The Code of Happiness Read Online Free PDF Page A

of Happiness is
playing in a couple of weeks. He shakes his head at a society
obsessed with happiness yet spirals in the opposite direction.
Maybe he'll go see them.
     
    *****
     
    No one answers. He's been banging on the black door
for a while because there's no bell. The irony of his former
kidnappers who had so much to say and now shutting him out doesn't
go unmissed. Jamie sits on the cold concrete, letting his
frustration slide. It occurs to him they may have moved on. He toys
with the idea the abduction was a dream—or worse, the product of
his bored imagination and his scars from the straps self-inflicted.
Sleep had eluded him the night before, Demon Keeper no longer held
interest in the vacant hours, and not getting the old man's name
niggled. He didn't want return to the brown house. Get involved in
their lives. It gave him knots in his stomach. Not something he
did. It was matched now by the futility returning to Ray and Po.
They spoke a language—nay—believed in theories and philosophies of
a different time. He had researched John Charles Cavour and found
him largely discredited. Initially easy to ignore Cavour, Jamie
knew the searches he had taken were public. There were other
searches he could do, private one's, the underground wiki's
avoiding the arms of governments and corporations but he deemed the
risk too great for its reward. If Ray and Po had found him, others
could find him too. If he was going to leave a trail of crumbs they
better be small. His rule of thumb was to go underground as a last
resort—another community he didn't identify with. Despite the
resistance Jamie was here waiting for Ray and Po. If they were so
interested in him a few days earlier, they would still be now, and
to experience their side of the fence would allow exploration of a
fuller truth.
     
    And there on the cold steps, he had flipped his
doubts one-eighty. He knew who he was; he didn't have to buy
anyone's propaganda to be a whole human being. He had nothing to
fear. The waiting was probably another test, something as innocent
as determining his patience. He reassured himself he had a
plausible excuse to return. He didn't want them to think he was
actually interested. Jamie had left his watch behind on the first
visit. In fact, he was surprised they never contacted him to return
it.
     
    Billy Gonzalez opens the black door. Half an hour of
waiting and mulling over, Jamie estimates. Billy strikes Jamie as a
string bean of a fellow, an odd man. He doesn't apologize for
keeping Jamie cold and skips sentences when conversing, expecting
Jamie to fill in the gaps, and it becomes ludicrous when Billy
comments about a need for goulash completely out of context. It was
a good thing waiting on the concrete had calmed him. He was
strangely focused, eyes and ears tuned. This time he wasn't going
to miss a beat.
     
    Po's not too happy to have Jamie back and pulls him
away from the equipment, she reminds him of Grace.
    “ Do you know you have a
twin?”
    Ray interjects. “We all have one somewhere,” he says.
He had been monitoring Jamie's movements from afar.
    “Maybe you irritate women?” retorts Po.
    “You qualify?”
    Her snarl gives way to a sarcastic smile.
    “So, you're curious,” says Ray, an obvious and vain
attempt to defuse the situation.
    “I've got time on my hands.”
    “What a privilege.”
    It’s enough to put Jamie on the back foot.
    “What do you want to know?” Ray asks.
    “I'd like my watch back to start.”
    “Yes, of course, accept our apologies, we didn't
mean—”
    “I'm sure.”
    “And beyond your watch?”
    “I want to know everything.”
    “Beware of the man who seeks all.”
    Ray suspects Jamie's insincere about his return to
them, but allays deep suspicions because the most important thing
is that he's back. Po hands Jamie a release form. They're going to
need him for a few days.
    “This is where it gets dangerous,” she says. She's
not lying or misleading. “You may want to think