Lucky(13)

Then she came back out, her notepad and pen at the ready. “Tell me more,” she said. “I’m fascinated. I could listen to you talk about your life all day. Now, you mentioned your postgame ritual. Tell me more about that. What are the things you absolutely must do to guarantee you have a great game?”

Jeremy sat on the couch and crossed his legs. “Interesting question,” he said as she settled down in a chair across from him and began to scribble down his answers.

He talked about himself for hours, while “Bonnie” dutifully transcribed. On the note paper, she revealed him slowly, like a sketch. He was superstitious, never played a game without his Saint Cajetan medal around his neck—Cajetan, he told her, was the patron saint of good fortune, and the luckiest of all. Plus, his feast day was on the seventh of August. “I know it sounds cheesy, the whole ‘lucky number seven’ thing, but I have to tell you, it’s worked for me. I always stay on the seventh floor, you see, and my room number always has to have at least one number seven in it. And they accommodate me, of course, because I spend so much money here. I can have whatever I want.”

Finally, he yawned and rubbed his eyes, which were bleary and red. “I really need a nap,” he said. “I always sleep a few hours during the day, and then I’m back at it again.”

“How many hours do you sleep, usually? For the rest of the afternoon, into the evening, or…?”

“No. No way. An hour or two is all I need. I’m a really deep sleeper. Then a Red Bull, and I’m off.”

“I need to get back to my room and pack for the trip home, anyway. Thank you, so much, for your time. I’ll mail you copies of the magazine, here, to your attention, when it’s printed next month.”

Instead of heading to the elevators, she ducked into the ice room down the hall and waited. Twenty-five minutes later, she returned to his room. She had her story ready, in case he woke up: that they’d accidentally switched room keys, and she was just trying to return his to him without disturbing a genius who needed his rest.

She could hear him snoring in the bedroom. There were still bills and chips scattered carelessly on the bar. She took a few of them, but made sure it wasn’t too many. She didn’t want him to notice anything amiss. Then she moved into the bedroom and opened the closet. Another loud snore, and then his breathing became quiet and even again. The safe had a four-digit code, and she got it on her first try: 7777. Jeremy was a predictable guy.

There was at least twenty grand in the safe. She could take it all, but he’d call the police and describe her. She didn’t need that. So she only took a thousand. He might notice that, but she doubted it.

She was back out in the front room again. She switched the key cards and left. The door barely made a sound as she closed it.





October 1992





NORTH MAINE WOODS




Lucky ran as fast as she could, down the stairs and out the front door of the rooming house. She ran through the yard, hopped the fence, and crashed through the woods behind it. The rooming house smelled of onions and lard; the woods smelled like moss and pine. She inhaled it all in gasping breaths. Run, run. She didn’t stop, not even when her feet felt like they were being shredded on the forest floor and her chest felt like it was going to explode. She kept going until she couldn’t anymore.

Then she fell to her knees, stayed on all fours looking down at the carpet of moss, sticks, rocks, and pine needles, then up at the darkness through the tops of the stately trees that crowded around her. There was a stump a few feet ahead. She crawled to that and sat. As her heartbeat returned to normal, other sounds crept in: the chirp-chirp-chirp of a nearby cricket, the hooo-oo-ooh of an owl, the flutter of wings, a rustle in the greenery that made her turn, wary, but then a vole emerged and looked at her quizzically before darting back into the brush. She relaxed again, put her elbow on her knee and her chin on her palm. “What now, Lucky?” she said.

It was cold. Her feet, which had at first stung from the flight across the forest floor, now stung from the cold of the fall night, and she wasn’t wearing anything but a nightgown. What had she been thinking? The truth was, she hadn’t been thinking at all. She lifted a hand to touch her hair, the hair that had caused so much trouble with her father, and the beginnings of panic stirred in her stomach and chest. Should she just head back the way she had come? Which way, exactly, had she come, though? She remembered taking a few twists and turns, doing just about anything to lose him. And now she had. But in the process, had she lost herself, too?

She closed her eyes and then opened them a few seconds later. Something was in front of her. It had skulked out from the brush. Lucky gasped.

A cat, and a big one. It crouched and emitted a low hiss. She wanted to scream and run. Instead, she leveled her eyes at it and forced herself to stare it down. She searched her mind for a solution and remembered camping out with her father once near the Rocky Mountains. In the morning they’d taken their garbage to the dump and there had been bears, brown and hulking, down in the pit. Lucky had been terrified, but her father had assured her the bears weren’t going to hurt them as long as they held hands and made themselves look as big as possible as they walked backward away from the pit.

On shaky legs, Lucky stood atop the stump and drew herself up to her not-very-considerable full height. “Listen,” she said to the lynx—for that was what it was, although she didn’t know it. “I am bad news. If you eat me, you are going to drop dead immediately. Do you know who I am? I am Luciana Armstrong. You see this hair?” She lifted a red lock. “Redheads are deadly to all animals. Especially cats.”