William Rabkin - Mind-Altering Murder

That made Shawn glad he was following Gus. This way when he found the name of the mystery doctor Shawn would check up on him. If the news was good Shawn might leave it alone. But if the doctor gave Gus any prognosis other than seventy more years of happy living Shawn would work night and day to prove he was a fraud. Because Gus was healthy. Shawn knew it. He might not be a medical man, but he did have a sense of the way the universe was supposed to work, and people like Gus did not get serious diseases. That was simply out of the question.

Not that the area above the Powell Street station looked like a medical corridor. Not unless the new government health plan covered postcards, T-shirts, and trinkets. One side of the street was filled with tiny boutiques selling touristy kitsch, which was perhaps not surprising since the sidewalk was jammed with out-of-towners lined up waiting for a cable car.

Gus was already walking up Powell Street alongside the line of waiting tourists. Shawn pushed past an unwashed man who’d stopped in front of him to ask for a quarter, and followed.

If Gus were suffering from some kind of terrible disease it didn’t seem to have reached his legs yet. Shawn nearly had to run just to stay twenty feet behind him. After a couple of blocks Gus made a left turn up a side street, then disappeared into a low, gray stone building. Shawn bolted after him just in time to see the door closing behind him. That was when he noticed the sign on the building’s wall.

RUTLAND ARMITAGE, DISCREET INVESTIGATIONS.

Gus wasn’t sick. Gus wasn’t dying. Gus was interviewing with another detective agency.

For the first time in his life Shawn understood the impotent fury of the cuckold. He’d been covering for Gus with their client, coming up with excuses for his poor performance. And all this time Gus had been sneaking around behind his back, looking for a job with a bigger agency. One with a fancy stone building and snooty name instead of a beach bungalow and a snazzy brand.

If you love somebody, set them free. That was how the song went. But there was a bumper sticker that took that thought a step further. If you love somebody, set them free. If they don’t come back, hunt them down and kill them.

Shawn had hunted Gus down. Now it was time for step two.

Shawn had no idea how long he’d been waiting outside that building before Gus finally came out. All he remembered was a red haze before his eyes that began to dissipate only when he saw his friend come out of the ornate door and turn on his cell phone. That was when he’d decided to make the call.

Now he stood directly in front of Gus and he still didn’t have any idea what he was going to do. He was outraged; he was hurt. But he was still aware enough to realize that he didn’t actually have a real cause for complaint. None that wouldn’t make him look even more foolish than he already felt, anyway.

He ran through his vast memory of movie scenes, trying to find a role model. But he didn’t have a tabletop laser, so the thought of tying Gus down to one seemed terribly impractical. And while the phrase “this matter is best disposed of from a great height-over water” did have a certain ring to it, Shawn’s conspicuous lack of a henchman to say it to robbed it of most of its significance.

Finally he decided to simply say nothing. Let Gus come up with some lame excuse. Then he’d know which way to go.

For a long time Gus chose silence, too, which was definitely not helping Shawn’s strategy. Finally he broke down.

“This is not what you think it is,” Gus said.

Shawn stared at him. “That’s the best you can do?”

“It’s a classic,” Gus said defensively.

“ ‘Let’s get out of here. This place gives me the creeps’ is a classic,” Shawn said. “The kind of line that is so perfect for its setting that it sounds fresh and new in any situation, no matter how many times you’ve heard half-naked teenagers say it before someone sticks a machete through their neck. ‘This is not what you think it is’ isn’t even a cliche. It’s a placeholder. Filler. Because the next line has to be ‘Then what is it?’ And then comes the real excuse.”

“The next line isn’t ‘Then what is it?’ ” Gus said. “It’s ‘What do you think I think it is?’ ”

“Okay, then,” Shawn said. “What do you think I think it is?”

“I know what you think it is,” Gus said. “You just told me. You think I’m applying for a job with another detective agency.”

“If you already know what I think, why did you ask?” Shawn said.

Gus stared at him helplessly, which made Shawn feel pretty good for a moment. At least he still had the power to twist Gus into knots of logic. He was pretty sure that if he put on just a little more pressure, he could make Gus’ head explode just like one of those movie computers. And maybe that was exactly what he deserved for his betrayal.

Shawn fixed Gus with a steely gaze. “W-H-Y. Question mark,” he said.

Shawn thought maybe he should duck back behind the corner to miss Gus’ brain shrapnel. But the look on Gus’ face suggested a level of distress no greater than mild irritation.

“Really?” Gus said. “Haven’t we been through this a million times? If you feed a computer a nonspecific question like Why? it won’t explode in an existential crisis after pondering the meaning of suffering in the universe. At best it will respond that it needs more information to process the request. Most likely it won’t do anything except sit there until you get tired of waiting and start playing solitaire.”

Gus’ brain had apparently been hardened. No doubt he’d known this was coming. “What if I told you that everything I ever said was a lie, including this?” Shawn said.

“I’d say it was a slight exaggeration,” Gus said. “And I’d also say it’s pretty harsh for you to be trying to make my brain explode when you’re the one who’s been following me.”

Now it was Shawn who could feel his head threatening to explode, if only at the unfairness of the accusation. “I only followed you because you were hiding something from me.”

“Maybe that should have been a hint,” Gus said. “If I was hiding something from you, maybe it was because I didn’t want you to know about it.”

“What kind of person hides things from his best friend?”

“What kind of best friend doesn’t respect his best friend’s privacy?” Gus said.

This was not going at all the way Shawn had thought it would. Gus should have broken down and begged for forgiveness by now. Instead he seemed as angry as Shawn. Now Shawn wasn’t sure where to turn. Escalation was always an option, of course, but he wasn’t quite sure how to accomplish that without sounding like a jilted lover. He could try being calm and reasonable, but that approach just didn’t appeal at the moment. And he’d already tried to blow up Gus’ brain. Maybe, he thought, he should have come up with a plan before he confronted Gus.

But one of Gus’ great qualities was his inability to stay mad for long, and the anger was already easing from his face. That old, familiar guilty look was coming on. Which meant that he would be ready to have a civilized conversation about his elaborate betrayal. Better yet, it meant he’d gone soft, and it would be a snap for Shawn to grind him into the sidewalk.

“Look, I’m really sorry about keeping this from you,” Gus said before Shawn could raise his boot heel to start the grinding.

“You didn’t keep anything from me,” Shawn said. “I’ve known about it all the time. All about it all the time, in fact. As if you could hide anything from me.”

Gus didn’t look like he’d been ground into anything, let alone the concrete. He didn’t even look angry. Shawn studied his face and tried to understand the expression on it. Then he took a step back when he realized it was pity.