Doppelgangster - Laura Resnick [103]
“This one,” I said, “is breaking the rules. He’s trying to kill you. You must believe me. You’re in terrible danger.”
He frowned. “Who is it?”
“We don’t know yet. That’s what we’re trying to find out! It’s why we’re involved in this.”
“All right, now you’re going to listen to me.” He took my shoulders in his hands. “You’re a civilian. Max is a loon. You ignored me after I told you to stay out of this, and now you’ve gotten yourself right in the middle of a very dangerous situation. I’m taking you into protective custody. Max, too, God help me.”
A little while ago, I was ready to embrace protective custody with open arms, and to drag Max with me. But not now. “Not while this . . . this . . . this person is trying to kill you! I won’t go! And Max won’t go! He can help you! He’s probably the only one who can help you!”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I want you to listen to me. Just listen.” I took a steadying breath and tried to organize my thoughts. “Do you know anything about doppelgängers?”
19
“Me?” Lopez said, standing in the middle of the bookshop with his hands on his hips. “Me.”
“Yes,” I said. “Well, not you you. But your perfect double.”
I had done my best to explain what we knew, and what the danger was. I thought I had been methodical and cogent despite my agitation about the mortal danger he was in now. But while I talked, his expression went from impatient, to skeptical, to—at the moment—appalled.
“This . . . this crap,” he said, “that’s all over the floor and the chairs and the bookcases and your hair—”
“It’s in my hair?” Revolted by the thought of doppelgangster detritus in my hair, I started brushing at it with my hands.
“You’re saying it was a supernatural creature that looked and sounded exactly like me?”
“Yes.”
“And if I saw it, I’d be cursed with certain death?”
“Yes,” I said, relieved he was getting the picture.
“And Max beheaded it to save my life.”
“Yes.”
“Esther . . .” He shook his head. “What the fuck is in the coffee that Max gives you here?”
I sighed. “I’ve seen these . . . these things. With my own eyes. Lucky has seen them, too.”
“Lucky drinks the coffee here, too, doesn’t he?”
“Danny Dapezzo saw his doppelgangst—uh, doppelgänger before he died.”
“And by amazing coincidence,” Lopez said, “Danny shared food and drink with Max the night before.”
I blinked. “How did you know that?”
“Wiseguys never do anything that doesn’t involve a ton of food.”
“Oh.” I said, “But what about Charlie? And Johnny?”
“Charlie was mentally ill, you’re obviously confused about when you saw Johnny, and Max has planted a lot of crazy ideas in your head.”
“So you just think I’m a gullible idiot?”
He avoided answering that. “I don’t know much about toxicology. I’ve never worked narcotics. But it sounds to me like Max must be slipping you a whole smorgasbord of hallucinogenics.”
“Max isn’t drugging anyone!” I said in exasperation.
He pulled his cell phone out of his jacket. “I’m going to have this place searched.”
I thought of the laboratory downstairs. “No!”
“If there’s nothing here, then they won’t find anything.” His voice was professionally soothing as he dialed a number on his phone.
I leaped forward and knocked the phone out of his hand, startling him. “I will not be the cause of you violating Max’s privacy!” Or the cause of Max getting locked up after they found weird things in his lab that couldn’t easily be explained away. Especially not with Lopez so suspicious of him already.
Angry now, Lopez said, “You just told me you watched Max cut off ‘my’ head tonight, and then ‘I’ exploded all over the room! Do you really want to go on another trip like that, Esther?”
“I wasn’t tripping!”
“Do you want him doing this to someone else, too?”
“He’s not drugging anyone! Why won’t you believe me?”
“Do you hear how crazy you sound?”
“Yes, I do! Do you honestly think I’d even talk to you about this if your life weren’t at stake?” Frustrated, I said, “Max wants to protect you! And me! Why