by Ted Kosmatka
He looked around. He reached out to touch the water falling from the sky.
The rain was a curtain. He touched it, reached his hand through it.
With one eye, he had no sense of depth. No sense of being in the rain. Even with the rain pouring down on him, there was no sense that he was a part of it.
He realized that he’d lost the rain all those months ago in Flores and hadn’t even known it until now.
Paul walked into the gas station and paid the bill in cash.
When they were on the road again, Gavin said, “You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
* * *
They arrived in Atlanta and got two hotel rooms by the airport. Planes descended in a steady, staggered formation, coming down over the five-story hotel where Paul had paid for a whole week—a dashed line of tin and aluminum slanting its way down from the sky to land with a distant squawk of rubber.
They got an early start the next morning, pulling out of the parking lot by ten A.M.
Paul rolled the window down and stuck his hand out into the muggy air. It was already hot. As different from the raining mountain passes as a place could be. Heat was its own thing here, in Atlanta. Something you were made aware of as you stepped outside, a force that enveloped you. You opened the car door and it hit you like an oven blast. Sweat sprang to your brow.
They found a pay phone at a run-down convenience store a few blocks from the hotel. It might have been the last one in existence.
Gavin stepped out to make the call.
“You said we can trust him,” Lillivati said after Gavin had stepped away from the car. “Why is that, exactly?”
Paul watched Gavin squinting in the sun, punching the buttons on the ancient pay phone that jutted from the edge of the parking lot. Traffic rolled by behind him. Jets up above. People milled in and out of the convenience store’s parking lot. Atlanta was like this. On the move. Paul turned his head to glance at Lilli. They were like this, too.
“He was supposed to bring me in,” Paul said.
“Maybe that’s what he’s doing?”
Paul shook his head. “There were two of them when he came to get me.”
“So maybe this is part of the plan. A way to trick you into going where they want you. Maybe he’s only pretending.”
“He’s not pretending.”
“How can you be sure?”
“There were two of them when he came to get me, and the other one’s not alive anymore.”
She stared at Paul.
“Him,” Paul said to the question she didn’t ask. “He pulled the trigger.”
She glanced toward the pay phone.
A moment later, the car door opened and Gavin sank into the driver’s seat. He slammed the door closed and gunned the engine to life.
“I made the call,” he said, then shifted the car into reverse.
“What did he say?” Paul asked.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself. I got through to someone. The message should find its way to him. Now we wait for the phone to ring.”
“That’s our strategy?” Lilli asked.
“Calling it a ‘strategy’ is perhaps too kind,” Gavin said. “But a man in Martial’s position has enemies.”
“And the enemy of my enemy…” Paul said.
“Not a friend, no. Don’t ever confuse him with that. But he has a vested interest in helping us.”
* * *
That night they ate at an IHOP just outside the city. Lilli was on her second coffee before she brought up the call.
“So who is it, exactly, that we’re waiting to hear back from?”
“A congressman they mentioned by name. Lacefield.”
“You met him?”
“No. But his name came up. They said he was investigating Axiom, so I figured he was a good man to reach out to. I reached out. Now we wait for him to reach back.”
“What’s the endgame?”
“Exposure,” Gavin said. “Total exposure. It’s the only way we get out of this. We give Lacefield everything. The bone. Everything I’ve learned. All the secret experiments. That’s what I’m offering him.”
“Experiments?”
Gavin nodded.
“How does that help us?”
“We shine a bright enough light on this, and maybe we become too noticeable to disappear.”
“So we go to the authorities,” Lilli said.
“There are authorities, and there are authorities. You have to choose wisely.”
“And this Lacefield guy is going to help us?” Lilli asked.
“If he wants Martial bad enough,” Gavin said. He took a sip of his coffee. “It’s the only way out of this that I can see.”
The waitress came with their food.
“You mentioned experiments,” Paul said. “What kind of experiments are we talking about?”
Gavin toyed with his food. “I haven’t seen everything. I … don’t think I even scratched the surface, really. There are places I didn’t go. Whole parts of the facility that were off-limits. The things I did see made me not want to know more.”
“What kinds of things?”
“Things I wouldn’t have thought possible.”
“I’ve seen the impossible,” Paul said.
“Ah, Trieste, you mean,” Gavin said.
“Who?” Lilli asked.
“They take him along sometimes, I heard. On manhunts after dark.”
“So it has a name.”
Gavin nodded. “A name. It has that.”
Lilli pushed her plate away. Her meal half-eaten. “It?” she asked. “What do you mean, ‘it’?”
“It’s not the strangest thing I’ve seen there,” Gavin said.
“Then what is?”
Gavin moved his food around but wouldn’t look up from his plate.
“What is Trieste?” Lilli asked.
“I think he knows,” Gavin said, gesturing toward Paul with his fork.
“Let’s say I don’t.” Paul understood Gavin’s reluctance. To say it out loud seemed profane somehow. But Paul wouldn’t make it easier for him.
“What?” Lilli repeated.
“There are strange things on the compound. Some things part human.” Gavin’s face was grim. “Part not.”
Paul nodded. Lilli, for her part, looked at them like they were crazy.
“You can’t be serious.”
“The old man has a thing for hybrids,” Gavin said. “Of all kinds.”
Lilli stared at Paul in disbelief. “How is that even possible?”
“I’ve seen it,” Paul assured her. He held out his arm, still covered in bruises. “There was a bridge. I barely got away. It could have been a lot worse.”
“He crosses different species?” Lilli said.
“It’s not so hard,” Gavin said. “It happens in captivity all the time. Horses and donkeys, lions and tigers.”
“But why do it?” Lilli said.
Gavin shrugged. “Why does that man do anything? I don’t know. Maybe because there’s no one to tell him not to. Maybe because he’s crazy.”
There was a long silence at the table. “What is it like?” Lillivati asked softly.
“Trieste, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
Gavin’s eyes took on a faraway look, but he didn’t answer.
Paul answered for him: “It’s a monster.”
38
It took two days for the phone to ring.
Two days in the hotel. Gavin lay awake at night, picturing all the ways his plan could go wrong. When he slept, he dreamed of the river. The sound of gunshots. Margaret’s face.
It was a brief, anonymous call. Gavin’s cell rang as they were eating lunch at a fast-food place. “Write this down,” said the man on the line; then he spoke a number. “Call from a pay phone at two-thirty.” The line went dead.
Gavin hung up. He looked at Paul, who was sitting across the table from him. “That was it,” he said.
An hour later they
turned into the convenience store’s parking lot and pulled up next to the pay phone. Gavin climbed out. Paul and Lilli waited in the car.
Gavin poured quarters into the metal phone, then punched in the numbers he’d written on a scrap piece of paper.
The phone rang. On the fifth ring, somebody picked it up.
“Hello.”
“I was told to call.”
“So this is Gavin,” the voice said. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
“Then you have me at a disadvantage.”
“Come now, you must have heard something about me or you wouldn’t have tried to reach me.”
“This is Mr. Lacefield?”
“It is.”
“I heard you’re no friend of Martial Johansson’s.”
The man on the line chuckled. “If that’s all you’ve heard, then you’ve heard the most important thing, considering your current situation. I understand that you have some information for me.”
“More than just information.”
There was a long pause on the line. Gavin filled it. “In addition to information, we also have—”
Lacefield interrupted. “Not on the phone. We need to talk in person.”
Another pause.
“Where?” Gavin asked.
“There’s a pier on a lake. A place called Alcove Beach. You can find it on local maps.”
Gavin held the phone to his cheek but didn’t speak.
“It’s wide open there. A public place. We’ll talk.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow. Two o’clock. Is Paul with you?”
Gavin stiffened. “How do you know about Paul?”
“It’s part of my business to know. As you said, I’m no friend to Martial Johansson. So is Paul with you?”
“Yeah, he’s with me.”
Another long pause.
“Bring him.”
“Okay, I’ll bring him along.”
“Good. Then I’ll see you soon.” The line went dead. Gavin hung up.
Gavin climbed into the car and shut the door.
“Well?” Paul asked.
“He’ll meet with us,” Gavin said.
“You don’t sound happy.” Paul waited for him to explain.
“He knew about you. Somebody already has feelers out.”
“Is that good or bad?” Lilli asked.
“I don’t know. But at least he knows we’re serious. This is risky for him, too. If he didn’t have a lot on the line, he never would have gotten back to us.”
39
The next day, Paul was up before the sun. He stood at the curtains of the hotel room, looking out at the early morning traffic. The sky was just beginning to lighten in the east; red taillights glowed bright in the semidark. He turned away and walked to the bathroom, where he shaved a five-day stubble. Not quite a beard, but well on its way to it. A trait from his father’s side of the family, hairy as Vikings. As a child he’d seen pictures of uncles he’d never met, pale men with full, thick beards. His own father had shaved nearly every day of his life. Now, holding the razor in his hand, Paul had the impulse to shave his head, too, some instinct rising up inside him. In the end, he didn’t, but only because he’d have to explain to Lilli why he’d done it, and he wouldn’t have an answer. He’d read once that gladiators had often cut their hair in preparation for battle. It was also a sign of mourning.
A Bible verse rose unbidden: And Job arose, tore at his clothes, shaved his head, and worshipped.
He put the razor by the sink.
His morning routine woke Lilli, who joined him in the steaming shower. Water rained down on her, plastering her spiky black hair to her head. She closed her eyes and moved against him.
“You’re up early,” she said.
“I’m sorry I dragged you into this.” He wrapped his arms around her.
“It’s not your fault. You gave me a choice, remember? I chose.”
“You didn’t choose this.”
“And neither did you. You didn’t know all this was going to happen.”
“It’s still my fault. If I hadn’t contacted you…”
“I’d still be at my job. So what? I don’t blame you.”
“I blame me.”
“Well, stop,” she said. She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him. Water cascaded over them, but not between.
After, they dressed and met Gavin in the lobby. They found him sipping a hot cup of coffee and reading the newspaper in a plush green chair of the sort that seemed built exclusively for use in hotel lobbies.
Gavin glanced at his watch when he saw them. “You ready?”
Paul nodded.
They walked out to the car and drove to Alcove Beach in silence. No one spoke, save Paul calling out the directions he’d printed from the hotel computer the night before. “Turn here,” he said as they approached their destination.
They paid four dollars at the booth, then followed a narrow roadway that led up to an immense parking lot. Gavin drove to the very front, where beach sand had begun to drift up onto the pavement. He put the car in park and they climbed out. The sun beat down on them. “You stay here,” Gavin said.
“I’m coming,” Lilli said.
“No.” Gavin’s voice was firm.
“That’s bullshit,” she snapped. “You think because—”
“Your gender has nothing to do with it, I assure you,” Gavin said. “You have the bone. It’s as simple as that.”
Lilli looked skeptical.
“It’s our leverage here. Someone has to stay back.”
“What about him?” Lilli asked, gesturing to Paul.
“They already know about him. Mentioned him by name, in fact—remember?”
Paul raised his hand to shield his gaze from the sun and looked out toward the pier. “This congressman of yours seems particularly well informed,” he said.
“And what if things go badly?” Lilli asked.
“Then you coming along certainly wouldn’t help. In fact, it would be even worse, because then the bone would be compromised. You’re our insurance policy.”
Gavin tossed Lilli the keys. “If there’s a problem, don’t hesitate. Just go.”
Paul and Gavin climbed up onto the sand. Just over the rise, people played volleyball and lounged in the sun. Two teenagers tossed a football back and forth, while children seemed to run everywhere. Lifeguards sat on huge white chairs, surveying it all with an air of casual disinterest. Paul saw the water—children splashing in the shallows, toddlers sitting at the waterline with their mothers.
Paul and Gavin veered to the left as they trudged through the loose sand, walking until they eventually came to the edge of a low cement walkway. The long sidewalk ran parallel to the beach, extending for a hundred yards before ending at a short stairway that led up to the pier. The pier was weathered old concrete, ten feet wide, jutting a quarter mile out into the lake.
“Do you see them?” Gavin asked as they walked.
Paul nodded.
There were already men in position. It was easy to pick them out once you knew they were there. A man in a sport jacket and a baseball hat, sitting on the low cement wall. Another man leaned with his back against a pavilion, casually reading a newspaper. A third man, standing on the beach, gazed out at the water. His hand rose to his ear for a moment, and his lips moved. That one wasn’t even trying to be inconspicuous. He was the one they were supposed to see.
Halfway to the pier, they passed another man. This one was sitting with his legs draped off the side of the walkway, flip-flops dangling from his feet. Paul wasn’t sure about him.
And past them all, up ahead, standing alone on the pier, casting a line out into the water, was a lone fisherman.
Paul and Gavin climbed the six steps up to the pier.
Even from a distance, Paul knew it was him. He might have recognized the man from pictures, or maybe it was something in his stance. Like he was waiting. He was in his mid-fifties, tall, and stocky without being fat
. He wore a fisherman’s cap and a fisherman’s vest. A bright orange tackle box sat next to him on the pier. He was halfway out on the pier, an eighth of a mile from the beach. Plenty of time to see people coming. Plenty of privacy from prying ears. It took them a full three minutes to walk out to him.
As Paul and Gavin approached, the fisherman glanced briefly in their direction, then threw a long cast out onto the water.
“Not so much as a nibble yet,” the man said as Gavin and Paul closed the distance.
“Sorry to hear that,” Gavin said.
“Well, what’s the old saying? That’s why they call it fishing, not catching.”
“Congressman Lacefield, I presume?”
The man responded with the slightest nod while reeling in his line.
“This is Paul,” Gavin said.
“I know who he is,” the congressman said curtly. “Grab a pole, the both of you.”
That’s when Paul noticed two poles lying along the cement, wedged against the riser that ran the length of the pier. He picked up both and passed one to Gavin. The one Paul kept for himself was slightly larger, an open-face reel, cork handle. It gleamed. It was probably ten times more expensive than any fishing pole he’d ever held.
He checked the lure. Green spinner bait. He thought of lures dangling over ice but pushed the thought away.
“So this is some serious business you find yourselves in,” the congressman said.
“Serious business,” Gavin agreed.
“I’ve been in politics for twenty years now. I’ve seen other politicians come and go. Some voted out. Some sent to jail. Over the years, I’ve even seen one or two die under less than clear circumstances. Yet I remain. Do you know how I’ve managed to do that?”
“I wouldn’t presume to guess.”
“I stay out of serious business. I see serious business coming, and I step aside, and I let it pass. Live to fight another day.”
“Yet here you are,” Gavin said. “Out here fishing.”
“Against my own better judgment, yes. And against all counsel. Here I am on this fine, clear day, drowning worms off this pier.” He swung his arm back and threw a long cast out into the choppy water. The lure made a splash and then disappeared. He reeled it in slow and steady, the line carving a slight ripple on the water. “The thing about fishing, though. If I hit a snag, I can cut bait anytime.”
