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The plan that Sue proposed was brilliant but too dangerous
for her to execute alone. She would need backup from
James and, to be helpful, he would need to be invisible
while working independently from Sue. By a happy coincidence
she had found a way to make this possible, which she
revealed to him when Kath left them alone in the office.
"Watch," Sue had said. She looked around
the room. "Look at the telephone."
James turned just as it vanished. After perhaps ten
seconds, just as abruptly, it reappeared.
"Did you do that? I thought you had to be touching
something to make it invisible."
"I did."
"So how did you do it?"
"Not sure," she explained. "I just figured
out how."
It took a major feat of engineering to arrange an evening
with Sue but James had to do it. He would have preferred
to go to the city by himself but that was not feasible.
Instead, after a great deal of discussion, his best
friend agreed to cover for him. When everyone else failed,
Cadillac Joe always came through. They had long promised
themselves an evening in the city but Cadillac nearly
always had a full calendar and James was reluctant to
spend his evenings as well as his days in town.
They proposed to Debbie a tale of bar hopping, perhaps
ending at The Village Vanguard or BB King's to listen
to some music. Warming to the act, Cadillac explained
that the best jazz in town was at The Cajun on 8th Avenue.
They kept the story deliberately vague and eventually
Debbie found it simplest just to agree. Like Kath, Cadillac
was one of the people she trusted.
James snuck a cooler of beer into the car and drove
Joe to the city. They took the highway that skirted
the west side of Manhattan along the Hudson River, then
cut across, not to the Cajun but much further north
to the Dakota. They found a space right outside.
"Can you wait here?" James asked.
Cadillac pulled an expensive Belgian beer from the
cooler. "OK," he agreed, happily, and reached
for a corkscrew. On the CD player Bix Beiderbecke played
cornet, pouring his soul into the music. These were
the sounds they had to pretend they'd heard tonight.
Bix was a tragic character. He drank himself to death
before he reached thirty while the records he sent to
his parents sat in a closet, never played.
Very quickly James found Sue on the sidewalk. "Am
I invisible?"
She nodded and he sensed that she was nervous. "Totally
transparent."
"But I can see you," he protested. He looked
at his legs. "I can see me, too."
"I know. It just seems to work like that. I've
never understood why."
"What if something happens? What if you get killed?
Will I always be invisible?"
She considered the question. "Yes."
"So I can't go home?"
"Not unless Debbie lightens up a whole lot,"
she advised.
James had not understood the implications before now.
"Don't screw up."
"Trust me, I don't plan to."
She pointed to a doorway. "That's the way to their
condo." She gave him the number.
"What do you want me to do?'
"Just wait here. If everything goes OK you don't
need to do anything. If it doesn't, just make sure you
get to me before Bill and Sophie. You realize they're
both insane?"
"I kind of grasped that."
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