by Jack Blaine
“Nadine.” Morton doesn’t say anything more until we’re off the freeway, in a neighborhood not so different from my own.
Chapter 17
Morton pulls into the driveway of a deserted-looking split level. He lets the car idle and stares at the house, frowning.
“Shit. I thought it was 2523, but this doesn’t look right.” Morton gestures toward the glove box. “Can you get in there, please, Nick? There’s a paper with an address.”
I find it, a scrap of notebook paper in an otherwise empty glove box. “It says 2528. Humbuld Street.” I stretch to see the corner sign. We’re on Humbuld.
“Right.” Morton backs down the driveway. Across the street, a few houses down, is a brick colonial with brass numbers: 2528. We pull into the driveway.
“Yep. This is it.” He turns to me. “I suggest we stick together.”
“We’re going in there?” The house looks safe enough. The whole neighborhood looks safe enough. There are working streetlights and everything is quiet. But there’s an odd, deserted look to all the houses. I don’t see any lights on inside any of them at all, even though the streetlights attest to a functioning power grid.
“That’s where Nadine is, so that’s where we’re going. Unless you’d prefer to stay out here?”
I shake my head.
I lock Tank in the car and we start for the front door. Halfway up the sidewalk, Morton stops. I run right into him. He doesn’t move, doesn’t speak. He just points.
The front door is cracked open.
We exchange a look. Morton throws his shoulders back and juts his chin out. I guess we’re still going in. He touches the door with one finger, pushing slightly. It opens more. Morton stops and turns to me.
“Nick, where’s your gun?” He’s whispering in a sharp, hissing tone.
It’s in my jacket pocket. I get it out. “Here.”
“I don’t want it, I just—”
“I wasn’t offering it. I was just saying I have it.”
“Perfect.” Morton rolls his eyes. “I don’t have one, and I think we may need one. So keep it out, okay?”
“Okay.” So Morton was lying when he said he might have a gun trained on me when he first picked me up.
The interior of the house is completely dark. I follow his lead, and we make our way through a foyer, into a living room. As my eyes adjust I can make out modest furnishings, a couch, a television sitting in the corner. I don’t hear anything but our breathing.
Morton leads on, through a hallway to what looks like the kitchen. Nothing. No sign of a mess, no sign of people. He opens the refrigerator to check it out. The light shines out at us like a beacon. There is a half gallon of milk and three opened cans of Fancy Feast cat food. I notice that there is a case of the same canned cat food on the counter next to the fridge.
I wonder what happened to Nadine.
Morton looks discouraged, and I feel bad for him. I think of Gus again, waiting for his son, hoping to see him pull up in the driveway with his family. I see those women marching along single file between the two guys on the highway, and wonder whose mothers and daughters they are, and if those people are waiting for them somewhere. “Let’s keep looking,” I whisper.
We go down the back hall, past a bathroom and a bedroom. The last door is closed, and when Morton opens it the smell knocks me back.
She’s on the bed. Half her clothes are gone. The rest are askew—her blouse twisted so that the collar is over her shoulder. There’s not a lot of blood on her, but the pillow under her head is soaked and brown. There’s a single bullet hole in her forehead. Her eyes are still open. It looks to me like she was a pretty woman when she was alive. Morton just stares.
I don’t know what to say. “I’m so sorry, Morton.” He doesn’t respond. Finally I touch his elbow. “We’ve got to go.”
He shakes his head. “Not until I find Nadine.”
I’m stunned. “That’s not Nadine?”
“That’s Tessa. My assistant.” Morton looks disturbed. “She was taking care of Nadine.”
There’s a noise then, coming from the closet. I whirl and face it, pointing the gun. Morton crouches behind me. “Holy crap,” he whispers.
The door begins to rattle as though somebody is trying to get out. There’s a strange howl, and suddenly Morton is pushing past me.
“Nadine!” He wrenches open the closet door.
A creature unlike anything I’ve ever seen before leaps from the floor into Morton’s arms. I have to fight my instinct to shoot it. It is covered in weird wrinkles and has no hair. Its face looks like a cross between a bat and a demon, and its body is that of an eighty-five-year-old man with a potbelly and a tail. Morton is cradling it in his arms and crooning to it.
“Oh, my baby, oh, you’re cold. It’s okay, baby, it’s okay. Let’s find your stuff.” Morton looks around the room. He carries the creature over to the dresser and roots through the contents of a box. Pretty soon he’s pulling what looks like a tiny dog sweater over the animal.
“What is that thing?”
He grabs the box and tucks it under his arm. “This thing is Nadine. She’s a Canadian hairless cat. Very rare.” Morton snuggles Nadine close. “Let’s get that cat food from the kitchen and get the hell out of here.” Morton leaves the room without a backward glance.
We do just that. Morton finds Nadine’s cat carrier on the dining-room table and lines it with a crocheted throw from the couch. I offer to carry the case of food, but he says no.
“You just keep that gun pointed and ready. I can handle this stuff.” He stuffs the sweaters from the box into his jacket pockets and stacks Nadine in her carrier on top of the case of food. At the car, he puts Nadine in back, next to Tank. She doesn’t seem afraid of the dog at all, just presses her nose against the screened front of her carrier and sniffs him. Tank eyes the cat like he knows better than to get too close.
“Okay.” Morton jumps in the driver’s seat and waits while I get in the passenger seat. “Let’s roll.”
We rip out of there fast, and before long we’re back on the freeway.
“Sorry about your assistant.”
“Me too.” Morton keeps his eyes on the road. “I was going to ask her to marry me.” He falls silent.
“Oh, wow. I mean, I’m so sorry, Morton.” I don’t know what else to say.
He glances at me and then turns his attention back to the road. “We weren’t in love or anything like that, Nick. But she took good care of Nadine, and she probably would have said yes. I mean, she didn’t seem to mind me, and I’m filthy rich.”
“Why would she mind you?”
“I’m hideous, Nick, in case you hadn’t noticed. And most women don’t do hideous, not even rich hideous.”
“You’re not hideous.” I feel bad. The first thing I thought when I saw him was ugly. How many other people not only thought it, but said it? Must have been quite a few for him to think of himself that way.
“Right.” He doesn’t bother looking at me. “Anyway, Tessa’s dead. Just like a lot of people are dead. And nobody can do anything about it.”
Chapter 18
We don’t talk for the next few miles, each of us lost in our thoughts. The freeway is deserted for the first few minutes, but pretty soon it starts to look more like the clips of freeways they showed on the news. There are cars abandoned on the side of the road, and some right in the middle. Morton slows down some so that he can maneuver through them. It seems like we won’t be able to make it through at times, but I guess enough people have been here ahead of us that there’s a path cleared. You can tell that some of the cars have just been pushed out of the way by people trying to get through.
“Let’s hope it’s this easy all the way south.” Morton checks the backseat quickly. I think Nadine must be asleep, because she’s not yowling or anything.
“I’m only going to the city,” I remind him.
“Seriously? Still?” Morton frowns at me. “Can’t I talk you out of it, Nick?
It’s really bad in places. I was there—I know.”
I think about that, but I know I have to see if Lara is okay. It’s not like I know where she is for sure, so I can’t very well ask Morton to hang around while I go grab her. For all I know, I won’t ever find her. “I bet you couldn’t have been talked out of checking on Nadine, right?”
Morton nods. “Actually, I went back for Tessa.” He taps his fingers against the steering wheel as he drives. “I know I sounded like an asshole earlier. I mean, I do love Nadine, but I’m not an idiot. I don’t know that I would have risked going back for her. But for her and Tessa? No question.” He glances at the backseat. “Let’s hope she’s asleep and didn’t hear that.”
“I’m sorry. About Tessa.”
Morton nods and grits his teeth. I can see his jaw tightening. I get the feeling if he speaks he’ll lose it, so I let the moment go by. The city is in view below us. There are still lights twinkling and it looks almost like any other time I’ve come into the city at night. Almost. Except there are plumes of black smoke rising up to the sky in places, and some of the skyscrapers are dark. And it’s eleven in the morning, according to my vintage Timex.
“Almost there.” Morton sounds doubtful. “You sure?”
“Yep. If you just drop me at the city center exit, I should be fine.”
“Where are you trying to get to?”
I tell him Lara’s address. I still have it written down, but I don’t even need to look at the paper. I’ve had it memorized ever since she gave me the note about the party. I can still see her handwriting on the pink paper.
“Well, la-di-da, boy. That’s almost as hoity-toity as my building.” Morton glances over. “Is it about a girl?”
I nod. “Yep. Lara.” Saying her name makes it seem like she might still exist. I hope she does still exist.
“All right. I think I can get you closer if I take the James Street exit and head in the back way.”
“I don’t know—what’s it like on the surface streets? Wouldn’t it be pretty easy to get stuck?” Some of the reports were saying that gangs were constructing traps for unwitting drivers. They would block off the end of a street and let someone drive their car in, then pull a truck or two out to block any exit. They weren’t just stealing from the people, either. The footage showed bodies pulled halfway out of cars, a child’s stuffed toy in the backseat with no evidence of the child anywhere. It sounds to me like people have gone nuts.
“Look, kid. I got out the first time. I think I can handle one more.” Morton passes the city center exit, and I kind of can’t believe we’ve made it here this quickly, after all this. I hate to admit it, but I’m not sure I ever really thought I was going to get here. But James Street is coming right up, and Morton cuts his lights and slows way down. When we hit the city streets he drives fast, again, though not as fast as when we were on the freeway.
“Okay, so next left . . . then I think it’s two more blocks. . . .” He talks to himself as he makes each maneuver. “And here we are.” He stops behind a skyscraper, next to a loading dock. “This is you.”
I don’t recognize the place, and it must show on my face.
“This is the back of the building of that address. If you’re lucky, you can just slip in that service door.” He points to a steel door set into the wall next to the loading dock.
I get out and push the seat forward so Tank can jump out. Then I grab the backpack and lean into the car to say good-bye.
“Here.” Morton is holding out a roll of toilet paper. “Might come in handy.” He laughs.
I feel the same surge of gratitude I did with Gus. But I don’t say anything about it. “Thanks for the ride, man.”
“Hope you find your girl, Nick.” And then he’s just a set of taillights, fading into the blackness.
I trot over to the loading dock so I’m not standing in the middle of the street, and listen. No sounds close by, nothing to make me feel like I might be in trouble. There are stairs at the far end of the dock, and I take them, edging toward the steel service door, stopping every few feet to listen. Tank is nervous, but he’s not going batshit, so I guess I’m alone.
When I get to the door I try the handle, and of course it’s locked.
“Would have been too easy, right?” Tank looks up at me like I’m stupid for even trying it.
“Okay, around front we go.”
I ease around the side of the building and peek at the front. The street here is a mess. There are cars abandoned in front of the building—one is smashed into the front of another, and a third has gone right through the plate-glass lobby. I think of the snotty concierge who didn’t want to let me and Charlie up to Lara’s apartment. I bet he wouldn’t approve at all.
I listen some more—hearing is becoming one of my more important senses. Seems safe enough. There’s a smattering of gunfire in the distance, but it’s far enough away that it doesn’t pose an immediate threat. It does, however, make me want to get off the street. The lobby is covered in shattered glass, but thankfully for Tank it’s all safety glass that falls right off his pads. We make our way to the bank of elevators I remember from the night of Lara’s party, and I start pushing buttons. Nothing happens.
I was really hoping to avoid the stairs, and not just because of the exercise. But it looks like that’s our best bet. I shift my backpack so it’s more comfortable and get a better grip on the gun. The door is ajar; someone’s jammed it open with a shoe shoved underneath. There’s some blood—at least I think it’s blood—on the handrail all the way up to the second floor. I start up. Tank follows, visibly nervous. I don’t blame him one bit.
My footsteps seem to echo so loudly it makes me nervous. The stairwell is lit by dim yellow lights so I can see pretty well, and I don’t like what I see. Besides the blood, it looks like there have been some scuffles here. A shiny leather loafer, the kind businessmen wear, is flung into the corner of the fifth-floor landing. One more flight, and there’s an omelet pan lying on the third step. It’s got a huge dent in one side, as though someone hit something with it pretty hard. I try not to imagine what got hit and just keep going up the stairs.
“Of course it has to be the freaking penthouse.” Tank looks at me like he doesn’t see the problem, but my thighs are starting to burn. I can hear my breathing echoing off the walls, and Tank’s too. I stop every few seconds to listen; I keep thinking I hear something up ahead, or maybe it’s behind us.
It feels like we’ll never reach the top of the stairs. I can’t see farther than the next landing, and it feels like every corner I turn might be the one with some freak hunched there, waiting. I keep the gun in front of me, holding with both hands and skirting the walls at corners like I’ve seen cops do on television.
We finally make it to the top. There is another flight of stairs that goes up past the stairwell exit door that’s marked PENTHOUSE, but I think they must lead to the roof. I don’t feel like I’m up for exploring that right now. I try the door and it’s open. The hallway isn’t lit by anything but a nightlight sort of thing at the end, so it’s pretty hard to see, but I can make out the door to Lara’s apartment just ahead. I hold the stairwell door open for Tank and then shut it as quietly as I can. There’s a golf club lying on the floor next to the door, along with a rag that looks like it was torn from somebody’s flannel sheet.
I can’t believe I’m actually here. Five feet from Lara’s door.
I think of Morton and his assistant, Tessa. I don’t know what I’ll do if Lara isn’t alive and well in that apartment.
Chapter 19
I’m just raising my hand to knock when the stairwell door bursts open and a guy with a gun yells, “Freeze!” like he’s playing a cop on TV. I do freeze, but Tank isn’t so cooperative. He starts growling at the guy, acting like he’s going to lunge.
“Drop your gun.” The guy points his own at my forehead. Reluctantly, I drop my gun at my feet. Tank’s growling increases in volume a notch or two.
“I’ll shoot
that thing in two seconds if you don’t get it under control.” The guy isn’t kidding. I kneel next to Tank and tell him to sit. He does, but he doesn’t take his eyes off the guy.
“Who are you and what do you want?” The guy is practically screaming.
“Hey, want to keep it down? I don’t think we want to draw attention like that, do we?”
“Shut up and answer the question.”
“Which one?”
He just stares at me for a second, blinking.
“Do you want me to shut up or answer the question?”
He sneers and raises the gun. I’m getting ready to try to grab mine from where I dropped it when the door behind me opens.
“Zeke, stop!”
Without turning I know it’s her. Lara.
“Get back inside.” The guy named Zeke looks pissed that he’s not getting to shoot me.
“No, Zeke. He’s a friend. I know him.”
She comes into view and I want to cry. She’s even more thin than she was before, if that’s possible. Her hair is combed but it looks dirty, and she has a bruise under her left eye that starts a burn simmering inside me.
“Who hit you?” I sound harsher than I mean to sound.
She shakes her head. “It was an accident.” A beat passes while she looks at me, and then she says, “I can’t believe you’re here.”
“I wanted to make sure you were okay.” I don’t tell her how many times I told myself she was dead. Or how scared I was getting here.
“She’s fine.” Zeke isn’t happy.
“Who’s he?” I tip my head toward the Neanderthal.
“Zeke’s good people.” She turns to Zeke. “Just like Nick is, Zeke. Now put down the gun and let’s get inside.”
“With him? I don’t think so. And for sure that dog isn’t coming inside.”
Lara stares him down. “It’s still my place, Zeke. You will always be welcome in it, but so is Nick.” She looks doubtfully at Tank. “And his dog too.”
