Mind Games Read Online Free

tangle”—a nightmarish curlicue of highways that’s the fastest, most unpleasant, and most treacherous way to move between neighborhoods. Everybody sane avoids the tangle, which has been blamed for everything from Midcity’s industrial decrepitude to, of course, the eight-year crime wave, in articles with titles like “A Dark Snarl at the Heart of Our Fair City.”
    I hold tight as he weaves around cars and takes curves at high speeds. Who
are
these people?
    Finally we’re dumped off into East Farley and creep through the industrial neighborhoods north of the river.
    “Mongolian Delites is an unusual restaurant,” I observe, just to break the silence.
    Carter shoots Shelby a glance, then addresses me in the rearview mirror. “Just a request. Don’t say anything derogatory about the restaurant to Packard.”
    “So he owns it?”
    Shelby nods. “Yes, but please understand. You must not speak of restaurant.”
    Carter turns down a narrow, shady street hemmed in by blocky brick buildings. “You especially don’t want to comment on the decor.”
    “Fine. Just tell me this—Packard’s a highcap, right?”
    They exchange glances.
    “Yes,” Carter says finally. “Packard sees people’s psychological structures.”
    “That’s it?” I say. “He just sees psychology?”
    Shelby frowns. “It is powerful highcap gift. Do not disparage it.”
    I don’t know what I was hoping for. Some better power, ideally something curative. I sit back, resigned to a stupidly wasted afternoon.
    Mongolian Delites is located in an up-and-coming area not quite near enough to the lake to be hot for condos. It occupies the first floor of a four-story building scooched up to the dirty sidewalk between an ad agency and a refurbished office space. The behemoth Bessler Box Company occupies nearly the entire block across the street, save for a tiny corner deli like a neon-flashing jewel in its flank.
    Carter finds a meter right in front and we get out. The name
Mongolian Delites
is painted on the window in fat black brushstroke lettering; gold curtains behind conceal the interior. But the most striking feature of the place is its huge wooden door, which has a massive face carved into it, as if a friendly bearded giant with long, Renaissance-king-type curls is attempting to push his face out through the wood. The face is attractive and oddly comforting.
    Carter grips the outer edge of the giant’s nose and heaves the door open, splitting the face down the middle.
    I follow Shelby and Carter around the perimeter of the main dining room, now populated by lunchtime patrons, past the giant pagoda-shaped mirror that occupies a center spot in the place, and into a wide and deep back corridor I hadn’t noticed last night. One side of the corridor is lined with empty booths whose flickeringcandles add an eerie gleam to the bright Asian paintings along the wall.
    We stop at the very end and there he is, restaurateur Packard, sitting sideways in the booth, feet out, head leaned back against the wall. He gazes up at us coolly, a highcap prince in his back-booth throne.
    “Justine,” he says, like he’s trying out my name. “Justine Jones.” He clambers out and clasps my hand in both of his. “Impressive.”
    I mumble my thanks.
    “I can’t say I’ve encountered anybody with your level of health anxiety outside of a straitjacket,” he continues.
    I frown. “You know, maybe I am a bit of a hypochondriac, but when you have legitimate symptoms, it’s common sense to worry. Symptoms are the body’s way of telling you something. Because even hypochondriacs get terrible diseases—”
    Packard laughs. “Oh, that is perfect. You are perfect.”
    Carter wanders off.
    “It’s not funny,” I say. “Look, I know you can see my psychology, but unless you can give me permanent immunity to vein star and all related diseases so that I never have to worry about them again, I don’t see you helping me.”
    “Oh, I am most certainly going to help