“Oh, it’s OK,” she hasted to add, mistaking my look. “I’m not upset about it or anything.”
“Is that a joke?”
Lloyd lowered the volume and turned towards us. Iris frowned.
“A joke? What are you talking about?”
“Everybody knows Luke Whales’s parents died in San Diego in seventeen.”
“What? I’m sorry but I didn’t.”
“I did,” said Lloyd.
“And if I did,” Iris added, “I would definitely not joke about it. Or about myself being an orphan pulled out of the water.”
I apologized, but the conversation died. We watched cartoons. I couldn’t stop thinking about that day when I left for Northwestern, driving cross-country all by myself, getting to the apartment and sleeping like twenty-four hours straight, then waking up and seeing the water on TV.
Eventually Dr. Young returned, and the insanity of the present which he brought back with him was preferable to the past. He also brought Chinese food, and we had dinner.
Iris volunteered to clean up. I volunteered to help. Lloyd and Dr. Young went back to mumbling together. Iris and I went back to cartoons. Some time later, Lloyd said, “Might just be better off putting him in the luggage. He’s not gonna try. And this probably won’t work even if he tries.”
“Unfortunately, you are correct. But the luggage idea might not be so bad, if it comes to that. Perhaps a coffin.”
“I’m right here,” I said.
“Oh, you would be very much alive, not to worry. And your part would be much simpler, which does seem like a better choice at this juncture. Unless, of course, we manage to somehow convince you of the truth overnight.”
“Speaking of nights,” said Lloyd. “I figure to be up most of it, what do you say I catch a few winks now?”
“I don’t mind, Mr. Freud. You know where the guest rooms are.”
“Wake me up, say, in three hours then?”
“Five.”
“Thanks, Doc. You want my gun?”
“No, thank you. I’m well-armed.”
“Just so you know,” I said. “You don’t need to be well-armed on my account. I decided not to run away. Tonight.”
Lloyd regarded me with a mother’s patience.
“Tell him something, Doc.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Make him understand.”
“Do you understand, Mr. Freud?”
“Make him believe, then.” When Dr. Young excluded himself by raising both hands, Lloyd sat down on the ottoman, turning to face me.
“All right. I’ll explain this again, because obviously you’re still a bit behind. Yesterday morning the plan was to set you up for murder. This may be hard to grasp, but try to. The plan had very little to do with you personally, as far as I knew, anyway. It was purely about “us” versus “them,” and you were their pawn my employer wanted to take off the board.
“As you know, everything went according to plan. I was well on the way to my retirement. That’s when my employer decided to inform me that you actually matter to him. That I’m supposed to protect you. Like I said earlier, I’m really not happy about that, and I’m not happy about the fact that I wasn’t told more before I shot O’Malley, but I’ll do my best, because that’s what I do. So get it through your head that you are not a prisoner here. My gun and Doc’s are not here to prevent your escape.”
“You pointed it at me back at the church.”
“You didn’t try to escape. You tried to call the cops on me. That’s different. Besides, it was only to frighten you. I wouldn’t actually shoot you.”
“So I can just get up and walk out that door?”
“Sure. But understand this. If my employer orders me to protect you, then it’s a good bet the police who would shoot you on sight for killing a federal employee are the least of your problems. Trust me. There’s nothing but death outside that door.”
We stared at each other. For a minute there was only murmur of the news. I got up from the couch, walked to the door and opened it. The warm inside air rushed by me, sucked into the night. The bright yellow ball of a streetlight was slashed with slanted, silent rain. No one else moved.
“If you don’t care, why are you telling me not to leave?”
“Cos I’ll have to follow and I’m tired and I’ll probably die too,” said Lloyd, rising once again to his feet.
“Would you close that door, Mr. Whales, please? It’s getting drafty.”
I did. Lloyd left the room. The stairway creaked under his weight.
“What about you?” I asked Iris, returning to my place on the sofa. “What would you do if I left?”
“I would go home.”
After that, the three of us watched the news.
…Two simultaneous explosions destroyed two buses in… taking lives of at least 32 people and injuring a hundred more, … police officials said earlier today. The timing of the bombings pointed to a coordinated attack. Investigators are waiting for one of the militant groups to accept responsibility…
…20 thousand US troops are returning safely from the Middle East. Their eighteen-months-long tour of duty began in April of last year. Watch the homecoming celebration special live tomorrow at 2…
…A heartwarming scene in the recently liberated town of … The citizens, mostly women and children, gather to greet and thank the Coalition troops. They bring wild flowers and caviar. “It’s days like these that remind us we’re doing the right thing here,” one soldier told us…
… Four hundred humpback dolphins mysteriously washed ashore yesterday on the northern coast of Zanzibar. Scientists don’t yet know what killed the dolphins, which live in the deep offshore waters. An early examination of the animals’ stomachs suggests that they either had not eaten in a long time or vomited very recently…
… NASA announced today that it shouldn’t take more than ten years to prepare the second mission to Mars. It will take about that long to process all the data we’ve gathered during the first one, anyway, a delighted senior official…
…a forty-nine-year-old babysitter confessed to killing the toddler he was watching. The man admitted to bludgeoning the girl with a hammer, then dismembering the body and hiding the remains in…
“This is your mass therapy, Doc?” I asked during a commercial break seemingly hours later. “This is the ‘better place’? I think I’m about to be sick.”
“Again you are forgetting that you are not on the pill, Mr. Whales.”
The commercials ended. It was time for some breaking news.
… The search continues for the former TV personality Luke Whales. Earlier today, law enforcement officials informed us that the missing U.S. Marshal Lloyd Freud, previously feared dead, may, in fact, be alive and traveling with Whales. The authorities would not elaborate in what capacity Mr. Freud is currently sought, stating only that if anyone has information on whereabouts of either Whales or Freud, they should inform the police or the FBI immediately. The third person of interest in the case is a woman named Iris Smith, seen in this recent photo. We apologize for the quality of the image. However, it is the only one currently available…
Picture of me, Lloyd and Iris appeared on the screen. Mine were a couple of long shots from the show and a few close-ups, in which my facial expressions showed something like poorly concealed anguish. Of course, in reality I was probably adjusting my underwear while off camera or something. Lloyd was smiling, looking like a toy store clerk possibly harboring a secret. Iris’s pic was a mess of squares. No one could possibly use it to identify anybody. Still, it was her in the picture, all right.
“This is from today,” she said.
“Probably shot by a traffic camera on one of the intersections,” said Dr. Young.