Part XXXVI

Part XXXVI

As I drove him to the airport, Carl told me he'd never hitchhiked before, then thanked me for giving him a lift.

He told me how he was going back home, that something had happened but he didn't know what. He'd woken with a ticket in his pocket and one hell of a headache. The headache was familiar he had said, but the ticket in his pocket was not, so he thought he'd better pay attention to what ever it was it was trying to tell him.

He was still a little confused by the process, but I kept my mouth shut, afraid even a little slip would unweave the spell I'd dropped i his head. It was one thing to cloud the mind and quite another to trick it with false memories. I'd left it to the vagaries that existed naturally in Carl's head to lead him in the right direction. Like he'd said, it wasn't the first time he'd woken up in a strange place with no memory of how he'd gotten there.

I dropped him off at the terminal then drove out to the edge of the airport. Didn't know why, but I needed to see his plane lift off into the sky. I needed to know for sure that he was safe.

I'd called ahead and had Bruce picking him up from the airport in Knoxville. I'd tried Carl's wife, but she'd gone off on a twenty minute cursing jag and then had hung up on me. Bruce and his wife had survived the bad situation I'd left them in, but just barely. Bruce said he'd tell me about it over a beer when I got back. He then choked up a bit and thanked me for the barriers I'd put up when I'd left. He said they made the world of difference. He then told me I'd like his new glass eye. In classic Bruce style, he told me he was thinking of having a WiFi camera mounted in the hole, that would stream live video to the Bar's web site. I told him he'd have to make more eye contact with the ladies if he was going to do that. He then told me his wife was practicing day and night with her prosthetic hand so she could flip me off next time she saw me. I let the apology catch in my throat and die.

I sat on the hood of the van, leaning back against the windshield, sunglasses on and sun warming my skin, and watched Carl's plane fade to a pinpoint. Ten minutes later I was Hell bent at melting my tires as I headed for the second blinking dot on the laptop map.

I had a little over thirteen hundred miles to go. The second dot was on the coast. Los Angeles, or more specifically Venice. It was a straight shoot West on the 10 freeway through the top of Texas and across New Mexico and Arizona. I was going to get all the vitamin D anyone would ever want. I made it as far as Albuquerque the first day and settled into a Super 8. I'd started to like the Super 8. They're out of the way and come with free WiFi. Even better, there's always a bar within walking distance, and so that's how I came to be sitting on a bar stool at ten that night, nursing a PBR and thinking about what to do next.

I'd left the Old Man to his nightly ritual of Potion and tuna, the TV set on HBO. He'd grown fond of watching The Wire while he fell asleep.

I still had to figure out exactly where the second object was. The first had been underground, at the zenith point of a storm. They wouldn't all be the same, but they would be connected. LA was full of old stories, and a hell a lot of demons, for lack of a better term. I only kind of knew one person there, but if luck held they'd be the only person I needed to know.

Her name was Destiny and last I'd heard she'd set up shop on the Venice boardwalk, reading people's futures. Funny, most people did that on a lark, an extra twenty burning a hole in their curiosity. Thing was, if you went to Destiny, you got the real deal. Well, everything she told you was real, except for her name. Her real name had died a long time ago. She'd taken Destiny for a stripper name in college. Worked her way through Columbia undergrad in mathematics. Left with no debt and a major about as useful as an arts degree. She'd been good, but not postulate her own theorems good. She'd have spent the rest of her life scribbling proofs for more focused minds.

So, the girl known as Destiny packed her bags and headed for the coast. Some people think she got her powers of sight by solving on old equation, one written upon the atomic chains of the Universe. It wouldn't be the first time someone postulated that mathematics was the language of God. Thinking about Destiny, I unconsciously peeled the label off my PBR.

I was woken from my increasingly drunken contemplation of the secrets of the universe and the glue used to hold labels onto beer bottles by the vibration of my cell phone skittering across the bar and up my arm.

The number was blocked, but I answered it anyway.

Hello?

The girl's voice was smooth like aged whiskey.

Aubrey?

Yeah.

Hey, it's Destiny calling.

Hey Destiny. I was wondering when you'd find me.

I laughed out loud. Absurdity amused me greatly.

You have a pen and paper?

I grabbed a bar napkin and pulled the pen from my pocket.

Yeah.

Destiny gave me her address, and said she'd be waiting for me.

How'd you get my number?

I closed my eyes and dialed.

Kismet.

No, just destiny.

She hung up and I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention. I ordered another beer and put the napkin in my packet.