Double Take

that hadn’t been because of any flaw in planning on his part.

But when she’d shot him on Saturday night—there had been no deus ex machina, unexpected and unforeseen, to rescue her. He closed his eyes, still couldn’t believe what he had let happen. The dozen small cuts on his face and neck were a constant reminder, and he could still feel the shock of pain when he’d tweezed out each splinter. The bullet had only hit the fleshy part of his arm and thankfully gone through. He’d been able to tend to it himself.

She could have killed you. Why hadn’t she? Why had she bleated out a warning? He was there to kill her, for God’s sake. She was a wimpy amateur, thank God, paralyzed by fear even when it came down to saving herself. She could have shot you in the middle of your back when you were facing her bed. You were lucky, lucky, lucky—

His hands fisted again. How he wished he had his Kalashnikov. He could walk right up to her front door, and when she opened it, he’d pump twenty rounds into her, all in her face, shredding bone and flesh, splatting blood and brains all over the acres of marble, rich wood, and the paintings marching up the walls. And anyone else with her. Then he could walk back out of that posh death house, whistling, and leave this foggy cold city.

But what he had was his Skorpion VZ 61, thirty years old and no longer made. It was his mentor’s in a guerrilla force in southern Africa, until he’d been shot in a raid, and Xavier had uncurled his fingers and taken it. His Skorpion was small, light, and easily concealed, and it was fitted with an efficient silencer.

He swallowed three more Aleve.

He’d had two chances at her, two solid chances, and she was still alive. His employer wasn’t happy, but no matter. He was not going to slink away now, no matter what orders or stupid rants he heard. This wasn’t acceptable. He’d never failed and he wasn’t about to fail now, to turn tail and run. He sat down at the stingy little desk, picked up the cheap ballpoint provided by the hotel, and drew a piece of hotel stationery from the drawer. He would get her this time. He began to write out a list of what he would need.

CHAPTER 32

EAST BAY

Monday afternoon

About the only time Cheney used his portable GPS was when he had to cross over from the known into what he called Middle Earth, namely drive over the Bay Bridge to that place others called the East Bay, with its overflowing cities, tangle of overpasses, and signs that pointed to more highways and still more signs. Oakland, Hayward, and a dozen other cities, most of them growing, spreading over the barren hills, out until it was Palm Springs hot in the summer.

“I see you aren’t comfortable driving in the East Bay,” Julia said as she watched him punch in the address in Livermore.

“Drives me nuts. I got lost every time I had to drive over here until I got this.” He pointed with great affection to his GPS. He loved the soothing female voice telling him to turn left in two tenths of a mile, and then that comforting pinging sound as he went into the turn. “Okay, let’s make this our last interview today. The traffic’s already getting bad. It’ll be rush-hour gridlock by the time we drive back to San Francisco.”

Julia nodded. “You did okay with Bevlin. Can I trust you not to fly into sarcasm mode with Kathryn Golden?”

“I’m reformed,” he said, and crossed his heart. “I’m sympathetic and sensitive. I promise.”

“Yeah, right.”

After a few minutes, Julia shifted in her seat to face him. “What are you thinking about, Cheney?”

“That cold reading deal Bevlin Wagner described. Why, if the dead person is standing right beside the medium, doesn’t he simply tell the medium his name, tell him who he’s there to see? Doesn’t he remember his name? Are the dead playing some sort of weird game? Sorry, Julia, but it doesn’t make much sense to me. It sounds to me like they’re simply fishing, trying to hook in some poor schmuck who’s grieving and desperate to know that his loved one who died still, somehow, exists, and is somehow sentient.”

Julia said, “Oh, the psychic field is full of charlatans, wannabes, and shysters, all right. I watched a tape of a woman medium—she really had some poor young man going, telling him his mother was right there beside him and that she wanted him to stop his grieving, that he had to depend on himself now, that she knew her passing had frozen him in place and he needed to move on. She wanted him to know she loved him as much now as she had before she’d passed. The medium realized she’d got something obviously wrong because the young man didn’t respond, and so she quickly switched in midstream in a different direction. She suggested he hadn’t gotten along with his mother, and when he responded and nodded, she knew she had him. She kept talking, hinting around what his mother was like—that she always spoke her mind, that she was always telling those around her what to do— and soon she had the young man nodding some more. She used the guy’s guilt to get to him, and by the end of it, he was crying and clutching the medium’s hand, and I thought, how low do you have to be to perpetrate such a lie on a vulnerable person? And all for money, I guess, for a name, for self-aggrandizement. “I’ll tell you, Cheney, August hated those slicks—that’s what he called the so-called psychic mediums on TV. All you have to do is read the long release forms every TV show attendee has to sign to know there’s something seriously amiss with the whole thing. They basically make you swear you won’t say a single word to anyone about what happens during the show for as long as you live. You probably have to swear to keep quiet even after you’re dead.”

Cheney cut his eyes to her. “There are release forms?”

“Yes, isn’t that something? The producers and the psychics want to cover themselves since a person could tell the media after the show is aired how thoroughly the show was edited, how the psychic was bumbling around.

“August called it the Barnum philosophy at work—give people what they want. If they’re hurting, be the compassionate expert who will take away the hurt. It’s the grieving people who make it all work. They’ll overlook the most egregious blunders— or misses as they’re called—and still believe that beloved dead Uncle Albert is there, at the medium’s elbow, watching over them, telling them he’s happy as a clam himself, and even happier they’re doing well and they’re not to worry about him.”

Cheney said, “And Uncle Albert didn’t even bother to tell the medium his name? It boggles the mind what people can be led to believe.”

Julia nodded. “It takes a lot of talent to be able to run the ultimate scam—convincing the marks they’re talking