Nightlife (Cal Leandros #1)(46)

Niko had moved up beside me to rest his hand on my shoulder. "We're not used to depending on anyone else," he offered to Robin while giving me a reassuring squeeze. "Either of us. It doesn't come easy. I know that's not much of a justification perhaps, but we are sorry."

He was apologizing, Niko, who'd done nothing wrong. He was apologizing for me because I was too stubborn and too chickenshit to get the words out myself. I felt even lower than I had before… until Niko's hand left my shoulder to thwap me in the back of the head. "Aren't we, Cal?" he prompted sternly.

The self-recrimination flowed out of me as fast as water. Who needed a conscience to keep me in line when I had my brother around to do it for me? "Yeah, sorry," I muttered with a sullen scowl for Niko and a slightly softer one for Robin.

The killer smile returned, showing more teeth than an Osmond family reunion. "Forgiven and forgotten," Robin said expansively. "How about I treat you gentlemen to lunch and we can discuss your transportation situation."

It struck me then that Goodfellow could turn out to be an ally. He wanted us to stay, and I wanted to stay; now all we had to do was convince Niko. That shouldn't be too hard—no more difficult than convincing the sun to rise in the west and set in the east. "Lunch sounds great," I responded with alacrity. "Let me grab my shoes." I could feel Niko's frown aimed at my back as I bent down to root under the couch for my sneakers.

"I'm not sure we have the time for this. In fact, I know we do not have time for this."

I jammed the shoes on my feet and bolted for the door. "It's only lunch, Nik. Forty minutes isn't gonna make or break us." That wasn't necessarily true. In the scheme of things, forty minutes could turn out to be a lifetime, but at the moment that wasn't something I wanted to contemplate.

Niko wasn't too happy about it, big surprise, but despite that, we did end up at the nearest Italian restaurant. I snorted as Niko studied the menu with obvious ill grace. "Don't pout, Cyrano. You're scaring the waiter."

"I do not pout," he hissed between clenched teeth as he closed the menu shut with a snap. "Children pout. Brainless runway models pout. You pout. I do not." Turning his attention to the waiter, he went on more calmly. "I'll have broiled fish, no herbs, no sauce, and salad. No dressing."

That was Nik, living life on the edge as always. What a wild man. I ordered lobster ravioli with a side order of chicken parmigiana. Hey, it was Goodfellow's dime. I'd probably load up on a dessert or three while I was at it. Robin ordered in rapid-fire Italian, handing his menu back with a smooth "Grazie, grazie."

"Exactly how many languages have you picked up over the years, Goodfellow?" Niko questioned curiously.

"All of them." He shook out his swan-shaped napkin with a smug flourish. "I'm a bit rusty on a few regional dialects of the African bush, but otherwise I get by. And of course when it comes to the language of love, I have no equal."

Buttering a chunk of bread as soft and fluffy as a cloud, I groaned. "Jeez. Oh, well, it was a whole twenty minutes of peace anyway. That has to be a record. You know, Loman, they have a twelve-step program with your name all over it. 'Hi, my name is Robin and I'm a sexaholic.'"

"I've said it before and I'll say it again." He raised his wineglass to me. "You absolutely have to get laid." It was a nice restaurant, nicer than most I'd been to. That didn't stop me from lobbing the buttered roll directly at Goodfellow. He caught it easily, took a bite, and washed it down with the wine. "Delicious. Thank you. Now, gentlemen, I've been thinking about your problem and I may have come up with something."

"Nothing too sporty," Niko cautioned. "We don't wish to be too noticeable."

"What? No, no, it's not about a car." He waved a dismissive hand and took another bite of my bread. "Actually I was thinking… if you could find out what had happened to Caliban while he was with the Auphe, perhaps you wouldn't have to run. If you knew what they planned, you would have more options. Knowledge is power, after all."

Sudden dread killed my appetite instantly. "I don't remember. I can't remember. I've tried." And I was pretty sure I didn't want to remember.

Placing his half-empty glass on the table, Robin made haste to say earnestly, "I'm sure you did. try, but if the Auphe did muck about with your memory, it would be nearly impossible for you to recover what was lost."

"If it's impossible, then why are we having this conversation?" Niko asked with thinly veiled impatience. He'd come to accept the fact that I wasn't ever going to remember what had happened in that missing time. At first he'd prodded me to try to recall, but in the end he'd let it go. Between my frustration over my inability to remember and our joint suspicion that whatever had happened might be well worth blocking out, we'd both left my past in the past.

"I said it would be impossible for Caliban to remember on his own. But with my help… a completely different story." Goodfellow stabbed a fork into his salad, then waved it about with enthusiasm. Chunky blue-cheese dressing flew, landing in tiny mounds on the pristine crimson tablecloth. "I picked up hypnosis long before Svengali gave anyone the evil eye. Hell, I taught Freud. I'm more than proficient in the art, trust me."