He looked at the TV star in the side mirror.
Whales had fallen apart as soon as they left the apartment. Got hysterical in the elevator. Cried. Now he was visibly better, although still pale, but Brome wondered how much of an effort it took the man to put up that brave face. He didn’t want to find out too late. Their mission was likely to be suicidal to begin with.
The giant bartender drove them slowly, as more snow fell, rising over the curbs. There was not a soul outside. Apparently, he was taking them back to the bar.
“When Luke said there would be help, I didn’t know what to think,” Whales’s much steadier friend Paul said leaning forward. “Seeing you, I feel a little better,” he told the bartender. The giant guffawed.
“I’m not the help,” he replied. “I’m the driver. Whatever you boys are mixed up in, I don’t wanna know it. Especially since you got a fed in on it too.” He offered Brome his most charming grin. Paul looked disappointed, but in a moment chuckled also.
“Why are we going to your bar, then?” asked Brome.
“It’s a safe place this time of day. I was told you needed a safe place.”
“Who told you that?”
“That’s a surprise.”
“I doubt it.”
Vernon Gulli glanced at him and guffawed again.
“There,” he said, pointing. “Patience, agent Brome. We’re almost there.”
They were. They passed the awning of the old theater with the misspelled bard’s name and turned into an alley. Gulli parked the truck in the single parking spot that was there, threw the door open and started extracting his limbs. His three passengers got out and waited for him in the snow. The moonless night was dark and cold. Somewhere far off, a siren howled. Another shortly answered its call. Whales clapped his hands and stomped his feet, grinning. Brome eyed him warily.
“Stupid bastards,” Gulli was mumbling, completely out now. “They can fit a factory inside a shoebox, but they can’t build a big enough car.”
“It’s just they built you too big,” Paul quipped. The bartender opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but settled for another guffaw instead.
“You should go on in,” Gulli said finally with a glance at Brome. “I am going to up to sleep, anyway. Figures to be a tough night at the bar tomorrow. Today, already. Good luck!”
He ushered them to the back door. The long hallway with peeled pink walls on the other side of it ended in a curtain. Beyond it stood the tables and booths of the main room, Brome remembered. As they passed by one open door, Whales said excitedly, “I called you from right here, see?” Inside was an old black phone in front of a mirror. Paul clapped Whales on the back. Whales grinned again.
Soon they passed through the curtain. The bar was completely empty, aside from the booth nearest to the curtain, in which the blond immigrant busboy was taking a nap. On the table in front of him stood two full glasses and two bottles of beer, looking to be “Hacker-Pschorr.” As they approached, the kid opened his eyes and grinned.
Brome had always been as cheerful a fed as you could find, but even he was getting pretty sick of grins.
“So we meet the driver and the waiter,” he said, turning to Whales. “Who’s next? A spokesperson?”
“No, agent Brome. You don’t need to meet anyone else. I’m the help.” It was the grinning Eastern-European youth. Brome faced him, frowning.
“I thought you didn’t speak English.”
“Didn’t need to.”
“How can a kid help us? Are you an arms dealer or something?” Whales’s friend asked.
“Never touched a gun in my life,” the kid replied. “I deal in messages. Do sit down and have a drink. I have a plan. Water for you, agent Brome.” He pointed at one of the glasses. On the busboy’s blue t-shirt in white letters was the phrase: No one knows what’s happening. Only what just happened.
Brome looked at Whales. Whales shrugged. He looked like a man resigned to his fate. In his mind, Brome compared the consequences of staying versus forgetting the whole deal and going back home. Yes, after Whales, he could be next, but it didn’t seem likely. His gaze wandered back to the blond kid.
“All right,” the kid said and slapped the table gently. “Time is short. Let’s get this out of the way. Don’t start shooting now.”
To hell with it, Brome thought. He was about to apologize to Whales and take his leave, when something happened. The kid at the table became another person. Not just any person either. His body was a blur for a moment and then his face and his clothes changed right there in front of them. In the booth before them, where the blond Eastern-European immigrant had been, sat Brighton.
“Whoa!” Paul blurted out.
“So who’s this?” asked Whales, stunned and seemingly nauseous. Brome was just stunned.
“That’s not the point,” Brighton replied. “I could become Vitalina if you’d like.”
“You’re one of them,” Brome stated when his breath returned.
“I’m one of a kind!” Brighton exclaimed, grinned and changed back into the busboy. They sat down.
Chapter Thirty
The gun was doing the River Dance in my hand. I wasn’t nervous. I was scared shitless, which was a noticeable improvement over the way I’d felt on my way out of the house. It was as though someone had sabotaged my First Aid Kit, and instead of a Motrin for hangover I’d swallowed a horse-sized fear pill that kicked in right when we left the condo. Now, almost three hours after Vernon Gulli had called to set up a meeting at Iris’s place, the effects were still going strong.
Good thing was, seeing me in this condition and with a gun, Dr. Wright wasn’t doing much better. At first, as I pulled him inside the twilight of the office illuminated by a computer monitor and shut the door, gun inches from his nose, he just gaped and panted and stared. When his eyes adapted, so that he saw who I was and saw, also, that the “emergency call” had been a set up, he actually relaxed. Bogdan — otherwise known as our holy crap friendly neighborhood alien — had made that call. Whatever he told Dr. Wright made the man get to his downtown office, fully dressed but unshaven, in less than thirty minutes. Then he saw that it was me and relaxed, but as I remained in my picturesque silence, ignoring his agitated demands, for an extended period of time, his confidence began to waver. He began to throw glances at Brome, who, to his credit, paid so much attention to the gun in my hand that it made him look like he was convinced I was going to just snap any moment now, sending the doctor to the boatman with a hole in his face and no fare.
“Time is short, man,” Paul said suddenly. Doc’s eyes shot towards him like a road kill’s at two headlights.
“What does he mean?”
I told him what we needed. I guess hearing me speak made him feel better again. So much so, he started pacing left and right.
“You know, Luke,” he said, “you were making quite a progress. Six more months and you would have been completely fine. I actually put that in your chart after your last visit. I’ll show it to you if you want. It’s all here. Even when you called me for that unscheduled refill all could still be made right. But look at you now! You’ve thrown it all away. Your career, your life — all of it. And for what? To be different? To be a hero? To fight the system? Nonsense! They don’t give a damn. You’ll die today and everyone will know Luke Whales was crazy. Just another star, cracked from all the money and fame. Serves the bastard well, they’ll say, and they’ll be right, because you’re nothing but a sad draft-dodger with a gun. Whatever you think you know, is only a schizophrenic fantasy inflicted upon your sick brain, devoid of proper medication, by someone who is manipulating you. Some enemy you’ve made unknowingly at some point. A deranged fan, or an old acquaintance envious of your success. I’m guessing they have you convinced there’s a hidden benefactor who is helping you against this army of evil that is out to get you. I’m also willing to bet you haven’t seen or talked to this mythical person. How does he relay instructions? Anonymous e-mails? Subliminal clues? Telepathy?”