Chapter 20. A Day in the Life
Once the Ys were up, they put on jockstraps and went to the gym, which was right down the hall, inside their apartment. The apartment was anonymous interior-designer cosmopolitan bachelor pad, lots of leather and black marble and mirrors—did I mention the mirror on Yancy's ceiling?
Anyway, they had an elliptical trainer and a stationary bike and a Nautilus machine and a bunch of free weights. They worked out pretty hard for maybe forty-five minutes, and Shep and I could see what we—what they looked like.
They were both tall, Yancy a smidge taller, and both blond and rangy, but not lanky like me. Obviously they did a lot of working out, because they were hard and muscular.
Yancy had close-set blue eyes, a big nose that had probably been broken at least once, a big mouth, and what I think is called a lantern jaw—his chin stuck out a little too far. His features were coarse and sort of sloppy, but I guess he was good looking in a rough kind of way.
Yarnall looked almost the same but slightly less so—less coarse, less rough. You'd think that would make him more attractive, but actually it just made him look as if he had less personality. We could tell, being in their heads, that both of them thought they were handsomer than the other one.
After their workout they showered and dressed, not identical, although they both wore jeans, well-fitting and nicely pressed designer jeans. Yancy put on a very expensive-looking black silk t-shirt and Yarnall picked a dark blue silk shirt with short sleeves.
They went out for breakfast, or actually brunch—Yancy looked at his watch as they left, and it was nearly noon. Suddenly Shep and I knew where we were—this was Lincoln, the city nearest to the smaller town where we lived. Yancy drove, a hot little red Corvette, and they went to a nice place, not fast food. They ordered it all, eggs and bacon and sausage and hash browns and toast and pancakes and coffee and Bloody Marys.
Then they had their nails done.
I think they're gay, I told Shep. Nope, he replied. Remember Yancy's dream, the women? I remembered but kept an open mind.
"How you want to kill some time this afternoon?" Yancy asked while their nails were being buffed until they were as shiny as glass.
Yarnall wanted to go to a comic book store, actually he said the comic book store, but Yancy thought it was boring. Yancy wanted to go to Pogg's, which we gathered was a game arcade, but Yarnall didn't feel like it. Then Yancy suggested test-driving something new and expensive, but Yarnall complained that that was no fun for him because Yancy never let him drive. Yancy said he did too, and they squabbled a little.
Yarnall finally said, "Let's go see Granny—we haven't been for over a week."
"Bo-ring," said Yancy, but then he decided it would help in the alibi department—not a moment of their day would be unaccounted for, and who could accuse a couple of sweet, loving grandsons of anything heinous? So we knew it was the right day, and we were probably going to get the info we'd been sent for.
Granny lived on one of the top floors—not the penthouse—of a big old apartment building downtown. The front door of her apartment was opened by a hefty dark-brown woman wearing a yellow polyester uniform with a white apron and white shoes. She didn't smile when she saw us—saw the Ys, I mean.
"Mista Yahn-cee," she said, nodding her head, like she was making a little bow. "Mista Yah-nall." She sounded Jamaican, as far as I could recognize the accent. She stepped back and let us—them in.
"Hello, Reba." Yancy grinned and pinched her cheek. She stood there and took it, still without smiling. "How's Granny today?"
"Doin' fine, Mista Yahn-cee," she answered. "Please don' get hah ah-gee-tay-ted today, ahl right?"
"We won't," said Yarnall. Yancy just grinned.
Reba led the Ys into the living room, where a shapeless little woman with slightly messy white hair was sitting in a small armchair, watching a huge TV. The apartment was like you'd expect, wall-to-wall carpeting and dark old furniture, lots of knickknacks and framed photographs.
"Miss Kah-tharine," said Reba, "here's your grandsons, come to visit you. Isn't dat nice?"
"Hello, Granny," said Yancy. Yarnall went over and kissed her cheek.
"Grandsons?" she said, looking bewildered.
"Yes, Granny," said Yarnall, holding her hand and squatting down next to her chair. "That's Yancy, and I'm Yarnall. Everett's boys."
"Everett?" she answered. "Where's Everett? Is Everett here?"
"Everett's dead," said Yancy, sitting down on the couch and stretching his legs out in front of him.
"Mista Yahn-cee," said Reba in a pleading voice.
"Get us a drink, Reba," said Yancy, and after a moment she left the room.
"Dead?" said Granny. She raised her voice and repeated, "Dead?"
"Dead tired, Granny," said Yarnall, shooting a warning glance at Yancy. "He's been working so hard—he was too tired to come with us."
"Everett," she said. "Too tired." She nodded several times. "But he'll come soon?"
"In your dreams," said Yancy.
Yarnall sighed. "Yes, Granny. You'll see him soon."
"That's for damn sure," said Yancy and laughed.
"You're missing your program, Granny," said Yarnall, and she turned obediently back to the TV. Yarnall took a chair near her.
They stayed for about an hour, having a couple of drinks each and nibbling on some mixed nuts. I think what Yancy was drinking was bourbon—I didn't like the taste much. Yarnall had vodka and tonic.
Granny nodded off and woke up several times, and every time she woke up, she was surprised to see the Ys and had to be reminded who they were. At about five, Reba came in and said it was time for Miss Katharine's supper, so the Ys left.
They went to Pogg's, which was indeed a game arcade, and played for an hour. Neither one of them was much good. Then they went to a bar and shot pool for a while. Yancy was a little better than Yarnall and made sure everybody knew it. They had a couple of beers while they were playing.
They had dinner at a very expensive restaurant that Shep and I had heard of but never been to. They both had steaks, with home fries that weren't on the menu, but apparently they were well known in the place, and it wasn't a problem.
They each had three or four more beers with their dinner. Holy wow, I thought to Shep. They're really putting it away. And Yancy still feels totally sober.
Matter of training, Shep answered. I bet they do this every day.
Do you suppose it'll rub off on us? I wondered.
I doubt it. No such luck, he replied.
From the restaurant they went to a strip club, also very fancy, with a forty-dollar cover charge. Neither of us had ever heard of it, but we made a mental note of the name and location, for future reference. Although, I warned Shep, this may also be one of the anomalies of World A and not exist in our reality.
Won't it be fun finding out? he suggested.
The Ys moved from the bar to a table and back, talking to the bartender and various other people, playing a little poker dice, watching the dancers and pinching the topless waitresses, laughing loud, generally making their presence obvious, and of course drinking, although they had slowed down a little and seemed to be pacing themselves.
At about one o'clock they exchanged some cryptic signals with the bartender, who reached under the bar and I guess pressed a button. A discreet door that was tucked off to the side opened, and another topless minion, this one with a beauty spot, possibly fake, next to her mouth, ushered them into a very dark room full of plushy furniture.
"Here are your dates, gentlemen," she said, and two women, not topless, wearing what I think are called bustiers and very high heels and not much else, got up from a couch and walked over, smiling.
One was blond and one was dark-haired, and Yancy liked blonds, and Yancy was the oldest and always got what he wanted.
The dark-haired one was in front. "This is Desarya," said Beauty Spot, "and this"—indicating the blond—"is Angel."
She had long blond h
air, and her name was Angel. But she was plump, beyond plump, beyond pudgy, with a piggy little face, a pug nose, and way too much makeup, fat tits bulging out of her bustier, rolls of fat over her knees, fingers like sausages swelling around lots and lots of rings. She rolled her fat shoulders in what I guess was supposed to be a seductive way and smiled, exposing over-bleached teeth, and her eyes squinched up. I could see the acne under the makeup and the dark roots of her greasy hair. Her name, the name she used, was Angel.
I was suddenly almost overwhelmed by a fierce wave of revulsion and disgust so violent that if I'd had a belly, I would have hurled. Whoa, said Shep, staggering under the mental onslaught, and Yancy stopped for a moment and swallowed bile, changed the direction of his reaching arm, and grabbed Desarya's hand instead.
"I'll take this one," he said, to our and Yarnall's and his own surprise.
You did that! exclaimed Shep. You made him do that.
Yancy yanked Desarya from in front of Yarnall, between himself and Angel, and grinned at her, his nausea all forgotten. Yarnall, bewildered but delighted to get the blond for once, put his arms around Angel—Angel A, I reminded Shep—and kissed her. Angel A, and no relation at all to my—the other Angel. I had to back out of the link so I wouldn't feel the kiss—she, her face, the whole idea was too disgusting.
Beauty Spot brought us down a hallway with doors off it at intervals and ushered each brother into a room with a huge bed and a mirror on the ceiling.
I don't like this, I told Shep. Do you?
If I'm doing it, he responded, I want it to be me that's doing it, with somebody I picked out myself.
So by mutual agreement we backed away from our hosts as much as possible and tried to ignore their actions and sensations. We had a discussion like the ones we'd been having at the lake, pre-raft, this one about what Shep thought he might want to major in when he got to college. He was of course thinking a little bit about law school, because of his dad, but he was also awfully interested in journalism. Print or visual media, though, and were both of them going to be made obsolete by new technology?
I reminded him how Andrew Kirk had helped me see the light, that I didn't have to decide right away whether or not I wanted to go to med school, so Shep didn't have to decide right away either, one way or the other.
This is their alibi, Shep realized at one point. This must be the time of the murder, and they're here with these girls and only one way out, guarded by Beauty Spot and the bartender.
And it's a pretty gross alibi, I added. Not something you'd do if you were trying to concoct a nice respectable alibi for a crime you had anything to do with. More the kind of think you'd do if you didn't know you were going to need an alibi.
Very smart, conceded Shep.
The Ys left the club at about two-thirty, took a cab back to their apartment (introducing themselves to the cabby and making sure to have a lot of chummy interaction with him), and went to bed. When they woke up, they were somewhere else.