“There’s a year’s worth of new music I haven’t heard,” Michael told them, as they stood from their chairs. “Get some for me.”
The drizzle became a downpour before they reached the elevator.
Winston didn’t tell Michael everything.
He kept his secret, the same way he kept it from Dillon. Dillon had not yet asked how he and Drew had found him. Winston still didn’t know how to answer without telegraphing a lie. But eventually both Dillon and Michael would have to be told about Okoya’s part in this. He intended to keep the secret as long as he could.
Dillon disappeared after Michael’s little emotional outburst, and Michael had since returned to the garden, stationing himself on a lounge chair in the rain. Equipped with a portable CD player and a mood-altering armada of tunes, he used the sky above him as biofeedback, determined to either disperse the cloud or suffer in the storm.
Winston found himself exploring the multi-level residence, losing track of why he was there. Tessic’s penthouse was a tall drink on an empty stomach. Refreshing, inebriating, addicting. Dillon was already hooked, and that made Winston’s task all the more difficult.
He came across Drew in the workout room, pounding a rapid pace on a treadmill.
“Dillon’s acting normal,” Winston told Drew. “I don’t like it.”
“He’s not entitled to be normal?”
“You know Dillon—he’s all gloom and doom.”
Drew hit several buttons on the high-tech treadmill, but failed to find the off switch, so instead he let the momentum of the conveyor belt carry him off the back. “The change in Dillon could be a good thing. Maybe he’s starting to feel all his dire predictions are wrong.”
“Or maybe he’s just running away from them.”
Winston looked at the treadmill. It was, like everything else here, state of the art, with a curved screen that projected a path through a lush sequoia forest, or whatever environment you felt like jogging through. Simulated progress, when all you’re doing is looking at a wall.
“He’s even got this girlfriend now,” Winston said. “Could you ever imagine Dillon with a girlfriend?”
“Well, there was Deanna . . .”
Winston waved it off. “That was different. The two of them . . . they . . .”
“Completed each other?” offered Drew.
“Yeah, something like that.”
Winston looked out of the window, which, like every window in the penthouse, offered a view of downtown Houston, and the flat suburbs beyond. It would be so easy to remain here, aloof, and above. “Now that we have Michael back, I’m beginning to worry if we’ve lost Dillon. If we lose him, we lose everything.”
“I’m just picking up the slack,” Winston said. “And it’s pissing me off.”
And then a voice from the doorway. “You didn’t show up at lunch.”
It caught them off guard, jarring Winston’s train of thought. They turned to see Maddy Haas. “I was hoping we could actually be introduced,” she said.
“I know who you are,” said Winston. She was, as far as Winston was concerned, part of the problem. Until this morning, he had only known her from news reports. The papers all featured the same pale headshot that didn’t do her justice. She was, in fact, a beautiful woman. But wasn’t that requisite for a femme fatale?
She strode into the room with a confidence Winston found unnerving. “You should know that Tessic has an intercom system that could pinpoint the location of a mosquito from its buzz.”
“Tessic’s been eavesdropping?” asked Drew.
“No.
Winston wasn’t surprised. “Did Uncle Sam train you in surveillance?”
“I’m trained in a lot of things.” She flicked off the treadmill, the hum of the belt died, and the sequoia forest resolved to a flat, neutral gray. “As a matter of fact, I got straight As in bullshit detection. And you’re standing in one hell of a dung hill.”
“Dillon’s usually the one who detects bullshit,” Winston said. “But for some reason his antenna’s offline. Any idea why?”
“Dillon only sees what he wants to see. What he’s
“And so you’re an advocate of these blinders he’s got on?”
“I never said that—but I don’t think just ripping them off is going to help him. Dillon’s fragile right now.”
Winston laughed. “Fragile? Dillon could be at ground zero at Hiroshima, swallow the whole goddamned bomb, and walk away from it with mild indigestion. I can think of lots of words to describe Dillon—fragile isn’t one of them.”
“Then you don’t know him as well as you think.”
Drew pushed his way between them, putting his arms on their shoulders. “Can’t we all just get along.”
“Sure,” Winston said. “We’ll all put on a big purple Barney smile. I love you, you love me.” Winston shrugged out of Drew’s grip.
“I see why Winston needs you to travel with him,” Maddy told Drew. “Nice of you to be his referee.”
“Yeah, well, the pay sucks, but there’s a good medical plan.”
Winston threw an annoyed look at Drew, but said nothing, since anything he said would just make her point.
Maddy strode over to the wall, and turned off the intercom, then came back to Winston, speaking to him quietly, a little too close for his personal comfort. “There’s something you’re keeping from Dillon,” she said. “I want to know what it is.”
He only had one thing to say to that. “Go shave your legs.”
Drew laughed. “Can’t argue with that logic.” He reflexively scratched the itch of his own uneven beard stubble.
“You know, we don’t have to like each other,” Maddy told Winston, “but it would sure help if we could be civil. After all, I’m a part of this now, too.”
The suggestion made Winston bristle. “Getting a piece of Dillon doesn’t make you a part of anything.”
It must have stung, because she took a sizeable step into his airspace, balling her hand into a fist. For a moment he thought she might hit him, but in the end, she backed off. “You’re a real disappointment, Winston. The way Dillon always talked about you, I expected more than this. I thought you were supposed to be the wise one.”
She strode off with much more dignity than Winston felt at the moment. Once she was gone, Drew turned to Winston, wearing one of his best smirks.
“It didn’t take her long to find your secret ‘shithead’ button, did it,” Drew said.
“Ah, shut up.”
Dillon had not expected the others to warm too quickly to Tessic’s overtures of friendship. The events of their lives had inscribed for each of them the same boilerplate of distrust that Dillon carried. He had hoped, however, that when they saw Dillon at ease in Tessic’s company, they might soon relax their defenses, but they were far from disarmament.
Dinner that night was an exercise in strained civility. Dillon and Maddy sat on one side of the table, Drew and Michael on the other, with Winston and Tessic facing each other from either end, like opposing goalies.
“Have you ever flown on a private jet?” Dillon asked just after the main course was served.
Winston stared at Dillon as if he were speaking in tongues. “Excuse me?”
“We’re flying to Poland next week,” Dillon told him. “There’s room for everyone.”
“Cool,” said Michael, then gauged Winston’s eyes, and hedged. “Isn’t it?”
Winston crammed a large piece of steak into his mouth, and worked it, effectively dodging a response.
“You shall all be my guests,” Tessic said with a gesture of his fork. “Friendlier skies you will not find.”
“Well, Mr. Tessic,” Drew said. “I can’t speak for Winston, but after almost getting sucked out of a DC-10 two weeks ago, air travel and I have ended our relationship.”
“Perhaps seeing another part of the world would lend you some perspective.” Tessic’s comment was
