She smiles and looks at me, and finds something in my gaze that troubles her. I feel she is trying to think where she knows me from again.
‘Life is always mysterious,’ she says. ‘But some mysteries are bigger than others.’
And then there is a little silence, and I force another smile and I walk away.
PART FOUR
The Pianist
Bisbee, Arizona, 1926
It was August. I was in the living room of a small timber house on the edge of town, on assignment for Hendrich. Every eight years there was an assignment. That was the deal. You did the assignment and then you moved on to the next place and Hendrich helped you change your identity and kept you safe. The only time you were ever in danger was during the assignment itself. Though I had been lucky. I had done three assignments before this one and they had all been successful. In other words: I had managed to locate the albas in question and convince them to join the society. No violence had been necessary. No real test of character. But here, in Bisbee, everything changed. Here, I was about to find out who I was. And the lengths I would go to, to find Marion.
Even though it was now evening and the dark was quickly dissolving the red mountains outside the window, the heat was intense. It was like the burning air outside but concentrated, like someone had decided to squeeze all of the desert heat into that timber house.
Sweat dripped off my nose and onto the nine of diamonds.
‘Y’aint used to heat much, are ya? Where you been hiding? Alaska? You been gold digging up in Yukon?’ That was the skinny toothless one who asked that. The one with two fingers missing on his left hand. The one who went by the name of Louis. He took another slug of whisky and swallowed it down without a flinch.
‘Been hiding all over,’ I said. ‘I have to.’
Then the other one – Joe – the one who’d just surprised me with a royal flush, the larger, cleverer one, started to laughominously. ‘This is all very interessin’ an’ all, and we always appreciate suppin’ moonshine with strangers. ’Specially ones wi’ some green in their pockets. But y’aint from Cochise County. Can always tell. Just from your clothes. See, everyone round here has a taint to ’em. From the dust. From the mines. You don’t see no cotton that white ’round Bisbee. And look at your hands. Clean as snow.’
I looked down at my hands. I was very used to the sight of them, these days, from all the music I had been playing. I had taught myself piano. That is what I had done with the last eight years.
‘Hands are hands,’ I said pathetically.
We had been playing poker for over an hour. I had already lost a hundred and twenty dollars. I drank some more of the whisky. It felt like fire. Now was the time, I realised. Now I had to say what I had come here to say.
‘I know who you two are.’
‘Oh?’ said Joe.
A clock ticked. Outside, far away, something howled. A dog or a coyote.
I cleared my throat. ‘You are like me.’
‘Sure doubt that.’ Joe again, with a laugh as dry as the desert.
‘Joe Thompson, that’s your name, is it?’
‘What you diggin’ at, mister?’
‘Not Billy Stiles? Not William Larkin?’
Louis then sat up tall. His face hardened. ‘Who are you?’
‘I have been many people. Just like you. Now, what should I call you? Louis? Or Jess Dunlop? Or John Patterson? Or maybe Three-fingered Jack? And that’s just the start, no?’
Four eyes and two guns were now staring hard at me. Never seen anyone so quick on the draw as those two. It was them all right.
They pointed at the pistol I was carrying. ‘Place it on the table, nice and slow . . .’
I did so. ‘I’m not here for trouble. I’m here to keep you safe. I know who you are. I know at least some of the people you have been. I know you haven’t always been working in a copper mine. I know about the train you robbed at Fairbank. I know about the Southern Pacific Express you took for more than most can ever dream of. I know neither of you need to be mining for copper.’ Joe was clenching his jaw so hard I thought he was going to lose teeth, but I kept going. ‘I know the two of you were meant to have been shot twenty-six years ago in Tombstone.’ I dug in my pocket and pulled out the pictures Hendrich had got hold of. ‘And I know these photographs of you were taken thirty years ago, and you have hardly aged a day.’
They didn’t even break away to look at the photos. They knew who they were. And they knew I knew who they were too. I had to talk.
‘Listen, I’m not trying to get you into any trouble. I’m just trying to explain that it’s all right. There are lots of people like you. I don’t know your whole story, but you both look about the same age. I’m guessing you were born shortly after seventeen hundred. Now, I don’t know if during that time you have come into contact with other people with this condition, apart from each other, but I can assure you there are many of them. Many ofus.Thousands, possibly. And our condition is dangerous. It has been called by a doctor in England,anageria. When it becomes public – either because we decide to tell people, or people find us out – then we are in danger. And the people we care for are in danger. We are either locked away in a madhouse, pursued and imprisoned in the name of science, or murdered by the servants of superstition. So, as I am sure you know, your lives are at risk.’
