“Not much,” Bugsy said, with a little twinge of longing. A phantom itch on an amputated career. “Saving it up for the memoir, I guess.”
Digger chuckled, gestured to a chair, and leaned against his desk, arms folded. He looked older, up close. More wrinkles around the eyes, more white in the hair.
“What can I do for you?” he asked.
“I’m doing some background work on the Radical. When he first came on the scene. Who his friends are.”
“Should any of them still be alive,” Downs said.
“That’s the guy I’m talking about,” Bugsy said. “I have him first showing up in China in 1993, but he’s clearly a westerner since-”
“Sixty-nine.”
Bugsy tilted his head.
“Nineteen sixty-nine,” Downs said. “San Francisco. Right after they shot those kids at Kent State. The Radical was in the People’s Park riot when the Lizard King fought Hardhat.”
“Ah. Was T. T. even alive in the sixties?” Bugsy said.
“Who?”
“Todd Taszycki. Hardhat.”
“No no no,” Digger Downs said. “Not that one. There was another guy who used that name back then. Very blue-collar. Didn’t have much use for the hippies.”
“So when you say the Lizard King,” Bugsy said, “you mean Thomas Marion Douglas? Lead singer for Destiny?”
“I sure do,” Downs said. “The Holy Trinity. Jimi, Janis, and the Lizard King. He was… he was amazing. I saw him in concert once. When he died, we really lost someone. That was a little before your time, though.”
“ Ninety-four was before my time,” Bugsy said. “Sixty-nine was the end of the Napoleonic wars. What was Weathers doing in San Francisco in the sixties? And where was he for those twenty-five years in the middle?”
“Got me,” Digger said.
Jackson Square
New Orleans, Louisiana
“And how do you feel today, Miss Pond?”
Michelle opened one eye. A middle-aged woman wearing hospital scrubs was standing over her. “Like someone I don’t know just woke me up.” Her voice was still rough. And she was thirsty. Really thirsty. “Can you get me something to drink?”
“I imagine so. I’m Mary. I’m supposed to check your vitals.”
“I’m not dead.”
“That’s pretty clear.” The woman moved out of her line of sight. Michelle wanted to crank her head around, but the fat made it impossible. When Mary walked back into Michelle’s sight, she had an Aquafina bottle in her hand. The water was sweet and cold, and Michelle drank almost the full bottle before gasping for breath.
Then Michelle became aware of a noise. It sounded like a flock of birds, but she’d never seen big flocks of birds in Jackson Square. “What’s making that sound?”
“That? Oh, that’s the faithful talking, honey.”
“The faithful?”
As she pulled a stethoscope from her bag, Mary nodded. “They’re the bunch of folks who’ve been bringing you these flowers, praying over you, making you the focus of their lives.”
Michelle tried to move her leg, but couldn’t. It pissed her off to no end. “That’s insane.”
Mary shrugged and stuck the stethoscope in her ears. “Honey, you’d be amazed. And, just to be fair, you did prevent a lot of them from dying horribly.”
“I was trying to save my friends.”
Mary put her hand on Michelle’s wrist and popped the business end of the stethoscope onto Michelle’s chest. “Doesn’t matter why you did it. Just matters that you did. Now be quiet for a minute.”
Michelle ignored Mary as she poked around. There wouldn’t be any blood drawn. Needles broke when they came in contact with her skin. That had been happening ever since her card had turned.
“Everything sounds good,” Mary said. “Same as it has for the last year.”
Michelle wasn’t listening to her. Her attention was focused on the TV. The volume was still turned off, but there were images of herself flashing behind the blond anchor. One showed her at the height of her modeling career. Then there were publicity shots from American Hero. And finally there were pictures of her lying in Jackson Square after
… after.
Michelle had grown to love her fat. It was power and control, and it meant nothing could hurt her. But seeing herself… Bile rose in her throat. The whole world had seen her like that.
Her body was a distorted mass. Rolls and rolls of fat rippled across each other. The cement under her had shattered. Most of her body was naked. Her pale flesh mortified by the summer sun. And everyone had seen it. Hot tears stung in her eyes.
“Oh, damn it, honey,” said Mary. “They should have turned that off.” She walked to the set and punched the red button.
“Why are they showing that now?” Michelle asked.
“Because you’re awake now. You didn’t die when they took you off life support. You’re a miracle.”
“I’m not a miracle. I’ve got a virus that changed me. It could have happened to anyone. Are people really that thick?”
“Would you like to meet them?” Mary asked.
“Oh, yeah, ’cause I’m definitely at my best,” said Michelle. “I love the idea of loads of strangers looking at me gape-mouthed while thinking I rescued them.” She shut her eyes. Why was she being such a bitch? “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, honey,” Mary said, puttering around the room throwing dead flowers out and putting the empty vases in a box. “I imagine it’s something of a shock. Losing a year. That thing with your parents. And finding yourself, well… different.”
It was impossible for Michelle not to giggle. Different. Yeah, she was different all right.
Noel Matthews’s Apartment
Manhattan, New York
“Those are zlotys. What are you doing with zlotys? You don’t have a show in Poland.”
He’d heard the phone ring, and thought Niobe was safely ensconced in a conversation, so he’d pulled out the zlotys and began preparing for his fast trip to Poland. Now, busted, Noel tried to scrabble the bills, and-more incriminating-a passport photo of his new male avatar form, under a book, but it was way, way too late.
Niobe stood in the door of the bedroom he’d turned into an office. The desk was littered with decks of cards, linked metal rings, scarves, handcuffs, and padlocks. In a cage by the window a pair of doves billed and cooed, heads bobbing in that particularly silly fashion unique to doves. The tools of his trade.
Right now the doves’ soft calls didn’t seem to be having a soothing effect on Niobe. Her thick tail was lashing, hitting the floor with heavy thumps as she stared at him with a look that was two parts angry and one part worry.
“It’s nothing,” Noel mumbled. “I didn’t want to worry you. In your condi-”
“Do not patronize me! I am not made of glass. I escaped from a federal facility and managed to elude every ace the government sent.”
“Well, I helped a little,” he protested.
“Granted, but either we’re a team or I’m out of here.”
And even just the threat made his heart stutter. He gave her the truth. “There’s a man in Warsaw who makes the best forged papers in the business.”
“And why do you need forged papers?”
“It’s a little thing I’m doing for Siraj.”
Niobe folded her arms across her chest. “Are you going to be in danger?”
