Mixed Signals #2
A touch of longing tugs at his bones. Suddenly he feels small and isolated within these hard disinfectable surfaces, reduced to an ant himself with the vast open floor plan. Is this how he’ll remain until he’s ash and worms, the Nowhere Man fulfilling his appellation?
He indulges his first taste of the Pegasus vodka.
It is astounding.
Round mouthfeel. Intense flavor precision. And a seamless bell-curve structure: the initial flavor profile, termed the attack, is gentle, the evolution to mid-palate smooth, the finish shockingly sweet, almost sugared.
He lets the tail linger. The aftertaste, too, has strong mineral notes, as one would assume given its yearlong meteorite steeping.
The second sip is always better, taste buds, mouth, and throat having acclimated to the initial assault.
The vodka is indeed divine.
A few sips is all he will require.
After all, there is a cross-country flight to attend to, a young woman in distress.
He is getting older, forty visible in the rearview, and each mission seems to take a little more out of him.
Having Joey along with him provides some necessary static on the personal front, but should not be too complicated as long as everything else remains as clear as the spirit he has just let wash through him.
Leaving his glass, he pads across the great room and down the brief hall to his master suite. Packing takes mere minutes, an advantage of having an unvarying wardrobe.
He sets his rucksack on the floating bed, a magnetic wonder, and moves into the bathroom to take a boiling-hot shower and claim a fresh toothbrush for the trip. When he comes back, the little rucksack on the king-size mattress strikes him as forlorn.
How odd that he is projecting emotion onto a rucksack.
As he dresses, Melinda’s words from the afternoon return to him: People like you and me take a lot of risks. But maybe not the right ones.
This is what he is. A man who lives alone, travels alone, returns to an empty bedroom, to this secret life.
His true life.
The doorbell rings.
A surprise. He is unaccustomed to receiving visitors here at Penthouse 21A, where he aliases himself within the carapace of an importer of industrial cleaning supplies.
He walks down the hall and across the great room, checks the security screen hidden beneath a coat strategically positioned on a hook by the front door.
Mia Hall waits outside, arms crossed, looking uncomfortable.
Her thick chestnut curls spill around her neck, grazing her shoulders, wild as a lion’s mane. She is in prosecutor mode—charcoal pantsuit, soft-sided leather briefcase buckled down as tightly as she seems to be at the moment.
He opens the door.
“Peter is away at science camp this week,” she opens tersely. “I took some time off from work to just … do nothing. I wasn’t sure if you wanted to, I don’t know…”
He waits.
This seems to bother her.
Her eye contact is fleeting, her shoulders loose in a strained approximation of nonchalance. “… spend some time.”
He waits some more.
“I’m available, that’s all I’m saying. For a few days.” She grabs at her hair, gives it a shake, lets her arm slap to her side. “I mean, I know. Mixed signals, if you want to litigate the matter.”
“I don’t want to litigate the matter.”
Her eyes are chocolate-colored though sometimes yellow-brown when the light strikes them just so.
Her lips pouch with discomfort. This is a woman who walks into courtrooms to face down sexual predators and gangbangers with not a single fuck to give and yet here she is, unsure of how to guard her pride.
“Well?” she says, a touch sharply.
Evan pictures his rucksack on the bed, packed for yet another solitary trip.
His childhood hours spent either alone with Jack Johns or in one-on-one training with instructors hammering him into shape.
He considers the encroachment of middle age, that dash of gray he has allowed to bleed through his black-and-white thinking. Might he allow a few shades of color to cross the divide into his other life?
Words bubble up, meet resistance, bubble up again. He stands dumbly before her not-patient gaze.
“I’m leaving for New York,” he hears himself say. “Want to come?”
“When?”
“Now?”
“What do you mean now?”
He glances at the Vertex fob watch clipped to his belt loop. “Right now.”
“Just—go to New York with you?”
“Yes. And Joey.”
“For what?”
“To look into something. And see a billionaire mastermind. Luke Devine. Have you heard of him?”
“Of course I’ve heard of Luke Devine. I’m not some rube.”
“I don’t know what information silos you’re in.”
“Information silos? Are you Evan ChatGPT?” Mia’s arms are folded, one fingernail tapping against her biceps. “Besides, don’t we need things like plane tickets?”
“Private jet.”
Mia’s blink rate has picked up considerably. “Is any of this legal?”
“So far. If things get hazy? You can stay in the hotel room.”
“And what? Drink up the minibar, do my nails, and pine for your return?”
He takes her hand gently. Lifts it up. Her nails are clipped short, the polish chipped. “Definitely the nails.”
She tugs her hand back, mock offended. “Also: How the hell do you know Luke Devine?”
“Ask him at dinner.”
“We’re having dinner with Luke Devine?”
“I’ll take that as yes,” he says, easing the door shut. “Go pack.”