Brian Freeman - The Night Bird

“Can I ask you a question, Virgil?”

“Nine inches,” he said.

“Oh, oh, oh, TMI,” Frankie replied, knowing she was drunk and not particularly caring. “No, I want to know if you take drugs.”

“Say it a little louder, honey,” Virgil told her.

Frankie realized she was almost shouting, and she was glad the noise of the restaurant drowned her out. She lowered her voice and leaned across the table and took Virgil’s hands. “Sorry. Do you?”

“Are you a cop now?”

“No.”

“Well then — duh. Of course I do.”

“Are you careful?”

“I’m careful about all things I allow inside my body. It pays to be cautious, no?”

“It does.” She added, “What drugs do you take?”

His teeth flashed behind his plump lips. “Are you in the market? Do you need me to hook you up?”

“No. Just curious.”

“Well, I don’t usually share that information with people I’m not sleeping with,” Virgil said, “but since you’re a friend, let’s just say I don’t discriminate between legal and illegal pharmaceuticals.”

“Have you heard anything on the street about bad drugs? Laced heroin? PCP? Bath salts? Any reports of extreme hallucinogenic reactions?”

“Only among your patients,” Virgil replied.

Her face bloomed with shock and anger, and he held up his hands in surrender. “Sorry, honey, that was nasty. Pam was in here for lunch. She told me what’s going on. Didn’t mean to poke the porcupine.”

Frankie leaned back in her chair and shook her head. “Am I an evil person, Virgil?”

“What, for messing with minds? Some minds need to be messed with.”

“I change reality for people,” Frankie said.

“Because they ask you to, right?”

“Yes, but maybe I have no business playing God with what’s real and what’s not. My father accused me of being no better than a lobotomist.”

“What a charming man Marvin was,” Virgil said.

“Can I tell you a secret? I don’t really miss him. I can’t even say I’m sorry he’s dead. I’ve never said that to another human being. Not even Jason.”

It lifted a burden for her to say the words out loud. She’d felt that way for months. Her father had been emotionally abusive to her and Pam his whole life. Making them feel small. Making them feel worthless. To have him gone was — a relief. It was horrible, but it was the truth.

“Do you feel guilty for feeling that way?” Virgil asked. In black, he looked like a priest in the confessional.

“Yes.”

“Well, don’t.”

“He was my father .”

“And that means what, exactly? It’s biology. He donated a sperm cell. Is that some kind of noble act? Parenthood ain’t the sex, honey. It’s everything that comes after.”

“Is your father still alive?” Frankie asked.

“I have no idea, but I suppose he is. I don’t think God is too anxious to meet him. Do you know what he did when I told him at age ten that I thought another boy was cute? He shoved a broom handle into my mouth until I vomited. He said, ‘No son of mine is going to be a filthy homo.’”

Frankie closed her eyes. “I’m sorry, V.”

“Don’t be. All I’m saying is, some parents aren’t worth mourning. There’s good ones, and there’s bad ones. You and me, we had bad ones.”

“I guess I should be grateful it wasn’t worse. He never physically harmed us.”

“You can get plenty of scars without ever being touched,” Virgil said.

“You’re right. Ever thought of changing careers? You give good shrink.”

He winked. “You’ll get my bill.”

Virgil pushed back the chair and stood up. He bent down and kissed Frankie on top of the head, and then he disappeared into the Zingari crowd. She felt lonely being alone now. She called Jason, but the call went to voice mail. She called Pam to apologize for their fight, but her sister didn’t answer, either.

And then ping.

Another e-mail.

It was almost as if her stalker were keeping her company. As if he knew she was alone and he wanted to be there for her. She studied the restaurant again, but if the Night Bird was here, he was hiding in a crowd of faces. She opened the e-mail.

You have ten minutes to save her.

Frankie told herself, Do not respond. That was what the security company had said. Never respond. He will try to goad you into replying. That’s what he wants. To engage you. To suck you in.

Do not respond.

She tapped out a response on her phone: “Who?”

Her finger hovered over the “Send” button. To send or not to send. She knew she was making a mistake by playing his game, and yet the darkness of his messages felt ominous.

She needs you. You have ten minutes to save her.

No.

Frankie deleted the reply without sending it. She deleted the original message. No more games; it was time to go home. With a sigh of relief, she removed her wallet from her purse and peeled off cash to pay for her dinner and wine. She left the money on the table. She looked for Virgil in the crowd to wave good-bye, but she didn’t see him.

Outside, on Post Street, the night air was cool. Trees shivered in the planter boxes. High buildings dwarfed her on all sides. She checked the street, but she felt safe among the garish throngs of Saturday-night partiers. Her condo on O’Farrell was only five blocks away.

She heard the chime of her phone again. Ping. He wasn’t giving up.

Frankie hesitated. No matter how much she wanted to pull away, she found herself going deeper into this man’s game. She had no choice. She opened the message:

Five minutes.

This time, there was something more to the e-mail. She saw an attachment file — a JPEG picture. He’d sent her a photograph.

Do not respond.

Never open attachments.

But she did. She clicked on the image, wondering if she’d made a mistake that would give him access to her whole electronic life, but it felt as if he knew everything about her already. Where she was. What she was doing.

Frankie stared at the photo on the small screen of her phone. It had been taken from above, like a still image captured from a ceiling-mounted webcam. The photo showed the inside of a busy cocktail lounge. People crowded shoulder to shoulder in the semidarkness. The bar glowed with red and green lights reflecting on dozens of liquor bottles stocked on mirrored shelves. She squinted and saw something else, too — three vintage pinball machines from the ’80s. She knew where this place was.

It was a bar two blocks away. She and Jason had been there many times. Loud pop music. Drinks. Dancing.

Frankie checked the time. It was five minutes to midnight. Five minutes.

She didn’t understand why this photograph was supposed to mean anything to her, but then she remembered: She needs you. With a pinch of her fingers, she enlarged the image and scrolled from face to face. No one was looking at the camera. No one knew they were being photographed. She didn’t see anyone she recognized. The faces were all strangers, except—

Frankie felt the breath leave her chest.

She zoomed in on one face until the image began to lose its focus. And she realized that she knew this woman. Her name was Christie Parke. She was thirty-seven years old. She lived in Millbrae and worked as a loan officer at a branch of Wells Fargo downtown. Five years ago, while volunteering at a homeless shelter, she’d been stuck with a dirty needle and diagnosed with AIDS. The lab result turned out to be a false positive. She was fine. But the experience had left her with a deadly fear of needles.

It was a fear that Frankie had helped her erase.

Christie was one of her patients.

Frankie stared at the steep Mason Street hill that led up toward the bar. She started running.