“My God…” Kevin whispered and tears formed at the corners of his eyes, slowly rolling down his face. He ran his fingers over the individual boxes, pausing his thumb over tiny colored tabs that had been added to the upper-right-hand corners of each.
“Whatare those?” I said.
I always tried to maintain my emotional detachment when reuniting owners with their lost property, but I had to admit, I always loved seeing their reactions. They often cried, or had to do their damndest not to. The thing was that if an item had a strong enough emotional fingerprint on it that I could identify its past owner, it probably meant that the item was extremely important in the owner’s life.
“I…” he started, and stopped. The words wouldn’t come. Finally he grabbed hold of another one of the boxes. The wordsShark! Shark! ran down the side of it, and he hugged the game to his body. “I’m sorry. I’m a little overwhelmed is all.” He pointed to one of the tabs. “My friends-we were geeky as hell back then-and we used to color code the games by their genre. Sports games were green, for grass. Red was for fighting games, because, well, you know…blood and guts. Puzzle games were purple.”
“Why purple?”
He shrugged and smiled. “We couldn’t really think of a good color that stood for puzzles, really, so we went for alliteration.Pu rplePu zzles. See?”
I nodded and checked my watch. I could make the next train upstate if I was out of here in the next five minutes.
“How on earth did you get your hands on these? And how did you find me?” he asked, drying his eyes on his sleeve. “I thought this stuff was goneforever. I know it must seem foolish that I’m crying over something like this, but there are a lot of memories packed in here.”
“If you look on the bottom of the console, it has your name and old address on it,” I said.
It was a lie, really. I had gone ahead and faked the signature because it seemed a much more plausible explanation than trying to convince him that I had tracked him down through a psychometric vision of his childhood. I hoped he assumed one of his parents had done it.
He picked up the machine, flipped it over, and looked at the signature. “Huh!”Let’s wrap it up, Kev. Honestly, I wasn’t insensitive to what he was going through. I loved giving someone that sense of connection to their past, but if I was to be straight with myself, my real motivation was the possibility of a cash reward. I checked my watch again. Four minutes left to get out of here and catch the next train up to see the antiques dealer in Poughkeepsie. It was time to close the deal. There were two approaches that usually worked. One was a simple “How much you willing to pay?” gambit, but I thought the subtle approach would catch Kevin hook, line, and sinker. He was weepy enough, for sure.
Step one. “I should probably be going,” I said with the most sincere and sheepish look I could muster. “I just thought this stuff might be important to you.”
“Wait,” he said, getting up. “Please…let me give you something for your trouble.”
Step two. Look surprised.
Step three. Refuse once. “No, that’s okay,” I continued. “Really.”
“No, please. I insist.”
Almost everyone says that. “I insist.”
Step four. I reluctantly agreed, like I was doing him a favor by taking his money. “Well,” I said with a kind smile. “If it will make you feel better…”
I walked out of the store with Kevin’s gratitude and a check for just over three hundred dollars. He insisted I not take a dime less. It was amazing how high a price tag people put on healing their emotional scars. I sold memories. I sold a certain amount of healing and hope, too. It didn’t mean that I didn’t feel dirty about it sometimes.
17
When I got home from the sales trip, it was after dark, but not too late. I had been successful to the tune of two months’ maintenance. I found Irene asleep in the guest room as I had left her earlier this morning and I didn’t dare disturb her. Connor had talked about how her spirit might slowly start to degrade and turn into something like the one from the alley, but I figured the less I forced her to interact, the less energy she expended-and that might slow the degradation. I caught a few hours’ sleep before waking up and sneaking the surveillance equipment I had calibrated the other night out of the apartment while Irene slept on, and I headed for Jane’s address, which Connor had e-mailed to me.
Hours later, as I prowled the rooftops and set up a parabolic mike directly across from Jane’s Chelsea apartment, I felt skeevy and voyeuristic. The Inspectre had assured me it was a necessary evil in the fight against, well, evil. But as I settled into an evening of spying on her, I found myself…liking it. Spying on Jane gave me a much better understanding of the woman. By the dull glow of my laptop’s screen, I worked on my report for the Department, detailing every move that she made. Jane was a much more cheerful person when she was home alone, and I guessed that it was due to being free and clear of her responsibilities to the evil Mr. Faisal Bane. Well, notquite free and clear. Throughout the night, she bristled as she fielded several calls from her boss regarding his scheduling needs. I was impressed that the parabolic mike picked up his voice on the phone. The confused expressions that flitted across her face as she spoke on the phone made it clear that she didn’t understand half of what her powerful boss was up to. Not that she was dumb, but I doubted she truly grasped the evil extent of what she had gotten herself into.
She didn’t question any of his demands. As the S.D.L. had probably made clear to her, certain things-highly evil things, I had no doubt-were on a “need to know” basis. I bet the less you knew at the Sectarian Defense League, the longer your lifespan was.
It wasn’t until nine that she made an outgoing call of her own. Take-out. When she asked for her sweet and sour sauce on the side, the same as I did, I smiled. Thirty minutes later her food arrived (she was a heavy tipper, I noted), but before she had a chance to put it down, her cell phone went off yet again. This time, as I positioned the mike, I caught her cursing under her breath.
I adjusted the mike and their voices came in loud and clear.
“What’s up, boss?” she said.
“Good evening, Jane. I trust you’re enjoying your time off tonight?”
Jane looked at the unopened bag of Chinese food in her hand.
“Oh yeah,” she said with mock enthusiasm. “It’s a regular party at my place, sir.”
“I’m afraid your party will have to wait,” he said. “I’ve got some errands I need done.”
He really didn’t get the whole sarcasm thing. Perhaps it had something to do with that dark, brooding European sensibility of his. Or maybe he just didn’t get idioms.
I knew that a lot of people would be bothered if their time off was constantly interrupted, but after my dinner with Jane, I knew she was probably making the best of the situation in her head already. I bet she was thinking,Doesn’t Chinese reheat just fine?
I watched through high-tech optical headgear as she walked over to the fridge and tossed the bag in next to four others. Thanks to the power of the electronic eyes, I could even make out the other packages in there: one Mexican, one Italian, and two other Chinese.
“Where do you need me, sir?” She slammed the refrigerator door shut.
“Do you have something black to wear?”
“Of course,” she said as she crossed her kitchen.
Over dinner, she had actually said that day one of her Human Resources training, the Sectarians had sent her out with a corporate credit card to pick up a variety of outfits…all of them in black. The corporate equivalent of hairnets, paper hats, and smocks for the forces of Darkness, I guessed.