“‘Being good at following people’ wasn’t something I expected to have in my skill set,” he admits stiffly.
Nomi seems to be thinking about it. “This is going to sound strange, but could you be, like, ex–Special Forces or something?”
He’s considered this already. “When I was nineteen, twenty?”
She chews her lip. “Yeah, I don’t know.”
He peels open another Band-Aid. “Now I’ve got a question. Two questions.”
“Ask away.”
“First, why does Leo call you Harriet?”
“It’s a bad joke. You know the Clint Eastwood films?Magnum Forceand stuff?”
“I really don’t.”
“Then don’t worry about it. Suffice to say that Leo watches too many movies. Next question.”
“Why do you have an accent?”
Her body acquires a subtle, all-over tension. “My father is Pennsylvania German. Religious Germans,” she explains. “They’re American, but some of them keep very old traditions, and they speak a dialect of Palatine German at home.”
This country continues to reveal its mysteries to him. He takes up the scissors. “You were one of them?”
“When I was a kid. I got out of it with my mom, but I retained a little of the accent.” She shifts on the sofa. “It’s kind of boring, and I’d prefer not to talk about it.”
He glances up from trimming the Band-Aids he needs. “Hey, I have to tell you about my personal details all the time.”
“Yes, and whenIget amnesia, you can ask me a bunch of questions about myself then.”
“Fine. Okay, lean forward a little for me.”
The dressing isn’t complicated: Neosporin and Band-Aids, with some maneuvering to figure out how to get the Band-Aids to stay in place and not obstruct her eyelid. He uses a fold of Kleenex to dabon the Neosporin. From somewhere outside the apartment, the faint strains of some jangling pop song.
Nomi tilts her head to give him better access. Her skin is warm under his fingers, and her right eye, below his hand, is a flat, unblinking brown. “Tomorrow I’m gonna have to dig out this girl of Ricki’s, Janice D’Addario. I’m hoping she’ll talk to me. I want to hear more about this special delivery Ricki had to stretch.”
“That’s tomorrow.” Simon works to fix down a corner of sticky plastic. The sutures have dried a little; they scratch against the dressing. “You did well, holding it together to get information out of Leo.”
“I’m an opportunist. And I don’t know if you noticed, but Leo’s not too bright ...” Her pupils are contracting with the medication, and her voice is getting hazy. “S’that your standard procedure, threatening to put people’s eyes out with steak knives?”
“Only when I’m pretending to be somebody’s hired thug.”
“The outfit made it work, but you’re really too pretty to be a thug. You should let me break your nose, so you look more authentic.”
He snorts. The dressing is nearly done, and he can allow his focus to relax. “Where the hell is that stupid music coming from?”
“The Duran Duran? That’s probably Nelson across the hall.Riois a classic.”
Those lyrics are words he knows, which is funny. “That was my name for a while in Guatemala, you know.”
“Riomeans ‘river’ in Spanish, right?”
“Yes. Except in Maaya t’aan, the word for river ishaw. So I was called Haw for a couple of years. Then Flores examined my old clothes and found the label ... so I became Simon.Simón.” He says it in the Spanish way.
“It suits you better.”
“It fits better. And no, I don’t know how I know that—it’s just a feeling.” He fixes the last edge of the dressing. It’s not attractive, but it should help protect the wound in the short term. “There you go.Now if you sit back, I’ll wash up, then make us both something warm to drink.”
