PALINDROME (7 page)

“No. My eyes have always been blue.”

“Blue, really?”

Now what?
This was really starting to
creep me out. “What does this mean?”

“It’s possible for one eye to change color
but it’s usually the other way around; hazel eyes have a tendency
to change, but a blue eye changing to hazel, that’s very
uncommon.”

I was still staring into the mirror. One eye
was still blue and the other was not. “This is freaking me
out.”

“Don’t get nervous. Eye color can change. The
traits that determine eye color are many and varied. The
concentration of melanin can rise or fall during our lives, and
that can affect many things, including your eye color. Still, I’m
surprised that you didn’t notice the left one changing; it’s a
pretty marked difference. You never noticed it while you were
putting on your makeup?”

“
No.”

He leaned in for a closer look. “Your eyes
look healthy. If you had dark rings around the iris I would tell
you to visit an ophthalmologist, but your irises are light and
even, and there’s nothing to worry about.”

“What would dark rings mean?”

“It could be a sign of liver disease, but I
see no evidence of that here. You haven’t been in an accident have
you? Sometimes trauma can have a sudden impact on eye color.”

I was still looking into the mirror when his
words resonated with me. Trauma. I hadn’t been in accident per se
but the changes, all the changes, the way I studied my subject’s
eyes and copied them down to a micron, forcing them to be the color
I needed them to be, certainly that was trauma.

“I can recommend a very good ophthalmologist
if you need one. You should go, if only to put your mind at ease.
Better to err on the side of—”

“Neurosis?”

“That’s funny: neurosis. I’ll have to
remember that one.” He reached into his drawer and handed me a
business card. “I recommend Dr. Avery very highly. Go see him if
you’re concerned.”

I didn’t need a doctor, highly recommended or
otherwise. I stared in the mirror again and knew exactly where the
hazel eye had come from; it wasn’t mine, it was Allie’s.

Nine: Blue Mood Rising

It
was dark when Ax finally came home.
I had so much to share with him, so much I needed to convey. I had
been rehearsing for hours, trying to determine how to get the
message across without sending him into a panic. My brother was a
worrier. He looked at things much more deeply than I did. He was
the conscience. He was the straight arrow. With Ax, it was black or
it was white. It was good or bad. There was no middle ground, and
there would be no middle ground tonight.

I had the lights switched off. Ax opened the
door into a silent, darkened home. He stood in the doorway sniffing
the air, savoring it for the slightest nuance, like Hannibal Lecter
upon his first visit from Clarice Starling. “You use Evyan skin
cream, and sometimes you wear L’Air du Temps, but not today. Today
you are determinedly un-perfumed.” Yes, Ax was that good. He was
CIA Special Ops good. He was a ninja and a warrior and could rely
on any of one of his finely tuned senses for strategic detail.

“Why are you smoking?” Ax closed the door and
switched on the lights. “If you’ve got to do that, could you please
do it outside and not destroy my lungs too.”

“I only had one.”

He approached me and sat down next to me on
the worn leather sofa that we had scored from Craigslist.
“Cigarettes, sitting in the dark, and wearing sunglasses. Let me
guess, bad day?”

“Awful.”

“Tell me about it. What happened at the
attorney’s office?” Ax tucked his legs, assuming the lotus
position. He always did that when he needed to concentrate. “I’m
waiting. Did Cooper’s attorney give you a tough time?”

“On the contrary. He was very nice.”

“They wanted to plea?”

“Yeah, I’m the end-all and the be-all of
legal opponents. We dismissed the case, and they gave me a big fat
check for my trouble. I kicked ass!”

“That’s not what we discussed.”

“Who cares what we discussed. This worked out
better.”

“You couldn’t call me before you gave them a
decision? You couldn’t excuse yourself for two minutes so that we
could talk this through together?”

“I couldn’t think. They offered me fifty
thousand dollars; all the brain cells devoted to logic died at
once.”

“
What?”

“They gave us fifty grand to keep quiet.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t ask. You know that expression about
not looking a gift horse in the mouth.”

Ax was so upset that he shot off the couch
and began to pace. “Where does a guy like Cooper get that kind of
money?”

“I don’t know. You did the research. You said
he doesn’t have any money. You said that story about being a cell
phone heir was all bullshit.”

“It is. I checked him out thoroughly. We
figured no one would miss him if he spent a few nights in jail.
This is not good.”

“Why are you so bent out of shape?”

“What do you mean ‘why am I getting so bent
out of shape?’ How can we take that kind of money, not knowing
where it came from? We just framed a guy for attempted rape and
have another body cooling in his apartment on the other side of
town.”

“I bought new sunglasses.”

“Changing subjects are we? I can see you have
new sunglasses. Very nice.” Ax’s comment was dismissive. It was not
flattery.

“I figured we’re fifty grand richer, what the
hell, let’s go on a shopping spree.”

“So now what, you’re being evasive? I need
some fresh air. I need to think.” Ax started to walk toward the
door.

“No, don’t go.”

“I won’t be long. I need to concentrate, and
I can’t think in this smelly apartment with you sitting there with
your sunglasses on like some kind of eccentric recluse.”

“I have to show you something before you
leave.” I took off the new sunglasses.

Ax was unnerved and unfocused. “What? What do
you want to show me?” I pointed to my left eye. He leaned over and
examined it. Then he backed away a little to compare it to the
right. “Now I understand why you’re wearing the dark glasses.”

“Did this ever happen to you before?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“But you’re not sure?”

“Not one hundred percent. I don’t vex over
the eyes like you do. I get them as close as I can without losing
my mind. But you, you’re a fanatic. You have to copy the iris like
it’s the blueprint for a microchip.”

“Who knew I would have trouble changing back.
Like I said, I don’t think it ever happened before.”

“There’s so much we don’t understand about
this. It’s not as if there’s a textbook we can read. You and I,
we’re one of a kind. I mean we talk about this all the time—we
worry that one day, one of us will change and not be able to change
back. You even joke about it. You told me just this afternoon about
the weirdoes you saw in Toontown, and how it frightens you that one
day you’ll get stuck in a body like that. I mean we have to
consider the possibility, and now with this . . .” Ax was getting
worked up, which was very uncommon for my Zen brother. “We’ll have
to think long and hard before we copy anyone again. I mean we might
get stuck like that forever.”

“Now you’re the one who’s getting
paranoid.”

“We can’t treat this like a game anymore, not
after this. We’re getting older. As we age, our bodies lose
flexibility. We lose resiliency. Maybe this is the end of the line.
Maybe we’re too old.”

“Well, if this is the end of the line, I’m
going out as Scarlett Johansson. That girl has the looks, the
money, and the body guys die for.”

“You don’t have enough body mass to copy her
exquisite rear end.”

“I’ll put on a few. Nothing’s
impossible.”

“What about me?”

I suggest you take a run at Zac Efron.”

“Too pretty. I’m more of a Taylor Lautner
kind of guy.”

“Solid choice. It has nothing to with his
ability to become a wolf, does it? You’re not jealous, are
you?”

“I can’t believe we’re laughing about
this.”

“What do you want me to do? I look like a
circus sideshow attraction.”

“Maybe you just need a little help.”

“What do you mean?”

“A little Chinese medicine, something to help
the body relax.”

“I don’t like to take anything, you know
that.”

“Now, we’ve talked about this.”

“Let me sleep on it. Maybe all I need is a
good night’s rest.”

“Maybe. I’m still going out for a walk. I
still need to think about the money and where it came from.”

“Do you want company?

“Sure, okay, what do I ever do without
you?”

“Pee.”

“That’s about the only boundary you
respect.”

“Let’s face it, brother of mine: we’re
close.”

Ten: Dirty Work

Shawn
Riley was not a lucky man. There
was the whole soccer thing gone bad, the steroid abuse, the heroin
addiction, expulsion from school, falling in with the wrong element
in order to feed the monkey on his back, and so on and so forth. He
was like the Antichrist; storm clouds would gather on the sunniest
day as soon as he stepped outside. Open freeways would grind to a
halt the moment he put his key in the ignition. It had taken him
two and half hours for a one-hour ride out to Shinnecock Bay and
the section of the cove he knew was always deserted. Lightning
crackled as he dragged Vincent’s body out of the trunk. The spade
handle broke when the grave was just a foot deep, and he had to dig
the rest on his knees with his hands choked up around the spade.
Six feet never felt so deep.

He shot dope shortly after getting there to
take away the nausea. He put his head back against the sandy mound
that was growing next to the grave and passed out. He woke up when
his cell phone rang. It began to pour.

“Yeah?” he answered.

“Hey, World Cup, how’s it going?” Cooper
asked.

“That’s not funny. You know how much that
hurts me.”

“Sorry. Uh, how’s it going?”

“I’m living the dream, man, how do you think
it’s going? I’m out here in the pitch black, digging a grave in the
pouring rain. Life’s a bowl of cherries.”

“You have to make sure that body is never
found. Don’t do a half-ass job and bury him where someone’s dog
will find the body.”

“Don’t you worry about the body being
found—you just take care of your end.”

“I’ve already scored your junk. I’ll meet you
in the morning.”

“Early!”

“What’s the rush? I gave you enough for a
week.”

Shawn laughed. “It was a short week,
man
, what can I tell you?”

“All right, I’ll meet you in the parking lot
outside Best Buy at 9:00 a.m.”

“Best Buy, which one?”

“Bayshore, off Sunrise Highway; you know
where it is. You take care of the other thing?”

Shawn paused. His brain was still dull from
the recent heroin spike, and he needed time to string his thoughts
together. “No good.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I couldn’t follow her.”

“What happened? Did you lose her in a
high-speed chase?” Cooper said sarcastically. “I mean how hard is
it to follow a pretty little girl in a BMW?”

“Look, I waited for her outside the Legal Aid
office just like you said. I was there almost two hours when she
finally came out and went straight into the bathroom.”

“So she had to take a leak; so what?”

“Listen, ballbuster, she never came out. I
waited almost fifteen minutes and nothing. I finally knocked on the
door and went in. You should’ve seen some of the looks the women
gave me in there. You would’ve thought I was some kind of child
molester.”

“And?”

“And nothing, she wasn’t in there.”

“C’mon, man, that doesn’t make sense. Were
you wasted or something? You didn’t pass out waiting for her, did
you? You sure she didn’t slip out while you were in Never Never
Land?”

“No, I didn’t pass out. If it wasn’t for the
fact that we were on the third floor, I would’ve checked to make
sure she didn’t go out the bathroom window.”

“So where did she go?”

“I’m telling you, asshole, the girl went in
and she never came out. I don’t know what else to tell you. You
want to give it a rest? Maybe you want to get your lazy ass down
here and help me dig this hole in the pouring rain—how about
that?”

“Just dig that grave deep enough so that the
body’s never found, or tomorrow I’ll be a no-show and you can find
someone else to score your dope.”

“Hey, don’t you pull that shit with me,
Cooper.”

“Just dig the grave, asshole.”

“Eat me.”

“Just dig the goddamn grave!”

Eleven: This is a Surprise

Ax
had cleared out of the house before
I woke up. As usual, he did not leave a note. He was probably at
the dojo training or instructing. He lived and breathed the martial
arts. He never filled me in on his schedule, so I rarely knew where
he was. All I knew was that he was always there for me when I
needed him; the rest of the time was a mystery. He never
volunteered and I never questioned him. Our arrangement had always
worked out well.

Nine hours of sleep did not do the trick. My
left and right eyes were still strangers: the right eye, the one I
knew and loved, and the left eye, Allie’s eye, the hazel one, the
one I didn’t want. I stared at the mirror and focused on my blue
eye. I tried to make the hazel one match it, but it didn’t happen.
My powers were still intact. I made my left ear smaller and my nose
wider. I was able to reverse the changes at will, but that one
lousy hazel eye had settled in for the duration. I made my jaw
square like a man’s and changed it back. I changed my hair color
from auburn to blonde and then back again, so I knew that I had
control over pigmentation. I tried to work on my left eye again,
nothing.