The Liminal People by Ayize Jama-everett Page B

with weapons half drawn. Of course. They go where he goes. I want to scream. Instead I put my hands on my head with fingers interlocked.

Chapter Ten

    Yasmine is good with her tongue. In less than five minutes she’s explained away the burnt jacket as a candle mishap and somehow gotten her man to chill out on finding her with me, her blouse half opened while mimosas and bad classical music set the mood. It works for her man, but that’s not me. Not anymore. I’ve had guns pulled on me, my brother has been mentioned, and I’ve been punched by Fish’n’Chips. None of these facts bode well for the rest of my day.
    â€œI owe you an apology,” Darren is offering in the government luxury sedan, which is just one promotion away from being a limousine. He extends a hand to me. Behind me in the front section I feel the passenger security–detail man flinch slightly. He hasn’t cleared me with security yet, doesn’t think his mark should be touching me.
    â€œI’d probably have reacted the same way.” I take his hand as I lie to him. He’s got the beginnings of prostate trouble. I’m taking some juvenile pleasure in knowing the man Yasmine picked over me is going to need to have a finger stuck up his ass sometime soon. It should be funnier. But I’m nervous and I don’t know why. It’s not the guns, not the hit in the jaw, not Yasmine trying to set me on fire. It’s something else. A slow burn
    â€œIt was just that she hadn’t mentioned it to me, you understand. So when security called me and reported that a strange man was meeting with her, I jumped to conclusions.”
    â€œI didn’t want to raise your hopes.” She’s perched below him just like she used to be with me. “What’s the sense in raising your hopes if he can’t find anything?”
    â€œSo you’re a private investigator?” His eyes haven’t left me. I’m realizing he’s not a totally unattractive man for a Brit. Far paler than milk, but he’s well toned, a condition not so much of working out with any consistency but a diet of coffee and the stray vegetables Yasmine pushes in his way—at least if his stomach has anything to say about it. His angled jaw holds that classic, working-class pride which makes the idea of digging ditches seem so noble.
    I’m noticing all of this, but its just distraction. There’s something else going on—near us, around us. Yasmine’s body notices even if her mind doesn’t.
    â€œHow’re you feeling?” I ask. He’s a norm. I don’t feel obliged to maintain Yasmine’s lies to him, not when she’s displaying her domesticated fervor with no regard to me.
    â€œYes, honey,” she interjects smoothly. “That allergy attack you had earlier must have been hell on your system.” I can’t help but smile a little bit.
    â€œThat was the most curious thing,” he says, finally breaking his gaze to loosen his collar. “And right on the heels of making an ass of myself with your friend. I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”
    â€œDo you feel it?” There’s an electrical storm happening in a nearby brain. Yasmine knows I’m talking to her. It’s our sort of “it.” The “it” I’d see in her eyes whenever she saw fire, like a master violinist approaching a Stradivarius, the “it” she was in my eyes whenever I came home from work.
    â€œFeel what?”
    â€œQuiet, Fish’n’Chips,” I snap.
    â€œWhat?” Yasmine is concerned. Her body is reacting, stomach tensing, her brain attuning itself to whatever foreign signals flames offer. Somewhere, something is burning. It’s close by, but I don’t see it. I’m scanning the windows, both sides of the car, trying not to look frantic and failing miserably.
    â€œSomeone like me. Close by.” I’m trying to keep my