"I had this one friend… Did I tell you about the time… She loved Mexican food, and it was about two in the morn— No. Of course I didn't tell you. Anyway, when she died… she had this cut of 'Tiny Dancer. ' Elton John, you know?"
Soledad shrugged."Peter Frampton's about as far as I ever went in that direction, but I know the song."
"Yeah, so, she had a single. A forty-five, not a CD, and it had this little scratch at the intro over the piano part. But it made the record sound like no other version of the song. Sometimes, when we were both feeling mellow, we'd smoke a little, she'd play the single and we would sit and talk and…"
"Did you love her?" Soledad asked.
"Of course I did."
"I don't mean 'fellow human being' loved her. Did you love her?"
Ian said nothing. Same as if the question had never been asked, he went on with: "After she died her family let me have the single. Every once in a while I put it on, I hear that little scratch that's not on any other copy of 'Tiny Dancer, ' and I remember. And long as you remember, as long as every now and then you keep someone alive in your heart and in your mind…"
Ian didn't finish the thought. Didn't need to. And for the next seventy-six minutes, except to ask Soledad if she wanted anything to drink yet, to which she replied,"No," Ian said nothing else.
I'll try to explain this best I can, as simply as I can. A wood door, a steel slab, a windowpane: They're all solid objects. They seem solid. But they're really just molecules held together by cohesion. That's like a… think of it like an energy glue. The glue is stronger with steel than, you know, water, but between the molecules is space. Reality is, nothing's really solid. So if you could manipulate your own molecular cohesion, alter the space between your molecules, you could lower your density."
"You could make yourself intangible."
Whitaker nodded. Vin was getting it.
Maybe Whitaker had a way of coming off as Mr. Eager to Please, but by nature he was a guy who knew there was a way to handle every situation. For some MTacs, for most, handling a situation meant figuring which was the biggest, baddest gun to tote after a mutie. For MTacs like Whitaker, knowing your muties was the first order of business.
Whitaker tried to bring Vin around to that way of thinking.
Bo just read the sports section. He'd already learned plenty about freaks, firsthand, from ten-plus years of going against them. From seeing too many good cops like Reese get put down.
Vin asked: "You ever seen one, an intangible?"
"No. Saw some video of cops chasing one in Tampa. Chasing. The thing was walking away from the cops. Nothing they could do to stop it."
"Jesus, Bo. You hear this."
"Yeah. A guy can change his density. You want to explain something, explain why the Dodgers can't take a three-game home stand."
"Know what's scary about intangibles?" Whitaker went on."I've heard, and I don't think anybody's sure, but there's evidence they can manipulate the density of other things same as they can their own."
Vin wasn't sure what Whitaker was getting at.
Whitaker: "Okay, well, to me that counts as a secondary ability."
"Freaks don't have secondary abilities."
"What about that freak Soledad put down? It could do whatever it did with that sinkhole and fly."
"Yeah, but we don't… nobody knows what happened with the sinkhole. Not for sure." Vin, trying to be optimistic about a negative matter."So maybe all it could do was fly."
"If that thing could do what it did and fly," Whitaker went on, objective with the facts,"if intangibles can extend their abilities, could be we're starting to look at the next step in the next wave of freaks."
"Fuuhhhhk."
"Yes. Fuck. Muties that can fly and breathe fire, or triple their size and shoot electricity."
Vin, again: "Fuck."
"If that's what's waiting for us, we're going to look back on these days as the good old days."
Bo acted like he was still just reading the sports section. Really he was hearing every word Whitaker was saying.
Yarborough walked into the ready room.
"Hey, Yar."
"What's goin' on, boys?"
"Whitaker's telling ghost stories."
"I'm just talking about the freak population, telling it like it is."
"Here's how it is: I see a freak…" With his hand and fingers Yarborough made a gun, pulled the trigger."There's your freak population."
Bo took himself from the sports long enough to wonder to Yar: "That a new jacket? It's nice."
"Yeah? Like it?"
"What'd I say? Said it's nice. What is that? It looks like—"
"It's Pleather."
"What?"
"It's a Pleather coat."
Vin was the first to start laughing, but Whitaker, I-want-to-get-along-with-everybody Whitaker, laughed loudest.
"Every time," Yar said with a front of mock indignance, but harboring a little of the real thing,"I buy something you all've gotta make fun of it."
"Well, now, that's because every time you buy something you buy something like, Pleather. What is that, plastic leather?"
"Quality material's what it is."
"Sure." Vin, getting into things."Comes from some of the finest Pleather on the planet. Remind me, Pleather: flora or fauna?"
Yar made a show of carefully taking off his jacket as he swapped his civvies for Nomex."Twice as durable as leather, half the price."
"Half the cost and twice the laughs."
"Yeah, man. Sorry, but Pleather sounds like something that went out of style about the same time as KG and the Sunshine Band." Whitaker had some humor to him when he felt like using it.
"What you all thinks not hardly my concern. Chicks dig Pleather."
Another round of laughing started up.
Vin: "Yar, you don't seem to be aware of the fact that chicks don't dig being called chicks, so how are you going to tell us they dig Pleather?"
"Hey, as a cop who's remained notoriously single through three divisions, I don't think you should be schooling me on what chicks dig."
"Being the married one," Bo weighing in,"I gotta go with Vin on this. Traditional ladies don't really shine to being lumped in with barnyard animals. Cute and yellow and fluffy as they might be."
"That's what I'm saying; I'm not really trying to attract a traditional girl. I like 'em, what's the word? Atypical."
Vin, smiling but shaking his head: "I can't wait to meet the girl who turns you out. Man, she is going to drag your ass by your heart."
The girl.
It was really hard for Yar to say if she had been the one or not. She was pretty, plenty pretty, and that was—right, wrong, chauvinistic or not—Yar's first consideration. She was tough too. Not just take-a-punch tough, but take-what-life-gives-you-and-deal-with-it tough. Good with a gun, and that, well, c'mon, that makes any woman sexy. And sometimes Yar would catch her smiling. Smiling for no reason when she thought no one was looking. She was cute when she smiled. It planed her edge. And sometimes she would wink at Yar. Not flirting. Joking. Like: Hey, I'm thinking something, and wouldn't you like to know what I'm thinking? And maybe she was just a woman, and nothing more or less special than that, not nearly all that Yar recalled. But she was also dead, and that made Yar think of Reese and think, maybe, one time, instead of just staring at her smile he should've asked her out for a drink or to a movie. Or short of that, just told her, Reese, you're all right and I'm glad you've got my back. And Yar missed her. Whether he would have ever dated her or not, if it ever would've worked out or not, he missed Reese; missed what she was about, felt guilt for never having taken the thirty seconds out of a day to get to know her a little better. And he wanted to tell Bo and Whitaker and Vin that he missed Reese and that he hurt from missing her and wished he could go back and tell her he loved her, or at least liked her a whole lot. She shouldn't've died wondering if she was loved, or at least well liked.