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been one to take a hint, but Mohammed was. He grabbed her arm and said, “Come on, then, LC.”
“I’m taking my ball,” Little Cora said belligerently, but she followed Mohammed down the alley and around the corner.
“What happened to Alex?” Noah blurted.
“You mean—”
“You know bloody well what I mean, don’t you?” Noah interrupted.
The outburst brought no anger to Nijinsky’s expression, just compassion. “I know that Alex suffered a sudden, complete mental breakdown. Almost overnight he went from being a normal, if perhaps intense, person to being what people might call a raving lunatic.”
Now Noah’s chest was pounding and he was breathing hard, too much emotion pushing out from where he’d buried it. “I saw him, you know? Twice I went to see him. Right? In that awful place. They have him chained up like a fucking dog!”
Nijinsky nodded. Nothing more.
The rain came on in a wave, rushing down the alleyway. Nijinsky pulled an umbrella from his coat pocket and opened it seconds before the first fat drops hit. He stepped closer, to cover Noah as well, but Noah wasn’t having it. He stepped back into the rain, letting it beat on his bare head and shoulders.
“He’s sitting there in that place, just babbling, just, just …”
“What does he say? When he’s babbling?”
“Nano nano nano. I know, it sounds kind of funny, doesn’t it?”
“No. It doesn’t, Noah. What else does he say?”
Noah shook his head. “Something about a bug man.”
And there, at last, that tightening of Nijinsky’s impassive eyes, that twitch of his upper lip. And the warm compassion flowing from Nijinsky was, just for a moment, a cold front.
Noah had not missed that split second of something dark. Sadness? No, although maybe that was part of it.
Fury. That was it. Fury. But quickly extinguished.
“Anything else?” Nijinsky asked. And now he wasn’t bothering with the mask. He knew that Noah had seen some little bit of truth in his eyes. The bullshit was over. Truth was on its way.
“Yeah,” Noah said. “This word. He started screaming it. Just screaming it like a … like a …” He couldn’t talk for a moment. Too much. Too fast. He pressed his back against the wall, partly shielded from the worst of the downpour.
“Berserk,” Nijinsky said quietly.
Noah’s heart froze. His eyes snapped up. “What the hell does it mean? What is it? And how did you know?”
Nijinsky sighed. “What is it? It’s an organization. I’m part of it. And so was Alex.”
He waited and watched as Noah digested this. And as the truth dawned on Noah. “Are you here to …” He couldn’t finish the question. It seemed absurd, and if he asked it, it would be embarrassing.
“Your brother had a very special skill. A very rare skill. Sometimes it runs in families. If you have this skill, then we may want to talk further. If not, then we will part ways and you’ll hear nothing more from us.”
Noah blinked water out of his eyes. “What the hell?” When Nijinsky didn’t answer, Noah said, “Bug Man. Is that a real person? I mean, is he the person who did this to Alex?”
“The Bug Man is real.”
“How do I … I mean, how do I find out if, you know, I have this thing you’re talking about?”
Nijinsky drew a business card from his inner coat pocket and handed it to Noah. It was a rather odd set of handwritten instructions. Noah quickly shielded it from the rain with the arc of his body.
Nijinsky turned to walk away but then stopped at a distance and called back to Noah. “Tell me something, Noah. Which is more important: freedom or happiness?”
What was this, a game? But Nijinsky wasn’t smiling.
“You can’t be happy unless you’re free,” Noah said.
The American nodded. “Skip school tomorrow.”

(ARTIFACT)
     
To: C and B Armstrong
From: S Lebowski
Division: AmericaStrong, a division of Armstrong Fancy Gifts Corporation
Status: EYES ONLY ENCRYPT Read and safe-delete
Gentlemen: You have requested occasional updates