The Syndrome (41 page)

“Hey,” she said, “wait a minute!”

Her feet were scrabbling for purchase, more or less bouncing up the cement steps, her ankles and shins barking painfully on the edges. Then they were out in the air, and he was hustling her down the alley toward the ocean, moving so fast that she was barely in contact with the ground.

That’s when the sound came—a rolling growl that exploded into a concussive
whummmmp
, followed by a pressure drop that made her ears pop. Then the air behind them dissolved into a cloud of fiery foam, ballooning outwards. Now, she was running on her own, the heat surging at her back. Not till they reached the beach did it seem safe to stop. Turning, they saw a column of fire roaring through the roof of the house.

“But … how did you know?” she asked.

“You saw the light … the candle … get brighter—right?”

She nodded.

“Propane’s heavier than air, so it lays on the floor, and it just sorta … builds up. They had the candle up in the elevated crawl space, so when the gas reached the flame, a lot of it had accumulated. You saw how the flame went out; that’s because there was no oxygen left. It was all gas. We were lucky.”

Duran’s attention was reclaimed by the house. There were new sounds now, sharp cracks as the windows exploded, the
shriek of metal coming apart in the heat. Every once in a while, a fresh roar told them that the fire had discovered new territory, new fuel. Then they heard an enormous siren wail, summoning the volunteer firefighters.

Adrienne started to shiver, from cold or shock, she couldn’t be sure.
They tried to kill us both
, she thought.
They turned on the gas, and shut off the pilot light. Or something.
A column of sparks blasted into the air.
Then they lighted a candle, as if it were a mass. That’s what I heard
, she thought,
the noise in the cellar. And then they checked—they checked to make sure I was there.

“They tried to kill us,” she said, her voice dull, her face flushed from the fire.

Duran nodded.

He put his arm around her and, together, they walked back toward the house. There were sirens all over town now, wailing closer. Suddenly, Duran tensed, stopped, and slapped his hips. Then he smiled with relief. “Car keys,” he said.

It was getting hotter now. In the intervals between the houses, they could see the first fire truck roaring down the street, siren screaming, lights whirling. The sky fluttered with the wheeling lights—yellow, red, yellow, red. They walked past a man whose pajama bottoms were visible below the puffy parka he wore. He stood with his arm around a woman in a bathrobe and furry slippers. They were staring at the house as Adrienne and Duran walked by. “Like a torch,” the man said, his voice hushed. Then a part of the roof collapsed, falling into the house with a soft thud that sent up geysers of fire and sparks.

Duran unlocked the door to the car, and flicked the button inside. Adrienne heard the snap of the locks as she stood there, staring at what was now an architectural skeleton, with flames dancing along its blackened ribs. The temperature must have been 130 degrees on one side of the street, and 35 on the other.

Duran got out and came around to open the door for her, his feet crunching in the gravel. As he reached for the door’s
handle, he cursed and yanked his hand away. “Slide in the driver’s side,” he told her. “The door’s like an oven.”

As they drove away, she turned in the seat, and said, “I think the police station’s somewhere around the water tower.”

“We’re not going there,” he told her.

She looked at him as if he were insane (which, of course, was a theory). “We have to,” she insisted. “We can’t just keep running around—”

“It’s better we don’t go there,” he said, turning onto the highway out of town.

“Why?”

“Because we’re better off dead.”

She turned her head, and looked at his reflection in the window. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“I mean, if they think they killed us, that’s good. We’ll live longer that way.”

“It won’t work,” she announced.

“What won’t?”

“Playing dead.”

Duran adjusted the rearview mirror, dimming the sunrise. “Why not?”

“Because the car’s gone. Which suggests we weren’t in the house. And the newspapers will say no one was killed.”

Duran shrugged. “At least it gives us a day.”

Another couple of miles rolled by, and Adrienne turned to Duran. “So let’s go to Washington,” she said.

“Why?”

“Because we have time, and because I want to go to my apartment. Get some things.”

He gave her a skeptical look.

“You
said
it gave us a day.”

“Yeah, but … what if I’m wrong? I mean, I don’t even know how they found us in the first place.”

“I do,” Adrienne told him.

Duran gave her a suspicious look. “You do? How?”

“You told them.”

“I what? Told who?”

“You told them where we were,”
she said. “You were online … in a chat room or something.”

Duran glanced at her, to see if she was kidding. But she wasn’t. She was dead serious. “What are you talking about?” he asked.

“The night before last. You scared the hell out of me.”

“I did?”

“You were on some crazy Web site. All these images were flashing by, and then … it was like one of those instant messages on AOL.”

“What!?”

“Trust me.”

“So … what did it say?”

It was her turn to shrug. “I don’t know: good morning, or something.”

“That’s
it
?”

She shook her head. “No. It said: ‘Hello Jeffrey.’ Then it asked where you were. And you typed something.”

“What did I type?”

“I don’t know. It didn’t come up on the screen. But they asked, and you answered. You could have given them the zip code and parking directions, for all I know.”

“Get out!”

“I’m serious,” she insisted.

“Why didn’t you stop me?”

“I tried! And it was like … I don’t know. It was like you were gone.
Way
gone. I had to call Doctor Shaw.”

“What?!”

“I was afraid of you! So he hypnotized you over the phone,” she told him. “You don’t remember this?”

Duran shook his head, thinking,
It didn’t happen. Or I’d remember it. Because my short-term memory is fine. Shaw said so. Which means Adrienne’s lying or … there’s more than one me. Jekyll and Hyde. MPD. Christ
—The dashboard emitted a warning beep, and his eyes went to the gas gauge. “We have to stop,” he told her.

They found a Gas ’N Stuff somewhere near Bridgeville but couldn’t get the pump to accept Duran’s MasterCard. Duran turned to Adrienne for help, which made her blanch because “My purse was in the house! I don’t have a dime!”

He called the 800 number on the back of his credit card, punched in the account number, and hit the voice-mail option that was supposed to inform him of the card’s “available credit.” Instead, a recorded voice told him that his account had been “frozen,” and that he should stay on the line for a “customer service” representative. He did, and was told that his card had been reported stolen. “We’ll have a new one to you in … maybe two or three working days. It’s in the pipeline.”

Duran couldn’t believe it. “Look,” he said, “I have the card, right here. It’s in
my hand.
I didn’t report it stolen.”

“Someone did.”

“Ask me my mother’s maiden name.”

“That’s not something—”

“You’ve got validating questions. Use them!”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Duran, but once a card is reported stolen, a new one has to be issued.”

“Look. I’ve got like—” He glanced in his wallet. “Two bucks on me. I’m outta town. I’m outta gas. Isn’t there any way—”

“No.”

“What?”

“I’m sorry—there’s nothing we can do. You’ll just have to wait for the new one.”

Returning to the car, Duran pumped $2.28 worth of gas, and explained to Adrienne what had happened. “The bank fucked up,” he told her.

She shook her head. “It doesn’t sound like it. That’s what they do when someone reports a stolen card.”

“Yeah, but—”

“I wonder who did it …”

The way she said it, it almost sounded as if she thought he’d done it himself. And maybe he had.

They got as far as the Beltway before the dashboard beeped a second time, and the fuel light snapped on. Adrienne directed Duran along a complex route that took them past the Capitol, and up 16th St. They were less than a mile from her apartment when the car began to lurch, and the engine died. With the help of a couple of Latinos who were waiting for a bus, they pushed the Dodge into a loading zone on the edge of Meridian Hill Park.

“What happened to your car, man? You smash it up and then drive through a fire?”

The trunk, dented from the Comfort Inn parking lot collision, was something Adrienne was already obsessing about. She’d heard it could be a real hassle when you dented a rental car. She didn’t like to lie, but she’d told Duran that under no circumstances should he admit that he was driving. That could really tangle things up.

Now she followed Duran around to the passenger side, where his new friends were shaking their heads over the paint job. Which was … puckered.

“Son of a bitch!” Duran muttered.

“You need some bodywork, my friend.” The Latino began to fish through his pockets. “Let me give you my card—I give you a good price.”

“It’s a rental,” Adrienne moaned.

“For real?” the first guy said, shaking his head. “Oh, man.
They going to
bleed you
.” Both men ran their fingers over the car door, and shook their heads sadly.

Adrienne was writing out a note, which she stuck under the windshield wiper. Stood back. Repositioned it. Said: “They’ll give me a ticket anyway.”

The Latinos chuckled. “They gonna tow your ass.”

Duran had to work to keep up with Adrienne’s quick march to her apartment. Fearful of a ticket or, worse, a tow truck, she was almost jogging. In the end, they covered the mile in about twelve minutes.

Wearing a bibbed apron and a faint look of alarm, Mrs. Spears let them in. “Adrienne! Where have you been?” she asked.

“I lost my key. Can I get in through the laundry room?”

“Of course,” the landlady replied, with a hopeful look at Duran.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Jeff—this is Mrs. Spears.”

“Would you like a cup of tea?” she asked.

“No, thanks,” Duran said.

“We’re in a hurry,” Adrienne confided, moving down the hall to a door that gave way to a flight of stairs leading down to the basement. With Adrienne in the lead, the two of them passed through a small storage room on their way to her apartment. Opening the door, she stopped so abruptly that Duran almost walked into her. “Jesus!”

She’d forgotten how bad it was. The room was a sea of detritus, with Adrienne’s belongings scattered everywhere: books, videos, couch cushions, clothing and CDs, shoes, blankets, towels, vases. And on top of it all, like whitecaps, were hundreds of pieces of paper.

Muttering to herself, she picked her way past some broken dishware, pots and pans, moving toward a door on the other side of the room. It was stuck, at first, but she put her shoulder into it and squeezed through while Duran remained where he was, gazing around the room, curious about Adrienne’s world.

Which, despite the mess, had so much more texture than his own. There were romantic posters of long ago places and faraway things (Biarritz and the Orient Express), and a series of TinTin covers, matted and framed. Stooping, he picked up a book, and was surprised by its subject: Lonely Planet’s guide to
Sri Lanka.
He picked up another:
Trekking in Turkey.
And a third:
Mauritius, Reunion, and the Seychelles.

“You travel a lot?” he asked.

“No,” she replied, emerging from the other room. “I never go anywhere.”

Duran pondered that as she stutter stepped through the debris of her living room. “Why not?” he asked.

“No money.” She paused. “Do you see a music box?”

He glanced around, and shook his head.

“What about you?” she asked.

“What
about
me?” Duran replied.

“Do you travel a lot? Have you been a lot of places?”

He thought about it. “Yeah. I think so.”

“Where?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

She crossed the room to a small desk and, reaching beneath it, extracted an inlaid wooden box that had fallen to the floor. “Plaisir d’Amour” began to play as she opened its cover and removed two credit cards and a passport. “Voila!”

“Are we going somewhere?” he asked.

“It’s the only ID I’ve got,” she told him. “Everything else went up in smoke.”

She surveyed the mess. She’d thought they might spend a couple of hours cleaning it up, but it was hopeless. Overwhelming. It was going to take a week. But she’d have plenty of time to get into it when all this was over, she reminded herself, because she no longer had a job. She unearthed a few wearable items from the heaps, and snagged her Mason Pearson brush from the bathroom.

She led Duran out the back door, avoiding Mrs. Spears. Together, they walked through the alley to Mount Pleasant Avenue, where they bought a gallon of gas at Motores
Sabrosa—only to find a pink ticket waiting for them when they got back to the Dodge.

“Another hundred bucks,” Adrienne wailed. “That’s horrible!” She stamped her foot, which made Duran laugh—which made her even madder. “What does it mean,” she demanded as she got into the car, “when the only thing this fucking city’s good at is parking enforcement?”

Duran shook his head. “It’s probably the end of civilization as we know it.”

The operation was scheduled for eight a.m. the following morning, so Duran spent the night at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, leaving Adrienne to cool her heels in the Mayflower Hotel.

Arriving on the neurosurgery ward, Duran was turned over to an admissions nurse, who fitted him out with hospital pajamas and a robe. A plastic band was affixed to his wrist, and he was taken to a semiprivate room at the end of the corridor. Nurses bustled in and out, taking his vital signs on what seemed like an hourly basis, while his roommate (a muchintubated man) lay comatose and staring.