BACK IN BUSINESS
By Atonia Walpole
Part 5:
Terry took Max to a restaurant for a meal. While they were eating Max asked him where he lived.
“I live in city a little northeast of Houston, Texas.”
“Texas, odd place for an Aussie.”
“That’s where NanoCorp was located. The company is, um, out of business.”
“Are you married…kids?”
“No, no kids and I’m not married but I’ve got a lady waiting for me.”
“You’re very lucky.”
Terry started to say something about Fanny and then remembered Max had been on the diving board and wouldn’t have met her yet. “I think so.” Terry took a drink from his glass and looked at Max. “When we fly out of here, we’ll be going to Miami and from there to Houston.”
“We?”
“What do you want me to do? I can’t send you back to La Siroque. I wish I could but once we’re out we can’t go back to being what we were and, frankly, I wouldn’t want it now.”
“Could we just not talk about…that?”
“Lay your hand down on the table…either one.” Terry laid his beside Max’s hand. “What do you see?”
Max sighed and took a look. He looked closely. Same shape, same size, same hairs growing in the same direction on the back of both their hands. Watch on the left arm worn near the wrist bone. Nails were the same shape. He lay his right hand down and Terry did the same.
“How are your heels? Ever have problems? That’s from me, from my trips through the jungle during filming Proof of Life. Got a scar on your left shoulder? That’s from surgery you had to have during the filming of Cinderella Man. You were Jim Braddock, a boxer. See this…the trinity? You have the same bumps I do. We have the same source, Max. We’re different personalities and we don’t all look the same but we are. You need to accept this…accept who you are. Sid warped you out of your movie just like he did the rest of us.”
Max picked up his fork and waved it at Terry. Terry had to smile. Ben Wade came to mind.
“If, and I say if, I were to believe your fairy tale, why does this Sid warp me out of a movie?”
“He gets off on it, Max. That’s how he has his fun. Everything is a game for him. His games can be deadly. He likes to see you suffer and the more the better. Mentally or physically he likes pain. Lately, he likes death, too. Something new and different for him.”
“I don’t think I like your Sid.”
“None of us do. We hate him but there is nothing we can do about him. He’s not human and he’s turned into something indestructible.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know. Aside from you, we haven’t had a visit from him since we got back from Yuma.”
Max lay in his hotel bed that night and thought about all that Terry had told him. He’d said a lot and the only thing he had to refute it was a fake credit card. He needed more proof. It was just too fantastic a story to swallow. He slept and dreamed of something blue, like a veil that surrounded him only for a moment. When he woke the dregs of the dream remained with him.
He rolled over in the bed and thought…what if what Terry said was true? He reached over for his watch. It was still set on London time. He regretted the loss of his phone with all his numbers in it. The only one he remembered was Charlie’s. He called from the phone by his bed. He made two attempts and both times he was told it was not a number in service. He tried directory inquiries to get a number for his bank. The bank was not found. He made a little sound in his throat and fell back on the bed. Gemma…Gemma’s number…why couldn’t he remember it?
Terry was on the phone, too. He’d called John.
“Hey, John, how’s the shoulder coming along?”
“Good, Terry. Where are you?”
“I’m in Panama and I’m planning on starting home tomorrow. I’ve, um, picked up someone. Found him in a hostage hut in the jungle. John, Sid’s sent us another character. Max Skinner.”
“What? Oh, fuck, Terry. Max Skinner?”
“Yeah. I’ve tried to explain everything to him but he’s not taking it well. He’s still in denial. He tried to buy a ticket to London yesterday with a fake credit card. I’m hoping today to convince him of who he is and I’ll bring him home with me.”
“Poor son-of-a-bitch. It’d be easier if you were here.”
“I know but we're not. I may try to scout around today for a DVD. I don’t know if they’d have it here. He’s going to need a place to stay. We’ve got Jack and Tarwyn in the guest room. I guess he could stay at the safe house.”
“He can stay in my apartment. I’m at Bethany’s now.”
“Oh, you are, eh?” Terry smiled to himself. “That sounds good. Well, you can let the rest know we’ve got another member of the club. I’m going to call Deidre. Glad to hear your shoulder’s doing good.”
“What time are you coming in?”
“Not sure yet. I don’t have all my flights confirmed. I’ll call you from Miami.”
Max was showered and dressed in his own clothes, thanks to the hotel valet service. His shoes were beyond redemption so he was forced to wear Terry’s shoes with his suit. The belt was still a little damp but he felt more like himself in his own clothes.
Terry tapped on his door.
“G’day, Max. I thought we might get some breakfast and maybe get around a little in Panama.”
“Whatever,” Max replied.
“How are your eyes, Max?”
“My eyes?”
“You wore glasses.”
Max stood very still for a moment. “I did, yes. I do, but I’ve lost them.”
“We should be able to find some reading glasses for you.”
After breakfasting at the hotel Terry called a taxi to take them to a modern shopping mall. Max found a pair of glasses he could use until he got home. The fact that he was in a foreign country without funds bothered him greatly.
“Need anything else, clothes, shoes?”
“No,” Max replied. Didn’t he have a closet full of designer suits in London?
Finally, Max stopped Terry. “If you want to buy me something, buy me a ticket to London.”
“Max, I would but I’m afraid you’d be very disappointed once you got there. Nothing you remember or think you know is true. London is London but your flat, your brokerage firm, the people you think you know are not there.”
“I’ve only got you to tell me these things. I have a growing suspicion that I’ve been kidnapped and you’re trying some elaborate scheme with me. I don’t know where it’s going but all the bollocks you told me yesterday simply cannot happen. I don’t know who you people are but it won’t work with me.”
Terry spotted a book store across the mall. “Follow me.”
It didn’t take him long to find the book. He handed it to Max. “Here, you can read about yourself.”
Next he went to the DVD section but he couldn’t find the movie. He asked at the counter and the clerk told him there was a used DVD section where he might look. “Bingo!” He handed the DVD to Max. After paying for the purchases they left the store. Max stood in the middle of the mall and looked at the cover of the DVD.
“You will find, Max, that there is no elaborate scheme directed at you except what Sid has done. I have not lied to you. It was by Sid’s design that we found you. I’m sorry…I know this is…it’s not easy.”
“I’m not…real?”
“You’re flesh and blood same as me but this…this is where you came from. Let’s go back to the hotel and you can watch the movie.”
“I don’t think..." Max looked away.
“I do…you need to watch it. Maybe you can find the point where Sid took you out.”
It was the moment that truth began to sink in for Max. It was painful for Terry to watch. There was nothing else he could do but be there for him.
They went back to the hotel and Max played the movie in his room . Terry watched it with him. When he stepped up on the diving board to take that last picture Max sat up. The diving board broke. “There…right there! I expected to hit the hard bottom of the empty pool. Instead I felt like I was falling farther and farther. Something blue came up around me and I don’t remember anything else until I woke in the mud.”
“That blue was Sid’s warp.”
“But…the movie goes on.”
“Yes, a continuous loop. That’s where you’ve been, where you existed until now.”
They watched the rest of the movie and when it finished Max leaned back on the headboard. “The plonker could have waited until I got the girl.”
“Yeah, but then you would have had to leave her behind. That would have been harder.”
Max was contrite. “I owe you an apology, Terry, for the things I’ve said and thought. Now, of course, is the question of where I go from here.”
“You come home with me. You’ll meet the others. You’ll have a place to stay and where you go or what you do will be entirely up to you. We’ve all kind of stuck together thinking like Maximus says, 'together we survive’. That hasn’t always proved to be so but we look out for each other.”
“Texas, well, if I had a choice, which I don’t at present, I would go back to London. At least I know the city and they speak the same language. What do they speak in Texas?’
“Texan,” Terry grinned. “You’re in for a treat.”
“Cowboys and big hats and such?”
“Pretty much nails it.”
Max rolled his eyes.
Terry laughed a little and looked at Max thoughtfully. He’d been plucked out before his transformation. He’d be a prick for awhile, no doubt. But it was all in him...what he would become. He’d find his feet.
CONTINUED IN PART 8 OF BACK ON TRACK
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