Fifty Mice Part 21

D.A. SEEKS SAMARITAN WITNESS TO CLUB KILLINGS.

A short intake of breath, Vaughn sinks into his chair, shakes his head, wondering, basically, what the h.e.l.l?

EXOTIC SWIMMER SHOT IN CLUB,.

CARRIED TO APARTMENT.

Jays hand touches his knee. Vaughn yells and kicks back from the desk.

"Vaughn." Jay, rolling out, spectral and groggy, from where hes been sleeping, then hiding (when he heard someone come in). "Its me."

"HOLYc.r.a.p," Vaughn says. "I almost-what are you-Jay?" Looking closer: "Your hair looks like c.r.a.p. Youre like, are you a blond now or-?" and finally, "how the h.e.l.l did you get in here? This is a secure building."

Jays up and stretching. "I keyed in my old code," he says. "Or maybe you told me what yours was, once."

Vaughn is staring at him.

"What?"

"Did they let you out or did you escape?"

"I havent been in a mental hospital."

"But-"

Jay, rote: "Im not crazy, I didnt go crazy, I wasnt in a mental hospital. Fedsve taken me into witness protection, they think I . . ."

Vaughn is staring at him.

"Dont. Vaughn? No. Dont do that. Come on-this isnt-this is me. Vaughn, you know me."

"No."

"How can you-"

"I know what youve told me. I know what you want me to know. But, um. Do I know that its true?"

"Yes. You do."

Vaughn shakes his head. "No, see, thats just the thing-I dont. Not really. After you . . . disappeared? And I got the call from the hospital?"

"There was no hospital," Jay says again.

"Its like I thought about it. You know? I thought about it, us, our friends.h.i.+p, me and you. What I know, what I really know. I thought about it for a long time and I realized: How long have I known you? And I dont know s.h.i.+t."

The lights hum. The animals fidget in their cages, hungry.

"You live lightly on this earth, my friend," Vaughn says. "Its like you dont, I mean, theres no, well . . ." He makes an ambiguous gesture. ". . . not a lot of give and take."

Jay nods, because he actually understands, and wants to explain, "Thats changing-"

"But, um."

"-I swear to you, federal marshals have put me in protective custody over on Catalina Island over something I dont even know what it is."

"Rutger Hauer."

"What?"

"In Blade Runner." Vaughn indicates, with his chin: "Your hair, dude."

Jay runs a hand across it, absently. "And yeah, I took a runner. I got away from them with this weird guy in his pot plane."

Doubtful: ". . . Okay."

"Seriously. We crashed. I dont know what happened to him. But they erased me, Vaughn. Everything I was. Or thought I was. Buckham and Buckham? Gone. I mean, gone. Some ladys living in my apartment, Stacys shacked back up with that guy from Houston-"

"The cage fighter."

"Vaughn, hes not."

"Okay. Whatever."

"And they told everybody who might wonder where I went that I went crazy."

"Juan Pablo."

"Thats not his name. Vaughn: focus."

"They said your family took you home."

Jay blinks. "They said what?"

"After the breakdown," Vaughn says. "You never talk about your family."

"Who? Who said about my family?"

"I mean," Vaughn says, "you talk about being erased, but its like you dont even exist here and now to begin with. You know what I mean? Maybe n.o.body notices youre gone because you were never here."

Jay says nothing. Hollowed out.

Vaughn looks away, to the articles, to the computer screen. "Whats all this?"

"Vaughn-"

The monkeys are screaming again, and genuflecting in their cages, arms out, heads dipping, long fingers laced through the bars. Its a morning call to prayer.

"They left a number Im supposed to call when I see you," Vaughn admits sheepishly.

Jay, impatient: "Whats your point?"

"Well, um. They left it on my cell phone this morning."

"So?"

"When I see you, Jay. Not if, when."

Jay blinks. They knew. They let him go.

But why?

The newspaper articles spill upside down across a swirly Formica tabletop. This downscale At.w.a.ter retro cafe is chrome and black and white and gray. Theres a breakfast crowd, mostly locals; the dark eyes of the lone waitress watch idly from behind the register. Jay sits opposite Vaughn in a crescent vinyl booth safely away from the front window, fanning and collating his collected doc.u.mentation between them to make his case.

"You remember this?"

Deeply engaged with his scrambled egg, chorizo, feta, and cactus burrito, Vaughn can only shake his head and murmur, mouth full between bites, "Since when do you read the newspaper? You always say its too depressing."

Jay thumbs the head shot of Miriam. "According to my new federal friends, I went out with her-well, yeah, and I did, I think I did, but they knew all about it, theyve been watching me for-remember? She worked in this flower shop on Melrose where I got Stacy a Valentines Day-"

"I remember that." Vaughn bolts some coffee. "Yeah. Your p.o.r.no fantasy. She-"

"No. I made that part up."

"Really?"

"Or. Maybe I made all of it up. I dont know. I dont know. Youre just taking my word for it, anyway. The point is-"

"See what I mean? Youre not a truthful person."

"-the point is," Jay continues, stubbornly, "they think I know something about what happened to this woman, what happened in this bar, but I dont. Remember. I was drunk, or stoned, or drunk and stoned, or it didnt happen. I dont know, Vaughnie. I dont remember."

"Yeah, well. Memory, yo, seriously: What is it? The f.u.c.king consensus intersect of desire and regret."

"Or what I do remember doesnt, you know, add up to . . . this," Jay says ruefully. "What theyre . . ." He stops. What are they saying it adds up to? "Its all . . . I mean, it didnt even happen on the right day." He makes a sweeping gesture to the articles. "They keep talking February twelfth, but according to these stories, February twentieth, February twenty-second, this all happened like, eight, ten days later."

Vaughn, pus.h.i.+ng his empty plate away, makes the point that he thought Jay went out with her twice.

Jay: "Excuse me?"

"That I personally know of," Vaughn says, "that you told me about, but, um. For all I know it coulda been-"

Jay cuts him off. "Are you listening to me?"

"Im just saying."

"They dont even have the right day."

"Oh."

"I would remember. If I went out with her twice."

"Okay."

"I would."

"Hey," Vaughn says blithely. "Maybe youve fallen through a wormhole, man. Parallel universe. Or you went in one and came back out."

The shriek of the espresso machine allows them to sit back and regroup. A waiter refills Vaughns coffee and clears their plates. Jay hasnt touched his oatmeal. Glancing reflections of traffic fractures through the window. Someone at a table in the front laughs too loudly.

"They walk me through my life last year, day by day, but out of order," Jay says. "Like theyre trying to trap me or something. Catch me in a lie. So deliberately random that theres got to be a pattern, certain connections they want to make. Its gotta all fit, I mean, the details, and I keep trying to . . . figure out . . ." His voice trails off, suddenly bleak. "But my life was s.h.i.+t, wasnt it?"

"Everybodys life is s.h.i.+t."

"Youre wrong."

Vaughn says that thats why they invented heaven. "Well, oh, and for those few lucky p.r.i.c.ks whose lives arent s.h.i.+t?-the one percent, credit swap bulls.h.i.+t, or those Goldman Sachs sucks, billionaire IPO Net-head geekazoids and maybe supermodels with real b.r.e.a.s.t.s and anybody who works at Apple?-theres eternal h.e.l.l waiting for them, so it all, like, evens out." Vaughn frowns. "What is that?"

Jays got Stacys engagement ring out of his pocket; hes spinning it absently on the Formica, lost in thought. "I went out with the flower girl . . . twice?"

"I dont remember exactly," Vaughn lies, and looks away, guiltily, and seems like hes about to try to explain it, but Jays next soft statement stops him: "My brother and sister and my dad were murdered when I was eight."

Vaughn turns his eyes to Jay, mind clearly blown. What?

"Yeah. They never caught who did it."