table, evidently in the final stages of packing.
«I'm sorry,» said Vanessa. «Are we interrupting you? Are you heading somewhere?»
«Yes, but to be honest, I need the money. I hope that doesn't sound crass. I don't want you to feel exploited.» She moved a stack of dreamcatchers off a stool.
«Where are you going?» asked Ryan, feigning nonchalance.
A lying flash passed across Dreama's eyes. «To Hawaii. To a seminar on square roots.»
«Hmmm.»
«Well, let's get started. Who first?»
«Me,» said Vanessa. «Vanessa Louise Humboldt, that's one N, two S's, with Louise spelled the normal way, and Humboldt spelled with a
«Okay …» Dreama sat down and reached for a box of sparkly pencils and a light-powered calculator bearing a $1.99 price tag.
«Do you always let people in here?» asked John. «Strangers? Right into your home?»
«You're friends of Susan. That's good enough for me.»
«Yes,
«I guessed the Seneca plane crash the day before it happened.»
«That's amazing,» said Ryan, who suppressed an itch to tell Dreama that his message on Susan's answering machine had been the last before the accident.
«I got the message to her too late,» Dreama said, «but she made it anyway. Her prime number that day was so high she could have been struck by a Scud missile and walked away with no more than a nice new set of bangs.»
«Prime number?» asked Vanessa.
«That's how I work. With prime numbers — they're the ones that can only be divided by either one or themselves. Like 23, 47, 61 and so on. There's a prime number for all people and events.» Dreama's fingers twiddled the calculator's buttons. Her pencils produced spidery loopy letters and numbers so faint they were like strands of thin hair fallen onto the page.
«What's mine? asked Vanessa.
«Give me a second here.» She fiddled a bit more. «One hundred seventy-nine.»
«That's good?»
«That's excellent. You have strong instincts, you'll never lack money and, as I understand the psychic makeup of 179s, you'll probably go through your life with a man as your slave.»
«Why a man?»
«All 179s are het.» To emphasize this, she said, «It's a
«I'll remember that.»
John was standing in a corner, pretending to read the spines on Dreama's CD rack, a blend of folk and earth sounds, as he tried to think up a probing question. He spun around, a touch overtheatrically, with his face caught in a patch of light coming off a paper lantern. «Your last name is Ng. That's a strange name — Asian — you don't look Asian. Is there a Mr. Ng?»
Dreama was nonplussed. « “Ng” is the Cantonese word for the number five. I chose it for that reason, and also because it doesn't have any vowels. And there is no Mr. Ng anywhere. I'm a lesbian.» She paused. «Does it bother you … ?»
«John.»
«Does it bother you, John, to have a strong fertile woman shed her father's name and assume one on her own?»
«Uh …»
«What's your full name, John?»
«John Lodge Johnson.»
Dreama began doing John's number, then dropped her pen and stared. John asked what was wrong, and Dreama told him she'd made a mistake. She redid his numbers and said, «Well, I'll be …» Dreama looked up at him with fresh eyes now, as if he'd been revealed as the murderer at the end of the final reel. «I have to ask you a question, and you have to give me a straight answer. Are you lying to me?»
«What?»
«Are you here under false pretenses?»
«What are you … ?» John was adrenalized.
«Let me see your driver's license.»
He pulled out his driver's license, just one month old, and handed it to Dreama. She looked at it, handed it back to him and said, «Sorry. I had to see if that was your real name — if this was a hoax of some sort. You're a 1,037, John Lodge Johnson. Do you know what that means?»
«No. You tell
«You're a four-digit prime number. Most numerologists go their entire lives without encountering a four-digit prime.»
Dreama grilled John, asked what he did for a living and took a distinctly arch manner with him. Ryan then asked to have his number done. It was 11.
«Eleven?»
«Sounds like you're set for a career in the dynamic and fast-growing world of fast food, Ryan,» said Vanessa.
«Eleven?» Ryan was crestfallen.
«Eleven is a perfectly good number,» Dreama assured him.
«I hear 11s are really loyal,» said John.
John paid Dreama, who gave them a sheet describing their prime number's characteristics. Dreama became fidgety and scuttled the three out of her apartment.
Back in the car, John said, «Well, that was a fucking waste of time.»
Vanessa's phone bleeped and she answered it. «It's my brother,» she told the other two. She finished the call and pressedEND . «Randy is in a minivan headed this way.»
«Do you have your GPT?» asked Ryan.
«What's that?» asked John.
«My global positioning transmitter. It's the everyday equivalent of the black box they use behind the cockpit in jetliners. I keep it sewed into the hem of my purse.» She yanked a small black rectangle from her bag, smaller than a TV remote control. «A satellite can track me down at any place on earth plus or minus a freckle.»
«You're giving it to
«For a 1,037 you can be awfully dim. When young Randall's Ford Aerostar van pulls up in» — she looked at her wristwatch — «under two minutes, you are going to have to stick this onto the car without being seen. And as we seem to be fresh out of duct tape, what exactly will be your brainy plan to attach it to the vehicle, John?»
John shut his eyes to concentrate. «A man, a plan, a canal — I was born in Panama, you know.»
«Oh, shut up.»
«
Randy's van swung into a spot directly in front of Dreama's building and across from their car. The three watched Randy walk to the building's main door, buzz and head to the elevator.
John gently opened the side passenger door and crawled behind the car. He roadrunnered across the street and fastened the GPT to the inside of the rear bumper with a cooling glob of his gum. The dogs, sensing John beneath them, grew frenzied, scratching at the windows and barking. Just then the apartment's door opened, and Randy and Dreama came out with her luggage. Both looked worried. There was nowhere for John to hide except underneath the van, where he quickly rolled, listening to the doors above him open and shut. Randy shouted at the dogs to sit. Finally, John heard the engine ignite and watched the van drive away, leaving him facing the sky where he saw the lights of jets preparing to land at LAX sweep in from the distance.
