The Sacrifice Game

(83)

I motioned him inside and made a feeble gesture at the coatrack. I don’t know what I was thinking because of course, like me, he’d want to keep his coat in this icebox.

“I’m in the orifice,” Marena’s voice called. I was pretty sure she was watching us-it seemed like she had cameras in every other Robie sconce-but she sounded casual, not at all worried that I was out here with her gentleman caller. Impotently, I followed protocol and pointed Jed 1 toward the door to the living room, and watched as Marena swept across the room and planted-is that the right word? — her lips on his. Max Sleeked through the hall and vaulted over the desk. Marena gave me a funny look, held up a wait-one-minute finger, and closed the door in my face. I guess I hadn’t changed that much, after all. Big tough Jed, back from Mayaland.

I tiptoed back to the guest bedroom. Maybe if they couldn’t hear me slink away, they’d forget about me.

I could hear Marena chattering away and could tell by the thunk of stone on thick wood that they’d started up a Go game. Hmmm.

Time trickled past. Every once in a while I sort of tiptoed back over to the door. I didn’t put my ear on it, though, since I figured everything you did in this house was on video.

“Are you and he having a thing?” Jed 1 asked.

“No.”

They must have moved into a different part of the room, because their voices got too muffled to hear, and I started feeling stupid standing there. I went into the sort of living zone and flopped on the sofa. Huh. Damn. It’s me in there and he doesn’t know it. This is odding me out. And I’m jealous, sort of. Except I suppose they couldn’t be involved if he was asking insecure questions about me. Then again, she’d just said we weren’t having a thing. Weren’t we? I went back to the guest bedroom again, turned off the main light, and started one of my pacing rituals. I was on my one hundred and fifty-fourth circuit when voices started coming out of the phone. I was about to pick it up and then realized they weren’t talking to me, and that Marena must have turned on the intercom so that I could hear her conversation with Jed 1.

“Don’t even tell me, you fuck, you, you, you… you think you’re going to make that decision-you can’t make that decision, you’re not some like, wise being, you’re just, you’re a loser.” Geez, I thought. Take it easy, that’s me you’re talking to. “You’re a boring windbaggy geek loser, you don’t know anybody worth knowing, nobody’s heard of you, you’ve never done anything remotely important, you’re-”

I heard a little grunt. Had someone just gotten punched? And her voice had sounded so guttural. Like, desperate. I picked up the receiver, turned the speaker thing off, and walked out into the hall.

“You shit, ” Marena’s voice went. “I was, I was, I was practically falling in love with you and you were shit. You were worse than shit. You’re what shit would shit if it could shit.”

I skidded a little bit in Tony Sic’s athletic socks as I rounded the corner of the hallway.

“How do I stop it?”

I opened the door and saw Other Jed, Jed 1, looming over a very small-looking Marena.

“Hey, what’s going on?” I asked like an idiot.

Jed 1 looked over his shoulder at me. “Hi, Tony, nothing.” I felt something large and rocklike push me to the side. It was Grgur.

I looked back just in time to see Marena give a brutal low kick to Jed 1 ’s knee. I winced and jumped forward. I don’t know if I was planning to protect Jed 1 or help her finish the job. Neither thing happened, though. Jed 1 was backing away through the room, throwing whatever was handy at the three of us.

“Jed’s gone psycho,” Marena shrieked. Her voice wailed feeedbackily through every speaker in the house

“GRAB HIM RIGHT NOW, NOW, NOW…”