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“Cat got your tongue,” she said, and smiled. Not malevolently. Not sexually. Not anything. Just smiled to see my reaction.

“Busy with your great roast beef,” I said. “You’re a damn good cock.”

“Bessie’s the cook. I lied.”

“Why did you let me stay in your Dad’s cabin out in the woods?” I asked her.

“You needed a place to stay. I could see that. Why not.”

“But if you knew.”

“I didn’t know. Certainly not then. It took awhile for all the parts to fit into place. And, to answer your next question, when I did figure it out, it didn’t work for me. You’re obviously an intelligent man who is not nuts. At least not nuts in the way they’re making you out to be. No way you’d leave all those calling cards around for the cops to discover and pin the crimes on you. Clearly something’s go on that’s far more complicated than you simply killing a few drunks and an old motel manager for no apparent reason.”

“Don’t forget, I also apparently shot my best friend back in North Dakota.”

“Him too.”

“What do you think’s happening?”

“Probably got yourself caught up in something illegal and won’t play their game. That’d be my guess. So they’re after you, the cops are after you, and you have no place else to go.”

“You know, for a night-shift waitress in a small diner, you’re pretty sharp.”

“Put that in my recommendation?”

“Happy to.”

“Sleep with me tonight?”

Jesus. What was with this lady?

“Because I’ dangerous?”

“So they say in the articles they’ve printed on you. Say you know some kind of strange what’s it martial art from Cambodia and can kill people with your arms and legs. That true?”

“So they say. But I can’t.”

“Why not?” Like Cassie number one and Cassie number two, Cassie number three was bright as a whip.

“Like I said that first night. I’m with someone.”

“Not married.”

“Not yet, maybe.”

“Betrothed?”

Betrothed? Who the hell says betrothed anymore?

“Yes,” I lied.

“The real thing.”

“Absolutely.”

“She’ll never know. And I don’t care if you return to her.”

“But I’ll know.”

She looked me directly in the eyes and somehow I knew that she knew. It wasn’t going to happen.

“So what are you going to do?”

“I have no idea.”

“Not a clue.”

“Nope.”

“I’m very sorry. It just won’t work. You’re very attractive. But I am, as you say, betrothed. Such things matter to me.”

“Maybe it wouldn’t be so exciting after all. Guy with ethics. Oh well.”

“But I will help you try and get into Yale.”

“Thanks.”

32.
We finished eating and the ‘help’ came in and cleared the dishes away. I looked at the Cinderella sitting across from me. She’d fooled me completely. A diner waitress turned millionaires. What else was I missing?

“Get out of here,” she suddenly barked. “Now!”

I’m not sure exactly what I did then. Maybe my eyes turned into saucers. Hair stood on end? Heart attack? Whatever it was, even she looked shocked. Her transformation was complete. Even her eyes showed the change. A schizophrenic?

“Get out of my house,” she yelled.

I stood up, turned, and headed for the door. Not looking forward to the long hike back to the cabin in the woods.

“And don’t go back there. Not ever. You hear me?”

I turned back to look at her again, half expecting her head to be swiveling in circles on her neck. It wasn’t. But her face had turned bright red and whatever had taken possession of her little body stood rigid and dangerous in front of me.

Then something unexpected happened. If that were possible. She reached out, took my hand before I had a chance to respond, pulled my fingers open, stuck something green inside, closed my fingers into a fist, and gave my arm back to me. While she did this, she whispered something barely audible in my direction.

“Watch your back, Will. Don’t trust anybody. Not even me. And, for God’s sake get back in the game again. Stop running.”

That was it for the whispering apparently.

“I told you to get out!” she bellowed at me. And I did. Into that good night. Having less of an idea what was going on than I’d had so far in this strange journey. Cassie number three had at least three personalities, probably more.

While I could still see by the light of her front porch I looked at what she’d palmed me. A rubber-band-wrapped handful of fifty-dollar bills. How many, I had no idea. But more than I needed to get going wherever I was going to go.

I kept moving, still shocked by a long relaxing dinner followed by a punctuated finale lasting no more than a minute.

As I walked I thought about what she’d told me. Not the screaming. That, I guessed, was for the benefit of the ‘help’ or whoever else might be listening. But to her whispers. ‘Watch my back.’ ‘Don’t trust anyone.’ ‘Get back in the game.’ And, of course, the money. It reminded me of the New York City Cassie. Hating me. Yet giving me the means to escape.

I turned on the mental alarm that might tell me if I was being followed. If that imaginary target had appeared on my back as I walked. Nothing registered. A fallible approach, but often useful.

My mind, which had been in limbo, had suddenly come alive. What I had left in the cabin? A few cans of tuna maybe. The gun I’d brought but hadn’t thought about since I’d hid it in a bureau near the fireplace. No loss there. More likely a hazard than a deterrent. My coat. Tattered. No longer winter. A few memories that I still had with me. Nothing else I could think of. No reason to go back there.

Where to go? Find a phone maybe. Call Cassie number one and check up on Patton. Not likely I’d find a phone tonight but first thing in the morning. First thing, I needed to find some means of transportation. The old dilapidated car the Keystone Cops had given me that I’d parked south of town that first night? Not likely it would still be there. Or even run if it were. Take a cab back to New Haven. Did Woodbridge even have cabs? A train? Hitch a ride? These thoughts and others crowded my abruptly active mind as I walked toward town.

The beautiful warm spring night showed just a hint of city lights above the western horizon. I felt alive. Cassie number three’s outburst had woken me from a winter’s nap I hadn’t known I was taking. Time to get back into the fray. Start making things work my way. Stop running.

The first car that showed its lights behind me struck a nerve, and I stuck out my thumb. Why not? Nobody in their right mind would pick up a bearded stranger on a country road at night.

This one did. It slowed as it pulled by me and then stopped. Woodbridge was apparently just one of those towns full of friendly people. I hurried to the passenger side and looked in through the open window. Light was bad, Couldn’t make out the driver. Should I? Why not?

I opened the door and sat myself down in the passenger seat, closed the door. The engine roared to life and onward we went.

“Felt sorry for you,” she said. Cassie number three. No mistaking that voice. Which one I wasn’t sure, though it sounded like her whispering one rather her shouting one. I was dumbfounded. Why send me away and then pick me up in her car? I was dealing with a certifiable nutcase. No question about it.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked.

“Where do you want to go?”

“The city.”

“Which one.”

“New York.”

“How about New Haven?”

“Okay.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Why what?”

“Why the city?”

“Unfinished business, I guess.”

I could hear her smiling. Still couldn’t see her face in the darkness. No traffic on the road.

“You don’t happen to have a cell phone do you?”

“Yes.”

She thought about it.

“Calling North Dakota?”

“Seems like a good idea.”

I could hear her fumbling with something, then touched my arm with what I assumed was either a cell phone or a gun to blow out my brains. It was a cell phone.

I opened it and the inner light made it easy to dial the number. Cassie. It rang twice. Then she answered. Or, rather, a male voice answered. Not particularly what I wanted to hear.

“And you might be?” the voice said. Patton.

“Patton?”

“Francis? Where the hell are you. Where have you been? Do you have any idea what you’re doing?”

Too many questions, too few answers.

“Is Cassie there?”

“I thought she was with you.”

I looked over at Cassie number three. Was she with me? Cassie had majored in acting in college and I’d seen her work. Could this be?

“She’s not with me. Why?”

“She disappeared without a trace about three days ago. I just assumed you’d come to take her away with you.”

“Take her away with me?”

Before he had a chance to reply, the line went dead. And then came alive again.

“Francis? That you?”

The voice sounded familiar.

“Masters?”

“The one the only.” So I’d been right about his name. On the building and for the man.

“What are you doing on this line?”

“Take a guess.”

“Obviously you have tapped Cassie’s line somehow. Waiting for me to call no doubt.”

“Yes. But why?”

“You’ve got her.”

“Bingo.”

“Where?”

“You kidnapped her!”

“I made her a offer she couldn’t refuse, actually. To see you alive again. And she took it. First class trip all the way. Of course, her current condition can’t continue indefinitely. I require you to return and finish what you started. Then we’ll talk about how much we owe you.”

“Else?”

“Else?” I repeated.

“You can figure that out. But it won’t be pretty.”

“I thought you were a man of your word. No violence and all that.”

“I am both of those things. But desperate times and all that.”

“That a threat?”

“No. A statement of fact.”

“I’m coming in now.”

“That a fact?”

“A fact. Driving to New Haven as we speak. Should be in the city by midnight if the trains are running on time.”

“Make it by three?”

“In the morning?”

“You know by now that we don’t recognize such things here. We’ll be expecting you.” And the line went dead again.

I closed the phone. Handed it back to Cassie number three. If that’s who she really was. For all I knew Masters didn’t actually have her. She was with me in the car. Though that didn’t really seem likely. Or possible.

“Not good news?” she asked.

“Not bad news. Not good news either. Just news. At least I know now what I have to do.”

“Good,” she said.

And we continued to drive in silence across the still landscape around us. I watched the spring foliage in bloom pass by us in the semi-darkness. The street lamps had a mesmerizing effect. Planted at precise intervals to lull unsuspecting drivers to sleep.

After a few minutes of silence, she asked me if I need anything.

“Like?”

“No. Guns beget guns. I like to keep it simple.”

“Good idea,” she said.

“Thanks for the money,” I said.

“A trifle.”

“I haven’t had time to count it. Save me some time if you told me how much.”

“Thousand bucks. Could have given you much more. But it seemed about the right amount. For what you’re going to need.”

“Should be.”

Quiet gain.

“And thanks for the advice.”

“I meant it. All of it.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Remember? I told you not to trust anyone.”

“I do.”

I thought about it.

“Not even you.”

“Yes,” she said.

“Take this turn.”

“What?” she asked.

“Thus off ramp. Take it.”

“That an order?”

“Yes.”

“Or you’ll do what?”

She took the off ramp.

“Stop here,” I said.

She did.

She shifted gears quickly, as if she thought she mind change her mind if she hadn’t, and the car sped off, taking a U-turn and then back toward me and toward the Interstate. As she passed me, she gave me one final salute by honking her horn once. Short. And then she was gone.

33.
I stood there in the dark for a minute, trying to get my bearings. Likely just a few minutes outside of New Haven, I guessed. On a country road. Farmhouses toward the west. The Interstate to my immediate left. No hitching a ride there. Maybe just stand still and a car would pick me up and drive me the rest of the way into town. How likely was that? Of course, it would just e Cassie number three again. Was I ready for another go around? No.

Maybe I could call a cab from a good farmer out here in the boonies. After all I had a thousand bucks on me now. I began walking toward the nearest light.

I tried to remember the day I’d just had. The cabin. Cassie showing up on the doorstep unexpectedly. From there on, more had happened than in the weeks previous put together.

The night sky was a brilliantly clear as it sometimes appeared in North Dakota. The Pleiades were about to set in the west. Orion not far behind. To the east I could just see what I thought might be Scorpio rising. All those stars and how many planets looking down on me. Not giving a damn about my strange plight. Kind of gave me a new perspective on my problems. A universe of things happening with my little life just one of too many others to count.

A cool wind blew in from the direction of the Atlantic. Not cold. No need for a coat. Just a pleasant sensation of the air in motion. It didn’t care about my problems anymore than the stars and planets in the sky did.

When I reached the first house, the lights proved to be nothing more than guides for the sidewalk leading up to the front door. The windows were dark. Either nobody home, or the family tucked in for the night.

The second house, on the opposite side of the street proved more friendly. Not only were its inside lights ablaze, but the curtains spread wide for anyone to see a man watching television in the living room. I walked up the steps to the front door and knocked. His footsteps plodded slowly and reluctantly to the door. It opened.

A big man. Not so tall, but heavy. Very heavy. In a sweatshirt, full of its namesake. A can of beer in one hand and a television remote in the other.

“What?” he grunted.

“Wondering if I could use your phone,” I said. “My car broke down near the Interstate and I need to call someone to give me a hand with it.”

“Shit,” he said. Resolutely. As if he knew he had to help me, but not very happy about it.

He reached down to the table next to the door, picked up a cell phone and handed it to me. “Put it back when you’re done. The Knicks a losing another close one and for some reason I have to watch them do it.” With that said, he turned back to his rocker in front of the TV and ignored me.

His cell was one of those gadgets that got the Internet as well and I pulled up an application that allowed me to search for things such as cab companies. Got a number and called it. Another annoyed may answered and told him of my false plight. For some reason I remembered the name and number of the off ramp cross road and told him that as well.

“Be about forty dollars,” he said.

“Fine. How long.”

“About ten minutes.”

“Good. I’ll be standing at the base of the off ramp. Thanks.”

“Name,” he asked.

“William Tell,” I said.

“Okay Will, we’ll be there.”

Jesus. He called me Will, I thought. Not Francis. Or Tell.

I put the phone back on the table next to the door. I looked at the man in his chair watching the Knicks and gave it up. Why bother him again. I shut the door behind me on the way out.

It had taken me about ten minutes to find this house so I figured I could make it back to the Interstate by that time. When I arrived, however, the cabbie was already there, standing outside his cab yelling that the clock was already running. I shrugged my shoulders and got in.

“Where to, Bub?”

Bub?

“New Haven main train station. Need to get to the city as fast as possible.”

“Go for it,” I told him.

And off we went, up to the Interstate, and on into the brightening lights from the city ahead.
Thank God the cabbie wasn’t talkative. Had the radio turned up high to some Golden Oldies station and so we traveled along listening to Simon and Garfunkel singing about good old Missus Robinson. New Haven slowly appeared as we approached and within a few minutes he was letting me off at the station and I handing him one of the fifties that Cassie number three had given me. At this rate, the thousand wasn’t going to last that long. Living in cities was a lot rougher than living in log cabins in the woods eating tuna fish and peanut butter.

He’d been right. The train was just loading as I arrived and with ticket in hand and trying to pocket the change left over from having to change a fifty, I just made one of the cars and found a seat. Still early and lots of people were making their way home or to early jobs in the city.

I sat back and tried to remember my trip here. Asleep in a similar situation but going the other direction. No idea how long ago that had been. A week? A month? A lot longer emotionally. Then I was on the run. Now I was on the attack. Of so I thought. More confused than ever and my dearest friend and lover held hostage didn’t sound like an upper hand.

I closed my eyes and tried my best not to fall asleep. Unsuccessful, I woke to the tapping of a uniformed clerk telling me that I had to get off the train. End of the line. I asked him where we were and he looked at me strangely. After all, he’d told me the end of line.

“How far to Queens?” I asked him.

He pointed to the signs above me and went about cleaning up the car from other refuse. Apparently his duty for the night.

I found Queens on the sign and, direct to another part of the station reserved for subways, found that an appropriate car would be departing in less then thirty minutes. I checked the time on the clock and it showed just shy of midnight. Plenty of time, I thought. Could certainly find the Masters building on foot by three. No problem. And I was right.

34.
And here I was again. Standing in front of the building, looking up at the early morning crescent moons in the windows. I had found the building more quickly than I’d thought. And here I was. What now?

I remembered the lab, my apartment, the basement, alarm, the smell, the two escapes, Cassie number two, and many other more subtle things. Memories from a long time ago. A different me.

Five minutes. I’d bought a watch. From a street vendor who promised it got it’s time from some atomic clock near Denver in Colorado. I therefore expected it to be accurate to within ten minutes. Maybe. Probably last for a week. But I needed one for next few days.

I walked the walk of a man facing the chair toward the front doors. No doubt the night watchman would be manning the front desk. Or would it be Cassie, back at her old job?

Arriving, I rapped on the glass softly, looking inside to see if someone could hear me. Someone had. And from what I could see it wasn’t Cassie number two. An old guy. Her replacement. She must be sleeping, if she ever did that. Or working. More probably the latter.

He opened the door with a couple of chains keeping me from a forced entry. “Name?” he asked.

I thought of William Tell, but didn’t think that’d go over well. “Will Francis,” I told him. “Professor Will Francis.”

He scanned the list he had on a clipboard. Carefully reviewing each name.

“Yes, Mister Francis. They’re expecting you. Do you know your way?”

“Unfortunately I do,” I told him.

He gave me a funny look, but eventually turned back to his desk to fall into a stupor again.

I rode the elevator, my old friend and enemy, up to the thirteenth floor again. Not for the last time I hoped.

No one was ready to greet me there. The hallway was empty. But then Christopher knew that I knew where he’d be. For this had been my prison those many weeks ago. I knew it almost by heart. Blindfolded?

I arrived at the entrance to the dining room. Stopped for a second to get my heart to slow down. To relax. To think or expect nothing at all. Deal with each situation as it developed.

And then I opened the door. And walked in.

As expected, they were all there. Masters, Cassie number two. David Epoc. For some reason I remembered his name. Maybe because he did work in a similar vain as I. Even the cook was there. But no Cassie number one.

“Professor Francis,” Masters said. “Welcome back.”

Not the words I wanted to hear, but ones I’d have to deal with nonetheless.

“Where is she?” I asked him, getting right to the point.

“Safe,” he said. As if that answered my question.

“I want to see her now.”

“All in good time, Professor Francis. First, we have a few details to iron out.”

“Like what?”

“Like how long is it going to take you to once again fix the antivirus? After all, it’s in your best interest. Not only will you get Cassie back, but you’ll make a lot of money and help the poor people of the world regain the use of their computers.”

“You’ve released the virus?”

“Yesterday.”

“My God. Why’d you do that?”

“Right after I spoke to you. Figured it would add incentive to your desire to fix it. Right this time.”

He was probably correct in that.

“You’re telling me that the blowback has already begun?”

“It has. Particularly the government computers it’s disabled. Maybe them hard to wage war I’m glad to say. A good thing, no?”

“How long before saturation?”

“Saturation?”

“Until it makes it through the Internet and infects virtually everyone?”

“Cassie,” he said. And for a moment I thought he was calling my Cassie. He wasn’t. Cassie number two.

“Probably ten days. Hard to tell. The way I set it up, it’s going to be damn fast. A lot faster than most spreads.”

She was talking fast. Must have just had a fix.

“So you see Professor Francis. Time’s the thing. We need you on the job now, or a lot of innocent people are going to suffer. And we can’t just designate who’s going to get hit first. It’s spreading like wildfire and no one’s immune.”

“I thought you told me that governments were not going to be hit?”

“Probably did. It wasn’t my intention. But I had gotten tired of waiting for you to reappear, don’t you see. So what the hell. I’m surprised that wherever you were you hadn’t heard of it by now.”

I hadn’t. And I didn’t tell him where I’d been.

“So what do you want from me?”

“Simple. Go to your apartment off the computer lab. Have a bite to eat there. Then get to the lab and make your final adjustments on the antivirus so we can begin our sales campaign. Once that gets started and the money begins rolling in, we can start making deals with our many partners and go ahead and let you and your friend go.”