Linwood Barclay - Trust Your Eyes

Courtney said, when she saw Allison packing her bags before grabbing a cab to JFK, “Are you kidding me? Tell me you’re fucking kidding me. You’re into me for more than two grand and somehow you’ve got enough for a vacation? You want to explain that to me?”

“It’s not my money,” Allison said. “My mom gave me the money for it.”

Courtney said, “Excuse me?”

“I haven’t saved up enough money from my job to pay you back yet. That’s what I’m going to pay you with. This money, from my mom, for my vacation, is totally separate.” It made perfect sense to Allison. Courtney could be so thick sometimes. Hard to believe she worked in the financial industry. You’d think she could get her head around it.

“I don’t believe you,” Courtney said. “I don’t fucking believe you.”

“Look, I really need this trip,” Allison said. “How many places you been to in the last three years? Huh? Munich, for one. And then you went on that trip to Mexico. And what about London? You were there like five months ago. In all that time, where have I been?”

“What do my trips have to do with anything?”

“It’s not fair that you’re always getting to go someplace and I’m not. I can’t believe how mean you are sometimes. I’ve gotta go. My flight leaves in like three hours.”

Courtney must have sent her at least a hundred texts and e-mails while she was in Barbados. Ranting about what a selfish, self-centered, self-consumed bitch Allison was. It nearly ruined her holiday, her phone chirping and dinging all the time.

But it was still worth it.

When Allison returned, Courtney said she was going to kick her out, but Allison said she’d have to think twice about that, because both their names were on the lease. Allison put on a huge song and dance that she really, really, really was going to pay her back, that she was going to ask her mother for some money, that she was sure she could come up with a pretty good story, one that would touch her mother’s heart, and there’d be a check in the mail within the week.

That was a week ago. There isn’t likely to be a check in the mail today. She hasn’t called her mother yet and asked her for money. Allison thinks it’s too soon after the tooth story. She figures, if she can come up with an equally compelling tale, she’ll try it on her mother in another week or so.

Maybe a bedbug story. Everyone’s shitting their pants about bedbugs. She’ll tell her mother she has them in her building, that she and Courtney must move to a hotel for a week while the pest control people come in and spray and kill the little bastards. And they’re telling Allison, you have to throw out all your clothes, the bugs may be hiding in them, go buy yourself some new duds.

Allison’s mother has already been e-mailing her every news item she comes across about bedbugs. This story will play very nicely into her fears.

Her mother will send money. Allison is sure of it. She just has to keep herself from spending it on something else before she gives it to Courtney.

Allison’s cell, sitting on the coffee table, rings.

She comes up from under the covers, guesses it will be Courtney, and damned if it isn’t. She wants to ignore it, but Courtney will just keep trying her, so she reaches over to the table, grabs the phone, and puts it to her ear.

“Yeah,” she says.

“It’s been a week,” Courtney says. “Did the money come from your mother?”

“Not yet. I mean, I haven’t gone down to check the mail, but I don’t think it’s going to be here.”

“Why would that be, Allison?”

“Okay, look, I haven’t called her yet. I was trying to think of a good story for her, and I’ve finally got one, so I’m going to call her today. So, like, in three or four days, the money should be here.”

“Honest to God, you are such a piece of work.”

“I really mean it,” she says. “I’m going to pay you everything I owe you.”

“I don’t care whether you’re on the lease. If you don’t pay your share you’re going to come home and find all your shit in the hall. I swear to God. I’m already looking around for another roommate.”

“Jesus, what the hell kind of friend are you?”

“What kind of friend am I? What would you do if you were me?”

“Okay, look, if I haven’t paid you by this time next week, you won’t have to kick me out. I’ll leave, and you can bring someone else in here.”

“A week,” Courtney says skeptically.

“I swear. Cross my heart and all that shit.”

“I’m an idiot, a total fucking idiot,” Courtney says and hangs up.

There’s no sense trying to go back to sleep now. Allison sits up in bed, reaches for the remote on the coffee table, and clicks on the television. As NY1 comes on with the latest news roundup, she grabs her phone again to see whether she has any e-mails or Facebook messages.

She’ll definitely call her mother this afternoon. First, though, she’ll go online and read up on bedbugs so she has plenty of convincing details to work into her story. She thinks, in a way, her mother may even know she’s being taken advantage of, but it’s not nearly as unsettling as those times in the past when Allison disappeared. Just took off for a few months. At least, when Allison hits her up for money, her mother knows where she is.

Allison glances from the phone to the TV and back again. Hears something about showers in the afternoon, clearing by evening.

She opens Safari on her phone and does a search for “bedbugs.” Holy shit, only about a million stories. She narrows the search by adding the words “New York” and just about as many results come back.

Glances back at the TV. Someone has jumped onto the subway tracks on the Sixth Avenue line. Back to her phone. Thinks, maybe get the name of an actual bug-killing company that the landlord’s hiring, give the story that extra ring of authenticity.

Looks back up at the TV. Is about to look away when she thinks she catches a glimpse of a face she recognizes.

WTF?

Her mouth drops open in stunned silence as a reporter standing on the sidewalk outside some downtown office building says, “Expected to be a formidable challenger to the incumbent governor, Morris Sawchuck, seen here with his wife, Bridget, is perceived as being much stronger on law and order issues, and has made no secret that he would like to see a return to more traditional values-it’s a major plank in his campaign platform-although he has not said exactly how he could go about restoring them if he’s elected governor. He’s said to have some very powerful people working behind the scenes for him, including the former vice president of the United States. Back to you-”

She turns off the set and stares into space for a moment, trying to take it all in. She still has the image in her head, of the couple getting out of the back of a town car, waving to supporters, going into a building to give a speech or something.

“Sawchuck?” Allison whispers. “The guy’s a goddamn poli-tician?”

She puts both hands on her head, runs her fingers out through her shoulder-length black hair, and lets out a very long breath.

“Fuck me,” she says to herself.

Allison is glad she hasn’t already called her mother, because there may be another solution to her cash flow problem.

“YOU’VE got an appointment today with Dr. Grigorin,” I said while Thomas poured some milk on his cereal. “Dad set it up a few weeks ago.”

“I don’t need to see her, Ray,” he said, not looking at me.

“Well, I’d appreciate it if you’d go. I know Dad thought it was good for you to see her once in a while.”

“I don’t want to go,” he said. “I have work to do.”