Page 22 of Outside the Veil
Finn fell silent except for his wheezing.Offended, Diego thought. A check to make certain the bathroom was empty, andhe pulled Finn into the handicapped stall. He helped Finn out of his clothes, praying for a moment’s privacy. Two sets of feet visible under the door, one shod and the other bare, would look bad.
“Can you manage?” he whispered as he folded Finn’s clothes into a neat bundle and shoved them into the bag with the sneakers on the bottom.
Finn heaved a hitching breath, closed his eyes and melted. Diego looked down. A black ferret lay on the tiles at his feet.
“Don’t ask me to get up. I can’t,” the ferret muttered in Finn’s voice.
A twinge of anxiety fluttered in Diego’s stomach. Ferrets tended to be nippy. “Please don’t bite me.”
The absence of any smart-ass rejoinders to this told him how bad off Finn was. He gathered the soft-furred body up in both hands and eased him into the bag atop the clothes. “I’ll try not to jostle you too much.”
The ferret grunted and curled into a ball, his head vanishing under his body.
All the way home, an itch lodged between Diego’s shoulders. An unreasoning fear gripped him that some over-zealous security guard would call out, “Hold up, sir. Let’s see what’s in the bag.” Not that transporting ferrets was illegal, but he’d have to concoct some explanation about not wanting to leave his pet at home. Lying convincingly wasn’t one of his strong suits. He breathed easier when he closed the apartment door.
Finn lay limp and unmoving when he lifted him out. He gathered the furred body close to his chest. “I’m so sorry.”
“Not that I want to discourage your embraces,” Ferret-Finn whispered. “But could you put me in the bath?”
Diego slid him into the water and held him, fingers tingling, until he shifted into a fish. Bass, grouper, trout, he had no ideawhat sort but one that looked comfortable lounging in a bath at any rate.
He’d banished the thought of handing Finn over to any agency, certain he would end up in some formaldehyde tank in Area 51, after being thoroughly interrogated, sampled, tormented and dissected, of course.
Later, when he settled Finn on the sofa with his bottled water and bananas, a plan began to percolate. He showed Finn how to operate the TV remote with cautionary statements about how little of what the picture box showed was real.
“Like a play?”
“Yes, exactly like.” Diego thanked the heavens that he understood the concept of drama. “I’m going out for a bit. Please don’t go anywhere.”
Finn nodded in a distracted way, his head cocked to one side as he watched Teletubbies bouncing across the screen.
Diego went first to deliver his articles due at various local magazines, then called Miriam to see if she had a few minutes for him and left a message on Mitch’s voicemail.
“I’ll be at Café Lucca by two. Should be there for about an hour if you still want to talk.”
He had to stop and sit on a bench when he closed the phone, his heart slammed so hard against his breastbone.Why did I do that? I’m too keyed up to see him today.
But to call Mitch back and cancel would make him look ridiculous. What was he hoping for, though? Reconciliation? An apology? One of those scenes where he could say the things he longed to and feel vindicated?
A black pigeon landed on the bench next to him, startling him out of his ruminations. “Finn?”
The pigeon paid no attention to him, pecked at a few crumbs and fluttered away. He supposed it was asking too much to expect a regular pigeon to answer him.
The view from Miriam’s office, perched high above Fifth Avenue, always made him dizzy. She moved the chair around to face the inside wall for him.
“What’s up, kiddo? You have something brilliant to tell me?” Miriam’s chair squealed in protest as she plopped back down, thick calves tucked back.
“No, sorry. It’s more along the lines of a favor. About your cabin—”
“You changed your mind! Good boy.”
“Well, no, it’s not for me, exactly. It’s for a friend.”
Miriam sat back to another chorus of metallic squeaks. Her sharp gray eyes pinned him fast. “A friend.”
“Yes, um.” Diego lost the battle against squirming. “He’s not doing well in the city. Has some respiratory issues. I think the air is slowly killing him.”
“Is he hot?”
