Tick Tock

him. This woman was not what she appeared to be. He had thought of her as a waitress, but had discovered she was an artist. Then he had thought of her as a struggling artist who worked as a waitress to pay the rent, but she lived in a multimillion-dollar house. Her eccentricities and her habit of peppering her conversation with cryptic babble and non sequiturs had convinced him that she had a few screws loose in the cranium, but now he suspected that the worst mistake he could make with her would be to write her off as a flake. There were depths to her that he was only beginning to perceive—and swimming in those depths were some strange fish that would surprise him more than anything that he had seen to date.
    He recalled another fragment of their conversation, and it seemed to have new import: Reality is perception. Perceptions change. Reality is fluid. So if by “reality” you mean reliably tangible objects and immutable events, then there's no such thing. I'll explain someday when we have more time.
    He sensed that every screwball statement she made was not, in fact, half as screwball as it seemed. Even in her most air headed statements, an elusive truth was lurking. If he could just step back from her, put aside the conception of her that he had already formed, he would see her entirely differently from the way that he saw her now. He thought of those drawings by M.C. Escher, which played with perspective and with the viewer's expectations, so a scene might appear to be only a drift of lazily falling leaves until, suddenly, one saw it anew as a school of fast-swimming fish. Within the first picture was hidden another. Within Del Payne was hidden a different person—someone with a secret—who was cloaked by the ditsy image that she projected.
    The satori, tidal wave of revelation, loomed, loomed, loomed—and then began to recede without bringing him understanding. He had strained too hard. Sometimes enlightenment came only when it wasn't sought or welcomed.
    Del stood in the doorway between the study and the living room, a gun in each hand, meeting Tommy's gaze so directly that he half suspected she knew what he was thinking.
    Frowning, he said, “Who are you, Del Payne?”
    “Who is any of us?” she countered.
    “Don't start that again.”
    “Don't start what?”
    “That inscrutable crap.”
    “I don't know what you're talking about. What're you doing with Scootie's rubber hotdog?”
    Tommy glared at the Labrador on the desk. “He took my shoe.”
    In an admonishing tone, she said to the dog, “Scootie?”
    The mutt met her eyes almost defiantly, but then he lowered his head and whined.
    “Bad Scootie,” she said. “Give Tommy his shoe.” Scootie studied Tommy, then chuffed dismissively. “Give Tommy his shoe,” Del repeated firmly. Finally the dog jumped down from the desk, padded to a potted palm in one corner of the room, poked its head behind the celadon pot, and returned with the athletic shoe in his mouth. He dropped it on the floor at Tommy's feet.
    When Tommy bent down to pick up his shoe, the dog put one paw on it—and stared at the rubber hotdog.
    Tommy put the hotdog on the floor.
    The dog looked at the hotdog and then at Tommy's hand, which was only a few inches away from the toy.
    Tommy withdrew his hand.
    The Labrador picked up the hotdog with his mouth—and only then lifted his paw off the shoe. He padded into the living room, biting on the toy to produce the farting sound.
    Staring thoughtfully after Scootie, Tommy said, “Where did you get that mutt?”
    “At the pound.”
    “I don't believe it.”
    “What's not to believe?”
    From the living room came a veritable symphony of rubber-hotdog flatulence.
    “I think you got him from a circus.”
    “He's clever,” she agreed.
    “Where did you really get him?”
    “At a pet store.”
    “I don't believe that, either.”
    “Put on your shoe,” she said, “and let's get out of here.”
    He hobbled to a chair. “Something's strange about that dog.”
    “Well, if you must know,” Del said flippantly, “I'm a witch, and he's my familiar, an ancient supernatural entity who helps me make magic.”
    Untying the knot in his shoelace, Tommy said, “I'd believe that before I'd believe you found him at the pound. He's got a demonic side to him.”
    “Oh, he's just a little jealous,” Del said. “When he gets to know you better, he'll like you. The two of you are going to get along famously.”
    Slipping his foot into the shoe, Tommy said, “What about the house? How can you afford