust orange, and whatever scraps happened to be on sale at the fabric store the day Granny Rosemary got her monthly check from the government. I should’ve cherished it, no matter how hideous it was, because it was made with love. For all that my stepfather was—who he was—his mother was a gentle woman. Loving and quick to give hugs and homemade cookies. I should’ve loved it because it came from her, but … I didn’t. I had been a stupid kid, resentful and ashamed of the way I lived. I wanted a bedspread with superheroes or cowboys or, as I grew older, a plain comforter in navy blue or stripes. I never got either. Instead, I’d later learned to do with a thick, itchy institutional blanket of faded gray that had seen hundreds of homeless kids before me. The soft worn cotton of a shabby, homely quilt was missed more than I could’ve dreamed.
I’d complimented Abby on her choice, nodded as she bragged how she’d gotten it for only two hundred and fifty dollars, then folded it up and put it away in the cedar chest at the foot of the bed the moment she drove away. A simple solid-colored comforter replaced it. It handled the dog hair better, anyway, and it was machine washable. That was helpful for getting out Houdini’s drool stains on a weekly basis. I was damn talented when it came to making money, but that dry-cleaning bill would’ve broken me.
It was a comfortable house and a helluva lot better than my childish fantasy. I planned on staying there until they zipped me up in a body bag. I only hoped I was watching the river and drinking a cold one when it happened.
This night wasn’t one for that, though, not unless I wanted to sit in a pool of my own sweat and inhale bugs instead of air. It was a good decision. The moment I stepped inside, it began to rain, turning the muggy air into an almost impenetrable soup. Listening to the hiss and gurgle of water in the gutters, I decided on reheated pizza and a movie. I’d just popped the veggie special into the microwave when there was a knock on my door. Houdini was so flabbergasted by this unprecedented occurrence that while his head swiveled in the direction of the sound, he remained frozen in his favorite dozing position, on his back on his couch with all four feet in the air. I was nearly as thrown. Except for Abby and Glory, people didn’t show up at my place uninvited. It wasn’t welcome, and, quite frankly, it wasn’t a smart thing to do. Between Houdini and the occasional visit from my sister, my house wasn’t a place for the unwary. And that wasn’t factoring in my annoyance at having my space invaded.
I threw a jaundiced eye at the unmoving Houdini and went to the door. I wasn’t too surprised to see that it was good old Dr. Chang from that morning. I’d been fairly sure I’d see his lying ass again; I’d just been hoping it wouldn’t be so soon. Or here.
“Oh, look,” I said, snorting, hand resting on the knob, “someone more persistent than a Jehovah’s Witness. What fun.”
He was less put together than he had been that morning. Rain had flattened his hair, and the suit jacket was a shapeless sodden mess. He was trying to protect a white box with a curved arm with only limited success.
“Could you take this, please,” he said with exasperation.
I hesitated. My gloves were off, lying on the kitchen counter. Everything in my house was new … safe. No one had been in contact with anything long enough to leave an imprint. Still, it was only a cardboard box, brand-new—chances were it hadn’t had time for anything to imprint on it, even from Chang. I took it from him, noticing that he was careful to keep his hands from touching mine. The study, still with the study. Yeah, and who was really running that study? Cradling the box that was mercifully mute in my hands, I continued to block the door and watch the water drip from the eaves onto his head and down his neck. “So, do you want a tip or what?” I asked innocently.
“What I want is to talk to you. And if I could do that without half drowning, I would consider it a bonus.” The blue eyes were narrowed grimly as drops of water drizzled down his face.
“Then maybe you should’ve called first. Oh, wait, I didn’t give you my unlisted number.” I bounced the box on my hand and took a sniff. It smelled familiar. “Or my equally unlisted address. Huh, you’d almost think you weren’t wanted. Go figure.” I opened the lid. Apple pie … from the same neighborhood diner I’d mentioned to him. I recognized the thick cinnamon-crumble topping and the wide chunk of cheese nestled in a cardboard corner. “I don’t suppose you brought coffee.”
He continued to fix me with an unwavering
and demanding silent gaze.
Unmoved, I shrugged. “That’s all right. The caffeine makes Hou a bitch to live with, anyway.” I opened the box and set it on the floor. Houdini instantly catapulted to his feet and raced over to bury his snout in the pastry. At the last second, I saved the cheese from his gaping maw. Canine constipation is never a pretty sight.
Chang sighed and wiped a palmful of rain from his face. “So much for my goodwill gesture. You’re not going to let me in, are you?”
“Keep this up, Doc, and you’ll put me out of a job,” I drawled, and started to slam the door in his face. Chances were good that it would take off the end of his nose. Let us count the ways in which I did not care.
His foot stopped the door with a skill I found it hard to believe that college professors, even only professed part-time ones, possessed. “I wanted to do this the easy way, the civilized way,” he offered with grim regret. “I hope you try to keep that in mind.”
For a moment, I had no idea what he was talking about. The easy way? He might be quick with the old salesman foot, but did he honestly think he was up to pissing me off? I’d learned more when I was a teenager than the superiority of quilts over scratchy blankets or how to spot a mark with one eye and the cops with the other. I could take care of myself. More to the point, I could take care of some dickhead who mistakenly thought I was caught between his foot and an apple pie. I might not want to run into him in an alley, but I would take care of business if I did. “You know, Dr. Chang, you’ve been so careful to avoid contaminating your precious study.” I balled my hand into a fist and bared my teeth in a humorless grin. “What a shame, because I’m about to get one helluva reading off your face.”