Scavenger Hunt

by Michaelbrent Collings

  He didn’t. Instead, the guy finally heard the baby yowling. He rushed to her, picking up the naked girl and checking her with expert hands. He glanced around once, then went back into the building he had come from.

  “Smart,” said Elena. She eyed the building. “Fire stations are a safe surrender site.”

  Chong stared at the sign on the side of the building, a red-lettered thing that said, “LAFD – Los Angeles Fire Department,” along with the station number. “I didn’t know that,” he said, interested in spite of himself. The sight of the fire station had terrified him – both when they ran past it the first time and when they returned to leave the baby there – but now the fear transformed to cool calculation. “So you can just leave a baby here?”

  Noelle stared at him, the first time she had really met his gaze. Again, the world shifted as he realized now her eyes were dead, black, fearless. “Why are you interested?”

  Chong almost laughed again. Worse, he almost told her. Almost said, “You never know when it’ll be handy to know where people drop valuable things in the street.” But he choked the words back, and tried to hold her gaze. Felt himself losing a staring match with the least assertive person he’d ever met in the strange, slipstream version of the world he had fallen into.

  Things shifted back a moment later as Noelle shrank away again, huddling low against the car.

  “I never would have thought of that,” said Elena admiringly. She looked at Clint. “Good job.”

  Clint nodded.

  “What will happen to her?” asked Noelle.

  “She’ll go into the system,” said Elena.

  Noelle gasped. “Will the mom be able to find her or –”

  Elena chuckled, low and humorless. “Given what we saw in that house, the baby is better off anywhere but there.”

  “Maybe,” said Clint. The single word was loaded with meaning. Chong didn’t know what that meaning was, but he could tell Clint was thinking of nothing good.

  Noelle put a hand on the young man’s arm. Chong felt a stab in his side and for a moment couldn’t be sure if it was the piece of clay digging in for a long night, or just jealousy.

  He looked away from the tender moment. Stared at his watch. It was blank, not even the Do-Good smiley face avatar looking back at him. “Was that it? We done?” he said.

  Everyone else looked as well. A long, long moment. Long enough that Chong dared to hope that it was over. That he could be done with this, and go back to his office and start bidding on half his screens while he devoted everything else he had to finding Do-Good. Maybe he’d use Portobello Road to hire a killer. Or five. Or ten.

  But the night wasn’t over. Not by a long shot.

  10

  “Do-Good says, WAY TO THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX! For this next challenge, remember: home is where the heart is! So go back to the house on Heart Street, then hide outside and watch. Two minutes to get yourself there and hidey-hidey-ho!”

  As Do-Good said the words, Chong heard Noelle give out a low, pitiful moan that he probably would have found hilarious in any other situation.

  Only he felt like moaning himself, and that wasn’t hilarious at all.

  With one last glance at the fire station, Clint stood and headed back to where they had just come from. Mr. Do-Good was whipsawing them now, pulling them back and forth like an insane puppet master.

  As they walked up to Dee-Dee’s house – still a dump, only now with the added feature of a door hanging half off its hinges and a frame that lay like a tumble of pick-up-sticks just inside the doorway – Noelle asked, “We’re supposed to hide?”

  She looked around, and Chong could tell she’d seen what he had already noticed: there was nowhere to hide. Not without actually going inside the house, and Chong definitely didn’t want to do that. He didn’t know what Do-Good had planned, but he suspected the idea of going into a little box of a place and hoping for the best was not in his best interests.

  “Out back?” he said.

  They moved as a group, skirting the edge of the house, passing a side door that Chong assumed led into whatever joke of a kitchen the little place boasted, then into the back “yard.” Just as nasty and rundown as the rest of the property – a ten-foot by twenty-foot space bounded on all sides by a wood fence that looked like it had probably been built sometime in the 1800s.

  Still, it was better than just waiting in front. Do-Good had told them to hide, so this would have to do. “I guess this is our best bet,” he told the others. Or maybe just told himself.

  “You sure?” asked Noelle. “This doesn’t look like the kind of neighborhood where people react nicely to uninvited guests in their backyards.”

  “You think the Beverly Hills crowd would be more lenient?” asked Chong absently.

  Noelle bristled a bit. “How would I know?”

  Chong grinned at her. His side hurt, his brain felt packed full of mud. But it felt nice to argue with someone who wasn’t as big as he was, trying to stab him, or trying to blow him up. “I don’t know,” he said. “I assumed the best clients for hookers would –”

  “Give it a rest,” said Clint.

  Chong probably would have turned his ire on the kid now, but Clint didn’t sound demanding. Just tired. He leaned against the back wall of the rickety fence, then let himself slide down until he was sitting in the dirt at its base.

  Noelle glanced at Chong, a bit of steel still glinting in her eyes, then went and sat beside Clint. “This has not been my best night,” she said quietly. Then she glanced at Clint and added quietly, “I guess your day was worse, though.”

  “What makes you say that?” Clint asked in guarded tones.

  Noelle shrugged. “You said you were in the cemetery when…,” she gestured around, “… all this started. People don’t go to the cemetery for a party.”

  Clint’s shoulders slumped, as though he had successfully avoided thinking about this fact until now. “No,” he said.

  Chong, interested in spite of himself, glanced at his watch – still nothing there – before saying, “So spill. Why were you there?”

  Clint’s gaze jerked up for a moment. Chong expected him to look angry, or to tell him to butt out. Neither happened. Matter-of-factly, Clint said, “My sister died. Ten years ago today – that’s why I was there. At the cemetery.” His gaze shifted to Noelle and he smiled sadly. “You kinda remind me of her. She was nice, like you. Quiet and sad sometimes. But nice.”

  “What about your parents?” asked Noelle. “They’ll be worried –”

  “No parents,” said Clint. “I got left outside a fire department.”

  Chong laughed at that. Not loud – he didn’t want anyone wondering what was going on in the back of 1089 Shit Street – but it was funny.

  Not to anyone else, though. And Chong realized – again, last to the party – that Clint hadn’t been joking. “That’s how you thought of that,” said Noelle. He nodded. She exhaled loudly, then said, “Sorry. My parents are gone, too.”

  “That sucks,” said Clint. “When?”

  Noelle shrugged. “My mom died when I was little. My dad… it was recent.”

  No one spoke. Even Chong felt no urge to break the silence.

  Finally, Noelle asked, “Did you ever finally get adopted? Anyone take care of you?”

  Clint shook his head. “Nah. Just bounced around. Foster care, a few government places.”

  “At least you had your sister,” said Noelle. She sounded hopeful, like this was the one fact that would carry her through the night. Then her eyes narrowed as she said, “Or did they try to split you guys before… what happened to her?”

  Clint’s expression clouded when she mentioned his sister. “They tried to split us up, all the time. We just acted out until we got sent back.”

  “Must’ve been hard,” said Noelle. Her brassy trash-accent softened a bit as she said it, and Chong thought in that moment she could have passed for a girl who grew up near a trailer park, instead of in one.


  Clint shrugged. “It was mostly okay. One hellhole, though.”

  “What happened there?” asked Noelle.

  Chong was starting to feel purposefully left out. He didn’t like the feeling. One thing to refuse to mingle with others, but another thing entirely to be left out, so he said, “Nosy kid, aren’t you?”

  Noelle ignored him, but did say, “Sorry if I’m butting in,” to Clint.

  “’Sokay,” said Clint. “That place… it’s where my sister died. Or at least, disappeared. They never found her.”

  “Then maybe she’s still alive. Or –”

  Clint shook his head. “No. Something happened. She was taken from the home in the middle of the night, and never came back.” His expression hardened. “I knew she was gone. Dead. She would have found me, or I would have found her otherwise.”

  Noelle’s hand went over her mouth. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “Was it their fault she was taken? The people at the orphanage? Is that why it was a hellhole?”

  “I think so,” said Clint, his voice almost machine-like now. A dead thing just reporting data. “I got transferred to another orphanage and I heard Eighth Street Children closed a while later.”

  “That was the name of it? Eighth Street Children?” asked Noelle.

  “Yeah,” said Clint. “No idea why they –” he broke off, staring at Elena. “What?”

  Chong looked at the older woman, who had been standing nearby but curiously silent throughout the whole conversation. She shrugged, but he saw something flit across her eyes. A moment of –

  A veil seemed to fall across her gaze. “It’s nothing,” she said.

  Clint squinted at her. “Nothing?” he repeated, his tone making it clear he didn’t believe that at all. “Why –”

  A car revved nearby, the sound followed quickly by the squeal of brakes and the high whine of locked wheels sliding across asphalt.

  “Shut up, all of you!” said Chong. The sound of the car had been familiar. He had to –

  The watches beeped. Chong flinched, wondering what new task they would be given. But when Do-Good spoke, he said only, “Do-Good says, PAY CLOSE ATTENTION.”

  Chong looked at the others, but they were already creeping toward the house. Peeking into one of the barred windows. The house was about the size of a shoebox, so the bedroom they had taken the baby out of was visible, and beyond that they could see a large slice of the front room where Dee-Dee still lay in her drug-induced slumber.

  Chong had figured out what they were about to see. Apparently he was still the smartest guy around, because the only person who didn’t gasp when Two-Teeth walked in through the still-fractured door was Chong. No one else had recognized the sound of the man’s car, the deep rumble of an engine designed to make noise that would announce the coming of a VIP.

  But Chong had.

  He had known, but that didn’t stop him from quaking a bit as the guy walked in. Even peeking over the back of a window, through bars, through another room… even then, Two-Teeth was a terrifying sight. He’d seen him in the picture back at the 52s safehouse, but seeing him in a picture didn’t do the man justice, anymore than taking a picture of Everest could capture the terrifying enormity and coldness of that place.

  A gun stuck out of his waistband, but Chong doubted he’d require its assistance for any mayhem that needed doing. Indeed, blood stained his hands and shirt, along with other smudges and smears that made it look like he’d been rolling around in a mud-pile.

  “Dee-Dee!” the man shouted, striding to the couch, huge feet crunching over a fast food wrapper, a discarded paper cup, drug paraphernalia. None of it registered. He was staring at a spot on the floor, and though it was hidden from Chong’s view, he knew that the guy had to be wondering what happened here. How a man literally lost his head to a television set.

  Two-Teeth skirted the gory area as best he could, then reached down and lifted Dee-Dee by the front of her shirt as easily as Chong might pick up a Chihuahua.

  Dee-Dee hung bonelessly. Two-Teeth shook her. “Wake up! Wake up, bitch! What happened here?” Another shake. “Where’s my money? You take my money?”

  Dee-Dee moaned. She tried to lift her head but couldn’t. It hung weirdly behind her, lolling back so far that Chong could have sworn she was looking behind herself and straight at the huddled group watching the whole thing through the window.

  “Money?” Dee-Dee finally managed. She shuddered. “You… you got some money for me? For the kid?”

  Two-Teeth shook her again, this time in disgust. “Sonofa….” Another shake. “Someone took the money, Dee-Dee.”

  Dee-Dee giggled at that, and finally managed to stiffen her neck enough to look at Two-Teeth. “Boss is gonna be piiiisssssed,” she said in a dreamy singsong.

  “Who was it?” demanded Two-Teeth. “Who took it?” He gestured at the floor. “Who did all this?”

  Dee-Dee shook her head. The movement was so slow Chong felt oddly like he was watching a movie played in slow motion. “Maybe SFD? He always comes ‘round, pawin’ at me –”

  Two-Teeth shut her up by shaking her so hard Chong swore he heard the woman’s teeth clack together. “SFD didn’t do it. And he won’t paw you no more – or anyone else. Neither will Zonker or Mako. And you don’t come up with some good damn answers and you might join them at –”

  Dee-Dee cut him off. She laughed, loud and hard. Not at what Two-Teeth was saying, though. Chong could tell that whatever she was laughing at, it was nothing anyone but her could see.

  Two-Teeth’s mouth curled in sudden concern. Not for Dee-Dee, not even for the man whose remains he was all but standing in. “Where’s the kid?” he demanded.

  “The same place as always,” she said.

  “You dumb –”

  Two-Teeth moved as fast as lightning, slamming a huge fist into the side of Dee-Dee’s face. She went from giggling to sobbing in the space of half a second, but Two-Teeth was already gone, stomping toward the back of the house.

  Chong dropped to the ground along with the others, hoping that the gangster hadn’t seen them.

  He didn’t. If he had, he wouldn’t be heading to the back of the house, he’d be heading around to kill us.

  He remembered the look on Black’s face when he realized that Two-Teeth might be coming to the Five-Deuce safehouse. Sheer, unadulterated terror.

  Chong had no wish to find out – especially not firsthand – what kind of person could induce that level of panic.

  He heard Two-Teeth slam into the bedroom. A roar heaved itself through the bars, into the backyard, and Chong knew the gangster had discovered the empty crib. Another roar, then the sound of plastic and wood sheering apart, and Chong guessed the big man was just beating the crib to pieces.

  A moment after that, Chong knew that was what Two-Teeth was doing, because there was a sudden chunk and then he was staring at one of the crib’s slats. Two-Teeth had thrown it against the wall so hard it speared right through the drywall and halfway through the cheap siding of the outer wall itself.

  The wood had jabbed through not five inches from Elena’s face, and she gasped. She clapped her hands against her mouth to stifle the sound – too late. Inside the house, all was suddenly, deathly silent.

  Two-Teeth heard.

  11

  Chong held himself as still as he’d ever been in his life. Beside him, the others were equally rigid statues, all of them hugging the wall in the hopes that Two-Teeth hadn’t heard Elena, hadn’t heard something out back, wasn’t –

  The sound of the window sliding open was deafening to Chong. Clint and Noelle had slid to the side when they first ducked away from the window, but he and Elena had just dropped straight down – which meant they were directly under the window that Two-Teeth had opened. Chong could imagine the man up there, peering through the bars, craning to see what had made the sound.

  He didn’t think Two-Teeth could see directly below the window. The bars were fairly flush with the window itself. Just straight
lines bolted to the wall, no curve that would allow Two-Teeth to lean out at all, maybe glance down, maybe see…

  Shut up, Chong. Just shut UP!

  He hadn’t said anything, but somehow the thoughts seemed totally legitimate, like if he didn’t think quieter, Two-Teeth would just sense him there.

  So he thought quiet thoughts. He didn’t even look at Elena, so close to him that he could smell her sweat and the barest hint of whatever cheap perfume she wore when she went to work before all this started. Didn’t look, because he was worried that even shifting his eyes would make a sound that would alert Two-Teeth of what hid only inches below him.

  Chong and the others remained there, motionless, for a period that was likely only a few seconds but which nevertheless felt like an eternity.

  But eternity finally ended: Two-Teeth muttered something, then Chong heard the thud-crackle of the big man stomping over trash as he went back to the front room.

  Chong started to edge back to the window. He didn’t want to watch, but Do-Good had told them to do it, hadn’t he? What would happen if he just cowered down below the window instead of watching?

  Besides, he had to admit, he was curious. He wanted to see what would happen next, just like he had wanted to watch Erin Westmoreland’s blood pooling around his head; just like he had wanted to sit beside Jerrod Hall’s body while it cooled in the alley.

  Elena grabbed his arm, trying to stop him. He shook her off, and wasn’t at all surprised when she joined him at the window a moment later. Noelle and Clint, too, all of them peeking into the house. The call of curiosity was too persuasive to resist long.

  Chong saw Dee-Dee, holding one hand to the nose that Two-Teeth must have flattened when he hit her. Blood gushed out of her clenched fingers, and when she spoke it was with a wet, painfully nasal tone totally devoid of the dreamlike quality it had previously held. Pain had sobered her. “What’d you – the hell did you –”