Fault Line

21 INSUBSTANTIAL

Alex had yawned three times in an hour, and the last two had been infectious. Sarah looked at him and said, “We ‘re going in circles. I say we call it a night.”

Alex fixed her with that unreadable gaze of his, then something in his face seemed to soften. “You're right,” he said. “We need to come at it from a different direction to see what we're missing, and that's not going to happen without a break. Are you hungry?”

She had thought he might ask, and was ready for the question. “No, I'm okay. I'm just going to go out and buy a change of clothes. I guess I'll see you in the morning?”

He nodded. “Seven o'clock too early?”

“No, it's good. I doubt I'm going to sleep well anyway. This is all too crazy.”

She went to her room through the common doorway, stripped off her clothes, and got in the shower. Something had been building up in her all day, and if she didn't deal with it, she thought she might explode.

The day had started out weird and then had become downright frightening. Her files missing. The strange call from Alex. Then this guy in his office who she could tell was dangerous in some way, who turned out to be Alex's brother. When they'd told her what had been happening, she was concerned, but not really frightened. Looking back, she realized her relative sangfroid was the result of a lack of understanding. She didn't really believe she was in danger. Yes, she understood the police probably couldn't help, but she had agreed to go with Alex and Ben and try to figure out what was so valuable or dangerous about Obsidian almost as a lark, a kind of adventure, a break in the routine. And then Ben had come back to the car outside the Four Seasons with blood on his face, and she'd seen the report on the news, and she realized that Alex's brother was someone who could kill two men-gangsters, it seemed-with about the same level of difficulty most people faced when pouring a cup of coffee. Could kill? He had killed them. There was no other explanation.

And what was she doing now? Had he made her, or had she made herself, in any way an accessory? She'd taken criminal law her second year of law school and had purged her mind of all of it about five minutes after graduating and taking the bar exam. She didn't know how bad this might be for her legally. And legally might be the least of it.

She knew he didn't trust her. And the way he looked at her, the way he'd casually walked over to see what was on her laptop screen… was he afraid she would freak out, go to the police? And what would he do if she did?

There were two ways she could deal with it. She could keep her mouth shut and hope it would somehow be all right. Or she could confront the problem directly.

She left the hotel and headed north on Stockton. The night was cold and clear and a crescent moon hung low in the sky. Chinatown was quiet, most of the stores closed now, hidden behind corrugated metal gates. Some of the gates had doorways, a few of which were open, and through them she caught glimpses of families eating dinner and friends playing cards, caught the smells of cooking rice and sweet pastries and the sound of laughter and conversations in a musical language she wished she could understand. Some of the doorways revealed steep, narrow staircases that ascended beyond the angle of her vision, and she wondered what rooms they led to, who traversed them every morning and night, what lives were lived in the secret spaces at their top.

She passed a street mural celebrating the Chinese railroad workers. Paper lanterns set at its base flickered, shivering in the breeze. She turned right on Pacific, looking up at the old wooden buildings, their balconies painted green and red, the eaves turned up in the Asian fashion. An old man was closing up his store at the front of one of them, an herb shop whose windows displayed glass jars filled with ghastly specimens that might have come from the earth or the sea or somewhere else entirely. He waved and smiled toothlessly at her as she passed, and she nodded and smiled in return.

She emerged onto Columbus, and the quiet of the somnolent Chinatown evening ended abruptly with the traffic and neon of North Beach. There it was, Jazz at Pearl 's, a first-floor club with windows on the street and a doorway under a red awning. She crossed the street and went inside, explaining to the doorman that she had no reservation but she was supposed to meet a friend here… could she just take a quick look around?

It was a small place, maybe thirty people, soft carpet and red-hued lighting and small round tables covered in white linen. A voluptuous black woman was singing “Need My Sugar” with piano and bass accompaniment, and the audience was toe-tapping heartily along with it. Ben wasn't there. Maybe he was in the bathroom? She waited five minutes and then gave up, surprised at how disappointed she was. If she didn't confront him, if she didn't get past this, she didn't know how the hell she was going to sleep tonight.

She had just turned left onto Columbus, thinking maybe she'd grab a bite at Café Prague before finding a Walgreens or something else open at night where she could pick up a change of underwear and a few other items, when someone called her name. She looked around, seeing no one. A bus went by. Had she imagined it? And then she heard it again. She looked up and saw Ben, in the second-story window of Vesuvio. “Come on over,” he called.

She felt an odd burst of pleasure that she couldn't quite place- excitement? relief?-and crossed the street.

She went inside and immediately liked it. She supposed it was weird that she lived in San Francisco and had never been inside Vesuvio, but she'd never been to Alcatraz, either. It was one of those places, well known to tourists, you figured would always be there and you'd get to it eventually. Not that she'd been in too much of a hurry. In her imagination, the place was more of a Beat museum than a real bar someone might want to go to for a drink, but the atmosphere struck her immediately as authentic and she was glad she'd been wrong.

She went up to the second floor and walked alongside the balcony overlooking the bar below. The ceiling was close overhead, maybe seven feet, and painted dark brown or black. There was some light from the street but other than that it was so dim she found herself squinting. A few indistinct groups were talking and laughing around tables in booths. She made out Ben's shape against a window, silhouetted by the neon sign of the Tosca Café across the street. He was sitting away from his table, his feet planted on the floor. There was something about him that always seemed… ready. For what, she wasn't sure.

“What are you doing here?” he asked as she approached.

She stopped in front of the table but didn't sit down. “I wanted to talk to you.”

He nodded and looked out at the street, then back at her. “Do you have a problem with my putting my hands on you?” he asked quietly.

She shook her head, thinking she had misunderstood. “What?”

“I'm not going to be comfortable sitting here with you if I don't pat you down. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is.”

She didn't know what to make of it. Was he serious?

As she stood there, trying to take it all in, he got up and stepped close to her. He leaned in close, and she realized this was for the benefit of anyone who might be watching, to obscure what he was really doing. She caught a whiff of the hotel's soap, and something else underneath it, something masculine she couldn't otherwise place. She felt his left hand move inside her coat and slide up her right side, the palm of his hand firm against her kidney, her ribs, the edge of her breast. Then his right hand was doing the same on the other side. He pulled her against him and ran his hands lightly across the small of her back and over her hips. She felt her heart beating fast and told herself it was because she was angry.

He took a step back and glanced around the bar, then knelt in front of her and quickly ran his hands up each of her legs, ankle to groin. She heard her breath moving forcefully in and out of her nose.

He stood and looked at her. She glared back. “Satisfied?” she asked.

He nodded and sat, with no indication she should do the same.

The insolence of it, and her failure to do anything effective in response other than a single lame word of sarcasm, made her so angry she imagined herself picking up a chair and swinging it at him like a baseball bat. “Stand up,” she said.

“What?”

“Stand up,” she said again.

He did.

She stepped in close and looked into his eyes. “We better both be careful, no?”

She slipped her hands inside his blazer and ran them slowly up his sides. She could feel the warmth of his skin through his shirt, the muscles underneath. She never took her eyes from him. He wanted to play it mocking and insolent? She could play it that way, too.

She knelt in front of him and touched him with the same clinical ease, the same sense of entitlement, that he had used on her. Then she stood and put a hand on his stomach. It was hard and flat and she could feel it expanding and contracting slightly with his breathing.

“I guess you're unarmed,” she said, still looking into his eyes.

He put his hand over hers and started pushing it lower. She couldn't believe it… what was he doing, one-upping her? But she wasn't going to blink first.

Lower. Her heart was pounding but she wouldn't look away.

Her hand stopped at a hard protuberance just above his groin. She realized what it was-a gun, in some kind of special concealed holster.

“Maybe I can trust you after all,” he said.

She glared at him. “Why?”

“Because nobody, with even the most rudimentary training, could have done such a lame pat-down. Maybe you are just a lawyer.”

“And maybe you're just an asshole.”

“Oh, I'm a lot more than that.”

His hand was still covering hers. She pulled it away and sat down. After a moment he joined her.

“Well? What did you want to talk about?” he asked, his tone and expression casual enough to suggest that he didn't really care.

She looked at him for a long second, anger seething inside her. “Forget it,” she said, and stood to go.

He was out of his seat with such liquid speed it amazed her. He caught her arm. “Why?” he said. “You mad because I patted you down? Because I didn't get turned on when you did the same to me?”

“Getting turned on is a human quality. I don't see it in you.”

“Listen. I don't know you, so I don't trust you. It's not personal.”

“The hell it's not. You trusted me fine right up until you heard my name. So don't tell me it's not personal.”

“Why don't you sit down and I'll buy you a drink.”

“I'll buy my own drink.”

Ben glanced over her shoulder. “All right, buy one for me, too.”

She looked, and saw the waitress standing behind her.

“Bombay Sapphire martini,” Ben said. “No olive, no vermouth.”

The hell with it. She nodded to the waitress. “Make it two.”

They sat. Ben said, “You going to tell me why you're here?”

She felt her heart beating and it made her angry again. She hated that he could be so cool with her, and that at the same time he made her nervous. And she was scared about what she was going to say next.

She cleared her throat. “It's… about the Four Seasons. I'm thinking about what you're thinking, putting myself in the other person's shoes, the way you said to do. And if I were in your shoes, I'd be afraid that I might… go to the police or something. I'm afraid of what you might do to prevent that.”

He looked at her for a long moment, and she thought she saw something play across his eyes in the diffused light from the street. Sympathy? Regret?

Then he glanced away. “When we're done with this, you'll look back and it'll seem like it never happened.”

She didn't follow him. Was he telling her not to worry? He wouldn't… hurt her?

“How do you know that?” she said.

“I just know. This is all weird to you. Like something that's happening to someone else. When it's over and you're back to your life, it'll be like waking up from a dream.”

She looked at him, trying to read his expression. “You're right,” she said. “It does feel like that. But… how do you know?”

He shook his head and looked away, and she thought, Because you never woke up.

The waitress brought their drinks and Sarah paid for them. They sipped in silence for a few minutes.

“Why do you speak such good Farsi?” Sarah asked, switching languages.

“You already know why,” Ben said, also in Farsi.

“I don't like what you do,” Sarah said, switching back to English.

Ben laughed. “That's okay. I like it fine.”

“You like violence?”

He shrugged. “It's a tool for a job.”

“The craftsman doesn't enjoy his tools?

“Why did you become a lawyer? Because you enjoy lawyering?”

She looked at him, surprised at the way the question went to the heart of her own doubts. “I don't really know why. Maybe just because I was good at it. Why did you get into your line of work?”

For a moment his expression was oddly blank, and then he looked away. “It's a long story.”

They were quiet again. Sarah said, “Tell me something about yourself.”

“Like what?”

Actually, she didn't know. The words had just come out. She hadn't planned them, and didn't know what she was asking exactly.

“I don't know. Just… something you can tell me. Not something about work. Something personal. So I'll feel like I at least know you a little.”

He shrugged. “I like to pull the wings off flies. It's just a hobby, but I'm thinking about going pro.”

She shook her head, realizing it was a waste of time, feeling foolish for even having tried. “Are you married?” she asked. “Do you have a family?”

There was a pause, and she thought he wouldn't answer. But then he said, “Not anymore.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing happened. She was Filipina. I met her in Manila. When we got back to the States, I found out she wasn't who I thought she was.”

“Maybe she found out the same thing about you.”

“I'm sure she did.”

“Kids?”

A long moment went by. He said, “A daughter. They live in Manila.”

She couldn't help being intrigued at his obvious reluctance, and more by his ultimate willingness to answer. “You don't see them?”

He shrugged. “It's a long way away.”

“But that's not why you don't see them.”

He took a long swallow of gin. “What about you? Boyfriend?”

She shook her head. “There was someone in law school. But not now.”

“Why not? They must go crazy for you at your law firm.”

“Why do you say that?”

He looked at her. “Are you fishing for a compliment, or are you really that blind?”

She felt herself blushing, half in anger, half in embarrassment. “I just haven't met anyone.”

“No, that's not it.”

“What do you mean, that's not it? How would you know? You don't know anything about me.”

“I know a lot about you. It's my job to know things about people.”

“Yeah? What do you know?”

“I know that when a woman as beautiful as you is unattached, it's not because she hasn't met anyone. It's because she doesn't want to.”

“And why wouldn't I want to?” she asked, resisting the urge to shift in her seat.

“A lot of reasons. You got to the office at, what, seven o'clock this morning? So you want to make a big splash as a lawyer. A boyfriend would be a distraction. And if people in the office knew you had a boyfriend, they wouldn't hope as hard. If they didn't hope as hard, you couldn't subtly manipulate them as much.”

She couldn't believe what she was hearing. “You're pretty sure of yourself.”

“You asked.”

“What else?”

He took another swallow of gin. “You know any guy you get involved with is going to lose his perspective. You know because it's happened before. He'll probably want to get married right away to lock you in while he can. You can't abide that because you want to keep your options open. Not about men, about your life. You don't know what you really want to do. What you want to be when you grow up.”

“Yeah?” she said, ignoring the provocation. “And what do I want to be?”

“I don't know. But it's not a lawyer.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because if you wanted to be a lawyer, you wouldn't have responded so quickly.”

She shook her head, saying nothing. His cockiness enraged her… but at the same time, she had to admit the things he was saying weren't so far off.

“You want to know why you don't see your family?” she asked.

“I'm sure you're going to tell me.”

“It's because you can't stand an attachment. You can't bear to have someone depend on you. Why is that? Did you disappoint someone along the way, let someone down?”

“You don't know what you're talking about.”

“Yes, I do. If I didn't, you wouldn't have been so quick to argue. It was a departure from your usual style of smug silence.”

He smiled. She couldn't tell if it was the usual condescension, or if he was saying, Touché.

“What is it? You think your daughter is better off with no father than with one who might be unreliable? What is it, a kind of inoculation? Preemptive disappointment?”

He took a sip from his glass. “Just drop it.”

“Why? More fun to get in someone else's head than to have her get in yours?”

“You're not in my head.”

“Tell yourself again. Maybe it'll help you believe it.”

He looked at her, his expression baleful, and she thought again of tremendous pressure and tremendous control. What was it about him that made her want to know what was behind the control, that made her want to increase the pressure to the point where the control would crack? Why had she become so invested in stirring him up? Because he had belittled her? Made some arguably racist remarks? He was petty, and she was allowing him to make her petty, too.

She knew the words were right. Yet they were having no impact at all on her feelings.

Ben drained his glass. “Another?”

She polished hers off, too, fighting the urge to grimace. “Your turn to buy.”

He ordered them two more. She wondered if it was a good idea. She was already buzzed from the first. But there had been a challenge in his offer, and she wasn't going to back away from it.

You see how stupid you're being? she thought. But once again the words had no effect.

They sat in silence for a few minutes. The waitress brought their drinks and moved off. Sarah took a sip and glanced out the window, musing, enjoying her buzz. She liked the bar. She liked sitting in the gloom, watching the street outside as though from some kind of secret aerie. Pearl 's was right across the street; she could see the entrance clearly.

And then it hit her. Damn him. Goddamn him.

“You never went to Pearl 's,” she said. “You announced you were going there because you thought I might follow you. You came here to watch and see if I did.”

He shrugged. “Something like that.”

“Something like that… I get it, it wasn't me you were expecting, it was what, the other bad people? The Iranian terrorists I work for?”

“I have a suspicious nature, remember?”

“You know what? You're full of shit. No one's suspicious of everyone, not even someone like you.”

“You need to get out more often.”

“I get out plenty. You spent time here when you were a kid, didn't you? It's why you wanted to stay in the city instead of at an airport hotel. And you wanted proximity to North Beach, too, right? Because you know the layout, you knew you could set something like this up. You expect me to believe this is just routine for you? You do it for everyone?”

“I do it when I need to.”

“You'd be doing it if I weren't Iranian?”

“Like I said, I do it when I need to.”

“Why don't you just admit it's because I'm Iranian, that you have a problem with that?”

“I don't have to admit anything to you.”

“Of course you don't. You don't even have to admit it to yourself. Not if you don't have the balls.”

He put his hands on the table and leaned forward. “Listen, honey. You don't live in the real world. You live in a fantasy. And if something intrudes on your little delusion-if you actually have to acknowledge one of the serving class that makes your lifestyle possible, if you get even a hint of a notion of what has to be done on your behalf so you can live the way you think you deserve to-you have a moral-outrage hissy fit. Forgive me if I find it hard to take you seriously.”

He leaned back and finished his gin in one long swallow.

“You're right,” she said. “What I really need to do is wander the earth unfettered and alone, killing people along the way who need killing, wallowing in the tragic nobility of my sacrifice. Oh, and I'll have to abandon my family, of course. That's obviously part of enlightenment.”

She leaned back and emptied her glass as he had his. The gin scorched her throat and burned its way into her belly. She squeezed her eyes shut and shuddered with the effort not to cough.

When she opened her eyes, he was looking at her. He was extremely still and she had no idea what he was thinking. Had she hurt him? She'd been trying to and suddenly regretted it. What he'd said to her had been mean, no doubt, but she wondered if what she had just done in response hadn't been outright cruel. The one didn't justify the other. She wanted to apologize but sensed that doing so would make it worse. Acting as though she knew she had hurt him, and was now trying to make him feel better, would be twisting the knife.

“I think I've had too much to drink,” she said, hoping he would read it as the oblique apology she intended.

“I'll walk you back to the hotel,” he said. She'd been expecting an insult, something about her inability to hold her liquor, maybe, and the fact that he seemed to have lost any enthusiasm for that made her wonder again if she'd gone too far.

They headed down Columbus, then into Chinatown. The moon was higher now, the wind colder than it had been earlier. In the useless, yellowish glow of the streetlamps, objects seemed indistinct, insubstantial; cars and signs and storefronts melded together, tenebrous elements possessed by the dark.

She noticed his head moving as they walked, looking left and right, even checking behind them when they crossed a street or turned a corner. You could never sneak up on him, she thought. You'd have to hit him head-on. The thought felt odd to her and she realized she was drunk.

The hotel was pleasantly warm, the glow of light from chandeliers and wall sconces fuzzy at its edges, the sound of their footfalls on the carpet like muffled heartbeats in the silence. In the elevator they said nothing, and she was very aware of his closeness. He walked her to her room and waited while she fished her key card from her jeans. She opened the door and turned to him. “I want to ask you something,” she said.

“Yeah?”

“Does Alex even know?”

“Know what?”

“That he has a niece.”

There was a pause. He said, “I don't know why he would.”

“You never told him, then.”

“We don't talk.”

“Why not?”

“Do you have brothers or sisters?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Well, it would be hard to explain, then.”

“Try.”

“It's a long story.”

“Do we not have time?”

“We don't. You need to get a good night's sleep so you can work on Obsidian tomorrow. And I have something to do tonight.”

“What?”

“I'll tell you in the morning.”

She wanted to say more. More than that, she wanted him to come in. Really wanted him to. But she was afraid to ask.

They stood there for a moment. He looked away and said, “You know Alex is in love with you.”

Whatever she'd been expecting, it hadn't been that. “What? He is not.”

“Yeah, he is.”

“He told you that?”

“No. He would never tell me.”

“Then how do you know?”

He sighed. “He's my brother.”

Why was he telling her this? Was he saying… he wanted to come in but didn't want to hurt Alex? They were so out of touch Alex didn't even know about Ben's child. Why would he care? And anyway, Alex wasn't in love with her, that was ridiculous.

“I have no idea what to say to that,” she said.

He smiled, but his eyes were sad. “Say good night.”

She looked at him, waiting. Then she said, “Good night.”

And then he was walking away. His arms moved, and suddenly he had a key card in one hand and a gun in the other. She thought, What the hell? He opened the door and in one fluid movement was gone, the clack of the lock closing behind him the only evidence that an instant before he'd been there.

She stood for a moment, feeling drunk and confused and oddly bereft. He needed his gun to go into his hotel room at night? He was crazy. He must be crazy.

She waited a moment, but he didn't come back out.

She went inside. Nothing had happened. She told herself that was a good thing.