Reflex (7 page)

Sojee's table manners were good—she deboned and ate the chicken strictly with knife and fork, patting her lips clean with the cloth napkin every few bites. Millie would've held it in her fingers and Millie had eaten recently. Maybe it was obsessive compulsive behavior, but Millie didn't see it that way. As she actively did things with her face—biting, chewing, drinking—the random movements and twitches stilled, until the next moment that part of her face relaxed. Then the tongue thrusts and prolonged blinks resumed.

Sojee turned to the salad and Millie said, "I didn't know your taste in dressing but there's Italian on the side."

Sojee used it lightly. "Italian is safe. I'm partial to blue cheese but I'm a little bit lactose intolerant."

Millie nodded. She itched to ask Sojee about Davy again, but was not only afraid of spooking her again, but also of finding out Sojee had never seen him.

Sojee ate slowly now, eating the salad with care, pushing the onions carefully to the side, but eating all the rest, wiping the dressing and chicken juices from the plate with delicate wipes of her bread.

When everything was gone except a small pile of diced onion, Sojee wiped her lips carefully with the cloth napkin, folded it carefully, and placed it symmetrically in the middle of the shining plate. The woman sighed and leaned back in her chair.

"I know you want to ask me something—it's written all over you."

Millie, tense, anxious, and focused, was taken completely by surprise. She laughed, a short bark that came closer to breaking her carefully maintained reserve than anything that had happened since Davy's disappearance. She turned her head to the wall and squeezed her eyes shut, breathing carefully. The moment passed and she was still in control, but her eyes burned.

"Yes. I started to ask it once, already, but you fainted when I showed you his picture."

Sojee looked away for a second and, for a moment, her tongue thrusts stopped as her mouth tightened. "Yeah. I was surprised, that's for sure." She sank deeper into the chair. "I thought he was a hallucination. I must've been breakin' pretty hard when I saw him. He kept vanishing and reappearing on me." She pointed at her coat, draped over the luggage stand by the door. "He took me to get that coat. One minute I was shivering in the snow and the next thing I know, I'm standing in Macy's, only it's not the Macy's out at Pentagon City, but the one in New York, and he's asking me which coat I like. The clerks didn't want to come anywhere near me, but he was like a cat on a rat and wouldn't take no for an answer. When I found this one, I never took it off again. He paid for it with hundred dollar bills and we walked away, but then I found myself back on the street, in D.C. I know something happened but it was all so weird, I don't know what was real and what wasn't." She reached out toward the coat. "Except for that, I guess. I keep it on too much, even when it's hot, because I'm sure it's going to dissolve sometime soon. Disappear into thin air like my Angel."

"Your angel?"

"Well, what else should I call him?"

Millie took the picture out again. "His name is Davy. He's my husband." It took her a moment to add, "And he's missing." The room was out of focus but when she cleaned her glasses, it didn't help. She blew her nose and that helped a bit. "When did you get your coat?"

"January third. It was that arctic air mass came down and froze all the Florida orange trees. In D.C. it got to three below zero. Are you going to vanish, too?"

Damn. That was two months ago.

"What makes you think that?" Millie remembered her jump from West Texas to Oklahoma and her stomach lurched.
It's possible, I suppose.

"Well, an angel would be married to an angel, right?" She eyed Millie's blue raincoat. "Or maybe you're the Blue Lady."

"The Blue Lady?" Millie shook her head and let it go. "Is that the last time you saw Davy? When he bought you your coat?"

"He checked on me a month ago. He asked how I was doing and gave me some money."

"But not last week?"

Sojee shook her head.

The corners of Millie's mouth turned down sharply, surprising her.
Keep it together, girl! You can cry later.

She took a deep breath and expelled it through tight lips.
Like Lamaze breathing,
she thought, and that nearly caused the tears to rise back to the surface.

Sojee was watching her, brow furrowed, eyes narrowed. "Did you just waste a good meal on me?"

Millie shook her head. "I never saw a meal less wasted." She sucked on her lower lip and looked at Sojee. "We need desert, I think."

Sojee opened her mouth, then closed it. After a few random tongue thrusts, she said, "Bring it on."

They kept it simple, apple pie à la mode and coffee—decaf for Sojee.

"What sort of name is Sojee, anyway?"

"Short for Sojourner. My full name is Sojourner Truth Johnson, but how on earth do you go around with that mouthful when you're six? Sojee is what it's always been, really."

Both woman were quiet for a moment. Then Sojee said, "I could ask around... check the shelters and the kitchens. Somebody probably saw something."

Millie felt her throat tighten up again. "I would be very grateful." She had to blow her nose suddenly and snatched up the room service napkin still in her lap. She felt like one raw wound.
I thought I was holding this in.
Kindness had breached her defenses where adversity hadn't.

Sojee was looking at her when she finished wiping her eyes. "I should get going, so you could rest."

Millie started to agree absently, then shook her head. "Get going where? Didn't you say you hadn't slept today." She looked pointedly at the two queen beds.

Sojee's eyes were moist now. "You sure?"

"Nobody else is using that bed, Sojee. You might as well." She smiled. "It's in my best interest to have you well rested tomorrow, when you're asking around."

The last time I spent this much time in one room was over fourteen years ago and even then I left it to go to school.

And it wasn't just being in one room. Davy lived outdoors more than most people. Weather didn't constrain him the way it did others. If it was raining or snowing or too cold in one place, he simply jumped elsewhere, usually staying in the same hemisphere but not always. Early morning in the States was always a good time for a walk down the esplanade in Brighton, Sussex or tramping in the high meadows on the Cambrian Way in the mountains of Wales. Late afternoon in Oklahoma was a great time to snorkel at Hamoa Beach on the east side of Maui or to hike up to the Puako Petroglyphs on the Big Island.

Staying in one place, indoors, was getting to him. Davy had definitely progressed into the "getting well enough to be really cranky" phase of his recovery. Coming out of surgery was bad enough when you weren't chained to the wall. When you were—well, cranky didn't really cover it.

They'd removed the catheter and brought in a bedside portable toilet, then, apparently working on the far side of the wall behind his bed, they let out enough chain so he could reach the toilet, the sink, and even as far as the foot of the bed.

He took to pacing, moving from the wall to the foot of his bed, stopping just short of the chain's reach before turning back again. The management of his chains became second nature, their rattling and slithering across the floor, background noise.

Just call me Jacob Marley.

He didn't care that the hospital gown was all he was wearing and every time he turned, he mooned the watchers behind the mirror. He suspected the pacing was beginning to bother his keepers. The computerized voice said, "Would you like to watch some videos?"

He laughed a short unfunny bark. "Yes, I'd like
Stalag 17, Chicken Run, Alcatraz,
and
The Great Escape."
And when there wasn't any response, he added, "And a baseball and a baseball glove."

They didn't say anything after that but when lunch was served, there was a paperback novel on the tray:
The Count of Monte Cristo.

Well,
someone
has a sense of humor.
He opened the book.
On the 24th of February, 1810, the look-out at Notre-Dame de la Garde signalled the three-master, the
Pharaon
from Smyrna, Trieste, and Naples.

He'd read it before, a couple of times, but as there wasn't anything else to do, he started it again, the first three chapters, then threw it across the room, to bounce off the mirrored observation window.

It had been some time since he'd read it and, while he remembered
The Count of Monte Cristo
was a book about a prison breakout and revenge, he'd forgotten how much, first of all, to justify the later revenge, it was a book about
betrayal.
And Davy was feeling very much betrayed.

Somebody knew about that meeting. Or at least they knew enough to follow Brian.
And it wasn't Brian. Brian had cleared himself from suspicion very thoroughly.

He glared at the book where it lay. He'd meant to hurl it out of reach but its rebound had carried it back to the foot of the bed. He put out his hand and jumped.

The chains writhed like snakes, a crack-the-whip movement that moved to the wall and then back down toward him, smacking his wrists and ankles painfully, but he was standing at the end of the bed, his hand on the book.

He could still jump within range of the chains.

That is if he was willing to risk broken wrists or ankles.

Parts of the chain were being accelerated instantly, over a distance of mere feet, but the energy imparted to the rest of the chain was considerable. Plaster dust floated in the air near the wall where the chains vanished through rough holes.

He wondered if his observers had seen him do it or grasped any of the implications. He waited for a moment, but there was no reaction from the speaker. The door didn't open.

He picked up the book again. He'd gotten through the betrayal. Perhaps it was time to check out the escape.

They brought supper that night, as usual, two different men in surgical masks and scrubs.

He wasn't feeling very well. There was a persistent ache from the surgical scar on his upper chest and above, too, a tenderness that ran under the skin. Yet he had energy, too.

So he took their masks off.

One second he was reading in bed, the next he was standing at the extent of his chains, reaching out with both hands and closing on their masks just as the recoil from the chains reached his wrists. The chains, really, more than his own arms, snatched the paper masks off.

They jerked back, the one holding the supper tray dropping it with a clatter. They stopped, out of reach and stared at him, startled, perhaps even afraid.

He wasn't sure, but he thought he recognized one of them from the restaurant—one of the ambulance crew, a small-chinned man with blond eyebrows so white as to be almost invisible. The other man was a hook-nosed individual with bushy reddish brown eyebrows and freckles. Not young, though—in his forties, perhaps.

Davy stared at them, hungrily. These were his enemies, but they were the first faces he'd seen in days, perhaps weeks. He had no idea how long he'd been drugged.

The blonde held his hand to his cheek where a line of blood was forming. Davy must've caught him with a fingernail.

"Sorry," Davy said, gesturing. The chains clanked again. "Didn't mean to gouge you."

The computer voice came over the loudspeaker. "Leave the room, Gentlemen."

They turned and left, without ever speaking.

Davy sighed.

The supper tray was lying out of reach, a small steak, baked potato, and salad, lying in a small lake of milk. Davy looked at the mirror. "Any chance of getting my supper?"

There was silence, and Davy thought they were ignoring him, or hadn't heard, when the computer voice said abruptly, "I think... not."

Davy shrugged philosophically and turned back to the bed. There was more plaster dust in the air and small chunks of Sheetrock on the floor. He went over to the holes in the wall that the chain ran through. He could see through to the other room, which was dimly lit, but he couldn't see where the chains went. They dropped down and vanished. When he tugged on one of them, it was as secure as ever.

He got back on the bed and picked up the book.

The next morning, things changed.

They came before breakfast, right after he finished using the portable commode, three, in scrubs, unmasked.

Two of them were the men he'd unmasked the night before.
Two thugs. And I call them Thug One and Thug Two.
The third was the brunette waitress from Interrobang.

The woman who'd murdered Brian Cox.

They stopped beyond the reach of his chains, Thug One and Thug Two slightly behind the woman. At first, Davy thought they were still cautious, wary of him because of his action the evening before, but then he realized it was more of a power dynamic.

The woman was in charge and they were afraid of her.

Wise. Very wise.

He was torn. If he were free, he'd jump.
Away? Or do I take her and drop her from the Empire State Building? And do I catch her before she hits?

"Get off the bed," the woman said.

Davy slid to the side and stood. For the first time in days he was conscious of the open-backed gown and his bare butt. Standing felt safer, anyway. He noted that her hair was pulled back in the same tight bun and her makeup was just as heavy, though not running, this time, like it did in the rain.
If she shoots, perhaps I can jump to one side—

The chains started clanking across the floor, pulling back into the wall, removing the slack. He had to shuffle backwards to keep up with them. When they stopped, he tugged, but they weren't just being held by someone—they'd been secured somehow, in this tighter configuration.

"Okay, move it." She wasn't talking to Davy, this time. Thug One and Thug Two pulled the bed away from the wall—away from Davy—then unlocked the casters and rolled it to one side.

Davy didn't like the look of this—being held up against the wall brought back memories of his father and a flashing rodeo buckle at the end of swinging belt. His stomach churned and he licked his lips, some part of him expecting a beating.