Текст книги "The Two Deaths of Daniel Hayes"

Автор книги: Marcus Sakey

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Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

The taste of fall was in the air, but the afternoon was still warm enough to sit on the patio of Takami, twenty-one stories above the stark clatter of downtown L.A. The small outdoor area was packed, mostly men and women in sharp suits and pricy watches. He leaned back, took in the buzz of conversation.

“. . . market is overextended. I’m telling you, we’re headed for a double-dip, and that’s if we’re lucky . . .”

“. . . it’s yoga, but you do it at 105 degrees. Thing is, you’re sweating a lot, and then bending over and spreading your legs, and, well . . .”

“. . . shot one pilot, now she thinks she’s Jennifer Freaking Aniston . . .”

“. . . the problem with looking for your glasses is that you don’t have your glasses on while you’re looking . . .”

“. . . you know they’re sleeping together. Which is so stupid. How does that work? I mean, she has everything, and yet . . .”

It was funny how noisy the world was if you listened. So many sounds the human brain filtered out. Talk was the water people swam through, constant, crucial, and unnoticed. There were so many things you could learn if you just listened.

Everybody had multiple identities. They were different people alone than with friends, different with friends than with family. There was the part of them that sinned, that did things they knew were shameful; and then there was the part of them that judged that same behavior in others. The loving wife who had an affair was two people. One of them was carefully constructed. The other was an animal howl. One feared the chaos of night; the other was desperate to believe the world was hers to light aflame.

That’s how it worked. She could be honestly devoted to husband and children, because the woman getting plowed in a motel room was a different person.

People liked to pretend that wasn’t true, and that was how he made his living.

“Can I get you anything else, sir? Maybe some green-tea ice cream?”

Bennett shook his head. “Just the check.” He pulled his cell phone from his pocket, dialed the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department number from memory, then punched an extension.

When the man answered, Bennett said, “Do you know who this is?”

There was a long pause, and then the man said, “Yes.”

“You don’t sound happy to hear from me.”

“Fuck off.”

Bennett smiled. “Well brother, you’ve got brevity on your side. I need you to look something up for me.”

“And I need a blowjob from—”

“Do you really want to go down that road?”

“The statute of limitations is up.”

“Maybe legally.”

There was another pause, then, “What do you want?” “I need an inventory manifest from a crime scene.”

“Which one?”

Bennett told him. Then he started counting backward in his head. Five, four, three, two . . .

“Were you involved?”

“Not personally. This is a favor for a friend.”

“You don’t have friends, Bennett. You’re a cockroach, crawling in and out of everybody’s dark places.”

“Very poetic. I’ll wait.” The waitress brought the check, and he nodded to her. He laid down cash enough cover the tab and 18 percent—leave 10 percent or 30 and you might be remembered– then put his foot up on the opposite chair and enjoyed the view.

“I give you this, we’re through.”

“Okay.”

“I mean it. Don’t call me again.”

“You got my word.”

“Owner’s manual. Canvas shopping bags. Jumper cables. GPS. Zagat’s, Los Angeles, 2007 edition. Sunglasses. Pepper spray. Lipstick. Mascara. Hand lotion.”

“That’s it?”

“Yes.”

“Nothing else.”

“No.”

“And no purse?”

“Did I fucking say purse? No? So then there wasn’t a fucking—”

Bennett hung up. He tucked the phone away, then stood and pushed in his chair. The sound of conversation was replaced by music as he stepped inside the restaurant, some lyric-less lounge crap. A pretty hostess thanked him for coming.

He pressed the button for the elevator, rocked back on his heels.

It’s still out there.

Let’s go look for it.

5

It wasn’t the most expensive block of Malibu real estate. Not even close, really, considering the wealth concentrated in this little section of heaven half an hour west of Los Angeles. But that was a relative way of looking at things. The house, modern and bright, hidden behind a security fence, cost more than something ten times the size in the parts of the country where Belinda Nichols had grown up.

She was parked down the block, sitting in the back of a van she’d bought the day before. The classified ad had described it perfectly: “1995 Dodge Caravan, solid not pretty, $2200/obo.” She’d offered $1500, not because she cared about the money but because not haggling would have made her more memorable. They’d settled on $1800; Belinda had counted bills into his hand, he’d passed her the keys, and voilà, she was the proud owner of a piece of shit. “Not pretty” was an understatement; the thing had been used hard, the exterior a dull white except for the crumpled side where a collision had banged the metal inward and left long tears of naked steel glinting through.

She’d bought it as a disposable home, a place to work out of while she settled things. Her main concern had been utility, a place for a sleeping bag so she didn’t leave a trail of hotel records. But the P.O.S. was turning out to be a perfect cover. It would have looked out of place in Malibu, except that all these beautiful, expensive homes needed someone to clean them, to care for their landscaping and maintain their pools. The private security firm that covered the area had twice passed while she’d been parked here, and hadn’t touched the brakes on either occasion.

Her stomach was tight, her nerves raw, but she made herself sit still, stare out the windshield. Taking time to check things out, to make sure that she wasn’t forgetting anything. The importance of preparation was something Bennett had taught her. He was a monster, but he was good at what he did, and there was a lot she could learn from him.

A battered pickup with a yard crew rolled by, Hispanic dudes in the back balancing among lawn mowers and leaf blowers. Four minutes later, someone’s security gate opened, and a Saab pulled out, driven by a woman talking on a cell phone. A bit after that, a nanny pushed a stroller up the block. Everything was quiet. No sign of the police.

Flipping down the visor mirror, she took a last look at herself. The port wine stain that spilled across her eye and down one cheek was brighter today, an angrier red. Her features were even, eyes big, nose small, and without the stain, she might have been a beauty. But the birthmark, naevus flammeus, was all anyone ever saw. Ask Gorbachev.

She gathered blond California-Girl hair, twisting it into a ponytail and securing it with a white scrunchie. Her clothes were bulky, work gear bought at a resale shop, and hid the toned muscles of her body. She took a slow breath, met her own eyes in the mirror.

You’re no longer Belinda Nichols. You’re Lila Bannister. You’ve got a blond dye-job that isn’t fooling anyone and two kids at home. You’d rather live in one of these houses than take care of them, rather be a movie star than a cleaning lady, but if wishes were horses, someone would need to muck out the stables. Your ex-husband is long gone, but your boyfriend is a decent man, has a job with the phone company. Saturday nights the two of you drink margaritas on your porch. During good-money months you put aside a little for a rainy day, but minor squalls seem to hit frequently: dental bills, repairs on the Dodge, Mom’s nursing home. Still, you have each other, and work, and these days that’s a blessing. Life is all right.

Lila Bannister turned the ignition, holding it as the van cranked, cranked, cranked, and caught. She went past the house, then around the block, one last check. All calm. Then she turned back onto Wandermere, drove past the lawn crew she’d seen earlier, and pulled up to Daniel Hayes’s house.

There was a security gate blocking the front, and a stanchion with a call button and a keypad. Lila rolled down her window, warm Malibu air flowing in, and leaned out to punch the code. There was the sound of a chain drawing tight, and the gate slid aside. She pulled through and followed the curve of the drive to the house. Her palms were sweaty, and she wiped them on her pants, then killed the engine.

Lila hopped out of the van, the door squealing as she pushed it open. It was November, and though the flowers were gone, the air still smelled sweet. She opened the back and took out a watering can and a duffel bag. Humming softly to herself, she walked up the porch steps to the front door. She knew no one was home, but a housekeeper would ring the bell before walking in, so she did the same. Stood on the porch, feeling the sun on her back, the tension in her calves. After fifteen or twenty seconds, she dug in the bag, came out with a key ring, and slotted one in. The door opened, and Lila walked inside, closing the door behind her.

The moment the door closed, Belinda Nichols dropped the duffel bag of cleaning products and the watering can. She took a quick lap of the first floor, just being cautious, doing what Bennett would have done. Someone had been drinking; the kitchen counter had a couple of bottles of whiskey in various stages of emptiness. The trash stank, and there were dishes in the sink. Belinda took it all in, then went back to the foyer and climbed the stairs to the second floor.

The master bedroom was flooded with sunlight and the bed was neatly made, but there was an air of lingering sadness. Belinda shook her head, then walked to the nightstand and pulled open the drawer.

The gun that was supposed to be there wasn’t.

She stared for a moment, cataloging what she saw. Lip balm, lambskin condoms, a dish filled with coins, a Gregg Hurwitz novel. No gun. She lifted the book, just in case the gun was beneath it. It wasn’t, but something else was. A shiny steel ring. She picked it up, holding it between thumb and forefinger. It was light, and the inside was worn smooth.

What the hell? Why was Daniel Hayes’s wedding ring in the drawer instead of the pistol she’d come for?

What kind of game was he playing?

Belinda slid the ring into the front pocket of her work pants, then closed the drawer and headed for the office. Hayes’s desk was neither neat nor cluttered. A laptop sat in the center. She opened a drawer—papers, scissors, stamps, rubber bands, a package of blank DVDs—and there, in the back, found what she was looking for.

She looked at them. The squat little revolver would be easy to hide. But it didn’t look as effective as the other, which was black with a chrome slide and the words _{SIG SAUER} embossed on the textured grip. It had a sort of sportily efficient look to it, the kind of gun James Bond might carry if he decided he wanted variety. Belinda reached for it, then stopped, hand hovering and skin crawling. She hated guns.

Bennett’s voice rang in her mind. “Everybody sins, sister. To own them, all you have to do is see it.” A point he’d proven rather elegantly with her. Twice.

You really don’t have any choice .

Belinda took the gun, feeling the heft of it, the way it fit her hand. Something squirmed in her stomach, but she pushed it away. Slid the gun into the other pocket of her pants. Daniel Hayes’s wedding ring in one pocket; his pistol in the other. There was a strange, ugly sort of symmetry there.

Time to go.

Downstairs, Belinda threw her shoulders back, hoisted the cleaning supplies, and opened the door. Then Lila Bannister stepped out into the light of a gorgeous afternoon. She paused to lock the front door. Tossed her supplies in the back of the van, thinking about the rest of her day, how she had two more houses to do before making dinner for her family. She had a new Cooking Light recipe for fish tacos she was looking forward to trying. Chat with the kids about school, watch an hour or two of tube, maybe a bath, and off to bed.

The gate swung open on an automatic sensor, and the white van with the dented side pulled out, wound down to the PCH, and vanished among the eastbound traffic.

I

t started in the desert.

Daniel was ragged, worn thin by lonely miles. The last days were blurs of scenery and sunlight, his belly sour from fast food and caffeine. Last night at some ungodly dark hour, he’d pulled the car off on a Utah side road, really just a path of dusty stone and sharpedged plants. Before he’d gone to sleep, he’d shut off the headlights and stepped out of the car to stare upward. Stars spilled vertiginously across the night sky, a lavish abundance, white and sharp in the desert air. Farther than he could conceive and closer than he could bear. For a moment, all his fear dropped away. He just stared upward, lost in that holy sea, and lifted by it.

Then he shoveled junk off the backseat of the car and collapsed. In his dream, Emily Sweet danced for him, her feet bare, singing something he couldn’t make out.

Later that morning he blew through Vegas: the Stratosphere, Caesars, the Riviera looming like monuments to lurid gods. There was a reason the tourist shots always showed Vegas at night, glowing like fireworks. By the bright light of early morning, the glitter seemed surreal and cheap. A hangover after a night of bad decisions.

And far quicker than a hangover, it vanished. But somewhere in the desert beyond Vegas, the feeling started.

Excitement.

With every numbingly dull mile he knocked down, it grew. A palpable feeling in his chest, a joyous bubbling warmth. He was almost home. The answer to every question was only a few hours away. He didn’t know what he would find, but atleast it would be something.

Shortly before noon, he merged from I-15 to the 10. Smooth, wide lanes bordered by concrete under an electric blue sky. It didn’t look that different from a lot of the country he’d covered in the last days: car dealerships and strip malls and chain hotels. But it felt right. The streets and towns had names he could taste like ice cream flavors– Covina, Pomona, Alhambra. Each more familiar than the last.

Half an hour later, when the Los Angeles skyline rose in the distance, the mirrored towers bearing the names of banks and insurance companies, the concrete basin of the river shining with shallow puddles, he felt his heart swell against his ribs. Traffic had slowed, and on his right was a convertible driven by a blonde whose hair stirred like a dream of summer; to his left, a guy yelled into a cell phone as he steered his Hummer. The Hollywood sign was just visible through a nicotine-yellow haze. Radio stations came and went like transmissions from the moon; billboards proclaimed that dieting sucked, suggested he get the lap band. It was November, and seventy degrees.

Los Angeles. Home.

He forced his attention back to the situation. The insurance card address was in Malibu, not L.A. proper. But the Candy Girls house was in Venice.

No, asshole, it’s not. It’s in a studio somewhere. The walls are façades and the sky is a light grid. Emily Sweet doesn’t exist. She’s just a symbol your messed-up brain designed to get you back to Los Angeles.

Well, bravo, two points for the subconscious. But no need to get ridiculous.

He flashed on an image, a dream, maybe? Emily Sweet standing

THE TWO DEATHS OF DANIEL HAYES 73

in front of a window, wrapped in sunlight, gauzy with it, her dark hair shining. Her lips were pink and parted as if she were about to say something. She wore fitted jeans and a black bra, and he could see the humming softness of her stomach, the curve of her shoulder, a hint of nipple through lace.

Of course, Venice is more or less on the way to Malibu. What’s an hour or two?

In his mind’s eye, Emily Sweet’s lips twisted into a molasses smile, a promise she’d meet him there.

The show wasn’t specific on where the house was supposed to be, but there were frequent intercut shots of local landmarks. The faded letters V E N I C E above Windward Avenue. Jim Morrison looking down from a mural. The boardwalk, Rollerbladers and jugglers and homeless. When he’d seen those on television, he’d recognized them, though the recognition came without any context, the same way he could visualize the Statue of Liberty but had no idea if he had ever actually seen it.

But now that he was here, he did feel a charge, a sense that he had been here. He had driven these streets, eaten in these restaurants. It was jarring in a good way, a pleasant sort of déjà vu, and he found himself growing increasingly excited. Every time he turned a corner, the feeling that he knew this place grew, and around each he expected to see . . .

What? Emily Sweet leaning over a porch railing, waving at you?

Well, yeah. Kind of. And so he drove slow, taking in every stylish boutique, every yoga studio, every tattoo parlor. Lawn-mowered the BMW up and down wide boulevards and narrow streets, looking for the one that held the Candy Girls house, and if not Emily, then at least some answers.

Three hours later, he had a headache, a sick feeling, and the dubious claim of having driven every block of Venice.

The house wasn’t there.

Of course it’s not. You knew that when you started.

Still, it hurt. A surprising amount, actually. Maybe it was just wishful thinking, but during the drive she had become a symbol for him, a sign that all of this had some larger purpose. She was Home and Mother and Lover rolled into one, the temptress with a crooked smile and all the answers.

Get it through your head. There is no Emily Sweet.

By the way, there’s no Han Solo either, and no Santa Claus. Sorry, kid.

Daniel found a place to park, stomped to a restaurant, and ordered a Cuban sandwich and two beers. He sat at a wobbly sidewalk table, chewed numbly, and watched people go about their lives.

It didn’t matter. He hadn’t come here for that. He wasn’t crazy. Confused, yes; scared, certainly. But not crazy. Whacked-out dreams of her may have pursued him across the country, but he’d made the drive based on tangible evidence. The address on the insurance card. That was why he was here.

Sure, it would have been nice to have this strange and glorious symbol guiding him. It would have exempted him from the things he’d done, and it would have given him faith that there was an order, a purpose to things. But wanting didn’t make it so.

Maybe an address on an insurance card is a lousy, prosaic way to stake a claim on your life. But it’s what you have. Deal with it.

He wiped grease from his fingers, downed the last of the beer, and walked back to his car. Time to hit the PCH, see what Malibu had to offer.

Twenty miles and forty minutes later, Daniel discovered he was wrong.

Turned out he was crazy after all.

ACT TWO, PART ONE

“In L.A., you think you’re making something up, but it’s making you up.”

–Steve Erickson, Amnesiascope

A

blurry week ago he had woken on one coast. It had been cold and gray and lonely, beautiful in a desolate sort of way. It had nearly killed him, and maybe he had wanted it to.

Then the dreams, and the police.

The midnight cities in blurs of light.

The Midwest, flat and pale.

The endless fields of grain.

The gaudy playland of Las Vegas.

The heat shimmer of the desert.

The bright bustle of Los Angeles.

The Pacific Coast Highway, a ribbon winding between knuckled

ridges of rock and the blue promise of the Pacific Ocean.

And finally Malibu, nestled like a jewel in the warm bosom of the other coast. More beautiful than any place had a right to be. Golden sunlight, salt tang in the air, bungalows in faded shades of mint and turquoise next to multimillion-dollar wonders of glass and stone, waves rolling surfers to shore in long, slow breaks. Twentyseven miles of beach and canyon, of palm trees and skies that promised never to cloud—except from wildfire smoke or mudslide rain. Celebrities huddled behind security gates while homeless philosophers dispensed wisdom outside organic cafés. Daniel hadn’t needed to read the license plate frame on the car ahead of him to know that it said, _{MALIBU: A WAY OF LIFE}. He hadn’t needed his map, either. He knew his way around.

It wasn’t that he remembered the shocking green swath of lawn fronting Pepperdine, or the white houses clinging to the cliffs. It wasn’t that he looked at the Pavilions grocery store and remembered shopping there, or saw the broad span of Point Dume and could picture swimming off it. It was a physical thing. Muscle memory, force of habit, his body knowing when to turn and which direction.

So he’d rolled with it, just followed that instinct until it led him right to Wandermere Road. The same address on the insurance card.

And now, as he looked out at the house, a two-story California Contemporary with lots of glass and a wraparound porch, he realized that somewhere along the line he’d gone crazy. Only a matter of time before he started seeing talking cats and mad queens. That was the only explanation.

Because he was looking at the Candy Girls house.

“Down the rabbit hole,” he said. He tried to laugh, but the sound died.

There was a wall that they had never showed on TV, and a tall security gate guarding the driveway. But what he could see of the house itself was the same: faded peach walls like early sunset, the porch Emily Sweet had stood on while her sister talked to her, the wood-spindle railing. He’d seen it all before on television, and in dreams he’d spoken to the woman who lived in it, a character from a cheap melodrama, a woman who did not exist, and besides which, it was supposed to be in Venice, not here, but here it was, standing between a bungalow and a Greek revival, right out the goddamn car window—

The honk of a horn shook him out of his trance. He glanced in the rearview, saw a VW Beetle behind him. He started to move before he remembered that Emily Sweet drove a Beetle.

No way.

The angle of the sun off the glass made it impossible to see clearly, but that profile, it could be . . . He pulled the parking brake and leapt out. Each step brought her into focus—her silhouette, the fine features of her face, fingers on the steering wheel, and then he’d reached her car, the angle better now. The driver was an Indian woman with wide, frightened eyes. He froze, and the woman who wasn’t Emily fumbled for the transmission, threw it in reverse. The VW shot ten yards backward with a whine.

“Wait,” he said, his hands out and low. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

He had to flatten himself against the BMW as she blew past. The last of her he saw was her middle finger as she turned the corner, leaving him alone in front of a house that couldn’t exist.

Right. Right.

Get it together.

Daniel climbed hurriedly into his car. No sense having made it this far to flip out in the middle of the street. Play it smart. Better to park the BMW out of sight, walk back here, ring the bell.

Then flip out.

5

When he hiked back up from the beach parking lot, he expected to find the house transformed. It had been a figment of stress and lack of sleep and loneliness. His mind, already strained—to say the least—had gotten confused. He repeated it like a mantra, timing it to his steps, I’m just, confused, I’m just, confused.

But when he reached the address, there it was, large as life. Larger than. A California Contemporary with lots of glass and a wraparound porch.

Okay. Well. Be that way.

The gate was metal, about eight feet high, with a section that would slide aside to allow access to the driveway. A metal post held a small panel at car height. There was a keypad and a call button, which he pushed. It made a buzzing sound that he assumed was mirrored in the house. He waited a long moment, then pushed it again. No answer.

Guess I’m not home.

He must once have known the keypad combination that would open the gate, but that was gone with everything else. Daniel glanced up and down the block. It wasn’t the most opulent section of Malibu he’d seen, but it was still pretty damn nice; most houses guarded by a fence, Mexicans doing lawn work, probably private security rolling around. Best he could tell, no one was looking at him, but who knew.

Daniel stood on tiptoes, stretched up to grasp the lip of the gate. He jumped and pulled, managed to get his chin up to the edge and hung there, something below his stomach tingling. He twisted his grip to plant his hands like he was getting out of a pool. His feet kicked at the metal with a loud bong, giving him just enough purchase to get a knee up and throw one sneaker over. For a second his tailbone rocked against the sun-warmed metal, and then he pulled the other leg over and dropped clumsily to the driveway, the impact ringing through his knees and ankles.

That had been harder than it seemed like it should have been. He straightened, dusted off his palms and his jeans.

Now that he had an unobstructed view, he could see more differences between the house in front of him and the one on the show. Flower beds flanked the walkway here, though the flowers were embattled by weeds and grass. There was a porch swing, and although it wasn’t on TV, it seemed right to him. Expected.

The thought sent a chill through him. The whole place did. He was sweatier than the late afternoon sun could account for, and his head felt light. He had a powerful urge to turn around and head back the way he had come. Hop over the fence again, get in the car, and . . .

What?

Daniel straightened his back, wiped his hands, and walked to the house. He started up the steps to the porch, then stopped a few shy of the top. He had the strongest feeling that the next step would squeak. What did it mean if it did? If it didn’t? Which made him sane, which made him crazy?

It squeaked.

I know this place. I don’t know how that’s possible, what it means, but I knew how to get here and I know the sound of the trees rustling in the wind and that porch swing, I know I’ve sat on it before, and, god help me, I feel like I sat beside—

Emily Sweet.

His sneakers made soft suss sounds. He trailed his fingers along the railing, the wood smooth with salt air and paint and touch. At the first window, he cupped his hands to see inside.

The lights were off, but beams of sun spilled in. It looked nothing like the show. The furniture was low and Scandinavian, light colors and graceful curves resting on a rug that looked expensive. The room radiated emptiness, a sixth-sense feeling that no one was home. But someone lived here. Scratch that. He lived here.

He walked to the front door. Through cut glass insets he could see an end table, a marble floor, framed photographs on the wall. He reached for the handle. Locked.

Daniel reached into his pocket and pulled out the ring of keys. The BMW alarm fob, one small key he’d mangled unscrewing license plates, and three others. The second one slid into the deadbolt, snapped it back with oiled ease. He put a hand on the handle, fingers sweaty.

I am Daniel Hayes. This is my house.

So why am I terrified?

He twisted the handle. The door swung open without a sound.

With one last backward glance, he stepped inside.

5

Nothing happened. No trumpets or explosions or gaping holes in reality. He took one step and then another, sneakers squeaking on the marble. The air tasted stale.

The hallway was bright and broad, with an archway leading to the living room, and another at the end of the hall. A staircase of polished wood supported by metal framework rose so that each step seemed to hang in the air. There was a faint patina of dust on the end table by the door, and a beaten copper bowl that held loose change, a receipt, sunglasses. He had an urge to pull out his keys and money and drop them there. “Hello?”

He closed the door– click—walked to the wall with the photographs. There were three of them, black-and-white shots, professionally matted and framed.

All Emily Sweet.

It looked like they had been shot at the same time. All three showed her in a white tee against a white wall, shirt blending so that her features and hair and the skin of her arms seemed summoned forth from light. In the first she was turned to the side, dark hair draped soft over her features, arm pulling the shirt up enough to show the curve of her breast; in another she faced forward but looked away, the barest hint of a smile teasing her lips. The third, the most sensual, had her pressed face-first to the wall, one hand up, her head tipped slightly back, as though caught in a daydream. They were beautiful but not quite professional, the contrast not perfect, the lighting a little off, as though they had been taken by a journeyman photographer. But the look on her face, the trust in the poses, they gave the images power. These photos had been taken by someone who loved her.

Is this what it feels like to go mad?

But he didn’t believe it. Somehow he knew better, knew from that part of himself that had vanished. Knew, even as he walked through the arch into the cluttered living room, that there would be other photographs.

There were. And not just of her.

A collection of frames sat on the mantel. Emily and a man in ski wear squinting into the camera against the intense light of an alpine slope. Emily and a man dancing, her caught in the middle of a laugh, his hand in the small of her back. Another taken at arm’s length, Emily and a man in a restaurant, the two of them leaning against each other in the booth, cheeks touching, both smiling a luminous, careless smile. Emily and a man sprawled across the hood of a gray BMW, holding up the title papers.

A gray BMW like the one he had driven here.

And a man who looked just like him.

Daniel floated. The real him was a balloon tethered three feet up and back from his head. He could see himself moving around the living room. His living room. See himself leaning in to look at the photos more closely. Emily arms-deep in a pumpkin, newspapers spread out to catch seeds and orange goop. In one photo a man who looked just like a younger version of him had a cigarette in one hand, and with the other gave the camera the finger. There was Emily in a makeup chair, graceful shoulders bare, someone fiddling with her hair. And here was a man who looked just like him wearing a tuxedo, standing in the ocean with her, the water up to his knees but not quite reaching her white gown.