Joel Goldman - The Dead Man

"You should try that," I said. "Works the lats, the obliques, and the core."

"I'll keep that in mind. So, how worried should I be?" Lucy asked.

"About Corliss?"

"Right. That's exactly who I'm talking about, you moron." She reached across the table and thumped me on the arm. "I'm not going to keep putting you to bed unless you tell me what's going on."

I had awakened lying on top of my bedcovers, wearing yesterday's clothes. A night's sleep, a shower, and clean clothes were not enough to squelch my seismic activity.

"Hey, you didn't even tuck me in."

"You want turn down service, talk to Kate. Seriously, Jack. I'm worried about you. I want to know what's the matter with you. After all," she said, straightening and giving me a tongue-in-cheek glare, "I am your landlady. That gives me rights."

It was a fair request. We were living under the same roof and working on the same case. She'd not only taken risks for me, she had taken care of me. I hoped her concern wasn't over whether I could pay the rent; that I was filling some of the void in her life in the same way she was filling mine.

"I have a movement disorder called tics."

"What a lousy name," Lucy said. "The ones that are hard to pronounce have better telethons. Tics sounds like something you get walking in the woods."

"I'll give you that. It's a neurological disorder, cause and cure unknown. You've heard of Tourette's?"

"Sure."

"Well, it's similar to that. In my case, the more I do, the more I shake. Doesn't matter if it's work or working out, reading a book or going to the movies. There are medications that help some people but they didn't work for me, and the side effects were too intense. I have to manage it by regulating my activities and keeping a balance between what I do and how much I shake."

"Except you do more than shake. Cirque du Soleil would die for some of your contortions. Last night, you were walking around here like your legs were made of spaghetti. When I came home, you had a glazed look on your face like your brain was on a slow motion loop."

"My doctors can explain some parts of it better than others, like the problems with my legs. They tell me the weakness in my legs isn't caused by tics but they can't tell me what is causing it. All the MRIs, EEGs, and other tests come up negative. The good news is that, whatever it is, it won't kill me."

"As long as you spend your time taking walks in the park. I'm not so sure about chasing the dead man."

I shrugged. "I tried walking in the park and walking in the mall and just walking around. It's not enough. It's not who I am."

"I hear that. Changing who you are is harder than it looks. Trust me, I know."

"Besides, it's too late to walk away from this one even if I could."

"At least you've got backup. Simon strikes me as one of the good guys, cute in a nerdy way but smart and steady. Kate is smarter and she's in love with you even though she says you can be a pain in the butt, like I didn't know that after living with you for four days."

Kate didn't wear our relationship on her sleeve. She didn't carve initials in a desktop or tree trunk and I couldn't imagine her opening up like that to Lucy the first time they met.

"She told you that?"

Lucy grinned. "The pain in the butt part?"

"No, you moron." I returned her thump on the arm.

"Oh, the in love part. Not in so many words but my advice is don't piss her off too many times. You're not likely to do any better any time soon. Same goes for me."

"How's that?"

"I've got your back too. I may not have a fancy degree but I'm kick ass in the clutch. First killer puts you on a list, I'll shoot him."

"You're a convicted felon. Where are you going to get a gun?"

"Your closet. Lord knows you shouldn't carry. Last thing we need is for you to start shaking and shoot yourself."

"No way. You leave that gun where it is. You get caught with it and you'll go back to jail. Then who's going to put me to bed?"

She rose from the table and gave me a peck on the cheek. "Nice to know you'd miss me. Time to go to work."

Lucy pulled to the curb in the circle drive at the entrance to the institute. It had been a quiet ride, neither of us bothering with small talk.

"What will you do with the money if you find it?" she asked.

I had unbuckled my seat belt and was about to open the door. Her question stopped me. I hadn't thought about it because there was only one answer.

"Turn it in."

She nodded and took a breath, picking up speed as she spoke, gesturing like a manic conductor. "Why? I mean, I know why. The money isn't yours. It's dirty. The FBI already thinks you know where it is. If you find it and start spending it, they'll be all over you in a heartbeat. You could go to jail. I know all that. But, what if you could keep it without getting caught? Five million dollars is a lot of money. Don't you ever think about that?"

Her face was flush, her breath quick. I knew the look. It was the rush of the impossibly possible, the one in a million shot that breaks the rules that shouldn't apply just this one time and that will fix everything forever but never does and always makes things worse. In that moment, she was Wendy at her most maddening.

"No. Not now. Not ever."

"Well, hey, you're right. Me neither," she said, slapping the steering wheel. "You know what else I've been wondering. How did the mailman end up with Wendy's letter in the first place? If he was Corliss's mailman, was he yours too?"

"That's a question worth asking. Put it on your list after you talk to the construction crew. Finding someone at the post office who will talk to you may be a little tricky."

"Not with my charm. What are you going to do?"

"I've got a lot of ground to cover today but I'm going to start with Anthony Corliss, give him a chance to come to Jesus with me before Kent and Dolan find their way to his office. Once they see Enoch's dream video, they'll have a tough choice to make."

"What's that?"

"Who to arrest first, Corliss or me."

We reveal ourselves in many ways, denying, confessing, and rationalizing our faults while exaggerating or diminishing our glories. We embrace and chase those we love and covet, rejecting and denouncing others that threaten us. Our involuntary blinks, nods, winks, grimaces, and squints may flesh out our hidden selves, but nothing says more about us than what we do in the moments that test us, whether it's the hungry, homeless man with his hand out or that which tempts us when no one except God is looking and we aren't convinced He's on duty.

Lucy's question about the money revealed her needs rather than her faults. She had already told me what she'd done, what it had cost her, and how afraid she was of what she might do the next time. Now she was reminding me that she needed backup as much as I did. I hoped I would be kick-ass in the clutch for her.

"Morning," Leonard said. "Frank Gentry was up here looking for you. He waited in your office for a while but he gave up."

"Great. Call him. Tell him I'm here now. I need to talk to him right away."

"No good. He said he'd be tied up in an IT staff meeting until at least eleven and don't ask me to interrupt him."

"Why not?"

"He was in the Special Forces. When those guys give you an order, you don't argue. They'll break your legs just to hear the sound it makes. Me, I'm a conscientious objector."

"To the military?"

"To pain, especially mine."

"Fair enough."

The message light on my phone was blinking. It was a message from Gentry telling me that he'd left the report I'd asked for in the top left-hand drawer of my desk. I found the report in an envelope stamped confidential. It contained the list of staff people who had accessed the dream project files. Gentry had been thorough, alphabetizing the names and including columns identifying each person's position at the institute, their contact information, and the dates on which they had accessed the files. There were thirteen names on the list, including mine.