“How’d you do that?” Seth asked.
“They teach us these things in Bellevue,” she said, with a wry smile.
A gray haze saturated the room. Even through the mask, the acrid air made its way into his mouth and nose. Piles of black ash sat where walls once stood. Charred floorboards remained of varnished woodwork. They had to watch where they walked. Electrical wires dangled from the ceiling. Lelani hung back. Seth made his way to his studio. All the photos were melted into slag. His cameras were destroyed, his computer, his stockpile of film-everything was gone. A puddle of plastic sat where the phone used to be.
“Motherfucking goddamn shit!” he yelled. “It’s gone! All of it! Everything I own is shit.” He shoved his fingers into his hair and balled his hands into fists. Seth was on the verge of crying, but didn’t want Red to see him that way, so he swallowed the pain and pushed it into his gut.
Lelani pulled her compact out again. She held it before her and gingerly circled the room.
“Why are you doing that now?” Seth demanded.
“Pardon me?”
“You just had that compact out ten minutes ago. Your face needs less work than anyone I know.”
Lelani followed his line of sight to her hand. “I’m not putting on makeup,” she said. “I’m checking for residual… well, it’s more ‘crazy talk.’ I’ll spare you the details.” She handed him the device.
It was a heavy, ornate brass disk. There was a concealed hinge on one side and a clasp opposite it. On the inner lid was a mirror, but not the cheap kind mass-produced by Revlon. This was the cleanest reflection Seth had ever seen, pure liquid silver, as though you could stick your hand through it to the room on the other side. On the inner base were a series of assorted gems, and lines of pearls embedded in the brass. Around the jewels were intricate designs and patterns etched into the metal. Some jewels blinked, others remained lit. They cast a laser-like grid onto the mirror. It looked like a Victorian-era version of a Palm Pilot.
“What the hell is this thing? A tricorder? It must be worth a fortune.”
“It’s hard to explain. Just think of it as a Geiger counter for now. The gas line did not cause this fire. The explosion was the result of an attack. I’m quite certain you were the target.”
“Oh, here we go again.”
“Listen, before you lecture me; I’ve come a long way to find you-not to insult your intelligence, not to make your life miserable, not to start a friendship, but to help you discover yourself and in so doing, help my cause. I don’t want money and I don’t want pity for my mental state. I understand what you are going through… the loss of a home and friends is a terrible thing. I know because I have lost my own home.”
Her fierce sincerity almost succeeded in making Seth forget she was a nutjob.
“I don’t know what to make of you,” he said. “And I don’t have time to figure it out. My roommate’s dead. My home’s a cinder. I might be sleeping on a park bench tonight.”
“Then perhaps I can give you some practical help. I have a room on Twenty-third Street. You can stay with me until you decide your next step.”
“What’s the catch?”
“You accompany me to the Bronx. I have to find someone. This attack means that my timetable has been shortened. I can’t leave you alone.”
“Screw that.” Seth dug out a tin box from the burned out closet. Inside were two twenty-dollar bills and a ten. “Who has time to trek up to the Bronx? All I have to do is get to a pay phone.” Then he stormed out of the remains of his apartment.
4
Seth bought a five-dollar phone card at Mr. Cho’s. By four thirty, the sun was sliding past the horizon and a cold drizzle replaced the snow, washing away the pristine blanket of white. Seth had only a dollar credit left on the card. He was still struggling to find a place to stay. A few friends offered to put up the cat who slept peacefully on the stoop. Lelani stood at a respectable distance from the deli payphone. Seth knew she wasn’t there for moral support.
“Hi Earl. I need a favor… can I crash with you tonight? No, Kevin’s still away on his honeymoon. Why not? She’s still pissed at me? Look, I’m in dire straits, man. My place burned down. I’ll sleep on the floor. C’mon, she’s not even your wife. You’re gonna pick a chick over your bud? Yeah, thanks a lot, man. Happy fucking holidays to you, too.” Seth slammed the pay phone. “Asshole.”
“He’s being unreasonable?” Lelani asked, breaking her silence.
Seth’s first instinct was to tell her to buzz off, but he realized her offer of shelter was the only option on the table at the moment. It was looking better with each call.
“No.”
“Then why would he not…?”
“I sold photos of his girlfriend to the amateur section of a few nude magazines-without permission. She got drunk at a party and stripped. Got off on my taking photos of her.”
“Hmmm?” Lelani murmured.
“I gave her half the money. She’s hot. It was a good way for me to get noticed at these publications. She needed the cash because she was about to get evicted from her apartment.”
“Clearly, she has no sense of gratitude. So you photograph nude women for cheap periodicals?”
Seth regretted bringing it up. He heard condescension creeping back into Lelani’s voice.
“I don’t photograph anything anymore. I’m out of business. My cameras, my archives, a thousand dollars’ worth of film, all gone. Even the graces of my employer… gone. I missed an important deadline today.”
Seth picked up the phone and dialed another number.
“No one will help you,” Lelani said.
“I’m getting that, yeah. Did you cast a spell on me?”
“You do not inspire loyalty within your circles.”
Once again Seth made his appeal on the phone, this time to an ex-girlfriend who always needed money. He offered to pay her rent and then heard the click of the disconnect.
“Why is this happening to me?” he wailed.
“You have disappointed these people once too often. They feel no allegiance to you.”
Again, Seth suppressed the urge to punch her out. He considered a homeless shelter, but knew he’d never make it out by morning with the few dollars he had left.
“These friends of yours, did they know your roommate as well?” she asked.
“Yeah, so?”
“You did not mention his death. Not even once.”
Seth realized she had a point. Concentrating on his own problems, he had neglected to mention Joe’s death to anyone. What was worse, he couldn’t undo it. His friends would be furious at him once they learned about it. The chasms he had just discovered expanded faster than his ability to bridge them. He had helped foster this shortage of goodwill toward him through the years. Joe probably put in a lot of effort on his behalf into soothing the rifts among their friends. Now his advocate was dead and he had yet to shed a tear. Add in a crazy woman’s accusation that he was partly responsible for Joe’s death-a case of mistaken identity-and his shame only deepened. He sat on the stoop in front of the deli stroking Hoshi’s neck. No progress had been made since his eighteenth birthday, he was still alone, and he couldn’t blame the fire this time.
“Come with me and you’ll have a place to sleep tonight,” Lelani offered. “Do it for the cat.”
“At this point,” Seth said, “I don’t have anything more to lose, right?”
Lelani remained quiet for a moment. Then she offered her hand and helped him off the stoop. “We’ll drop the cat off at my room, first,” she said.
“Uh-I don’t have anything more to lose, right…? ” Seth repeated.
“Certainly,” she answered-but would not look him in the eye.
CHAPTER 3
1
The man with the yellow eyes dropped from the ceiling and knocked the pistol out of Cal’s hand. Cal tried to twist away in time, but found himself pinned under this strange person with oozing pores. Sharp talons slashed at him and tore his bulletproof vest. Cal couldn’t get any leverage. Every way he twisted, the assailant was able to twist just as far. His assailant’s proportions were off, as though his limbs were stretched beyond human capability; the lack of sleep must have been screwing with Cal’s perceptions. Although he couldn’t get free of the perp’s viselike grip, Cal was stronger and could move the attacker’s limbs wherever he brought his own arm, so he brought the full force of his steel-jacketed Maglite against his attacker’s head. The man yowled and fell off.