I telephoned Charles and Richard and called off the alert. Julie lived on their side of the building and I knew he wasn’t going to sleep.

After he left, my apartment once again felt empty. Somewhat surprising—given its usual configuration of one. Of course, this wasn’t a usual night. As time continued to drift and Itrudged through a series of window checks, my fear of invasion lessened. And with it, the clutch of alone.

Enough to take a long hot shower. I was filthy from my dirt eating forage behind the abandoned ice skating rink, my body caked with dry sweat and blood where the thorns had ripped skin. At first, the hot sting of water against the scratches conspired with rivulets of dirt torevive my anxiety. Especially when I picked tiny glass splinters from my hair. But as the dirt dripped to the tub floor and the tiny cuts numbed in the wet heat, I broke through the shell of fear that had invaded me since I’d looked down the barrel of Blue’s gun. I got pissed.

The thought of Blue led the way. That little prick kept me freezing in a tavern’s cooler, broke a nice kid’s hands, and came within a bush of sending me to the Great Beyond. No matter who was pulling his strings, Blue had overreached.

But the notion of a nameless, faceless enemy sent me on another intense window patrol: the idea of IRA involvement, or even a supremacist organization, was sobering. Too sobering, so once I finished the last safety check, I gathered my stash, bourbon, and .38, settling in for a hard night on the easy chair.

Maybe it was the adrenaline drain or the cul de sac ending each bright idea, but my eyes grewheavy. The closer I drew to doze, the less I worried about invasion…the more I thought about Cheryl.

 

The room was familiar though reminiscent of another age, another lifetime. The hint of something unpleasant hid nearby but, as I looked around and saw twin beds, a blond wooden dresser with stenciled flowers, a shelf overloaded with tiny glass figurines, the unpleasantnessdrifted away. I saw myself lying on the far bed when the door opened and Cheryl stepped quietly into the room, finger to her lips. The next I knew she had slipped in lightly beside me. I thought she was wearing something sheer, something gray, but now, lying next to me, the only contrast with her dark skin was my large white body.

I started to speak but she put her fingers against my lips, leaned forward, and kissed me gently on my forehead. I opened my mouth and captured the tips of her fingers between my lips. She rested her mouth against my head. “They’re free,” I heard her say. “They’re finally free.”

I kept her hand in my mouth exploring the skin between her fingers with the tip of my tongue. I opened my eyes, saw her other hand slide over my body, and watched myself harden as her fingernails dug into my flesh. I took her hand from my mouth, stretched it past my head, and traced the graceful, inside curve of her arm with a string of gentle kisses. Her eyes were closed and her hand had stopped its relentless squeezing. I thought she had grown frightened, but she shifted her slender body and we were suddenly breast to breast, belly to belly.

Heat spread between our legs bathing our bodies with a thin layer of sweat. I leaned forward, kissed her closed eyes, then gently wiped away the perspiration just above her mouth. I felt her tremble so I wrapped my arm around her back and pulled her closer, tighter. She opened her eyes and moved her lips against mine.

We lay there, eyes open, motionless, for a long moment. Then the unpleasantness beckoned, its oice a thick ugly whisper. A whisper that I silenced by closing my eyes and letting my tongue slide across the fullness of Cheryl’s mouth. I heard her breath quicken, felt her hard nipples push against my chest. Again Cheryl’s hand searched my body, though now her fingers were light, fluttery, eager to discover, touch, continue. My tongue explored the inside of her mouth while I roamed down her smooth back until my hand rested at the top of her tight round buttocks. Cheryl’s mouth opened wider, her lips and tongue in sudden sync with her thrusting body. I felt a burst of added desire as she hungrily bit at my lips. I slid my hand lower.

She pulled her head back and for another moment we stared into each other’s eyes. Again I heard the disquieting call; again I ignored it, waiting for the sound of our breathing to fill the room. I knew somehow that I should be paying attention to my growing unease, but I sightfeasted on the hills and valleys of Cheryl’s lush, slim torso. So young, so Black, so beautiful. Her long legs, her smooth belly, her breasts marked by dark aureoles and nipples semi-sweet in her sleek chocolate skin. Together we watched my fingers dance lightly, whitely, over her sweatdampened front. Cheryl’s mouth was open, moaning, as my hand stretched toward the stiff curled hair between her legs.

She grabbed my hair and pulled my head tight to her breast, her rush of moistness drenching my hand. I shifted my body and slid to the foot of the bed. Off the bed, knees on the floor, I lifted her feet, pressing her soles against my face. Listening in the darkness to her loud gasps and my silent desire…

We stayed foot to face until I could no longer stand the blindness. I opened her legs and pulled her down to the edge of the bed. I heard a louder cry that reverberated but just closed my eyes.

When I opened them, Cheryl was sucking her fingers. But her skin somehow seemed lighter, her body smaller.

I leaned forward and squinted. Cheryl’s body had grown even tinier and her pubic hair had changed from black to blonde. I struggled to my feet wiping at the crazy film in front of my eyes, but the transformation refused to disappear. Horrified, I watched the rest of her body whiten. Cheryl’s hair, fanning across the pillow, straightened before my eyes. In a desperate attempt to silence my screaming mind, arrest my hallucinating vision, I jerked my body from the bed and looked away. But something forced me to turn back, forced me to look at her face…

 

I bolted upright on my easy chair, my body shaking and sweating, my gun clattering onto the floor. I grabbed my cigarettes, lit one, and tried to calm down. Damn. I just kept getting jumped by ghosts of my dead daughter.

Ghosts I’d hoped I had left behind…

I leapt to my feet, swiped at my forehead with my damp tee shirt, and trotted from window to window. I had trouble enough without sharing the night with Electra. Eventually, the dream’s after-images dissipated, leaving just the cold and uneasy sweat.

I stood at the window and stared. The sky had a pre-dawn gray, and I had the beginning of the blues. Something I couldn’t possibly afford. There was a difference between dreams and reality, and my situation hollered for action, not depression. Problem was, my rest had left me depleted rather than refreshed.

I walked into the bedroom strung between fatigue and fear of another dream. I searched the night table’s ashtray, and found a decent sized roach. Valium would be better for sleep, but if I slept I wanted to be able to wake. I smoked the roach, then filled a pipe with more. I swung my legs onto the bed, smoked the pipe, then slid onto my back holding the gun on my chest.

I was shocked back to consciousness by the trill of the telephone. I shoved it next to my ear before the second ring. “Who?” I barked, slapping the night table for smokes.

There was no answer. Just the faint hollowness of an open line. “Who the fuck is this?” I demanded. Again no one answered, just a click.

I swung out of bed, lit a cigarette, and thought about evacuating the building. Someone had checked to see if I was home—though they had stayed on the line longer than necessary. Before I’d arrived at any decision, the phone rang again. I lifted the receiver and heard Cheryl ask, “Matt, are you there?”

Her voice instantly recalled my dream and I took a long pull on my smoke. “I’m here,” I said glumly.

“You don’t sound too good.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t sleep much.”

“It wasn’t a criticism, Matt. I’m worried about you, that’s all.”

“Well, don’t be. Right now I don’t need your worry. I need to be left alone.”

I understood her silence and immediately felt guilty. It wasn’t Cheryl’s fault I was a sick puppy. “Look, I’m sorry I snapped. Someone just called and hung up on me. Was it you?”

“Why would I hang up?” she asked. “I want to know if everything’s okay. If anyone showed up.”

“No one showed.”

She waited for me to speak but I didn’t. After a minute she asked, “You want me to go away, don’t you? I’m disturbing you?”

Other than the gunmen, the only person who really disturbed me was me. “I need a little room to get out of this mess, that’s all.”

“So I am bothering you?”

I didn’t answer.

“Well,” she said, “at least call once in a while so I know you’re alive, okay?”

“Sure, Cheryl, I’ll call.”

“Thanks,” she said sarcastically, slamming down the phone.

I replaced the receiver and was stubbing out the cigarette in the ashtray with an angry twist of my wrist when the phone rang again. I imagined it Cheryl, thought about ignoring it, then yanked it to my ear. “Yes. Who is it?”

The thin voice surprised me. “Mr. Jacob? Matt? Is this Matt?”

“Uh-huh.” I had a sudden hope and asked, “Yakov, did you call earlier and hang up?”

“I did,” he answered. “I thought I woke you and I got nervous. I’m sorry.”

He’d gotten the two of us nervous. “No problem, Yakov.” No problem, no evacuation. I thought about my crawl up the hill behind the rink. What was I thinking, no problem? “What can I do for you?”

“Can I come over? I’d like to talk to you about something.”

It wasn’t how I needed to spend my time, but there was something in his voice that made it impossible to refuse. “We can get together. How about the Yeshiva? I don’t want to meet here.”

“If you come to the Yeshiva word will get back to my father.”

I chuckled grimly. “I don’t want that to happen either.”

“Even though he’s out of town he would find out. Somebody would tell him that we met.”

I was curious about Yonah’s trip but didn’t want to ask. “Then we’ll meet somewhere else.” I thought for a moment, “How about the main library? If it’s warm enough we can sit in the courtyard.”

“I’ve never been there,” he said. “The courtyard?”

“No, we’ll meet inside that library. Do you know where it is?”

“Yes.”

I looked at the clock. “Can you meet me on the Boylston Street steps in about an hour?” That would leave me the rest of the day to do something about staying alive. “Good,” he said. “Mr. Jacob…”

“Matt.”

“Thank you.”

He hung up the phone as the recorded voice of Ma Bell demanded more silver. I wondered what drove the kid to a public telephone. I replaced the receiver and lit another cigarette. I’d find out.

Sooner or later I had to confront the mess I was in. But right now, mañana seemed soon enough to me.