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  To Leon Rachel said when she came into the kitchen, “OK, what about Sirocco. Who is he?”

  “You met him!”

  “Well, is he married?”

  Leon threw up his hands. “I don’t know! We didn’t get into personal narratives. We’re not a couple of women, we’re businessmen! We talked business, pure and simple.”

  “Leon, is this deal moral?”

  “Moral? Are you kidding? Moral is a meaningless concept in business, Rachel. You’ll have to get used to that. Legal/illegal—or, more exactly, their appearance—applies. Moral/immoral does not.”

  “OK. Is it legal?”

  “Fairly.”

  “Is it likely to go through?”

  “You mean, is it a sure thing? In business, Rachel, nothing is a sure thing until the deal is completed, and even then you never know. The guy could come back and sue you, tie up everything for years. It’s all just part of the game. When you’re a player you’re a player, it’s that simple. If you played only to win you’d retire after your first few million, and what’s the point of that? You play to win but more than that you play to play again. When you play with the big boys it’s not a means and end kind of athing. That’s what I was saying about style. Your means is your end. You see, Rachel—”

  Leon went on like this throughout their intimate shrimp meal by candlelight. He was still talking twenty minutes after they had got into bed and Rachel had turned out the light.

  “—it’s like the song says. There is no success like failure, and a failure is no success at all. In business it’s as if you have no mammalian brain, so you never really experience failure as such. You try this, it doesn’t work, you try that. There’s no scarring, no dreaming necessary to assimilate the error. There is no error. You’re like a fish or a reptile. A protoplasm. A total psychopath. It’s a very straight-ahead kind of a life. Sort of morally streamlined. No, morally isn’t the word, is it. More like—”

  “Goodnight, Leon.” Rachel pulled a pillow over her ear. Leon’s ardent chatter degenerated into a broken-down mumble shortly before it lapsed entirely to be replaced by fortissimo snoring.

  At noon the next day Nick Sirocco was crossing the concourse of Village Green towards Rachel Boseman, smiling tan above a pale yellow suit. As they spotted each other through the lunch hour throng it might have been the cue for one of those weightless sprints towards mouth-crushing union, but Rachel was too busy dreading an occasion on which every word she spoke would be hers only in the characteristic way that it failed to be what she had intended to say. And if she tried to explain, it would be more of the same but worse, the explanation all in knotsfrom her knowledge of being on dubious moral ground. Why couldn’t she ever remember that? Her unconscious mind, sadistic orchestrator of the cruelest humiliations, was merciless. Her heels crossing that lobby were leaden and skittery.

  Shaven, fragrant, Adonic, Sirocco murmured something, kissed her cheek, steered her through the lunch hour crowds, a revolving door, and down the stairs into Timbers ‘n Spokes. Rachel’s mouth was too dry for speech. Her lips kept sticking to her teeth. Fortunately there was little need to speak before the hostess had led them to one of the private tables at the back.

  There, staring into her eyes, Sirocco began. “I talked to your husband yesterday. I like him. He’s an oddball, but he’s fresh, he’s an entity. And I like that he should have tried to do something for Wilkes.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “It’s rare you find a man who’d do so much for a basket case. A burden on society.”

  “I think Leon did it for complicated reasons.”

  “What reasons?”

  “Oh, boredom. Loneliness—”

  “The thing is, he did it. Don’t forget that. You’re used to him. You’ve got him all figured out, your way. If Christ had a wife, to her He’d be just another guy. It takes others to see what’s special.”

  Pause. “You mean like, the disciples?”

  The waiter was there. Rachel ordered a seafood salad, Nick Sirocco the veal, two glasses of red wine. They both watchedthe waiter walk away, and then Sirocco said, “Rachel, it’s a beautiful name.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Listen. I want you to do something for me, Rachel. I want you to tell me everything about yourself. Everything. I want to know it all.”

  “Everything?”

  “OK. Start with what’s most on your mind these days, what’s grabbing your heart and guts. Tell me all about it.”

  “I’m afraid there’s nothing—”

  “So tell me about Wilkes. The guy fascinates me. I understand you met him first.”

  Haltingly, in dismay, Rachel told Sirocco about meeting Cam Wilkes and about some of the good work she had heard from Leon that PAGO was doing. As she spoke, Sirocco’s expression remained sober and attentive, although a certain … hardness, was it? in his eyes suggested an unfriendly interest in Wilkes. Jealousy? Like Leon? It was a relief when her salad came and she could pretend to be too interested in uncovering its contents to be able to continue.

  “I hear he used to live in a bus,” Sirocco said.

  Eager to defend Wilkes but not wanting to go into the Girl on His Bus business, Rachel confirmed the bus story in such a way as to imply that it was the attempts to hound him out of his bus that had pushed him into serious agoraphobia.

  “This phobia shit,” Sirocco replied, slicing his veal, “it’s all in the head. You’re bound to get a certain amount of riff-raff whenyou aim mid-market. If he don’t like the place he should move out. But he won’t. You know why? Because he’s a flake, and ninety-nine percent of flakes are born troublemakers. I’ll tell you something else,” pointing his fork at Rachel’s face. “Ninety-nine percent of the times a troublemaker has an accident it’s no accident.”

  “Cam Wilkes doesn’t mean any harm.”

  “He’s telling you we tried to harass him out of his stupid bus. I call this slander. We’re a respectable company. Don’t tell me he don’t mean harm.”

  “He made me promise not to tell.”

  “Yeah, right. Tell that to a woman it’s like taking out a fullpage ad. Hell, you just told me, and I can have his legs broken.”

  “Pardon?”

  “A little joke. You should laugh.”

  When Sirocco’s plate was empty he looked at it briefly then lifted his eyes. “Anyways, you’re a beautiful woman, Rachel.”

  “It’s the lighting.”

  “Don’t be modest. The first time I saw you, I couldn’t take my eyes off. You’re a knockout. A tiger. A queen. When you talk, we communicate. Something resonates inside. Your words are champagne for my heart. It’s like I know you from a long time ago. It’s like we were lovers in another life or something.” His hand closed over hers. Rachel looked at it. A strong hand. Little dark hairs lying in parallel. “So what do you say. You and me. I’m crazy about you.” The waiter was standing by the table looking at Sirocco, who checked his tie knot. “Bring us two coffees.” The waiter went away. Sirocco leaned closer, squeezing Rachel’shand. “Listen, Rachel. I want to hear you say you know what I’m talking about. This is real what I’m feeling, right? I mean, you’re not going to tell me I’m making it all up.”

  “I wouldn’t do that, but you don’t know me, Nick.”

  “That’s what I’m saying. What is there to know. I’m a man, you’re a woman. The magic is there. You know what came to me as you were just talking? Love is magic, it’s not somebody’s life history, their stupid opinions. Love is cosmic. You could be life to me, Baby. Everything I ever wanted. Don’t let me down. Don’t say I’m wrong. Don’t tell me I’m losing my mind.”

  “It’s not that, Nick.”

  “Oh yeah?” skin tightening around his eyes. “So what is it.”

  “It’s just that, well,” intending a mood-lightening little quip here, “when you’ve got a mind that’s basically deluded, it must be really easy to lose!”

  Oh dear.

  “I mean—” A nerv
ous giggle. “That didn’t exactly come out the way I, um—”

  Sirocco was absorbing Rachel’s witticism with fortitude. Afterwards she might have remembered his eyes going completely dead while he did this, had not one of them begun to tic so savagely.

  Sirocco leaned towards her. “I get it. It’s a joke.”

  “That’s right—”

  “Hey, you should have told me you were a joker. When you said OK to lunch maybe you should have said, ‘Listen, Mr. Sirocco. I should tell you. I’m a real joker.’”“Look, I’m really—”

  “You always joke like this?”

  “Sometimes—”

  “Only when a man is opening his heart, right?”

  “I really am—”

  “You joke like a real flake, Rachel. You do this with everybody?”

  Here Rachel made no reply.

  “What’s the matter? You won’t talk to me now? I thought I asked you a question.”

  When Rachel started to get up, Sirocco caught hold of her forearm and lowered it, slowly, the rest of her following, to the table.

  “Let go of me.”

  “Mistake Number Two. Joking like a flake was Number One. Here’s Number Two. You don’t leave this table. I leave this table.”

  She watched his other hand take out his wallet and flick a fifty dollar bill into her face. The next three bills she batted away with her free hand. Without letting go of her arm, Sirocco stood up, leaned across the table, and said, “Now, Rachel. You be careful. Three mistakes and a girl could have some kind of accident. Like to her face.”

  With these words, Nick Sirocco let go of Rachel’s arm and walked out of Timbers ‘n Spokes.

  She was still rubbing it when the waiter set down her coffee. “Say the wrong thing to Mr. Sirocco, Miss?”

  Rachel nodded. “I guess he’s insecure about his mind.”

  “Hey, who isn’t?”

  “Right. Here, why don’t you take one of these for yourself.” Her hand shook as she passed him the fifty.

  ——

  “Sirocco, I take it,” Alex Silver said from the floor of his office, where he had been doing pelvic tilts for the past fifteen minutes of Rachel’s session, “was no Harry.”

  Rachel nodded. “I’m not that sick.”

  “So Sally was right.”

  “Yes, she was. Alex?”

  “Mmm-hmm?”

  “Why don’t we face it? This is going nowhere. Harry was Leon’s problem. He’s not mine, really, is he, except that he was around for the screw-up of my marriage. I mean, I’m obsessed just because I need somebody to blame, right?”

  “Maybe. But also maybe Leon was half right about the ricochet thing. Harry was you broadcasting some more original problem that Leon was picking up, and I don’t mean Cam Wilkes. Like what if Harry was Leon’s internalization of your ideal of how he, Leon, should have been. What if Harry was a name for the distance that Leon fell short of measuring up. So Harry, as a piece of imagination, was feeding off Leon’s dissatisfaction with himself and off your dissatisfaction with Leon, which obviously would channel in.”

  Rachel had not thought of it exactly this way. “Sounds like I should find Harry,” she said quietly when she had done so.

  “Yeah, maybe you should.”

  That same evening, after her session with Silver, Rachel hung around 201 Dell Drive with the lights off, reluctant as a PAGO person to go out, wandering like a ghost through the streetlit ruins of her dream of a perfect home with Leon, bound not so much by memory as by melancholy. Melancholy tempered by rage and lust. Mostly lust. It was something of a sleep of desire that Rachel was wandering through 201 Dell in when the phone rang.

  Her mother. “Bi-Me says Leon hasn’t been in for days, and they’re not national. Rachel, you’re lying to me. He’s moved out. Admit it.”

  “I admit it.”

  “How many times did I tell you, you should have left him like we left your father? Beat the bastards to the punch. Didn’t I drill that into your head?”

  “Mother, why? You’ve missed dad for almost thirty years!”

  “Not as much as when I lived with him, believe me. You think I’m afraid of closeness? You know how in movies women are always telling men, ‘You make me feel so dirty,’ meaning whatever it is they mean? Well, he made me feel dirty. Not low dirty or filth dirty. Sex is not a problem for me. Mess dirty. Like I was always messing up his space. I’m not talking literally here. The fact that I was not born to clean some goddamnn house is strictly by the way. And then he started to get jobs—he designed, you know—”

  “Buildings. You’ve told me.”

  “Of course, once he became successful he was never home. I’ve missed your father since the day I first laid eyes on the willful bastard. Why stop now? I liked him. He had his problems, but I liked him. He was an original. And he loved animals. Except cats.”

  “You always said he was bad news!”

  “Only because he made me feel like bad news. You remember him.” “No!”

  “It’s just as well. Also, he couldn’t handle uncertainty. I gave him a lot of that. Besides youth and a terrific body, what else did I have?”

  “Mother, you’re excited.”

  “You’re damned right I’m excited. I’ll strangle the bastard. I knew when he started selling on commission. It’s no life for a man. Didn’t I tell you that? At least now there’s nothing to keep you out in that godforsaken—Change all the locks. You can stay with me.”

  “No, Mother. I’m trying to work this out on my own. There’s more to it than—”

  “The tilt-up tits on some Bi-Me secretary? Face reality. Two weeks back in the world and he’s fallen for a twenty-year-old piece!” “Mother, you’re raving. You don’t know anything—” “Thanks to you I don’t know anything. Until it’s too late.

  Oh, why couldn’t you have learned from what your father did to me—”

  “I don’t remember him, Mother!” Rachel sing-song. “Bye now!”

  The phone rang again immediately, but Rachel was already moving out the door, heading back to the Dream Centre and another night of serious deprivation.

  FOUR

  As a kid Rachel did what she was told, at least figured she ought to. It was superstition, really. Little girls always washed their faces and hands at bedtime, always did their homework without complaint if not actual happiness, never talked with their mouths full or sang at the table. Just as there was a definition, there was a rule for everything, and these rules, like the common will of her mother and teachers that they sprang from, made things real, but they also threw them in shadow, the shadow of that greater reality where nobody sings at the table. Sometimes it was not much fun living in the shadow, but the alternative, barefaced defiance, blew open too many doors to damnation.

  And then Rachel got older, and the rules seemed more unimpressive but just as binding. Why else spend your teens kickingagainst everything in sight? Damnation by that time was looking pretty tasty, and so were broad shoulders and 3-D pectorals, but somehow sooner or later it always came back to the shadow. Same more lately, and cruelly, with love and marriage in the Millpond. Except this time the shadow came with a melody and a name, and Rachel was tracking the bastard—the real one this time, no more Siroccos—and when she found him she would check him out, and depending on how that went she would either take him to her heart and never let him go, or else she would bundle him into the Civic for a nice long ride, way out beyond the suburbs, to where the guys who never sing at the table belong: the dump. With the bulldozers, the gulls, and the ruined bears.

  On the fourth morning of dream deprivation (felt like the fourth month) Rachel woke up feeling exactly the way the last couple of days’ Nowlis-Green Mood Checklist had said she was feeling: Anxious, Irritable, Aggressive. And speedy. She was noticing a lot more, fielding more details, her subliminal identification scores radically improving, her drawings beginning, incredibly, to resemble those hundredth-second exposures that constitute the Reuben Amb
iguous Figure Test. So like lightning were Rachel’s reflexes, in fact, with her slipping into REM onset so fast, that Silver had begun to worry she might be getting too little non-REM sleep not to muddy the experiment with debilitation and fatigue symptoms. That was why he had upped her dose of dexedrine sulphate. He said.

  Also paranoid. Looking either Babs or Frankie straight in the eye was now out of the question—she just knew they were trying tofind out what Leon was up to or else were fully informed. Liked to watch her twitch. And then on that fourth morning a remark by Babs about somebody leaving hair in the sink in the little washroom elicited from deep in Rachel’s throat an authentic animal snarl that touched off another from Babs. Silver too was beginning to bug Rachel, though intellectually she knew that as Type-A personality psychologists went, he was not such a bad egg. Aside from appearing more agitated each passing day—projection, right?—tormenting an innocent cat, having endless mama’s boy phone conversations with his mother, beeping Rachel awake all night with his infernal machine, rustling the printouts on his desk in the morning when Rachel “woke up,” and hounding her every hour at the Dream Centre with his goddamnn tests, what had he done?

  Quiet moments at the Centre were spent with the unfortunate Puff, whose ordeal on the belt and waterbound platform Rachel had taken, mornings and evenings, to accompanying with soothing sounds of comfort and inspiration. Occasionally Puff hissed and promised to gouge Rachel’s eyes out, but Rachel had no trouble sympathizing with that. Mostly Puff dozed while Rachel talked, hummed, sang. It calmed them both. Secretly Rachel was waiting for another Moment of Creaturely Communion, but in her tank Puff now seemed too zonked or pissed off for that, and in her cage she was either gobbling down food or sunk in combat hallucinations. Still, anything could happen.

  No sign, so far, of Harry. Not in the non-REM dreams that Rachel managed to remember to write down for Silver. And not in the course of her ever edgier days at Millpond Indemnity.

  After work on that fourth day, a Friday, Rachel’s session with Alex Silver in his office at Market Village Square began with the question of Rachel’s father. She had told Silver about her mother’s latest call. “So what do you remember about him?” Silver asked.