The Dream Machine: Book 6, The Eddie McCloskey Paranormal Mystery Series (The Unearthed) (3 page)

“You think this is funny?” Dr. Zane asked.

White grinned ear-to-ear. What a great dream he’d developed last night. They’d wanted to see if he could reproduce the walk-through of the digital schematic of some hypothetical building. The dream was supposed to be from his point-of-view, as opposed to bird’s eye and he was supposed to follow the instructions: enter the structure, work through the maze of the first floor, find the stairs in the back, access the second floor, find the safe. Of course they never shared the purpose behind the scenario. White figured it was something to do with memory and recall and visualization, and since it was for the government, it probably had military or law enforcement applications.

He didn’t much care.

It was an easy exercise for him because White had photographic memory. Conjuring up a digital building and filling it up with the necessary details wasn’t difficult. Normally, he enjoyed exercises like these too, because they reminded him of his previous work: theft.

A career criminal with a nasty mean streak, White had banged up a lot of places. Either after hours or during hours, didn’t matter. As long as the take was worth the risk, he went for it. And sometimes when it was only a break-even proposition. He lived for the rush, for doing what he shouldn’t be doing, for living outside the norm. White wasn’t a big reader or much of a philosopher, but he’d heard of Nietzsche’s uber-mensch and that was how he saw himself.

Sometimes the gig required finesse, but truth be told he preferred the smash-and-grab jobs. He enjoyed seeing the fear in people’s eyes as he shook loose their precarious sense of safety in the world. Of seeing the nervous excitement sometimes enter a woman’s eyes while he robbed her. Of seeing the meek, turned-away eyes of pussies and of seeing the challenge of those who thought they were tough. Over a lot of jobs, only two people had ever stepped to him and one only because he’d had gun-balls. White’s partner had done a shitty pat-down, failing to discover an ankle piece.

“Do you?” Zane asked again. “Because I don’t think this is funny.”

White found the humor in a lot of things other people didn’t. The shriek of a woman. The cowering, whimpering of a man who’d just pissed himself. The slut who’d just found out he’d recorded their love-making and sent it to his buddies electronically. The disappointment in the waiter’s face upon realizing White didn’t believe in tipping. Go get a real job, assholes, one that pays. Or turn to crime. Whatever. Just don’t fucking expect me to overcompensate for your stupid career choice.

These were a few of his favorite things.

“Do you have any idea how much trouble you’re in, White?” Zane said.

White was ignoring the doctor. What kind of doctor studied
dreams
, of all things? Real doctors worked in emergency rooms and sewed people’s organs back together and saved lives. This guy was just a Ph.D, some academic shrink-dick who’d never worked a real day in his life.

“I’m not laughing, White.”

But White was. To himself. It was all funny to him. This thing we called existence? You could see it as a tragedy or a comedy. White had seen what happened to people who viewed things through the self-destructive lens of tragedy. He preferred a laugh. Might as well have as much fun as you could before you croaked.

But what was particularly funny, in this particular moment, was the hot little dream session he’d developed last night. It involved him, a stripper he used to bone on the side, and one of the other Ph.Ds that worked here, an Indian woman. He’d never bagged an Indian before and from the moment he laid eyes on her, it was all he thought about. White had nailed at least three of everything else, even a towelhead. But an Indian chick? Never.

If the accent wasn’t enough to bonerize him, the big, fat, droopy tits were. White was a mammary man. He loved breasts in all their variety, but savored the big ones.

Knowing they were all watching, knowing they were expecting him to do the walkthrough and find the safe on the second floor, White had conjured up a very different dream. A hot little three-way between him, the stripper, and Dr. Nareev.

In real life, she smelled stale like she bathed in curry. But White could get over any odor so long as the bitch was hot enough. And Dr. Nareev was. 

“Come on, doc. You’ve got a dick. At least, I think you do. I’ll bet you enjoyed the show I put on for the research team.”

Dr. Zane shook his head.

White settled back on the bed. The annoying handcuffs clanging against the metal frame were a pesky reminder that, even if he wasn’t in prison, he was still locked up. The hospital setting made incarceration a little more palatable, in the way that whipped cream probably made shit taste better.

Dr. Zane was a short, heavyset man with acne scars. When he started speaking again, White completely tuned him out. He retreated into his photographic memory, recalling the dream in vivid detail. Most people couldn’t remember their dreams. But White wasn’t most people. In a lot of ways.

In the dream, he’d dressed Dr. Nareev in her white lab coat—and nothing else. She was examining the stripper, who was naked on the examining table. At first he had just watched them touch each other, savoring the Moment Before. In some ways, the Moment Before was better than the Moment During. Soon both women were begging him to get started. They were enjoying each other but needed him to complete the act.

A little joyous tremor rippled through his body.

White cut Dr. Zane off. “You’re right, doc. It’s not funny. It’s fucking hot.”

Dr. Zane stared impassively at him. Fucking tool. He’d probably had everything handed to him, including his brain. Probably hadn’t needed to study very hard in school. Good grades and good fortune came to him easily. Exactly the opposite of the life White had led. Nothing had come to him. He’d had to
take
everything.

Zane was staring him in the eye. Fucking cocksucker wouldn’t dare look at him like that if they’d met on the street. Or if White hadn’t been handcuffed to the bed. Or if there hadn’t been two guards in the room with them.

Zane nodded. “You’ve got a good thing going here, White.”

He smiled, recalling the dream. It was so real to him, as real as a memory. He could feel himself slipping inside the Indian bitch, feeling her tiny muscles squeeze him, while the stripper hoovered his nuts.

He smirked. “Yeah, I do.”

Zane shook his head. “What I mean is, why would you purposely sabotage it?”

White stopped smiling. He couldn’t go back to the joint. He had a lot of friends inside but he’d made too many enemies there. It had been his plan to serve out his time in this place. At least, that
had
been the idea until recently. Now he had a different plan. One that would get him out much sooner than the end of his sentence.

“Huh?”

Zane stood, signaling the end of the interview. “I’m beginning to doubt your abilities.”

“I’m a fucking God in my dreams!” White said, his hair-trigger anger rising. “I can do anything! I’m bored with your exercises, I wanted a little action.”

“The staff was watching, White,” Zane said. “Do you have any idea how that made Dr. Nareev feel?”

“Bet it made her feel good.” White gave him the man-to-man nod. “She’s a freak. You know it, I know it.”

Zane folded his arms. “Don’t let this white lab coat fool you. I’ll make up a story about how you’re not performing and the feds will haul your ass out of here so fast you won’t know what hit you. I can have you put back into that dark hole where you came from.”

White was a little nervous but pretended not to be. “Whewwww.”

Zane headed for the door. The guards opened it for him. White had them pegged since day one. Two mean-looking, body-building, shaved-headed bros who were built tough, but who weren’t
born
tough. There was a difference. A big fucking difference. White had made a living out of knowing that.

The doctor stopped and looked back at him. “Start producing or you’re out of here. And if you do anything like this again, you’re out.”

Charlie and I caught up for about thirty minutes. He told me some stories about my brother that I’d never heard before. I was always surprised to find out more about Tim. At this point I figured I knew everything but there was always more. It was true what they said. When it came to other people, even your family, sometimes you only got the tip of the iceberg.

I grabbed a shower and put on my best pair of khakis and a button-down shirt at the apartment, making myself reasonably presentable. When I was sure Sumiko was occupied in the living room, I doubled-back and pocketed the engagement ring quickly. Many times I’d prepared what I wanted to say but still wasn’t happy with the script. No matter what I thought of, it came out sounding cliché or sappy and—most importantly—didn’t even begin to describe what I felt about the woman. Sexy, intelligent, fearless, challenging, sensual, and true.

My breath caught in my throat when she rose from the sofa. She wore a sleek black dress that ended at the knee.

“Is that something in your pocket, or are you happy to see me?” She smiled.

I was immediately self-conscious of the bulky engagement ring box in my pocket. “Just my phone and wallet.”

She looked me up and down. “You don’t look so bad yourself. Sure you want to go out for dinner?”

We had reservations at a swanky Italian joint that was normally outside of my price range. But tonight I didn’t want to spare any expense.

I laughed. “Let’s go out for dinner and come home for dessert.”

***

In the car we held hands. It was a cold night as we cut through Old City.

“Eddie, I’ve been thinking,” Sumiko said.

I looked over at her. “It’s never a good thing when a woman has been thinking.”

She squeezed my hand hard. “I’d like you to come live with me.”

We came to a red light so I could take my eyes off the road and look at her. “I was going to ask you the same thing.”

She smiled. “I can’t take any more of these long commutes and not seeing you for a whole week at a time.”

I brought her hand up and kissed the back of it. I was bursting at the seams to pop the question now and it sort of felt like the right time. She had been understandably reluctant to move into together early on, her divorce still fresh on her mind and relatively recent. The ring was burning a hole in my pocket.

Some asshole horned me because the light had been green for a second. It broke the spell of the moment. I forewent my normal one-finger salute and hit the gas. I’d ask Sumiko at the restaurant, right after we ordered.

As I pulled into the parking lot and stopped for the valet, my cell buzzed. I checked the number and didn’t recognize the number so I ignored it and handed the keys to the valet. Sumiko came around the car and I wrapped my arm around her tiny shoulders.

“Who was that?” she said.

“Don’t know.”

“Why didn’t you answer?”

“Because I didn’t know who it was.”

She shook her head. “You and I couldn’t be any more different sometimes.”

I opened the door for her and the hostess greeted us. I gave her my name and she told us our table would be ready momentarily. We sat in the waiting area, across from another couple.

My cell buzzed. Voicemail.

“Is that your other woman?” Sumiko smiled.

“There is no other woman, baby.” I kissed her gently on the lips because I knew it drove her crazy. Her hand rubbed my knee and I pulled her close to me.

I brought the phone up to my ear and listened to the voicemail.

“Eddie, this is Agent Manetti. We need your so-called lateral thinking on this case immediately. Give me a call back.”

“Who was it?” Sumiko asked.

I lowered the phone. “The feds.”

“The feds? You mean from the Oregon case?”

I nodded.

She sat up. “What do they want?”

“Don’t know.”

I stayed like that for a minute, debating on whether to return the call or not. The Oregon case had nearly gotten me killed and had definitely left me scarred. When I’d met Sumiko, I was still suffering from crippling night terrors and the occasional panic attack that rendered me powerless in large crowds. Since then I’d gotten better, but the thought of Oregon still haunted me.

“Are you going to call them back?” Sumiko said.

“They need my help,” I said.

“So call them.”

I called the last number back. Agent Agnes Manetti, the hard-nosed special agent that had nearly killed me while in the throes of a mass psychogenic illness, answered with her usual joviality.

“Eddie.”

“In the flesh.”

“How have you been?”

“Manetti, are you making small-talk with me?”

She sort of laughed. It was a big step for her. “I could use your help.”

“Patterson wants my help?” Her boss.

“Actually it was my idea to call. He agreed.”

“This is progress.”

“Eddie, don’t be an asshole.”

Sumiko’s hand squeezed mine. I looked over. Her eyes were wide and full of questions. I mouthed that everything was okay.

“What’s the case?” I said.

“High priority, Eddie, like everything we do.”

“Dangerous?”

“Not very.”

“Not Oregon?”

“Not Oregon.”

I thought about it. “What’s going on?”

“I can’t tell you over a phone.”

“But you and I go way back so you’re going to break protocol.”

“Actually, I am. I trust you, Eddie, believe it or not.”

“You should. We shared a near-death experience.”

She sort of laughed again. “What do you know about dreams?”

It reminded me of the Tim-dream and the Ana-dream. I was very conscious of Sumiko sitting next to me. Did she dream about other men? And if she did, did it mean anything?

“I know a little about dreams.”

“We think we’ve found someone who can see the future.”

“I’m in,” I said, before I realized I was saying it.