“You’ll hear in a minute.”
The waiter came by and asked if Caitlin wanted anything. She spoke quickly in German and he went away.
“What was I talking about?”
“The bandage.”
“Right. The whole scene was loony, but you regain perspective fast. Okay, husband, so now you’re back. It’s time to answer my questions p.d.q. What have you been doing? Why did you go to London? Venice?
“Then I got really wound up and started ranting and raving… but it was relief and fury and angst and all that stuff coming out at once. He didn’t try to say anything till I was finished blowing my top. Why hadn’t he called and at least told me where he was? Didn’t he stop even once to think how worried I’d be? Oh, yeah, my gun was full of bullets.
“After a while, I ran out of them and we sat there, silent, looking at each other. Then he asked if I had ever had a real enemy, someone I wanted either dead or destroyed. Huh? What? The question stopped me cold. What was he talking about? I wanted to know about his disappearance; what did enemies have to do with it? When I asked what he meant, he said, “Do you remember Ian McGann in Sardinia?” Caitlin turned to Sophie and asked if I had read the letter. Sophie nodded.
“What letter?” I definitely was not tuned to their channel.
“The letter Jesse wrote me about their trip to Sardinia. Remember I showed it to you? About the man there who dreamed he talked to Death and asked Him questions?”
The two women watched me expectantly, hoping I’d make the essential connection without having to be told. A quiet fell over the three of us that lasted while I searched their faces for further hints. It was as if we were playing charades and they’d given a brilliant final clue.
“London. Venice. A bandage. The cut has something to do with all this?”
They nodded.
“McGann. His girlfriend’s name was strange. She was Dutch.”
“Miep.”
My eyelids got it before my brain did. I felt them rising and for a few seconds didn’t know why. Then my tongue knew it before my brain because it started saying “Mc-Gann!” a moment before all the pieces snapped together like train cars connecting. KA-CHUNK! MC-GANN!
“Jesse went to London to find McGann!”
Neither moved. Waiting to hear more.
“The bandage. A wound. Like McGann’s! Oh, Jesus Christ, your brother is having those dreams too?”
“Yes.”
Then I remembered with another KA-CHUNK the policeman, Death, in the Hollywood mask store saying sometimes He came early so that people could get used to Him or ask questions. He had told me Ian McGann was not dead. I’d not forgotten any of that day; I’d simply worked hard not to remember. When I was in college, someone I knew had a snake for a pet. He fed the thing mice and once asked if I’d like to watch what happened at mealtime. What interested me most was the mouse’s reaction. After being dropped into the terrarium, it ran to a corner and washed itself furiously. When it was finished it stood there, motionless, and appeared to look out through the glass. Didn’t it know what was in there with it? Animals have all those hyperaware senses; didn’t one of them warn the poor creature that Death was nearby? Watch out! Run for your life! No. The snake oozed over, opened its mouth, and struck. The mouse got away once, but not the second time. I couldn’t believe it. So calm, yet the little thing had to know somewhere in itself its enemy was inches away. Why hadn’t it run or gone mad? Then again, why hadn’t I when Death offered me a picnic lunch?
“What did he mean when he asked if you’d ever had a real enemy?”
“Because the minute he had the first dream, he knew the person who spoke to him was his enemy.”
“Who was it?”
“Norman Ivers. Jesse’s best friend when he was a boy. Norman drowned their first year in high school.”
“A boy? But it makes sense. It could be anyone who’s dead, right? Why not a boy? Did Jesse tell you what he said?”
“He couldn’t. But he can tell you, Wyatt. He said he can tell you.”
“Why me?”
“You know why.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Because you’re terminal.”
Sophie said it. Caitlin wouldn’t even meet my eye. When she did speak, she addressed the table top. “That’s why I couldn’t let you into our apartment. Jesse and I were arguing about how it should be done. I said we shouldn’t involve you, but he insists. He said you’re the only one he can tell these things to because of your condition. If he said anything to Sophie or me, we’d get infected the way he did. We’d start dreaming the dreams and get scarred when we didn’t understand Death’s answer.”
“But what can I do? All I can do is listen.”
“He thinks that’s terribly important. He said—” The last word fell apart as Caitlin began crying. A silent crier. Tears rolled down her face, and her voluptuous mouth shrank into an old woman’s mouth. Pinched, wrinkled, nothing but years of sadness and pain there.
Sophie got up and moved around the table to sit next to her. The silence came back. So did the waiter, who put a cup of coffee in front of Caitlin. When he saw her face, he shot disapproving glances at Sophie and me and left in a hurry.
“You don’t have to do it, Wyatt. You have enough trouble in your life as it is. I told him I’d tell you but that I didn’t think it was right. If you don’t want to see him, he’ll understand. I know he—” The tears got hold of her again and she tried to wave the rest of the sentence to me with a hand.
“Sophie?”
“Yes?”
“What do you think?”
“It’s my brother. It’s hard to be objective. I think different things with my head and my heart. You know what they are.”
“I want to talk to him on the phone before I make a decision. Can I do that?”
“Of course.”
“Then let’s call right now.”
Caitlin and I went to the public telephone and she dialed her home. Jesse must have picked up on the first ring because she started speaking almost as soon as she stopped dialing.
“Honey? Yes. Yes, I told him. He’s right here with me. We’re still in the café. Wyatt says he wants to talk to you on the phone.” She paused and gave me a small false smile while he spoke. It didn’t reassure me. “No! But he—” Her mouth moved to say more but she was being interrupted and he was so loud that I could hear his flood of words coming in a jumble. “No, but Wyatt said—” Again she was stopped. She nodded, closed her eyes, tried to speak, couldn’t. After many more long seconds she was able to slip in “Yes. I’ll tell him. What? I said I’d tell him!” Putting a hand over the mouthpiece, she seemed to gather her strength before saying whatever it was to me she was meant to convey. “Jesse says he can’t talk to you over the phone. It has to be face to face. It can’t be any other way. You’ll understand when you see him.”
What was this nonsense? I reached for the receiver. She pulled it way back behind her ear, her other hand still over the lower part. “No! He said no. He can’t talk to you this way. He’s crazy over there, Wyatt. He’s shouting at me and cursing. He never curses at me, never. And now he’s shouting and… he’s crazy. I don’t care what you do, but you can’t talk to him this way. I can’t let you. It’ll make him even crazier.”
No one was crazier than Caitlin at that point. Her face was a shiny mess; she was holding the receiver so tightly that I could see the red and white of her clenched knuckles. Crazy, crazy. Everyone around me was bent in different directions.
“All right, all right! Tell him I’m coming over now. Tell him to take it easy till we get there.”
She nodded like a little girl getting reassurance from a parent after having had a nightmare. Slow dips of the head, eyes wide and hungry to trust.
“He’ll come, Jesse. What? No, I’ll tell her to stay here. I’ll bring him to the door, then come back here and stay with her till you’re finished.”