Dead Lines

Joseph’s voice became a low, assertive bellow. ‘I want you to drop a roll of money, ten thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills, into her collection plate. Then ask her my question. Bring me the answer tomorrow morning.’

Peter’s errands for Joseph were varied and often peculiar, but he had never done anything like this. Peter was not fond of New Age types, followers or leaders. They had disappointed him.

‘Directions. Loot.’ Joseph held out a folded piece of paper and a thick roll of money. ‘Don’t tell Michelle. She’s still mad at me for paying a quarter of a million dollars for a watch last week.’

‘Jesus,’ Peter said involuntarily.

‘It’s a good watch,’ Joseph said with petulance. He pulled back his sweater cuff to reveal a wide flash of platinum. ‘Maybe I’ll will it to you when I die.’

‘I’m a humble man,’ Peter said.

‘Well, Michelle’s already in my face, so don’t tell her how much this time, okay?’

‘All right.’ He pocketed the money and the directions. The money pushed against the Trans.

Joseph shuddered. ‘Goddamn, it’s cold in here. Peter, you look gloomy. Worse than me, and I feel like an old cabbage. What’s up?’

‘My friend died. A writer named Phil Richards.’

‘Sorry. Friends … can’t afford to lose them.’ Joseph’s eyes moved beyond Peter to the far corner of the room. ‘Water out there somewhere, reflecting moonlight,’ he murmured. Peter looked up over his shoulder and saw a dim, milky flare play across the ceiling. Then it was gone.

‘What should I ask her?’ Peter asked.

‘I’ve arranged for a private audience. You will absolutely not tell anyone else. I trust you, Peter … but I want you to promise me anyway. Swear to me as much as one atheist can swear before another, all right?’

‘Cross my heart, hope to die,’ Peter said.

Joseph seemed to accept this. He folded his hands in his lap like a schoolboy about to recite. Peter had never seen him so vulnerable. ‘Ask her if she believes it is possible for someone to live without a soul. Ask her in private, not in front of all those salivating white-collar geeks she cultivates.’

‘Someone, live, without a soul,’ Peter said.

‘Don’t mock me, Peter Russell.’ Joseph’s voice was hard and clean. In the glow of the rising moon, his face was the color of an expensive knife.

‘No disrespect, Mr Benoliel,’ Peter said. ‘Just getting my lines straight.’

‘He has been such a lemon lately,’ Michelle said in the entry, holding the door. The veranda lights cast a dull golden glow over the stonework. ‘Please make him feel better.’

‘Isn’t that your job?’ Peter asked.

‘You’re short tonight,’ she observed.

‘My best friend just died,’ Peter said.

‘Oh, shit, really?’ Michelle was shocked and saddened. On her face, the effect was of a curtain drawing open to a new play. She stood straight and let go of the door. ‘How much time do you have?’ she asked. ‘Time for a drink?’

‘You know I don’t drink.’

‘A small glass of sherry for me, ginger ale for you,’ Michelle said with studied grace. ‘We’ll toast your friend.’

They went into the huge kitchen and Michelle sat Peter at the marble-topped counter. Only the counter lights were on and the rest of the kitchen fell back into olive-colored shadows. Peter felt as if he were under a spotlight. Michelle poured two glasses as described and sat at the corner next to him. ‘To your friend,’ she said, lifting her sherry.

‘To Phil,’ Peter said, and felt his shoulders make a quaking motion. He sucked the ginger ale down wrong and started to choke. He used that to disguise the tears, and coughed until the impulse was almost gone.

Michelle gave him a napkin to wipe his eyes. ‘Want to talk about him?’

‘I don’t think there’s time.’

‘Your appointment isn’t for another hour and a half,’ Michelle said. ‘Was he famous?’

‘Not really,’ Peter said. ‘He was a better writer than me. Maybe a better man.’

‘Do you still write?’ Michelle asked.

‘When I need the money,’ he said.

‘I admire people who do something with their talents.’ Michelle put down her glass. ‘What did you think of Weinstein?’

‘A hustler,’ Peter said. He reached into his pocket and took out the Trans. It slid smoothly past the roll of hundred-dollar bills. ‘Haven’t tried it.’

‘Give me your number,’ Michelle said. ‘Weinstein left a box of them. I’ll pick out a nice blue one.’

‘Do they even work?’

‘Not in the house, apparently,’ Michelle said. ‘But I need to get outside more. Besides, Weinstein will pay you if we convince Joseph … won’t he?’

Peter smiled ruefully, tilted his head, and nodded. He opened the unit and read her the number from the screen. It was odd, seven sets of two digits separated by hyphens.

Michelle wrote the number on a slip of paper. ‘See?’ she said, and patted his hand. ‘I was hard up once. Cast adrift. I know how life goes. It isn’t easy finding a safe harbor.’ She shook her hair and shoved out a hand toward the kitchen walls, as if to push them back. ‘I just get lost here. It’s been thirteen years with Joseph, and I still haven’t explored all the rooms.’ She shook her head. ‘Half aren’t even furnished. I can do whatever I want with the houses, but it’s just the two of us, and you, and the cleaning people once or twice a week. Joseph doesn’t want servants living on the estate.’

‘It’s quiet,’ Peter said.

‘Very quiet,’ Michelle said. She took Peter’s Trans and opened it. ‘Weinstein explained it to me a few days ago, before he spoke with Joseph,’ she said. ‘Is this the only one you have?’

‘He gave me nine more,’ Peter said. ‘Should I throw them away?’

‘No, no. Maybe it’s the weather and they’ll work inside the house later. We’ll just spread them around. They’re no use sitting in a box. Then I’ll talk to Joseph again and try to convince him. For your sake, not Weinstein’s.’

Peter leaned forward. ‘I don’t know what to say. You’re treating me like a brother.’

‘You might as well be a brother,’ she said. ‘You know your boundaries. You give me more respect than my real brothers ever did. You understand that I have a tough job, but it’s one I intend to stick with. We’ve seen a lot of the same old world, from different sides of the fence. And we both mean what we say.’

‘Wow,’ Peter said. ‘That’s something I can, I don’t know, cherish.’

Michelle’s lips twitched. ‘You’re my project, Peter Russell.’ She sipped her sherry. ‘When you toast the dead,’ she said, ‘they feel comforted and don’t bother you, and you have only good thoughts about them.’

‘You sound like an expert,’ Peter cracked.

Michelle smiled. ‘That’s what my grandmother told me when I was a little girl. She was French, from Louisiana.’