Blind God's bluff

told her what they were.

She shook her head. It tossed her curls around, covering and then revealing the stubby horn on the left. “He’ll never go for the first one, and the second one’s stupid.”

I shrugged. “Maybe. The way things have been lately, it’s hard for me to tell.”

“If you really want to help, I gave you a plan. It’s simple, and it will work. You just have to throw the game.”

“I can’t.”

She looked like she wanted to stamp her hoof. “Why not?”

“For one thing, like I already told you, there’s no guarantee that it would really make things any better.”

“And I told you, we’re willing to take our chances.”

“Yeah, but… look, it’s just the way I am.”

“You have to do better than that. Or else how do I even know this isn’t some kind of trick? Maybe Timon’s way of flushing out the subjects who hate him the most.”

That stung. “Do you really think I’d do something like that?”

“No,” she said, “and if it was just you and me, I’d trust you. But it’s not. You want me to help convince my friends to trust you. So you’re going to have to make me understand.”

I sighed. “Okay. I get it. It’s just that I’m no good at talking about this kind of shit.” I flopped down on the bed, and she pulled up a chair and sat across from me. “You have to let me work my way into it. When I was a kid, it was almost like there were two of me. There was good me, who wanted to make good grades, stay out of trouble, and make my dad proud. And there was wild me, who just wanted to party, play poker, shoot pool, and street race.”

“I think lots of people feel something like that.”

“I guess. But wild me was pretty strong. Strong enough that for a long time, it was anybody’s guess which guy I’d grow up to be.”

I took a breath. “But Dad kept working on me. He kept telling me about responsibility, the self-respect he said you only get from making a contribution, and things like that. Then I got together with Vic, and even though the wild me kind of turned her on, she really wanted the good me, too.”

“So you decided that was who you were going to be.”

“Yeah. After years of blowing off school, my grades were nothing special. Definitely not good enough for a scholarship, and, even if I’d been willing to take it from him, Dad didn’t have any money. So the big plan was for me to go into the Army. It would make a man out of me, and get me money for college.”

“From the way you’re talking about it,” she said, “this was before 9/11.”

“Yes, and after it, I was suddenly a real soldier, fighting in a real war in Afghanistan. And at first, that was okay, too. Scary as hell, but okay. I’m an American. I was pissed off. Before we finally got him, I wanted to catch bin Laden as much as anybody.”

A’marie nodded. Like always, it bounced her curls around. “What changed it for you?”

“No one thing. A bunch of things piled one on top of the other. We let bin Laden slip away and hide. I shot some real terrorists, or close enough, but I’m pretty sure I also shot some guys who never even heard of the World Trade Center. They never even heard of skyscrapers. And I found out I don’t like shooting anybody.”

She surprised me by reaching over and squeezing my hand. “That’s a good thing.”

“Maybe not always. Not when they’re shooting at you. But anyway. I also saw our own side do some… Abu Ghraib stuff. Then the US invaded Iraq, and all of a sudden it felt like nobody back home even cared about what my buddies and I were doing anymore.”

“And it all disillusioned you.”

I shrugged. “Maybe. I wasn’t a general or a political expert. I tried to believe that if I could just see the big picture, everything would make sense. And, I just concentrated on staying alive until I could go home.”

“But more bad things happened when you did?”

“Yeah.” My mouth twisted. “I found out Dad had cancer. He’d worked the same place for fifteen years, but the insurance plan was screwing him over. He hadn’t gotten things he needed.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“If I’d known, I could have gotten out early and maybe done something. But he didn’t tell me. He never liked asking anybody for help, and he didn’t want to mess up the big plan. He made sure Vic didn’t know how bad things really were, and twisted her arm so she wouldn’t tell me he was sick, either.”

I realized my eyes were wet-it was a bad morning for leakage-and, angry with myself, knuckled the tears away. “Long story short, I only had a couple more months with him before he died. And after that, I just couldn’t get motivated to follow through on the big plan. It didn’t make sense to me anymore. Why do all that work when I could place a bet or play a game and come away thousands of dollars ahead?”

“The wild you was back in charge.”

“Yes. Or maybe by then it was I-don’t-give-a-shit me. Anyway, it wasn’t anybody Vic wanted to spend the rest of her life with.” I sighed. “Is this making any sense at all?”

A’marie frowned and thought about it. “It is, but I don’t know what it has to do with what’s happening here and now.”

I waved my hand like I thought I could pull the right words out of the air. “It’s like… look, it’s too late to be the person Dad and Vic wanted. It’s not in me, and they’re gone anyway. But the person I know how to be isn’t completely worthless. I never cheated or hustled anybody, and there are damn few pros who can say that. I pay my debts. Even if I hadn’t met Timon, I still would have paid Rhonda somehow. When I make a deal with a backer or whoever, I keep it. And I have to hold the line on all of that, or I’m really not anybody.”

A’marie sighed. “You’re saying you have principles. And this stupid plan you came up with already bends them as far as you’re willing to go.”

“Something like that.”

“Okay, then. We’ll try it your way. What all do you need?”

I told her. As I expected, some of it, like a laptop with Internet access and a replacement gun-just in case- was no big deal. The rest was trickier, but she came back a couple hours later and told me she had it taken care of.

That meant it was time for another sneak to the Miata. I hopped out of my physical body for a second to look around the alley. As far as I could tell, nobody was watching the door or the car. So we dashed out, jumped in, and drove away.

It was another nice day, and the top was down. The sunshine and the wind in my hair took away more of the frazzled, jumpy feeling left over from everything that had happened the day and night before. Or maybe I just felt better because doing feels better than waiting.

A’marie parked near one of the shrimp docks on McKay Bay. As I stowed my new Glock 27 under my seat, I said, “Too bad we don’t know the spell to call him like Timon did. Although I guess that wouldn’t be very smart in the daylight.”

“This may not be very smart anyway,” A’marie answered. “Murk isn’t known for being friendly.”

“Well,” I said, “at least he isn’t all that big.”

The way she looked at me told me I’d said something retarded.

“When he came up out of the water,” she said, “he was only small because otherwise, some human might have spotted him even in the dark. He’s a kraken.”

“What’s that?”

“Except for when he decides to shrink, something really, really big.”

“I’m kind of sorry to hear that. But this still doesn’t seem any dumber than a lot of the other things I’ve done.”

She laughed. “You’ve got me there.” She reached inside her tuxedo jacket and brought an orange plastic prescription bottle with a Walgreens label.

But I was pretty sure the pills inside weren’t from Walgreens. They looked like blobs of green Play-Doh a kid had rolled between his fingertips. I swallowed one, and she took the other.

For a second, the pill gave me heartburn. Then it suddenly felt hard to breathe, like I was standing on top of Mt. Everest. I turned to A’marie. She was panting, too.