Some Kind of Magic (20 page)

Libby had left her car at Claire's, so they all piled into the Jeep, with Claire behind the wheel, Dylan in the passenger seat, and Libby in the back with Dylan's plastic bag.

“I'd say that certainly went well,” Libby said, congratulating herself, leaning forward, arms draped over the seat so her face was between Claire and Dylan. She kept chattering about how cute Trevor was, and how it was too bad he'd had to leave. When they got to Claire's, with an ecstatic Hallie barking and circling Dylan, Libby fished out her keys and hopped into her car, waving and blowing kisses as she drove off, finally leaving Claire and Dylan to themselves.

~0~

Two days later, Libby was pounding on Claire's door again. Before Dylan or Claire could answer, she barged in, tossing her purse down on the couch and pulling off her jacket. “I knew he should have stayed at my place. Have you two seen the news?”

They both shook their heads. Claire blushed and Dylan smiled at her. They hadn’t had much time for any extracurricular activity.

Libby turned on the TV. “You have to see this.”

They had to wait through some bad commercials, then the regularly scheduled programming was interrupted.

“Here we are once again with the top story of the day, or perhaps the season,” said the news anchor. “The person thought to be enigmatic chess master Daniel French. is actually con man and wanted criminal Trevor Davis.”

“Jesus,” Dylan mumbled, dropping to the couch, hands between his knees, eyes on the screen. “I should never have made him come here.”

“And that's just the beginning of this bizarre, tragic tale.”

“A tale. Why is it always a tale?” Claire wondered out loud.

“Shhh.” Libby waved her hand.

The camera cut to a prepared, taped story. Suddenly on the screen was a shot taken from the air. A shot of mountains and snow. An airplane crash. Dylan felt sick to his stomach.

“In January, a private plane crashed in the snow-covered mountains of northern Idaho. The pilot died upon impact. One man walked away. The other is presumed dead.”

The camera cut back to the studio, to the man behind the desk. “The survivor who walked away that day claimed to be reclusive chess champion Daniel French, but we’ve only just discovered that he is not French at all. He’s none other than convicted felon Trevor Davis. Davis is an escaped prisoner wanted for fraud and embezzlement. He has confessed to leaving the severely injured French on the plane by himself, claiming to have gone for help, while at the same time stealing a dying man’s identity.”

They cut to an interview with the captain of the rescue team. “Is there any way the real Daniel French could have made it out of the mountains?”

The man shook his head. “He had several things against him. His injuries, of course. But he also had the depth of the snow that was already on the ground, the storm that blew in the following day, the frigid temperatures, and lack of experience.”

“You didn’t mention a bunch of assholes firing guns,” Dylan said.

“I don’t know if one of my men, experienced as they are, could have made it off the mountain under those conditions, let alone your average person.”

They cut back to the news desk. “There you have it. Sad news for the world of chess.”

“Is anyone still looking for Daniel French?” asked the co-anchor.

“The search was called off weeks ago,” the newscaster said with just the right amount of somberness. “At this point, he is presumed dead."

Libby shut off the TV. “I can’t believe it. I finally find a guy I like, and he’s a felon.”

“Libby, you were only around him for a half hour,” Claire pointed out.

“Sometimes that’s all it takes.” Libby grabbed her coat. “I gotta go.” She stormed out as if it were there fault.

And maybe it was, Dylan thought after she left.

Claire tried to get his mind off Trevor, but nothing worked. She suggested renting a movie.

Nothing he wanted to see.

Or going for a drive to the high mountains.

Not today.

Or making love.

He’d been all set to say no before she even asked the question. He had to shift gears halfway through his answer.

“No—okay.”

An hour later, he was back on Trevor again. “It’s my fault.”

“Let me remind you that if you’d been thrown into prison instead, he’d be celebrating.”

'"No, he would have come forward.” He rubbed his forehead. “I can’t quit thinking about him getting raped by a bunch of murderers. There has to be some way to get him into a minimum-security prison, one for white-collar criminals. I'm going to talk to a lawyer.”

Before Dylan could get things lined up, Trevor ended up taking care of the problem himself.

Hardly more than twenty-four hours after his arrest, Trevor escaped from the jail where he was being held temporarily.

A couple of days after Trevor's escape, Dylan was acting moody again. Claire didn’t know what to expect, but when he pulled her into his arms and asked her to go to New Orleans with him, she couldn’t have been any more surprised.

“I have some things I want to pick up,” he explained. “Some things I left there a long time ago.”

They caught a flight out of Boise, leaving Claire's Jeep in long-term parking, and Hallie in the care of Libby. At first Claire protested about the cost of coming along, but then Dylan explained that he could afford it. “I want you with me.”

They had a layover at the Denver International Airport. It was the first really big public place he’d gone in years. Getting off the plane, walking down the narrow ramp, brought back memories of cameras flashing and reporters jamming microphones in his face.

Stepping out of the accordion ramp, he braced himself, half expecting to be bombarded by press.

Nothing happened.

Nobody recognized him.

They were passing a newspaper stand when Claire stopped him, a hand to his arm. "Is that you?" she whispered.

He followed her gaze to a rack of papers. Staring back at him was his old face, his old young face. His old innocent face. Clean-shaven, thin, dark eyes staring straight at the world.

He picked up the paper. "Yeah, that’s me.”

Claire leaned her cheek against his shoulder. She put out her hand, tracing a finger along the face in the paper. "You were so sweet.” There was an ache in her voice. "So young. My God, Dylan. You were just a kid.”

Dylan continued to stare at the paper, trying to see a little bit of the man he had become in the child he used to be. But it was like looking at someone else’s face, a stranger’s.

Peripherally, he was aware of Claire, digging into her pocket and paying for the paper.

"I was too young. It was too much too soon,” he said, walking away, head bent toward a tribute that told about how the chess world was grieving over the loss of one of its greatest stars.

He’d been the same as a child star, except he hadn’t had the support of parents or relatives, or even close friends.

“The whole thing overwhelmed me. I didn’t know how to handle it, didn’t know how to stand up for myself the way I should have. And because of that, I overreacted. Al I knew how to do was run.” They stopped near a flight board.

“Our plane is leaving on time.” Claire looked up at him, a little smile on her face. “What?”

He was thinking how nice it was to have her there, with him. The hollow noise of people was almost deafening. The loudspeaker was announcing flight arrivals and departures. A couple of little kids were fighting over a stuffed animal. A baby was crying, and the father was jamming a pacifier into its mouth, trying desperately to calm it down.

“I like this you and me stuff,” he said.

Dylan took her to the roughest part of New Orleans where whores hung out on street corners and crack heads talked to walls and peed on the sidewalk right in front of everybody.

“What are we doing?” Claire asked, sidestepping something that looked like it might be vomit.

“I used to live here.”

“
Here
? As in right here?”

“A few blocks away. I used to hang out here in my free time.”

“That was a long time ago, though. It’s probably changed a lot, right?” She wanted him to say yes, she couldn’t stand to think of him growing up in a place like this.

“It’s changed a little.”

She let out a relieved sigh.

“It’s maybe a little cleaner, and there aren’t people shooting up in the streets.”

Claire looked around, unable to imagine anyone being there by choice.

An hour later, neither of them had any cash left. They'd given it all away. “Most of them will use it to buy crack,” Dylan said. “But a few might buy something to eat.”

He stopped in front of a bar. He checked out the name above the door, then looked back at Claire. “Do you want to go back to the hotel?” She shook her head and followed him inside. The place was dark, the floor sticky. Behind the bar was one of the biggest, blackest men Claire had ever seen.

“What'll it be?” he asked, hands braced on the wooden bar top.

“Hello, Jackson.”

The man looked at him closer, his brow furrowed. “Do I know you?”

“It's me. French.”

For a big man, he moved fast. He came around the counter, got Dylan in a huge bear hug, and lifted him off the ground. “I thought you were dead, man!”

“Only to the rest of the world.”

“Oh, man. It's so good to see you! Hey, I've still got your box. I’ll get it. You wait right here.”

Jackson went up a short flight of stairs, then returned carrying a gray cardboard box. He put it down on the counter, and kept smiling at Dylan, shaking his head.

“You’re a good guy,” Dylan said. “You always had food for me. I remember how you always wanted to do more for the street people.”

“Now I can. I opened two soup kitchens and built another shelter.”

Dylan's eyebrows lifted. He looked around the dingy bar.

“I didn’t do it on profit from this place,” Jackson said, laughing. "Every year I get a check from an anonymous benefactor. "

“That's great, man.”

They said their good-byes. Dylan picked up the soft-edged box from the counter, looked at Claire, whose eyes were glistening just like big Jackson's, and smiled. She smiled back. Together they walked out of the bar into the bright sunlight.

~0~

At the hotel, Dylan put down the box on the bed and both he and Claire stared at it.

“So, this is what we came to New Orleans for, I take it?"

“That's right. ”

“Are you going to open it?” She got the distinct idea that he was afraid to.

“I don't know if I can.”

She sat down behind him on the bed, her hands on his arms, her chin resting on his shoulder. “What's in it, Dylan?”

“My past.” He took a deep breath.

He lifted the lid.

Earthly treasures.

The scent of things old drifted to her. There on top was a dried rose.

“From Olivia's funeral,” he said, lifting it out, crumbled pieces falling on the bed. There were photographs, faded and dusty and stained. Now that she'd seen the picture of Dylan in the paper, she could recognize him with his family, his mother, his father, his sister. Also in the box were two embroidered handkerchiefs. He brought them to his face, inhaling. “My mother always smelled like this. I guess it's perfume.”

The next thing was a chessboard—with the most beautiful, intricately carved pieces Claire had ever seen. He passed the black knight to Claire.

“This is amazing,” she said, her voice a whisper. And then she realized it was Dylan's tattoo. A knight. A dark horse.

“A friend of mine made them.”

She didn't have to ask. From the way Dylan was acting, and from the other contents of the box, she knew that friend was dead. He'd had so much sorrow in his life, so much sadness. She wished she could take it all away, but then if she could, he wouldn't be who he was, he wouldn't be Dylan.

She would have been bitter. He should have hated Trevor Davis. Instead, Dylan had agonized over his imprisonment. He should have hated New Orleans, a place that hadn't been good to him. Instead, he actually seemed glad to be there. He should have hated the world. Instead, he was facing it once more with an almost childlike wonder.

“He didn't believe in creating anything that would last more than a few days, and yet he made these,” Dylan said. “I never did get it.”

“He must have done them for you. So you would have some tangible memory of who he was.”

“Maybe.”

“We live on in the people who have gone before us, the people who have touched our lives.”

“Don't bullshit me. I'm not going to fall apart, if that's what you think.”

“Dylan, it's true. Weren't your parents missionaries?”

“Yeah.”

“And aren't you the anonymous benefactor?”

He didn't admit it, not in words, but his expression said, How'd you figure that out?