The Man Who Couldn't Be Bought (A Miles Franco Short Story)

by Chris Strange

  “They came a week ago, the same one we saw tonight, demanding protection money. The owner already paid protection to the Gravediggers, and my brother told them so. They left, but they said they would be back. And this night, they returned. I was working upstairs when I heard the shots. I ran down and found my brother on the floor, bleeding. The women were still there, taking money from the register and clearing the customers out.”

  Her voice trembled as she spoke, and she kept her eyes aimed at the dirt.

  Christ, this woman knew how to yank on my heartstrings. She was playing me like a goddamn ukulele. “Then you ran?” I asked.

  She nodded. “They chased me a while, but I lost them. Or I thought I did.”

  I didn’t bother asking her why she didn’t go to the cops. Even if she found an honest one, there wasn’t much in the budget for an illegal. So I cut to the chase. “And now you want my help to leave Earth.”

  “There is nothing for me here. Not anymore. I can pay.” She reached into her coat, and pulled out a wad of cash so thick it made my eyes turn into dollar signs. “I took it when I was doing the accounts, but I don’t need it. Not as much as I need to go home. Please, Mr Franco. I just want to go home.”

  You could practically hear the sad violins playing. I may be an asshole, but even I couldn’t say no to a face like that.

  “Christ,” I said. “Come on, then. On the bike. I need to pick some things up, then I’ll get you to Heaven. But keep the screams down this time. I’d like to not be deaf after tonight.”

  Twenty minutes later we pulled up outside my apartment building, a monstrosity that was one more building code violation from being demolished. I fished in my pocket for my keys, trying to blink my eyes into focus, and wondered if I’d manage to get any sleep at all tonight.

  I unlocked the front door and let us inside. It was dark and smelled vaguely of mold, but if she noticed, she didn’t complain.

  “Go downstairs to the basement and get yourself ready to go.” I kept my voice low as I pointed. My landlady lived on the first floor, and waking her would be a good way to be reminded of exactly how much rent I owed, right down to the cent. “I need to get some Kemia from my apartment. I’ll be down in a minute.”

  She opened her mouth, then shut it again and nodded passively. I nodded back—gentlemanly, I thought—and began the nine-story ascent to my apartment.

  Like always, I was huffing and puffing like the big bad wolf by the time I got up the stairs. I fumbled with my keys again, slid the right one into the lock, and shoved against the stiff hinges.

  My apartment’s not much to speak of, and I wasn’t particularly interested in seeing the mess I’d left for myself, so I didn’t bother switching the lights on. The mess was the main reason I hadn’t brought Anja up with me. Human or Vei, women tended to be highly critical of my apartment.

  I tossed down my keys and tapped on the bowl I kept near the door to check my goldfish, Munsey and Frank, were still alive. When they responded I opened the fridge and started rummaging through the Chinese leftovers for a bottle of Kemia.

  “Midnight snack, Mr Franco?”

  For the second time that night, I jumped and jerked around. This time, I managed to slam the top of my head against the inside of the fridge, and I saw stars.

  A light flicked on overhead, illuminating the dark-haired Silk Dragon standing in my living room. At another time I might’ve been drooling to have such a scantily dressed woman in my apartment, but the gun in her hand put me off a little.

  “Jesus Christ,” I said. “Who was it sold me out this time?”

  “Bubbles, I think he said his name was. He was very pliable, especially after a drink or two.”

  “Son of a bitch.”

  The fridge was still open, and something in the door rack caught my eye. A full bottle of Kemia, just sitting there, tempting me to reach for it and get my head blown off.

  “What do you want?” I asked, mainly to take my focus off the Kemia. After my stunt in the alley, I didn’t think this bitch would be too likely to put up with more of my nonsense. Come to think of it, that summed up most of my relationships with women.

  She smiled and moved toward me, her hips swinging hypnotically with each step. They made a convenient place to stare so I didn’t have to look her in the eyes. She kept her arm tight against her side and pointed the gun at me, casual, like she did this all the time. Maybe she did. “We got off to a bad start. Maybe we can get to know each other.”

  “Sure. Toss the gat, pull up a chair, and we can have a good old-fashioned chin-wag.”

  She let out a throaty laugh, but the gun stayed where it was. “You know why I’m here. Where is she?”

  “That old thing? I dropped her off by the bus station a few minutes ago. One-way ticket out of town. You hurry, you might still catch her.”

  “You’re a bad liar, Mr Franco.”

  “Yeah, but at least I managed to put underwear on this morning. More than I can say for some people around here.”

  She cocked her head to the side. “You noticed? How sweet. Would you like a closer look?”

  “Maybe another time.” My throat had gone dry, but I refused to let her see me swallowing.

  “Sad.” She pouted. “But that’s all right. I have plenty of other things I can trade.”

  She reached into her handbag and pulled out a pile of cash twice as big as the one Anja had shown me. Christ, if people didn’t stop flashing money at me, I was going to have a heart attack.

  I’d be lying if I said all that green wasn’t tempting. I could get a lot of people off my back with that money, not the least of them my landlady. I live pretty frugally—meals are a luxury for a man like me—and what she held in her hand would keep me going for a long time. My hand itched, and I could almost feel the grain of the bills beneath my fingers.

  Still, I wasn’t quite ready to throw in with her yet. A part of me still protested, the part that had kept me out of the pockets of the gangs for years. It wasn’t going down without bruised knuckles and a bloodied nose.

  “And what, exactly, would I need to do to get my hands on that stack of cash?” I asked.

  “Not much,” she said, holding the cash up toward me, as if tempting me to feel the heft of it. “I wouldn’t want a pretty thing like you to get his hands dirty. You just have to come with us and show us where she is, that’s all.”

  “I’m pretty snowed under right now. How about I just point you in the right direction?”

  She smiled, staying silent. My eyes drifted to the stack of cash again. It was a lot of money. And what were my alternatives? Say no and get my kitchen decorated with my brains? I gotta say, being rich sounds a hell of a lot more fun. And I could afford plenty of drinks to wash away any niggling guilt. Tequila was particularly good at that, I’d found.

  “I don’t have a choice, do I?” I asked.

  “Of course you do, handsome. You always have a choice.”

  “Sure doesn’t feel like it.”

  She stepped closer, moving well inside my personal space. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the gun in her hand, metal glinting in the light of the open fridge. I shivered.

  For the second time that night, I found her face inches from mine. She was a couple of inches shorter than me, but her heels pushed her up so we were almost face-to-face. She smelled of cinnamon, and she had four freckles on her face. I counted them. Somehow, despite the gun, she seemed strangely vulnerable.

  There was nothing else for it. I kissed her.

  She didn’t hesitate, she just parted her lips and let out a subdued porn-star moan. She had something sweet on her lips, and I ran my tongue along it. My left arm wrapped around her, sliding against the impossibly thin fabric of her dress, feeling her muscles relaxing beneath my fingers. There was a smile in her kiss, something smug, self-assured. She was a pro. She had me.

  My other arm snaked out and pulled the bottle of Kemia from the fridge door. Beautiful women were always so sure of themselv
es.

  I slipped the Kemia into my jacket pocket just as she broke the kiss. She licked her lips, eyelashes fluttering, and said, “Mmmm.”

  “Okay,” I said, “looks like you’ve got a deal.”

  “Looks like I do.”

  “Let me go get changed. I’ve been wearing these clothes all day and it feels like I’m walking around in a goddamn sauna. Then I’ll give you what you want.”

  She tugged on my tie. “Need help, handsome?”

  “Maybe I’ll let you buy us a few drinks later, see how we go then.” I forced a stupid grin onto my face. Well, I didn’t have to force too hard. It had been a pretty good kiss.

  She winked and stepped back. I closed the fridge door behind me and made for my bedroom, forcing myself not to break into a run. Be cool, Miles. You’ve got this.

  “Don’t be long,” the Dragon said.

  “I won’t.”

  I gave her one last look and pulled my bedroom door closed behind me. I could still taste her lip gloss on me. I wasn’t in a hurry to scrub it off. Right now, I just wanted to get out of here alive.

  I went to the window and wrenched it open as quietly as I could. By some miracle, it didn’t squeak. Maybe my luck was turning.

  My building’s excuse for a fire escape was little more than a few rickety platforms connected by ladders that were more rust than metal. Still, with a homicidal prostitute staring at her watch and waiting for me to come back out, I didn’t have many options, so I stuck my leg out the window and pulled myself onto the platform.

  The groan of the metal was enough to make me cringe, but I didn’t stop. The night surrounded me, a siren wailing somewhere in the distance. The cops were always a few gunshots too late in Bluegate. If you wanted to survive, you had to learn to save yourself.

  I scrambled down the ladder and onto the next platform, and then the next. The whole thing rattled and threatened to come crashing down. I wiped my sleeve across my forehead and kept moving.

  I was at the final ladder, maybe eight or ten feet above the alley beside my building, when the Silk Dragon’s shout came echoing out of my bedroom window. My skin prickled and I kicked the last ladder down on its sliding rail, but I have to admit, a grin spread across my lips just the same.

  I hit the ground with the grace of a drunken elephant, nearly crashing right into a pile of rubbish bags, and started running. Curses rained down on me until I rounded the corner and ran back up to the front door of my building, both hands in my pockets. Where the hell had I put those goddamn keys?

  “Hey, that’s him!” a voice came from behind me.

  I risked a glance back and saw the other two Silk Dragons jumping out of a sleek convertible. Hell.

  I went through my pockets one more time, then gave up. I must’ve left my keys lying next to my goldfish. Since I didn’t think they’d be much help running them down to me, I went for Plan B.

  Stiletto heels clacked against the concrete behind me, but I put them out of my mind as I pulled out one of my coins and uncorked the bottle of Kemia I’d taken from the fridge. It was a simple Pin Hole, designed to play with the probabilities of something with only a couple of settings. In this case, a lock.

  I forced energy into the coin as I splashed Kemia over it, and felt an instant reverberation of chaos in my mind. There was no noise; the door was just unlocked, as if had always been that way.

  I ducked inside, trying to control my breathing. The glance I got of the two Silk Dragons before I slammed the door in their face left no doubt about what they’d do to me if they caught me. I’m pretty sure it would’ve involved a sharp knife and a few choice parts of my anatomy.

  I released the Pin Hole, and it snapped shut with a mental crack of energy. The Silk Dragons hammered on the door, but it was locked again. I figured it’d hold them for about two minutes.

  My forehead was sweating so much I felt like a goddamn waterfall by the time I got to the basement. No point using a Pin Hole to lock the door down here—I’d need all my focus to open the Tunnel to Heaven—so I shoved an old box of some resident’s crap up to the door and made my way through the maze of junk.

  “Mr Franco?” Anja said. She stood in the corner, coat clutched tight around her, wide eyes opened even wider. “What is happening?”

  “Ran into some old friends, is all.” I snatched up a set of sidewalk paint and a brush I kept stashed on a broken washing machine and gestured her over to the circle I kept in the basement. “Probably best we get moving.”

  The basis for my circle is an iron ring, seven feet in diameter, bolted to the concrete floor in a damp corner of the basement. It keeps the Tunnel fairly stable, as these things go. Still, it’s not complete until I’ve marked it up specially. I unscrewed the top of the paint tube and started painting symbols within the confines of the circle. “Where do you want to go?”

  “Skytown,” she said without hesitation. “My family live there.”

  I nodded and kept painting. I could get us right into the city; I knew a good place to open a Tunnel there. Skytown was nice this time of year. Maybe I’d stay for a while, given the enemies I was making.

  On cue, the basement door shuddered as someone tried to force it open. “Franco! I’m going to gut you, pretty.”

  Anja squeaked, and I suppressed the urge to do the same. I put the finishing touches on the Tunnel and stood up. Not enough time to make the thing as well as I’d like, but it would hold. Might be a bit of a bumpy ride, though. I emptied half the bottle of Kemia onto the circle, and the symbols started shifting and swimming.

  Another thump came from the door, and I heard the box scraping along the concrete.

  “Time to go, lady,” I said, grabbing Anja by the elbow and pulling her back away from the circle.

  I closed my eyes and let my mind flicker from thought to thought randomly, chaotically. A nonsense tune built in my throat, and I started humming as an awareness of discord pressed against my mind.

  There’s as many theories on Heaven as there are people studying it. It’s a world where entropy always wins, or a quantum reflection of our own Universe, or a representation of the Devil’s twisted psyche. Truth is, that’s all posturing bullshit. Sometimes it’s all of those things, and sometimes it’s none of them. It’s chaos, pure and simple.

  The thumping on the door grew louder, but I pushed my knotted stomach down and focused on getting us the hell out of Dodge. Chaos pushed against the circle, wanting to spread out in our nice clean reality. All it took was a little tear.

  My legs shook as my strength left me, like I’d suddenly lost a quart of blood. I controlled the energy as best I could, focusing it, if not like a laser, then at least like a flashlight with fresh batteries.

  The center of the circle pulsed once, twice, and then the Tunnel broke through. I opened my eyes to find the center of the circle being sucked into the concrete, a black pit growing until it reached the iron ring that bordered it. A sense of pure anarchy overwhelmed me for a second, nearly dropping me to my knees, before I got my head back into place and managed to bring up the wall in my mind that divided the dichotomy of chaos and order.

  The Tunnel wasn’t much to look at. If you weren’t looking too closely you could mistake it for any old hole, apart from the oil-slick sheen that covered the blackness. Anja’s eyes reflected some of that gleam, or maybe it was just the light being tricksy.

  “All aboard,” I said, giving Anja a nudge. “You know what to do.”

  She nodded and stepped up to the Tunnel’s edge, her wide mouth formed into a line. Strange, she didn’t seem quite so scared now. I, on the other hand, was doing my best not to hear the threats coming from the basement door. Three voices came from the door now, not just the one, and when I dared to look, I could see jewelry-speckled fingers appearing around the frame.

  Why was it I never had enough time?

  I glanced back to see Anja extending one bony leg over the lip of the Tunnel, looking every bit like someone about to step off a building an
d end up a splatter on the sidewalk. But when her foot touched the slick surface of the Tunnel, her reality shifted.

  She swung downward, like gravity had decided to branch into new directions. For a moment, it looked like she’d fall into the pit and plummet to wherever bottomless pits finally bottomed out, but then, with a sense of swinging that would make my stomach lurch if I hadn’t seen it so many times, she was standing inside the Tunnel, perpendicular to me, looking back through the sheen.

  I offered the basement door one more look before I stepped up to the Tunnel. The Dragon I’d kissed stuck her face through the crack in the door, lipstick smeared and teeth bared. “Franco!” she screamed.

  A shiver ran through me, but I forced it to stillness, tipped an imaginary hat to the Silk Dragon, and stepped out over the edge and into the Tunnel.

  My frame of reference shifted in an instant, and I rotated through space like I was on some horrible carnival ride. And then I was standing again, with Anja next to me in the darkness, the Tunnel stretching endlessly into the distance. I switched the focus in my mind, gathering energy from my reserve, and did a little playing God. Light bloomed in the Tunnel, seeming to come from everywhere at once, casting no shadows. Anja blinked her big eyes.

  “The hell you looking at?” I asked. “Run, goddamn it!”

  I don’t know how long we ran for. The distance to Heaven is never constant, but usually it’s at least an hour of walking. From the way my legs were burning, I would’ve guessed I was running for at least a couple of decades.

  The Tunnel wasn’t wide enough for us to run side-by-side, so it was Anja in front, and me bringing up the rear. The far rear. Christ, that woman could move when she needed to.

  It wasn’t long before the clatter of stiletto heels came from behind us, echoing down the Tunnel walls. The Silk Dragons were wasting no breath on threats anymore; maybe they figured I’d got the picture. They’d be right.

  “You let them follow us?” Anja yelled.

  I was wheezing like a ninety-year-old chain smoker, but I forced myself to speak anyway. “No choice. Can’t close one end without closing the whole Tunnel.”