The people around them pulled back.

Pike had not looked away from the oldest cousin, and did not look away now.

The crowd surrounding them edged farther away. No one moved. Finally, when Pike felt they understood, he led the girl out of that place.

25

THE PEOPLE crowding the hall and the back door had not seen her dancing or what happened at the bar, but Pike pulled her directly to the car. She got in without a word. He backed out of the alley fast, then jammed it for Sunset, all the while deciding what to do about the cousins, and whether or not they should go back to the house. Pike was angry, but anger would only get in the way. His job was to keep her alive. He didn’t speak until they were two blocks away.

“Did you tell them who you are?”

“No.”

“What did you tell them?”

“Mona.”

“What?”

“My name. They had to call me something. I told them Mona.”

Pike kept watch in the mirror, checking to see if they were being followed.

“Did anyone recognize you?”

“I don’t-how would I know?”

“The way someone looked at you. Someone might have said something.”

“No.”

“The questions they asked. A comment.”

“Just dancing. They asked if I dance. They asked what movies I like. Stuff.”

They were four blocks away when Pike pulled to the curb outside a liquor store. He cupped her jaw in his hand and tipped her face toward the oncoming headlights.

“Are you drunk?”

“I told you I don’t drink. I’m sober a year.”

“High?”

“A year.”

He studied the play of light in her eyes and decided she was telling the truth. He let go, but she grabbed his hand and kept it to her face. He tugged but she held tight, and he didn’t want to hurt her.

She said, “Take off those stupid glasses. Do you know how creepy this is, you with the glasses? Nobody wears sunglasses at night. Let me see. You looked at my eyes, let me see yours.”

She had wanted to see his eyes up in the desert when they met. She had been all attitude then, but now she was angry and frightened.

Pike said, “They’re just eyes.”

He opened her fingers and took back his hand. Gently, so he would not hurt her. Not like with the man at the bar.

“What you did could get us both killed. Do you want to die? Is that what you’re doing?”

“That’s stupid-”

“Tell me what you want to do. You want to go home, I’ll take you home. You want to live, I will end this.”

“I didn’t-”

Pike clamped both her hands in his.

“I will sell my life dear, but not for a suicide. I will not waste my life.”

She stared for a moment as if she was confused.

“I’m not asking you to-”

Pike gripped her hands harder and cut her off again.

“If you want to go home, let’s go. If you want to die, go home, then die, because I will not allow it.”

Maybe he squeezed too hard. His hands were gristle and bone and calloused, and he was strong. Her chin dimpled and her eyes filled with tears.

“All I was doing was driving my car!”

Pike slapped the steering wheel.

“This wheel, it doesn’t care. The air we’re breathing, doesn’t care. Suck it up-”

“You’re an asshole!”

“Do you want to live or go dancing? I can have you home in twenty minutes.”

“You don’t know what it’s like being me!”

“You don’t know what it’s like being me.”

Headlights and taillights played on her, moving the way light plays in water; yellow and green and blue lights on the shops and signs around them painted her with a confusion of moving color. She didn’t speak, and didn’t seem able to speak.

Pike softened his voice.

“Tell me you want to live.”

“I want to live.”

“Say it again.”

“I want to live!”

Pike let go of her hands, but she still didn’t move. He straightened behind the wheel.

“We’re not so different.”

The girl burst out laughing.

“Ohmigod! Oh my God- dude! Maybe you’re high!”

Pike put the car in gear, but kept his foot on the brake. Their sameness seemed obvious.

“You want to be seen; me, I want to be invisible. It’s all the same.”

The girl stared at him, then straightened herself the way he had straightened himself.

She said, “An idealist.”

Pike didn’t know what she was saying, so he shook his head.

She said, “Your friend. Elvis. He said you’re an idealist.”

Pike pulled out into traffic.

“He thinks he’s funny.”

She started to say something but fell silent the way people are silent when they think. They drove back to the house in that silence, but once, just the once, she reached out and squeezed his arm, and once, just the once, he patted her hand.

26

LATER, when the rhythm of her breathing suggested the girl had fallen asleep there on the couch, Pike turned off the final lamp, and the room and the house went dark. He would go out later, and wanted no light when he opened the door.

Pike sat quietly, watching her. They had eaten the Indian food, though not much of it; speaking little, her mostly, making fun of the music on Cole’s iPod, and now, still wearing the headphones, she had fallen asleep.

The girl seemed even younger in sleep, and smaller, as if part of her had vanished into the couch. With her asleep, Pike believed he was seeing her Original Person. Pike believed each person created himself or herself; you built yourself from the inside out, with the tensions and will of the inside person holding the outside person together. The outside person was the face you showed the world; it was your mask, your camouflage, your message, and, perhaps, your means. It existed only so long as the inside person held it together, and when the inside person could no longer hold the mask together, the outside person dissolved and you would see the original person. Pike had observed that sleep could sometimes loosen the hold. Booze, dope, and extreme emotions could all loosen the hold; the weaker the grasp, the more easily loosened. Then you saw the person within the person. Pike often pondered these things. The trick was to reach a place where the inside person and the outside person were the same. The closer someone got to this place, the stronger they would become. Pike believed that Cole was such a person, his inside and outside very close to being one and the same. Pike admired him for it. Pike also pondered whether Cole had accomplished this through design and effort, or was one with himself because oneness was his natural state. Either way, Pike considered this a feat of enormous import and studied Cole to learn more. Pike’s inside person had built a fortress. The fortress had served, but Pike hoped for more. A fortress was a lonely place in which to live.

Pike decided Larkin’s original person was a child, which might be good but might be bad. A child could not hold for long. A child would weaken with the strain of holding the outer person together, and something would give. The child would be crushed and torn into something else, which might be good or might not, but either way the original person would change. Some philosophies believed that change was good, but Pike wasn’t so sure. That belief had always struck him as self-serving; change often seemed inevitable, so if it was inevitable, we might as well put a good spin on it.

After a few minutes, Pike moved to the dining table, broke down his pistol exactly as he had that morning, and set about cleaning it for the second time that day. He had no intention of sleeping. He still had to decide whether or not they would abandon the house, and much would depend on the Armenians. Pike was waiting for them.

Pike had no trouble working in the dark. He swabbed the parts with powder solvent, but was careful not to use much because he didn’t want the smell to wake her. He wanted the girl to be asleep when the cousins returned.