Orphan X

33 The Long Haul

On his way home, Evan exited the freeway by Dodger Stadium and cased the address that Memo Vasquez had given him. The ramshackle structure, more shed than house, seemed to be deteriorating into the hillside. Dead ivy clung to the cheap cladding. Plywood boarded one of the front windows. Gangbangers congregated on neighboring front porches, sipping 40s, their plaid shorts tugged low. A group of kids played ball, using a shopping cart hung on a Dumpster as a basketball hoop. Strings of Christmas lights blinked sporadically from various rooflines.

Evan made a cautious approach and walked the surrounding blocks but found no signs of surveillance. He’d repeat it on Wednesday even more thoroughly before the arranged meeting.

He thought about Morena in the wind, more scared than ever. He’d have to wait for her to contact him, if she decided to. But he imagined that after the near kidnapping in Jasmine she would vanish again, far from her sister and Danny Slatcher and Evan himself. The thought of her out there somewhere, vulnerable to Slatcher’s next move, grated on him, a metal file working his nerves.

As he headed back to his car, his phone rang. The caller ID showed the burner phone he’d given Katrin. A sense of betrayal surged in his chest, lava-hot.

He answered, holding the phone to his face.

“Where are you?” she asked.

Paranoia has a taste, an acidity on the tongue as sharp as the side effect of a potent medication. Evan’s breath fogged in the midnight chill. The air smelled of mowed grass and car exhaust. Up the street a woman wearing hot pink heels with fabric straps that laced all the way up to her thighs strutted through a chorus of catcalls.

Evan asked, “Why do you want to know where I am?”

Her laugh was musical. “I don’t, really. I suppose what I really want to know is why you’re not here.”

He said nothing.

“So,” she said. “Why aren’t you here?”

“I’m figuring out how to fix it.”

“What?”

“Everything,” he said. “Don’t call unless it’s an emergency. I’ll be back to you Wednesday night.”

“Okay.” Her tone had cooled. “Emergency only. That’s fine. I hope I didn’t…”

“What?”

“Nothing. Just — thank you.”

He hung up.

He switched vehicles in Burbank, parking the Taurus two lots over from where he’d left his truck. After driving home he made it upstairs and went straight to the Vault. He checked the surveillance feeds from the loft, picking up the minute he’d left and fast-forwarding to observe Katrin’s every move. She’d slept, showered, stretched, ordered groceries in, napped. Everything as she’d been instructed.

He caught up to the present, finding her standing at the big tinted windows, looking out at the freeway beyond. Her shoulders shook slightly. She was crying.

Perhaps she knew she was being observed.

He trudged from the Vault, climbed onto his levitating bed, and fell into a deep sleep.

In his dream Jack came to him, his lips rouged black. Slowly the black liquid rose in his mouth, glimmering, then spilled over onto his chin. Jack tried to catch it in his hands, cupping the blood as if he could scoop it back into his body. His wild eyes looked up into Evan’s.

“‘The past isn’t dead,’” Jack quoted through slick black lips. “‘It’s not even past.’”

“What does that mean?” Evan said.

“Hell if I know.” Jack shrugged, the terrible fluid streaming through his fingers. “Dream interpretations,” he added with disdain. “I hate that shit.”

Evan woke breathing hard, his flesh clammy, the sheets churned up around him. It was 5:00 A.M. His thoughts were disheveled, scenarios cascading one after another.

The air conditioner blew cool and steady across his drying sweat. He sat up in bed and crossed his legs to meditate. As Jack had taught him, he freed up a space inside his mind and populated it with the oak trees of his childhood. He put a Virginia summer sun in the sky and a carpet of wild grass underfoot. Walking between tree trunks, he breathed the dusty scent of the bark and listened for birdcalls. He came into a clearing, and there Jack waited, his smile still rouged, his chin dripping black, his teeth stained vampirically.

Evan opened his eyes, more annoyed than distressed.

From his nightstand drawer, he removed a Tibetan gong the size and shape of a soup bowl. He ran the wooden baton around the rim, making the bowl sing. And then he struck the bronze side once and closed his eyes.

Feeling the tone against his skin, he attended to every micromoment of sensation within him, cultivating the same hyperawareness he used when fighting or setting up a sniper shot. He let the vibrations travel through him, sounding the inside of his body, defining his shape anew. He waited as the noise faded, until there was not a trace of sound lingering, until even the last shiver in the air had stilled.

He opened his eyes refreshed.

His mission priorities clarified.

He could not trust Katrin. He could not trust Memo Vasquez, the second caller. He was meeting Vasquez tomorrow, which gave him a little more than twenty-four hours to surveil Katrin and see if she tried to make contact with a handler.

If she did not, he’d see Vasquez in the morning and press him hard.

It was all about applying pressure until one of them crumbled.

His empty stomach got him off the bed and moving toward the kitchen. The living wall had seen better days. The drip system appeared to be balky, herbs browning at the edges. Nonetheless he found two robust red tomatoes, harvested some basil and sage, and made an omelet.

Back in the Vault, he sipped fresh mint tea, forked breakfast from a plate, and watched Katrin sleep. Her straight, shiny hair, laid like a wedge against her flawless cheek, made her look as though she were being rendered in black and white.

At last she awakened, stretching herself into an expansive yawn and heading into the bathroom. She freshened up, changed clothes, and moved to the kitchen, searching the cupboards until she found a frying pan. She made eggs and sat at the counter, pushing them around her plate with a fork.

It was as though they were eating breakfast together.

He remembered how she’d called him over to the window, then reached behind her to pull him to her. Her skin like silk. The lipstick smearing on her plush lips.

If she was playing him, she’d done a spectacular job.

His RoamZone gave off a sonar ping, the GPS signal coming up in response to the food hitting her stomach. The microchips in her system would have to be replenished soon if he wanted to keep tabs on her, and right now there was nothing he wanted to do more.

The GPS dot blipped on his phone, pinning her location even as he watched her in real time on the monitor. Sipping his tea, Evan settled in for the long haul.