The Truth Collector (Demon Marked Book 1)

by Corey Pemberton

  Paul shook his head, his eyes lost somewhere in the label of his beer bottle. “No, man. You lighten up. Look, I need the money just as much as you do. But it's just a few hundred bucks. That's no way to make a living. Whatever hypnosis shit you did –”

  “That's what you don't get, Paul. I didn't do anything except look her in the eye and think of which questions to ask. It just happens. The truth is a bitch sometimes. Well, most of the time. But it always comes out when I'm around.”

  Paul took a long sip of beer and looked out into the street. “Yeah. Maybe. But people sure as shit lie all the time. I know I do and you're pretty good at it yourself.”

  Malcolm sat on the top porch step and cradled the tape recorder in his hands. “Is a lie that gets to the truth really a lie? I don't want to have some metaphysical debate. You'd just get your ass kicked. But I have to believe the truth is supposed to come out. I mean, why else would I be here? What would be the point of me… being the way I am?”

  Paul shook his head, his eyes darting from one side of the street to the other. “I don't know, man. But you could have been a bit more subtle.”

  “You're probably right. I'm going to give my client a call with the big news. He'll want to come hear the tape I'm sure. You'll get your cut when I get paid. And if you don't want to help out anymore...”

  “Yeah,” Paul said. “Thanks. Don't worry about the money. That kind of stuff just isn't my bag. If you ever have some detective stuff – some real detective stuff...”

  “Understood.” Malcolm got up, clapped Paul on the shoulder, and went inside his garage office.

  * * * *

  If Malcolm dealt in truth Paul dealt in prophecy. He called Eric seven times that day. Each voicemail he left was a bit more frantic than the last. He had to find him before Miranda could corrupt him with more lies and excuses about the strange men who got her to say things she didn't mean. There was always the chance Eric would believe her, or his desire not to know overwhelm what his head told him made logical sense. Malcolm had the tape of course. The tape wouldn't lie…

  But it wouldn't earn him any money if no one listened to it.

  Night came without word from Eric. Malcolm even tried calling the gas station where he worked, but the voice-cracking teenager told him he hadn't seen him. It was his night off. He could be anywhere, getting blackout drunk before going home to confront Miranda. He could be in a different continent banging his way through all the exotic hookers he could handle. He could be anywhere and everywhere except where he was supposed to be: paying a man who desperately needed the money. Money he was owed.

  Malcolm slammed his fist onto his desk after the ninth unanswered call. This one had been different – it went straight to voicemail. Eric's phone was dead or missing, and so were Malcolm's hopes of ever getting paid. But there was alcohol to drink and rent to pay.

  There was only one thing to do.

  He knocked on Paul's door. It swung inward and revealed Paul standing there with an incredulous expression on his face. Music blasted from speakers behind him, the only sign of life in his side of the duplex. He let out a long sigh before he spoke. “Shit, man. I thought you were Rachel.”

  “The redhead?”

  “She never called me back. I know I blew it, but for a second I thought I actually had something there. You know?”

  Malcolm nodded. He didn't see Paul but through him. The little girl from the park was looking at him with those serious eyes. When he blinked she disappeared. “I can't get a hold of Eric. I'm going to go out there and give him a copy of the tape tonight. It might be too late already, but I'm going to try.”

  Paul laughed. “With wifey and the kid home? Stop messing with me.”

  “I'm not.”

  “You're crazy, man.”

  Malcolm cocked his head to the side, considering it. “I won't debate you there. Look. I need that money, Paul. Can you give me a ride out there? No getting the cops called on us this time.”

  Paul's eyes narrowed into tiny disbelieving dagger points.

  “It'll take your mind off red.”

  “Rachel,” Paul said. “Her name is Rachel.”

  “That's the one. Now will you take me? You don't even have to get out of the car. Promise. It'll be the most interesting part of your night.”

  Paul sighed again and crossed his arms in front of his chest. But it was a defeated sigh, performed more out of obligation than anything else. “You're probably right about that last part. I was going to meet up with this girl at the bar, but that can wait I guess. No crazy shit this time. And definitely no getting out of the car.”

  Malcolm clasped his hands together and bowed. “Sure. All of that sounds perfectly reasonable.”

  Paul glared at him, held up his middle finger, and went back inside his half of the duplex.

  He came out with a shirt a few minutes later, and then they were off. Paul's face darkened as they passed movie theaters and raucous bars with their patios stuffed to the brim with people and pitchers. He didn't talk much on their way out of town, which was perfectly fine with Malcolm. In Paul's world, the incident at the park meant trauma, a disruption from comfortable routine. But for Malcolm it was just the cost of doing business – another elbow scrape in the never-ending series of elbow scrapes that defined his life.

  They passed the Tattersall town limits and ducked off the highway onto a small county road. Malcolm felt his clothes sticking to the seat. He'd chosen a business suit, dress shirt, and the same blue tie he'd worn when he met Eric. He didn't seem like the kind of guy who would mind or even notice when someone wore the same clothes twice… if he weren't already dead or in jail for knocking his wife's teeth out. Malcolm tried to turn on the radio in the taxi, but Paul slapped his hand away.

  “No,” he said. “My cab, my rules. I can't listen to the shit they put on the radio anymore. Silence is my soundtrack now. This thing doesn't even have a CD player in it. Can you believe that?”

  “I just thought some background noise would be nice.”

  Paul shook his head. “My life's loud enough. Driving time's my break.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  Paul's eyes flashed across the front seat. “Wait. I need to know exactly how you're going to get this guy your little tape. None of this 'follow my lead' stuff. What's the plan? What do we do if the wife's around and answers the door? She's gonna remember us, man. She's probably thinking about us right now.”

  Malcolm smiled. “I thought you weren't getting out of the car?”

  “I'm not. But I still need to know. I'm not going to be mister stupid getaway driver. He's always the one who gets caught or killed.”

  “That's an interesting philosophy. It's simple. If Eric answers the door all I do is give him a copy of the tape. It's probably bad form to ask for money the same time you're dropping a nuclear bomb of bad news on someone. But I'm going to do that anyway. Hopefully he has the sense to pay me what he owes. He's not someone I want to scrap with… but I doubt it'll come to that. If he doesn't pay there are other ways.”

  “Fine,” Paul said. “But what if his wife answers? What if she starts screaming hey that's the guy who assaulted me and the dude believes her?”

  “Then we're still just two guys looking for our dog. Going around knocking on doors. Typical small-town stuff.”

  “But what about the suit?”

  “Easy. We continued our search after I got off work. I have an envelope I can drop in their mailbox if she makes us leave before I can get him the tape. Then there's always telling him right in front of her. That isn't ideal, but I'll have the tape to prove it. He already has his doubts.”

  “Jesus,” Paul said. “You think you have this all figured out.”

  “I don't have it all figured out. As you've probably noticed thanks to our… up close and personal living arrangement my life is pretty much a mess. But this kind of stuff? I'm good at it – maybe even made for it.”

  Paul stared into the rear-view mirror, like i
f he could just look hard enough he'd find the drinks, music, and beautiful women they had left behind. Ahead of them was only chaos. He shot up in his seat. “What if you're just made for making everyone around you crazy and complicating their lives? I bet you've never thought about that.”

  Malcolm smiled and glanced down at the directions he'd written, squinting at the letters in the waning light. Nothing ever typed and nothing ever printed. It was easier to be under the table that way. No banks, no emails, and no phones when he could help it. His life was cash only, but it still spent. His finger settled about halfway down the list. “Keep going the way we did last time. But this time we make a left after main street instead of a right.”

  Paul just shook his head and hit the accelerator.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Eric and Miranda's house was small just like all the others, but it stood out with its fresh paint and well-manicured lawn and picket fence. A porch light glowed at the end of the walkway, signaling them home. Other lights splashed against the street-side curtains, and a television screen flickered somewhere near the front of the house.

  It seemed this was a place for proud people – people who refused to let a lack of zeroes in their bank accounts make them hang their heads. Or maybe they were just as lost as everyone else, trying to make things look good on the surface, clinging to the top layer while everything else beneath it spun.

  It didn't matter, really. The news would break them. Even if there were a confession and reconciliation, the wedge would be in place. They'd lie to themselves and each other and say everything was going to be fine, but they wouldn't be able to pull out that wedge. Malcolm knew these things – not from personal experience but from his repeat clients. They were the saddest of a sad lot – so sad he offered them loyalty discounts.

  “Jesus,” Malcolm said. “Here we go again.” He pinched his nose and sent the muscles in his face scrambling in a dozen different directions. “Loop around in the cul-de-sac. You can park across the –”

  “I don't think so.” Paul shook his head. “I'll drop you off, but I'm waiting down at the corner. If things don't go your way I hope you brought your running shoes.” He stopped the car in front of the walkway. “Now or never.”

  Malcolm patted his shirt pocket, felt the tape. “No problem. In and out.” He went to shut the door. The taxicab was already moving. Momentum closed it for him and left Malcolm surrounded in a cloud of dust. For a moment it looked like the taxi wouldn't stop at all until it reached their duplex. Finally the brake lights lit up and it coasted to a stop at the corner. Paul killed the headlights, and Malcolm turned to the only other source of light nearby: Eric and Miranda's front porch.

  He walked up the little walkway, so clean it looked like it had been power washed earlier that day. His hands trembled as he moved them towards the door. This wasn't supposed to happen. He was a professional. But something was wrong. Relax. Give him the tape, take the cash, and get the hell out. That's all he had to do. And that started by knocking on that door.

  Malcolm did.

  He tapped softly at first. No movement behind the curtains, and definitely no money raining down from the sky either. Nothing. Malcolm knocked louder, and when that didn't work he started ringing the door bell. Looking through the window, he made out bits and pieces of a cramped living room: an easy chair, a pair of tennis shoes that looked like they'd never been worn, and a spinning ceiling fan. The television was on, splashing commercials onto an empty couch.

  Malcolm stopped pressing the doorbell and held his finger on the button instead. It chimed inside in a single uninterrupted burst, completely neglected. He put his boot into the bottom of the door a few times, which made the pictures vibrate on the walls but didn't do a damn thing to bring the house to life.

  Off the porch and around the side of the house he went. A pickup truck and a sedan rested on the narrow driveway in single file. Two cars for two people – people that should have been home but weren't. The garage door was shut, and it didn't budge when Malcolm tried the latch.

  He swore to himself and rounded the side yard into the back. A swarm of mosquitoes were on him within seconds, buzzing at each other for the best spots of his exposed skin. Flicking them off, Malcolm peered across the backyard and found trees and empty space and a small pond beyond. The grass squished when Malcolm walked across it, even though it hadn't rained in weeks. Here was where the pristine image they'd created in the front started to fall apart. Here was where putrid standing water spilled onto the yard and spread its foul stench. His shoes sunk into it, nearly coming off several times, but no fences or dogs or shotgun shells stopped him.

  Malcolm reached a patio and found the back door. He knocked on it, scraping dirt from his shoes onto the concrete, but it was no use. The few windows on this side of the house were covered in drapes, and there was no light to guide him. Past the backyard, the other side yard wasn't any more interesting than the first. He found a few windows wedged between the hedges hugging the house, but all they offered were teasing glances into a laundry room and a bathroom. Malcolm pounded on them and moved on, not stopping until he'd rattled damn near every contact point connecting the inside of the house with the outside world.

  His legs carried him back to the front porch, banging the door again. Sweat droplets flew from his face as he let the door have it. He knocked over picture frames and rattled the baseboards… and still no one came. He yelled and pounded until his rage simmered into exhaustion. Defeated, keeling over he turned from the door and faced the street.

  Then something seized him: madness, or the best idea he'd had in a long time.

  He lunged for the door handle and twisted it. It opened without a sound, releasing a blast of cool air from the ceiling fan above the entryway. Malcolm glanced back at the street before slipping inside and closing the door gently behind him.

  “Hello?”

  His voice felt heavy, like he was interrupting silent prayers of a religion to which he didn't belong. He knelt down to pick up a picture that had fallen and placed it on a little table with its more fortunate companions. Glass shards cast green and red and white lights across the linoleum tiles.

  Malcolm followed them down a hallway flanked by little keepsakes and baby pictures. That little girl from the park again, looking at him with those big brown eyes. Asking him questions to which the answers made sense as an adult with the ability to lie to himself, but not an untainted child:

  Why are you inside my house?

  Why do you want to ruin my family?

  He looked away from them and crept along the hallway, careful to not let his fingers touch the walls. He reached a break in the wall on the right side, stopped walking, and poked his head into a little kitchen. The light was off, but a few dishes gleamed on a drying rack where the moonlight came in through the window. The room was sparse but spotless. A tea kettle rested on one of the stove burners. Malcolm put his hand above it, felt warm steam gathering in his palm.

  Then there was a whisper.

  He couldn't make out the words. They sounded like the hiss of a hydraulic machine that had overheated. Every limb in his body froze except his right hand. It slipped into his pocket, where a loaded pistol was waiting. This was one contingency plan he hadn't told Paul about.

  Another hiss, and something else:

  Footsteps.

  They filled the hallway now. Malcolm crouched behind the stove and waited. Breathing shallow, gun out of his pocket. He pointed it into the hallway.

  One thump. Another. Then a tight rattle.

  Malcolm stared into the darkened hallway, clutching the pistol with both hands. More footsteps… and a figure along with them. An eye poked into the kitchen threshold, shining green in the sliver of moonlight inches away from Malcolm's gun.

  “Paul?”

  That eye bulged, and the figure attached to it stumbled backwards into some pictures along the hallway wall. Everything came crashing down in a heap of wood and flesh and sound.

  Malc
olm lowered the gun and stepped out of the kitchen, shaking his head. He looked both ways down the hallway before turning his attention to the man pressed against the wall with his hands in the air.

  “Don't shoot,” the man said in that same half-hissing, half-yelling sound as before. He closed his eye, like the gun would disappear as long as he couldn't see it.

  Malcolm went over and helped him up. “Relax. I thought you said you were staying in the car?”

  Paul opened his eyes. His body trembled against the wall where the pictures had been. “Yeah, well I didn't know breaking and entering was on tonight's menu and I'd rather not be an accomplice. But I guess that's what I get for trying to stop you – a gun in my face. Speaking of which… you didn't tell me about that.”

  Malcolm shrugged. “I've never had to use it. But when your client's an emotionally unhinged steroid user? You never know how things are going to play out. It's just to protect myself.”

  “Maybe you wouldn't need protection if you didn't break into people's houses.” Paul's eyes flew around the house. Fear had reached in and untethered them from their sockets.

  Malcolm pointed at the end of the hallway opposite the front door. “I'm going down there. Either come with me or go wait in the car.”

  “How about I go to the car and leave your ass?”

  Malcolm started walking. “Do what you have to do.”

  But Paul didn't leave. He fell in behind Malcolm, filling the hallway with his short steps and nervous energy. “Nobody home?”

  Malcolm shrugged. “That's what I'm trying to figure out. Someone just made tea, but no one answered when I called out.” They pressed forward, stopping at a pair of doors. Malcolm opened them and revealed a bathroom and a linen closet, but the rooms were empty.

  A new smell emanated from this end of the hallway: garlic and iron and onions. Malcolm turned back and found Paul crinkling his nose. The scent grew stronger as they walked. On they went until they stood at the end of the hallway. The door there was cracked open, but the lights inside the room were off. There were sounds too. They pressed their ears against the door to hear them.