really matter. Because I was about to make plenty more.
CHAPTER FOUR
October 12 • 1:16 A.M.
Chaz:
Angelique leaned against my shoulder, babbling softly, staring into space. The city melted around us as one narrow fog-drenched street bled into another. We swung through that section of the Quarter where the streets changed names; St. Charles Avenue veered off into downtown and turned into Royal Street, leaving the nineteenth-century millionaire’s row behind.
I tapped the Plexiglas that separated us from the taxi driver. A row of colorful tarot cards clung to the barrier with a handwritten sign: FREE READINGS WITH A TOUR OF THE CITY.
“The Carrington. Bourbon Street.”
He nodded. At least, I think it was a he. Long dreadlocks, black lipstick, massive biceps. I saw him studying me in the rearview.
“Newbie?” the he/she asked a few moments later, heavy-lidded eyes confronting mine in the mirror.
I nodded.
“You the Babysitter?”
Another nod. Followed by a yawn.
“Mind if I see some ID?”
I flashed my palm.
The driver shrugged. “Ever since that incident over in Barcelona last year, I always check.”
“Yeah.” I yawned again. “What can I say? The laws are different in Spain. You should be glad you live here.” Just then the Carrington Hotel loomed into view, a tall brick-and-mortar Baroque masterpiece. For seven days and nights I have no life. I eat, drink and sleep with my assigned Newbie. I don’t mean sleep in the biblical sense—nobody touches my baby like that, not even me.
Sometimes we stay in a hotel; sometimes we go to my place. On rare occasions, we go to the Newbie’s home, but there are usually too many memory pegs there, even after it’s been sterilized. My main requirement is that wherever we stay, I need my own room and a VR room. Once in a while a customer balks and says that’s too expensive. I usually raise an eyebrow and tell them to take their business elsewhere. Right about then I laugh. Not hysterically. It’s more like a well-planned “ha.”
There is nowhere else. We’re the only ice-cream store in town.
Angelique and I made it through the hotel lobby without incident. I take that back. There was a brief moment when she became disoriented, right about when I was getting the room key.
She looked up at me through half-closed eyes. “William?” she asked, confused. A tormented pause. “Jim?” She shook her head. I made eye contact with the concierge, then silently showed him my ID.
“Who are you?” Angelique asked.
“Chaz. Chaz Domingue. Your Babysitter.” I briefly debated which of the five Master Keys to use. “Recognize.”
She squinted her eyes, looked me up and down. “My Babysitter?”
“Focus,” I said, pulling another key phrase from my limited bag of tricks. “This is Day One.”
“Day One.” She looked at the ground, shoulders sagging as the weight of the world came rushing back. “Then William is really gone.” Her voice faded below a whisper. “And that means I must be dead.”
“No, Angelique,” I guided her toward the elevator, away from the concierge, who looked concerned. Few people see or remember the anguish of a Newbie’s first week. If they did, they might not be so eager to jump.
“You’re alive,” I told her as the elevator took us almost instantly to the thirty-third floor.
But she just shook her head and kept mumbling the same dark phrase over and over.
“That means I must be dead.”
Sometimes this job is enough to break your heart, if you’ve still got one.
1:58 A.M.
Fresh Start keeps its word when we say we give our clients a new beginning. I may be part of the family, but I don’t have access to any “secret files.” I honestly didn’t know who the hell she was or who she used to be, any more than she did. And I didn’t care.
Like I always say, I don’t make the rules.
So, I tucked Angelique into bed, made sure she was safe and sound and asleep; then I locked all the doors and windows. It’s habit, of course—no one has wandered into a Babysitter’s suite, even by accident, in more than twenty years. Still, it makes me feel better, so I do it. Lots of things make me feel better. Like black-market whiskey. Like jazz clubs. Like a midnight session alone in a VR room.
The moon had all but forgotten about us. It disappeared behind the rugged skyline, and headed off to seduce other countries with silver shadows. I was long past tired. But I needed absolution.
I shut the door to the room, slipped into a VR suit, then snuggled down in the