Dead and Gone

“Not surrender. Accept. Sometimes the window will open. And sometimes it will not. You feel as if you cannot … lose yourself in … this,” she said, her hand cupping my testicles, thumbnail gently scraping under the root. “But you can. Not by trying. By not trying. Go to sleep, Burke. There are no windows in your sleep. It will only be your body then.”

“But if I’m asleep …?”

“I will not be,” Gem said, thumbnail resting against my root, sending a tiny tremor to where I thought was dead.

I was … maybe … afraid to ask Gem anything the next morning. Her eyes were shining, but I figured that was from the waffles with maple syrup, double-side of bacon and home fries, and the two chocolate malts she called breakfast.

She went out for a while. Came back with the Sunday paper. The Oregonian. Must be statewide, with a name like that, I figured.

We sat on the couch and read the paper quietly. By the time we finished, Gem was hungry again.

“You mind going over it one more time?” I asked her. “Tomorrow’s the meet, and …”

“Of course,” she said.

“I’ll page Byron. No point doing it in pieces.”

It took Byron less than an hour to show up. He greeted Gem almost formally, taking his cue from her. I wished I had his manners. Or maybe just his natural grace.

I drew a sketch of the plaza and the surrounding streets. Explained I’d be there first, and Gem should take whatever spot looked best to her. We couldn’t script it any closer than that—no telling what other actors would be on the stage.

“You’ve got the tricky part,” I told Byron.

“And I’ve got help,” he said.

“We can’t—”

“Not ‘we,’ partner. Me. I have a … friend. A very close friend. One that I can trust. All he knows is we’re going to do a box tail.”

“Does he know how to—?”

“Better than me,” Byron said, pride in his voice. “He’s a spook.”

CIA? Did they have a “don’t ask, don’t tell” like the Army? And did anyone actually believe that bullshit? I let it go. A man who could hide from his own employers could certainly handle his end of a box tail.

“They’re going to be edgy,” I warned them both.

“Then we shall be calm,” Gem replied.

“You’re going to have to improv,” I said to her. “It really doesn’t matter so much what you say. You’re only there to give information. Sent by a friend. A friend you never met—a friend of theirs, see? You’re just the messenger.”

“Yes.”

“Whatever you do, no matter what kind of opening they give you, don’t ask any questions. They’ll be looking for that.”

“I understand.”

“Something else is happening. Something besides me. These people disappeared a while ago. Put some very complicated systems in place, must have been planning it for a while. And they can’t be earning money legit; not in their professions, anyway. I saw their setup in Chicago. Expensive. Real expensive to maintain, the way they’re doing it. Heavy front, heavy cost. It’s a tightrope. We have to make them nervous enough to contact whoever set me up. But not panic them into running.”

“What good will that do?” Byron asked. “There’s a million ways for them to contact their principal, if that’s what this is. Phone, fax, e-mail, telegram, FedEx, UPS, carrier pigeon … you name it. No way we can put a trap on all that.”

“All this money, all this planning … Whoever wanted me dead isn’t someone they can just call on the phone. They’ve got other things going. So they’ll have cutouts in place.”

“So you figure … the Russians reach out, it takes a while for whoever it is to get back to them.”

“Yep.”

“And we’ll be waiting, right?”

“Watching.”

“For what?” Byron asked.

“Fear is a communicable disease,” I told them both. “Whatever makes them afraid, they’re going to run to the people who put them in the jackpot, looking for answers. But, see, whoever put them there, they’ll have to wonder, too. The wheels come off, you know the car’s going to crash … but you don’t know where it’s going to hit.”

“So you believe these … people, whoever they are, they will come to reassure the Russians?” Gem asked.

“Or to reassure themselves.”

“You think …?” Byron lifted an eyebrow.

“This was about murder, going in,” I reminded him.

“So if they come to cut their losses …”