Devil's Plaything - Matt Richtel [47]
I call Pauline.
“Do you have a comfortable couch?” I ask.
“I thought you were babysitting your grandmother.”
“The couch is for her. I’ll take a bar stool. I’m thirsty.”
She’s quiet for a moment.
“I can roll with that.”
“See you in an hour.”
We hang up.
Grandma opens her eyes.
I look at her, square.
“Are you flirting with someone?” she asks.
I feel my face redden. “Lane, it’s time for you to see the Witch.”
The Pastime Bar, aptly named, keeps a jukebox in the corner that looks like it belongs in a 1950s diner and with music from the same era. Cracks line the red bar stools. The wooden tables and chairs, scarred with scuffs from beer mugs and the occasional knife etching, wouldn’t sell on Craigslist, at any price.
As Lane and I walk in, the old jukebox rattles with a Buddy Holly song, skipping every few beats.
In the corner of the bar, right where they spend most of their nights, sit Bullseye and Samantha, an odder couple than if Felix had gotten a sex change and married Oscar.
Bullseye, so named because he once recklessly threw a dart and hit a waitress, is a master logician, a former Chevron gas station owner who made enough to retire early and spend his time with his avocations: math, puzzles, baseball statistics, and computers—and speaking as little as possible to make his point. His capacity to focus on facts and figures at the expense of social niceties probably borders on a neurological condition. He is most animated when he’s behind the wheel of his meticulously restored ’72 Cadillac, fins in the back, dice hanging from the front mirror, fully functional eight-track tape player, and polished red leather seats that make you not feel guilty about being in gas-guzzling American cars.
His wife, Samantha, my witch, his emotional polar opposite, sits next to him, dressed in an elaborate lion costume. Her face is painted with whiskers, and she wears a brilliant orange scarf for a mane.
“It’s not as easy as you think to rule the Serengeti,” she says when she sees me. “It’s not easy to always be feared.”
Every year before Halloween, Samantha spends time dressed up in a costume. She says she is trying to embody the spirit of the person, entity, or creature she is imitating.
“Have you got a Sherlock Holmes costume I could borrow?” I ask.
“Whoa, someone’s chi is foul,” she says.
Bullseye glances at me, and he and I nod hello. Samantha takes in Grandma. “Lane,” she exclaims.
“It’s the woman with the hot hands,” Grandma says to me. “She dressed up like an animal. I admire that.”
“You remember me,” Sam says to Grandma, then turns to me. “I gave her a shiatsu treatment a few months ago at the home. She remembers my touch.”
I nod, feeling surprised and happy that Grandma recognizes someone she’s seen once before.
“Would you like some energy work?” Sam asks Grandma.
“I had an uncle who worked for the utility in Utah,” she responds.
“Not that kind of energy, darling,” Sam says. She looks at me. “You have a lot to tell us. Don’t laugh when I say this: your energy is weird right now, like you’re surrounded in yellow.”
“Reality is running amok. Is yellow the color if you’re involved in some bizarre life-threatening conspiracy?”
Sam looks at me and tilts her head, not sure how seriously to take me, then puts her hands on Grandma’s shoulders and rubs. Grandma closes her eyes and purrs. I tell the story of the last two days. Sam and Bullseye listen quietly but intently. In fact, when I come to the part about the encrypted computer thumb drive I received in the mail, Bullseye actually turns away from the television altogether. But he doesn’t ask questions. Neither of them does, until I finish.
“Lane, can you tell me about the man in blue?” Sam asks.
Grandma opens her eyes. “I just call him that in my head,” she says.
I sit upright.
“Why do you call him that?” Sam asks.
“Who?”
“The man in blue? Why do you call him that?”
“He wears a mask,” she responds. She says it in a tone that suggests this answer should be obvious.
“Like a Halloween costume? Was he dressed all in blue? Like a . . .”