‘No telling,’ Volta said. ‘He might have seen a way to get by the alarms. That only leaves the lock and the guards. Maybe they all fell asleep, or were in one place shooting dice or doing drugs. Daniel’s sharp and resourceful.’
‘So we’re back to why he hasn’t called.’
‘Full circle,’ Volta agreed.
‘Listen,’ Jack said earnestly, ‘you’re a lot closer to him than me. What do you think? Think we got burned?’
‘I think I’m going to wait till he calls.’
‘He might not. I have a couple of other bad thoughts.’
Volta said, ‘Let’s hear them all.’
‘They may have already nailed him. Quietly, of course.’
‘It’s possible. But they either don’t know what they have, or the sudden excitement around the tunnel is a ruse.’
‘Or maybe Shamus found him. If our information is good, he’s been looking.’
‘I know, but Shamus would’ve had to get extremely lucky, or one of us in close betrayed him.’
Smiling Jack sighed. ‘So, you wait for a call. What about the rest of us?’
‘Get some sleep. In the morning, pick up Jean in Alamogordo. Chisholm Smith and Davy will be with him. Try to find out what happened in the vault and what the CIA is going to do about it. I imagine whatever they do will be done quietly – no APBs or sweeps involving state and local law. Probably a few hundred of their own agents, all with no idea who they’re looking for. If nothing else, we’ll find out how they handle such a problem. You know where help is if you need it.’
‘And you’ll wait for him to call?’
‘He’ll call. We might not like what he has to say, but he’ll call.’
THE THERAPEUTIC JOURNALS OF JENNIFER RAINE APRIL 1
My name is Jennifer Raine, Emily Snow, Wanda Zero, Zephyr Marx, April Fulsome, Annabelle Lee. I have a private unpadded room here with dull green walls, a radio, and all the Thorazine I can eat. I don’t like Thorazine. It makes me feel like a package of frozen broccoli in the supermarket. That’s why they put me here. Or perhaps I should say that’s way I took off my clothes in the Safeway and destroyed a few aisles of alleged food. I had to. I could have gone over into lightning. It’s all packaging, you see.
I do have to say this is the best of all the hospitals I’ve been in, especially since it’s for my own good.
Doc, you’ve got to learn to take a joke. It was an April Fools’ joke when I said in answer to your question, nothing particularly painful happened when I was eleven except maybe getting raped by the North Bay High football team right after my older brother hung himself in the garage wearing my panties. I expected you to laugh when I said April Fool. I didn’t realize you had all that repressed anger and hostility. Don’t you think I know that you can’t help me if I won’t help myself? Why else would I joke with you? Though I appreciate your efforts, I don’t need help. I need time. Time and space and a few breaks, Doc, that’s what I need.
But now you’ve got me feeling guilty. So I’ll tell you what happened when I was eleven, but I have to make this fast because I can only tell it on April Fools’ Day and it’s almost midnight now.
Twelve years and a month ago my father and I took our little aluminum boat and went rowing on Lake Pauline. A storm came up fast like they do in March, and Dad was rowing for shore when we got hit by lightning. He was rowing, rowing, rowing (not merrily, not gently) and suddenly everything was absolutely white and my spine was on fire. No sound at all. No rumble, crack, boom, or blast. Just that silent solid endless alabaster flash and then nothing at all.
When I came to, it was almost dark. My father was lying twisted facedown in the bow, his left hand trailing in the water. He was dead. I’d seen a film in Junior High Health and Hygiene on mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and I tried, I tried so hard, breathing into him until I was exhausted. I can taste the tobacco and licorice in his mouth, smell his burnt hair, see Mia sitting where I had been, watching, struck dumb. Watching when I gave up and held his shock-white face to my breast as we drifted through the rain.
Do you understand why she’s like a daughter to me now? When I kiss her goodnight after another day of nursing the wind, setting the empty egg, I can taste the ashes on her lips. And I kiss her goodnight every night. It takes courage to do that, Doc. It takes love. I’m not crazy.
My name is Jennifer Raine. Waitress. Typist. Would-be poet. Clerk. I have an imaginary daughter named Mia. When we were eleven years old, God exploded in my heart.
April Fools, Doc. April Fucking Fools. APRIL 2 (12.04 a.m.)
No more joking now. My mother was there when they brought the boat in with Dad and me and Mia. For almost a month she just screamed, so they put her in a padded cell and finally she quit screaming and started begging. Begged them to bring her laundry. They finally had enough sense to bring her a big hamper of clean clothes. And that’s what Mom’s been doing for every waking moment of twelve years – sorting laundry. She sorts it into colors and then puts it back in the hamper and sorts it again. And every few minutes she stops and looks up with this happy expectancy and says, ‘Is that you, Philip?’ Every time I go to see her
