Hanged Man

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Chapter One

Did that hurt?"

Warren clawed his way free from the tentacles of his dream. A vampire was slashing his throat and sucking his blood. Awake, the bite on his neck still throbbed.

"You looked so adorable, lying there. I just had to give you a little nip. I think my teeth are sharper than I thought."

Sally’s voice. He sighed. He was not about to join the eternal undead. He cranked open one eye. There in front of him was the freshest smile on the planet.

He said, "It’s daytime. Doesn’t sunlight kill your kind?"

She chuckled. "Good morning, Master Ritter. How did you sleep?"

"Sleep? Did we sleep?" He had both eyes open now. Sally was lying next to him, propped up on one arm, deliciously naked.

She said, "Yes, we did sleep, among other things. And on that topic, do you have any more things to show me?" She was ready for a rematch. Time for a lesson in harsh reality.

"Sally, nothing works for me very well hydraulically until my first hit of caffeine. Or cognitively, or emotionally, or just about any other word ending in ly that you can think of."

She said, "Don’t move, I’ll be right back." Then she sat up, hoisted herself into her chair, and wheeled out of the bedroom.

He lay there wondering if that morning’s dental salutation was a sign of affection or the first signal of an underlying passive-aggressive anger. Or maybe passive-aggressive affection. The distinction was too subtle for him right now. He desperately needed caffeine to jump-start his mind.

That bite was not very passive, actually. He rubbed the spot on his neck and added another possibility onto the list: marking her territory.

He quickly recognized that these thoughts were too deep for him in his stimulant-deprived state. So he went back to remembering a few memorable scenes from last night’s lovemaking.

Sally McLaughlin was the most inventive lover he’d ever experienced. She said that being paraplegic just meant that she had to turn her whole body into an erogenous zone. He didn’t know about that, but he did know this girl knew her stuff!

He heard some hissing from another room. Then Sally wheeled back into the bedroom, now wearing a robe and carrying a tray with two croissants and two tall glasses of caffe latte.

She said, "The croissants are from Nabolom Bakery, but the latte’s all mine. I practiced all afternoon with my new Jura-Capresso machine. I think I’ve got it down pretty good."

Speaking through a white mustache of foam, he said, "Perfect." He was already loving today!

Suddenly they were being serenaded by the "Dueling Banjos" theme from Deliverance: Sally’s cell phone. This was the phone she used only for family matters. He knew she’d have to answer it. They had been waiting for a call from Heather, Sally’s roommate and Warren’s surrogate adolescent daughter. Heather had been up at Lake Tahoe for a ski trip when a big blizzard hit. They hadn’t heard from her in two days. They were both more than a trifle worried.

Sally flipped open the phone and listened. Then she looked at him and shook her head. He guessed it wasn’t Heather. Sally looked serious. Then she wheeled into the other room. Damn! He resented someone disturbing their morning together, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. He took a dispirited bite out of his croissant and another sip from his rapidly cooling latte.

When Sally came back she still wasn’t smiling, so he knew his day was heading straight for the trash can. "Warren, I have a big problem. I have a friend named Thérèse. You haven’t met her yet. She lives in the city. She was the only friend who stayed with me after that Humvee cracked my spine. That was Vera on the phone. Vera’s...ah, a close friend of Thérèse’s. Actually, it’s a little more complicated than that."

She paused, and took a breath. "Thérèse is a professional dominatrix and Vera is her personal slave. Very California. Anyway, Vera just told me that Thérèse was arrested for hanging one of her clients. I’m going to have to help her."

The taste of butter and crisp pastry turned rancid in his mouth. He was not quite tracking all this. After all, he was only halfway through his latte. But it sure didn’t sound comforting. "You’re going to help her. What’s that mean?"

"That means I’m going to have to go to work right now. It also means I’d like your help."

Sally didn’t ask for help. This was a big deal. And he knew that he should jump on the chance to help her. After all, she’d been there for him so often when he really needed her. True, sometimes she had helped as a paid consultant. But other times she had just jumped in free of charge. She was one fine woman.

If only he were a good person. Instead, he wanted to kill her. How dare she? This was supposed to be their luxurious, lazy morning, revisiting all those lovely positions they explored last night. Work was the last thing on his mind. Damn!

He so wanted to whine, to say, "I don’t wanna help."

Luckily, he had better sense than to grovel in front of Sally. He knew that he had to be cool. Unloading his disappointment on her while she looked so obviously upset would not be very skillful. Plus he’d look like the jerk that he truly was.

But he’d be damned if he was going to get involved with yet another dead body and play detective for some whip-wielding pervert. Three times last year he’d been embroiled in murders. Twice he’d been the object of a police manhunt. Once his head nearly got blown off. All he needed now was a camcorder and he could be the next blockbuster reality-TV show. No, it was time for the drama to stop. He was retiring from the justice business.

"Look, Sally, I’m exhausted. Will you still care about me if I go back to being a tarot card reader? If it’s all right with you, I don’t want to get involved with helping out your friend." He couldn’t read Sally’s face. It looked neutral. Was she disappointed, annoyed, or didn’t she care?

"I understand, Warren. You want your life to go back to normal. It’s not going to reset, but I understand your desire to have that happen."

"What do you mean, it won’t reset?" "It has to do with Complexity Theory, and I don’t think you’re in the mood for a lecture right now. Finish your latte. I’m truly sorry. I know this morning wasn’t supposed to go this way. Anyway, I am going to need to get to work, so I guess our date is over for now."

Dismissed ever so sweetly. He couldn’t stand to watch her wheel away from him and over to her computer. He leaped out of bed, viciously grabbed her chair, spun her around, and screamed into her face, "How could you do this to me?"

OK, that was just his sick fantasy. It’s what he wanted to do. But Sally owned an attack dog, so pissing her off was never a great idea. Instead, he meekly said, "Sally, wait just a sec before you go. Tell me what you meant when you said I can’t go back to normal."

She turned her chair back toward him and sighed. "OK, I guess I owe you that. I tend to look at things more mathematically than you do, Warren. So bear with me as I try to translate.

"Here’s how your life looks to me. Two years ago your life was orderly. Sure, you had your manic-depressive cycles, but they were more or less controlled by medication. You were a loner. You had your job reading tarot cards on Telegraph Avenue every weekend. You had your fixed schedule for every day of the week.

"Then came last year: all the murders, all the police attention. Your life became unpredictable. You have a bunch of what mathematicians call ‘attraction points.’ Some of them are:...," she held up one finger at a time, "your old lifestyle of changing identities every few years or so, your fear of getting caught by the police, your feelings about me, your loyalty to Heather, all your emotions about becoming an instant father and grandfather."

She closed those five fingers into a fist. "What’s worse, those attraction points have become ‘strange.’ That means they have become unpredictable; the points are always changing location and intensity. You can’t tell what’s going to happen next. Will I dump you? Will your daughter disown you? Will Tara start acting like your sister rather than your inquisitor? Is it your night to babysit your grandson? Will the police track you down? Will Heather come back from her ski trip?

"You just want to go back to your simple, predictable life again. And you’re going to try to do that. But your life is now ruled by the laws of chaos and none of your old rules are going to work. So that’s my math lesson for the day. Now, get out of here and let me work. I’ll let you know if Heather calls."

Now he knew that he was really dismissed. He really hated today.

"OK. Maybe I’ll be able to help you and your friend out after I feel more rested." He was lying. He had no intention of getting involved with this mess.

She wheeled over to her computer desk. "Keep imagining that you’re in control of your own life, Warren. It’s a comforting, if antiquated, notion." Then she started typing. No smile, no good-bye kiss, nothing.

He gave Ripley, her rottweiler service/guard/attack dog, a pat on the head. She licked his hand. At least that bitch was affectionate. Then he walked out of Sally’s ranch house, shaking his head.

Excerpted from The Hanged Man by David Skibbins

Copyright © 2008 by David Skibbins

Published in 2008 by Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin’s Minotaur

All rights reserved. This work is protected under copyright laws and reproduction is strictly prohibited. Permission to reproduce the material in any manner or medium must be secured from the Publisher