Trifecta (33 page)

Julia started describing how the truck looked when she
first saw it.  One side appeared like it had been crushed by a bulldozer.  It was
dirty, rusted and dented.  The interior was upholstered in some kind of mottled
brown material.

"Looks like you put in a lot of work in on Alan's
present," Rose commented.

"Yeah.  I got carried away," Robin admitted. 
"I was planning to give it to Dad all dented.  But I really liked it and one
thing led to another.  Still, I know it's kind of a monstrosity and that Dad won't
really get any use out of it.  So I'd like to ask for it back.  I have a different,
much more special present for the two of you."

Oh, no, Julia thought with foreboding.  Robin couldn't
possibly be thinking of telling his parents right now.

"You see, Julia," Robin went on, glancing around
his mother at her, "There's one thing that was instilled into my head from
the time I was a little boy.  In this family, between the three of us, and now there
are more, we always tell the truth.  And we never keep secrets."

"That's right," Alan Chavier said.  "So
I will very reluctantly give this wonderful present back to you, Robin.  I can see
how it will inspire nostalgic and romantic memories for the two of you.  But I want
a couple of joy rides myself, first."

"Done, Dad.  Now I want to tell you about your real
special present," Robin said.

"Julia will be our new daughter," Rose said firmly. 
"We don't want any more presents, Robin.  That's special enough."  She
turned to Julia and said, "Robin's always trying to give us presents.  And
he can get very imaginative."

Julia laughed.  If the truck was any indication of Robin's
creativity, she could envision a future of very rare surprises.

"This is a present that Julia is giving to me, but
it belongs to the whole family," Robin said.

"Do you think this is the right time, Robin?"
Julia asked, really upset.  Robin's parents were so traditional she didn't want
to shock them.  They had welcomed her into their family with such warmth she didn't
want them to think badly of her behavior with their only son.  She herself was not
in the least bit ashamed because she had been in love with Robin.  But she thought
they might not understand.

"No secrets.  Remember?" Robin said, turning
a smile her way from his preoccupation with handling the mammoth truck on the curves
of Sunset Boulevard.  "I know you trust me to do the right thing, Julia."

Julia took a deep breath and nodded at him.  "Yes. 
Of course I do."

"Then why don't you tell them, Julia," Robin
said.  "Tell them about the present that my Dad doesn't even know he's holding
right now."

"Shall I tell them how I was going to keep it all
to myself, when we were separated?" Julia asked.  If they were going to do
this now, she wanted to give Robin's parents a super surprise.

"Yeah," Robin said smiling.  "Tell them
how you were so selfish that you wanted to keep it all for yourself."

"I really was so thrilled," Julia began.  "Well,
I better begin at the beginning.  I went back to Boston when I found out that Robin
wasn't a mechanic.  By some inadvertent eavesdropping, I learned that he was a prominent
attorney in Los Angeles.  To top it all, he had a famous senator for a father. 
I was actually disappointed.  I was so much in love with him I wanted him to be
a simple mechanic who loved me.  I let my pride get in the way, and ran away, believing
he was playing a cruel game with me, acting like a mechanic to amuse himself.  We
were separated for a couple of months.  I didn't know how Robin really felt, and
even though I was sad and miserable, I planned never to see him again.  But he had
already given me a wonderful present."

"It's what you want more than anything in the world,"
Robin broke in.

"When I found out, just a couple of days ago, as a
matter of fact, I wasn't going to tell anyone about this special gift.  But now
it's probably doing tiny somersaults in my tummy," Julia said with a smile. 
"With happiness about the wonderful grandparents it will have."

Rose let out a little shocked, "Oh."  Julia could
feel the senator's arm, which had been around her shoulders give her a warm squeeze. 

There wasn't a dry eye in the truck.  For several minutes. 
Alan whispered to her, "I'm so happy about this.  Thanks for telling us now. 
We'll have wonderful months of anticipation."

Rose handed out tissues from her purse.  She was dabbing
at her cheeks and smiling.  "It's so silly.  But when I'm really happy, I always
end up making a fool of myself.  I never thought it would happen.  Robin didn't
seem to want to settle down.  I was so afraid that Alan and I would never get to
enjoy grandchildren."

"How's that for a birthday present?" Robin asked
his father.

"This time I'm stunned."

"There will be other tiny surprises," Julia said,
wiping her own tears away. 

The big truck was now bumping over the pier in Santa Monica. 
It was night time over the water and they could see the black surface of the ocean
on both sides of them.  It reminded Julia of the night Robin had called her from
under the pier.  "Let's tell them about your other disguise," Julia said,
smiling mischievously at Robin. 

"Besides being a mechanic?" Alan asked.

Julia nodded.  "When I met Robin I hired him to do
investigative work for me.  About Aaron Quijada."

"You have to understand, Dad," Robin explained. 
"It was love at first sight for me.  I just wanted to get Julia out of the
situation fast when I figured out that Aaron Quijada might be a dangerous drug kingpin,
importing illegal stuff from Mexico. 

Especially when I began to believe he had something to
do with the death of Julia's brother.  I had to get information about him.  Very
quickly.  So I set up a narcotics buy."

"I didn't know he was planning to do it," Julia
said.  "Actually, he had mentioned it, and I told him, very clearly, not to. 
It scared me to death, just thinking about it."

"It was one of our first really bad fights,"
Robin said.  "Julia was extremely upset when I proposed my plan.  She thought
stealing the records from a locked safe inside Quijada's home would be easier."

"I'm glad I'm hearing all this after-the-fact,"
Alan said with an alarmed look.

"I came over to Santa Monica and picked Robin up afterward,"
Julia said.  She started describing the fat, hulking, brown eyed, bald man with
rotten teeth who was lurching after her under the pier at three o'clock in the morning. 
She described how frightened she had been and how Robin had taken off the hat, padding
and popped out brown contact lenses to show her who it really was.

"I'm shocked at your behavior, son.  Those drug people
might have hurt you."  It was the first time Julia had seen Alan Chavier seriously
upset.

"Julia was too.  Boy was she angry," Robin said,
shaking his head at the memory.

"I hope you gave him hell," Alan Chavier said
to Julia.

Julia nodded, indignantly.  "I fired him.  The very
next day."

That set everyone to laughing again.

"You see why I have to love her, Dad," Robin
said, glancing sideways at Julia and winking.

Julia sat on the senator's lap as Robin talked on, but
she was only half listening.  Here she was, with her wonderful new family and a
whole lifetime ahead of her.  There would be children and puppies, laughter and
fun in her future.  She would be a part of something big and glorious, the love
she would give and receive and be a part of for the rest of her life.

The enormous truck turned around to take them home.

––––––––

T
HE END

S
abrina Miller, a fashion designer in Los
Angeles, is stunned when she meets her own double. Her shock turns to terror
when she learns that her duplicate is the result of a scientific experiment and
that there are people intent on killing her to protect their new secret
creation.

Sabrina flees with the woman, whom she names Eve, as the
news about a potential new secret weapon for the Defense Department is leaked. 
An international race ensues to acquire Eve, a  molecular clone of Sabrina's brain
and body, but dramatically changed through advanced computer engineering. 

Although Sabrina and Eve look alike, there are enormous
differences the people hunting them will do anything to possess.

S
abrina’s eyelids fluttered in the midst of a dream in
which a tiny maniacal form was torturing her, fiendishly stabbing her about the
head with needles.  It was so vivid and frightening she tried to awaken, like you
can sometimes do in a shocking nightmare, but her body was paralyzed.  She was
blind and she couldn't move.

"Rest, dear.  You're fine.  Just relax.  That's good,
Sabrina."  The calm, gentle voice went on and on, soothing her, and she slept
on.

Hours later, Sabrina's eyes opened.  Dizzy and confused,
almost stupefied with sleep, her hand touched her head, checking for the sharp protuberances
from her intense nightmare.  Dazzling lights from above stabbed her eyes like the
tormenting needles in the dream.  Was it an operating room? The beach? The light
was blinding and she was so frightened.

She turned her head, squinting away from the brilliant
lights, and caught herself reflected in a mirror.  Then the image startled her,
moving an arm slowly, independently, throwing it sideways.  Sabrina realized that
the body she had recognized as her own was someone else entirely.  Now that she
finally remembered where she was, Ferd's Tanning Salon, she smiled at her silly
panic.

The woman on the tanning bed next to hers was in the exact
same position, which contributed to the perception that Sabrina was looking at her
reflection.  But the body was totally nude. 

Sabrina wondered why the same woman who would go to a tanning
salon, a rather frivolous and unhealthy compliance to a glamorous image, didn't
bother to comb her hair. 

A bell went off to remind Sabrina to turn over and she
picked up the double spoon-like device to protect her eyes and sat up, pushing down
the top of her bathing suit, peering at her chest.  There was a tan line already. 
Maybe the woman next to her had the right idea, getting a tan without wearing anything,
but Sabrina thought it looked more sexy to have a contrast between the parts that
were usually covered and those that were usually uncovered. 

There were only two couches in the tiny room and Sabrina
felt uncomfortable about lying so close to another person.  Especially since that
person was nude and a female.  There had been some experience lying next to nude
men. 

She sneaked another swift glance at the body next to hers. 
The proportions were really remarkably like her own.  The woman had long ectomorphic
limbs and a very small waist.  Not many people were as tall or as thin as she and
this other woman.  The woman's hair was a shocking white, like Sabrina's own natural
color.  It was snarled as though it had not been combed in at least a week.  But
this was L.A.  Probably a new look. 

The woman's hair brought back unpleasant memories of her
own nick-name as an adolescent.  She had been dubbed 'Mop-Head' because of her long,
string-bean body and stark-white hair.  When she had shorn her hair to escape the
nickname, the only thing that changed was the moniker, which became 'Q-Tip Head.'
Things had changed in the intervening years, but she never forgot the pain.

Sabrina had come to the tanning salon because she had a
modeling interview.  It was a California Beach Toothpaste Commercial.  She wanted
the look that said, 'I know how unhealthy a tan is, but really, Darling, can I help
it if my West Coast Lifestyle of surfing, tennis, swimming and skating in my tiny
bikini on the Santa Monica Pier gives me a Glow?' An impossible image for a person
so pale she almost appeared albino, saved only by dark brows and lashes, and the
fact that her eyes were blue, not bunny pink.

Exposure as a model gave her fashion design business authenticity
as a real influence in woman's fashions in Los Angeles.  If her face was tan, her
teeth would look whiter, which was why she had gone to Ferd's Tanning Salon that
morning and was assured by Ferd himself, a little gnome of a man whom she towered
over by a least a foot, that there were absolutely no UV rays in his new filtered
tanning devices.  She had studied the top of his pink bald head, listened to his
patter of safe tanning with UV filtering, looked into simple honest blue eyes, and
believed him.  Sabrina had been surprised when Ferd led her to the actual salon. 
It was a small, claustrophobic room, rescued only by several posters on each wall
of beautiful ocean vistas with white sand and palms.  Mostly she had been surprised
that there were only two tanning beds in the entire place. 

Sabrina sighed and closed her eyes, trying to forget that
another person was in the room.  Even lying on her stomach the rays were bright
and she closed her eyes.  As she drifted near sleep again she thought of Mark. 
He said she looked anemic.  Maybe a tan would take away that pale bloodless look. 
Sabrina wondered just what he really wanted, or what any man wanted.  After three
years it was still a mystery.  She wanted to marry Mark and have a baby.  Soon. 
She would never tell him, of course. 

Mark said he liked her thin.  He admired her for starting
her own business and for being so bright and independent, but Sabrina knew he had
been attracted to pretty and vapid air-heads in the past.  Mark grandly proclaimed
that Sabrina was all any man could wish for, but he dated other women.  He didn't
say so, but she knew.  So Sabrina dated other men and didn't keep it a secret.

She heard the bell but didn't feel like moving.  Just thinking
about Mark made her heart pound.  She loved Mark's thickness and substantiality. 
Even his hands were thick.  He was her physical opposite, dark and massive. 

She heard the bell again, louder this time.  How could
the couch know she hadn't turned over? Springs or something? Ferd had assured her
of complete privacy, saying he would be in his apartment upstairs.  No one was watching
to see if she flipped.  There were no windows.  Anyway, Sabrina thought irritably,
how could she feel complete privacy with another person, nude at that, in same the
room.  Privacy was not being stuck with another person on a couch less than five
feet away.  She thought she would wait and see if the ping came again, but decided
she was being silly and turned over.

Sabrina felt herself falling asleep and tried to fight
it but the bodily compulsion to sleep was overpowering.

That bell is annoying, Sabrina thought groggily, a while
later.  Now she knew what narcolepsy felt like.  She was too lethargic to move and
so thirsty her tongue felt attached to the roof of her mouth.

The tanning light was out.  She was actually a little chilled
and she had the uncomfortable prickly sensation that someone was watching her. 
She turned over and felt a thrill of electricity zip through her as she glanced
at the other couch.  The woman was there, sitting on the edge of her tanning bed,
staring at Sabrina. 

She had Sabrina's face. 

Sabrina assured herself that she was still asleep, having
an odd dream triggered by the fact that the other woman's body appeared so similar
to her own.  She closed her eyes, shook her head and opened them again.  She watched
the woman shake her head. 

The woman's eyes grew large and round.  The brows went
up and the mouth opened slightly, stretching back, revealing her teeth, transforming
her countenance into one of extreme terror.  Seeing her own fear reflected by the
other woman petrified Sabrina for an instant.  Then she threw her legs over the
edge of the couch, preparing to run out of the room, when her body collapsed. 

Sabrina folded up on the floor between the two couches,
landing painfully on her tailbone.  She felt enmeshed in a horrible nightmare, like
a paralyzed somnambulist, as she struggled to rise.  Her muscles were like jelly
and the pain in her tailbone excruciating.

Sabrina laboriously pulled herself up on the edge of the
tanning couch, wondering what had happened.  Something was horribly wrong with the
whole situation; her abnormal sleepiness, the strange duplicate woman, and worst
of all, her body not functioning normally.  She was trembling with the effort to
make her muscles respond to simple commands such as, Get up and get the hell out
of here.  That was impossible, so she concentrated on taking some deep shaky breaths. 
She kept her eyes lowered.  Finally she looked up.

The woman was there, staring at her.  Same breasts too,
Sabrina thought, looking at the woman critically.  She appeared younger, though. 
The eyebrows were tangled.  Of course, she doesn't take care of them, like not shaving
her legs.  The woman did not have any lines on her forehead, but the eyes were the
exact same shade of light blue.  The nose and mouth perfect replicas.  There were
no little lines in the woman's neck, as though the head had never made an independent
movement.

"The bathroom is across the hall."

Oh great, Sabrina thought, she has my face and body and
is able to read my mind. 

"They say everyone in the world has a double, somewhere," 
Sabrina remarked thoughtfully as the woman continued staring.  "Is this some
strange coincidence?"

"No,"  the woman said.

"I don't mean to be rude.  What's your name?" 
Sabrina asked.

"No name.  Your name?"

"Sabrina.  Everyone has a name."

"No one named me."

"Where do you come from?"

"Here."

The woman must be insane.  A deranged woman with Sabrina's
own face and body.  Or else she herself was insane.  Something to do with this incredible
new modern tanning device that renders insanity along with a beautiful tan.  Cooks
you inside and out.

"I would like to look like you,"  the woman said.

Sabrina was thinking, Maybe she's some kind of a clone. 
She looked up at the tanning machine.  It was weird looking in a high tech kind
of way.  The hood was a gray funnel which went all the way up to the ceiling.  Maybe
it went through the ceiling.  Sabrina had a strong compulsion to run again.  She
stood up, but still felt faint; her vision darkened and flashing lights sparkled
in front of her eyes.  She sat down abruptly, wondering if she had been drugged
or had contracted some terrible neurological disease. 

Sabrina shrank back as the woman got up, took hold of her
arm firmly and started walking slowly to the door, pulling Sabrina with her.  The
woman stumbled a few times, but moved relentlessly.  Her grip was a painful vice.

"Where are you taking me?"  Sabrina asked.

"You want to go to the bathroom,"  the woman
said.

"Mind reading?"  Sabrina asked.

"Your body says." 

This is too weird, Sabrina thought as she went into the
bathroom.  She looked in the mirror above the sink.  She was spectacularly tan but
her face looked puffy, like she had been asleep for an extended period.  She used
the toilet, splashed her face with water and drank out of the faucet. 

The woman was outside the door when she left the bathroom.

"We better get dressed,"  Sabrina said, walking
toward the locker room.  Seeing the woman again was a shock.  She was standing there
without clothes like it was a perfectly normal state.

"I don't have garments."

Sabrina stopped and turned around.

The woman had gone past her into the bathroom and was peering
at her face.  "I like looking like you." 

Suddenly there was a terrifically loud crashing noise from
above the tanning salon.  Sabrina jumped with shock, clapped her hands to her ears,
and ran into the locker room.  There were more crashes.  It sounded like gun shots. 
And very close. 

Sabrina peeked out of the locker room, squinting and waiting
for the next one.  The woman was standing right at the door so Sabrina pulled her
inside and slammed the door.

"We have to get out of here,"  Sabrina said,
dressing rapidly.  "There's something very odd about this place."

"Okay."  The woman was standing motionless.

"The back door is down the hall.  We can make a run
for it.  Sounded like someone was shooting a gun."

"Yes." 

The woman was still standing there, absolutely peaceful.

"No clothes,"  Sabrina said.  "Shit, you
have no clothes?"

"No."  The woman was maddeningly calm.

Sabrina threw her coat at the woman.  "Put that on. 
Hurry."  The woman put it on.  Perfect fit of course.

"No shoes,"  Sabrina muttered, and peeked carefully
out of the doorway toward the reception area. 

She could hear a murmur of masculine voices: "She's
still drugged.  Couldn't have heard a thing.  Now you want to take the computer,
and get rid of the original?...Are you both crazy! After all my work making her...What's
wrong with you two? Carrying guns like gangsters!"

Sabrina recognized the shrill voice of Ferd, the tiny old
guy who owned the tanning salon.

On no, Sabrina thought, shaking and starting to pant. 
They drugged me, made this woman, or computer or whatever, and now they're going
to kill me.

Sabrina strained her ears but could only hear a mumble
of voices, and then: "I've destroyed the copy machinery."  It was the
old man's voice, sounding panicky.

That must have been the crashes.  Messing up the machine.

Sabrina pulled the woman out of the locker room, putting
a finger firmly over her mouth to keep her quiet.  They tiptoed down the long hall
toward the back door.

"They're coming after us,"  the woman said. 

Should she let them have the woman? Sabrina wondered, as
they crept toward the door.  They would search for her.  For both of them.  And
the woman obviously could not take care of herself.  Poor thing hadn't even known
how to button the coat Sabrina gave her.  Maybe the woman was not human.  They had
called her a computer.  But maybe she was, and maybe they would experiment on her,
hurt her. 

Sabrina started running, hearing footsteps thundering down
the stairs from above.

Sabrina was afraid the killers might find her anyway. 
It's hard to be anonymous when you're on the cover of magazines.  But, maybe not. 
Sabrina didn't believe her modeling photographs looked anything like herself.  She
was so glitzed up she appeared like a plastic mannequin.  Somehow nonexistent cleavage,
cheekbones and sullen lips appeared.  The pictures never revealed how very tall
and skinny she was.