Chapter 5
"Mulder, he drove. How could he be blind if he drives?"
He glanced back at her, his frown deepening. "What do you mean he drove?"
Scully leaned her head to her hand, pressing her fingertips to her temple. The strain—sleeping just a few hours a night—was taking a high toll. Her back ached. She felt dizzy.
"When we were in the lot by Arnold's," she insisted, "we saw him pull up in a blue pick-up."
He nodded. "He was in the passenger's seat."
"No," she shook her head. "No. He got out on the driver's side. Mulder—I have clear memory of that. It just happened. We just saw him. He was driving."
Mulder paused, glancing her over. "Scully, are you alright? You look very pale."
"I'm…" she rubbed her eyes. "I'm just so tired."
He shifted. "Do you want to leave?"
"No, it's fine. It's just not being able to sleep lately—it's…" She took a small sip of coffee. "It's fine."
Mulder watched her, quiet, his eyes darting over her face, concerned. "Scully," he said after a minute, "Lenaghan got out on the passenger's side. The driver stayed in the truck—a man with short black hair—don't you remember?"
She swallowed. She scoured her brain; she knew what she saw—there was no mistake on her part.
Around them, the diner bustled with the laborious smells of fresh coffee and old grease, and the peppy bounce of Merengue music in the kitchen. Scully pressed the heels of her palms to her eyes.
"Mulder, you're making me feel like I'm losing my mind here…"
The sounds dipped away, fading for a moment like she had slipped into a tunnel.
"Scully…?"
"There you go!" The waitress's voice rang faint, like it was a mile away. "Let me know if you need extra dressing… Is everything alright?"
"Could we get a glass of orange juice, please?" Mulder, too, sounded far… far away.
Scully heard her own heartbeat—a slow rhythmic pulse in her ears. It pounded like a metronome, pulling her away, urging her to surrender to the descending darkness.
"Scully…"
Warm fingers slipped along her arm. She gasped and opened her eyes. The blare of Merengue fled back with stark, bouncing clarity.
"Muld—" She turned to him. He had moved around to sit beside her. He was inches from her now, staring at her with deep worry.
The waitress set a glass of orange juice in front of Scully. The girl looked concerned, too.
"Do y'all need me to call an ambulance or something?" She looked Scully over.
Scully shook her head.
"You look very pale, Miss. Saint E's hospital is just down the road—"
"I'm fine," Scully shook her head again. "Thank you."
The girl glanced at Mulder.
"She's just a little tired," he said.
The waitress walked away.
"Do you need to lie down?" He turned back to her.
He was close, warm. His fingers on Scully's arm hadn't moved. She bit her lip. Blood rushed through her from his closeness, pumping energy back into her body—an adrenaline rush Mulder's presence gave her from time to time.
"I'm fine," she said again, avoiding his eyes. She picked up the glass of orange juice and drank slowly.
Mulder did insist that she lie down. After they left the diner, he sought out a roadside motel, and all but tucked Scully into bed.
She lay now on the low thread-count comforter, staring at the plaster ceiling.
Sleep—even a nap she very much needed—just wouldn't come.
He tapped on her door and leaned in. She turned and looked at him, the pillow scratching her cheek.
"Are you awake?"
"Yes." Unfortunately she wanted to add, but didn't want him to worry.
She sat up as he walked into the room. He sat down on the bed beside her without ceremonies. Again—the closeness of him. Scully looked away so that he wouldn't read the blush on her.
"So," he said. "You want to go listen to some Julliard quality piano playing?"
She nodded, still not looking at him
The bar was packed. Scully squinted in the smoky haze, registering the figures of men and women sitting at tables, crowding the bar top, chatting, laughing, ashing their cigarettes, and clinking glasses. Mulder sent her in alone, saying he'd follow in ten minutes. His idea was that they shouldn't be seen together in case Lenaghan's aide informed him she was there with another man. Lenaghan himself, Mulder still insisted, was blind. She still didn't believe it.
Scully searched the crowd for the tall, gaunt figure of the star of the show. His bench by the grand piano was empty. She couldn't spot him in the swirl of moving, chatting bodies, so she nudged her way to the bar.
A large man sitting on one of the stools turned when Scully accidentally grazed his arm.
"Excuse me," he apologized in an instant, confusing her, and climbed off his seat. "All yours, Miss." He brushed off the red leather cushion.
"Oh," she shook her head, "you don't need to—"
"A pretty thing like you shouldn't have to stand." The man gave her a good-natured grin. "Can I buy you a drink?"
"Um," she shifted, trying to figure how to refuse the offer without sounding impolite.
"Easy, Barry," Jim, the bar's owner, walked up. "Quit spooking my gentler clientele."
Barry chuckled, winked at Scully, and wandered off.
"Nice to see you again, Miss," Jim nodded. "What's your pleasure?"
She glanced up at the multitude of bottles sparkling behind the bearded man. Their multicolored glass glittered under the neon of track lighting. Jim had the poles removed, but the rest of the place still looked very much like a seedy strip-joint.
"Vodka tonic, please," she said. She planned to nurse that drink for the remainder of the evening; she didn't want to become intoxicated. One drink, for the looks of belonging to this crowd, was more than enough.
Jim nodded and moved away to accommodate.
"Ladies and Gentlemen," a young cheery voice crackled over a microphone, "if you are feeling comfortable and relaxed, a little tipsy, and on cloud nine, we are ready to begin with our night's entertainment."
Scully glanced at the speakers hanging in different spots under the ceiling. She couldn't help thinking that voice used to blare announcements like 'And up next we have Chandelle dancing for your pleasure to her favorite Def Leopard hit – Pour Some Sugar On Me.'
The crowd quieted, turning to the piano. The front door popped open, and Scully saw Mulder slip in, mixing into the ranks with practiced stealth. Jim set her drink on the counter and shook his head when she reached into her pocket for cash. He tapped the bar top with a thick finger, indicating 'on the house.'
A light above the piano flashed on. The crowd fell dead still. It surprised Scully that this seemingly rowdy bunch would be so attentive, so respectful of a piano performance. She had expected the sort of scene where the music, despite coming from a man educated in the highest of faculties, was tragically lost in the background, misunderstood and unappreciated by a gather of alcoholics at their watering hole. Instead, every face focused on the instrument, silent, rapt. Even the cigarettes were swiftly put out, and the drinks set down.
Maurice Lenaghan walked out of the back and into the spotlight over the piano.
He hadn't changed his outfit—he still wore the raggedy clothes that made him seem like an off-the-books laborer who'd just made his day's hundred bucks putting up drywall. He'd let his hair out of its pony-tail; it billowed about him now, glittering in the harsh light with stray grays. Scully studied his movements, still convinced there was some mistake to Mulder's proclamation about his sight, but she noted, to her dismay, that Lenaghan moved facing straight-forward, grazing his fingertips along surfaces as he walked. He rounded the piano, fingers slipping along its black maple edge, and lowered onto the bench.
No sheet music.
The crowd held still, holding their breath. The silence was almost deafening. No one so much as moved a muscle.
Lenaghan rolled his shoulders, tossed back his mane of hair, flexed his fingers over the keys, held them there for a brief moment, and then—
It was so beautiful.
It was exquisite. Scully knew so little of classical music, but the sound that washed through the bar—the melody—plucked her heart like it was a taut string. She heard soft sighs through the crowd. A few women leaned back, closing their eyes, their drinks forgotten. The men ran their hands across their foreheads. Hard men, men of thick fiber and low-down, raunchy humor, stared at the source of the music with expressions white-washed in wonder, child-like, and soft with bewildered remorse in the face of delicate beauty.
Lenaghan played for an hour, and no one moved an inch. Scully herself could barely look away. She found herself trembling, and was terrified that her hand would let go and drop her glass to the floor, disrupting the melody. She wrapped her fingers tighter around her drink.
The last movement neared its end; Lenaghan ran his fingers along the keys, facing ever forward. The melody arched, stretched, and sighed like a living, breathing entity. He struck the final note and removed his hands from the instrument.
A groan exhaled from the audience—a groan of pleasure and longing. They sat up, held still for a breath, and burst into a thunder of applause.
Lenaghan stood, turned with his eyes still fixed dead ahead, and bowed.
"And now, for the first of our intermissions," the announcer blared from the speakers, "We urge you all to replenish your drinks, revisit your baser habits, and of course, relax, enjoy, get to know one another. It's a twenty minute break, folks."
Scully gripped her drink as the condensation threatened to finally slip through her palm. She raised it up, took a short sip, and glanced back to see where Mulder had settled. He was at the far end of the bar. He saw her see him, and pulled his gaze off, glancing at Lenaghan.
Scully turned and almost gasped, seeing the piano player right in front of her.
"I'm so glad you game," Lenaghan said, his voice just as soft as before—so soft, Scully was surprised she could hear him in the clinking, chatting bustle that had resumed throughout the crowd. "Did you enjoy the piece?"
"Very much," she nodded. "I'm not familiar with classical music. Whose composition was that?"
"Mine," he said simply. "An old ditty, as they say—something I wrote when I was still a kid in school."
"Oh." She couldn't help feeling dwarfed by that easy comment—the clear presence of a genius, who'd labeled his siren song which had stilled a bar crowd into breathless surrender a 'ditty'.
She glanced between his stark gray eyes. It baffled her, but it seemed like Lenaghan was looking right at her, seeing her.
"We haven't managed any proper introductions," his voice slithered as he stretched his hand. "Maurice."
"Dana," she said, taking his hand, and catching the fire of jealous eyes in the background, as some of the women huddled, watching them and whispering to one another.
Immediately around them, the crowd had cleared. The people inched away, giving them space, and pointedly talking to each other and focusing on their cigarettes.
"You sure know how to manage your audience," Scully said. It slipped out of her.
Lenaghan chuckled—a low rasping sound like the rush of insect wings. It unnerved her so much, his voice, and she couldn't tell why, so she strived to push the unpleasantness down.
"May I ask you a personal question, Dana?"
She nodded, swallowing, unsure of what that would entail. She realized right then that if he was blind, he wouldn't be able to see her nod, but Lenaghan spoke like he'd read her movement with clear vision.
"Have you been having trouble sleeping?"
"What?" she breathed, caught off-guard by how personal that fact actually was.
"You seem," he said, his tone careful, "like you've been having trouble sleeping. Is that true? Or is it just that you've been traveling?"
Scully glanced around. In the ruckus that had resumed throughout the bar, her conversation with the piano-player was tucked into a bubble—private and inaudible to outside ears. Even the jealous women watching her were far out of ear-shot. She couldn't see Mulder anymore; he'd moved from his earlier spot.
"Yes," she turned back to Lenaghan, opting for the honest approach. "I actually haven't been able to sleep as of… about a week now."
He nodded, the small smile playing across his features as ever. The blue reflection of the track-lighting on the bottles behind her caught his gaunt cheeks with a stark contrast; he looked almost skeletal in frame. His gray eyes didn't waver from her, and she could swear—she would have sworn on her life—that they looked right at her, seeing everything.
"If you're interested," he said, "I'm in the business of selling sleep."
Scully frowned, an involuntary chuckle escaping her as her nerves prickled with a spasm; she was too exhausted for this much tension. "Is that… is that some sort of euphemism?"
He stretched his smile a little wider and shook his head. "No, in the most literal way you can imagine."
"You sell sleep?"
He nodded.
The logic of her medical background revved. "If this is about some drug—Trazodone, or Zolpidem, or whatever you've got your hands on, I'm not interested," she said, her voice growing harsh. She felt angry; the tension was upsetting her, as was the fact that she couldn't spot Mulder in the bustling crowd, not through the curtains of smoke that laced the bar.
Lenaghan chuckled again. "No. Not drugs, Dana. Dreams."
She inched away from him. This was quickly becoming an uncomfortable conversation for her—not because she was unfamiliar with seedy behavior in seedy joints, but because hearing his voice felt like it was crawling up her spine.
"I think you've picked out the wrong customer," she said.
He studied her—studied her out of a pair of gray eyes that were purported to be blind.
"You admitted to having trouble sleeping," he said.
Scully sighed, glancing around still for Mulder. At this point, she was hoping Jim, or even the man—Barry would walk by and interrupt. She felt trapped by the pin of the eyes that weren't supposed to see. No one moved toward them, though. Scully and the piano-player remained in their private bubble.
Lenaghan reached into his pocket and drew out—a coin. It looked like a coin, but when he held it out to Scully, she thought it resembled an old subway token.
"First one's always on the house," he said.
"What?" she frowned, not moving at all to take the thing.
The blue glint of the bar played up his hollow cheeks as Lenaghan smiled—a full grin this time, and one that was just as furtive as his short smirk.
"Put it under your pillow before you go to bed," he said. The phrase came out like a bizarre mimic of an instruction from a mother of a child who'd lost their first tooth. "If you like how you sleep, you can come to me again."
Scully stared at him.
He stretched the token toward her.
At least this was something she could show Mulder when she described this bizarre encounter to him, she decided.
She took the token from Lenaghan's fingers and slipped it into her pocket.