Scavenger

by David Morrell

“He advised me to do everything I could to distance myself from the present. Study history. Read novels about the past. Try to do everything possible to imagine I’m somewhere a hundred years ago and more. It was sort of like trying to transport myself back in time.”

  “What happened after you went inside the Paragon Hotel and you found your dead wife and you rescued Amanda?”

  Balenger didn’t trust himself to speak.

  “Your fists are clenched at your sides,” Ortega said. “Do you want to hit me?”

  “I woke up in a hospital, where a psychiatrist wanted to know why I called Amanda by my dead wife’s name.”

  “Psychiatrist number three. Did you get that straightened out by the way? The names?”

  Balenger was too furious to answer.

  “You and Amanda. In the night, in the shadows, do you ever think you might be seeing a ghost?”

  Balenger felt a scalding fury. “Stop.”

  “You said psychopaths often fixate on women who resemble one another. The victims tend to remind the killer of his wife or his mother or whatever.”

  “I don’t think I’m living with my dead wife! I don’t think I’m sleeping with my dead wife!”

  Ortega didn’t reply.

  “You believe I’m responsible for Amanda’s disappearance?”

  “It’s a theory,” Ortega said. “Maybe you freaked out when you understood the implications of your domestic arrangements. Maybe you got so disgusted with yourself that you did something you regretted. You used to be a police officer. You could predict how the investigation would proceed.”

  “Be careful,” Balenger warned.

  “I told you it’s a theory. Everything needs to be considered. You set up a diversion. You rented the row house on Nineteenth Street. You hired a woman to arrange for the actors to be there. You showed up with someone you paid to impersonate Amanda. As instructed, the actors left during the talk. With everybody gone, you thanked the woman who impersonated Amanda. She was puzzled, but you paid her well, so she thought ‘Another weirdo’ and went home. Meanwhile, everybody thought they’d seen the real Amanda and that someone had abducted her.”

  “For any of that to work, I’d also need to be responsible for the fire at the theater. But you and I were always together.”

  “Except for the time you waited in the lobby while I went into the main part of the theater to look around. You could have started the fire then. I wouldn’t have noticed.”

  “We almost died. Why would I put myself in danger?”

  “To convince me of the threat. Anyway, according to this theory, you were never in danger.”

  “What do you mean?” Balenger’s forearm felt as if an abscess wanted to burst.

  “You should have come with me to talk to the fire investigators you tried so hard to avoid. The conversation was revealing. It seems the woman who hired the actors asked for a tour of the theater. She was very interested when she learned about the sub-basement. She asked to be taken down there so she could have a look. A couple of weeks ago, a woman matching her description also visited businesses along the street. The antique store was one of them. While she pretended to think about buying something, she mentioned that she’d heard about dried-up streams under Greenwich Village and passageways where the water used to flow. As it turns out, the antique store owner was happy to talk about it because that piece of history helps him sell antiques. He has the only other building in the area with a sub-basement that matches the one in the theater.”

  “You think I set the fire, hoping I could escape by crawling along a passageway that I couldn’t be sure was open? That’s crazy!”

  “Is it any more crazy than your claim to have seen this same woman in the library this afternoon? A woman who magically disappeared and who hasn’t the slightest reason to show herself and whom nobody else saw except you.”

  “Why would I lie?”

  “To make me continue believing there’s a threat. To keep throwing me off track. You took every chance you could to assume control of the investigation.”

  Balenger stared past Ortega toward the end of the street where a woman wearing dark slacks and a white blouse waved at him.

  “You’re wrong,” he told the detective.

  “It makes as much sense as your theory that somebody abducted Amanda to force you to play a sicko game.”

  “You’re wrong, and I can prove it.”

  “Believe me, I’d like a little proof about something.”

  “The woman who showed herself at the library, the woman who hired the actors and introduced herself as Karen Bailey at the lecture…”

  “What about her?”

  “She’s standing down the street, waving at us.”

  4

  As Ortega spun to look, Balenger was already running. For a moment, Karen Bailey didn’t move. Then she ducked around the corner on the right.

  Balenger raced. It was almost five thirty. Classes were finished for the day, students having returned to their dormitories or homes elsewhere in the city. Few pedestrians got in Balenger’s way. He reached the corner and saw Karen Bailey’s white blouse disappearing around another corner.

  He avoided a passing car and turned the next corner in time to see her charge into what looked like an apartment building. Her shoes were lace-up, low-heeled, like a man’s, giving her mobility.

  “Stop!” he yelled.

  He heard Ortega’s rapid breathing behind him. Then Ortega was next to him, and they rushed toward the building.

  “Now do you believe me?”

  A wire fence blocked the sidewalk. A Dumpster held broken plaster and boards.

  Chest heaving, Balenger reached the fence. No one was around. He studied a gate that seemed to be locked. Then he saw that the lock hung loose. Furious, he shoved the gate open.

  Ortega grabbed his shoulder. “For God’s sake, wait till I call for backup. We don’t know what’s in there.”

  “You wait.” Balenger raced over bits of debris toward grit-covered steps that led to a sheet of plywood tilted over the entrance as a makeshift door.

  “You’re not a police officer!” Ortega shouted. “You don’t have authority!”

  “Which means I don’t have a job to worry about!” Balenger yelled over his shoulder. “I can do whatever I want!”

  He gazed warily through the gap beyond the plywood, then eased inside. The place smelled of dust, mildew, and old plaster. As his eyes adjusted to the murky light, he saw exposed floorboards and walls stripped to their joists. A corridor led to doorless entrances to what he assumed were other stripped rooms. On the right, a stairway didn’t have a banister. The ceiling had dangling strips of ancient paint.

  Another old abandoned building, Balenger thought. Shadows. Narrowing walls. Shrinking rooms. Sweat oozed from his pores, but not because he’d run to get there. With all his being, he wanted to turn and escape.

  Amanda, he thought. Footsteps echoed on the next floor. He climbed the stairs, stretching his legs over gaps. A noise behind him made him pause. He turned and saw Ortega enter the building.

  “Backup’s on the way,” Ortega said.

  “You’re sure this isn’t another diversion I arranged.”

  “The only thing I’m sure of is, I want to talk to this woman.”

  Ortega joined him. Boards creaked as they climbed. The upper area gradually came into view: more strips of paint dangling from the ceiling, more exposed walls and naked joists, another staircase without a banister. At the top, they listened for footsteps, but all Balenger heard was the muffled sound of distant traffic.

  “This seems to be the only stairway. She can’t get out,” Ortega said.

  “Can’t she? Maybe there’s a way into the next building.”

  A noise to the left made Balenger turn. He stepped across a hole and eased along a dusky corridor. Grit scraped under his shoes. They checked each opening they passed, seeing more gutted rooms.

  In the gray light, Ortega examined a jagged edge on each
side of the hallway. “Looks as if a wall was here and the renovators smashed through. It’s an awfully long corridor for one building.”

  “But not for two,” Balenger said. “This is a couple of buildings being made into one.”

  They came to a corridor on the right. It stretched deeper into the structure.

  “Maybe three buildings,” Ortega said. “Maybe the university’s combining them into one big classroom complex.”

  A creaking sound stopped them. It came from an area farther along. A board lay across two sawhorses. Other boards were stacked against a wall, boxes next to them. On the floor, a tarpaulin was littered with bits of wood and sawdust. A rope dangled from the upper level.

  “There’s something on that sawhorse,” Ortega said.

  The small rectangular object was silver and black, with buttons and a screen.

  “A cell phone,” Ortega said. “One of the workers must have left it.”

  “Looks different than a standard phone.”

  Ortega took a step closer. “It’s a BlackBerry.”

  Although Balenger had never used one, he knew that a BlackBerry could connect to the Internet and manage email. “Aren’t they expensive?”

  “Several hundred dollars,” Ortega said.

  “Would a construction worker, who managed to afford one, be careless enough to leave it behind?”

  They stopped next to the sawhorse. Balenger reached for the BlackBerry.

  “Better not,” Ortega cautioned. “If you’re right about somebody playing games, that thing might be a bomb.”

  “Or maybe it’s like the video-game case, and it’ll lead me somewhere else.” Balenger picked up the BlackBerry.

  “One of these days, you’ll listen to me,” Ortega said.

  Balenger noted that the BlackBerry was slightly heavier and thicker than his cell phone. It had a bigger screen and many more buttons that included the alphabet as well as numbers.

  “I hear voices.” Ortega turned. “Sounds like they’re coming from the entrance. Must be the backup team.” He pulled out his cell phone. “I’ll tell them where we are.”

  Sudden movement caught Balenger’s attention. On the other side of the work area, a white blouse appeared in the corridor. Flushed from her hiding place, Karen Bailey ran.

  Balenger shoved the BlackBerry into a pocket and chased her. He crossed the tarpaulin, and at once, it sank through a hole it disguised. His knees went down. His hips. He grabbed the rope that dangled from the next level. The tarpaulin kept sinking. His chest dropped into the hole. The rope in his hands tightened, suspending him.

  Ortega hurried to grab Balenger’s hand.

  “Be careful,” Balenger warned. “With the tarp, it’s hard to know where the edge of the hole is.”

  Holding Balenger’s hand, Ortega leaned so far over the tarp that he needed to grip the rope for support.

  The rope went slack, whatever it was attached to giving way. Ortega lost his balance. Balenger felt weightless again, groaning when Ortega landed on him, both men dropping with the tarpaulin through the hole. The rope fell with them, and something else, something that Balenger caught only a glimpse of—a wheelbarrow that the rope was tied to on an upper level.

  “No!” Balenger screamed, dropping with Ortega.

  The tarpaulin scraped against the hole’s edge. When Balenger hit the lower floor, the impact knocked the wind from him, as did the jolt of Ortega against him. He heard a crash, looked up, and saw the plummeting wheelbarrow strike the hole’s edge. It broke boards and continued falling.

  “Lookout!”

  There wasn’t time to react. The wheelbarrow slammed onto Ortega’s back. Something snapped inside him. Blood bubbled from his mouth. His face went slack. His eyes lost focus. Balenger struggled to push the wheelbarrow off him, to do something to revive him, but there was no mistaking the stillness of death.

  Grieving, he stopped trying to find a pulse. In the distance, he heard distraught voices, people running toward the sound of the crash. The backup team, he thought, trying to adjust to the shock of what had happened. They’ll question me at the station. It’ll take hours to explain. The footsteps sounded closer.

  He struggled to his feet. The BlackBerry weighed in his pocket as he staggered along a hallway, turning a corner just before the voices arrived behind him. He crept along another corridor, then another, feeling trapped in a maze. He passed more sawhorses, boxes, and boards. He came to a window frame, its glass not yet installed. Breathless, he crawled over the frame, dangled, and dropped to the ground.

  His ribs hurt. His legs ached. His left forearm felt biting pressure. For a few steps, he limped. Then he managed to steady his pace. Following the chain-link fence, he headed toward the end of the renovation site. The sun was lower. Traffic was sparse. The few students going by hardly looked at him.

  Sirens wailed in the distance. When Balenger reached another gate in the fence, he found that it was locked. As the sirens came nearer, he found a piece of tarpaulin, climbed onto a Dumpster, and draped the tarp over barbed wire at the fence’s top. The sirens stopped on the street around the corner. He squirmed over the fence, unhooked the tarpaulin from the barbed wire, threw it into the Dumpster, and climbed down to the street.

  He fought the urge to run. Look calm, he told himself. Keep moving.

  Students came out of a coffee shop. A young man with a knapsack asked a friend, “You want to go down and check out what’s happening?”

  “I stay away from war zones.”

  Wise plan, Balenger thought.

  More students came from the coffee shop. Hoping they gave him cover, Balenger turned a corner. He saw his reflection in a window, did his best to smooth his hair, and brushed dirt off his jacket.

  Hearing other sirens, he knew he couldn’t keep walking much longer. When word spread that a detective had been killed, the police would close off the area for blocks in every direction. All the restaurants and bars in the area were student hangouts. If he went into any of them, he’d look conspicuous.

  He tried a door to what seemed an office building. It was locked. Need to get off the street, he told himself.

  He couldn’t stop thinking about Karen Bailey. When she ran from her hiding place, he’d assumed that he panicked her. But now it was obvious that she wanted to make him chase her, to step onto the tarpaulin. Another trap. No, another obstacle, he corrected himself.

  The words on the back of the Scavenger game case nagged at him. An obstacle race and a scavenger hunt. I survived the obstacle, and what did I get? he thought. A BlackBerry phone.

  But how did Karen Bailey know where to find me?

  An answer to that question abruptly occurred to him. It told him where to hide.

  5

  The corridor seemed longer than the last time. Reaching the office, Balenger again heard gunfire inside. He drew a long breath and knocked. No answer. He opened the door.

  Professor Graham sat behind the computer monitor, furiously working the mouse and keyboard. The dark circles under her eyes were more pronounced.

  “I thought you broke the mouse,” Balenger said.

  “I always keep spares.” The elderly woman jabbed buttons in a blur, then scowled at the screen. “Damn, they killed me again.”

  Balenger heard sirens outside.

  “What happened to you?” Professor Graham looked at him. “Your pants.”

  Balenger peered down and noticed dirt he’d missed. He brushed it off. “I ran into a couple of obstacles.”

  “And the detective who was with you?”

  Balenger did his best to keep his voice neutral. “Same obstacles.”

  “Do those obstacles have any connection with the commotion outside?”

  Balenger nodded. “And with everything we talked about. I’m glad you’re still here.” He didn’t add that, if she hadn’t remained in the office, he’d have done everything in his power to find where she lived.

  “I stayed because my pills wore off.”


  “Pills?”

  “The ones I swallowed a while ago haven’t started to work yet.” The fatigue lines around her eyes seemed to deepen. “I won’t bore you with the specifics.”

  Now Balenger understood why she seemed to age visibly when he spoke to her earlier. His suspicion about an illness was correct. “I’m sorry.”

  She shrugged fatalistically. “Years ago, the student who taught me that video games prolonged time also made me realize that the reality in there—” She pointed toward the monitor. “—is more vivid than the reality here. What made you come back? Not to be rude, but I want to restart the game.”

  “I had a thought.” Balenger prayed he was right. “If I’m being given clues, whoever kidnapped Amanda must have known I’d eventually come here and talk to you about the Sepulcher. You’re the expert in it. I reminded myself that you’re also a video-game expert.”

  “An enthusiast. My student’s the true video-game expert.” Professor Graham’s face tensed, then relaxed, as a pain spasm ended.

  Balenger hid his desperation. “Does he keep in touch with you?”

  “Emails. Phone calls. He was upset when I told him about my health problem. That’s why he sent me this new computer. It has state-of-the-art game capability. The large monitor’s the best I ever had.”

  “He’s very generous.”

  “He can afford it. That’s why I didn’t refuse.”

  “What’s his name?” Balenger made the question seem off-handed.

  “Jonathan Creed. I see you recognize it.”

  “No.”

  “But you reacted to it.”

  “Only because it’s distinctive.”

  “Even non-game players sometimes recognize it.”

  “Why?” Balenger had trouble concealing his intensity.

  “There are a few people who are undisputed legends in the game world, people who designed games of such genius that they set an impossibly high standard. Or else they’re marketing geniuses. CliffyB, for one. His game’s called Unreal Tournament.”

  “Unreal? That’s a significant title if I understand what you said earlier about the power of games to take us to an alternate reality.”