Fringe - the Zodiac Paradox

by Christa Faust

  “You’re pleased now,” Roscoe said, eyes going strange and unfocused. “But when we meet again, far, far in the future, we won’t remember having met.”

  Walter cocked his head and touched his chin, curious.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Sometimes I think Roscoe is psychic,” Abby said, offering the joint to Walter. “He knows things.”

  “Is that true?” Walter asked.

  “Yeah,” Roscoe said with a self-deprecating shrug. “But I can never see the stuff that really matters.”

  “I’d love to perform some tests...” Walter began, reaching out.

  “Walter,” Bell said softly, shooting him a significant look and blocking him from taking the joint. “We need to have a private word with Nina.”

  Walter frowned, embarrassed and ashamed to think he could have gotten so swept up in meeting his favorite band that he’d forgotten all about Linda’s grandma and the Zodiac Killer.

  “Will you excuse us, gentleman?” Walter asked, ducking his head sheepishly.

  “Hey, no problem, man,” Roscoe said, hands spread magnanimously wide. “It’s a pleasure to meet a true fan.”

  “The pleasure is mine,” Walter replied as he let Bell and Nina led him up the stairs.

  7

  Nina’s room took up the majority of the third floor, one end featuring four large windows that followed the same half-octagon shape as the living room below. To Walter’s surprise, her private space was unexpectedly Spartan compared to the rock-and-roll Moroccan bordello look of the rest of the house. There were no candles or tchotchkes or figurines on her bookshelves, just precisely organized books, mostly non-fiction covering a wide range of intriguing subjects from physics to feminism to psychic phenomena.

  The pristine white linens on her sleek, modern bed were neatly made with sharp hospital corners. Only one pillow. She had a small, well-organized desk centered in the windows with a brand new white Olympia typewriter and a matching telephone.

  The only artwork on the clean white walls was a single black-and-white Japanese woodblock print of an owl. Walter imagined that her fashionable wardrobe and the various items that women require in their day-to-day beautification rituals—such as cold cream and hair brushes and lipstick and so on—must have been hidden somewhere in this mostly empty room, but he couldn’t imagine where.

  Walter himself preferred to be surrounded by soothing, friendly clutter, and rooms that were too empty like this made him uncomfortable, even antsy, like a little kid at the Guggenheim Museum.

  The only places to sit were on her bed, on the desk chair, or on the floor. When Nina waved for them to take seats, Walter chose the desk chair, assuming—based on her previous amorous behavior toward Bell—that the two of them would be comfortable sitting together on her bed.

  He was not wrong.

  “William,” she said, slipping off her big clunky shoes in such a way that they remained precisely together and aligned with the edge of the bed. Her small, perfect toenails were painted a pale, frosty coral. “Naturally I’m glad to see you, but I can tell it’s not just my feminine charms that brought you here. Why don’t you tell me what the hell is going on.”

  Walter didn’t even know where to begin, so he let Bell speak for them.

  * * *

  When Bell was done, there was a long pregnant moment where Nina just silently sized the two of them up, like a casting agent evaluating a questionable Vaudeville act.

  “So let me get this straight,” she said. “You believe that this special blend of acid that you created allowed the two of you to link minds and open some kind of gateway, allowing the Zodiac Killer to enter our world?”

  “That’s right,” Bell replied.

  “And during this trip, back in 1968, you say you also linked minds with him and had a vision of him killing senior citizens on a bus here in San Francisco.”

  “I didn’t realize it was San Francisco at the time,” Walter said. “But that tower...” He gestured toward the windows, even though the tower wasn’t visible from that angle. “I saw that tower on the top of the hill.”

  “The Coit Tower?” Nina’s rusty red brows knitted. “That’s where you think this shooting is supposed to take place tomorrow?”

  Walter shook his head.

  “No, no,” he said. “I saw lots of different things, murders, ciphers, and letters. But the shooting, it was in this warehouse of some kind.”

  “Okay,” Nina said. “I’m going to need a minute to process all this.” She reached into a bedside drawer and extracted a pack of cigarettes, shaking one out and placing it between her lips. “You do realize how nuts your story sounds, don’t you?”

  She doesn’t believe us, Walter realized with a jolt.

  “Belly,” Walter said, feeling a sudden panicky anxiety in his gut. “You said this girl would help us, but I fail to see any evidence to back up your hypothesis. I’m beginning to believe that you have allowed your libido to override your good sense.”

  “Hey,” Nina said, pausing with a lit match halfway to her cigarette. “I’m right here, okay? Don’t talk about me like I’m not in the room.” She lit the cigarette and blew out the match with a stream of smoke. “And in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not a little girl, I’m a woman.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean...”

  “And another thing,” she continued, steamrolling right over Walter’s meek apology. “I’m not some kind of decorative bunny who can’t handle anything more complicated than putting toothpicks in cocktail weenies and mixing martinis. I just received a dual Masters degree in Chemistry and Business Administration from Stanford. So how about getting down off your chauvinistic horse and treating me like a person?”

  Chastened, Walter hung his head. He always tended to get flummoxed around women, and when they were angry even more so. He couldn’t have thought of an appropriate reply if she’d put a gun to his head. Anything he said would be the wrong thing, so he just stayed quiet.

  “Listen, Nina,” Bell intervened, that warm, resonant voice of his pitched low and soothing. “We’re just on edge because time is slipping away, and we still don’t have a plan to stop this terrible thing from happening. I wouldn’t have come to you if I didn’t think you were smart, capable, and open-minded. We need you.”

  “I never said I wasn’t going to help you,” she said, turning her face away from Bell, even though it was obvious from her body language that she was softening up to him. “I just said I needed a minute to wrap my brain around what you’re telling me.”

  “Fair enough,” Bell said.

  “Okay,” she said, staring at the tip of her unsmoked cigarette for a drawn out moment. “For starters, do you remember the number or route of the bus?”

  Walter looked up at the tin ceiling as if the answer might be found in its swirls and flourishes.

  “It’s been so long,” he said. “Some details seem so vivid, and others have blurred and faded in the passing years.”

  “Was it 4?” Bell suggested.

  Walter frowned, still focused on the ceiling.

  “Yes, no... 44, maybe. And something starting with the letter P.”

  “You said the shooter was in a warehouse, right?” Nina asked.

  “That’s right,” Walter replied.

  “The 144 runs down Parkdale through an industrial neighborhood,” Nina said.

  “Yes!” Walter nearly leapt out of the chair, restraining himself at the last second. “Yes, that’s it. 144 Parkdale!” He grabbed the telephone receiver, causing the base to tumble into his lap, cord tangling around his wrist. “We need to call the transit authority right away, tell them to suspend all bus service immediately!”

  Nina stood and gently took the phone from his hands.

  “It’s 3:15 in the morning, Walter,” she said. “There won’t be anyone in the office.”

  “Right,” he said, struggling to compose himself. “Right, of course.” He paused, and then looked up at her. “So
what do we do? Wait until morning to make the call?”

  “Look how well things went the last time you tried to tell someone the truth about your vision,” Nina said.

  “But what should we do?” Walter asked. “We have to do something!”

  “We could fake a threatening letter,” Bell said. “We have enough of the Zodiac’s letters in the file from Iverson, it shouldn’t be hard to mimic his handwriting and syntactic style.”

  “Ah, right. The file!” Walter patted his stomach, then extracted the file from the waistband of his trousers. “I’d forgotten all about it. I was wondering why I’ve been feeling so uncomfortable when I sit down.”

  “Perfect,” Bell said. “Even if our letter is eventually discovered to be a fake, they’d still cancel the bus service alone that line, wouldn’t they? Just to be on the safe side?”

  “But it’s too late to post a letter,” Nina said. “It wouldn’t arrive in time.”

  “Maybe we should go in to the office first thing in the morning,” Bell suggested. “Say that we received a threatening phone call.”

  “I think it would be best if you two stayed off the radar for a while.” Nina smoked, thoughtful for a moment. “We don’t want to tip off Latimer and his spooks.”

  Walter looked down at the file in his hand. One of the letters was poking out of the top, the Zodiac’s handwritten salutation. Dear Special Agent Iverson...

  “Do you think Special Agent Iverson is alright?” he asked, thinking of how the man had put himself at risk to allow Walter and Bell to get away.

  “No way of knowing,” Bell said. “But he would want us to stop this senseless tragedy before it occurs.”

  “Look,” Nina said. “I think we should forget the transit office and trying to get authorities involved.” She crushed her cigarette into a pristine glass ashtray on her bedside table. “We have to find the location where the shooting will occur, and intercept the bastard before he gets his chance.”

  “She’s right,” Bell said. “It’s really our only option.”

  Walter found himself remembering that terrible glimpse into the Zodiac’s mind and shuddered. They were dealing with a disturbed and dangerous person—if he could even be defined as a person at all, and not an unknown kind of being from some far-flung region of the universe. It was perfectly sensible to be afraid. After all, they were scientists, not Green Berets.

  But just as vivid in Walter’s memory was the questioning look in Linda’s grandma’s dark eyes, seconds before her life would be brought to a brutal, pointless end. Gunned down in the street by someone or something that wouldn’t even be here in the first place if Walter and Bell didn’t open up that mysterious door and invite him, Dracula-like, into this world.

  “Okay,” Walter said, not without trepidation, but willing to do whatever it took. “You’re right.”

  “You said you saw a bar in your vision,” Nina said. “Do you remember the name?”

  Walter could see the woman and her red coat and her book so clearly, but the bar had faded to fragments.

  “Night something?” Walter said.

  “Eddie’s,” Bell said. “I thought it was Eddie’s.”

  “But I’m sure the word night was in there.”

  “Hang on,” Nina said.

  She padded barefoot over to a small filing cabinet beside her desk and extracted a copy of the yellow pages. She laid it out on the desk, flipping to the listing for bars.

  “Big Eddie’s?” she asked, tracing the listings with a perfect oval fingernail.

  “I don’t think so,” Walter said, feeling increasingly unsure. “I’m almost sure it was Night something.”

  She turned the page and there it was. Just a cheap, basic listing with no fancy extras. Telephone and address.

  “Eddie’s All-Niter?” Nina asked.

  “That’s it!” Walter said.

  “Yes!” Bell said. “That’s the one!”

  “Okay,” she said, tracing the address. “It’s 1315 Parkdale, that’s right on the 144 line. That’s got to be it.”

  “We should go there right now!” Walter sprang up, file sliding off his lap and spilling the Zodiac’s madness across the floor.

  A photo of one of the dead women landed face up between Nina’s feet. She bent to pick it up, and rather than looking girlishly squeamish or frightened, her blue eyes narrowed and hardened.

  “Jesus,” she said.

  “Listen,” Bell said, kneeling down and gathering up the scattered letters and ciphers, “we’ve been up and running all night. I don’t know about you, Walter, but I need to rest, just for an hour or two. We can’t be going off half-cocked or half-conscious.”

  “It’s okay,” Nina said, handing Walter a bus schedule. “The first bus on that route doesn’t leave the garage until 7 am and will take at least forty minutes to reach that section of Parkdale. Never mind the fact that transit busses are almost always late. Meanwhile, William is right. We could all use some rest.”

  “If you insist,” Walter said. “But I’m far too wound up to sleep.” He took the gathered papers Bell offered him. “If it’s all the same to you, I’ll just look over these letters until it’s time to leave.”

  “Fair enough,” Bell said, handing the file folder to Walter but looking over at Nina. “But go look at them downstairs so we can get some rest.”

  Nina flashed Bell a challenging smile.

  “There’s blankets and pillows in the hall closet,” she said, slinking over to her bedroom door and holding it open. “You boys are welcome to any couch that doesn’t already have someone sleeping on it. I’ll set an alarm and be down to wake you up at sunrise.”

  “Oh,” Bell said, hesitating for a moment. “Well, alright then.”

  Although Walter couldn’t decipher all of the complex subtext woven into that exchange, it seemed clear even to him that Nina had effectively taken the upper hand in the ongoing sexual negotiation. In all the years of their friendship, Walter had never seen anything like that happen. This was an extraordinary woman, this Nina Sharp.

  Together, Walter and Bell headed down the stairs.

  8

  Nina turned her shiny green Volkswagen Beetle east on Glascock Avenue and started checking the street signs. They were searching for Eddie’s All-Nighter.

  It was 7:37 am.

  “What was that street name again?” she asked.

  Walter clutched her seat back, anxious and grinding his teeth. It seemed as if every passing second was absolutely crucial, and they were bleeding time at an alarming pace as the little car wove through the frustratingly illogical streets.

  “Parkdale,” he said. “It’s Parkdale.”

  “You’re supposed to be the one who knows this city,” Bell said, his worry coming off as snappish hostility.

  “Of course I do,” Nina replied, utterly unflappable. “Only as far as I’m concerned, we’re not really in San Francisco any more. Everything south of Army Street might as well be another planet.”

  “Please,” Walter said. “Please drive faster! This terrible tragedy could be happening at any moment. In fact, he already could have started shooting!”

  “Walter...” Bell turned in the passenger seat. “Do you recall a particular time of day in the vision? I can’t seem to remember anything specific. We might have hours, yet.”

  “Or no time at all,” Walter replied. He frowned, struggling to recall, then shook his head. “The light was just like this. Gray, diffuse, no distinct shadows.”

  “That’s all day, every day in San Francisco,” Nina said.

  “That bus runs until 10 pm,” Bell said. “We may be in for a long—”

  Walter cut him off as the sign at the next street came into focus.

  “Parkdale!” he practically shouted. “There! Turn left! The address is north of here. Hurry!”

  Nina rolled her eyes at him in the rearview mirror.

  “One-way street, Walter. Have to take the next one and circle back.”

  His
knuckles ached from clenching. It was all he could do not to bang his head on Nina’s headrest.

  “What a... uniquely aggravating city.”

  “Compared to say, Boston, for example?” Nina smirked and let out a short, sarcastic laugh. “I’ve never been lost in my life, but I got lost in Boston. I’d rather drive in Hong Kong.”

  Walter ignored her minor barb at his own beloved city and stared up Parkdale, looking for the bus as they passed through the intersection. He didn’t see it, but that gave him no relief. Was he too late? Had the shooting already occurred? Surely there would be police. Or had he not looked far enough. Was the tragedy hidden behind a bend in the street?

  Nina turned at the next corner, Flint Street, and bounced and jolted through a minefield of potholes between looming warehouses. That at least seemed right. It had been a warehouse in the vision. Three or four stories high. And now they were surrounded by them.

  “Address?” asked Bell.

  Walter consulted the page he had torn out of the yellow pages.

  “1315 Parkdale,” he replied

  Bell looked out the window.

  “Eleven hundreds,” he said. “Two more blocks.”

  “Could you not possibly go faster?” Walter pleaded.

  “Nitida’s a good little bug.” Nina patted the Beetle’s tan dashboard. “But these streets are like Swiss cheese, and she’s no hot rod.”

  “Cotinis nitida?” Walter asked, momentarily distracted by the familiar Latin name.

  “I named her after the Common June Bug,” Nina replied. “Naturally.”

  At last they traversed the thirteen-hundred block and Nina turned left onto Bentwood, then left again onto Parkdale. Walter desperately scanned the length of the street, searching for the dive bar he had seen in his violent vision. The east side of the street was a cliff of monolithic old industrial buildings, strata of bricks and dust-covered windows layered five stories high.

  The shooter could be in any one of them, but which one?

  The west side of the street was all businesses. One-and two-story storefronts and Quonset hut garages. Auto repair, metal work, tool-and-die. A big truck was being loaded with palettes full of roofing tile, but he didn’t see the bar. Where was the goddamn bar?