I’m at Borders sitting on a couch. I have a stack of books on the floor by my feet and I’m paging through The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham. My phone rings. It’s Yuni.
“Moonx!”
“I had a dream about you last night,” I say.
“Really?”
“I can’t remember any details, though. I just remember you were there.”
“I dreamed about you too.”
“Liar.”
“Busted.” She laughs. “Have you gotten my postcards?”
“Five so far.”
“Let’s see… That’s right, five.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m on my way to Denver,” she says. “It’s gorgeous out here. I feel I haven’t seen any people for days.”
“I see. When you’ve been driving for hours and hours and are bored out of your mind is when you decide to give me a call.”
“Pretty much.”
“You’re such a brat.”
“Hey, where are you?”
“I’m at a bookstore,” I say.
“I’m actually calling about V. I’m going to make sure she goes some place very far away, but I need you to do something for me.”
“What’s that?”
“You remember the two black books I left you?”
“Uh-huh.”
“It’s time to use them,” she says. “They are each labeled with an eight digit number. The only number that matters for now is the third digit. The third digit on one of the books is even. On the other book it’s odd. I need you to burn the book with the odd third digit. The other one you’ll need to take with you.”
“Where?” I’m remembering the night Yuni and I went into the house of books.
“I’ll have someone pick you up. You won’t be allowed to see where you’re going or the people you’ll be with, so you’ll need to be blindfolded by the time they get there. It’s important that the people who pick you up don’t see the book. You’ll have to hide it somewhere. They’ll take you where you need to go and then you’ll be left alone in a room full of books. In that room, you’ll see a computer. Go online and check your e-mail. I’ll have instructions for you there. You’ll also need to take a black pen.”
“What in the world are you getting me into?” I say.
“Don’t worry, Moonx. These people want to get rid of V too. They’ll make sure nothing happens to you.”
“When do I have to do this?”
“They’re going to pick you up at seven thirty Wednesday night at your studio. You’ll need to have burned the odd numbered book by the time they get there and you’ll need to be waiting for them already wearing a blindfold. When they knock, stand with your back toward the door and reach back to open it. They have a lot riding on this and they want to make sure they can’t be identified. They won’t be able to talk to you either.”
“This is all so crazy.”
“I know,” Yuni says. “But this is it. After this we can forget about all the craziness.”
Yuni says we won’t be able to talk again before Wednesday and wants to make sure I remember everything. I tell her about burning the book with the odd numbered third digit, about hiding the other book, about the blindfold, about waiting to be picked up, and about checking my e-mail for further instructions.
“I promise I’ll never ask you to do anything crazy for me ever again,” Yuni says. “We’ll drive to New York one day and all of this will be over.”
I leave the bookstore and pickup a book of matches at a convenience store by the studio. I take out both books from under the mattress. I check the third digit on each book. One is a nine and the other a four. I put the even one back under the mattress and take the other one with me. I walk around the block to a park where teenagers are playing basketball on one of the near courts. I walk past toward the back of the park, past the soccer field, past two more basketball courts. Noone is there. There’s a trash can beside one of the picnic tables. It’s almost empty. I take the matches out of my pocket and rip a page out of the black book and light it. The page burns in my hand and when I start to feel the flames nearing my fingers I let go and watch the flames fall to the bottom of the trash can. One by one I rip the pages out of the book and let them fall over the flames. I do this for all the pages and then drop the cover on top of the burning pages. I sit on one of the benches and wait for the fire to burn itself out. After that I go home.
Chapter 31
