Page 11 of Look Closer

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“Just make sure nobody does a fingerprint-based background check on you,” Rambo says. “Then your prints would come up with your real name.”

Right. But I can’t do anything about that.

He cocks his head. “You realize you just paid me to do the same thing I did when I created this identity for you. I wouldn’t have given you ‘Vicky Lanier’ in the first place if it wasn’t clean.”

“Always good to update,” I say.

“Nah,” he says out of the side of his mouth. “You’re expecting someone to inquire. To look into your background. You’re expecting trouble.”

I stare at him with a perfunctory smile.

“Never mind,” he says. “I don’t want to know.”

He’s right on both counts. There’s going to be trouble. And he doesn’t want to know.

8

Simon

I’m meeting Vicky for lunch at the Chinese restaurant by the law school. She often works days, so when she doesn’t, we try to hook up for lunch, especially in the summer, when my schedule is so light.

She kisses me on the cheek. “Hey, handsome.” She wets her finger, wipes the lipstick off my cheek, and takes her seat across from me in the booth. “How’s your buddy, the dean?”

“Not this again,” I say. “What am I supposed to do, defy him? Spit in the face of the most powerful guy at the school?”

“He spit in your face first.”

Vicky, bless her heart, fights for me. She doesn’t like the idea of Dean Comstock forcing me out of consideration for the full professor slot. She can get pretty worked up when people disrespect me. I find that incredibly sexy about her, for some reason.

“Simon, all you’re doing is applying for full professor. You have just as much a right to do that as that schmuck with the rich daddy, Reid whatever. Who cares what Dean what’s-his-name, Dean Cumstain, thinks?”

“Comstock.” I laugh. “The guy who could single-handedly derail my career? I think I do care what he thinks.”

She shakes her head, disappointed and angry. I meant what I wrote in my journal. I love this woman and I always will. But she doesn’t love me back. She likes me and cares about me, but I don’t do it for her in that way. And that, for me, takes the air out of the balloon. Maybe Freud would have something to say here about the id or superego, but I’m not one of those guys who likes challenges. I’m not attracted to someone who’s not attracted to me.

When I first met Vicky, just six weeks after her sister’s suicide, she was so angry. Sad, too, but mostly angry. I was able to help her. Maybe that’s the only reason she was drawn to me. Maybe that’s whyIwas drawn toher.Your heart doesn’t come with explanatory notes.

“You already put your name in, right?” she asks. “All that’s left is submitting all the materials. And you have until sometime in September?”

“Yes, yes, and yes,” I say. “But I’m going to withdraw my name.”

She reaches across the table and takes my hand. It still stirs something inside me when she touches me like that, no matter what else I may tell myself.

“You deserve this promotion, Simon. You’re one of the best minds at that school. You love it. It’s what you were meant to do. I hate seeing some pompous jerk stick a finger in your eye, and you’re supposed to say, ‘Thank you, sir, may I have another?’”

“I know that. I don’t like it, either.”

“Then do something about it. At least make him promise he’ll back you the next time.”

“It doesn’t... work that way.”

“Why doesn’t it work that way?” She falls back against the booth cushion. “Sure it works that way. You said this guy’s more a politician than anything else. So make a deal with him. You’ll walk away this time if he promises to support you next time.”

I swipe up my menu, not because there’s any mystery about what I order but because she’s right, I should do something, but I probably won’t, and I don’t want to look her in the eye.

“You have options, you know,” she says, a hint of mischief to her voice.

I peek over the menu. “No, Vick.”


Tags: David Ellis Mystery