Dead Ringers (4 page)

Lili picked up a French fry and pointed it at Tess. “Like three weeks ago, one of my students told me she had been to this art gallery opening in the Back Bay and one of the artists looked exactly like me.”

Tess frowned. “That sort of thing … I mean, lots of people—”

“Since then, at least four other people have mentioned going to this gallery and seeing this artist who's apparently my double, right down to my voice. At first I chalked it up to most non-Indians being unable to tell one Indian woman from another, but after the fourth person, I did start to wonder.”

Splitting fish with her fork, Tess glanced up at her. “It's a little creepy, right?”

Lili gave a half shrug. “Actually, I thought it was sort of cool until you told me
your
story. Now it's definitely on the freaky-deaky side. I was going to swing by the gallery this weekend, but—”

“Let's go tonight,” Tess said, lifting a hand to hide the fact that she was talking with her mouth full.

“Tonight?”

“I've got the sitter till midnight. Is the place open Thursdays, do you think?”

Lili pulled out her cell. “Plenty of foot traffic on Newbury Street in September, so I'd guess yes, but it's easy enough to find out,” she said, typing away at the phone. “Problem is, it'll be at least eight thirty before we can get there, maybe closer to nine even if we skip coffee.…” She hesitated, reading something off the little screen. “Okay, they're open until nine o'clock on Thursdays and Fridays.”

Tess had just forked another bite of blackened mahi into her mouth. She washed it down with a gulp of Newcastle, enjoying the burn of the spices and the cool earthiness of the ale. Now she raised a hand to wave Alonso over.

“Let's try to make it. I'm intrigued. And my back is stiff as hell. I need to walk more.”

“Why not?” Lili said good-naturedly. “We haven't been on an adventure in a while.”

Alonso came over and put his hands on his hips. “Another round, ladies?”

“Actually, can we get the check?” Tess asked. “Turns out we have to be somewhere.”

“Oh, sure,” Alonso replied. “I'll get you squared away.”

He frowned a moment, then returned to his cash register to print up their bill.

“That was pretty adorable,” Lili said quietly, rooting in her purse for something.

“What was?”

Lili pulled out a pen and a business card and began scribbling on the back. “You really didn't notice? Handsome Alonso is very disappointed that you're in a rush to leave.”

Tess shushed her as Alonso came back with the bill. She'd already slipped out her American Express card and she handed it to him without looking at the total.

“What are you doing?” Lili asked.

“Finishing my dinner,” Tess replied, digging into what remained of her dinner.

“I'm pretty sure it's my turn to pay,” Lili argued.

“You're paying for the cab over to the gallery. We don't have time to take the T and you know I never have cash for anything more than coffee.”

Lili raised her eyebrows. “True enough,” she said, and went back to her black bean burger. She would never have eaten more than two-thirds of it anyway, so Tess didn't feel too badly about hurrying things along.

Alonso brought back her Amex card and the receipt for her signature. She smiled at him but while she was signing, Lili held out a business card to him.

“Her number's on the back,” Lili said. “You should call her.”

Alonso blinked in surprise and his brilliant smile returned. “That's not how this usually works … getting a woman's phone number, I mean.”

“Call it divine intervention,” Lili replied, lifting her chin. “You didn't look like you were going to ask and she's too preoccupied to offer. You'd both regret it later, and that would be a shame, don't you think?”

Tess had gone rigid on the barstool as the blood drained from her face. Caught between horror and amusement, she could only stare at Lili and then at Alonso, and then she laughed softly, shaking her head.

“It would be a shame,” Alonso said. “But I guess that depends on what Tess thinks.”

Tess thought about her scars and how they looked when she studied them in the bathroom mirror, thought about how long it had been since she had been naked with a man. Somehow she managed to affect an air of nonchalance. “Tess wouldn't be averse.”

Lili rolled her eyes. “She doesn't usually talk about herself in the third person.”

“Well,” Tess replied, “she figures since we're all talking about her as if she isn't here…”

A customer called to him from farther along the bar and Alonso put up a finger to indicate he'd be right there.

“Alonso doesn't mind a little third person,” he said, studying her closely. “He thinks we could all use a little shift in perspective now and then.”

Saluting Lili with the sneaky business card, he slipped the rectangle of cardboard into his front pocket before turning to Tess one last time. “He will be calling. And he hopes she'll answer.”

He went off down the bar and they watched him go.

“I like him,” Lili said.

“He does seem to have his charms,” Tess agreed, but really she wanted to hurry out of the bar, to hide and pretend the flirtation had never happened. She could feel the way her bra strap always slid and tugged against the smooth, opalescent scar tissue on her shoulder and the strange numbness of the remaining muscle around her diminished left breast, where the surgeon's repairs had left an odd indent in her flesh.

“No,” Lili said. “I mean I like him. If you don't want him, send him my way.”

Tess glanced at her. “You're welcome to him, but you have a boyfriend, Lilandra. Just, y'know, in case you forgot.”

“I didn't forget,” Lili said with a sniff and a tightening around her mouth. “But Steven did. Several times, according to the nurse he's been sleeping with. She works at the Jimmy Fund Clinic, though, so how can I hate her, right? She treats kids with cancer. In the movie of my life, she's got to be the protagonist, right? Which must make me the evil bitch.”

Lili slid her plate away from her, clearly no longer hungry.

“Oh, shit, Lil,” Tess began. “Steven's such an idiot.”

“I'm fine,” Lili said. “I waited to tell you in person so we could be drinking at the time. She showed up at my apartment on Saturday morning. Cute girl. Twenty-five. She had zero interest in being anybody's ‘other woman,' and it turns out, neither did I.”

Tess felt deflated. Ever since she'd spotted Not-Nick on the street, her brain and body had been operating in some kind of heightened state that gave a surreal quality to the world around her. Something about that encounter had set her off-balance. It had just felt wrong—off-kilter—and with Lili's story about her art gallery double, she'd felt like she had stepped through the looking glass into a place that looked the same as the world she knew but contained subtle and sinister differences.

All of that had been pure fantasy, and this cold splash of reality had brought that home.

“Damn it, Lili, I'm sorry,” she said, taking her friend's hand. “Maybe we should just order another drink. It doesn't have to be here. We can—”

“Screw that,” Lili said, standing up and pulling on her jacket. “We can drink anywhere. I've gotta see if this chick really does have my face.”

Tess drained the last of her pint. She nearly dropped her jacket as Lili took her hand and tugged her toward the door, though she did spare a glance at Alonso as she left. Today had been filled with thoughts of her past and she liked the idea of thinking about the future.

On the sidewalk, she and Lili linked arms and waved madly at the first taxi they saw. The girls out on the town. Though they were hardly
girls
anymore.

As they piled into the backseat, Lili giving the driver instructions, Tess had the urge to blurt out a different address—anywhere but this Newbury Street art gallery. Meeting Not-Nick had been weird enough. If the artist at the gallery really turned out to be a perfect double for Lili … Tess thought she might rather not know.

But they were on their way. The taxi's engine rumbled and the chilly night air blew through the half-open windows as the storefronts and human sidewalk traffic blurred by in a familiar rhythm. During the day, the city was so familiar—she thought she knew every brick and turn. At night, though, it seemed almost like another place entirely. A place where anything might happen.

 

THREE

Frank had no idea where the guy had gotten handcuffs, but he knew where the handgun had come from. A nine millimeter SIG Sauer, it had rested in a shoe box on the top shelf of the closet in his parents' bedroom for at least a decade. Had the man with his face found the gun just by searching, or had he already known where he ought to look? Did having Frank's face mean he knew what Frank knew?

Don't be an idiot,
he thought.
That's just stupid.

But was it? How much more outrageous was that idea than the reality of this guy having his face? Frank had been handcuffed to the round, pitted metal iron support column in his own basement for three days, and theories that had seemed ridiculous on Monday somehow did not seem quite as absurd as Thursday wound to a close. Not when he was naked from the waist down in a cold basement, surrounded by concrete and boxes of old tax files and rusting tools from the days when his father would actually visit the workbench down here.

The cuffs might be stolen from somewhere, or purchased from some law enforcement surplus or online vendor. Frank had tested them enough to know they weren't chintzy sex shop handcuffs. He'd used his weight and leveraged himself against the pole, trying to break the chain between the cuffs. Kept at it until his wrists bled and even then he had tried to use the blood as a lubricant to slide his hands out. They weren't coming off, and he couldn't risk further injury, or an infection.

Unless the fucker decided to let him go—which didn't seem likely—the best he could hope for was that his captor would make a mistake that would allow Frank to get the drop on him. He had this fantasy that his double would leave a fork behind and he could bend all but one of the tines, using that last one to pick the lock on the cuffs, but the logistics were impossible. Even if he could hide a fork and have the guy forget about it, and even if he had the skill to pick the handcuff lock, his hands were behind him and the pole made it impossible for him to maneuver so that he could see them. If he was a fucking ninja or something, or Batman, he could pull it off.

But he wasn't Batman. Or a ninja.

Exhaling, he slumped back against the pole. The blanket under his bare ass provided little protection from the chill of the hard concrete floor. He'd given up being ashamed of his nakedness on the second day, realizing that the guy holding him prisoner probably had exactly the same junk as he had. But the humiliation stayed, burning inside him, keeping him angry. He thought anger would come in handy when
the moment
arrived.

The moment
. The very idea of it had weight and heft. Concept as weapon. Despite being fed, inactivity was taking its toll, weakening him. With no way to escape the cuffs, he had to act during one of the times—early morning, dinnertime, and late at night—when his double came down to bring him food. He would descend the stairs with a tray of food in one hand and Frank's father's gun in the other. Setting the tray down, he would toss Frank the key to the cuffs. Frank would unlock the cuffs while the guy stood eight feet away with the gun barrel pointed at his chest.

Near the washer and dryer was a big plastic bucket that was all Frank had for a toilet. At gunpoint, he relieved himself into the bucket, wiped himself with toilet paper that had been there when he'd first regained consciousness, and then he ate whatever the bastard had brought down on the tray. The food was never much—cereal in milk, a peanut butter sandwich—but it would keep him alive. The man allowed Frank five minutes to eat, then forced him to cuff his own hands behind the pole again. Gun in hand, he'd come over and tighten them, make sure there was no wiggle room.

Every time his double came into the room, Frank watched his gun hand, knowing his only chance was to lunge, try to grab his wrist, and fight him for the gun.

Every time his double came into the room, Frank felt himself grow a little weaker, and he knew that eventually he would be too weak to have any chance of wrestling that gun away. His fear of that imminent weakness kept increasing, and soon it would be stronger than his fear of the gun. That would be
the moment
 … the now-or-never moment when he had to act, or all hope would be lost.

Frank leaned his head back against the post. A little too hard. Did it a second time because the pain and shock of it made him strangely alert. The ringing in his head, the radiating pain, made him grit his teeth. He inhaled deeply, remembering too late the stink in the cellar. His double emptied the bucket and rinsed it out during his second visit of the day, but the smell of shit and piss permeated the concrete by now, and Frank's own body odor didn't help. Days without shaving or bathing had him so gritty and stale that his skin crawled if he let himself think about it.

He missed bathing even more than he missed the softness of his bed and the smell of fresh air and the warmth of clothing—clean clothing especially.

It surprised him, really. When he'd first woken up chained to the support column, he'd been sure it would be the booze he missed most. He'd figured going without it would unravel him. In some ways it had—the need had been gut deep, and as painful as true grief, and he'd had the sweats all through Tuesday night and Wednesday—but he hadn't puked and he hadn't tried to sell his soul to the devil. Part of him thought the reason he hadn't gone for the bastard's gun yet was not hope for an easier option but relief. Imprisoned, all choice had been taken away from him. The option to get drunk was not on the table. Maybe he was a little bit grateful.