The Enigmatologist

by Ben Adams

  As soon as he got comfortable, someone knocked on his door. John reached for his gun, thinking that the guy from the photo saw him sneaking from his trailer and followed him, but John remembered checking his rearview mirror, the reflection of the deserted street, no headlights, and set his gun on the table. He put his eye to the peephole. It was black. Not black like the night, but black like oblivion, like nothing existed outside his door.

  John left the chain on the door, and opened it slowly, carefully.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  It was the only word he said. The person on the other side of the door kicked it in. The door hit John on the head, throwing him across the room.

  John’s eyes fluttered like a bird shaking water from its wings. He licked his lips and his mouth tasted metallic. Dried blood had crusted under his nose and on his chin. His face was tight and he stretched it, opened his mouth, and the dried blood cracked. His favorite t-shirt was beaded with umber muck. Fortunately, there was a boutique in Boulder where he could get another one, managed by a friend who had majored in Faux-Vintage Silk Screening.

  As consciousness slowly returned, John heard voices. He tried to speak, but could only mumble.

  “I think he’s coming to, sir,” a cold, emotionless voice said.

  “Hello?” another voice said. “Are you still with us?”

  A hand lightly slapped John’s face. He shook his head, fully waking to a world of blurry figures, their forms’ strict boundaries made lenient by poor eyesight. He suddenly became conscious that he was sitting in a chair, his hands bound behind his back. Cold, metal handcuffs dug into his wrists, cutting him every time he moved.

  “My glasses,” John said.

  “Oh, yes,” the second person said, a slight Southern twang coloring his voice. “I’m so sorry. This must be disorienting for you. Sergeant, would you please?”

  A man walked toward John, holding something in his hand. John flinched as the man reached for him, but relaxed as his glasses were placed on his face. The man didn’t put them on all the way and they were tilted, the frame halfway covering his left eye. John instinctively moved to adjust them, but the restraints cut him. He grunted in pain and annoyance.

  John looked around the room. He was still in the motel, sitting next to a table. Two heavily armed soldiers stood next to him, dressed in black. It was the first time John had been this close to soldiers that hadn’t been in video games. He’d seen several in Denver, but they weren’t young. They were the career types, officers whose responsibilities, the lives of young men, had aged them.

  An older man with white hair, wearing a blue Air Force uniform, sat on the bed. His jacket and hat lay on the bed with him, next to John’s wallet, phone, and gun.

  “I don’t really know what’s going on here,” John said. “But I’m pretty sure there’s been a misunderstanding.”

  “Colonel Alvin P. Hollister, United States Air Force,” the man said, a programmed formality. “You and I are going to have a conversation about your nocturnal activities.”

  One of the soldiers whispered in Colonel Hollister’s ear, handed him John’s driver’s license and business card.

  “Seriously,” John said, “I think you got the wrong room or something.”

  “That’s interesting. But you’re more interesting, aren’t you?” Colonel Hollister said, reading John’s ID. “John Abernathy, Private Investigator.”

  John scooted against the motel chair, seeing the age hidden in Colonel Hollister’s eyes. Not wrinkles or crow’s feet, but the exhaustion of a true believer.

  “Just let me know what you want,” John said. “I’m more than happy to help out.”

  “That depends,” Colonel Hollister said, “on what you were doing at that trailer tonight.”

  “That’s what this is about? the guy in the trailer? I don’t know him, don’t know anything about him. I was just hired to…”

  Colonel Hollister nodded once to the soldier next to John. The soldier punched John, knocking off his glasses again. His jaw felt like it had been crushed by a cinderblock and his mouth filled with metallic tasting blood.

  “What the fuck?” John said, spitting blood on the floor. “You asked me a question, remember? I’m just trying to give you an answer.”

  “Now, what were you…” Colonel Hollister stopped. He examined John closely, visually dissecting him. “When I walked in, I could have sworn you had a broken nose. Sergeant, I thought you said you broke his nose when you kicked open the door.”

  “I did, sir.” The sergeant leaned in, inspected John. As he got closer, his features came into focus, his straight jaw, close-cropped hair, the abandoned look in his eye.

  “John,” Colonel Hollister asked, “were you ever sick as a child? Ever have any broken bones?”

  “I thought you wanted to know about the trailer.”

  “Why do you wear glasses?”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “I wonder what happens when you leave your glasses off for a while.” Colonel Hollister tilted his head like he was pondering John’s poor vision.

  “Look, you want to know about the trailer, let’s talk about it. The guy’s a slob. You shoulda seen the place, shit everywhere. Can I just have my glasses back? I get headaches without them.”

  “Well, we don’t want that.” Colonel Hollister leaned over, picked up John’s glasses, and placed them on his head. “I normally don’t conduct interrogations. I’m a scientist. I prefer the lab. Research doesn’t lie. Not like people. People think they’re clever. I don’t have the patience for clever. Now, about the trailer…”

  Colonel Hollister motioned to the man standing next to John. He pulled an iPad out of one of the many pockets on his vest. He held the screen in front of John. It showed John’s car from the rear, John crossing the street, going into the trailer park.

  “Yeah, that’s me, going to the guy’s trailer. We established this.”

  “Fast forward,” Colonel Hollister said.

  The man fast-forwarded the video. John is running from the trailer park. He removes his hood, and unintentionally looks up, into the hidden camera. The man paused the video, zoomed in on John’s face.

  “You remember the trailer now?” the colonel said, his voice sounding hollow.

  “You obviously know I do. I don’t know how many times I have to tell you this, I’m on a case.”

  “I’ll tell you what you were doing there. You were looking for this man.” He held up a copy of Mrs. Morris’s picture, a printout John kept in his bag. “Why are you looking for him?”

  “Yeah, I told you that. The National Enquirer hired me to find him. But when I went to the trailer, the guy wasn’t there.”

  “Then you’re of no use to me. Kill him,” he said, gesturing to his men.

  “Wait. What the fuck? Hey…Hey, just give me a chance to explain. There’s been some kind of mistake.”

  “Leave his body here. It’ll send a better message.” The two soldiers grabbed John’s shoulders, slammed him back into the chair, tried to hold him steady.

  “To who? the guy in the trailer?” John asked, struggling against them. “Who is he? Who are you looking for?”

  “Keep it quiet, but messy,” Colonel Hollister said to the soldier standing next to John. He put the iPad away and pulled out a large knife. He grabbed a handful of John’s hair, pulled his head back, exposing his neck.

  “He has pictures of you,” John blurted out. “Pictures of you and Elvis.”

  The colonel held up his hand. The sergeant released John’s hair, pushed him forward. He sheathed his knife.

  “You didn’t know he had pictures of you?” John sat back, panting. His mind began to move laterally, skirting around obvious questions to something more obscure. “Or that he was following you? What does he have on you?”

  “Tell me about the pictures.”

  “You were friends, weren’t you? you and Elvis? That’s what the pictures show. The two of you.”
<
br />   Colonel Hollister stood. He walked to the window and drew the curtains back.

  “We were friends. Not many people can say that,” Colonel Hollister said, putting his left hand on the window. He didn’t drop his head, look to the place where the carpet joined the wall. Instead, he looked at the black parking lot, the barely lit street. At something in the darkness.

  “In the pictures, he seemed happy, comfortable, like he enjoyed talking to you.”

  “There’s never enough time to…” Colonel Hollister took his hand from the window and held it behind his back.

  “He knows you’re watching him, doesn’t he? That’s why you haven’t gone in the trailer. He’s smart. Sneaky. Knows where you have your cameras. That camera angle,” John said, motioning to the soldier with the tablet, “it’s not from the gas station. I’m guessing it’s from a lamppost or telephone pole, maybe a junction box. I bet you even have a satellite over it right now. He probably knows about that, too, and knows how to avoid them both. That’s why you haven’t found him yet. Who is this guy? Why are you looking for him?”

  “An old acquaintance,” Colonel Hollister said. “Someone I need to talk to.”

  “He has something you need? information? I can find him for you.”

  “I thought you already had a client,” Colonel Hollister said.

  “The Enquirer? They don’t care about finding this guy.”

  “You’re just a kid.” He looked down at John.

  “And that’s a bad thing? I can go places you can’t, talk to people you can’t.”

  “And I imagine this will cost me?”

  “Right now,” John said, thinking about how Rooftop would negotiate with someone who had handcuffed and punched him, “my client’s paying me two thousand dollars a day.”

  “Two thousand dollars a day?” Colonel Hollister said, startled by the expense.

  “Take the cuffs off and we can negotiate.”

  Colonel Hollister nodded. The sergeant uncuffed John. The handcuffs had cut off the circulation to John’s wrists and left them white with red and raw rings around them. John rubbed his wrists and fresh blood flooded them, waking them. He flexed his fingers.

  “My fee,” John said, “fifteen hundred a day, plus expenses.”

  “One thousand,” Colonel Hollister countered.

  “And my five thousand dollar retainer. Up front, of course.”

  “Your confidentiality does have a price, doesn’t it?” Colonel Hollister picked his jacket up off the bed. He pulled a money pouch out of his pocket, unzipped it, and removed a stack of cash, all hundreds. The colonel counted out fifty, left them on the bed, and slipped the pouch back in his jacket.

  He picked up John’s business card, wrote on the back. “This is my number.”

  “I’ll contact you when I find something,” John said.

  Colonel Hollister motioned his men out.

  “You know,” he said, stopping at the door, “I’m usually pretty good at anticipating the unforeseen, but, I must say, I did not expect you.”

  “What, a P.I.?”

  “No, an Abernathy.” And he walked out.

  John ran to the door, tried to catch him, find out what he meant.

  “Wait! Wait!” John shouted, running into the parking lot as the colonel was pulling away from the motel, his taillights already down the road.

  John chased them down Grand Avenue, heedless of the loose pebbles and broken glass that were scattered across the street, gouging his bare feet. He lost sight of them when they turned onto East University, heading to the interstate.

  Standing in the middle of the road, the stomach pains from earlier returned and John clutched his bloodstained shirt. A breeze picked up, blowing dirt across the road, a desert visitor. The air was fragrant, not the normal smells of trash, diesel exhaust, dead skunks, the slow decay of a small town, but with something that made John remember his childhood, sitting in the park reading comic books with his mother. It sedated him, made him feel content.

  He walked back to the motel, holding his stomach, the pain dwindling as he approached his room.

  In the motel bathroom, John rinsed caked blood from his face and blew blood clots from his nostrils. He calmly went to bed, knowing the Air Force wouldn’t return. They might return some night, waiting in the room for him again, but not tonight. Tonight, John fell asleep, unaware of the eyes peeking just above the bottom of his window.

  The next morning, a key turned in the lock. The sound snapped John from his sleep. He sat up in bed, reached for the gun on the nightstand. He was not the same angry kid Rooftop used to take to the shooting range, envisioning his father’s face on the targets. He hadn’t been to the shooting range in years, and art school had changed his Old West views. But the Air Force spooked him. The broken chain rattled as the key turned and there was nothing stopping someone from forcing their way into his room. John pointed the gun at the door and his hand shook as the door creaked open a crack and the morning and the routines of the small hotel imposed themselves upon him.

  “Housekeeping,” a woman said in a thick, Mexican accent. It was just the maid, not uniformed men armed with guns and iPads.

  “Still sleeping. Come back later,” he said, collapsing into the bed. He clutched the gun to his heart.

  She apologized in broken English, and quickly shut the door. A cart, heavy with cleaning supplies, creaked to the next room on worn, uneven wheels.

  John put the gun on the nightstand. The clock. It was a little after eleven. Six hours of tossing under starched sheets and synthetic blanket. The sun burned through the cracks in the curtains. He tried to fall asleep again, but lay there, feeling sticky from a stressful snooze. John rubbed his throat where the soldier had held the knife. He could have died last night, been killed just like the kid, on his own for the first time, unprepared. What had he gotten himself into? He could pack up, run back to Denver, but the kid had died alone in the desert, unable to fulfill his journalistic aspirations, while John clicked away at his computer, searching for the right words. He rubbed his wrists, noticed the abrasions from the handcuffs were gone, his skin fresh and healed, and decided to get up, to keep looking for the guy in the photo. He owed it to the reporter.

  A phonebook hid in the nightstand’s only drawer. It was thin, a small-town phonebook containing yellow and white pages. He flipped through the yellow pages to the bar section. There were bars around New Mexico Highlands University. John shuddered, remembering boorish University of Colorado-Boulder parties and DJs playing songs about doing shots. He couldn’t think of an Elvis song about shots, so he ruled out the college bars. The rest of the bars were in the plaza. That’s where he’d start.

  * * * *

  Everything spread from the plaza, the town center, like cracks in a windshield. At one end stood brick and mortar history, the stately Plaza Hotel, a grand hotel predating statehood. The plaza extended into the downtown, a desolate blend of brick and tumbleweed. It seemed empty but watchful, like old, Colorado ghost towns, restless. Mud brick walls dissolved and intricate facades deteriorated under sun and time.

  Rooftop used to say, ‘Pueblo’s the armpit of Colorado.’ Driving through town, John thought Las Vegas might be the armpit of New Mexico.

  Several restaurants and bars inhabited the older buildings surrounding the plaza. At least one person had to know the man in the picture.

  John walked into a neon-lit hole occupied by a couple of retired cowboys riding bar stools. He asked them about the photo, but they couldn’t make anything out in dim lights. And the daytime drinking didn’t help.

  The bartender was bearded and overweight. The sleeves had been cut from his black t-shirt, exposing hairy upper arms. John asked him about the man in the photo. The bartender didn’t even look at it. He pulled out the biggest handgun John had ever seen, a Colt Python with an eight-inch barrel. John recognized it from the first-person shooters he played in high school, the type of gun that would blow the head off a zombie or alien. The bart
ender stared at John, a preamble to a showdown. John didn’t say anything. He bolted out the door and across the street.

  Collapsing on a bench, John collected himself, tried to catch his breath. He’d been threatened twice in twelve hours. Making puzzles wasn’t nearly this dangerous. All he had to worry about was high blood pressure from sitting all day, maybe developing restless leg syndrome. And John swore on his puzzle notebook that everything would be different when he returned home. He wouldn’t take his time working on puzzles for granted. He’d be fully engaged in the creation of each clue. He’d put everything he had into finding filler words that would supply subtext for his theme words. When he returned home, things would be different. But he had to finish the case first, find the man in the photo. He had to check out the other bars. Sitting on a bench, John wondered if the other bars were run by gun-toting bikers, and thought maybe he should start by asking if they had any meth, then ask about the photo.

  An open door next to him. The neon sign in the window said, ‘The Watering Hole’, and he heard music playing somewhere inside. It sounded like the type of band he’d like, low energy rock not played on the radio.

  The bar was dimly lit. Most of the light came from the window’s neon beer sign and a glowing hula girl lamp. Bottles lined the back wall, blocking the mirror. The walls were dark green but obscured by framed pictures of old buildings, trains, forgotten men and women, old liquor ads, and three movie posters for films starring Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon. John recognized the titles from his Surf Movie Appreciation class, Madam Groovy’s Wondiferous Bongo Bikini, Dr. Surfenstein’s Robot Bikini Babes, The Surftacular Rock Waverider on Bikini Planet X. The classics. A ceramic Dalmatian sat by the door.

  A couple of barflies displaced their day on stools. They didn’t turn when John walked through the door or look up when he sat next to them. Instead, they continued gazing into their glasses, completely consumed by their bourbon encouraged meditations.

  “Sup.” The bartender flicked his head, his tattooed arm throwing a square coaster in front of John.