Page 10 of Concluded
And then a beautiful woman had knocked on his door.
People like Ashley Dunn didn’t just come a-callin’, and Dee never gave his address to clients.But he’d let her in anyway and listened to her little spiel about needing his help, and somehow within a few minutes he’d stuffed a few things into his suitcase and climbed into her Lexus.That night she drove them only as far as Eugene, not chatting at all along the way, and checked them into a nice hotel.Separate rooms.She’d ordered in a good dinner for him and then disappeared.The next day got them to Ashland—another nice hotel—and the next to Sacramento.And now here they were in San Diego, and he felt as if he’d been inside a dream or in a fugue state and was completely clueless.
“Did you… enchant me somehow?”A stupid question, except if he could work magic, it stood to reason that others could too.
Ashley chuckled and shook her head.“No, sweetheart.Let me tell you something important: I can’t make anybody do anything that they don’t want to do.”
“Um… whatcanyou do, then?”
After regarding him for a moment, she twisted around to face the road instead of the beach.Cars rolled by at a steady pace, the traffic constant but not heavy.As Dee watched, an SUV with surfboards on a roof rack pulled over to the side, then two young men got out and started getting the boards down.Ashley didn’t pay any attention to them.But when a city bus appeared a moment later, her lips curled upward and her eyes narrowed.
Suddenly the bus accelerated sharply.It narrowly missed the SUV as it took the curve much too fast, and then it flew onward, cutting in and out of lanes to pass other vehicles.Brakes screeched and horns blared, but the bus zoomed away without slowing down.
“What the fuck?”Dee exclaimed.“That driver’s gonna cause an accident.”
She gave a slight shrug.“Maybe.”
“Did you….How did….Didyoumake that happen?”
“I planted a teeny little idea in the driver’s head.Just a suggestion.It wouldn’t have had any effect if he hadn’twantedto do it.If he was perfectly content just toddling along, my itsy-bitsy nudge would have gone nowhere.But I guess somebody had a need for speed.”
Dee’s heart was speeding too.He began to stand up, but Ashley pulled him back down.“Chill,” she said.
“People might die.”
“People might.But we’re all going to die.There’s nothing you can do about it, and anyway, it’s not your problem.”
He felt sick—but he remained on the bench and didn’t even take out his phone.“How did you do that?”he rasped.
“It’s a talent I have.I can be persuasive when I want to be.”She fluttered her eyelashes in a parody of coquetry, but then her expression shifted and became more intense.“I brought you here to discussyourtalents, not mine.”
“I can’t do… that.”He shuddered as he gestured in the general direction of the departed bus.
“Maybe not.But that’s why we’re interested in you—we like to have a variety of skill sets among us.”
He was going to ask whowewas, but then he remembered his other recent visitor, Abe Ferencz.“Are you with the, um, Bureau of Trans-Species Affairs?”
Ashley snorted in an entirely undignified way.“Hardly.I guess you could say we’re competitors.Although that’s like saying a certain megalithic tech corporation owned by the world’s second richest person is a competitor of some kid cranking out zines on a vintage mimeograph machine.The Bureau is small potatoes and old, old news.”
Even though he didn’t want to hear the answer, he asked, “What business are you in?”
“The only one that matters, baby.Here’s the deal.Every once in a while, that kid with the mimeo might stumble on something interesting.Something potentially profitable, right?And then the megalith looks into it.That’s what’s happening now.The Bureau noticed you, and we want to see if you’re worth noticing.”She spread her hands as if it was as simple as that.
The logical part of Dee, or maybe the part with a sense of self-preservation, wanted to tell her that the Bureau was mistaken, he wasn’t interesting, and if Ashley could give him enough cash to make his way home, this would be the end of things.
But there was another part too, and it wanted very badly to be noticed.It wanted—Deewanted—to be something more than a broke-ass ex-con with a few minor magic tricks up his sleeve.
“So, sweetheart,” Ashley said, “what can you do?”
“Charms.I make charms.”
She cocked her head instead of scoffing, and that was already a win of sorts.But also scary.“Tell me more.”
“There’s not much more to tell.They’re good luck charms and the like.I mean, they’re actually just rocks or sometimes little trinkets I find at thrift shops.Costume jewelry, maybe.But clients say they want better luck or improved health or something like that.Some clients are pretty specific, and others just sort of want their lives heading in a better direction.I tell them the charms can do that for them.They pay me.”
“And do they work, Dee?”
He hesitated before answering.“Yeah.They usually do.”He didn’t mention that the charms also disintegrated into dust after use, because that seemed extra weird.
