“What, did he send you a message by courier fairy?” Bergman asked, his lip curling.
That is it. “Bergman—” Cassandra cleared her throat, shook her head, and mouthed, “Later.”
We each grabbed ID and money and I holstered up, covering Grief with my leather jacket. I also wore the outfit Vayl had bought me to replace the one that had been ruined on our last mission, a soft red silk blouse with an ornate, scooped neckline and black jeans. I’d stuck with my boots, since Cole said a guy from Seven Seas Succulents had come for theirs, plus all the other stuff we’d borrowed, earlier in the day.
We left Bergman to pull a couple of boxes of electronics from the trailer and start playing in them like a kid with his LEGOs. As the door slammed behind us I told Cassandra, “I want to say, ‘Don’t mind him,’ but you should. He’s acting like such a jerk.”
“He’s afraid,” she replied.
“Fear is the locus of his entire existence. But that doesn’t make it okay for him to demean you and your work every time he opens his mouth. If he wasn’t so damned brilliant I’d have given him an earful weeks ago. It’s just, he’s very thin-skinned, so you always run an excellent chance of mortally offending him. And then we can kiss our dandy gadgets goodbye.”
“I can deal with him,” she said. “I have just been so distracted ever since . . .” She looked at me with good-humored accusation. “Ever since I met you, in fact.”
“What can I say? I just have a way with people. Now, where is this buddy of yours?”
“At a sidewalk café called Sustenance. We’ll have to take a taxi.” Though I would’ve preferred to arrive in my corvette, I found that as long as she didn’t suggest mopeds I’d be fine with whatever mode of transport she chose.
We took the twenty-block trip from the festival to Sustenance in a cab that looked like it had been the site of a major WWE showdown. If it wasn’t dented, it was torn and if it wasn’t broken, it was stained.
“Is that blood?” Cassandra whispered, pointing to a spot on the floor near her feet.
“That or amniotic fluid,” I joked.
She looked at me in horror. “Tell me no one has ever given birth inside of this car.”
“Why not? The seats still have plenty of spring and when a contraction hits, all you have to do is grab this grimy strap here.” I acted as if I was going to slip my hand through it. Cassandra let out a little shriek and clutched my wrist.Shit!
“Don’t you dare get that faraway look!” I snapped. Too late, she’d pulled a vision out of our brief contact.
“You must take me and Bergman on your next mission,” she whispered.
“What?”
“We’ll fight about it later.”
“Everything all right back there?” asked the driver, his accent placing his parents squarely south of the border.
“No problem, thanks,” I replied. “My friend here is just a little germaphobic.” Okay, maybe I was hunting a little stop-touching-me revenge when I advised her, “Watch out for the back window. I think that smear could be vomit.”
Cassandra flinched. “Do you know I spent an entire year cleaning out a rich man’s stables and I never once felt like bacteria were skittering up my dress like a herd of mindless insects? It’s not me. It is thiscar !”
“Do you need a shower?” I asked.
“Yes!”
“Too bad, we’re here.” She leaped from the cab and, as I paid the driver, ran into the café and demanded to be shown the bathroom. Funny how a good gross out will take your mind off scary dreams and visions. I know I felt better.
I eyed the tables outside of Sustenance, all round four-seaters with large yellow umbrellas sticking out of their centers. Yellow and white striped tie-on pillows cushioned the black metal chairs. Only three were in use at the moment. Two moms with toddlers in strollers lingered over a cup of coffee while their kids shared a power nap. At the other end of the narrow veranda sat a man who would make me believe in aliens, if I were so inclined.
His thick white hair grew straight up from his head, as if he’d just spent the past fifteen minutes hanging upside down from a trapeze. His eyes were such a light blue they bordered on silver. Deep wrinkles crisscrossed the bits of skin showing beneath his bushy white eyebrows, handlebar mustache, and collar-length beard. He wore a poet’s shirt, complete with poofy sleeves and a V-neck presently closed with leather ties. His corduroy pants were dark brown and matched his intricately tooled cowboy boots.
“I like your boots,” I told him as I closed the distance between us. I noticed he wore a single diamond in his left ear.
“Thank you. I had them made special in Reno. I found a store there called Frierman’s that I would highly recommend to any of the gentlemen in your life.” His soft, Southwestern accent invited you to be comfortable, even sit a spell if the spirit moved you.
I stuck my hands in the pockets of my jeans, mostly because it would’ve been polite to shake his hand. Polite, and stupid.
His gesture invited me to join him. I sat in the chair opposite his, thinking I’d heard that name—Frierman’s—somewhere before. But this was no time for mental inventory. The old gentleman was looking at me expectantly.
“Cassandra will be out in a second. She just had the most harrowing cab ride.”
He smiled. “It is so difficult to put your life in another’s hands.”
“Yeah.”
“My name is Desmond Yale.” The waitress cut him off, asking for my drink preference. I ordered iced tea.
“I’m Lucille Robinson. Cassandra tells me you’re from New Mexico,” I said after the waitress left.
“Born and raised,” he agreed.
“She didn’t really tell me any more than that.”
“What would you like to know?”
I considered him for a moment. “How did you come by your Gift?”
He thought awhile. “After my wife died I became something of a hermit. I spent a lot of time in the desert . So I would have to say the loneliness did it.” He took a sip of his coffee and smiled. “I spent so much time in my own head that I finally found a way beyond the grief and the loss. After years of study I learned to do the same for others.”
I nodded, but a kernel of doubt popped in my stomach. Yale didn’t come off like the wise old dream interpreter Cassandra had described. What the hell did this guy have in mind?
“Can you give me some idea of what to expect? Cassandra made it sound so easy.”
“It is,” he assured me. “We simply clasp hands and away we go.”
“Away where?” Was this kook going to make me literally revisit my nightmares? And where was Cassandra? She had some explaining to do!
The waitress came back with my drink, a refill for Desmond, and three sets of napkin-wrapped silverware. “Are you ready to order?” she asked.
“Still waiting on my friend,” I told her. “Actually, maybe I’ll go check on her, make sure she hasn’t fallen in.” The waitress smiled at my pathetic joke as she left, for which she would be tipped at least 15 percent.
I tried to stand, didn’t get the chair pushed back far enough, and knocked the table with my thigh. Biting back a curse as my tea wobbled, I put both hands on the table to steady it. But Desmond’s coffee cup tipped precariously. He caught it before it could crash, however, saving himself from a lap full of hot caffeine.
His hands.I looked at the waitress, hoping she’d confirm what I’d seen, but she was looking over her shoulder at the babies, who’d awakened at the same time, howling. I knew that cry. It expressed something-spooked-me hysteria, the kind E.J. experienced every time she heard a siren. Tim now had to watchCOPS in his bedroom with the door shut and the volume as low as he could stand it.