Back at the counter, Vin laid out slices of roast beef that were thin as paper. “I went to a gallery opening. She was there by herself, wearing a dress that was cut down to the small of her back. They had these lights in the ceiling that were directed at the paintings that were for sale, and when I walked in, I saw her standing in front of the Chagall I had come to buy, that light hitting the skin of her back. Extraordinary.” He added on a layer of ragged tomato and a fluffy blanket of lettuce, then top-hatted the sandwiches. “Sliced or whole?”
“Whole.”
He handed the sourdough over to Jim and cut his rye in half. “She sat in front of me at the auction and I smelled her perfume the entire time. I paid a fuckload for the Chagall, and I'll never forget the way she looked back at me over her shoulder as the gavel went down. Her smile was what I liked to see in a woman's face at that point.” Vin took a bite and remembered vividly as he chewed. “I used to like it dirty, you know, porn-style. And her eyes told me she had no problem with that kind of shit. She came home with me that night and I fucked her right here on the floor. Then on the stairs. Finally on the bed. Twice. She let me do anything to her and she liked it.” Jim blinked and stopped chewing, like he was trying to match up the
“She was”—Vin leaned to the side and snapped free two paper towels—“exactly who I wanted her to be.” He handed one to Jim. “She gave me free rein to do whatever I wanted business-wise, didn't care if I was gone for a week on no notice. She'd come with me when I wanted her to, stayed home when I didn't. She was like…a reflection of what I wanted.”
Jim wiped his mouth. “Or in my case, what would get to me.”
“Exactly.”
They finished their sandwiches and Vin made two more, and while they ate the second round, they were mostly quiet, as if they were both recalling their time with Devina…and wondering how they'd been played so easily.
Vin eventually broke the silence. “So they say they have me on a surveillance tape from last night. Coming up in the elevator. Security guard tells me he saw my face, but that's impossible. I wasn't here. Whoever that was, it wasn't me.”
“I believe you.”
“You're going to be the only one.”
The other man paused with the sourdough halfway to his mouth. “I'm not sure how to say this.”
“Well, considering you just told me you fucked my ex-girlfriend, hard to imagine anything's trickier than that.”
“This is.”
Vin paused in midbite himself, not liking the look on the guy's face. “What.”
Jim took his own damned time about it, even finishing his frickin' lunch. Finally, he laughed short and tight. “I don't even know how to talk about this.”
“Hello? The aforementioned ex-girlfriend sex thing? Come on, grow a set.”
“Fine. Fuck it. Your ex doesn't cast a shadow.”
Now it was Vin's turn to laugh. “Is that some kind of military lingo?”
“You want to know why I believe that wasn't you in the elevator last night? It's because you called it. She's a reflection, a mirage…she doesn't exist and she's totally dangerous, and yeah, I know this doesn't make sense, but it's reality.”
Vin slowly lowered what was left of his roast beef. The guy was serious. Dead serious.
Was it possible, Vin wondered, that he could talk for once about the other side of his life? That part that involved things that couldn't be touched or seen, but that had shaped him sure as his parents' DNA had?
“You said…you'd come to save my soul,” Vin murmured.
Jim braced his hands on the granite counter and leaned in. Under the short sleeves of his plain white T-shirt, his arm muscles thickened under the weight. “And I mean it. I have a happy new job of pulling people back from the brink.”
“Of what?”
“Eternal damnation. As I said before…in your case, I used to think it was making sure you ended up with Devina, but now I'm damn clear that's the wrong outcome. Now…it means something else. I just don't know what.”
Vin wiped his mouth and stared down at the man's big, capable hands. “Would you believe me…if I told you I had a dream about Devina—one where she was like something out of
“And I believe it wasn't. Before I had Friday's little lights-out session with the extension cord? I'd have said you were nuts. Now? You bet your ass I believe every single word of that.”
Finally, at least something was working for instead of against him, Vin thought as he decided to pull a bare- all.
“When I was seventeen, I went to this…” God, even with how well Jim was taking things, he still felt like a complete ass. “I went to this palm reader, fortune-teller…this woman in town. Remember that 'spell' I had back at the diner?” When Jim nodded, he continued. “I used to get them a lot, and I needed…shit, I needed some way to get them to stop. They were ruining my life, making me feel like a freak.”
“Because you saw the future?”
“Yeah, and that shit just ain't right, you know? I never volunteered for it and I would have done anything to get it to stop.” Images from the past, of him collapsing at malls and at schools and in libraries and movies, flooded his brain. “It was torture. I never knew when the trances were coming and I didn't know what I said in them and the people I didn't scare the shit out of thought I was crazy.” He laughed in a hard burst. “Might have been different if I'd been able to predict the lottery, but I've only ever had bad news to share. Anyway, so there I was, seventeen, clueless, at the end of my rope, with nothing but a pair of violent, alkie parents at home who couldn't offer me any help or advice…I didn't know what else to do, where to go, who to talk to. I mean, my mom and dad? Fuckin' A, I wouldn't have asked them what to make for lunch, much less anything about that stuff. So one day close to Halloween, which is my birthday, by the way, I see in the back of the
“Like how?”
“The trances stopped, for one thing, and then I just had luck on my side. My parents finally imploded—I'll spare you the details, but let's just say the end was simply an evolution of the alcoholism. After they were gone, I was relieved and free and…different. I turned eighteen, inherited the house and my father's plumbing jobs…and that's how it all started.”
“Wait, you say you were different—how?”
Vin shrugged. “When I was growing up, I was laid-back. You know, never much interested in school, content to kind of flake along. But after my parents died…yeah, nothing about me was chill. I had this hunger.” He put his hand on his gut. “Always with the hunger. Nothing was…or has been ever enough. It's like I'm obese when it comes to money—starved no matter what's in my accounts or how much I have. I used to think it was just because I went from teenager to adult the second my parents were gone—I mean, I had to support myself because no one else was going to. But I'm not sure that completely explains it. The thing was, while I was working full-time for those plumbers, I got into drug dealing. The cash was crazy and as it began to stockpile, I just wanted more and more. I got into doing houses because I could be legit that way—and that mattered not because I was afraid of jail, but because I couldn't make as much paper behind bars as I could out. I was relentless and uncurtailed by ethics and laws and anything but self-preservation. Nothing eased me…until two nights ago.”
“What changed then?”
“I stared into the eyes of a woman and felt…something else.”
Vin reached into his back pocket and took out the card of the Madonna. After taking a good long look at it, he put it down on the counter and turned it around so Jim could see it. “When I looked into her eyes…I felt satisfied for the first time.”
