Dead and Gone

“Capgras Syndrome. When a person believes someone has stolen his identity and become his ‘double.’ They’re always serving ‘Public Notices’ in the personals, warning the world about the impostor. They usually provide a lot of ‘authentication’ info about themselves. Like their Social Security number, or some place they’re going to appear in the future.”

“My goodness!”

“There’s also the ‘lost passport’ game. Where the relay-man puts a notice in the papers saying he lost his passport, offering a reward, you know. But the trick is, he gives the number of the passport he supposedly lost. And the country it was issued from. That’s more than enough to send a pretty lengthy message in cryptography.”

“But why would you expect such people—?”

“I’m just playing the odds, Gem. Most of them, sure, they’re lost inside their own heads, or running their own games. But, for a few of them, Lune is the oracle. I just don’t know which ones, so I’m just spraying and praying, see?”

“Loon?”

“L-U-N-E,” I spelled it for her.

“Ah! French, yes? It means ‘moon.’ ”

“I’m sure that’s the root: ‘luna.’ But, in my man’s case, it’s short for ‘lunatic.’ ”

“But if he’s so intelligent—”

“Oh, he’s a genius, all right. Past a genius. But he’s … I don’t know the word for it. If there’s a word for it. I’ll tell you one thing, though. When it comes to making sense out of a whole bunch of what looks like random human-behavior data, Lune is the man.”

“I could still help,” she said, hands on her hips.

“I’m not saying you couldn’t. It’s just that—”

“I could help now. Listen to me, please. Couldn’t you try the Internet? Contact the websites of the same sort of people you’ve been reaching out to over the phone?”

“I wouldn’t know how to—”

“Then be grateful you have a woman, you stupid man.”

Hours later. Gem at her laptop: hair gathered into a thick ponytail, her back as straight as a West Point plebe’s, fingertips playing the keyboard like a pianist. If she knew I was watching her, she gave no sign.

“Those sites you’re sending e-mail to, won’t they be able to trace back to you?”

She glanced up just long enough to give me a look so full of sweet indulgence it made me feel … geriatric.

It was dark when she came up on deck. I’d been there for a while, sitting in a castoff easy chair, thinking. She perched on the arm of the chair, apparently not bothered enough by the weather to put on anything over her T-shirt and shorts.

“Did you think I was bratty before?”

“When?”

“When you asked me that question about being traced through an e-mail.”

“No. Ask a stupid question and—”

“You didn’t think I was saying you were stupid!”

“Not stupid. Ignorant. And you were right.”

“It was very bad manners on my part.”

“You were busy. Absorbed in what you were doing. And you were doing it for me, to boot.”

She swiveled her hips and draped her legs across my lap.

“You are a very forgiving man,” she said softly.

“And you’re a very sarcastic little bitch.”

“I meant it!”

“Yeah? Okay. Sorry. I just … overreact to that whole ‘forgiveness’ crap.”

“I don’t understand.”

I reached up, grabbed a fistful of her thick, glossy hair, pulled her face down so it was close to my mouth. “Is it important?” I asked her.

“To me, yes. It is very important.”

I leaned back. Gem dropped into my lap. I took my hand from her hair and put it around her shoulders. She made a little noise. Then she settled in against me, waiting.

“When I was a kid, people … did things to me,” I told her. “Ugly, vicious, evil things. But I didn’t die from any of them. When I was older, I spent some time in a war. I didn’t die from that, either. You know what they call me?”

“A man who—”

“No,” I said, cutting her off. “A ‘survivor.’ For both. And that’s wrong.”

“Why is it wrong? You did survive.…”