Jake Needham - Killing Plato

Don’t break it, was what Anita had said to me when I unwrapped it. Don’t break it, Jack.

I examined the crystal heart now and wondered about it. It looked intact, the same as it had always looked; but maybe there were fault lines there I had never noticed before, cracks and imperfections that even the best, most loving eyes could never find. Maybe it had already been broken when she gave it to me and I had never even noticed.

I sat there for a while in absolute stillness staring at the little glass heart. For a time I teetered on the edge of hope that any moment Anita would walk in and tell me she hadn’t meant any of it, she had had a bad day and that was all there was to it; but then I heard the front door open and close again, and I knew A and I knita wouldn’t be coming in after all.

Some time after that, I have no idea how long, I swiveled around in my chair and stared out the window. The city was very dark and seemed utterly still. I wondered what time it was, but something stopped me from looking at my watch. Instead I just sat and stared, focusing on nothing, seeing nothing.

As blanked out as I was, at some level that was less than conscious I could feel my mind’s instinctive protective devices beginning to react. A part of my brain, entirely unbidden, began shuffling the cards, slowly dealing out new hands, examining each for possibilities, then collecting the cards and dealing more hands. I could not bear to look at any of them.

All at once I felt as if only my body was sitting there in that chair looking out the window, that my conscious self had stepped outside my body and even then was doing a reconnaissance of the dark apartment like one of those mechanical devices bomb squads use to examine unknown packages, warily probing the gloom for hidden dangers.

It found none, but it found no hope either.

When eventually my consciousness returned and resumed its accustomed place within my body, the first thing I noticed was that I had been crying. I wondered about that because I couldn’t remember crying since I had been a child and I wasn’t absolutely certain I had ever cried even then. I stuck out my tongue and cautiously tasted the tears running down my cheeks. I did not find the taste to be one I could recommend.

How long I sat like that I have no way of knowing. Eventually I realized the sky outside was no longer black, but had turned a sort of feeble gray. I gathered dawn was not far off so I pushed myself out of the chair, shut off the light, and walked into the kitchen. I took a bottle of water out of the refrigerator, unscrewed the cap, and drained half of it. I hadn’t known how thirsty I was until the moment the cold water touched my tongue. But then I doubted I had ever been so thirsty, and I was absolutely certain water had never tasted so good.

I walked into the bedroom and stood in the doorway for a while. Everything was just as it should have been, except of course that the bed was empty and neatly made. I went across to the windows and pulled a drape aside. The new day was beginning, creeping in as quietly as a mouse.

I looked off beyond the brick wall that surrounded our building and saw a man on the sidewalk. He had a dog with him and followed it lazily, apparently unconcerned about where it was going. The pallid half-light of dawn rendered both figures in shadowy halftones, all gray and white and black. I watched the man and his dog slipping in and out of focus, first there and then not, and then suddenly there again, unearthly apparitions on the stroll, the air bit by bit coloring around them.

It was all so beautiful that I could hardly breathe.

It had been three days since Anita had taken her bags and left for God only knew where. She had told me she was going to London, of course, but I didn’t really believe that anymore and I don’t think Anita expected me to.

That morning I gave my last corporate finance lecture for the year and then went back to my office. A good many of my colleagues had already begun their end-of-term holidays so the building was unusually quiet. I had a few last papers to read and grade, but I really didn’t really feel much like it. Mostly I felt like sitting there just staring at the wall and feeling sorry for myself. When the telephone rang, I considered ignoring it, but eventually I snatched up the receiver mostly to shut the damned thing up.

“Yes,” I snapped.

There was a short pause as whoever was calling processed my curt answer.

“Perhaps this is a bad time for me to call you, Mr. Shepherd.” It was a woman’s voice, a very nice voice, mellow and warm with an unmistakably upper-class accent.

“Yes, it is,” I said. “Who is this?”

“This is Kathleeya Srisophon.”

It took me a minute to connect the name with a face, but then I did. Oh, Christ .

“I’m so sorry,” I mumbled quickly. “I apologize. The damned telephone just caught me by surprise.”

“You don’t usually receive telephone calls?”

“Yes, I receive telephone calls, but…”

I stopped talking before I sounded like a complete idiot, or maybe it was already too late to prevent that.

“I will not disturb you further then, Professor,” she said. “I merely telephoned to express my hope that the death of Mr. Karsarkis’ assistant will not affect your decision in any way.”

“My decision?”

“As to whether or not to help us. To help Mr. Karsarkis.”

I shifted uneasily in my chair. In the shock of Anita leaving, I hadn’t given much thought to anything else, certainly not to the disk or my promise to call after seeing its contents.

“Have you read the files yet?” Kathleeya asked.

“Yes, I have. But there’s been…” I was fumbling, so I tried again. “I’ve had…”

What was I going to tell her? I felt like a jerk.

“Something personal came up,” I finished quickly.

“Yes,” she said.

It was just one word and she spoke it without any particular inflection, but it left me with no doubt at all she already knew everything.

“In any case, Mr. Shepherd, that’s not what I called about. I was actually wondering if you would have lunch with me.”

I sat back, surprised.

“Ah…okay,” I said. “When did you have in mind?”

“Are you free today?”

I waited for Kathleeya to fill in the rest, and I sensed there was a rest although I didn’t have a clue what it could possibly be. But she remained silent and against all odds the silence actually felt comfortable.

“I’d like that,” I said after a moment.

“Good, twelve noon then?”

“Fine. Where shall we meet?”

“I’ll pick you up.”

“Am I allowed to ask where we’re going?”

“Of course. It’s a nice day, so I thought we might drive to Pattaya.”

That seemed a little strange. Pattaya was what passed for Bangkok’s local beach resort, a smallish town of dubious reputation nearly a two-hour trip east along the Gulf of Thailand.

“That’s rather a long way to long wadrive for lunch,” I said, “isn’t it?”

“Not the way I do it, Mr. Shepherd.”

The big black Mercedes had barely cleared the entrance ramp to the expressway before it was hitting a hundred miles an hour. We were passing other vehicles as if they were parked and the sound of the speed warning strips beneath our tires blurred into a single, drawn-out note, a raspy buzzing sound that seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

Contained as we were in the cool, quiet womb of the big car, the outside world seemed far away. Kathleeya was wearing a silk suit just as she had been the first time we met, but the color was a vibrant shade of purple rather than the more conservative cream she had chosen then; and while it may only have been my imagination, I could have sworn her skirt was a bit shorter, too. We sank back on the soft leather of the backseat and made small talk while the driver continued his low-level flight to Pattaya. There was a second person in the front passenger seat, but he neither turned nor spoke so I assumed he was security rather than another luncheon guest.