* * *
I was sitting in the backseat of a taxi. Buildings roared by, pink and yellow ghettos, painted the color of happiness in some half-brained attempt to deflect the miserable conditions.
The taxi driver spun the wheel, taking sharp corners as we dodged bicycle messengers and wagons that pulled towers of fruit. The buildings had porch overhangs sagged by the humidity. I looked down at my legs, covered in the same bright stockings I had been shot in. I brushed my hands over the thin fabric, thinking of the dreamy doctor and the way he had so tenderly touched my legs. I tried to remember his name. Ben, he had said. Ben Robinson. An all-American name. I closed my eyes, reliving the embarrassment of him seeing my confession note. I wondered what type of girls he dated; classically-educated, well-pedigreed girls spending a semester in Paris touring the galleries. Not fakes like me, who show up wearing crayon makeup and bullet holes.
The taxi made a tumultuous turn onto a dirt road and I turned my head out the window.
“Are you sure this is the right place,” I asked, forgetting that when I hailed the car outside of the airport, the driver had spoken only enough English to tell me the cost. I brushed my fingers over the cell phone in my lap, smooth and black like licorice candy, and let my eyes skim over the address Motley had texted me. I repeated the address once more for the cab driver.
I knew the whole trip was Motley’s twisted version of payback for screwing up the Eiffel Tower job as soon as the cab pulled up to the house and I laid eyes on a ramshackle pink bungalow with a brood of filthy chickens loitering out front.
"Wait right here," I told the driver. I charged towards the house and swung open its moth-ravaged screen door.
"Alice? Is that you?” a male voice framed by a Dutch accent was calling from the halls within. A tall, skinny man, dressed in a tunic and with his blond hair tied back in a ponytail, eclipsed the doorway. His age was about forty but the sun had textured his skin to the harshness of a man in his seventies. I recognized him immediately.
"David!" I called out, dropping my bag and giving him a hug. “The legendary David Xad, live and in person, I don’t believe this.” His embrace was so delicate that it was easy to forget he was a trained martial artist who could kill a man with his bare hands. “It’s so great to see you.” I pulled away to look him over. He looked exactly the same as he did three years earlier when the two of us spent an intensive weekend in Tokyo, during which he taught me a mastery of Martial Arts moves.
“It’s superb to see you, Alice,” David said through his roseate lips. He helped me inside the house and led me into the kitchen. He turned on the stove for tea and set out two small oriental mugs. The crinkly lines in his forehead pushed together in concern as he announced, “I heard about the little snafu on the Eiffel Tower.”
“Ah, my reputation precedes me again.” I leaned over the gas burner to light a cigarette.
“A reputation is not a terrible thing to have, but it is said that the reputation of a thousand years may be determined by the conduct of one hour.”
“I guess screwing up the Eiffel Tower job wasn’t my finest hour then, huh?”
“Alice, why would you say that? You did survive, after all. Even a bullet could not destroy your ambition. You have certainly grown in strength and skill since the last time I saw you.”
“Well, geez, David, when Motley sent me off for my training with you in Tokyo I had only been working for him, for what? Two weeks? I was a baby.”
“Your survival speaks to your acquired maturity.”
“I owe a lot of my survival to you. I’ve gotten myself into some pretty stupid jams, but I’ve always been able to rely on the moves you taught me to save my skin.”
David kneeled onto a cushion on the floor and lit incense beside a small statue of Buddha, and in the background the sound of a small Zen fountain trickled serenely. There was a deck of Fool’s Luck playing cards splayed out on the table into a half-built game of Solitaire. The inside of the house felt like a small oasis despite being an absolute crap hole. I sat down cross-legged on the floor next to David and smoked my cigarette. My pinwheel stockings and mini skirt struck a peculiar contrast alongside his yeast-colored tunic and bare feet.
“And the mantra helps you too, doesn’t it, Alice?” he asked.
“Kitto Katsu,” I said, grinning like the Cheshire cat. “I will surely win.” I turned my scarred hands palm up and spread them over my folded knees. “You taught me that motto as I climbed down the Tokyo Sky Tree during my training. I remember the feeling of the wind battering all around me and my cheeks burning with tears with each trembling step my feet took. I pictured myself there again when I crawled down from the Eiffel Tower after being shot at. That’s how I survived.”
David adoringly studied my hands. “I brought you up on the Tokyo Sky Tree because sometimes our adversaries are not other people, but merely ourselves. We can only realize that as we come up against manmade adversaries of pillar and steel.”
“You know, David,” I spoke with my eyes surveying the water spots on the wall and the shag rug that had been chewed by mice, “when you taught me about Kitto Katsu, we stayed at your mansion near Mount Takao, which was, well, to be honest, exactly where I would expect a guru ninja assassin to live.”
“A man wastes many miles stepping around his point, Alice. So tell me, is that a statement on my current living arrangement?”
“No offense, but what are you doing living in this rundown hovel?” The incense was doing little to mask the stench from the chicken coop that was wafting inside with the breeze. “Plus, I thought you had that little villa high up in the Alps in addition to the house I stayed in during my time in Japan.”
The tea kettle whistled and David glided over to the stove. “I came down here to do some thinking.” He poured steaming water into each cup and sank two teabags. “Thinking which can only be done away from such lavish accommodations. What about you?” He transferred one of the mugs into my hand. “Are you down here to hide from something, or do you have a job to complete for Motley in Rio?”
“A job,” I answered, and then I shot him a playful look of accusation. “Is Rio the kind of place people usually come to hide? Is that why you’re here, David?”
“A man can never hide from himself, Alice.”
“So is that a yes?”
“No, Alice, my purpose for being down here is to complete a degree of advanced training so that I might master the element of surprise for use on a very special opponent to whom my journey is leading me to.”
“An opponent? In that case,” I said, tipping my mug to him before plunging it to my lips, “Kitto Katsu.”
“Kitto Katsu,” David repeated, as his lips disappeared behind his mug.
Our serene moment was interrupted by my cell phone chirping. I knew it would be Rabbit checking up on me. “Excuse me, David.” I scrambled to my feet and walked outside for privacy.
“Silence surpasses speech,” I heard David proselytize as I eased the door shut behind me. He found mobile phones a painful exercise in the human condition’s unease with silence.
"Oh, Rabbit, you better not be enjoying five-star accommodations right now," I huffed into the phone. “I mean it. I don’t want to hear a peep about a cold margarita in your hand or babes sunning themselves by the pool of the Ritz Carlton.”
"Calm down, Alice. I haven't checked in anywhere yet. I'm sitting on a stool inside an internet café about six miles from where you are. I don’t even think there is a Ritz in Rio. How did you know I was in Rio by the way?”
“Rabbit, in three years Motley has never sent me on a mission without you riding my rawhide. So, are you ready to go visit this Benny Nebraska fellow or what? Rabbit?" I did a grunt of frustration because my phone’s reception was terrible and the chicken coop stench was nearly asphyxiating me.
"Almost ready,” Rabbit answered, and I could detect slyness in his voice, even beneath the static. “But first, Motley wants me to tell you that there’s a gift
for Nebraska inside the chicken coop out in back of the house. You have to go get it so you can deliver it to him.”
“Gift?” I repeated. “You mean the payoff money for Nebraska, right?”
“Yup, oh and a helpful hint for you, the address to Nebraska’s apartment is also scribbled on a paper that’s attached to the briefcase.”
“That’s cryptic. Wouldn’t it have just been easier to tell me the address? While we’re being illusive, should I check the sky for smoke signals to get this guy’s phone number?” I looked out into the yard, at the coop where the wind was throwing that awful stench at me. Oh, I thought to myself, this was definitely payback from Motely. “You get shot out of the Eiffel Tower one time and suddenly you’re on everybody’s crap list, huh, Rabbit?”
“You probably want to get a quick start on this, so I’ll let you go now, Alice.”
“How generous of you,” I groaned. “I freaking hate these little games.”
I hung up with Rabbit and set the phone down on the back stoop, setting my eyes on the coop. I began walking towards it, my approaching presence causing the chickens inside to go wild. I carefully lifted the latch on the door, causing the chickens to go nuts, clucking, and pooling an effort to inflict death by a thousand little pecks. I could see a black Victorinox briefcase partially buried beneath a pile of wood chips which had been abundantly defecated on.
I pushed up the latch and stormed inside, batting away one chicken after another, as feathers whirled into the air with tornado-strength fervor. My heel landed inside a water bowl, and I very indelicately flew knees-over-chin onto my back. I grunted, rolled to where the briefcase was, and lifted it by the handle. I shot up to my feet and stormed back out the gate, shutting it against the turbulent chatter of the chickens.
David was leaned up against the side of the house, watching me with a pious smile on his face.
“Did you really have to watch that?” I asked. “I’m humiliated.”
“Shame will not advance a cause.”
I trudged towards him, holding the briefcase. “At least I got it,” I told him. I held the briefcase up; its sheening surface resonated like black oil in the sun. “Wait, something isn’t right. There is supposed to be a paper with an address attached to the briefcase, but I don’t see any paper. Do you think the chickens might have eaten it? There certainly was enough poop in that coop.”
“If there is supposed to be a paper attached to the briefcase you seek, but there isn’t a paper attached to the briefcase in your hands, then wisdom makes it obvious to us that the briefcase in your hands is not the briefcase you seek.”
“Or the nasty grubbing chickens ate the note,” I offered alternately.
“But wisdom makes it obvious,” he began again.
Not wanting to hear any more from him, I cut him off with a huff. “Wisdom makes it obvious,” I paused to exhaust an irked sigh, “that I was set up by my partner to be on the laughing end of some stupid joke. That’s what this is about, isn’t it David? And they told you about it too, didn’t they?” I dropped the briefcase onto the dirt and kicked it so that it barreled onto its edges.
“Is it that you were set up by your partner, or did you set yourself up?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Alice, you were so busy looking for the briefcase amidst all the chaos of the chicken coop that you didn’t stop to consider that there might be an easier answer.”
“What do you mean, David?” I asked impatiently, wiping the veil of sweat from my forehead.
He pointed back towards the coop, but not straight at it, a few feet off to the side, where there stood a bird bath carved into the shape of a Shinto shrine. There was a pristine ivory briefcase resting over the basin of the bath, which I had overlooked. “Kick the black one over to me,” David instructed. I kicked it over and he bent down and popped open the lid to reveal the empty interior. “Think, Alice. Really challenge yourself.”
“The only reason Motley would send me to Nebraska’s apartment with a briefcase is if there was money stacked inside.” I sunk my shoulders and rolled my eyes. “So wisdom would say this isn’t the briefcase.” David nodded and a simple, satisfied smile pressed itself onto his lips. I had seen that smile often during our initial training session three years prior. It meant I was close to enlightenment.
I set onto the grass and lifted the white briefcase off the Shinto birdbath. The outside surface of the briefcase was gleaming white, and on the front was taped a piece of white paper with the address for an apartment building on Avienda Atlantica. When I hefted it by the handle, it was weighty as money bags. I looked at David. “What was the point of this?”
“Motley sent you here because not all your lessons have been learned just yet. I have taught you many moves to use in a physical battle, but it is the mental battle that will be your undoing.”
“Motley thinks I’m sloppy, is that it? And getting shot out of the Eiffel Tower confirmed his worries about me.”
“Alice, he just wanted me to test you so that you might see where there is room for improvement.”
“Maybe he has a point, but I don’t like being chided like some silly school girl.” I waved the paper in my hand. “I better go. I have a meeting with some guy named Benny Nebraska who he hides out in Rio hacking the bank accounts of A-list movie stars, so it should prove interesting.”
“It was bliss to see you again, Alice.”
“Thanks, David. I really loved seeing you again. It brought back some good memories. Good luck with the training against that adversary of yours. He doesn’t stand a chance.”
“Kitto Katsu, Alice,” David said, bending at the waist to bow to me.
I carried the briefcase to the curb, where my taxi was still idling, and when I got inside I relayed the address on Avenida Atlantica to the driver. I couldn’t wait to meet Mr. Hollywood-hustler, Benny Nebraska. I looked down at the ivory briefcase next to me and guessed there was a cool million inside.
* * *
The driver pulled up to Benny Nebraska’s apartment building. It was nearly tall enough to be a skyscraper; a new construction with gargantuan windows at every floor level of the stucco monstrosity. I crossed the lobby and shot up sixteen stories in the elevator and knocked on Benny Nebraska’s door. When the door cracked open, a tall, lanky kid with greasy hair slicked behind his ears and a baggy T-shirt draped over his bony physique was standing there. His sheet-white skin looked as though it had never seen the hot Rio sun.
"Are you Nebraska?" I asked. My snub-nose revolver was already pointed at the soft spot between his eyes.
He looked me up and down like I was a present from his steam punk geek dreams. "I’m Nebraska. Who’s asking?"
"Oh honey, I'm asking, and you're telling." I forced him backwards into the room with the threat of my revolver and closed the door behind us. "How’s the search for the dynamite stick coming along?”
"Crap.” His eyes widened into saucers as he took in the threat of my gun pushed into his face. “How do you know about that?"
"Everybody knows about it. Well, everybody who’s anybody.” I wagged the gun. “I’m a friend of Motley’s.”
A look of recognition washed over his face. “Motley sent you? Why didn’t you say so earlier? Is he going to pay up for the information?”
“Listen, I'm going to make this real easy. I confiscate your computer and all the information contained inside in exchange for a couple acres of green, then you forget I was ever here." I threw the briefcase down and popped the locks open to reveal neatly stacked rows of five-hundred-dollar bills.
“Whoa. Nice green.”
"So, deal?"
"Not so fast. I put a lot of work into tracking the disk. It took time away from siphoning money from Tom Cruise’s Swiss accounts. I’m not so sure I want to just hand all my goodies over to you."
"I put a lot of work into digging chicken crap to give you this money. Take it.”
"Okay, fine, there’s always Paris Hilton�
�s checking account to leach from before fiscal year-end." He sank into his computer chair and pulled the briefcase onto his lap and began counting the money with a quenched smile on his face.
I ripped his laptop cord from the wall. “What digital jewels did you find for us? Will my boss find this worth his trouble?”
Nebraska briefly looked up from leafing through the rows of cash. "The last time the disk was used was a university computer lab in Brussels. I have the IP address stashed on that laptop there. The IP address belongs to the university, so technically thousands of students could have logged on from the machine.”
“Give me that external hard drive and that pile of disks too.” I was pointing to the items on his cluttered desk.
He handed me the rest of what was on his desk and I got back outside to the curb, where my taxi was waiting. The splintering sun was bouncing a blinding reflection off the cab windows as I swung the car door open.
“Congratulations,” a voice beckoned from the backseat of the taxi. “You didn’t get shot this time, Alice.”
“How did you get inside my cab?” I scooted into the seat with my arms full of Benny Nebraska’s electronics, rubbing over the bony white knuckles of my unexpected travelling companion as he clenched the cloth seat. “You are such a brat, Rabbit.”
“Motley wanted me to make sure you got through this job without incident,” Rabbit replied.
“Where to?” the driver asked in shoddy, rehearsed English.
I turned to Rabbit. “You’re the man who seems to know the plan. Tell the cabby what wondrous location we are headed to next.”
“The airport,” Rabbit told the driver. I let a stealthy smile form on my lips, since I was happy to be getting out of Rio. Rabbit’s eyes feasted on the tangle of computer components between us on the seat. “What information did Nebraska give you?”
“It looks like the last person to have the dynamite stick may have been a student inside a computer lab at a university in Brussels.”
"We’re getting closer. I can practically taste that thumb drive on my lips.”
Generation of Liars Page 5
