"Remember the honeymoon suite?"
"You don't forget something like that."
"Let's get together right now."
"Okay!"
Archie put his hand on her leg, felt it warm through her dress. He was still looking out at the ballpark so he didn't turn to Gwen, but his hand felt the familiar shape of her thigh and he could smell the milk and orange-blossoms smell that Gwen had when he was close to her. He felt her hands on his service belt and the zipper going down, then the cool air below his belly.
“…and in this deeply relaxed and receiving state your subconscious mind will fill with the thoughts that are most important to you. Let these thoughts come. Experience these emotions. Become truly and totally who you are."
"Wish we were home for this one," he said.
"We could use that old pickup now," said Gwen.
He relaxed a little, let her get comfortable, not easy with the center console in the way. His hand in her soft dark hair now, feeling the wonderful shape of her skull, then the physical sweetness, intensely specific but oddly general too, like his entire body was being swallowed.
Archie saw the giant and the blond man walking across the Air Glide parking lot at two minutes until midnight on the Durango clock. They were the men from the meeting with Gwen in the El Ranchito bar, absolutely no question about it. Something to do with OrganiVen. Marketing concerns, Gwen had said, right? The big one turned sideways to get in the front door, then, as he had done last night, pivoted his enormous head to scan the lot before yanking the door shut.
Archie closed his eyes for just a moment and tried to remember what it was he had seen behind the bright light that aimed down at him before the bullet smashed into his life: a man's face, possibly, but.. this man? That face? He remembered the cartoon he and Kevin had drawn in third grade, a bearded man with rectangular glasses. The man's beard and hair were identical opposites, and his ears were rounded and sprung from the middle of his head, so that when you turned him upside down he looked almost exactly the same. They'd named him "Reversible Man."
And that was what this giant looked like. Archie had realized this over a year ago when he sat in his sunglasses and ball cap and bag; hula-girl shirt in the El Ranchito bar and watched with knots in his stomach and a forty-five automatic Colt pistol digging against his ribs as his young wife nervously sat down with two obvious monsters. Yes, she'd said marketing concerns, he could remember that clearly now.^ Reversible Man. Pretty Blond. But was it Reversible Man's head behind the glaring light that night? Archie opened his eyes. It was impossible to say.
He'd need to talk with them to determine that. With at least one of them. It wouldn't be easy and it wouldn't be pleasant, but it was easy to pick which one he'd interview.
At one-sixteen, what looked like a black Lincoln Town Car came into the parking lot from behind the building. It passed behind the silver stretch limousines and stopped at the entrance of Coast Highway. Archie saw Reversible Man deep in the darkened interior, and as if to confirm his ID, the driver's side of the car rode slight! lower than the other. No signal, but a break in the swift traffic and Reversible Man gunned the Town Car northbound on PCH. Just like the night before.
Pretty Blond came to the window and the blinds angled down to block Archie's vision. The lights stayed on for a few minutes-he could see the yellow outline between the blinds and the window frame. Then the lights went off and nothing that Archie could see stirred within the Air Glide office for twenty-four minutes. At which time the lights came back on.
A few minutes later another black Lincoln-this one a Mark VII-rounded into view from behind the office. Pretty Blond, alone, waited and signaled and turned south on Coast Highway.
Archie moved the gumball from the floor to the seat beside him, then followed. It was an easy tail, the traffic moving fast with plenty of cars to put between them. Pretty Blond was considerate, obeying the speed limit and signaling his lane changes. He turned east on Jamboree, headed past the big hotel where he and Gwen had played all those years ago, past Newport Center and Fashion Island toward Irvine.
Archie put the gumball on the Durango roof and pulled over Pretty Blond outside the Tuscany Apartments. There was a nice entry lane away from the traffic and he could see the man tilt to his left, probably to get a wallet or a gun.
Wildcraft filled his lungs as he approached the idling Mark VII, flashlight in his left hand.
The window of the Mark went down.
Archie stood beside it, but just slightly back of the driver's easy angle of vision, just like they taught you for patrol. Make them turn to you.
"Step out of the car, please."
Maybe it was Archie's summer-weight green cotton/poly-blend uniform. Or the name Wildcraft on the brass nameplate over his left chest pocket. Maybe it was the badge. Or the barrel of the forty-five ACP he touched to the lashes of Pretty Blond's left eye.
"Yes."
An hour later, Archie was standing just outside the master bathroom in his home. Sonny Charles leaned in the corner of the bathroom proper, in the same spot where Gwen had lain. She was with them, behind and slightly above Archie.
"She died right where you are," said Archie. "Isn't that right, honey?"
"Yes. Right there."
Charles looked at him without moving his head. He was sweating hard and his blond hair was shiny in the overhead track lighting of the bath. He had a narrow face and reminded Archie of the guy who painted the soup can. His eyes were blue and dry and extremely skeptical.
Archie unwound the duct tape from Charles's face and pulled the tennis ball from his mouth.
"Let this man tell us what happened."
"I was not here," he said. His voice was clear and brittle, like it could break. "I have never been in this house."
"Apin, the big guy," said Gwen. "He was the one who crashes and shot me."
"Is that right, Mr. Charles? Was it Mr. Apin who did it?"
"Apin? I don't know any man named Apin."
"Oh." Archie sounded disappointed, even to himself. He slid left hand into his pocket and slipped out the S amp;W S.W.A.T. knife, thumbing it open. It was a never-used First Millennium Run with short black blade, incomprehensibly sharp. He put the point Charles's forehead, mid-latitude, far left side.
"Mr. Charles, we have a situation. This is it: you will tell me what happened that night, or I'll cut your throat with this knife and let you bleed out in the bathroom here. Your blood on Gwen's."
"That's awful," she said.
"I know it's awful, and I don't want to do it," said Archie. "But if he tells me everything I want to know, I'll let him go."
The blue eyes looked uncertain, as if the man wasn't sure he was being spoken to.
"Now," said Archie, "look in the mirror."
He swept the knife lightly. Charles wrenched his head but couldn’t move it far because he was contained, chin to tiptoes, by the carpet roll from the home-improvement center. The roll was snugged up him with ten triple-wrapped belts of duct tape and five flat nylon straps with quick-release fasteners. Inside, his hands and ankles were secured by plastic department-issue restraints. He leaned upright in the bathroom corner, stiff as a mummy. Out in the bedroom was the mechanic's creeper on which Archie had wheeled him from the garage, along the side walkway, into the kitchen, down the hall and into the master bath. And the gag, freshly cut away to encourage free speech.