Strange Flesh

by Michael Olson

  Upon receiving evidence of my friend Gina Delaney’s murder, I could not proceed any further with my artistic response to her death. I had to take action against the perpetrators. My intention was to finish Savant with evidence of two final crimes: the one you just saw, and a companion piece showing my revenge against my brother and his whore. But I suppose that has not come to pass.

  I don’t argue that my hands are clean. I have never claimed to be innocent. But I cannot abide the idea of my brother standing before the world pretending to virtue. He is a grotesque fiend and must be known as such.

  He is aware that I’ve begun to discover the truth about him, so for the past several days, I have been evading men he has sent to silence me. Abetting him in this have been the pornographer Benito Mondano, Blake’s security goon John McClaren, and their mercenary James Pryce. There are others as well, a whole black mob of them, but you will find that these are the principals in my execution.

  My only desire now is for the world to hear this shred of the truth I’ve been able to uncover. The truth about IMP, the truth about my family, and the truth about the horrible murder of at least one innocent young woman. Whether you believe it is up to you. But the facts are there, and I hope that this testament makes it impossible for my brother to keep them from the light.

  The screen cuts to black.

  I look out my window as I collect my thoughts and notice lights going on across the street. A garbage truck pings as it stops on its way up the block. Billy’s case spins through my head. Most of it isn’t too compelling: the weight of the rock, the ephemeral light analyses, the marks on her wrists distinguishable only to him . . . Something about that snags my train of thought.

  The marks on her wrists.

  Billy’s phantom binding marks would be hard to detect because of Gina’s real scars, put there by her repeated suicide rehearsals. Yet Olya had told me that Gina had cut herself in the bathtub the night before she died. Though the wounds weren’t deep enough to be life threatening, there would have been serious cuts that should have shown up in the morgue photos. But they exhibited no recent damage. So why would Olya tell me a story like that?

  Unless she was trying to make it seem like Gina was recently suicidal.

  I can feel myself start to integrate into Billy’s theory all the little discontinuities and suspicious details one observes in an investigation. I force myself to stop.

  I look down at the viscera of Billy’s last connection to the outside world. In the dim predawn light filtering into my apartment, I can see reflected against the wall a blinking glow from the phone’s indicator LED. The sedate pulse tells me that it’s connected to the net. In ten hours, Billy’s orders will send his story into the public domain.

  There’s a part of me that just wants to let the program run, come what may. It makes me grind my teeth to realize it, but Billy’s video has seeped into me. God help me, but I believe him.

  But you just had to name me, didn’t you?

  I bring my bottle down hard on the fragile electronics. The light goes out, leaving the room still and dark.

  Billy’s created enough bedlam with his Unmasking already. A ring of privacy activists have started combing databases and news accounts to assemble a literal postmortem on the incident. The tally so far stands at forty-one arrests (mainly for the people caught with kiddie porn and not fast enough to wipe their drives before the police barged in), fourteen civil lawsuits, eighty-nine divorce filings, seventeen emergency custody hearings, five resignations of public officials, almost a hundred terminations “for cause,” three more suicides, and one domestic murder.

  Of course, another ghost rattling her chains is Gina. But if Olya and Blake are really guilty, what then?

  The police would be one option, but how does that play out?

  I walk into Nash’s office with the story that one of his suicides was actually a murder, and I know this because of a secret multimedia game created by another dead artist. Billy’s death was clearly effected with professional élan, and his killers left nothing incriminating except his video about Gina. While intriguing, it would be pulped into pixel soup by any reasonably sober attorney—never mind the kind of legal firepower Blake Randall could deploy. The video Gina shot is compromised as evidence, since I personally corrupted the official copy. I can’t imagine, in a country where Phil Spector remained free for half a decade, that Olya and Blake wouldn’t walk. And I suspect neither could a prosecutor with half a brain.

  Billy must have made a similar calculation. Is this what pushed him into the role of self-appointed avenger, or failing that, what prompted him to make sure his case reached the public?

  And what about his case? If what he says is true, that means, Jimmy, that you’re in business with people who murder innocent girls. And, knowing this, maybe your life is in danger as well.

  Like Billy said, “He knows you know. Do you think he’ll let you live?”

  73

  Mate, you realize you sound totally daft.” Garriott is looking at me like I just ripped off a Mission: Impossible mask.

  “I know, Andrew. But I’m completely serious.”

  Xan’s eyes sweep over to mine, and she asks coolly, “You want us to get on a plane?”

  “Yeah. Just until I get a better handle on things here.”

  We’re standing in her office up at PiMP an hour after I called them from a brand-new cell phone. I have to assume all my normal comms have been compromised by Red Rook. And it wouldn’t do to have Blake apprised of my new plans.

  I rolled in tired and just beginning a crushing hangover, not the best state for what I’m trying to sell them. They’d been reluctant to leave the hospital, but Olya was scheduled for a long, delicate skin-graft surgery and wasn’t expected to be conscious until the next morning.

  Garriott says, “Really, stop fucking about.”

  “I wish I were.”

  “So you’re telling us you think we’re in danger because of some family tiff between the Randalls?”

  Xan helps me out. “Garriott, shut up. He’s serious. Listen to him.” She turns to me and says, “So?”

  I sigh, calculating how much I can reveal. “I think we may be at risk. When Olya told me about our partner Mondano, I had some friends in law enforcement check him out, and he is certainly a violent criminal. I’ve come by some evidence that . . . well, that Billy’s allegations about Gina may not be completely false. Whatever the case, we don’t want to be in business with these people. They’re dangerous.”

  “Billy tried to kill us. You can’t believe anything from that nutter!”

  Xan says to Garriott, “You’re telling me you don’t think there’s been something off about this from the outset?”

  He lowers his eyes.

  She continues. “I’ve never worked on a tech project with a casualty rate before.”

  “But to mothball the Dancers? Flee to California? It’s what that dick wants.”

  Xan ignores him and asks me, “What do you propose?”

  “Look, we can debate the merits of our partners later. But I get the idea that they prefer to negotiate with corpses. So right now, we need to take that off the table. Once we’re somewhere safe, we can worry about the long term.”

  Garriott says, “Yeah, let’s have ourselves a merry vacation while everything we’ve worked for goes down the shitter.”

  Xan asks, “What about the police?”

  “We may have to go that route. But first I want to establish exactly what happened. Bear in mind, if all this gets out, it will mean surrendering control of the Dancers to the legal system. We may have to do that, but I think maybe there’s another way.”

  “So where do we go?” she asks.

  “We can stay with an old friend of mine at his beach house in L.A. He’s actually in the business. If we’re nice to him, and introduce him to the Dancers, we may get a new deal out of it.”

  Xan stares at me for a long moment before nodding. She directs an imploring look at G
arriott, who closes his eyes irritably. “Does it have to be L.A.?”

  I say, “Garriott, get Fred and Ginger. Xan, maybe you can zip up all our source code and transfer it to a new server. I’ll meet you at JFK in two hours.”

  We stand there looking at each other. Then Xan turns and walks out.

  I hurry from PiMP back toward my apartment and spend the trip on the phone making arrangements with Adrian for us to crash at his place.

  I hang up as I’m turning onto Bond from Lafayette. The street is busy with its many construction crews. I’m walking behind a pair of Mexican carpenters, and we have to squeeze past two guys in business casual and hard hats on the way into the wooden passage that takes us under the forest of scaffolding blocking the sidewalk. One of the men in front of me nudges the other and gestures back behind him. The other guy turns to look and shrugs, smiling. I check for an attractive woman or something, but all I see is one of the hard hats putting a radio to his mouth and the other rolling up the plans they were examining.

  The Mexican guys I was following duck into their site. Ahead of me now are two men in hard-worn Carhartt overalls carrying tool bags. They’re at the end of the block slowly coming toward me. Both are white and clean shaven. On the other side of the street is a pristine gray van with tinted windows. Its engine starts.

  I go from hungover plodding to red alert. Just past my left shoulder, another pair of guys walk gradually in my direction on the other side of the street. The two close behind me are still chatting amiably, not making eye contact.

  What is it? What’s wrong?

  There are too many pairs of fat white guys all converging on me right now. I come abreast of my building and notice vague human shapes through the frosted glass of the lobby door. I pause for a second, fishing for my keys.

  Hmmm.

  The van starts rolling forward now, but it’s cut off by a speeding cab coming from the Bowery. This seems like a sign, so I plant my hand and vault over the cement construction barrier into the street right in front of the cab. The driver, a turbaned Sikh, screeches to a stop and lays on the horn. Which gives me time to yank open one of the passenger doors and jump inside. The driver stops yelling when I extract a wad of cash from my pocket.

  “Take me to Astor Place fast. A hundred bucks if I’m there in less than a minute. Go!”

  He punches it, and we take the corner of Lafayette in a squealing drift. A number of faces turn to track our progress, and I can see curses forming at some of their lips.

  We blaze up Lafayette, fortunately hitting a string of green lights. Looking back, I see the gray van rounding the corner five blocks back. I jump out of the cab and rush into a Kmart across from the main subway entrance. Behind me a black SUV and a beat-up delivery truck pull hastily to the curb.

  Christ, that’s a lot of people.

  Mondano isn’t messing around with a skeleton crew. I doubt I’d still be at large if these were McClaren’s guys. Either way, how did they know I was planning to bolt?

  There’s a security guard at the door, so I walk in smooth, but then as I get past the checkout lines, I switch to a light jog. The escalators are clear, and I hustle down to the store’s underground exit. I’m hoping that my pursuers won’t know that there’s this opening directly to the subway. Maybe they’ll just cover the aboveground exits and wait, planning to get me quickly into the van rather than contend with store security raising hell. This Kmart’s location on St. Mark’s demands heavy vigilance against shoplifting punks.

  My prayers for a train go unanswered. I hesitate, bouncing on the balls of my feet. The tension is too much, so I check both tunnels for lights and then jump down onto the tracks, nonchalantly, like I’ve every right to be there. The trip to the other side is a dirty business, but none of the people waiting seem to notice beyond an elderly gentleman pointing out my antics to his grandson. I go to the exit at the extreme end of the station and hide partway up the hallway that leads to the stairs. From here I can still see the entrance to Kmart.

  Within seconds, two beefy guys, different from the ones I’d seen before, rush onto the platform where I came in. One pinches his temples and raises a walkie-talkie. I want to break for the surface, but I’m nervous that they would have much of Astor Place covered by now. A beautiful rumbling sound holds me in place. The 6 train comes up the opposite track and stops with its usual squealing protest. The two guys either get on or go back into Kmart, because they’re not on the platform when I look again.

  I’m still feeling exposed, since it’s probably only a matter of time before they check this side of the station. Thankfully, the northbound train arrives before they do. I hop on, careful to check that no one joins me at the last second. Once we hit Union Square, I’ve lost them.

  On arriving there, I race to the L westbound.

  Just making that train gives me a chance to think. How did they know to come after me now? I’d have spotted a tail from Mondano’s people when I left Billy’s. But static surveillance is a lot easier than sticking to a moving target. And Billy’s place was fairly isolated on his street. I’d never notice if they were watching with a telescope from half a mile away to see who showed up. After the Cloisters, Mondano would consider my loyalties suspect. So when I didn’t go to Blake immediately after leaving the murder scene, he’d know something was up. Were I them, I’d want to neutralize me and take control of the Dancers. Which means they’re probably going after Xan and Garriott as well.

  I get out at the last stop at Fourteenth Street and Eighth Avenue, grab a cab heading downtown, and dial Xan. My call goes straight to voicemail. That scares me, but there could be plenty of reasons for it.

  Garriott, however, picks up. “What is it?”

  “Hey, they know what’s going on. Can you see anyone strange on your street?”

  “What?”

  “Look out your window and tell me if there’s anyone loitering outside. Sitting in a car. I don’t know. Someone walking a dog around the block that you’ve never seen before.”

  “Um, okay.” He pauses for a second. “There’s no one on the street.”

  “What about in the cars?”

  “I can’t really see from here. But I don’t think there was when I came in.”

  I decide it’s worth it to risk a pickup. There’s no way Garriott could even spot a tail on his own, much less shake one.

  “I’m going to be there in three minutes. When I call you, I want you to run to the corner of Greenwich and Charlton. I’ll be in a cab.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll get you whatever you need. Just bring the Dancers. Now I gotta call Xan, so just wait for me.”

  I dial Xan, but it goes to voicemail again.

  My driver has a real third-world enthusiasm for urban Formula One, and we barrel down Seventh Avenue at an inordinate rate. Rounding onto Charlton, our starboard side threatening to lose contact with the road, I call Garriott and tell him to go.

  Near the corner of Greenwich, I get a jab of panic and yell for the driver to stop. Right in front of me is a tall bearded guy in tinted glasses reaching into his jacket. I burst out of the still-moving cab and blindside him. My elbow explodes in agony as it hits the cement, and I hear metal skittering along the sidewalk as something slides off the curb underneath a parked car. I hope it’s his gun.

  Garriott is walking toward me from the door to his building. Focused on my dramatic arrival, he doesn’t notice the two men who step out from behind another apartment’s entrance to his right. A blue van is speeding toward us, its side door sliding open like a raptor’s third eyelid. I call out, but the men behind him move fast. Garriott starts running, but doesn’t turn until one of the guys tries to torque the handle to Ginger’s rolling case out of his hand. The other jams a small pistol into his ribs to encourage cooperation, but Garriott doesn’t see it. He just reacts to the pressure by letting go of Fred’s case and trying to push away the barrel of the gun.

  When people describe moments like
this one, they always say that time seems to slow down. It feels to me like the reverse happens. The next thing I know, I’m standing in the gutter dry-firing my pistol at the van now careening up Greenwich.

  I turn. Behind me Garriott lies crumpled on the sidewalk, a bloom of crimson growing next to his head.

  74

  I run as fast as I can down Vandam toward Sixth Avenue, sirens converging behind me. I don’t feel too bad for running since the EMTs will be able to do a lot more for him than I could.

  Flashing through it in my mind, I think it went like this:

  Garriott grabbed at the gun. The other guy saw his partner losing control of it and slammed the butt of his piece down on the back of Garriott’s head. He went limp, pulling his assailant down with him. I opened fire at the one still standing. Being a notoriously poor shot, I missed three times before he dropped Ginger’s case and brought his own gun to bear. I guess I should be thankful that the bearded man I had just tackled returned the favor by knocking me down into the space between two parked cars. I hit my head hard, but recovered enough to fire at the guy trying to pick up Ginger’s case. These gentlemen probably weren’t expecting to get shot at, because he abandoned it, and I heard someone shout “Go!” All three piled into the waiting van. I squeezed off my whole clip, and I think I might have hit one of the tires, but that didn’t stop it.

  I rolled Garriott over. He had a terrible gash almost down to his neck, and blood was pumping out at an alarming rate. I called 911 and spent a second trying to revive him. The pistol in my waistband meant that I couldn’t be there when the police arrived, unless I wanted to wind up in jail on a gun charge. I grabbed the Dancers’ cases and took off.

  A cab crosses the intersection in front of me at speed, but I whistle loud enough to get it to pull right abruptly. Not knowing exactly where to go, I tell him to keep driving.