“You have no right. She didn’t—”
“Tell a lawyer. Tell your priest. But don’t tell me. We signed you and you went and made it a package deal. Buy one get one free.”
“Don’t do it to her. Do it—”
“—to me.” Phil slapped his own forehead. “Doubleplus no, Nikoloser. Get it? Is it the fuck or the you that isn’t coming through here?” Niko only stared and felt a soft collapse inside.
Phil toyed with the ice in his drinking glass and it began to quickly melt. “You poor things.” He drummed the table. “Well, there’s nothing more to—” Phil’s iPhone rang and half the men in the restaurant patted their pockets and glanced around. Phil produced the phone from nowhere and glanced at it and frowned. “My three o’clock.” He flagged their waitress and drew a big checkmark in the air.
Niko got up from the booth and tossed a twenty on the table. Phil’s hand shot out and clamped Niko’s wrist like a shackle and he grabbed the twenty with his other hand and curled Niko’s wrist up and pried open his fingers and pushed the money back into his hand. “My treat,” he said and let him go.
IN THE PARKING lot the Bentley shook with Niko’s trembling.
So Jem had fallen sick with something doctors couldn’t diagnose. Something they had said might be a virus in the hope that giving it a name would provide a target for their weaponry. But it had no name. Was not something you could look at through a microscope. Niko knew this in his bargained heart. The thing Jem hosted uninvited somewhere in her brain was going to eat at her till she was gone. And it was all his fault. Undeniably all his fault. The gold nib that had traced in red the unique glyph of his own name so long ago had infected her as sure as if they had been hepatitic junkies sharing needles.
How could you do this? To Jemma. To Jem.
His loathsome demon whispered But you couldn’t have known. No one told you it applied to her. Love’s not something you control, buddy pal. You didn’t sell her. They’re taking her. You got done in by the fine print. You got lawyered.
Niko punched the center console. Fuck that. Fuck that. You can’t sit here and try to spread this blame around. You own this one, cowboy. You have a bill of sale to prove it.
And what about Jem, asshole? Just who the fuck are you really crying for here? Poor Niko, him’s girlfwiendums go bye bye and he’ll be aww awone.
More than once he had decided he would start a fight with her and drive her away, be such a prick that she gladly packed and left without a backward glance, the way she had those many years ago. And many times he had resolved instead to tell her everything. The accident. The Deal. The whole enchilada. Tell her what happened that day with his brother Van and show her the secret room and let her read the contract and then stand back and take his medicine. But then he would think about the day that she came back to him. An offseason weekend in separate cabins on Lake Arrowhead. His strength recovered and his life on track. The trip had started off like some negotiation and ended up the best day of his life. The memory of it sapped his strength to set in motion the machinery that would send her off again. He was a weak and selfish man. That’s what addicts are, Niko, weak and selfish people. That view kept you safe inside a bottle or a needle for a good long time, didn’t it?
What he’d done instead was try to keep the status quo. He’d told himself as long as you don’t marry Jem she’s safe. Keep her hidden in a camouflage of unimportance and the retribution that is rightly yours will pass her by. It’s your name on the line, not hers.
And now outside the Crossroads of the World where he had begged for Jemma’s life and failed he gripped the leatherwrapped wheel of his expensive car and understood at last that he had only fooled himself. Had hung her fate on technicalities and semantics. As if to get away with this through turn of phrase. But in truth he knew his contract to the comma and there was no escaping that, spoken vows or not, the union of their souls itself had set Jem’s path indelibly with his.
Ah god. Ah god. He’d been so sure. So certain he would get away with this. Scam his way through and land on his feet the way he got through everything else. But it just didn’t work out that way did it old boy? And there’s nothing you can do about it now and nowhere else to shift the blame. Jemma’s sickness is the very confirmation of your love. And it will kill her. And more than merely kill her will consign her to some unknown awful and eternal punishment against which mere oblivion is a mercy.
The enormity of what he’d done towered before him. The arrogance of it. The unequivocal truth was unbearable. How do you like hitting the wall of the immutable, asshole? How’s it feel to know that you can’t charm your way out of this one? What’s the next lie you’ll tell yourself? Your king’s surrounded and your pieces are gone and still you sit here planning your next move. Nobody would give a good goddamn if it was just you dying here. Who’ll miss one more alcoholic junky guitar player? There’s no lack of washed-out rockstars in this town. You could form a union. But you’ve got Jem’s blood on you now. And you still don’t even have the stones to tell her why she’s really dying.
And now at last he was afraid, mortally afraid.
He started the car. Some old song was on the radio and he poked it off. He massaged his face.
But even so. Even so. I won’t just give her up without a fight. I won’t give up until I’ve nothing left to give. Until I’ve truly lost instead of merely stopped. Now will I draw careful plans and strategies and place myself upon the stage to act against the power that is taking what it has no right to take.
There’s nothing I can do while Jem’s alive. Okay. Fine. But after that?
After that.
Niko clenched the steering wheel and felt a desperate notion born. If I can call them up then I can hunt them down. If I can’t stop them taking her then I’ll pursue her. I will find her and I’ll bring her back. However far it takes me. Whatever price it costs.
Seen from outside he was a man woolgathering in his car a few minutes after lunch before returning to his busy world. The unsuspected battles within each of us.
Niko banged a fist upon the steering wheel. A plan then. An objective. Some faint hope. He put the car in gear and then he stopped. Gawking through the windshield like some mislanded astronaut. In front of him lay broken glass and boarded windows. Sagging beams and peeling handbills over dirty stucco tagged with spraypaint. Crossroads of the World was long abandoned and well fallen into ruin.
III.
SHE’S GONE
SEVERAL TIMES THE private nurse buzzed at the gate and startled him awake on the chaise lounge he had dragged beside Jem’s bed. Their bed. These last few weeks Jem had become so sensitive to light and sound and touch she couldn’t bear to sleep beside him. She had always liked to hold his hand at movies and public events, would lightly rest a hand upon his ankle on a sunchair in the garden drinking morning coffee. As if needing reassurance of his presence. Now she flinched at every touch. The sheets are rough, she said. He replaced them with high thread-count brushed egyptian cotton. He replaced them himself because he’d dismissed all the help except the private nurse a week ago. He replaced them every day because she broke a fever every night.