Follow Me Down

by Gordon MacKinney

  “They’re gone,” I said as we entered, venting my breath. “The prints were hanging up to dry, and I left the filmstrips in an envelope on that counter. All gone.” I explained about the test measurement photos and my afternoon in the darkroom. “Wait.” I yanked the negative tray from the enlarger. “They missed one. Six shots, and they’re good ones. Maybe enough for Smith.”

  Tricia frowned with worry. “Can they figure out Alfred’s scheme by studying the photos?”

  Drax engineers would pore over images of bright dots striking concrete walls. “I don’t know. No matter what, they’ll know this is bigger than subway beauty shots.” My skull throbbed and I teetered again.

  Tricia righted me with surprising strength. “Cops or no cops, we better go to the hospital.”

  “Drax might match photos to negatives and realize they left some behind.” I slid the surviving filmstrip into a protective envelope. “I’m taking this with me.”

  “To get that wound checked, I assume,” Tricia admonished.

  First things first. Rudolph Drax had threatened my friends. They already knew about Reuben from the train station, but now they knew about Andy. I’d hoped he’d stay off their shit list. It seemed Drax had spies everywhere, even at the YMCA.

  As Tricia tried to hide her curiosity, I called Reuben’s apartment from the darkroom’s wall phone and explained everything, including the threats. “Where are your folks?”

  “Finger Lakes, upstate New York, shopping for retirement property. I’m good for a few more days. What about your mom?”

  “Good for a few more hours. She’s working a marathon shift for the phone company.”

  “And Andy?” Reuben’s hands produced muffled friction as he gripped the telephone receiver.

  “I’ll call you right back.”

  I slapped the telephone switch hook and dialed Andy’s number. Six rings, no answer. I hung up and repeated. No luck. Unease became worry. Could Drax have followed through on their threat so fast?

  I got Reuben back on the line. “Nobody’s home.” I tried to level my voice.

  Reuben knew me well enough to read my mind and pretend he hadn’t. “The family’s probably taking a walk. Nice day out there.”

  “Better safe than sorry. We’re close by. We’ll head over.” I hung up.

  Tricia glowered at me. “Who’s we?”

  “Hey, you were willing to drive me to the hospital.”

  “That’s different. I don’t want to get sued if you croak of a brain hemorrhage.”

  “Your concern is touching.” I fondled the lump above my eye. “Your field dressing will have to hold for the time being.”

  . . . . .

  Twenty minutes later we rang the doorbell of the apartment where Andy’s family lived, but there was no response, no footsteps within.

  “Andy, it’s me,” I shouted and pounded the door. After a few moments, the peephole darkened, the deadbolt slid, and the door cracked enough for Andy’s face to appear. But this was not the fearless émigré who’d helped his family escape the Viet Cong, and who’d shrugged off the dangers of pissing in Drax’s punch bowl. His face was drawn, his eyes juiced with tension.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  Andy slipped through the door and stood with us, his feet doing a nervous dance. Arm outstretched, he spoke as if addressing someone in the street beyond. “You go. I no go. I finished. You go now!” He scanned the grounds of the apartment complex.

  “You think someone’s watching us?” I asked.

  “Maybe yes, maybe no,” he said, quieter this time.

  “Okay, we’ll play along, but then tell us what happened.” I raised my hands, palms open, and took a step back. “Okay, okay. We’re done,” I shouted. “You’re not part of this ever again.” Then I whispered. “We’re leaving, but what the hell happened?”

  Andy held up an index finger. “One minute then you go.” He disappeared momentarily and returned with a shoebox. “We find outside door today.” He reached into the box and withdrew a stick perhaps a half inch in diameter and ten inches long. Sand-colored, with distinctive raised rings, it was tapered at one end to a sharp point. “Viet Cong call tra tấn thanh, bamboo torture stick. Go in body with…” His limited English failing, Andy resorted to pantomime, pounding the air with his fist.

  “Hammer?” Tricia asked.

  Andy nodded and then demonstrated, placing the sharp end of the stick against his palm, and then his thigh, and then finally, his temple. “For when done.”

  I shivered beneath my shirt. Andy reached again into the box, this time withdrawing a Polaroid photo. It showed a slim young Asian woman strolling through a park, the shadows long, perhaps in the evening. Her hands rested in the pockets of a waist-length pea coat, her head angled as if lost in contemplation. “My sister,” Andy said, his eyes now glossy and pleading. “Picture yesterday.”

  “Is she okay?” I implored.

  Andy nodded. “But I protect.” He paused to survey the parking lot one more time before shouting again. “Sorry. No more help. You go now!”

  He closed the door and snapped the deadbolt.

  We drove away in silence as I cursed my naïveté. I’d assumed we’d be exposed, but we’d elude with anticipation and caution. Then I played back my own words to Andy: Drax will do anything to protect themselves. My friends were in danger because of me—because I’d ignored my own warning. That was about to change.

  . . . . .

  “I can’t let my mom go back to our house tonight,” I said. “Too risky. Get me to a phone?” Tricia stared back. “Please?”

  I expected I’m not your chauffeur, but she cocked her head, muttered Yeah, and took a screeching right at Wilmot Avenue. Within a half mile, she stopped next to a call-from-car pay phone in a Marathon gas station. I rolled down my window, stuffed a dime into the slot, punched three digits, and heard my coin rattle in the change return. A moment later, a ringer sounded.

  “Four-one-one directory assistance. What listing?” The woman’s voice had a smoker’s scraw. Definitely not Mom.

  “Sorry, wrong number.” I toggled the switch hook, scooped my dime from the return tray, and repeated.

  “Four-one-one directory assistance. What listing?” This time she was young and nasal, like Streisand. Another miss.

  The third try failed and I apologized again, but before I could ring off, the woman said, “Look, sweetie, which of the girls are you trying to reach?”

  Damn. I prayed the voice didn’t belong to a supervisor. Mom’s temporary gigs were fragile enough without the smudge of personal calls on company time. I rolled the dice. “Mrs. Tremaine, please.”

  A sigh. “Lucas, it’s me. Dorothy. They sent your mom home two hours ago.”

  I sucked in air. “What?”

  Mom’s friend laughed, too removed from the danger to recognize fear in my voice. “Half the town’s watching the Bengals on TV. Call volume dropped like nutso after the kickoff.”

  “Shit.”

  “Honey, I know you two could use the cash, but your mom could use the rest—not doing so good today.” Dorothy knew all about Mom tapering off the meds, the violent swings between panic and lethargy, and the tremors that could make flipping through a phonebook a trial of concentration and coordination.

  “Thank you, Dorothy.”

  We rang off. My hands unsteady, I fumbled twice before successfully dialing all seven digits to reach home. Three rings felt like ten. Then Mom answered and I released my breath. “I heard they let you go early. Everything okay?”

  “Thank God they did.” Her speech dragged with fatigue. “My shoulde
rs feel like I carried a backpack for twenty miles.”

  According to the doctors, her symptoms would last another year after reaching zero milligrams. “Sorry. Maybe some tea and a heating pad?”

  “Will do, once the gas man finishes up.”

  Panic pulsed below my rib cage. “What do you mean, gas man?”

  “Or electric. I should’ve paid better attention. They’re checking meters house-to-house.”

  I wanted to scream at her, but she wouldn’t have understood. “And you let him in?”

  “Lucas, for crying out loud. He had a proper ID card, with his photo. Why are you so paranoid?”

  I had a dozen reasons to be paranoid, each more authentic than a proper ID card. “Mom, you have to leave the house. Go next door. Now!”

  “Why on earth—”

  “Because we don’t have a gas line, no one checks meters on Sundays, and our electric meter’s on the outside of the house.” I regretted firing both barrels. “That man’s no good.”

  A pause. “Oh.” All realization for my mother seemed to be on a three-second delay. “You must think I’m a ninny.”

  “It’s not your fault.” Tapering compromised judgment. “Don’t hang up the phone. Set it down and walk out the front door.”

  “Okay.” The handset clunked on the kitchen counter, and Mom’s footsteps faded across the linoleum floor. Ten seconds of silence passed. A hinge squeaked. A door closed. More footsteps approached, growing louder, and then faded again to silence. A different door closed. My stomach seized. I was seconds from calling the police when footfalls sounded again, this time coming closer. Someone lifted the handset.

  “There’s a police car parked on the street in front of our house,” Mom said, now sounding smug, “and the gas man must’ve finished up because he’s not here anymore.”

  “Mom, we don’t have a gas—” I glanced over my shoulder at Tricia who was staring at me, assessing my performance. I said to Mom, “There’s a cop in the car?”

  “Yeah, just sitting there.”

  He was waiting for me. Drax had upped the charges. Ironic, since I was the one sporting the tenderized forehead. Sure, I could take my story to the police, but in a my-word-against-theirs battle, Drax would have friends in high places. I would have nobody. “Are you sure the… gas man’s gone?”

  I checked Tricia again. She was either tired of my mother’s lethargy, or tired of me.

  Mom chuckled through the receiver. “Don’t you think I’d know if he’s here or not? I’ve only lived in this house for…” But her muddled mind abandoned the math. “Besides, he left his paperwork.”

  Over the next minute of question-and-answer, pocked with moments of confusion, I learned that the invader had taped a standard envelope at eye level just inside the front door. It contained paper only, nothing that seemed to present immediate danger.

  “Please read the note to me, okay?” I asked.

  She obliged, but read the note to herself first.

  I drummed my fingers on the dashboard. “Mom?”

  More irritating silence followed, then, “Well…”

  “Well what?”

  “What on earth does this mean? The note is handwritten—says No one is safe.” The paper crackled in Mom’s hand. “Who wrote this, Lucas?”

  CHAPTER 17

  Early the following morning, I returned to the darkroom. The test measurements from the surviving negative had to be printed, leaving Smith to draw whatever conclusions he could. Our next trip underground could be our last, so no more trial runs. We had to capture all evidence possible before Drax buried it forever.

  I clipped the last print to the clothesline and wove my way toward Alfred’s office to wait for him. I needed answers.

  In transit, I spotted Tricia on a stepladder, taping up a poster for Vivitar lenses, her calf muscles taut below the hem of her skirt. We’d driven in together. My house was no safe haven and Reuben’s apartment not much better, so I’d persuaded Tricia to let me sleep on her couch. She’d hesitated at first but then agreed, as long as I sprang for takeout from Madam Chow’s. Cheaper than a hotel, or so I’d figured.

  Clever girl. She’d failed to mention that she owned no couch, only enough stray pillows to form a patchwork pallet. But the deal was done and she’d snagged a better meal than the usual Kraft dinner. In return, I’d snagged a toss-and-turn night, waking periodically to worry about our shrinking odds of success, and stare at the moonlit walls, bare except for a Frank Zappa poster and Fritz the Cat comic strip in a plastic frame.

  I’d convinced Mom to room with her friend Dorothy just for a few days, until I can work out this misunderstanding with Drax. I felt guilty sugarcoating a sour situation, but now wasn’t the time to explain the whole sordid story. Besides, I didn’t know the whole sordid story. Not yet.

  I closed the door to Alfred’s unoccupied office and inspected my forehead in the same mirror where the old man damped down renegade silver hairs and leveled his bow ties. Whiffing an echo of English Leather, I imagined him pressing an eye to a peephole nearby.

  My wound site was still puffy, but Tricia’s strapping tape had held. The purple seam underneath resembled a string of blood sausages.

  When Alfred walked in, I was standing by his bookshelf, thumbing through a World War II hardcover entitled Building Hitler’s War Machine—Deutschmarks and Dollars. He crossed his office at a determined clip, his hard-sole shoes tapping out authority with each step. He anchored his feet behind the desk and released his briefcase a few inches above the blotter. “I should fire you.”

  I snorted. “From which job, the lab gig without people trying to kill me, or the illegal job that doesn’t pay a penny?”

  Alfred plunged his hand into his briefcase, yanked out a copy of the Sunday Cavalcade, and slapped it on the desk. “Have you lost your mind?”

  I lifted my chin. “Yes, I have. I should be on a bus to Timbuktu instead of standing here.”

  Alfred shook his head, his neck still rosy from the morning razor. “What were you hoping to accomplish?”

  The meeting was off to a bad start; I was supposed to be asking the questions. “They already know I’m involved with the subway. That article doesn’t change anything, except it might slow them down. You should be thanking me.”

  Alfred glared. “Drax knows you took the photos and they know you work here, so now they know I’m involved.”

  I waved him off. “Drax knows more about your scheme than I do. Doesn’t that seem a little backward?”

  Alfred ignored me. “It’s your fault they came here.” The old man must’ve buttonholed Tricia on the way in and learned about Drax’s little social call to the studio. “Now you’re quitting our project?”

  The thought hadn’t crossed my mind, but apparently it had crossed Alfred’s. That could work to my advantage. “Our project? Interesting word choice, but you’ve got your project and I’ve got mine and they don’t necessarily overlap.”

  “After what happened to your father, you have reason enough to bring down Drax. What more do you need?”

  I braced my hands on my hips. “My friend Andy helped take your test photos. Yesterday, Drax threatened to kill his sister.” I tried to ignore a wave of guilt but couldn’t.

  Sadness stretched the vertical lines on Alfred’s face. “That’s unfortunate. I—I don’t like to hear that.” He straightened his back. “But it’s also unsurprising. That’s how Drax operates.”

  I felt my cheeks grow hot. “And if they hurt her, that’s okay because it’s unsurprising?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You’re saying every risk is justified because w
hat we’re doing is that important.”

  Alfred stared back, his jaw firm. “What we’re doing is very important.”

  Something didn’t add up. “Because of bid-rigging? The rich get richer and the poor get poorer, just like always. I don’t see how that’s bad enough to justify a bamboo spike pounded into that girl’s temple.”

  Alfred’s steely disposition eased a bit further. “That’s what they threatened?”

  “They left the weapon by the family’s front door, along with the girl’s photo. But that’s not all.” I told him about the phony utility man. “My mother can’t protect herself.” My chest throbbed at a realization. “And apparently I can’t protect her either.” I took a deep breath. “Look, Mr. Blumenfeld, I want to bring down Drax so bad I can taste it. But if I’m going to put my friends and family at risk, I have to know everything.”

  “I never lied to you.”

  “That’s not good enough. You were working on a Drax story with a reporter from the paper. I figure you manned the camera and your partner worked the storyline. But he mysteriously disappeared and that hit you hard because you’ve been on a crusade ever since. Surprised I know this?”

  His old, hard eyes betrayed nothing, but he stepped to the window behind his desk and looked out.

  I pressed on. “I heard it from Rudolph Drax. Don’t I deserve to know as much as my enemy?”

  Alfred said nothing.

  “What else were you and the reporter investigating?”

  Again, no response.

  I took a step closer and softened my voice. “You cried when you learned we found the bodies in the subway. Don’t tell me you were crying for Cincinnati’s taxpayers.”

  Alfred’s head tipped forward a few degrees as if my words had struck him, his Brylcreemed hairs neat above the collar of his sport coat. Beyond the glass, morning traffic jostled for position, but the old man didn’t notice. I waited.

  After ten seconds, Alfred turned toward me and brought his hands together behind his back. Clear-eyed and collected, he stepped out from behind his desk and regarded me neutrally, his lips pressed into a colorless seam. “That wound on your forehead is rather unsightly. You might bandage it for the sake of others.”