Which made it possible for me to say: “Trevor, what the fuck?”
He kept his voice to a low rumble. “We lost the security detail. Both cars. I was riding in the lead vehicle, we were doing a drive-around to get the lay of the town. This was maybe an hour before the lights went out. The fucking Het guys ambushed us, forced both our vehicles off the road. My car went into a ditch, the other vehicle hit a concrete planter. Tracy Guitierrez was driving—she’s in the local hospital with most of the rest of my guys, not critical but definitely out of business for the time being. Lost a lot of skin on the right side of her face. Those of us who could walk quit the scene as soon as we called for help. I didn’t want to have to waste time telling stories to the cops while the Hets do whatever they feel like. And then the blackout. I had to walk here.”
I processed this. It was the news about Tracy that really made me angry. She was a fairly new Tau, still full of that oh-my-God-I’m-home-at-last giddiness. I wanted to hurt somebody on her behalf. And it didn’t take Tau telepathy to feel a similar sentiment radiating from Trev like heat from a woodstove.
But we had to be smart about this, too.
“Raises the question,” I said, “of why they would do that.”
“I’ve been thinking about that on the walk here. Obviously they know something is up. Probably they know it involves Jenny. My guess is, the Hets got wind of our plan. And they mean to do something about it.”
“Like what?”
“I wish I knew. Have you been able to get in touch with Damian or Amanda?”
“No.”
“Me neither. Which means we’re on our own right now. On the other hand, so are the Hets. And Hets are lousy at acting without orders, so maybe that buys us some time.”
“What do you suggest we do?”
“Tonight, post a watch. The two of us, I guess. One of us should be awake and vigilant at all times. And in the morning, we take your car and get Jenny Fisk out of town ASAP. How’s that sound?”
“Reasonable, I guess.”
“So who gets the first watch of the night?”
“I’ll take it. You look like you could use some rest.”
He didn’t object. “Show me the way to the attic room,” he said. He checked his watch. “And wake me at three. Sooner, if you see anything suspicious.”
He was at least a foot longer than the fold-out Mama Laura had set up for him, but he made himself comfortable. Back downstairs, I blew out the candles and put a chair by the big front window where I could watch the street. Then I poured myself a cup of cold coffee from the pot that was left after dinner and stared into the darkness.
CHAPTER 18
I had been on watch for about an hour, half dozing by the window, when there was a scream from the second-floor hallway, followed by violent shouting.
I grabbed a flashlight and ran upstairs. But when I made it to the landing all I saw was my father lying on the floor in a pair of white pajama bottoms, and Mama Laura bending over him, and Trevor at the far end of the hallway looking startled and contrite.
Apparently my father had gotten out of bed and headed for the bathroom, carrying one of Mama Laura’s yahrzeit candles on a saucer. He found the bathroom door locked. He knocked and rattled the knob, and when the door opened he dropped the candle and screamed. He screamed because he had been asleep when Trev arrived, and Mama Laura had neglected to warn him that if he needed to take a leak during the night he might encounter a muscular two-hundred-and-forty-pound stranger with extensive facial tattoos. He dropped his candle (it rolled to the verge of the stairs, flame extinguished) and managed to back away three steps before he tripped over a knitted rug and fell to the floor. Mama Laura, running from the bedroom, found Trev standing over her husband and repeating the words, “Dude, are you all right?”
It was possibly the first time in his life my father had been called “dude.” He wasn’t taking it well. Now that he was no longer frightened, his belligerence came roaring onto center stage. “Who the fuck invited you?”
“I did,” I said. I scooped up the fallen candle. “This is Trevor. He’s a friend of mine.”
“You have some pretty fucking peculiar friends!”
“He needed a place to stay for the night.”
“Well, welcome to the Fisk Hotel!”
“Don’t be ungracious,” Mama Laura said, helping him to his feet. Because he was dressed in pajamas it was easy to see how much weight he had lost. His knees poked at the white cotton fabric like knotted cords. He had no belly, just a declivity under the barrel of his ribs. “And don’t swear, if you can help it. Come back to bed, Charles.”
“I still need to take a piss, goddammit!”
Even by candlelight I could see Mama Laura blush. “Go on, then.”
He grunted and headed for the bathroom, skirting around Trev as if he were radioactive. Then he paused and looked back at me.
“Figures this is one of yours,” he said.
* * *
Mama Laura apologized for the excitement. I went downstairs with Trev behind me.
“Other than that,” he said, “anything happening?”
I smiled. “All quiet on the western front.”
“Okay. You want me to take my shift now? I mean, I’m fully awake.”
“So am I. You should get another couple of hours if you can.”
Alone again, I settled back into my chair. Outside, the street was empty and stayed empty. Silence inside and out, until I heard more footsteps on the stairway. This time it was Geddy’s friend Rebecca, barefoot in a cotton nightie. Her skinny frame and halo of dark hair gave her the look of a Q-tip dipped in black paint. “Couldn’t sleep,” she explained when she saw me. “What with the noise and all.”
I asked without thinking, “And Geddy slept through it?”
“I guess so. We’re in separate rooms, remember?”
Of course they were: Mama Laura’s Protestantism wouldn’t countenance an unmarried couple cohabiting under her roof. Rebecca headed for the kitchen, and I heard the refrigerator door open and close. She came back into the living room with a glass of milk in her hand. “I put the rest of the carton in the freezer, where it’s still a little cold. But if this blackout goes on much longer you’ll have to start throwing away perishables. Mind if I sit?”
I did mind, because as long as she was in the room my attention would be divided between her and the street. But I couldn’t say that. I shrugged, and she sank into the big easy chair that used to be reserved for my father. “I guess you couldn’t sleep either.”
“I’m a light sleeper at the best of times.”
“Uh-huh.” She sipped her milk.
Outside, a car drove past. It didn’t stop. I watched until its taillights vanished around the nearest corner. “I apologize about the candles.”
“I’m not religious, and I’m not sentimental about yahrzeit candles. Though I still light one on Yom HaShoah, like everyone else in my family.”
“Big family?”
“It seems like it, when we get together for the holidays.”
“Have you introduced Geddy to them?”
She sipped her milk and wiped her lip with her wrist. “My Gentile boyfriend? Of course I have. They love him. There’s no problem, except with a couple of Orthodox cousins whose opinions no one takes seriously. An awkward moment now and then, no big deal.”
“As awkward as all this?”
“Well, maybe not quite. But Geddy told me what to expect, especially concerning his dad. So no shocks there. And I know how it is with families.”
I nodded and looked back at the window.
“Conventional families, I mean,” she said. “Your friend Trevor is cute, by the way. I like the way you are with him. There’s obviously some real love there.”
Her gaydar had surely blipped when Trevor came within range, and I wondered if she was making an unwarranted assumption about my relationship with him. But if so, so what. “Real love” was a fair call.