Chapter 1

My eyes opened, but I couldn’t see, not at first. There was light, though, and finally the room came into focus. I didn’t recognize the room, but it wasn’t in a house, not with fluorescent lighting and an acoustical dropped ceiling.

I also had the mother of all headaches, so I closed my eyes again. I opened them when I heard the sound of feet shuffling across the floor. The sound came from a middle-aged woman, a nurse, I gathered from the way she was dressed, which by inference made the room I was in a hospital room. That’s when I noticed the wires and tubes hooking me to equipment - monitoring devices, I figured. An IV dripped something into my arm.

Ah, he’s awake, the nurse said. No, she didn’t speak. Her lips didn’t move. There was no sound. Still the words were clear in my mind, and they came to me from the nurse. She smiled at me. One of her front teeth was chipped.

She spoke out loud then, fussed over me, and told me she’d let the doctor know I was awake. When she turned to leave, I grabbed her wrist, which surprised her. When I tried to speak but only croaked, she removed the tubes from my mouth and nose and gave me a sip of water.

“Where am I?” I asked, my throat feeling like raw meat.

“Valley Hospital.”

“What city?”

“Las Vegas.”

“What’s wrong with me?”

“I’ll let the doctor tell you - that is, if you’ll let go of my wrist so I can let him know you’re awake.”

“Sorry,” I mumbled and released her.

The doctor was younger than the nurse - Doctor Birch, he announced, a neurosurgeon. He looked way too young to be a neurosurgeon. Rosy plump cheeks. Mischievous eyes.

“You arrived at the emergency room ten days ago, Mr... ?”

I opened my mouth to give him my name, but...

I didn’t know my name! How could that be?

The fact that I didn’t know my own name terrified me.

He noticed my agitation. “What’s wrong?”

I closed my eyes. “I can’t remember my name.”

Unlike me, he seemed unconcerned. “That happens sometimes after a concussion. Don’t worry about it.”

“My clothes, my wallet. My wallet would have ID. Find my wallet.”

The rosy-cheeked doctor looked at the nurse. She shook her head. “No wallet,” she said.

“What do you remember?” Dr. Birch asked.

I concentrated. Nothing came to me at first, and then I saw a playground. My hands moved from one bar to another, swinging as if I were Tarzan from tree to tree in a jungle, a concrete and gravel jungle, not a green one. I told the doctor about the memory.

“A childhood memory?” he said.

“I guess.”

“Anything else?”

I tried. “Nothing.”

While I pondered the black hole that was my past, Birch told me about my injuries. Along with large masses of bruises, contusions and cracked ribs, I’d arrived at the emergency room with a serious concussion. The doctor operated, stopped the bleeding and removed the blood clot. The swelling, he said, wasn’t severe, so he buttoned me up - his words. I spent the next four days in the hospital’s neurosurgical intensive care unit. More swelling occurred, but they handled the problem with medication. During my stay in the ICU, they kept me on a ventilator and sedated, but even after curtailing the sedatives, consciousness had eluded me. I’d remained in a coma for an additional six days.

“Any brain damage?” I asked. Other than the fact that I can hear your thoughts, I wanted to add, but didn’t. No, hearing his thoughts wasn’t accurate. I experienced them. His thoughts moved through my mind just like my thoughts, no sound, more like the sensation of words. The words had inflection but no volume.

“Memory loss, of course, but that’s temporary,” he said. “I saw nothing in the CT scan that indicated dangerous contusions, or bruising. Your prognosis is good. When you’re up to it, we’ll do some more tests.”

“Tell me about the memory loss, Doc,” I said.

“Amnesia, probably retrograde amnesia,” he said. “There are two stages of retrograde amnesia: an early one that lasts only minutes or hours and corresponds to intermediate-term memory, and a late stage that extends back days, even years from the point of trauma, in your case a severe concussion.”

I snorted. “How do I get my memories back, another bonk in the head?”

He chuckled. “No, that’s Hollywood amnesia, screenwriters mixing a few facts with a lot of artistic license. Another bonk on the head would, in all likelihood, make the memory loss worse.”

“If I can’t remember my name, why can I remember how to speak and understand English, for instance?”

“Some cognitive learning ability survives into amnesia. Memory is complex, but for the most part, amnesiacs are missing only one kind of memory - the memory for events.”

I frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“Hmm, how to put this? There are two types of memory: one that stores the skill acquired through practice and another for remembering the practice experience as an event. Usually, amnesia affects the event memory but not the skill memory.”

“So, I remember how to do something but won’t remember how or when I learned how to do it?”

“That’s oversimplified, but essentially correct.

“The holes, the blank spaces are irritating. How long will I be without my memories?”

“Usually, not very long. Experiencing stimuli associated in the past with missing events often stimulates the retrieval of memories lost in retrograde amnesia, although the memories aren’t truly lost; they’re where they always were. The retrieval processes to access the memories are malfunctioning. I know of an amnesiac who was unable to recall anything from the preceding twenty years of his life who went home for a visit and began to remember immediately. While standing in one room, he suddenly visualized the contents and arrangement of an adjoining room without looking. The sight of a neighbor’s house evoked a memory of the neighbor’s name. Bit by bit, association by association, you’ll retrieve most of your missing memories simply by experiencing stimuli linked to the lost memories.”

“My head hurts,” I mumbled and closed my eyes.

Other than telepathy and memory loss, my doctors could find no other brain damage. I told no one I could experience thoughts. Intuitively, I feared revealing my telepathic ability could create serious problems for me. If I brought up the subject, I figured an army of doctors would descend on me and run me through a maze of tests like a lab rat. Besides, I didn’t know if the paranormal ability preceded the concussion or was caused by Doc Birch’s scalpel.

I did explore the parameters of the ability. I couldn’t experience thoughts that were farther away than about a hundred feet, and if there was an obstruction between the thinking person and me, then that distance dropped to about thirty feet. To my delight, I also discovered I could turn off someone’s thoughts. I was delighted because the thoughts of more than two or three individuals at the same time were... not noisy, but very confusing, like listening to two or three ratio programs at the same time, all set to the same volume.

Two days later, two police officers questioned me about the accident that brought me to the hospital, but with my memory loss, I couldn’t tell them anything, and they weren’t helpful either. A person - anonymous - noticed me lying in a parking lot behind Circus Circus and called 911. The officers who responded to the call, called an ambulance.

“You were mugged, sir,” one of the officers said. “Someone hit you on the back of your head and turned your pockets inside-out.”

As soon as possible, I spent some time in front of a mirror. I hoped seeing what I looked like would trigger some memories.

Nothing, dammit. The face in the mirror didn’t trigger even one memory.

Not bad, though, I thought as I gazed at myself. My half-shaved head looked funny, so I lathered and shaved my head completely bald. Better. Except for my baldpate and the last-gasp remnants of the bruises inflicted by whoever had attacked me, I considered myself relatively good-looking. I guessed my age in the late twenties and my height at six feet, give or take an inch. Brooding dark eyes looked back at me. My nose was slightly crooked. Had it been broken? I had a strong jaw and chin and, when I smiled, good teeth.

I fingered the pucker of a bullet wound in the crook of my left shoulder, and twisting, could see the scar of the exit wound. Surely I’d remember being shot! I didn’t. Three other scars disfigured my skin, from cuts, not bullets.

Considering I’d just been through brain surgery and had lain in a coma for ten days, and spent another ten days in a hospital bed, I appeared to be in pretty good shape. I had thick wrists, I noticed, and the wrists stirred a memory.

Images flashed. I felt a saber in my hand. Twisting, flying through the air, I slashed the saber left, right, and then... the memory faded. Did the cut scars on my body come from a saber?

The hospital wasn’t happy with me. I presented a conundrum they’d never experienced. Oh, they’d had emergency patients who couldn’t pay their bills before, but when they asked me to sign a stack of documents that included a promise to pay, I asked them what name they’d like me to scribble as mine.

“Use an X,” the snotty female administrator said. Her stern, unforgiving look matched her personality. Did her job make her unhappy, or did she have the job because she was unhappy?

“Should I use cursive or print it?” I asked.

“Whatever.”

I signed the X boldly with the left-to-right slash offering a sinuous curve - half-cursive, half-printed, so there.

A few days later, Doc Birch said, “At my objection, I’ve been told to release you.”

I nodded.

He grinned. I liked the guy.

“Where will you go?”

I shrugged.

“You’ll need clothes, money,” he said.

“Got a set of scrubs I can borrow?” I asked.

He laughed and said, “We’re about the same size. I brought in a set of clothes for you, and I passed a hat around for donations. It isn’t much, but it’ll get you through a couple of days if you’re careful.”

The black beret the doc gave me was a nice touch to cover my shaved head. I adjusted it to a cocky angle as I walked out of the hospital into bright sunlight.

At blackjack tables in four casinos, I ran the $200 collected in a hat at the hospital to $5,000. It helps to experience the dealer’s thoughts. Each dealer silently told me his hole card when he looked at it. Three days later, the $5,000 became $50,000, and I was told I was no longer welcome at the blackjack tables.

“At any casino,” the large man, obviously a security officer, added. “Your picture has been circulated.”

“May I play poker?”

“Sure.”

I met Gloria Conner playing poker. I put her age at thirty, thereabouts. She had thick, auburn hair, a beautiful face and, later when I first saw her standing, a gorgeous body. I was having a drink in a lounge when she walked up to me.

“How did you know I was bluffing?” she asked.

“Your sensuous ears laid closer to your head.”

She laughed and sat next to me. “Liar. You took all my money. Buy me a drink.”

I motioned to the cocktail waitress, and Gloria ordered a margarita. “With salt on the rim, please.”

While she waited for her drink to arrive, we talked. I adored the sound of her voice. It had a low, guttural quality reminiscent of a young Lauren Bacall.

Early on, I realized I needed a name. X just didn’t do it, so I flipped open a phone book at random and dropped my finger to a name - Wayne Johnson. (In truth, I rejected the first two names my finger found.) When Gloria introduced herself, I gave her my made-up name.

“Why do you wear that beret all the time?” she asked.

I took it off and ran my hand over the stubble growing on my head. “Brain surgery. About a month ago, the hospital shaved my head for the surgery; in another week or two, I’ll lose the hat.”

Her thoughts told me she believed I was putting her on. I pointed out the scar, and her eyes widened.

“Got mugged,” I added. “A concussion that required an operation. Also, for what it’s worth, Wayne Johnson isn’t my name. I picked it randomly from a telephone book. I don’t know my name. I’m suffering from retrograde amnesia, Gloria. No memories.”

Humph, not likely, she thought, and then said, “For a man with no memories, you play a hell of a hand of poker.”

I explained the difference between skill memories and the memories for events. “Poker is like language, a skill set that I can call on, but I can’t tell you how and when I learned to play poker, which were events.”

I’ve always wondered about that, she thought, referring to how amnesia worked, I assumed.

“Having no memories is troublesome,” I said. “No name, no social security number, no bank account, no credit cards, and what’s more, I can’t open a bank account or acquire a credit card. It’s as if I don’t exist. Do you have a cell phone?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t. I don’t know anyone I want to call, except perhaps Doc Birch, my neurosurgeon, and he’s a busy man.”

She grinned coquettishly. “You can call me.”

“Ah, an incentive, for sure. I use this casino as my bank, and with the substantial amounts I maintain with them, they allow me to rent a room. Still, I can’t rent a car, or buy one, for that matter. Otherwise, I carry cash, which could get me mugged again, and I owe the hospital an amount that approximates the national debt. I signed papers promising to pay them with an X.”

She shook her glorious auburn mane, and the corners of her eyes crinkled with doubt. “That doesn’t make sense. You’re gambling with a hefty stake at the poker tables.”

I smiled sheepishly and told her about the hospital personnel who had donated what they could to carry me for a few days. “I multiplied their donation a few times at the blackjack tables until the casinos declared me a card counter and banned me from the tables. I’ll play poker until my luck changes, pay off what I can at the hospital, and then search for my past.”

“Are you a card counter?”

I shrugged. “I watch which cards have been played, and except for past events, I have a good memory, but...” I shrugged again and flashed a smile when a new urge grabbed me by the gonads. “Will you have dinner with me tonight?”

She hesitated.

I widened my smile and said, “As far back as I can remember, which admittedly isn’t very far, I haven’t had a date. If you say yes, you’ll be my first date. Waddaya say?”

What the hell? Why not? She nodded. Harry won’t arrive for a couple days. Live a little. Have some fun.

Harry, huh? What did you expect? I asked myself. That Glorious Gloria would be footloose and fancy-free? Not likely, not with the face and body of a movie star. Was Harry a husband or something less than a mate? Gloria wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.

She had the situation pegged, though. Why not? Live a little. Have some fun. Did some fun include some sex? I had to admit some sex was becoming important to my continuing mental health. Masturbating wasn’t getting the job done anymore.

I called the concierge. I’d previously spoken to him about my problem and laid some cash money in his palm. He remembered me and said he’d be pleased to send flowers to Gloria’s room in another hotel, arrange for the use of a limo for that evening, and to make reservations for two for dinner at Le Cirque, Bellagio’s best restaurant. As a guest of the hotel, I could sign for the meal. The flowers and limo would also be charged to my account with the hotel. I told him to add a twenty-percent tip for his effort, which pleased him.

While dressing for my first date in my new life - I’d purchased new clothes with some winnings before I was banned from the blackjack tables - I had an eerie feeling that something was missing from my wardrobe. Images marched in front of my eyes.

Another memory!

A shoulder holster and a pistol, a Springfield Armory XD-9, to be specific. What I knew about the XD-9 wasn’t a memory, but rather a part of a skill set. I knew it held ten rounds and combined the best of both Glock and SIG designs. However, that the XD-9 was my favored weapon was definitely a memory. I normally wore the pistol in a shoulder holster. Why?

The memory expanded. I was at a shooting range. A target settled 25 meters in front of me. I took aim and emptied the clip in about five seconds. Without retrieving the target, I knew every round had struck the ten rings.

While I mulled over the new memory, I combined it with my one other memory, the saber, and the way I moved with the sword. I could shoot a pistol and use a sword. Besides being slightly weird, what did that make me? Was I a bad guy or a good guy? Questions I couldn’t answer.

The urge to strap on a shoulder holster and fill it with an XD-9 was strong, strong enough that I made a few calls to some bartenders and cabbies I’d used. I couldn’t buy a legal weapon, not without ID and a background check, but illegal weapons were available for a price. Was this knowledge a memory?

No, I decided, it was part of a skill set. I knew how to search for and purchase illegal weapons. Did that make me a crook? Possibly, but I didn’t see myself on the wrong side of the law. I was gambling like crazy to pay the hospital and doctor bills I’d accrued. Wouldn’t a crook merely walk away from them?

Frustrating. The two memories I’d retrieved hadn’t answered any questions about my past. They only made me ask more questions.

One call produced a name and telephone number. I dialed it.

“Yeah,” said the gruff voice on the line.

“Benny, I want a Springfield Armory XD-9,” I said.

“How did you get my number?”

I gave him the name of the bartender.

“Don’t have an XD-9,” he said. “Gotta HK USP Compact 9mm.”

“I’d prefer the XD-9.” Stubborn, I thought. The Heckler and Koch was a good weapon.

“Can you give me a few days?” Benny asked.

“Sure. In the meantime, I’ll take the HK with a couple of boxes of ammo, two extra magazines, and throw in shoulder and hip holsters.”

We settled on an amount and a place to meet the next morning.

You’ll be breaking the law, an inner voice warned me. A different inner voice urged me to proceed. In the end, I knew I’d meet Benny at the appointed time and place.

Gloria appreciated my scruffy look; at least, her thoughts regarding the stubble on my head weren’t negative. The beret didn’t ruin the fashion statement I was trying to make with the navy Armani suit I’d donned, but it came close. With a sigh, I’d left the hat in my room.

I loved the sexy, sophisticated look she presented when she opened the door to her suite of rooms in Caesar’s Palace. She wore a black sheath dress with a scooped bodice that accented alluring cleavage set off by opera-length pearls. The dress was short, displaying her slim, shapely legs.

The long-stem roses I’d sent her were arranged in a vase sitting on the coffee table in the living room of the suite. She thanked me for the flowers by wrapping her arms around my neck and giving me a soft kiss.

Good, she thought, he’s well enough to get a hard-on.

I’ve gotta admit it. The thoughts of women I’d experienced since I came out of the coma had shocked me, particularly at first. Their thoughts ranged from naughty to downright raunchy, and for the most part, female minds used dirty words without qualms, especially the nurses at the hospital.

“I’m famished,” Gloria said with a winning smile and, other than the thought, ignored my partial erection.

When my driver opened the limo door for her, Gloria looked surprised. “Didn’t you tell me that you couldn’t rent a car?”

“I didn’t rent the limo. The hotel rented it for me.”

“Oh.” She showed a lot of leg as she squirmed into the limo. Good, she thought. He noticed and likes my legs.

What’s not to like?

She teased me during our meal, and her thoughts soon moved from naughty to nasty. I figured I’d get lucky because her thoughts also told me what she wanted or didn’t want from a man. One thought informed me that she didn’t like her hair toyed with. I didn’t touch her hair after the first time.

She appreciated my attentiveness when she told me about herself. I became even more attentive by asking questions and listening attentively to her answers.

I took her hand in mine.

It would be so sexy if he turns my hand and kisses my palm, she thought.

I kissed her palm, letting her feel just the tip of my tongue, which made her shiver with passion. I enjoyed the taste of her hand and anticipated other flavors that might be offered later.

The food and service were exceptional, and the wine flowed. When we reentered the limo to return to her hotel, she moved into my arms and kissed me with passion.

Please, please, don’t grab my tits. Just kiss me.

I left my arms around her waist and kissed her again.

Nice. Is he hard?

I took her hand and placed it over my erection. “You excite me, Gloria,” I whispered as I kissed her neck.

Higher, she thought, referring to my lips on her neck.

I moved my lips higher to a spot just under her ear.

Perfect!

She gently squeezed my erection, and moved her fingers, estimating its length and thickness through my trousers.

Perfect cock, too.

She didn’t want her tits grabbed. Would she mind my hand on her inner thigh? She answered my silent question by opening her legs a little, allowing my palm to caress her soft flesh. As we continued to kiss, my hand moved slowly up her leg until it cupped her cunt - she referred to it as a cunt. She hunched forward slightly to press against my fingers as she gasped into my mouth.

The ride to her hotel was short, and at her door, she invited me inside for a nightcap. Once inside, the offer for a drink was ignored when her passion became aggressive. I didn’t mind.

Our clothes fell away as we continued to kiss and touch and fondle, and her thoughts told me that she hoped I’d eat her before I fucked her.

Sex is a skill set. I couldn’t remember the first or last time I’d placed my mouth on an excited cunt, but I knew how to give a woman oral pleasure.

Her flavors and scents were strong. Was that a memory? Didn’t matter. I loved the taste of her and inhaled her pungent fragrance as my tongue traveled from below her slit up through her crease to find her throbbing clitoris.

Suck it. Suck my clit.

I sucked it. Lashed it with my tongue, too.

Stick a finger in my cunt.

I pushed a finger inside her as far as it would go.

Another one.

I added a second finger, and a few seconds later a third, and that’s when she climaxed on my mouth.

With only stubble to grab, she used my ears to pull my face tighter to her cunt as her hips started an orgasmic dance, but only briefly, because they suddenly stiffened high off the bed as her body convulsed with the thrilling pulses of an orgasm. She screamed with pleasure.

When she collapsed, I moved up on the bed and took her in my arms. She whimpered and clung to me.

So there, Harry. Some men can make me come.

Yeah, so there, Harry.

“Fuck me,” she said. “I wanna be fucked now.”

I moved over her, and she helped guide me to her opening. One thrust took me fully inside her. I groaned with pleasure and started to fuck her.

My thrusts remained slow and rhythmic while I waited for her to match my arousal.

I won’t be able to come again unless I can touch myself. Maybe he’ll hurry, come in me, if I...

“Touch yourself,” I said.

Fuck, can he read my mind?

Yeah, I said, silently.

Out loud, I said, “I like the feel of a woman’s hand touching herself while I fuck her.”

She reached and wet her fingers where we were joined. When I felt the back of her hand start a rhythm that moved faster than my thrusts, I increased my pace.

Nice. Would he get upset if I played with my tits, too?

I didn’t respond. She already suspected I could read her mind.

Fuck it. He won’t say anything. He’s too fucking hot.

She gave me a defiant look as her fingers tweaked a nipple. I smiled at her and kissed her, a soft kiss.

Five minutes later, we climaxed together.

How about that, Harry? I came while being fucked. I’m not the frigid bitch you think I am.

An hour later, I decided Harry was a dumb shit when Gloria went down on me to get me hard again. Her oral talent was amazing. I was a little disappointed when she mounted and rode me while she rubbed her clit furiously with her fingers, climaxing before I could come again. She redeemed herself, though, by taking me into her mouth and swallowing my semen with enthusiasm a few minutes later.

I met Benny at our appointed time and place. After checking the weapon he placed in my hand, I paid him in cash, which was fine with Benny. He didn’t take credit cards.

“Do you still want the XD-9?” my illegal gun dealer asked. His black, baldpate shined in the morning sunshine.

“Yes.”

“Call me tomorrow afternoon. I should have one by then.”

“Will do.”

While playing poker that afternoon, I wore a sport coat to conceal the weapon, and its weight felt comfortable and right at the small of my back.

I had a good day. I figured I could pay off the hospital if my luck held for another few weeks. Yes, luck was involved. Although from their thoughts I knew the cards the other players held in their hands, I still needed the best cards for the big-money pots to win big. I deposited $20,000 in my Bellagio bank when I quit for the day.

While wandering through Bellagio’s shops, I bought a cell phone and called Gloria. A man answered - Harry I assumed. He must have arrived early. I hung up without speaking. A few minutes later, my new cell phone rang. I pushed the talk button, but remained silent.

“Wayne?” Gloria said, whispering.

“Yeah.”

“Did you just call?”

“Yes, a man answered, so I hung up.”

“Ah... damn it. Wayne, I’m... well, I’m in a committed relationship.”

I didn’t say anything.

“About tonight...”

I let her off the hook. “I take it our dinner date is off.”

“Yeah, sorry. If...”

“Goodbye, Gloria. It’s been fun.” I hung up. She wasn’t the woman for me. I never saw us in a long-term relationship, but still I was disappointed. I’d made arrangements to take her to “O” Cirque du Soleil, the floorshow at the Bellagio.

I wondered what she was thinking, and suddenly, my mind connected with hers, which really surprised me. Surely she wasn’t within the hundred-foot radius needed for a telepathic connection.

It took me a minute to realize I was hearing one-half of a conversation, not her thoughts. I could hear what Gloria was saying because she thought the words before she spoke them.

I told you, Harry. I called to book a dinner show for us. If you’d let me know you were flying to Vegas early, I would’ve called earlier... Why do you want my cell phone?... Redial? I don’t understand... Harry!

Fuck. Wayne will answer the call...

My phone rang. I grinned, hit the talk button, and said, “’O’ here. How may I help you?”

“O?”

“Yes, sir. This is the ticket office for ‘O’ Cirque du Soleil, Bellagio’s homage to the magic of theatre.”

“Never mind,” Harry said and hung up.

Had I saved her unfaithful butt? Maybe, but sooner or later, Harry would catch her in the arms of another man. Gloria couldn’t come unless she or the man paid a lot of attention to her clitoris, which frustrated her, both mentally and sexually. She’d climaxed three times with me the previous night, so she’d search for other men to give her the satisfaction she needed.

I grinned. The satisfaction she deserved. There was nothing really wrong with Gloria’s sexual response. Her problem was named Harry.

I turned off the cell phone. I wouldn’t deal with Gloria or Harry again, but the fact that I could connect with her when she as at Caesar’s Palace and I was at the Bellagio kept popping up in my mind. Could I connect at a distance with someone else?

My jaw gaped when I experienced a thought coming from Doc Birch’s mind. No, once again it was a conversation, and I gathered he was speaking with a nurse I knew. I tried to connect with the nurse, as well, and suddenly I could follow both sides of their conversation. I switched back to Gloria. She was wondering how she’d dodged the bullet, so I tried to connect with Harry. Nothing. I moved back to Birch and the nurse and connected with both of them again.

Further experimentation gave me the answers I needed. I had to be within approximately one hundred feet - thirty feet behind an obstruction - to make an initial connection with a new mind, but once I’d made the connection, I could reconnect with the same mind at... well, any distance, at least, if the subject were in Las Vegas. I’d need to leave Vegas to test greater distances.

My telepathic ability was evolving, becoming more powerful. That pleased me.

My luck changed the next day, and I’m not referring to my luck with cards. During a gambling break, I was sipping iced tea in a lounge when an extraneous thought intruded.

See. It’s Morgan, just like I told you. See him. He’s sitting in the first booth.

I was sitting in the first booth!

A second man thought, Yeah, I see the son of a bitch. That’s him, all right. You called it, Norm. I’ll call Gino.

Without being obvious, I spotted the two men talking about me. From my glance, I labeled them thugs. The thug named Norm called me Morgan. Was that my name? If it was, it didn’t trigger any memories.

Gino, it’s Sal, the other thug said into a cell phone. I can see Morgan from where I stand. The fucker isn’t dead, after all. Waddaya want us to do?... You’ve got it, boss.

I watched the caller hang up his cell phone.

Gino wants us to keep tabs on him. He’s sending over some shooters, Sal said.

Fuck, we could take him, Norm said. We could do him right now.

In front of a hundred witnesses! Are you nuts?

Time to disappear, I thought, rose from the booth and walked directly to the cashier.

“I’ll need half my funds in cash, Barry,” I said. “Could you put the money in a small satchel or bag of some kind for me?”

“Certainly, Mr. Johnson. Is there a problem?” the cashier asked.

I smiled reassuringly. “Just a small family emergency, Barry. I must leave Las Vegas right away for a short time. Could you send a messenger with the other half of my funds to Doctor Birch at Valley Hospital?”

“We could, but we’d prefer to give it to him in the form of a cashier’s check.”

“That’d be fine. Make the check out to Valley Hospital, though, not the doctor.” I wrote a note thanking the doc and explaining the check. I also promised to pay the rest of my hospital bill as soon as I could. I sealed the note in an envelope. “Include this note with the cashier’s check you messenger to Doctor Birch. Oh yes, check with the desk and hold back enough to pay my hotel bill, including a twenty percent tip. I’ll call them and tell them I’m checking out.”

My tail was with me when I walked away from the cashier’s booth with a little over $100,000 in cash in what looked like a gym bag. I needed to disappear, but I’d need cash to disappear. I’d also need clothes, which required a trip to my room.

The two men followed me into an elevator already occupied by a middle-aged couple. She was nagging him about his gambling losses. My floor was below the floor selected by the couple, so I pushed a button for a higher floor. I wanted to be alone with the men following me.

Since my stay at Bellagio, I’d felt uncomfortable whenever I entered an elevator. A trap, I thought a few times. The thought wasn’t a memory. It was a warning from a skill set, and a different word entered my mind - tradecraft. Interesting. Staying out of elevators to avoid being trapped was part of a skill set I labeled tradecraft.

I found it curious that I felt no fear, and further introspection gave me a reason for my calm attitude. I could take the two thugs following me. Furthermore, it was necessary for me to remove the thugs from the game before Gino’s shooters arrived so the thugs couldn’t report my whereabouts in the hotel.

The man and his nagging wife exited the elevator on their floor. The thug who had wanted to take me in the lounge decided to be a hero and kill me as soon as the elevator doors closed. Unfortunately for him, my reaction time was much faster than his. I threw my elbow into his nose, crushing bone and cartilage. At the same time, I kicked the side of my other assailant’s knee. Both men screamed with pain, and to avoid attracting more attention, a few swift, well-placed blows rendered them unconscious. I took their cell phones but left their weapons, and quickly pushed the button for the floor directly above us at the time, and then selected the highest possible floor. I stepped out of the elevator and pushed the down button, wondering if it were wise to pack my clothes. Fuck it. I’d need clothes wherever I disappeared.

I checked out of the hotel from my room, and ten minutes later, exited the hotel at a side entrance. A cab took me to the airport. Another cab took me back downtown to the bus depot. Buses didn’t check for weapons, and I wasn’t about to travel without a weapon. The ticket clerk also didn’t ask for ID and was happy to take cash. I purchased a ticket for Phoenix, Arizona, and Lady Luck hadn’t abandoned me entirely. The bus for Phoenix left ten minutes after I purchased the ticket.

Why disappear?

Someone I didn’t know wanted me dead for a reason or reasons I didn’t know, either. Other than my clothes and money, I had no resources. I knew no one I could call on for help. Disappearing was my only option.

As the bus rumbled through Henderson, a suburb of Las Vegas, I reviewed a skill set called disappearing. To truly disappear isn’t easy. I’d need a new identity. As of that moment, Wayne Johnson was dead forever, which presented few problems for me. But a new identity was more than a new name. An identity involved documents for proof of identity, to start with a forged green card, which I could acquire in Phoenix.

I’d be an immigrant from Canada, and I’d need a back-story, which I’d make up and memorize. With a green card, I could acquire a legal driver’s license, and as an immigrant, I’d be required to apply for a legal social security card. With a social security number, I could open a bank account, and with a bank account, I could acquire a debit card or pre-paid credit card that didn’t require a credit check.

Step two in disappearing involved changing my appearance. I didn’t wear glasses. I’d wear non-corrective lenses. My hair was growing in, and it was brown. I’d wear a wig until my hair was long enough and then dye it blond. I was clean-shaven, so I’d grow a beard or a mustache. In high-risk cases, plastic surgery would be appropriate. Fuck that. I judged my risk moderate.

Step three involved money - the reason I’d hotfooted it out of Vegas with $100,000 in cash. If I were careful, I could live six months, maybe nine, with that much money. If need be, I could poor-boy it and last a year. Six months ought to do it. I only needed to disappear until my memories returned. Surely I’d recover my lost past in six months!

Step four usually presented the most difficult adjustments. A person disappearing can’t contact anyone he knows. That’d be easy for me. I didn’t know anyone. Well, there was the doc and Gloria, but not contacting either of them wasn’t a problem for me.

The fifth and final step was a problem, though. Besides isolating myself from loved ones and acquaintances as dictated in step four, I had to change or avoid any habits I’d formed in the past. That could prove troublesome. I wasn’t aware of some of my habits from my past. Gambling was a no-no, I figured, so I’d avoid the Indian casinos around Phoenix, and from my brush with the thugs in the elevator, I couldn’t visit a... kwoon.

Kwoon!

The word just pooped into my mind. A kwoon is another word for a dojo or training hall but specific to kung fu. Was my martial art specialty kung fu? Yeah it was.

Hoo boy! Another memory!

That’s what the saber memory was all about. I was practicing with a Shaolin wushu weapon, one of four I favored. The other three were the cudgel, spear and the broadsword.

No doubt about it. Until my memories returned, I’d need to stay away from any kwoons.

Gun clubs, too.

Did I play golf? I didn’t know. Maybe I’d take up golf. Naw! Smacking a little white ball around a lot of green grass sounded like the height of boredom to me.

Why disappear in Phoenix?

Phoenix was a major city close to Vegas. It was February, winter weather north of Vegas, and I detested cold weather. Whoa! That’s another memory!

Besides, I sensed a kinship with Phoenix, nothing specific, but the city and I had a connection of some sort. Vegas hadn’t evoked many memories. Perhaps Phoenix would be a better trigger.

Morgan, huh? Was my name Morgan?

Unlike Phoenix, I felt no kinship with the name.

Why?

The occupants of a bus often represent a cross-section of Americana, and my traveling companions did that in spades. My seat mate was a little, old lady. I wouldn’t be surprised if she told me she was from Pasadena. Her name was Agnes, and her knitting needles rarely stopped clicking until the bus rolled into Kingman, Arizona. Her face was long, her short gray hair short with tight curls. She wore half-glasses with connected to a chain around her neck.

I occupied the aisle seat next to her. The aisle gave me more room to operate, and I sat in the first row behind the driver to his right. My seat also offered the quickest exit from the bus.

Agnes, the knitter, had to be seventy years old and had a delightfully naughty mind. No, make that raunchy. She likened me to her first husband who was a randy fucker with a big dick. She liked big ones, the bigger the better.

Size queen, she thought with a sly, secret grin. That’s what I am, a size queen.

Mo, the bus driver, was gay. He liked my cute, tight ass. I won’t tell you what he wanted to do with it.

A Mexican woman sitting two rows back across the aisle nursed her baby and wondered if I’d like a taste of her milk - or hairy cunt. A dirty, old man in the aisle seat directly across from the nursing mother would’ve given her all he owned for a taste from her plump titty. Admittedly, he didn’t own much.

A family of six occupied a group of seats farther back in the bus. A boy, age twelve, hoped his thirteen-year-old sister would jack him off under a blanket after dark. The girl, given her preference, would fuck her older brother. Both of them. At the same time. The oldest boy daydreamed about his mother giving him a blowjob. With more privacy, according to her thoughts, the mother would’ve gladly made the boy’s fantasy a reality. The father seemed blissfully ignorant of the incestuous fantasies rampant in his family. He was just plain tired from his dogged efforts to keep their bellies full and a roof over their heads.

The incestuous family was relatively benign when compared to the evil mind of a young man near the back of the bus. He didn’t fantasize about the joy of sex. His thoughts involved inflicting pain, reveling in the screams of his victims, watching the light in their eyes grow dim when they died as he choked them with his bare hands. Surprisingly, he didn’t look evil. He wore a long-sleeved, heavily starched white shirt and freshly pressed chino pants.

His fantasy object was a young woman sitting at the back of the bus. The woman’s thoughts told me she’d just turned nineteen. She daydreamed about starting college in Kingman, Mohave Community College, to be specific. She cared about her future. Somehow, someway, she’d go to college. She was moving to Kingman to get away from her slut mother, who’d tried to turn the girl out, make a whore of her. She’d live with her father in Kingman, find work and take as many college courses as she could.

I liked her spunk, but knew without more support she wouldn’t achieve her dreams. Her name was Charlotte, and for what it’s worth, she was a live wet dream, which she tried, unsuccessfully, to play down. She made Gloria look plain by comparison.

Sometime after crossing the Hoover Dam, the evil young man moved in on Charlotte. She rebuffed his overtures, but he persisted. I decided it was time for a potty break. The restroom was in the back of the bus near Charlotte. I actually took a leak while experiencing the young man and Charlotte’s conversation and thoughts. When I exited the bathroom, I turned to them, grabbed the young man’s face in my meaty hand and put my face in his.

“She told you she’s not interested,” I said with menace in my voice. “Leave her alone, or you’ll answer to me. Got it?”

I’d misjudged him. I’d considered him a bully, and someone unafraid of bullies usually handled them with ease. I thought he’d back off; instead, he became furious. His rage was immediate and consumed him, destroying his reasoning capacity.

Extreme anger flashed in his eyes. He turned his face and bit my hand as if he were a rabid dog. At the same time, he reared up out of the seat and swung at me with a wild overhand fist that I barely avoided. With his gnawing teeth still attached to my hand, I had no choice but to smash the side of his head, which ended the altercation almost as soon as it started. He slumped unconscious - I hoped.

Was he dead? I hadn’t pulled the chop from the side of my hand, and I could kill that way. A memory? After quickly wrapping my bleeding hand with a handkerchief, I felt for a pulse at his carotid artery and breathed a sigh of relief. The pulse was strong and steady.

“He’s evil,” I said to the girl. “Sit up front close to me and away from him.”

Without a word, she gathered her things and moved to the vacant aisle seat behind mine.

“What happened to your hand?” Agnes asked when I sat down.

“The mean little shit at the back of the bus bit me when I told him to leave a girl alone.”

The human mouth is nasty, loaded with germs, Agnes thought. His hand will become infected. She became a nurse. At the direction of the driver, she located a first-aid kit, disinfected the wound and applied a bandage.

Charlotte helped. I was her hero.

Argh!

After a short conference between Agnes and Charlotte, Charlotte became my seat mate, and Agnes went back to her knitting and fantasies about big dicks. The evil young man remained unconscious. I worried about him. Like me a month ago, he’d have a concussion.

“Where are you going?” Charlotte asked.

“Tucson,” I said.

“Will someone be meeting you there?” Like a wife, she added silently.

I chuckled. “No. I’m a novelist. My latest book is set in Tucson, and it’s been too long since I walked the streets in that city.” Enough about me. “What’s your goal in life? Marriage, children, career?”

She gave me a winning smile. “All of the above.”

“At the same time?”

“Career first.” She giggled. “And hopefully I’ll be married when I become a mother.”

“Which brings all three together at the same time.”

“I suppose. What is the title of your last book? I want to read it.”

I made up a name and a fake storyline when she persisted, and tried to direct the conversation back to her. She had a one-track mind, though. She wanted to know everything about me, and her thoughts were starting to get a little raunchy as the bus slowed to pull off I-40 into Kingman.

The evil one roused about that time, but his thoughts were disoriented. Would he fly off the handle again when he remembered what happened?

No. He glared at me with abject hatred, but he wouldn’t take me on again. The side of his face hurt. I’d struck him across the jaw and cheekbone. Good. No concussion - maybe.

The airbrakes whooshed when the bus stopped at the depot in Kingman.

“Dinner break,” the driver announced. “One hour.”

I’d gathered my things, including the gym bag with my money, which I carried with my left hand, and I was the first person off the bus. Charlotte was right behind me.

There he is! I heard from a mind about thirty feet in front of me.

All hell broke loose.

I pushed Charlotte to the ground and followed her down, pulling my pistol from the holster at the small of my back at the same time. I managed to get off one shot before I hit the asphalt. My round struck one of my assailants in the neck - a miss; I’d aimed for his chest. I attributed the miss to the throbbing teeth marks on my hand.

A body fell on me, which probably saved my life because two more bullets slammed into Agnes before I could roll her off me. The little old lady’s knitting needles had been forever silenced. Her unnecessary death pissed me off.

Peripherally, I saw Charlotte scramble under the bus. Smart girl. I did the same, but backwards, firing my pistol as I crawled. Two more assailants fell.

I rose to my feet on the backside of the bus with my gym bag in one hand and my smoking gun in the other.

“Follow me!” Charlotte said and ran away from the bus, keeping it between her and the shooters.

If I followed her, I’d put her in further jeopardy. On the other hand, I didn’t know Kingman, and I’d need to disappear in the small town for a day or two, and then locate alternate transportation before continuing on to Phoenix. I needed the anonymity of a big city. Kingman wasn’t big enough to effectively disappear in for an extended time.

I followed her.

That girl could run! She darted right around a building and plunged down a small hill. A glance over my shoulder told me we could no longer be seen from the bus. She turned right at the bottom of the hill, and I watched her leap over something, an old mattress I discovered seconds later. My leap wasn’t as graceful as hers, but I cleared the obstacle.

The ground started to rise again, and Charlotte zipped left before the top of the ridge and disappeared from my view behind another building. Smart. She’d avoided becoming a silhouette against the darkening sky.

She was bent over with her hands on her knees gasping for breath when I caught up with her. I was short of breath myself.

“We need to get on the other side of the freeway,” she said between gasps. “My dad has a small place there.”

“That’ll do for an hour or two,” I said.

“Why just an hour or two?” she asked.

“Did you give the ticket clerk your name?”

“I gave him a name, not my real name, though. I... I’m... It’s my mother. She wanted me to turn tricks. I ran.”

I grinned. “Lead on, Charlotte.”

“Who were those men?” she asked as we walked away at a fast clip.

“Don’t know.”

“But... Chad, they were waiting for you.”

I’d told her my name was Chad Josey. She’d been honest with me. I owed her some honesty, too. “True, but I don’t know who they were. Someone wants me dead, Charlotte. I don’t know why, and I don’t know who. I don’t know much of anything. I’m suffering from amnesia. The name I gave you isn’t my name. I don’t know my name.”

As we walked, I told her my story, omitting the fact that I could experience her thoughts, finishing the story about the same time we arrived at her father’s small place. His place was a shack, not a house.

More trouble awaited us inside.

Her father was home, but he was dead.

I held Charlotte while she wept. From all indications, Tom Hilton, Charlotte’s father, had died from natural causes. He’d been dead for a while and was starting to get ripe.

“The goddamned fool drank himself to death,” she blubbered and did some more crying.

There isn’t much you can do for a crying female, or a male, for that matter, except hold them, let them know you care, and give them some time to get a handle on their emotions.

“He was worthless but I loved him, and he loved me,” she said as she started to come around. “I came here to get away from my mother and go to college, even brought my high school transcripts from Vegas. Fuck! The transcripts are on the bus! My clothes, too. Fuck!”

Her grief became anger, an easier emotion for me to deal with.

“Now what? We can’t stay here,” she said.

“You can; I can’t. After I leave, call 911. I’ll...”

“No way. Take me with you.” Ten dollars, that’s all I have. If I stay here, I’ll end up back with my mother. I’ll become a whore. I can’t do that. I can’t! Regardless, I won’t go back. I’ll find a job. I can take care of myself.

I didn’t say anything.

“You’re not a writer, are you?” she said.

“No.”

“What are you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t have a past.”

“If you leave me here, I won’t have a future.” Not a future worth living, anyway. He’s a good man. With him, I might have a chance to be all I can be.

“Very soon, the police will join my enemy searching for me. If you come with me, you could be killed.”

She snorted derisively. “I know all about the threat of death. I grew up with the threat. I’ve been raped and beaten. A john murdered one of my mother’s prostitute friends, murdered the woman and her child.”

Her statement - reliving some moments in her past - devastated her, and she slumped on a chair. “Give me a future, Chad. Please,” she begged, looking up at me with tears streaming from her pretty eyes.

A future. I didn’t know why, but her request resonated deeply inside me. Had someone stepped up and given me a future sometime in my past? My question didn’t pull out any memories that would give an answer, but her request tugged at my heartstrings, silly, romantic phrase, I know, but that’s how I felt.

“What about your father?” I asked. “His death should be reported and funeral arrangements made.”

“I’ll call 911 from a pay phone. I don’t have the wherewithal to arrange his funeral, Chad. Please, take me with you.”

I said nothing, waited for her to offer herself in trade. If she did, I’d walk away.

A chance, she thought. That’s all I want. A chance.

“I’m not going to Tucson. We’ll disappear in Phoenix.”

I broke the law again; I stole a car. My bus ticket said Phoenix, so we couldn’t go directly to Phoenix. The sun was coming up, and snow was falling when I pulled the stolen car into Flagstaff, Arizona.

“God, I hate winter,” I muttered as I entered the rental office of a sleazy motel. Surprise, surprise, the desk clerk was happy to take cash. As I’d requested, the room had two double beds. The towels were thin and small, the carpet threadbare, and the TV was bolted to the wall - culture shock after a month at the Bellagio. Depressing. We weren’t prepared for an overnight stay anywhere, so I drove the car to a shopping mall, where I abandoned the vehicle after carefully wiping away any and all fingerprints.

We went shopping. I sensed the day was unique for me. I had no way of knowing, but I don’t believe I’d enjoyed shopping in my past. Charlotte made shopping a delight. She’d try on an outfit, rush out to show me, watch my eyes, my expression, and know immediately if the outfit appealed to me. Besides clothes, we bought personal items, luggage, lotions and potions - a laptop computer. Fun. We had fun, just what we needed.

We were sipping a coke and resting in the food court when she brought up my gym bag.

“What’s in the bag?” she asked.

“My money.”

She giggled. “That’s what I thought. Are you rich?”

I laughed. “No, but I have enough for us to hide out for six months if we’re careful. Hopefully by then I’ll have my memories back and can get on with the rest of my life.” After I take care of the thugs trying to kill me, I added silently.

“Is the money stolen?”

I frowned. “No. Charlotte, since I woke up in the hospital a little over a month ago, I’ve only broken the law twice, once when I purchased an illegal pistol, and again when I hot-wired the car in Kingman. I won the money gambling.”

“Good,” she said and smiled. “I’m happy you have a gun. We need the protection it gives us, and I understood why we needed to steal that car, but I... well, I... I’m really happy you’re not a criminal, Chad.” I couldn’t love a crook, she thought. And I think I’m falling in love with him. Uh-uh, I know I’m falling in love with him.

Oh, oh, troubles ahead. Charlotte was a living, breathing wet dream, and I’d be a liar if I said she didn’t tempt me, but if we became lovers, I’d hurt her, the last thing I wanted to do. I wanted to protect her. I’d started to think of her as a little sister.

“We need to talk,” I said.

She groaned. “You’re sounding like my mother.”

I laughed. “Good, I want you to think of me as a parent.”

She grinned. “Never happen, Chad.”

“How about big brother?”

“Uh-uh. That’d be incest.”

Argh!

I’m going to fuck him so good he’ll never want another woman.

“I’m too old for you, Charlotte.”

He doesn’t have a chance.

“You’re what? Eighteen? Nineteen?”

“Nineteen going on twenty-five,” she said.

“I have no past. For all I know, I’m married with six kids.”

Holy crap! That’s possible. Uh-uh. He doesn’t act like a married man, and I know about married men. A lot of Mom’s johns were married men. One of the fuckers who raped me was a married man.

“You’re not married,” she said. “I’d know. Are we finished shopping?”

“No. We need a few things that’ll help us alter our appearance. You’re about to discover if blondes have more fun.”

And you - Chad Josey or whatever your name is - are about to discover how much fun I can be, blonde or otherwise.

Argh.

Chapter 2

“How about I just cut it?” Charlotte said, running her fingers through her long, dark hair. She studied her face in the cracked bathroom mirror, mentally resisting dyeing her hair blonde.

“Both would be better,” I said as I headed for the door. “Charlotte, I need a new weapon, which will take some time to arrange. While I’m gone, cut and dye your hair, and then pack your new things, mine, too, please, except leave out a change of clothes for me. I’ll bring food back with me.”

She gave me a hard look. “If you ditch me, I’ll never forgive you.”

I laughed. “I can’t say the thought hasn’t crossed my mind, but we’re talking trust here, Charlotte, mutual trust. Hopefully during the next hour or two, I’ll be meeting with an illegal gun dealer. As a group, they’re not the trustworthiest bunch to deal with. Accordingly, it’d be less than prudent for me to meet a gun dealer with my bag of money in hand.” I pointed at the bag sitting on one of the beds. “So, I’m trusting you with our future.” I grinned. “If you ditch me and steal my money, I’ll never forgive you. Question. What do you know about guns?”

“Diddly squat, but I’m a quick study regarding anything involving eye/hand coordination. Why?”

“Would you like me to teach you about guns?”

“Yes.” Among other things. Her eyes went to the gym bag. “I’m happy you trust me.”

“Lock and chain the door when I leave. Don’t let in anyone but me for any reason. Got it?”

“Got it. I’ll look like a cheap slut as a blonde, Chad.”

I groaned. “Okay, what color then? I’ll buy the dye while I’m out.”

“Auburn. A few red highlights ought to do it, and you can’t be a blond, either, not with your complexion. Dye yours black.” Tall, dark and handsome. Tall, blond and handsome doesn’t cut it.

“All right.”

“About food. I detest pizza. I love Chinese, anything kung pao, and ask for house mustard, not that stuff in plastic tubes.”

She’s something else. “I like crab puffs,” I said.

“Me, too, and egg rolls.” As I was leaving, she added, “Love the Stetson, cowboy. Be careful out there.”

Part of perfecting a disguise involves attitude and posture change, and the clothes you wear can alter your attitude. In Vegas, I wore what I called tropical casual. For Phoenix, I’d opted for Western wear, mostly because men in Western gear often wore hats. Part of Charlotte’s disguise, although she didn’t know it, was a more in-your-face display of her amazing body. As a form of self-defense, she’d worn bulky clothes designed to hide her charms. No more. Not that her new clothes made her look slutty, just the opposite. When I noticed she was selecting her clothes to please me, I nodded and smiled when she modeled classy, sophisticated clothes that let her gorgeous curves shine through without being too blatant about it. The added benefit of her new look was her apparent age. Instead of barely nineteen, in her new clothes she looked more like twenty-one.

No XD-9s, dammit, but I couldn’t complain otherwise. The gun dealer sold me two SIG SAUER pistols, a classic full size P226 for me, and a smaller classic personal size P239 for Charlotte. Navy SEALS used the P226. The magazine held ten rounds, the P239 only eight, but I didn’t see Charlotte in a firefight anytime soon, and it was a good weapon to learn how to shoot. I also bought extra magazines for the weapons, holsters and 120 rounds of 9mm ammo.

“I need a late-model sedan for two weeks,” I told the gun dealer. He was a skinny man, frail, and his face was crooked, one eye a half-inch lower than the other. “I don’t want a stolen car, and it must be insured for any driver. I’ll pay cash, half Kelly Blue Book price, but I won’t take title, and I’ll leave the vehicle somewhere in Arizona so the owner can retrieve it at the end of two weeks. If it’s not retrievable at that time, the owner can report it stolen.”

“Will the car be used to commit a crime?”

With that bandaged hand, the dealer thought, he could be the man the police are lookin’ for that shot up Kingman yesterday. He hesitated. So what if he is? It ain’t my business. They ain’t offerin’ no reward or nothin’.

Fuck. I figured the gunfight in Kingman would hit the news, but I’d hoped the authorities didn’t have anything on me yet. They’d find my fingerprints, but there had to be thousands of prints in that bus. Running them through AFIS would take a while. AFIS, or automatic fingerprint identification system, is a computer network that scans crime-scene fingerprints and compares them with the millions of prints collected by law enforcement agencies around the world. That wasn’t a memory, just more tradecraft. I also questioned if the Kingman police would go to the trouble of tracking down that many prints from the bus. Witnesses would tell them that I was defending myself. The real culprits were the men who had opened fire with automatic weapons as I stepped from the bus.

As a guess, while being questioned, someone on the bus, most likely the driver, had told the police about my bandaged hand. The police probably released my description to the media, a description that included the bandage.

It was snowing outside. Gloves wouldn’t look suspicious. I’d buy a pair of gloves to wear while in Flagstaff to hide the bandage.

To answer the dealer’s question, I said, “No, I’ll use the car for transportation only. For various reasons, I can’t take title to a car, and I can’t rent one.”

“I’ll check around. Where can I call you?”

“I’ll call you.”

“Fair enough. When do you want the car?”

“Tonight or at the latest early tomorrow morning.”

I was running out of steam. I needed sleep. Unless forced for some reason, we wouldn’t leave Flagstaff before morning.

“Call me in two hours,” the dealer said.

“All right. I also need two permanent resident green cards, good enough to obtain valid driver’s licenses and apply for replacement social security cards.”

Useable forged documents, I knew, involved stealing the identities of unsuspecting legal immigrants, but I wouldn’t misuse the identities. I wouldn’t create tax or credit problems for them because I wouldn’t use the identity for employment or to obtain credit, except for a debit card for a bank account I could open with the replacement social security card.

“I can give you a name and telephone number in Tucson,” he said.

“That’d be good.”

He checked through what looked like a small address book, and rattled off the name and number.

“Ain’t you goin’ ta write it down?” he asked.

I tapped my temple. “Good memory.”

“Use my name when you talk to the guy in Tucson.”

“I will.” The dealer would get a referral fee, which was fair and right.

“What happened to your hand?” he asked.

“Dog bite. The goddamn dog won’t bite anyone else - if you get my drift.”

The dealer nodded and walked away.

I flipped open Wayne Johnson’s cell phone and called a cab. The cabbie waited for me at a drugstore while I ran in and purchased a pair of gloves and new hair dye for Charlotte and me. He also knew about a late-night Chinese restaurant for takeout.

“While you were out, I watched the news on TV,” Charlotte said between bites of kung poa chicken.

She used a fork. I manipulated chopsticks. How and when I learned how to eat with chopsticks were events I couldn’t remember. It was a good thing I’d ordered three main dishes. That girl sure could pack the food away!

“The cops are looking for you,” she added.

“I heard.”

“Not by name, just a description, and except for the bandaged hand, it was a crappy description.”

“Good. I bought gloves to hide the bandage.”

“I noticed.”

“Did you count the money?”

She blushed. “Sort of - roughly. I counted one bundle and then did the math. Chad, we can live for two or three years with that amount of money.”

“If we poor-boy it and if we weren’t on the run, maybe. Later tonight or in the morning, I’ll buy a car to use for two weeks for half its current value, so subtract $7,000 for temporary transportation. Subtract another $5,000 to $10,000 for forged identity documents. Once we’ve established our new identities, we’ll need a different car, which will eat up another $15,000, or more. We can’t live in a hotel, not for six months, so we’ll rent a furnished house, and although we’ll have furniture, we’ll probably need pots and pans and dishes, towels and bed linens, those sorts of things. By my calculations, we’ll be lucky if the money lasts six months.”

He’s so smart.

“If we run short, I’ll drive to New Mexico or Colorado and find a poker game or a blackjack table in an Indian casino to replenish some of our stake.”

“Are you a professional gambler?”

No, I’m a telepath, I thought as I gave my head a negative shake. “I don’t think so. I’m good with math, can quickly calculate odds in my head, but gambling wasn’t how I made a living in my past. I don’t know what I did, so I could’ve been a gambler, but being a professional gambler doesn’t feel right to me.”

“What does feel right?”

Should I tell her? Why not?

“I’m good with a gun and I know martial arts. I know how to breakdown a locked steering wheel and hot-wire a car. I know how to disappear and how to buy illegal weapons. I know other things, little things I call tradecraft, like elevators can be traps, how to select a place to sit so I can observe everyone around me, those sorts of things, and what’s more, I sense I used all this knowledge in my work.”

I ate the last bit of food on my plate, chewed and swallowed. “Some of what I just outlined is illegal, but I’m not a crook. I had to leave Vegas on the run, but I paid half my hospital bill as I left, and I’ll pay the other half when I can. A crook would’ve kept all the money and ripped off the hospital and doctors and nurses, even if they saved his life. I’m not callous or overly cynical, and I care about my fellowman... if they deserve my respect. I detest evil men and women, Charlotte.”

I paused to take a drink of water.

“You still haven’t said what feels right to you,” she commented.

“With all the knowledge I’ve put together about myself, I still don’t know what I did to make a living in my past. I don’t know my name, my age, my birthday, whether anyone besides my enemy or enemies are searching for me. I don’t know where I call home, whether I’m rich or poor, if my mother or father is still alive, if I have a brother or sister. I have no one.”

“You have me.”

“Yes, I have you. You are my family, Charlotte, my sister.”

“No, Chad, I am definitely not your sister. Let’s go to bed.” And I’ll prove to you why I can’t be your sister.

“Can’t, not yet. We need transportation, and we need to dye our hair, and, Charlotte, you and I will not have sex tonight. I’m dead on my feet.”

Tonight, he said. I can live with that. He didn’t sleep last night, so he needs his rest, but tomorrow...

“Or any night, little sister,” I added and yawned. The food and warm room were knocking me out. I flipped open my cell phone and dialed my gun dealer’s number.

“I know I’m a little early with the callback,” I said, “but have you checked on that car for me?”

“Yes.” He gave me a name and phone number. “Use my name when you talk to him.”

An hour later I had transportation - a two-year-old Honda Accord, white with a gray interior. Charlotte let me back in the room, helped me dye my hair, and I was asleep ten seconds after my head hit the pillow.

I opened my eyes feeling rested and soon realized I felt something else - Charlotte, naked, warm and cuddly, asleep and spooned back against me, against my throbbing erection. My hand held her soft breast, and the small nipple, hard as glass, pressed my palm. My nostrils spread as I sniffed her feminine fragrances, like the scent of apple shampoo in her hair - dark hair, slightly shorter than yesterday and streaked with auburn highlights that made her even more beautiful than before the changes altered her appearance.

I wanted to nuzzle her silky neck, taste its flavor with the tip of my tongue, fondle her breasts, kiss them, suck on them, kiss her, kiss her lips, her... cunt, damp cunt, wet with arousal, ready for me, ready to take my cock inside her, cuddle its length with wet heat as her inner membranes squeezed gently, pulsing with her need to satisfy my needs.

With a silent groan of frustration, I backed away, removed my hand from her breast, and slid from under the covers to stand on the floor without waking her. My erection poked out of the hole in my boxers, and it was screaming at me.

Are you crazy? it screeched.

Little sister, you are a trial, I thought as I padded to the bathroom. I locked the door. If she joined me in the shower, I knew I wouldn’t be able to resist her.

Should I resist her? Yes. The question came from my little head, the answer from my big head. Could I resist her? Maybe... probably not. My little head provided the answer. The more I was with her, the more I wanted her, and it wasn’t just about sex. Then again, perhaps it was all about sex. I was a man in my late twenties. Her protestations to the contrary, she was still a girl, barely nineteen. I didn’t know if my desire exceeded old-fashioned lust, not for sure, and I wouldn’t have sex with her if all I wanted from her were sex. Sex was all Gloria and I shared, that’s all we could ever share, but she had her life, and I had mine. We could enjoy some time together and go our separate ways, no harm, no foul. My situation with Charlotte didn’t allow that to happen. I’d accepted the responsibility to help her become all she could be. She’d asked me to give her a future, and right or wrong, I’d accepted the challenge. In her mind, she was in love with me, but teenaged girls fell in love at the drop of a hat. Was that a memory? No. If I fucked her out of lust with no other deeper feelings, I’d be using and abusing the love she felt for me.

Pretending she was my little sister wouldn’t work, not in the long run. She wasn’t ready to give up. She wanted to prove to me that she was a woman, not a girl, a woman who could please me sexually so I’d never want another woman. What she didn’t know, was probably too young, too inexperienced to know, was the fact that having sex with me wouldn’t make her a woman in my eyes.

Still, she’d wear me down. Somehow, I had to make her understand how confusing sex would make our relationship, help her understand the dynamics of our relationship, help her understand that I couldn’t have casual sex with her and why.

Armed with resolve, I turned off the shower and reached for the towel - a wet towel, I soon discovered. Cheap fucking motel.

And I’d fucked up otherwise. With my mind fried with lust when I entered the bathroom, I hadn’t brought a change of clothes with me. Perhaps she’d still be asleep. With my body still wet, I pulled on yesterday’s underwear and walked out of the bathroom.

She was wide-awake, and she hadn’t dressed. She was stretched out on the bed. The top sheet wasn’t covering her. She’d kicked it to the side. She smiled at me and stretched her hands high above her head, offering me a full view of her stunning, young body. Her nipples jutted hard; her skin looked flushed, and lust shaded her dark eyes. A living, breathing wet dream.

“Good morning,” she breathed.

I nodded.

She rolled gracefully from the bed to her feet and walked to me. Her arms went around my neck, and her eyes gazed into mine.

“I am not your sister, Chad.”

“I know, but...”

She kissed me to shut me up.

If she’d kissed me with passion, I could have resisted her, but her kiss was soft and sweet and romantic. She didn’t rub her mound against my erection - yes, I was erect. I’d become fully hard when she stretched on the bed. She didn’t try to push me beyond the simple, sweet kiss.

My arms went around her, and she melted against me.

“But what?” she asked when she leaned back from the kiss.

“I’m not in love with you.”

“I know, but sometime soon, you will fall in love with me, Chad.”

“I won’t have sex with you until love happens.”

“Sure you will.”

She kissed me again, another soft, sweet kiss.

He isn’t ready for me, for us, not yet.

“But not this morning,” she said. “Not in this cheap motel on a lumpy bed, not that they matter a lick to me, but they matter to you.”

Her hands cuddled my face. “Chad, you will make love with me before you fall in love with me, and you won’t fall in love with me because you make love with me. You’ll fall in love with me because I’m lovable, and I love you. You’re like me. You’re a sucker for romance. Did you use all the hot water?”

“No, but good luck regarding a dry towel.”

We drove out of the snow at 4,000 feet elevation as we descended on I-17 from Flagstaff toward Phoenix. The sun came out and offered us a glorious day.

“We’ll stay in another cheap motel in Tucson tonight, not Phoenix,” I said.

“Why Tucson?”

“I have the name and phone number of a man who sells forged green cards.” I explained the system that would allow us to become almost legal permanent residents.

She asked good questions, which I answered, and she nodded enthusiastically when I told her she could get a driver’s license with a green card. She balked when I told her that she would probably be listed as my sister.

“That would complicate things later, Chad.”

“But...”

“Don’t to that, please.”

“We’ll see.”

As I drove, we made up back-stories for both of us. She’d never been to Canada, and because I couldn’t remember anything farther back than last month, I told her we’d research the specific areas involved in our back-stories on the Internet. When I finished outlining our made-up pasts, she changed hers, made it more believable, and made certain we weren’t related in any fashion, let alone as brother and sister.

We met with the green-card specialist, a dapper, middle-aged man named Juan Cortez. He took our photographs, using a half-profile pose, the correct portrait for a green card, I discovered.

I became Dr. Kenneth LaPlant, a psychologist. I was a thirty-year-old Canadian from Toronto. Charlotte changed her name to Colleen Melton, a twenty-year-old from Montreal. I was in the country as an EB-2, or a worker with advanced degrees. Our forger told me the real Kenneth LaPlant had returned to Toronto from Dallas, Texas. Colleen Melton had become an immigrant as the fiancée of an American citizen. The love affair had fallen apart before the wedding, and she’d recently returned to Canada.

“These identities are clean, no credit problems, no tax problems, no legal problems,” Cortez said proudly as he handed me the green cards the next day. He surprised me when he also gave me two social security cards. “These cards are forged, but they’re useable. They match the real numbers for your new identities.”

“May I use them to open bank accounts?”

“Si, of course. Most likely, the banks won’t ask to see the cards if you give them the numbers verbally.”

I paid the man, and Colleen and I headed toward Phoenix.

“What’s next?” she asked.

“We’ll find a cheap apartment, and rent it for a month. We won’t live in it, though. We’ll live in a hotel for a few days until we find a suitable furnished house for lease. We’ll use the apartment address for our driver’s license and bank accounts. When we find the house, we’ll put in a change of address at the post office, and we’ll be good to go.”

Four days later, we moved into a three-bedroom house in McCormick Ranch in Scottsdale, a suburb of Phoenix. Colleen and I had bank accounts, debit cards, and valid Arizona driver’s licenses.

I’d also managed to dampen my libido enough to fend off Colleen’s flirtations; no, flirtation is too weak a word for the all-out campaign she’d been waging.

I was lying on a lounge by the pool catching some rays and drinking iced tea when Colleen stepped out of the house wearing nothing but lipstick and red paint on her fingernails and toes. She dove into the water, making only a small splash, and surfaced halfway across the pool. Rolling onto her back, she let her legs float apart. She’d trimmed her pubic bush, and her labia had to be as smooth as a baby’s bottom with nary a hair in sight.

My dick rose up hard and long.

She turned and swam to the edge of the pool, lifting herself out of the water with such athletic grace that I felt a catch in my throat. She was the type of female, and there aren’t very many of them, who looked beautiful even with wet hair. She didn’t dry off, just stretched out on the lounge chair next to mine.

“That master bedroom, that’s yours. You are the master, but it’s mine, too. I’m the mistress,” she said without looking at me. “It’s our bedroom. Got it?”

I huffed with disdain. “We might as well start off in the same bed. You end up in my bed sometime during the night anyway.”

“Good. We understand each other.” She moved to her feet and walked into the house.

I followed her inside.

“Can you cook?” I asked.

“Plain cooking, nothing fancy, but I want to learn fancy.”

“We’ll buy some cookbooks.”

She turned to me and walked into my arms. Looking up into my eyes, she said, “My father was a drunk; my mother a whore. They didn’t teach me how to lead a good life or about the good things in life. They couldn’t. They lived with despair and fear, and each day was a struggle, not so much because they were poor, but more because they didn’t like themselves. Dad hated himself because he was too weak to stay out of the bottle. Mom hated herself because she believed her only value was as a receptacle for semen. You’d think that with such pitiful role models and their narrow, sad view of life that I, too, would move through each day with despair and fear. I don’t. Would you like to know why?”

“Tell me.”

“Because I believe in tender, sweet love, cowboy. I’m not talking about sex. Sex is just one of many ways a man and woman express their love for each other. Love is an emotion, a deep, abiding emotion that has no beginning and no end. It just is, and you love me, cowboy. You love me as deeply as I love you. I can see it in your eyes, your expression, in how you treat me, the things you do for me, usually without even thinking about what you do. But you’re fighting yourself and your feelings for me just like my parents fought themselves, and I want you to quit it.”

“How am I fighting myself?”

“I’m too young for you, you say. What I feel for you is just a schoolgirl crush, you say. You’ve stated that you won’t have sex with me. Fine. I don’t want to have sex. I want to make love. I want you to wrap me in your tender, sweet love and stop worrying about how much younger I am than you, or wondering if you will hurt me when your memories return and you discover that you’re committed to someone else from your unknown past, or...”

I kissed her. I’d never kissed her. She’d always kissed me, but this time I kissed her, and then I picked her up and carried her to our bedroom and wrapped her in my tender, sweet love.

She was right. I’d been fighting my feelings for her, and they’d grown stronger with each passing day. The motel or hotel rooms I rented had two beds, and she’d let me go to bed alone, but every morning I’d wake up with her spooned against me with my hand on her soft breast. Yes, a lot of lust was involved. I wanted her more and more every day, but I’d also noticed that love was creeping in, and I’d been fighting it, railing against it, afraid of it.

No more. I stopped fighting myself, and when I let go, my love for her washed over me like a soft, cool mist. The heat of sex became the joy of love, and I knew I’d never want just sex again because sex without love is barren and edged with a sense of loss.

She took all the love I offered and gave me back more. We had sex, but the act was wrapped in emotion, and the exquisite sensations became more intense and long lasting. Her dark eyes shined, and then went soft when I entered her. She didn’t cry out with pleasure. She made loving sounds, murmurs... whimpers. She climaxed easily and frequently, not because I was a superior lover, but because she carried her love for me on the surface, up front and open, with no games, no hidden agendas. She had no artifice in her. When she saw pleasure in my eyes she was pleased. When I touched her, she quivered with her own pleasure, and her pleasure pleased me. We gave and took without thought or effort, and her thoughts didn’t wander into the obscene.

An hour later, she surprised me yet again.

With a schoolgirl giggle, she said, “Wanna fuck now?”

“Huh?”

“We just made tender, sweet love, and it was beautiful, and I want us to make love often, but too much sweetness can be... well, too much of anything can become... boring. So, what I’d like to do now is fuck. Let’s get nasty and fuck, cowboy. Waddaya say?”

I didn’t say anything. I laughed. I also got nasty and did some fucking.

While we’d made love her thoughts hadn’t wandered into the obscene. When we fucked, they started nasty and whirled down into the truly obscene - the type of obscene that I found endearing, though. Her verbal responses were no different. She was just as up front and open about fucking as she was about making love.

Fuck it to me, cowboy.

“Pound my pussy. Harder, dammit. Yeah, like that.”

“Love your cock, cowboy.”

I can’t decide whether I like his cock more in my mouth or my cunt.

“I’m coming!”

I was getting impatient. I’d traveled to Phoenix because I sensed a connection with the city and figured it would offer me some memories I couldn’t otherwise retrieve from wherever they were stored, and Colleen recognized my restlessness, which verged on the edge of irritation.

“What?” she said. “Are you getting bored with your life of ease?”

Her question pointed out that I hadn’t been very active since we acquired our new identities and settled into the house where I planned to disappear until all my memories returned.

Sedentary. That was my problem, part of it anyway.

“What do you do for exercise?” I asked her.

“Our laundry, vacuuming, cooking, swimming...” She giggled. “Fucking. Considering my activity list, I must admit that fucking gives me the best workout and, other than making love, provides the most pleasure. Of course, I could swim until my vision turned black and my muscles screamed at me to stop, but I’m a lazy swimmer.” She gave me a hard look, and then grinned. “I am not a lazy fucker.”

“No you’re not. Would you consider running with me each morning a chore or a pleasure?”

“Being with you pleases me, cowboy. Every time and always, whatever we do. I will run with you, chore or otherwise. I have a request, too. I watched you this morning again as you practiced dancing in slow motion. I would like it if you’d teach me the steps, and we could dance together after we run together - or before, at your option.”

Dancing?

Suddenly I understood and laughed out loud. “I wasn’t dancing, Colleen. That was tai chi, a martial art form, but I use tai chi to find my center. It’s more a form of meditation for me than a martial art.”

With a teasing look, she thought, I knew what he was doing wasn’t dancing, and I figured it was tai chi, but I do enjoy his windy explanations.

Windy? Humph.

“Well, will you teach me tai chi?”

That was the moment I remembered her daydreams while on the bus traveling to Kingman. She’d run away from her mother, carrying her high school transcripts with her, to live with her father, find work and realize her dream of going to college. I’d knocked her dream train right off the tracks.

“What about college?” I asked.

“Later. First, I want to go to your school, cowboy. Teach me tai chi, and I’ll run like the wind with you every morning. Also, I want you to teach me what you call tradecraft because, it seems to me, that your tradecraft will protect me. And please teach me about guns. You asked me once if I wanted you to teach me about guns, and I said yes, but the subject hasn’t come up again.”

Protect!

She’d said that knowing my tradecraft would protect her.

That’s what I was, what I did for a living. I was a protector!

I jumped up and took her in my arms, twirling her around as I whooped with happiness, and then I set her down and kissed her, and she kissed me, and finally I explained my exuberance.

“A protector? You mean like a bodyguard?” she said.

I flinched at the word. Bodyguard held negative connotations for me. That I might be considered a bodyguard grated me.

“Not a bodyguard, a protector, sweet thing. There’s a world of difference.”

“Explain, please.”

“A bodyguard is muscle. A bodyguard reacts to a threat to his principal. A protector anticipates threats and eliminates them, if possible, before they happen.”

“Principal?”

“Client, the person the protector protects.”

“Who did you protect?” she asked.

A face emerged and came into focus in my mind. Another memory! The face was old but still rugged, and his eyes were lively.

No name.

I told Colleen about the man her question evoked. “Two new memories in less than a like amount of minutes. You are a wonder, sweet thing.”

She nuzzled the crook of my shoulder with her face as I hugged her. “Yes, I am,” she said. “And don’t you ever forget that. You use tai chi as a form of meditation, not a martial art form. What martial art is your specialty?”

“Kung fu.”

“Like David Carradine as Kwai Chang Caine in that old-time television show?”

“Yes.”

“Are you a Shaolin Priest?”

I chuckled. “No... I don’t know. Probably not.” I snorted. “I’m not the priest type.”

“That’s for sure. If you call me grasshopper, I’ll hurt you. Caine carried a stick. Why don’t you carry a stick?”

“Cudgel, not a stick, although sometimes sparring with cudgels is referred to as stick fighting. The cudgel is a Shaolin wushu weapon, one of four weapons I can use with confidence. It’s called the ‘father of all weapons, ‘ because it is believed that all other weapons came from the cudgel. It’s a sweeping tool but can be used to chop, jab, or block another weapon. It’s powerful and swift, and a practitioner adept with the cudgel becomes one with the weapon, merges with it. The cudgel is my favorite of the four.”

“Is any of what you just told me a new memory?”

“Some of it. I remembered about kung fu and wushu weapons a while back. That the cudgel is my favorite is a new memory. I’m also adept with a spear, broadsword and saber.”

“Wow. Will you teach me?”

I shook my head. “It would be better for you to learn from a teacher, a sifu, at a kwoon or training hall, and it will be years before you graduate to using wushu weapons. If you wish, I’ll check around and find the best available kwoon for you.”

“I wish. Let me summarize. Tomorrow morning we start running together each morning. Also, you will start teaching me tai chi and the tradecraft of a protector, and you will find a kwoon where I can learn kung fu. Correct?”

“Yes, except you left out learning about guns. I’ll set you up at a gun club for shooting lessons.” I explained why I needed to stay away from kwoons and gun clubs.”

“All right. When does tradecraft school start?”

“After lunch. I’m hungry.”

“Which reminds me. I want to learn how to cook fancy, something you can’t teach me. How would I go about learning how to cook fancy?”

I shrugged. “A cooking school, I guess.”

“May I go to a cooking school?”

“Of course.”

Hot diggity dog, she thought. By teaching me things, his phenomenal mind will be engaged. Running together will keep him physically fit, and I benefit every which way from Sunday.

“Have I told you today that I love you?” she asked.

“Yes, while we were making love earlier.”

“Humph. We didn’t make love earlier. We fucked, and you know it. Doesn’t matter. I’m telling you again. I love you, cowboy.”

We’d been in our house in Scottsdale two months when Colleen asked, “Are you a religious man?”

“I don’t have a past. How would I know? Why ask?”

“Because the fancy dessert I made tonight might kill you, and if you were a religious man I was going to suggest that you make peace with your God before eating it.”

“Is rat poison one of the ingredients?”

“No, it’s a flour-less chocolate cake.” She giggled. “It’s to die for.”

Colleen’s giggles were sounding more mature, less schoolgirlish. I adored the trilling sounds, and she giggled so infrequently that I certainly couldn’t accuse her of being giggly.

She cut the cake and placed a slice in front of me. Hoping I wouldn’t need to fake enjoyment, I closed my mouth on a bite of the cake. My eyes rolled back in my head, and after swallowing, I emitted an honest, small sound of pure pleasure.

“To die for,” I breathed and took another bite. “Now, that...” I pointed at the cake with my fork. “... is fancy cooking.”

“That is fancy baking, cowboy, not cooking. When did you start studying kung fu?” she asked.

“When I was twelve. Why... ?” It suddenly occurred to me that I’d just pulled an event from my memory warehouse; or rather, Colleen had pulled it out with her question.

She looked mighty pleased with herself, too, as she should be.

“I have noticed,” she said, “that a surprise question about your past often produces a memory.”

“Well, this one is a doozy,” I said as a host of memories tumbled out of the dark where they’d been hiding. “I was at an orphanage, and a bully...”

Colleen looked shocked. “An orphanage!”

“Yes. I guess I don’t need to wonder if my parents are still alive.”

“Where? Where was the orphanage?”

I shrugged. “Don’t know.” With a chuckle, I added, “I think your surprise question theory only works once a day.”

“Hah! Go on. You were telling me about a bully.”

“Yeah, a bully attacked a friend of mine, a skinny, little kid named Nicky. I can’t remember his last name, or the bully’s name, for that matter. The bully pissed me off big time, so I tore into him. He had to be twice my size, or so he seemed at the time. Still, what I did wasn’t an act of bravery. Fear has to be overcome before a person can be called brave, and I wasn’t afraid. I was angry. And in the end, my furious, unrelenting assault prevailed. When the bully cried uncle, not literally but you get my drift...” I paused to swallow another bite of the cake. “This cake is marvelous, sweet thing. Anyway, the bully and I were bloody messes, and unknown to me at the time, a man, a visitor to the orphanage, had witnessed the fight. I can’t remember his name either. I’ve tried, because I think his name would be important to me, but I can’t remember his name, and I can’t see his face. After the fight ended, a woman - I don’t know her name either, but I can see her in my mind’s eye - after this woman washed away the blood and dirt, applied disinfectant to my cuts and stuck on some Band-Aids, she ushered me into a room where the man was waiting to talk with me.”

I sipped some iced tea. “The man asked me what I wanted to do with my life, and I told him I wanted to be a cop, that I wanted to protect and serve. Well, my answer must have pleased him, because he said, ‘A laudable goal, young man.’ That’s the way he talked: formal, old-fashioned. I find it curious that I can remember the sound of his voice and the words he spoke, but can’t remember what he looked like. Do you find that odd, too?”

“Yes, but then everything about amnesia seems odd to me,” Colleen said. “Go on.”

“The man stood up and held out his hand. I took it. ‘I shall help you achieve your lofty goal, ‘ he said, and those were his exact words. That very day he took me to a kwoon and introduced me to my first sifu, and I started my education in the martial arts.”

“What else?”

“That’s it.”

“There has to be more!”

“Correct, but I can’t remember anymore.”

“That’s damned frustrating, cowboy.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Question,” Colleen said. “Is it acceptable to make new friends while we are in hiding?”

“Sure.”

“Why haven’t you made any friends?”

I shrugged.

“I think I know why you haven’t made any new friends.”

“Tell me.”

“Except for our morning run and some sightseeing day-trips we’ve taken around Arizona, you rarely leave the house. It’s difficult to make friends if you never meet anyone new. For a while, I thought your hermit-like approach to living was a necessary security precaution, but I now think that assumption was wrong. I thought about it some more and decided that because you can’t join a kwoon or gun club or visit a casino, you don’t know what to do with your time.”

“You’re not far off the mark. I considered taking up golf, but the idea of chasing a little white ball around seems downright silly to me. I made a list of some other activities I thought I might enjoy, like rock climbing, mountain biking, skydiving, and gliding, but then I reasoned if I believed I’d enjoy those activities now that it was likely one or more of them would’ve been hobbies of mine in my unknown past, and like shooting, kung fu and gambling, could alert my enemy to my whereabouts if I took them up as hobbies in my here and now.”

“Humph. Out of your concern that your enemy will find you, you’ve stifled yourself. I think you are being too careful.”

“Perhaps.”

“Uh-uh, there’s more to it than being careful. You’ve told me you selected Phoenix as the place you wanted to disappear because you felt a connection with the city, and a while back you complained that the city hadn’t evoked any memories. How could it, cowboy? You don’t go out into the city?”

What could I say? She was right.

“I bought you a present. Stay there. I’ll go get it.”

She returned with a long box wrapped with a pretty bow.

I grinned broadly when I opened the box.

“It’s an authentic Shaolin cudgel. I had Sifu help me pick it out. He wants you to come to the kwoon and spar with him, and I think you should do it, Ken.”

The risk was slight, but should I take the risk? I was quivering with excitement inside. “All right as long as no other students are around.”

“That’s what I thought you’d say, so I set it up for this evening. However, one student will be there. Me. I have another gift for you. Stay there. I’ll go get it.”

She returned with a smaller box - no ribbon.

She bowed in the Chinese fashion and extended the gift to me with both hands.

Inside the box I found a Springfield Armory XD-9.

She said, “I have made arrangements after hours at the gun club tomorrow night for you to test fire my humble gift.”

Tears stung my eyes.

“You will meet the range master, but otherwise we’ll have the shooting range to ourselves.”

I nodded.

“He has promised me that he will not broadcast your shooting ability. To be honest, he didn’t believe me when I told him how well you shoot. I figure by the day after tomorrow that you will have two new friends.”

“Have I told you today that I love you?”

“Yes, twice. Once while we were making love, and the other time while I was cooking your breakfast.”

“Well, I’ll say it again. I love you, sweet thing. I love you to pieces.”

“I’m not finished yet.”

“Oh, another gift?”

“In a way. Unlike you, I have made new friends. I want to entertain them, invite them to a party at our home this weekend.”

“How many new friends?”

“Besides Sifu and the range master, I want to invite four other friends and their spouses or dates: Kate and Gary from my cooking class, Ellie from the gun club, and Jim from the kwoon. Kate will bring her husband. Gary and Ellie will bring dates, and Jim will bring his sister. Kevin Smith, the range master, will bring his life partner, Clyde Silvers. I don’t know if Sifu will bring anyone or not.”

“Sounds fun. In what way is the party a gift?”

“Perhaps one or more of our guests will become your friend.”

I nodded.

“Also, I want your promise that you will go out into the city every day. You need to experience Phoenix, Ken, so you can discover your connection with it.”

“I promise.”

Cudgels clanked and vibrated, and Sifu twisted away, his cudgel dropping, sweeping as he turned. I leapt into the air, and his cudgel swished under my feet.

We’d been sparring for about ten minutes, and neither of us had struck a winning blow. We wore sparring pads but still pulled our hacks, jabs and thrusts.

The adrenaline rush was superb! Just what I needed. I hadn’t felt so alive since I woke up in the hospital in Vegas.

Colleen’s teacher was good. I was better. I knew I’d win three minutes after we started sparring, but I was enjoying myself too much to bring the match to a conclusion. Sifu was Chinese and slightly past middle age, and my youthful speed and endurance gave me the edge. Still, his skill was prodigious, so I couldn’t relax, couldn’t get too cocky, or his cudgel would rattle my headgear.

He was tiring, though, his blocks not as precise, his attempted strikes not as crisp. I backed away quickly, moving, twisting to the other side of the training hall, and then attacked with speed and overwhelming power, ending the match.

That was a preview of Protect and Serve. To read the rest purchase the book.

Add «Protect and Serve» to Cart