by Nick Keller
He snaked toward it, jammed the board inside and began prying in quick, powerful pumps. He heard old nails pop from wood and the aluminum siding pulled out. Grinning, he forced his way into the shed. Light came in from a yellow skylight casting dim visibility. It was empty inside, smelled rank. The floor was a concrete pad. Something caught his eye—a heavy, steel hatch, like a basement door, very solid, very heavy.
He pulled back, blood running chill. This was no basement. This was the kill room.
He squatted down and tried pulling on the iron handle. It budged. Surprised, he perked up throwing his senses beyond the shed, across the yard, toward the house. He heard nothing. Licking his lips, he pulled up on the handle and the thing lifted smoothly on huge, iron hinges. The motion was silent. Someone had greased the mechanism. This place had been used recently. It swung up and settled against a restraining cable. Stepping away from the antechamber, he felt a sense of isolation wash over him.
It was dark down there and the scent of subterrane came up at him on a breezeless waft. A concrete stairway led down into the dimness. What the hell was this place? He remembered his faceless friend—from the anonymous phone call—mention having procured homes left abandoned from drug busts. The house had been a meth lab. That much was certain.
William looked down into that dark pit, the pieces falling together. Drug labs used underground tunnels for egress and transpo, if needed. It was common in L.A. In fact, certain neighborhoods had been discovered to have miles of such eerie methods of evasion. Yep—there was a tunnel down there. It led to the warehouse just eighty feet away. Crime was near. Danger was all around him.
Christ, the thought of going down there made him pause, his body going cold, hairs standing up like the hackles of a dog. For an instant, his thoughts went to Bernie Dobbs. He needed his old partner. Dammit, why wasn’t he here? It wasn’t going to happen. Not today.
William groaned hopelessly. He’d come this far, and there was no doubt in his mind that someone was at the end of this mystery in need of help. He muttered, “Oh boy,” and stepped down into the basement shaft, gripping that two-by-four as if his life were somewhere at the end of it.
24
Dungeon
Several steps down he met the floor. It was pavement. Light from the hatch above illuminated just enough of the place to see that it was small and cramped, maybe five feet tall, five feet wide, with packed dirt walls carved out of the earth. At his feet was a concrete pathway. Up ahead was only darkness.
Hanging above his head was a naked light bulb. To the left, set in a concrete pad was a light switch with exposed wiring webbing off into the dark. He could tell that a series of bulbs extended into the tunnel at intervals. He bit his lip. Flipping the switch would flush the whole place in light. It would be a dead giveaway. But progressing in pitch black was ludicrous. It was a risk, but a weighed one.
He flipped the switch and lights stuttered on carrying all the way down the tunnel. It seemed much longer than eighty feet, his nerves toying with his perspective, but it was empty. What was way down there at the end of this place—another hatch, another locked door? Girding himself against the anxiety tempting to rip him in half, he figured he might as well make it quick, and began hauling ass in a comical duck-walk as fast as he could, crouching down and always moving forward.
Coming to the end of the tunnel he found another concrete stairwell. Above was a ceiling door, identical to the first, only this one wasn’t free-swinging. It had a handle mechanism. That meant it probably wasn’t locked. He took a step up the stairs until he could put his hands on the hatch. Looking back down the tunnel one last time, he took a breath and held it, and cranked the handle overhead. It disengaged. With teeth gritted he heaved the hatch upward opening the door. It was heavy, maybe fifty pounds, but it swung up and fell aside, catching on its restraining cable with a light thud.
The first thing that struck him was stench—the smell of old air and new agony. It was sweat and blood and body odor mixed with feces and piss. Definitely human. And something like dead rats. Shaking his head, he rose up from the hatch hole carrying his weapon with him, and snaked out onto a dusty concrete floor. Crouching low, he looked around wide-eyed holding his weapon like a bat, not knowing what he’d find, but expecting anything.
It was a warehouse, all right. The place was expansive, almost without end to the right, and easily thirty feet of headspace above. High, overhead windows offered what light there was, some of them busted out against the elements, ancient glass shards having fallen into small piles across the ground. Dust particles fluttered on the air, covering the floor, settling on every surface. Everything was old. The place had begun suffering from disrepair decades ago. Though it was empty, there were mountainous stacks of steel racking left in piles along the far wall. An ancient forklift sat under half-skewed tarps to the left like an entombed guardian rotting through the years.
Everything was silent as a grave. No whispers of motion came at him, not even from the farthest distances. It seemed he was alone. Then something jerked him around. It was a tiny noise that echoed in its isolation, like a beep. He squinted off in the distance, waiting. Another beep. There was a workstation over there easily twenty feet long with a makeshift, steel desk that housed an assortment of items and a cluster of books.
Beep.
William padded quickly over to the workstation holding his bat close to his person, as if sneaking up behind some unsuspecting animal.
Beep.
Slowing to a crawl, he approached the desk. There were surgical supplies—scalpels, hemostats, clamps, bone saws, a suture kit—all placed in a meticulous organization. There was a computer station with a sleeping monitor and a wireless keyboard. Above it was a ceramic coffee mug up on a shelf with pens and pencils jabbing out of it. Way over in the corner was a fold out table with a small, tube-style television set. Someone lived here, but they weren’t home.
He felt eyes on him. He looked behind him at the empty space. There were no shifting shadows, no glowing eyes looking back at him. Way over to the right was an enormous, plexiglass tank standing ten feet tall. A foot of stagnant water collected at its bottom.
Adjusting his attention back to the desk he saw a collection of prescription medicine bottles—antifungals, antivirals, antibiotics, antihistamines, painkillers, stimulants and several neurological drugs. He picked up a bottle of Amoxicillin, inspected the label. Next to it was Nystatin, Darvocet, Adderall and many others. He set the bottle back down. These were pre and post surgical standards, most of them necessary in a surgical environment. But used in certain combinations they could kill a person. William pursed his lips, went Hmm. This collection implied a pharmacy more than a patient. It made him wonder about the nature of this lair. Was this what he’d suspected—a madman’s surgical kill room, designed to induce death … and life?
To the left was a rack of IV fluids hanging from steel hooks in their clear plastic pouches—different saline solutions, glycogen mixtures, barium. He took a step back. His assumptions were confirming inside his mind with a chilly reality. This place was more than it seemed. It was worse. This place was evil.
Beep.
He swung around at the sound leading his motion with the bat, and froze. His skin went cold. Everything turned numb with a flash of terror. He faced a makeshift surgery suite complete with an echocardiogram monitor system on a shelf going beep. Beep. Beep. A tiny blip bounced across the screen like a heartbeat. It set next to a stainless steel operating table.
And there was a man laying on it. A patient.
Mark Neiman.
“Oh, Jesus,” William whispered.
Mark was strapped down with oversized leather cuffs at the wrists and ankles, like a mindless loon in an asylum. But one of his hands was spread open, fingers wide and articulating. He was reaching for William, desperately.
William heard himself repeat, “Oh, Jesus,” and he laid his bat down on the desk obscuring the medical supplies as he leapt toward th
e gurney. Mark’s eyes glared up at him. They’d been ruptured. The whites were blood red, yet they danced a manic jig, shooting back and forth, hardly focusing on William, only watching the shadow demons of his mind playing around him like phantoms.
“Detective,” William whispered, plying at the leather cuffs around his wrist.
Mark’s eyes focused on him like laser beams. The mouth opened and he croaked, “Help… me.”
William groaned, “What’s he doing to you?”
“Muh. Muh.” His mouth opened and closed like a clam, strips of foamy spittle stretching and breaking. “Mur. Der.” Mark’s face quivered. “Doesn’t. Stop. Mur. Der.”
William’s mind raced toward Angela Newman. Her body was dead, her mind erased. She’d been killed over and over. Electric shock. Strangulation. Overdose. There were other causes of death, too. He’d known it all along. Now it was confirmed. This place wasn’t a surgical suite designed to prevent death. It was designed to induce death over and over. It was as Mark Neiman had groaned:
Murder. That doesn’t stop.
He shot a look into Mark’s eyes and said, “I’m going to get you out of here, Mark.”
Looking up at him, Mark’s eyes went wide—as wide as bloody red moons—and he screamed in a mindless wail, “Nyoooo!” For an instant, William could see what Mark saw. It was reflected tiny but clear in the colored parts of his eyes. There was a phantom man, a pair of shoulders, a head coming up from behind.
William spun around and caught a glimpse of someone standing over him. There was a hood, black shadow where the face should have been. Then the thud of his own weapon jarred his skull leaving the sound of a gong in his ears, and everything went blank.
Fade to black.
25
The Missing Man
When Bernie Dobbs put the tiny flame to the tip of the cig, it started burning a painful orange color, like blood and fire, like a tiny spot in a big dark space. His big breath inhaled with a lonely, whispery sound and he exhaled blowing out. Smoke rose up all greasy and thick. The Zippo clicked on the bedside table when he put it away. And now here he was just like the night before, and the night before that, sitting against the headboard of his bed, half-slumped over, one hand holding a cigarette resting in his lap, watching the tiny finger of smoke rise from it. He looked at the other side of the bed. It was empty. She wasn’t there anymore. Nevertheless, he reached over to give her the smoke, then he waited while she took a puff and handed it back. “That’s good, baby,” he mumbled. “That’s real good.”
It had been a long six months. As far as half-years went, this was the worst ever. There had been a lot of sitting in quiet rooms like psychologist offices and medical clinic waiting rooms, staring at walls, smoking cigarettes, talking to no one, the whole world in neutral. But not his mind. It spun and spun like a perpetual torture machine, flogging his nerves until all that was left was the smoldering rubble left in the wake of loss.
“Mr. Dobbs?”
But as his psychologist was fond of saying, every downhill slide has a ladder for climbing back up. It often made Bernie grunt just thinking about that. In other words, what goes up must come down, and vice versa, is that it? Wonderful.
Then, of course, there was the old adage, you gotta go through hell to get to heaven. Or, every cloud has a silver lining. And his personal favorite, there’s a light at the end of every tunnel. Yadda yadda yadda. Bunch of crap.
“Mr. Dobbs.”
He’d really clawed, too, dragging himself further away from Iva’s murder a day at a time. He hadn’t known to what extent he actually loved her, hadn’t considered just how much of himself was lost inside her. He missed her. It gutted him, emptied him. Looking in the mirror every day it had become evermore obvious, he was alone. He was nothing. He was a big, fat zero. And looking at himself in that mirror every day, he heard himself grumble the words, “Bernie. Fucking. Dobbs.”
“Mr. Dobbs, you okay?”
Now, as he snapped back to himself and looked around, he found himself sitting in the goddamn shrink’s office again. Jesus, how had he gotten here? He couldn’t remember. Maybe he drove. Who knows.
He looked up, blinking. “Yeah?” he grunted.
The doctor’s receptionist smiled at him from the admittance door. Shirley. Cute girl. Warm smile. He’d seen her twice a week for the last six months. “You ready?” She said.
Bernie cleared his throat, plopped his fedora onto his head and stood. “Yeah. Ready.”
“Right this way.”
“My name’s Bernie Dobbs and uh—yeah, I’m an alcoholic. Don’t really know what I think about all that. I’d rather be drinking. I guess people say it never did me any good. I know you folks here want to hear me say I agree. Maybe I do. I don’t know. I’m not convinced one way or the other. Good, bad—it’s the same shit as everything else.
Shirley led him down a hall to the office door, knocked and opened. “Doctor Weisman?”
“Send him in, please.”
She smiled back at Bernie and shoved the door open. He nodded and stepped in removing his fedora. Weisman stood from behind his desk. “Hello, Bernie,” he said, inviting him in.
“Yeah,” Bernie said, forcing a plastic smile.
Weisman stepped to him and put both hands up on his shoulders. “You look good. Please come in, have a seat.” They went to a set of chairs facing each other, set next to his office window, each taking their seat. Weisman sat with both feet flat on the floor reclined comfortably. He paused allowing the moment to settle, then began. “How you doing, Bernie?”
Bernie smiled a thin-lipped grin. “Day at a time, Doc.”
“That’s good, Bernie. How was the weekend?”
Bernie put his hat on his knee. “A bit slow.”
Weisman frowned. “Did you do anything?”
“No. Well …”
“I guess I find myself doing things nowadays I never used to do. Went to the movies the other day. The movies. I haven’t done that since—I can’t even remember. But that’s what I do now. Just things. It makes me wonder if that’s how people are nowadays. Is that what we fill our days up with anymore—just things?”
“Was the movie any good, Bernie?”
“Didn’t change my religion or anything.”
“Did you go with anyone? A friend, perhaps?”
Bernie shook his head. “No. Went alone.”
“Alone?”
“I was happy to go alone.”
Weisman smiled at him making Bernie divert his gaze toward the floor. Weisman had learned that Bernie was a man of few words. That usually smacked of introversion, perhaps even isolation. But he’d also learned that Bernie preferred simplicity. He was the definitive “A” personality. Controlling, non-restrained, a workaholic. Ironically, Bernie also possessed a few “X” traits—crossovers from other personality types. He couldn’t care less about personal details and he hated possessive qualities. Weisman had surmised long ago that one-word answers were the equivalent of entire conversations to Bernie. They were, strangely enough, healthy.
Weisman chuckled. A thought occurred forcing a long breath. “Bernie, I know it’s been a trying few months.”
“Yeah.”
He rubbed his palms together sliding into a deeper subject matter. “Loss can be—well, it is—a very hard thing to deal with.”
“Yeah.”
“Especially someone you cared deeply for.”
Bernie looked at him from under a heavy brow.
“Someone you loved.”
Now, Bernie tried to grin, but couldn’t. It came across as defensive.
“You feel like she was taken from you, don’t you?”
“Iva. Yeah. She was a—well, she was an escort girl. I know what you’re thinking. A cop. A pro. Bad mix. Right. Nevertheless, there she was one night. I had a little extra cash, I guess. It’s no secret. Just a couple hundred bucks. That’s all it took. Eventually, the bitch took it all. Yeah—she left nothing.”
Berni
e made a powerful cough clearing his throat, stalling for time, trying to adjust his thoughts. How did he feel about Iva being “taken” from him? Hmm, that’s a tough one. How about this: I want to eat the whole fucking world and shit it back out into one big cosmic wad of steaming shit. And do you know why? Because it’d be more honest than it is now with all its smiling, unaffected, bullshit people. Then he’d finish with: Iva was perfect. You’re a dumb twat. Does that answer your question?
Instead he said, “She’s gone. She’s not coming back. I get it. Time to move on.”
Weisman studied him closely. Bernie was the perfect patient. Over these past six months his stages of grief had been as clear and definable as he had ever seen in a patient; all seven stages. At first it was shock. Bernie had destroyed his house in that stage, punching holes in the Sheetrock, throwing over electronics, screaming until his throat literally tore. That had earned him two days in a straightjacket down at the institute. It had been for his own good.
Then it was denial. His denial had been powerful, unretractable. He’d even gone through a very short period of self-loathing. It was nothing serious, there were no blades or knives involved, but he had punched himself in the head and face, clawing at his hair on a few occasions, tore at his clothes and such. The other stages—bargaining, anger, depression—they all occurred on various levels.
The really dark stage, in which Weisman was sure that Bernie still suffered from, was the guilt phase. For a huge hulking man like Bernie who’d spent his life saving lives, the sensation of guilt caused by the failure to save the life of a loved one was overwhelming. It was enough to break a man, destroy him, utterly shatter him. Bernie had tiptoed that line closely. He’d even crossed it a time or two. On one occasion it seemed Russian Roulette was his method of choice. One bullet. Six chambers. Click click bam. Bad juju.
