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I gave that up long, long ago, Ms. Farrell.
Fieldman took a Magic Marker out of his suit pocket. He scratched out an address on a paper towel-the infamous 473 Winding Way-then balled it and gently tucked it down the front of Leah's dress.
He seemed to paused for a moment, then applied the marker to Leah's forehead. On it he wrote: BRING A DATE.
On the lobby screen, I watched Fieldman walk back out into the party, squeezing past hundreds of people shoveling food into their faces. No matter that they were all rich enough to sit at home and have a hundred Philly cheeseteaks delivered via limo without a second thought. The idea of hogging free food was too good to pass up.
Fieldman walked past the roasted pig, then paused. Nuts, I thought. He was collecting Brad again. True enough, within seconds, Brad appeared back in lobby. He scowled at me, then started to laugh.
“You're lucky a large percentage of guests at the party don't eat swine."
“I should have dumped your soul in a keg of beer,” I said.
“Don't go giving me any ideas, toilet-face.” Brad walked over to the lobby doors, then paused to turn. “Let me send a friend of yours back to keep you company."
As Brad walked through the doors, the Ghost of Fieldman materialized next to my pi
He started to pace around me, looking at the gizmo lodged in my chest. “I had no idea of the machine's adaptability. Tell me-to what extent does your soul feel the paralysis?"
“I'll make you a deal. I'll tell you how much this goddamn thing hurts if you tell me what Brad is pla
“This is quite amazing,” Fieldman said, then touched the gizmo. “It was never intended to anchor a soul-only push it, like a cattle prod. Can you move your arms?"
I responded by flipping him the bird.
“That would be an affirmative.” Fieldman stood up. He folded his arms and looked down at me with mock pity on his face. “You know, I could tell you more than what Brad is pla
“Because you exist out of time,” I said.
“The past, the present, the future… I see all dimensions at once."
“So,” I said. “Did you see me dumping Brad's ass into the roast pig?"
Fieldman didn't have anything to say that. That would be in the negative, I thought. “Okay, I give up. What is Brad going to do?"
“It doesn't matter, Collective. For you, this story is coming to a close."
“Then read me the last chapter."
“In less than twelve hours, you will undergo a profound and lasting change. You will question your immediate past, and by extension, your entire life. Everyone you know will be dead, or speeding away from you. You'll be covered in blood. You'll be trapped in a dead body. Your investigation will be over. Everything will be different."
“Couldn't you throw in a nuclear war or something, just for kicks?"
The Ghost of Fieldman laughed. “If you only knew."
I didn't like how this was going. The fact that I had a hunk of metal shoved where my astral perception of lungs should be didn't make me feel better, either. I decided to pick Fieldman's warped brain to see what angle he was working. After all, Buddha or not, he started out as an ordinary-well, almost ordinary-human being. There had to be something he wanted, enlightened or not.
“Where will you be in 12 hours?” I asked.
“Eating a luxurious breakfast with a breathtakingly beautiful woman, lounging over the morning paper. The meal will be soft-boiled eggs, with fresh croissants and six tiny jars of the freshest fruit preserves available. It will be the finest meal I've ever had. And then the new phase begins, and the woman and I will proceed to save the planet Earth from imminent destruction."
Good Lord. Did I actually think I could reason with a person so obviously insane? There was nothing he wanted, except to take me to the nut-hatch with him. My only option was to pass the time listening to Fieldman ooze psychotic verbal diarrhea until Brad returned. What would I do then? No idea. But I figured my chances had to be better with Brad. He might be a homicidal maniac hell-bent on avenging his dead wife, but he was still a reasonable human being.
Fieldman's attention had turned back to the reality on the lobby screen. “You might want to watch this, Collective,” he said. “This is going to be wonderful."
The worst part: Fieldman was right.
Brad, in our body, had finally spied Susa
“I was wondering where you went,” Susa
Brad cleared his throat. “I want to dance with you."
“Right now? There's nobody else dancing."
“There will be. There'll be plenty of dancing."
As if on cue-and come to think of it, it probably was-the freebie Big Band started to play the opening bars of “The Air That I Breathe.” Oh no, I thought. I searched the screen for a sign of Alison, but she was nowhere in sight. What the hell was Brad doing? Trying to drive his own wife nuts?
“This next one's a request,” said the band leader through a crackling, ti
Oh boy.
Brad grabbed Susa
“What are you doing, Paul?"
Brad didn't say a word. He forced her to rock back and forth in an awful parody of a slow dance.
“Paul, say something."
“I'm remembering this beautiful song."
“Yeah,” she said, nervously. “It's nice. But it doesn't explain why you're touching me like this."
“Do you remember the last time you heard this?"
“Not really."
“I do, Susa
Susa
“The last time I heard this song,” Brad continued, “I was in Woody Creek, Illinois. It had started playing on the radio, and I turned around to watch my wife blown away with a shotgun."
“Ohjesusgod,” Susa
“The last time I heard this song, I was beating the shit out of the guy who killed my wife, and I'd almost killed him when somebody stabbed me from behind."
Susa
“The last time I heard this inane fucking song, you took a stiletto and stabbed me in the back, and then stabbed me again in the chest, and in the arm, and in my ribs…” Brad shook her arms with every body part mentioned.
“No,” she said. “No, no, no…"
“And now I'm going to repay the favor, Lana."
Brad released her arms. Susa
“Absolute genius,” Fieldman said. “Better than he'd described it."