“What a perfect night for the world to end.”
Ava looked up from her coffee. Black, of course. Had to be black. Anything else was a milkshake. The man who’d spoken stood beside her booth, hands jammed in the pockets of his trench coat. His mouth sloped in a lop-sided smile as he stared through the rain-streaked diner window.
“Listen to that rain,” he said, his voice Morgan Freeman-like—slow and pondering. “Not pounding or driving. Just warm, drizzling static. Like that crackly white-noise you hear when old movies fade to black.” He shook his head. “Perfect way for the world to end. Fading black to the sound of rain.”
He motioned to the seat opposite Ava. “Okay if I sit?”
Ava hesitated. Strangers who offered thoughts on the end of the world are unlikely to serve as the best coffee companions. From her seat against the back wall, she could see the whole of the diner. There did appear to be a lack of seating. Against her better judgement, she nodded yes.
The stranger slipped into the opposite side of the booth, keeping tight against the side wall to make room for a silver briefcase which he placed on the seat beside him.
Was the diner always this busy on a Tuesday night? Ava supposed it worked to her advantage. If this guy were anything but desperate for a place to sit, she’d at least have witnesses.
The diner was going for a 1950s vibe but wasn’t quite pulling it off, despite the James Dean posters and a corner jukebox playing “Unchained Melody.”
An annoyed-looking teenage waitress swooped by, ripping a pen from her frenzied bun. The stranger ordered a coffee. Black.
Well, at least he had that going for him.
And wavy brown hair, a strong jaw, and light hazel eyes.
Not the sort of thing the average individual was likely to notice at a quick glance, but then she wasn’t an average individual, was she?
Ava supposed he might be considered attractive, but attributes that existed on the outside of the skull rarely affected her.
He studied her face, the same uneven grin stretched across his face. “You’re Dr. Ava Polaski. Aren’t you?”
Ava paused, her mug halfway to her lips. She wasn’t used to being recognized in public.
“That’s correct.”
“Well, forgive me if I’m a little star-struck. I never expected to be sitting across from one of the preeminent authorities on behavioral analysis. Your book? Mindcracker. Read it cover to cover.”
Ava forced a polite smile. She pictured the front cover, which depicted a man’s face with a turnstile lock superimposed on the forehead. It was tacky as sin, but the book was a bestseller, so she wasn’t complaining. Her photo dominated the back cover, auburn hair pulled up in a tight bun, arms folded across the chest of her favorite cobalt blue blazer. Almost identical to how she looked now, blazer included. Her conference attire. She really should get back to her hotel room and lecture notes. But an author is nothing without readers.
“Glad you enjoyed it, Mr. . . . ?”
He laughed. “I’m no one.”
“But you have a name.”
“Hmm.” The man looked around. “Let’s say, Booth.”
“Your name is Booth?”
“Let’s just say it is.”
Ava’s stomach twinged. She didn’t have to be an expert in human psychology to know an obviously fake name was a red flag.
Booth leaned across the table. “You know what I love about what you do? Most people with skills like yours bury themselves away in universities or medical think tanks. But how many of them use that behavioral knowledge to win poker tournaments in Vegas?”
Despite her misgivings, Ava couldn’t hide a small smile. She’d recently gained notoriety by taking on some of the biggest names in professional poker. Thinking about it gave her a euphoric rush. She swallowed the feeling down with another sip of coffee.
She dabbed at her lips with a napkin and set it aside. “Well, I’m glad you enjoyed the book. Unfortunately, I have to be going.”
“You like games, don’t you, Doc?” Booth leaned back in his seat, draping an arm across the backrest. “I mean, what is all of this”—he gestured around the room—“but one big game? All this scrabbling and clawing to reach the top. Fighting the masses one idiot at a time to get to where we want to be.”
“Like I said, I’m afraid I need to—”
“I’ve got a game for you, Doc. And not one of those penny ante gimmicks you’ve played down in Vegas. I’m talking about a real game. A game that only a mind like yours could appreciate.”
Every instinct of self-preservation she’d honed in her thirty-two years told Ava to get up from the booth and walk away without looking back. But something kept her seated. Something deep and primal, etched with burning characters into the strands of her DNA made her lean in, rather than away, driven by that ever-present voice inside that said, “I will pit my mind against your mind and win.”
“What’s the game?”
“Are you willing to play?”
“I need to know what I’m playing.”
“And I need to know you’re willing to play.”
Ava studied the man across from her. The man who called himself Booth. He still wore the playful grin. But there was something in those light hazel eyes. A seriousness of purpose she couldn’t yet define. But it captivated her.
Before she could stop herself, two words slipped from her lips. “I’ll play.”
“It’s a simple game, Doc. Simple rules. I ask you three questions. You give me three answers. You get them right, you win. Wrong, you lose.”
Ava folded her hands on the table. “And what do I win?”
“Well now. That’s the fun part.”
Booth laid a hand on the silver briefcase beside him. “You know what’s in this case?”
“Copies of my book?”
Booth laughed. “Close, Doc. Close.” He fished a creamer packet out of a bowl sitting beside the silver 50’s napkin dispenser. “One hundred-thousand dollars.”
Just when it was getting interested. The guy was a clown. Curious creature, but a comedian at best. At worst?
Booth carefully peeled the lid off the creamer packet and poured it in his coffee.
Ava tempered a dismissive huff. “It may not be clear in my book, but I’m not the joking type.”
Booth placed the case on the table, snapped the clasps open, and lifted the lid. Ava nearly slipped from her seat.
The case was lined with banded stacks of hundred-dollar bills. Ava had spent enough time in Vegas to know when she was looking at real money. This was no fake.
She stole a glance around. Was anyone seeing this?
For the first time she realized how truly isolated they were in this corner booth. Unlike the other booths in the lobby, this one had no neighbor on the opposite side. The space was being used instead for stacked chairs.
Then there was their position in the booth—her sitting with the wall at her back, Booth across from her, tight against the window.
Making her the only person in the diner who could see the case.
Or him.
They were all alone in a roomful of people.
He thought about this. He knew what he was doing.
Booth closed the case and returned it to the seat beside him.
This is pre-meditation. He planned this. Studied the environment and made his move.
Like a predatory animal.
This was bad, hurtling towards disastrous.
Keep him talking. You need to get out of this.
“You mean to tell me that if I answer three questions correctly, I win—?”
“The case? Yes, ma’am.” Booth stirred his coffee with a metal spoon until the liquid turned a milky caramel brown.
“And if I guess wrong?”
Booth lifted the mug and gently blew across the shimmering surface.
“You die.”
She laughed.
He didn’t.
With his free hand, Booth pulled open his trench-coat. The sleek black handle of a pistol jutted from his belt.
In an instant, all the moorings holding Ava’s reality together snapped, sending her floating into a swirling sea of madness. The clatter of forks against plates, the mosquito buzz of a dozen customer voices, the gentle strains of “Unchained Melody” from the jukebox—all swarmed together in a dark and meaningless hum.
How had she not seen it? She, of all people? How had she not realized that the man who called himself Booth was totally deranged? What happened to all of her expert poker-face reading?
That’s why you missed it.
The truth struck her like a Mac truck.
The predatory animal. An instant threat to almost anyone else. But she’d grown accustomed to that animal. Had made her living staring that animal down and coming away with the winning hand.
That’s why Booth hadn’t triggered her flight response.
He’d been familiar.
Even now, as she stared at him slowly sipping his coffee, the pieces wouldn’t come together in her mind. This man with the floppy brown hair intended to shoot her dead in a crowded diner if she didn’t win his game? Was he toying with her? Sick? Crazy?
Or was she the crazy one for not calling for help and throwing scalding coffee in his face?
Better late than never.
Something in her expression must have betrayed her intention.
Booth shook his head. “Don’t do it, Doc. You agreed to play.”
“You can’t just kill me. We’re in a public place. Plenty of witnesses. You’d never get away with it.”
“I don’t think you’re listening. I have no intention of killing you.” He set his mug on the table. “I’ve read your book. You’re a smart cookie. My money’s on you.” He laughed and patted the briefcase. “Literally. But the fact is you agreed to play. And a deal’s a deal. I would hate to have to hold up my end. I mean, what if some innocent person got hurt in the process?”
She didn’t miss the threat. Booth was willing to hurt or kill anyone who interfered with his game. That ruled out signaling for help.
Still, Ava couldn’t stop her eyes from darting around the diner, silently entreating someone, anyone, to look her way.
She couldn’t call attention to herself without triggering Booth, but if someone happened to look over…
Nothing.
Not so much as a throwaway glance to the little booth in the corner.
Ava cleared her throat. She’d let shock put her at a disadvantage. Critical mistake.
She needed to regain control. “Listen. Booth. There’s obviously been some misunderstanding here. I can see you don’t want to hurt anyone. So why don’t we—”
“Don’t hit me with the psycho-babble, Doc. I mean, c’mon.” He squinted. “I may not be as smart as you, but give me a little credit.”
Ava shifted into full analysis mode. She’d gotten herself into this mess because she’d seen Booth as just another poker player, right?
So go with that.
Read the guy across the table.
From the fixed setting of his eyes to the relaxed way he reclined in the booth, it was clear she was up against a detached and unwavering resolve.
There was no talking her way out of this.
She had to play his game. If not for her own sake, for the sake of all the collateral damage he could cause in this crowded diner.
“All right, Booth,” she said, throat dry, heart pounding. Calmer than she felt, she folded her hands on the table. “Tell me about the game.”
“It’s as straightforward as they come. I ask a question. You have sixty seconds to answer. You can ask all the follow-up questions you want. But keep in mind that when the time comes, you only get one guess at the answer.”
“Follow-up questions? What’s stopping you from lying?”
Booth laughed. “C’mon, Doc. You know better than anyone that lies tell you just as much as the truth. Maybe more.”
Booth glanced at his watch. “Here we go. Question number one.” He looked up. “What do I do for a living?”
“That’s the question?”
“Sixty seconds, Doc.”
“But that’s—it could be anything.”
“You wrote the book on reading people.”
“That’s behavioral analysis. You’re talking about—”
“Fifty seconds.”
Ava pressed her hands to her temples and stared at the man. She had to get into the zone. Had to force out all the pressures and just focus on the person. Don’t play the game. Play the player.
“Let’s start with the obvious,” she said. “You’re armed. That’s suggestive.” She made the strategic decision to think aloud. Seeing Booth’s reactions to her observations was the sort of extra data she’d need if she had any chance of winning the game. “My first thought would be law enforcement, but you’re obviously not a law-and-order sort of person. Next option is military, but nothing in your posture says armed forces.”
Booth’s eyebrows rose, clearly entertained by her analysis.
“Your right palm is calloused where the butt of the gun sits. You don’t just carry it. You use it. Frequently. Probably go to the range a few times a week.”
“Twenty seconds, Doc.”
“Then there’s the cash. There aren’t many people who can come up with one hundred thousand in one-hundred-dollar bills. Even less who’d be carrying it with them.”
“Ten seconds.”
Disregard for the law. Deep familiarity with guns. Ready access to large sums of cash.
“Five seconds.”
“You’re a hit man.”
Ava held her breath, every muscle tense as Booth stared at his watch. When he looked up, he was grinning ear to ear.
“Well done, Dr. Polaski. You see? I knew you could do it.”
A flood of adrenaline surged through Ava’s veins. It was the same rush she felt taking a big hand at the tables.
She’d done it. She’d shut out the distractions, let her mind work its magic, and beaten him.
Of course, the victory came with dark implications. Booth hadn’t just killed before. He was good at it. A professional. Any fleeting hope that Booth was bluffing flickered out like a candle in a windstorm.
The waitress breezed towards the table.
Say something. Slip her a note. Make a face. Anything.
The waitress slapped down Booth’s check and disappeared without so much as a glance in Ava’s direction.
Ava cursed herself. Why hadn’t she done something? Taken advantage of the situation? Booth’s threat about collateral damage. That was it, right?
Booth pulled out his wallet. “Do you have any change?” he asked Ava, sheepishly. “I just used up the last of my quarters.”
Why would he need quarters? Round up, cheapskate. Just because you’re a psychopath doesn’t mean you can’t leave a decent tip.
Wait. He’d just given her an opportunity. She dug in her purse as if searching for coins at the bottom. Her hand closed around a small metal canister.
Mace.
This was her chance, wasn’t it? All she had to do was whip the can out, spray him in the eyes, and bolt.
She pulled her hand out, coming away with three quarters and a dime. She stared at her hand, moving across the table as if it belonged to someone else.
“Thanks, Doc,” Booth said, taking the coins. Their hands touched for a moment and Ava shivered. His hand felt so—ordinary. No different from the hundreds of hands she’d shaken tonight at the conference.
But why shouldn’t it? Cold-blooded was a term late night news anchors used to describe people like Booth. Not medical professionals. No reason his hand shouldn’t feel the same as a nun’s.
She looked at her own hands now clasped on the tabletop. Was she losing it? Why hadn’t she used the mace? Was she simply playing the odds, working a calculation that ended with Booth pulling his gun faster than she could spray the mace?
Or was it something else?
Was it that little voice inside?
The one that cried out to be challenged.
The one that wanted to win.
“Ready or not,” Booth said, tapping his watch. “Question two, locked and loaded.”
He cocked his head to the side. “Who’s my favorite singer?”
Ava’s mouth dropped open. What?
“Do you want me to repeat the question?”
“Your favorite—that’s impossible.”
“Do you want me to repeat the question?”
“With one guess? No one could do that. I’m an analyst, not a mind reader.”
“Forty-five seconds, Doc.”
Deducing someone as a hitman from a gun jammed in their belt was one thing. It was another to figure out their taste in music based on how they buttoned their shirt or shaved their neck.
Follow-up questions. Earlier, Booth had mentioned follow-up questions. It was her only hope now.
“Thirty seconds.”
“Country?”
“No.”
“Rock?”
“There you go.”
“Time period?”
“C’mon, Doc. I can’t give you that.”
Ava squeezed her eyes shut. Time. She needed more time. Was she really supposed to plunge her hand into the vast annals of rock music and pull out a single performer like a rabbit from a hat?
From out of the hubbub of the diner, the familiar refrain bled its way from the corner jukebox, “Unchained Melody.”
That’s still playing? She hadn’t noticed until just now, but the ballad had been playing on repeat since the moment she’d sat down.
Repeat.
What had Booth just said? Do you want me to repeat the question?
He’d asked her twice. Why? He hadn’t made the offer for the first question.
She opened her eyes. Booth was staring at his watch, mouthing the countdown. Ten, nine, eight, seven . . .
Someone had paid for the song to play multiple times over.
Five, four, three . . . Booth continued mouthing.
I just used the last of my quarters. The answer burned through Ava’s mind.
He’d used them on the jukebox.
“It’s Elvis. Your favorite singer is Elvis.”
Booth let out a breath. “Whew! Cut that one down to the wire, Doc!” He chuckled, slapping a hand over his heart. “You certainly have a flair for the dramatic.”
Ava rubbed the back of her neck as another wave of endorphins rushed through her. Two for two! She’d pulled out two miracles of analysis while under the gun.
Literally.
But could she do it a third time?
“Why are you doing this, Booth?” she asked.
Booth glanced out the window. Ava saw something new in his face, unfamiliar. The corners of his eyes creased. His lips tightened. There was something buried inside the man called Booth. Something raw and bleeding.
“I don’t get people, Doc,” he murmured. “Sometimes I just don’t get people.” He nodded to the crowded diner behind him. “Look at those schmucks. Crammed together. Face to face with just a table between them. But they don’t see each other. Nobody ever really sees anybody. A face is . . . I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Just a face, I guess.”
He stared at Ava. What was that in his eyes? That strange craving, like a man in the desert, begging for water?
“What’s my name, Doc?”
It took Ava a moment to realize what was happening. That he was asking the third question.
The final question.
“Your name?”
Ava’s mind raced. There had to be a way to figure this out, right? There had to. She kicked herself, realizing she’d missed an opportunity just a few moments ago when he’d pulled out his wallet.
His name?
“Forty-five seconds.”
Realization of the question’s impossible nature struck her like a blow across the face. There would be no well-timed love ballads to help her now. No logical links between missing quarters and jukeboxes.
She was being asked to deduce the most arbitrary thing in the world: the arrangement of letters a man claimed as his own to distinguish himself from the masses.
Ava stared at Booth, her mind shifting into a gear it had never engaged before. She saw, in an instant, all the minute details that made up a single human being. And then, from the infinite minutiae, an unexpected discovery presented itself in stark naked light.
Tiny beads of sweat along his scalp.
Short, uneven rises and falls of the chest.
Tightening of his jaw.
Light throbbing at his neck.
They all merged into one unshakable certainty.
Heart failure.
“You’re dying,” Ava said.
“We’re all dying, Doc.” He checked his watch. “You’ve got thirty seconds.” He gave a hollow laugh. “You know we’ve met before?”
Ava’s heart skipped a beat. “Where?”
“Your book signing in Vegas. I introduced myself and we talked for a few minutes.”
He introduced himself?
Ava raced backwards through her mind, searching through an endless video spool of memories, trying to find the snippet where she met the man in the tan trench coat.
“You know, it’s funny,” Booth said. “I’ve told you my name twice now.”
“Twice?”
“Once at the signing.” He looked at his watch. “Once tonight. Fifteen seconds.”
Tonight?
The only name he’d given was Booth. Unless that was really his name?
She stared, helpless, as he counted down from ten.
His name was Booth. It had to be.
But yet, she knew it wasn’t.
“Seven, six, five, four . . .”
Her lips pressed together, forming a B, but the name stuck in her mouth. It was wrong. She knew it was wrong. But it was all she had.
“Three, two, one.”
“Boo—”
“Sorry, Doc.” The man in the trench-coat shook his head. “Out of time.” He pulled out the gun and leveled it at her.
She stared, helpless as he pulled back the hammer.
“Game over, Doc.”
He pulled the trigger.
Click.
Ava’s fingers curled as the hammer fell on an empty chamber. Her head swam. She couldn’t exhale. The air locked in her lungs.
Booth returned the gun to his belt.
“Take it easy, Doc,” he said. “I’m not about to waste a mind like yours.”
“Wh—wh—”
“Breathe, Dr. Polaski. You’ve got to breathe.”
With a rush of air, Ava exhaled, her chest heaving as her lungs took in fresh air.
It was several moments before the spots in her eyes cleared. She looked around the diner. Several patrons eyed her in annoyance. It was clear she was nothing more than the heavy breather interrupting them from their egg salad.
How was it none of them had looked this way when a man had a gun trained on her? She knew they couldn’t see Booth, but they could see her, right?
Were two people sitting in a corner booth truly that invisible?
She stared at Booth. “Why?” she whispered.
Light from the overhead lamp accentuated the dark circles under his eyes and dipped into the shallow hollows of his cheeks.
“You know I’ve always been able to fool everyone?” He smiled. “Everyone. Teachers, guidance counselors, parole officers. Could always pull the wool over their eyes. When I discovered your book, I thought maybe you were the one person who could read me. The one person who could . . . I don’t know.” He looked out the window, out into the drizzling rain he’d said would be a fitting sign-off to the world. “See me.”
Booth stood and tied the belt of his trench-coat. “Here.” He placed the briefcase on the table. “You earned it.”
Ava slowly shook her head. “No, I didn’t. I didn’t win the game.”
Booth shrugged. “Looks like the waitress is getting one killer tip, then.”
Ava’s final analysis coursed through her mind. Her fatal deduction of imminent heart failure.
“How much time have you got left?”
“Don’t worry about me, Doc. I’ve played enough games for one lifetime, I guess.”
Even with the game over, Ava’s mind wouldn’t stop churning. There was something she’d missed. Some clue or detail she’d overlooked from the very start. She stared at the gleaming silver briefcase.
“I didn’t do it for the money.”
“None of us do it for the money. Not really.” Booth shoved his hands in his pockets. “I don’t have your gifts, Dr. Polaski. But if I had to guess, if I had to try reading you, I’d say you agreed to play a game with a stranger, agreed to gamble your life,”—he shrugged—“just to see if you could beat him.”
Ava didn’t reply.
“Goodbye, Doc.”
As Booth flashed his lopsided smile, the last puzzle piece clicked into place in Ava’s mind.
“Goodbye . . . Nemo.”
Booth looked down at the floor. When he looked back up, moisture brimmed at the corners of his eyes. “You figured it out.”
“Earlier tonight. When I asked for your name. You said ‘I’m no one.’ The Latin word for no one is nemo.”
“I said it before, Doc. You’re one smart cookie.”
“That isn’t what did it, though. I figured that part out after.”
“After what?”
“You mentioned the book signing in Vegas. It finally came back to me. You were heavier and had a goatee.” She paused. “But I remember you.”
Ava watched Nemo’s jaw shift as the words took impact. He looked out into the dining room, out across the two dozen no-one’s with two dozen faces. For just a moment, the twinkling of an eye, Ava saw something in his face. Something new. Something not as lost.
“You remembered me?”
He turned and stared out the diner window, out into a world made of concrete and chain-link, gunmen and strangers. A world rendered softer, if just for a night, by the gentle fall of rain.
“Well, how about that?”