Chapter Ten

I knew the movies lied to me as a kid, particularly the westerns; mainstay of Saturday morning cinema. It is not, for instance, as easy to jump onto a moving train as they show—especially cargo trains traveling through the night.

The level stretch of track I had chosen for my attempt proved to be a place engineers used to make up time. The speed at which the train passed blew me away from the track and into the snow. Dusting myself off, I got back on the snowmobile and pursued it. The train eventually reached a mountain pass where it slowed down considerably. I got a little bit ahead of the engine, dumped the snowmobile and prepared to run alongside the cars. A loading door was slightly ajar, so after winding myself considerably, I managed to launch myself up and into a freight car.

The comforts of this train were Spartan in comparison to the one I had taken to Chance City. I moved crates around until I’d made myself a nook to sleep in. Finding sleep was difficult—the noise, the motion­—however, exhaustion did get the better of me, and I finally dropped into another dream.

I was in the control room, the sound board in front of me. This would be the first ever attempt at breaking through the ionosphere and reflect a signal off the moon. We adjusted for the sun’s radiation, return trajectory, even temperature variations in London. A big dish sat out in the middle of the New Mexico desert and its pitch, rotation, and maw were at my left hand. Signal strength was at my right. I had monitor gauges that oversaw Tangie’s board at the power station.

A separate room sat off to the side, a glass partition kept General Archdeacon, Dean Orchid, and a dozen spectators from the scientific community and press from getting in the way. I made final preparations with Tangie on the intercom. Mendelssohn, who had been beside me, said he wanted to check one more thing and left.

Tangie paused for a moment and said, “Hold on, Noel. Jorge needs me for something.”

I waited. A minute went by. Jorge Mendelssohn returned to the room, and Tangie gave the all clear signal.

I looked around. Jorge took his station and nodded. I flipped the switch to on.

There was a hum. I waited for my team to make adjustments and check readings. When no one spoke up, I turned the power dial up.

Twenty-five percent. Fifty percent.

A voice from the intercom said, “Is it getting hot in here?”

Tangie said, “I think we’re all a little nervous.”

Her voice sounded odd. Was her confidence gone?

I said, “I think we should stop.”

Tangie replied, “The temperature gauge reads normal. We’re okay.”

Dean Orchid placed a lithe hand on the call button of the intercom in their area. Her voice was as shaky as Tangie’s. “Is this going to work?”

I smiled reassuringly and she tilted her head at me, trying to see through my bullshit. She was in her thirties back then, yet dressed like a schoolmarm. That combination made lying to her convincingly difficult, as young and inexperienced as I was. She kept chestnut hair pulled back tightly into a bun, which I believed kept her perpetually in bitch mode.

I nodded and turned the switch up to 75 percent.

“Jorge? Is the tracer plane in the air?”

“Yes, they left Davis-Monthan fifteen minutes ago.”

I finished turning the dial. I flipped the switch to scan, and with it came screams. A tech’s voice cried, “Oh my G—!” but then was cut off by a burst of static. They hadn’t all died at once. At least one man, that last voice, had seen the others die and knew he was next.

His name was Rupert and I could still hear his voice when I woke in a sweat.

Light sneaked its way in through the wooden planks of the rail car. I opened the door a crack and looked out over the snow-encrusted Rockies. It was a magnificent sight, but I couldn’t enjoy it. Wind battered me as something from the dream lingered, but it wouldn’t come forward to make itself known. I tried remembering every minute detail, but time had weakened the memory; the moment was lost.

I had time to think. I took out a can of the baked beans, opened them with a knife I had taken from the cabin, and continued the investigative process I had started the night before.

All scientific analysis starts with an idea, a theory. Even if the theory is proved wrong through the analysis, it can lead to, or remove doubt from, other ideas. As I sat in the cold, shaking boxcar, I got an idea. I looked at all the facts again: Reece, Mendelssohn, the MASER, the Hero Twins, the mysterious T.I. and its elusive Mr. X, Yousev, and now Stalin. It took me a while to see it, but when I placed them in a mental flow process chart and drew connections from one to the other. There was a piece of the puzzle missing—one piece to make the whole picture come clear.

When I proposed a theory, back in the day, and my intent to investigate it, I needed to convince several people, money people or other scientists of its worth. This time I needed to convince only one person to start. If I could get Chief Charles Sweet on my side, I’d have the means to find the puzzle piece to make everything fall together.

It became evident that going all the way into Industry City by train would be a mistake. I spotted military roadblocks on the highway the few times it was visible. I couldn’t take the chance there were cinder dicks checking the boxcars as they arrived.

I caught a break just outside of town. The track took a bend around the foothills, obscuring my exit from either end of the train. I jumped off, tucked into a roll, and found a place to hide from the rear conductor.

Maybe my luck had changed. It wasn’t more than a short hike to the Industry City Downs. I dusted myself off and went to place a bet on a man.

* * *

The Downs was Industry City’s premier horse-racing establishment. While I had been known to drop a fiver on the ponies before, more often than not, I was there getting the skinny or chasing a chalk-eater.

And … that’s where Sean Burke worked.

Burke could put clothes on a fish and could hear a mouse fart in Brooklyn. He knew everyone and everything that happened in the underworld. His job as horse trainer didn’t bring in nearly the cash that being a stoolie did. Whatever was for sale, whoever was for sale, Burke knew about it first.

And he owed me a favor.

I got there just before the fifth. I became smoke, flowing with the air currents of excited bettors as they gawked at the frothing, four-legged warriors in pursuit of glory on a circular field of battle. Picking up a discarded program, I scanned down the page, looking at horses’, jockeys’, and trainers’ names. Burke didn’t have any runners again until the seventh and last race.

I knew how to get to the stables unnoticed. I slipped under the stands and made my way around to the back of the horseboxes.

Burke trained for Martin Sully, the local barracuda, who was on par with Charlie the Spic. Sully was the artesian well Burke tapped for information. He was careful not to sell too much or risk the big sleep. Burke erred on the side of caution, this gig being the best he’d ever had.

The Irishman brushed down a chestnut. I opened the stall door and pushed Burke into the back corner quickly, my hand over his mouth. I leaned in hard, my body pinning his scrawny form. His face turned red as the bangs that hung over his noggin.

“Hi there, Burky. I came for the favor you owe me.”

“Gwash!”

“Yes, Glass. Seems everyone’s got a bull’s-eye on me, Burke. If you open your trap to say anything other than ‘Hi, Glass,’ I’ll gut you where you stand, got it? Nod if you got it.”

He nodded. I let my hand off for a moment. “Hi, Glass.”

I covered his mouth again. “Good, we’re still on speaking terms. Now I’ll ask some questions and you’ll answer them yes or no. Got it? Nod if you got it?”

Burke was nervous. I’m sure bladder control was secondary on his mind. He nodded.

“Good. Is Charlie the Spic after me?”

He shook his head, confirming something I suspected. Merlot hadn’t given up anything yet. She, too, needed aces in the hole.

“Is General Archdeacon in town?” He gave me a nod.

“Good. See how easy this is. Keep this up and we’re even, okay?” He nodded.

“I want the word on the street about me. Is my face everywhere? What are they saying? How much is being offered for me? I’m going to take my hand off. If you so much as say something that begins with an H for help, I’ll gut you, but I made that clear, didn’t I?”

He nodded. I slowly took my hand off his face. He spit on the ground to get the taste of my meat hook out of his mouth. He reached into a pocket and pulled out a small flask. I could smell the burn from where I stood.

“Jesus, Glass! We didna have to go through all the threats and such. Yer hot property now. I can make more off of lyin’ about ya den tellin’ the truth.”

That was Burke.

“So what’s the pitch, Glass? Ya really gone mad?”

“I’m clean, Burke. Who’s whispering about me?”

“They say yer the biggest threat to national security since Yamamoto. They say yer workin’ for the Japanese, the Koreans, and the Russians. They say that you torched Chance City to the ground and are on a three-state killin’ spree, takin’ out everyone who has ever gotten in yer way. They say—”

“Okay, enough. Who are they?”

“Mostly the papers, lookin’ for headlines. The grapevine is different. Charlie the Spic was screamin’, wantin’ to know what ya were doin’ in Chance City, but he was told to clam up by Chicago. CIA’s gotta hundred gees on you. The state of New Mexico doesn’t have that cash, so they’re only askin’ fer five.”

If Burke were a cartoon, he’d have dollar signs shooting from his peepers. I kept him in sight at all times, but I didn’t feel like standing anymore. I motioned for him to grab a straw bale and sit.

“There is someone else looking for me, isn’t there?”

He chuckled and gave me that Irish grin that meant he had something good, something worth the money he normally asked. “We’re inna clear after this, correct?”

“Yeah, we’re clear.”

“Oh, there’s someone all right. But that’s the weird thing. The first hit came down before ya even disappeared. They had the Hero Twins on retainer. No one else was supposed to be touchin’ ya. If Archdeacon or the Feds got to ya first, the Twins were to break ya out then kill ya before ya blabbed somethin’.”

I shook my head. “I have no idea what that could be. Do you?”

“Nobody this side of the dirt knows what it is, but I’ll tell ya straight. Chicago sent word that if anyone inna family had dealins’ with you, they were to pull out. They didna want any heat comin’ down on them.” Burke gave me a rueful smile. “Plus they’re very patriotic, ya know.”

“So who put out the hit on me?”

“If anyone knew, I’d know, and I don’t know. Ya couldna beat it outta me if ya wanted. I only knows that the Twins were set on yer trail. Nothin’ else.” He lolled his head to one side. “Did ya really ice one of them in Chance City?”

“Someone did, not me.”

“Damn, if that gets out, I’ll have to refund some money. Can ya take credit fer it, fer my sake?”

I ignored him. “You know any big dealers working for a company with the initials T.I.?”

He thought a moment. “Nah. Should I?”

Noise made us jump up from our bales. Someone was walking through the stables. I covered Burke’s mouth again and dragged him down to the floor. When the noise abated, I said, “I’m going now. Say, ‘Good-bye, Glass.’”

“Good-bye, Glass.”

Then I turned out his lights. He’d be sore when he got up, but he’d have a story to sell. I figured we were still even.

Charlie the Spic’s non-reaction meant Merlot kept quiet about our visit to her. Her keeping quiet meant she knew more than she had let on. I wish I’d had more time to pump her for information, but what was done …

Also, Burke confirmed that there was someone else pulling my strings even before I found Reece in my apartment. The Russians wanted Mendelssohn, and he had wanted me. The U.S. military wanted me. The heat wanted me. And as far as I knew, Lee was Yakuza and they wanted me. Now there was this mysterious third party putting hits on me, chasing me across the country. What did I know that they were so afraid of?

I mingled into the crowd and waited. Burke must have woken up and found security. I could see flashing lights off in the distance before I heard their clarion call. I was out of the Downs with the crowd of the last race before the police got organized enough to lock the place tight. Burke’s horse had placed last. God, the man was a piss-poor trainer.

It wasn’t long before Sweet’s beat-up cruiser arrived. He never liked to park too close to the action, in case he got a lead and had to follow up on it quickly. I slid into his backseat and lay down on the floor while he ran around barking orders. Sweet must use his backseat as a trash can; empty coffee cups, old newspapers, and toothpicks covered everything. I lay there for a half hour, trying not to gag before Sweet climbed back in.

“You’re going to want to stay down until we get clear of the parking lot.”

“How long did it take you to figure out I’d be in here?”

“Not long. That thing with Burke was too blatant. No one with your profile announces he’s back in town unless he needs a ride.”

I had to ask. “Are we going right to the station, or do I get to talk to you first?”

“I have my orders; they knew I was tight with you. They expect you to make contact with me.”

He didn’t say more. I held my breath, waiting for the follow-up. We were a couple of miles from the Downs before he said, “Okay, you can sit up now.”

We were entering the beginnings of a subdivision. The ground was turned up, and the foundations were laid on a half dozen buildings. If anyone but Sweet were driving the car, I’d have said this was a good place to get rid of a body.

Sweet pulled in to the markings of a driveway and turned off the motor. He wordlessly got out of the car and opened my door.

I followed him to the shell of a house, the framework and floor already in place. It would be a nice size—two stories and a basement, three hay parlors, two and a half baths. Respectable. I could see other shells like it dotted along the neighborhood. Industry City was growing toward the mountains. This place was nestled between the city proper and the foothills. Suburban living with a view. Hard to beat.

He entered the front door and walked into the living room. “This is my house.”

I stepped through the eventual wall. “You might need a throw rug, Sweet. It’s sort of bare.”

“I’ve been working all these years to get my family a house like this. It’s going to be a good neighborhood. There’s a school planned across the way, a park to take my dog to, a YMCA, and a shopping plaza with an ice cream parlor.”

“Sound like a nice place, Sweet,” I said, afraid of where this was going.

“And the only thing keeping me from it is … you.” He turned, gun drawn.

“You have one minute to tell me why I shouldn’t haul your ass in. I told you not to let me find you on the other side. It took you less than half a day to turn the whole damn country against you.”

“You still love me, right?”

But Sweet was in no mood for wisecracks. “Glass, I swear to God almighty, I can shoot you right now and collect half a mil. This isn’t the time for glibness. Now talk!”

“It’s going to take longer than one minute.”

“You start breaking it down, and I’ll tell you when to stop.”

So I did. I talked. I laid out what had happened up until then, from the moment I left him at the murder scene, which seemed so long ago now, until the moment I crawled into his car. I left nothing out, including Vincent’s Russian ties. Having worked with the man, Sweet was most appalled by that revelation. His arm got tired, so he eventually holstered the piece. I’d made it outlining my theories before he couldn’t take anymore.

“Jesus Christ on a crutch, Glass. How am I supposed to believe that? Freakin’ H.G. Wells wouldn’t believe that load of crap!”

“Some of this you can get from Burke. The letter Reece gave me might still be back at the safe house. If you follow my trail, you’ll see that everything I’ve told you fits.”

Sweet paced nervously back and forth, mentally poking holes in my story. There was too much for a simple cop to grasp. I could tell he regretted even letting me talk. I made his life more complicated. “It’d be easier to just arrest you as a Commie than convince anyone there is some secret conspiracy to overthrow the government.”

“Careful, Sweet. Your red, white, and blues are showing.”

“Damn right! I lost a lot protecting this country. I’d gone over fully expecting not to come back. I’d do it all over again.”

“Even losing Chuck?”

“Chuck died a hero. They all did. Hell yeah, I’d want my son back, but not at the cost of losing the country I love to those godless bastards.”

“Dulce et Decorum est pro patria mori.”

Sweet put a finger in his ear, as if trying to unclog it. “What was that crap?”

“Latin. Means ‘Know it is a wonderful and great honor to fight and die for your country.’ It was something said to excite Roman soldiers before a battle.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Rome fell.”

His face turned a shade of blue. I knew this meant he was trying to calm himself down by holding his breath and counting to ten. It would have been funny had the situation not been so dire. When he exhaled, the color returned to his face. “Taking you in might just be the favor I need. I get to serve, protect, and retire early.”

“I’m telling the truth, Sweet. Mendelssohn created a weapon against his principles. Why? Because he believed it would help the greater good. Not just here in America. He was sold on the idea that it could help the whole world.”

“By who, Glass? Convinced by who? Give me a name I can arrest.”

I continued, overriding the question. “Originally, it might have been designed to kill Hitler. Only we got into the war and Hitler did himself in. Plus, with the bomb, the MASER wasn’t necessary anymore. Countries were staying in line.”

“A name, Glass.”

“Stalin was the first to step out of line. He wanted another world war, so Mendelssohn built the device after all and helped to kill Stalin, stalling a military conflict, but instead creating a cold war, one of words and military buildup. Mendelssohn hadn’t expected that, but the people behind him did. They have people in high places on both sides, intent on stalling open hostilities until America and Russia are at equal strength and armaments. All it will take is a match to light the fire.”

“Glass!”

I steamrolled on. I had to get these points through to him. I sounded frantic and must have looked maniacal. “The next assassination will be one of ours, maybe the president, and it will be the match. It will be obvious, and the Russians will be the fall guys. Whoever is behind this T.I. company wants the war. They want to wipe the slate clean and start over with their own agenda. Mendelssohn found that out and rabbited.”

“Enough! I can’t hear this anymore!”

Sweet was shouting, so I shouted louder.

“If we find Mendelssohn, I’ll give you your fucking name!”

I was breathing hard, panting. I placed my hands on my knees and drew in deep breaths. Sweet stood there, watching me. He didn’t say anything for a few moments. He just took me in.

“Why should I believe any of this? Give me one good reason!”

“Because it’s right. You’ve never put the wrong man in jail intentionally, and I’ve never been wrong identifying the right one.”

Sweet turned from me and walked through his house, pausing at each room. I assumed he imagined what they would look like when finished. He stopped by the kitchen and eyeballed the backyard through an imaginary window. I joined him. It was as bare as hell’s backyard, but the view was fabulous.

“Bay window?”

“The missus wouldn’t have anything else. It was how I convinced her to move.”

“Nice view.”

“The best.”

And he was right. The house was located at the end of the lot. Behind the property was nothing but fields and foothills.

I smiled. “You know, they’ll probably build more houses back there in ten years.”

“Shut up, Glass. What do you need me to do?”

* * *

Sweet came out from the address Mendelssohn had left with Rocky, a run-down apartment complex. He sat behind the wheel, talking over his shoulder to me there on the floorboards, again.

“The landlord says the rent was paid for six months, up front, cash. Just about the time the lease was up, he found an envelope in his box for another month’s rent. He says he hasn’t seen anyone come in or out in that time.”

“Did the original tenant match the description I gave you?” I asked.

“To a tee.”

Pay dirt!

“I’ll be squatting here, Sweet. If you change your mind and want to arrest me, you’ll know where I’m shacked up.”

He made a harrumphing sound. “I’m going to follow up on some scuttlebutt I heard a while back. Might not be anything, but all this stuff you told me reminded me of a case we caught around St. Paddy’s. I’ll be back tomorrow to pick you up. Don’t let anyone see you!”

“I’ll sit tight.”

“So you really think you can save the world, huh?” Sweet was back to sarcasm. I guess the planets realigned for him.

“As soon as I know who’s behind this … Yeah, seems like the job I inherited.”

“There are many reasons to hate you, Glass. You’re cocky, you’re a drunk, and you never served in the military. Oh, and you think too much.” He paused, gauging his words. “Yet you keep trying to do the right thing. You’ve never let me down on a case, and that says ‘balls’ to all that other crap.”

“Thanks, Sweet. Don’t go all misty on me, though. You already have a wife and I’m the jealous type.”

I slid from the car. I instantly stepped in something unidentifiable and squishy that stank to high heaven. The garbage can in front of me had been tipped over by a cat, who continued to scrounge despite my abrupt appearance. Sweet must’ve parked the car there deliberately, knowing what I’d step into. I could see his grin in the side view mirror as the unmarked cruiser pulled away.

Condemning these apartments wouldn’t be justice enough. Once the high life of lower east side, the area now represented everything that was wrong with Industry City. The new was in; the old was left to rot, forgotten. When it got bad enough, the city would till it under and grow a new area over it. The moochers, mud kickers, and mashers would move to a different area, spreading their waste until it became the new slums, and the process would start over.

The lock was nothing to pick. I opened the door expecting stale air and an inch of dust on everything. Astonishingly, the place had been tidied up and the air smelled fresh, like windows had been opened. Maybe the apartment manager had kept up the place with the idea of subletting or having less work to do when the lease was up.

Mendelssohn rented it furnished. As with most rentals, the accoutrements were not of high quality. There was a kitchen table, sleeper couch, and a radio on top of a small dresser. The nicest thing was a recliner chair that looked almost new. One unusual addition to the place was a small piano tucked neatly in the corner. Mendelssohn must have had it brought in, expecting Merlot to join him. This is part of what she was keeping secret. She was going to join him here, and not just for a weekend. They’d planned to be here a while.

I moved to the refrigerator hoping for a beer and not year-old bologna. I found an Ancient Stout and a smattering of foodstuffs, all fresh. Someone used this apartment, and from the labels on the meat, it had been recently. Whoever had paid the extra month was in residence. I went through the trash. This morning’s paper was rolled up and stuffed in. I also found wrappers for various women’s sundries. My soon-to-be roommate was female, and it wasn’t hard to guess her identity.

I sat on the couch, gun on my lap. Whatever errand she had run might bring her back in a minute or in a day. I unrolled the paper and glanced through the last couple of days’ news. My mug still graced the front page, but now smaller and in the corner. The story, moved to page two, rattled my soul. Reporters must have bothered my parents, relatives, old acquaintances. Quotes of how “bright a lad” I had been got old quickly. I moved on through the paper until I found something of note in the business section.

Little Technologies’ board of directors had chosen a successor for Reece promptly. Cecelia LaMent, a distant relative of founder C.J. Reece, was approved by unanimous vote of the six-person board of directors. Miss LaMent oversaw Little Technologies’ Jakarta branch for the past 14 years. While estranged from Reece during most of that time, the two recently resolved their dispute, forging the way for LaMent to be the first woman chief executive officer of a large technologies firm, especially one with close ties to the military. Little Technologies has been the primary electronics contractor to the U.S. armed forces for more than 40 years. As much a recluse as her infamous predecessor, Miss LaMent has never been photographed at large and no pictures were made available by the company.

What was it with that family? They weren’t hideous to look at; at least, Reece was no Elephant Man. Why all the subterfuge?

I showered. While I wasn’t even close to Mendelssohn’s size, I did find some usable clothes. I rinsed out my two-day-old, fifteen-hundred-mile shirt and threw it over the window sill. It was two hours before I heard the key in the lock. She had grocery bags in front of her, so she didn’t see me. She moved into the kitchen, depositing her parcels on the table. She had kicked the door closed, but I moved in behind her to lock it. Once I threw on the chain, all was ready.

“Hello, Merlot.”

She spun, anger flashed across those haunting eyes once again. I seemed to bring out the worst in this woman. She didn’t notice the gun as she moved toward me, so I flashed it.

“We’re not going through this scene again, sweetheart, and you’re not in Charlie’s territory anymore. We’re both here for the duration, and we both want the same thing: Mendelssohn. So why not play nice, kitten?”

“Ain’t you in enough trouble without adding kidnapping to your sheet?” Merlot recovered quicker than she had at the club. She knew the score.

“You know this whole thing is trumped up. That’s why you didn’t turn me into Charlie the Spic. When he wasn’t hot after our asses, I figured you couldn’t implicate us without implicating yourself. ‘Why were they here, Merlot?’ he would’ve asked. Maybe you couldn’t lie quick enough. Or worse, he might force you to give something away about your boyfriend.”

She waved it off. “Maybe I just didn’t want to embarrass myself. You know how those mob types are. He might not let me perform after a scene like that. Or worse, put bodyguards on me.”

“Yeah, that’d be a shame. Then you couldn’t move freely about the country, like now. Charlie know you’ve left Chance City?”

She shook her head and returned to the groceries. “You think you got it all figured out, don’t you? You and that big brain of yours.”

Merlot put away items as I rebuffed her. “Not everything. I still have a few pieces to fill in, so why don’t you show me how smart you are? Start spilling the beans, and I won’t get word to Charlie where you are.”

I flipped a chair around and saddled up to the table. I didn’t have the gun directly on her anymore. It wasn’t needed.

“I don’t know where Jorge is, Glass. Really and truly. I haven’t seen him in six months. Haven’t heard anything about him either.”

After the supplies were put away, she took out a pot and filled it with water from the tap. She placed it on the stove and lit the burner underneath. She took stew meat from the fridge, unwrapped it, and tossed it in the pot. Next, she grabbed carrots, celery, and potatoes and rinsed them off.

“So how’d you know about this little nest, songbird?”

“He told me he was coming here to see you.” Her chopping rhythm was erratic as she focused on her memories of Jorge. “He knew that you’d be the only one to get him out from what he was in.”

“And what was that?”

She cut down hard on the board, her anger flaring up for a second. “How many times do I have to tell you, ‘I don’t know’? I was his lover, not his priest!”

I could see a tear as it stopped its descent from her eye and hovered on her cheek. She didn’t strike me as the leaky type, so I had hit a nerve. She wanted to know more about him, but he’d kept things from her, important things. She hated it and I imagined that they fought over it. Could she have been a part of Mendelssohn’s change of heart?

How a woman, especially the one you love, looks at you can mean all the difference in life. I knew that one well enough. Tangie knew I’d never intentionally make a weapon of war. She said it was part of the magic that was me. Her respect of science reflected my own, and I’d never do anything to lose face in her eyes. Jorge may have decided that causing a world war would lose him Merlot’s respect, regardless of the outcome, and he risked everything to get to me in hopes of stopping the impending catastrophe.

I watched Merlot continue her prep work. There was nothing similar about Tangie and her, save for an inner strength. Was that all it took to change a man?

“Do something useful, Glass. Peel these.”

She plopped a couple of the potatoes in front of me with a peeler. I shrugged and returned the gun to its holster. I peeled the spuds and chopped them into cubes. She took my finished pile and dumped it into the pot with her own. She reached for an onion and began its dismantling. Her mind distracted, she cut through the onion and into her thumb. She cursed and brought the digit into her mouth. Tears rolled freely, and I went to her.

“Let me look.”

She shook her head. Drops flew from her cheeks and landed on my shirt.

“If it needs stitches, I can do that.”

From around her thumb she said, “You ain’t no medical doctor.”

“No, but I’ve had enough experience to know how to stitch a cut. Done several of my own. Now let me look before it gets infected; then you will have to see a real doctor.”

She took the finger out and let me examine it. I moved us over to the sink and washed the seeping blood away. “Keep this under the faucet,” I instructed.

Unlike my own place, this unit had its own bathroom. I checked the medicine cabinet and found some gauze and tape. Returning to Merlot’s side, I turned off the water and dried her thumb on a towel. Quickly I wrapped the extremity in bandages and looked at my handiwork. Merlot had followed my progress with helplessness, but as I worked, she grew attentive, even interested.

“Not bad. It’s been a while since I’ve done that, but I think you’ll live to hold a microphone again.”

“Well, ain’t you the cutup?”

She looked at me a second, her expression one of gratitude, but shook it off and looked away. Her voice was distant. “Thank you. I’m not normally this clumsy in a kitchen.”

“You do the cooking for your family?”

The mention of her family awoke something in her, and she started back on her dinner project. “Yeah. Daddy worked at the train yards; Momma was a cabaret singer; and Tyrone, well, you know what he was doing.”

“Fighting?”

“Ever since he was a kid. If it wasn’t fighting to protect me, it was fighting to protect Mom’s honor. Finally, Daddy figured Tyrone should put all that energy to some good.”

She pulled out another onion after dumping the bloodied one in the trash. This time she minced the veggie without incident. It joined its brethren into the stew. She wove spices into the creation.

“So that’s where you got the voice, huh? Your mother?”

“Yeah. She was good.” Merlot smiled. “A voice that set the world on fire. She worked mostly speakeasies, so she could never get famous. She wanted that for me. Had me singin’ my first words.”

Merlot got distant again. I had a hunch, but I didn’t want her to pull away, so I asked, “What happened to her?”

“Mob war. What else? You can’t play in that world without getting burned. She got caught in the crossfire. That’s how I ended up under Charlie’s protection. I inherited it. They don’t even ask Ty to throw matches out of respect for her. Everybody loved to hear her sing.”

The waterworks started again. I moved in next to her, close. I brushed a tear away.

She stepped back. “It’s just the onions.”

I stepped up to her again. “They’re already in the pot.”

“Don’t,” she said in a whisper.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t be nice. I can’t handle you being nice.”

“Okay, I won’t be.”

And I kissed her.

She wanted to resist. She put her hands to my shoulders to push me away, but then they slid around my neck and drew me to her. It became an urgent kiss, one of loss and desire. She went to unbutton Mendelssohn’s shirt, but gave up and ripped it open, buttons flying everywhere.

“I always hated that shirt,” she said through gritted teeth.

Everything on the outside of her was soft—her clothes, her underwear, her dark skin—but her soul was hard. That came through in her passion; fierce, unforgiving. She bit my shoulder as I reached around to undo her bra. She pushed me down to the couch and straddled me, taking control. It didn’t stop there. We danced on the floor, standing up and sitting down. It wasn’t the sex of two lovers, but of necessity, like reaching for a hand while drowning. More often than not, the person drowning drags their rescuer down, too.

I didn’t know which one of us was drowning, but we never said a word the entire time we sank.

After our much delayed dinner, I gave Merlot the bed, while I slept sprawled out on a chair. She didn’t complain nor did she ask me to be a bed warmer.

The night before the magnetron experiment played on my subconscious theater as I tried to find peace.

I’d just finished showering and had slid between the sheets of my bed. I reached over to the side table drawer and pulled out the Babbage book. Tangie didn’t knock. She wore a green silk robe, one I had brought back from a lecture tour of Asia Minor and given her for Christmas. It slid from her body the way milk slides from a bottle. I dropped the book back toward the drawer and missed it completely. It hit the floor with a thump and Tangie laughed. She knew she had me; she had always known. Our lovemaking held a promise. She also liked being the aggressor, her gams strong. Often bruises ran up and down my legs and deep scratches lined my back.

I was going to ask her to marry me after the test. I never wanted to taste another’s lips, feel another’s body next to me.

Of course, Freud would attest this dream to guilty feelings about my body-scissors time with Merlot. Maybe he’d be right, but there was something in the dream I had forgotten. After we fell asleep, I’d gotten up to relieve myself in the middle of the night, careful not to wake Tangie. I had reached for the Babbage book to put it away …

But it was gone.