Concrete Underground

by Moxie Mezcal

  She nodded her head resolutely. "Look, it's possible he's innocent, but there's got to be a reason he's calling her so much. Maybe he has some idea where she went."

  "Fine," I conceded. "Just be careful."

  * * *

  17. Invisible Ink

  After dropping off Columbine, I headed over to the Casbah and settled in at the bar to wait for Nick.

  "Gotta hit the head, Mags," I said upon entering and dashed straight to the bathroom. "But I expect you to have a double waiting for me when I get out.

  A couple minutes later, I was settling in at the bar and tossing back the glass Maggie had left sitting at my usual spot.

  "When are you guys gonna get that condom dispenser fixed?" I asked, jerking my thumb back towards the bathrooms as Maggie refilled my glass.

  She chuckled. "Like you need to worry about that. You can't get your sock pregnant, honey."

  "Ooh, I think I felt that one from all the way over here," Nick called out from the front door. He pretended to wince in pain at Maggie's barb as he walked up to the bar, but the balled fist in front of his mouth didn't do anything to hide how much it made him smile.

  He hopped up on the stool beside me and swung his hand like he was going to pat me on the back, but then sharply jerked it up and landed a resounding slap on the back of my head.

  "Ow, what the fuck?"

  He stuck his index finger right in my face. "Your little performance today got me in a lot of trouble. You need to tone your shit down. Why are you so bent on driving away the few people left who actually still give a shit about you?"

  I shrugged. "Look, I know sometimes I can go over the line. And I'm sorry." I grabbed hold of his shirt and buried my head into his shoulder melodramatically, mimicking gentle sobs.

  "Piss off," he said, pulling back and grinning. "And another thing, how the fuck did you get Isaac Axelrod so far up your ass?"

  "Who?" I asked, momentarily confused before remembering, "Oh, you mean that fucking prick detective?"

  Nick nodded. "He's got a crazy hard-on for you, nearly went through the roof when he found out you came by to see me. He's somehow got it into his head that you're involved with some murder, a vagrant who washed up on the riverbank with his throat slit. What's that all about?"

  A flash of panic exploded into my head, but I fought to keep my cool. "It's just something related to the story I'm working," I explained, hoping he'd let it drop with as little probing as possible. "Look, I hope you know I had nothing to do with his death."

  "Of course, I do," he replied. "And I tried to put in a good word for you, but he wasn't really receptive. The thing is, I know Axelrod, and he's a bulldog. Once he sinks his teeth into you, he doesn't let go. Whatever he thinks you've done, he'll find the proof that you're guilty. Even if it wasn't there before he showed up, you get my drift?"

  I nodded. "And I do appreciate the warning and you trying to stand up for me."

  "You better because after I did, my lieutenant came in and tore me a new one for trying to interfere with an open investigation. So this is gonna have to be the last favor you ask for, at least for a while."

  "Shit," I grumbled. "Tell me you at least have one bit of good news."

  "As a matter of fact, I do." He then laid out the three envelopes I had given him. "We found a few fingerprints. One set in particular showed up on all three pieces, clearly identifiable."

  "Do you know whose they are?" I asked in disbelief over the luck.

  "Sure do," he said. "They're yours, dumbass. Next time you want to lift prints off of something, you should be more careful handling it."

  "Okay, okay, I get it," I said, exasperated. "Did you find any others?"

  "Well, the prints were a mess, so I asked the boys in the lab to play around with them for a while and see what else they could come up with." He paused momentarily for dramatic effect, then dug a small battery-powered blacklight from his coat pocket, like the kind they use on TV news shows to find the jizz stains on hotel beds.

  "Are you familiar with palimpsests?"

  "Yeah, it's when one text is printed over another text on the same paper," I answered. "They were common in the middle ages when the church would wash the ink off pre-Christian writings so they could reuse the paper for their liturgical texts. Like what happened to Archimedes. I read an article about how they use UV light and computer imaging to reconstruct the original writing."

  Nick nodded. "Damn, I'm impressed. I just stared at the lab guys blankly when they asked me that question."

  He switched on the blacklight and held it up to the first letter. Two words appeared on the page, just underneath the original message, handwritten in a large but neat script: Jacinda Ngo.

  He moved the light away, and the words disappeared, leaving behind no trace on the pristine white paper.

  Next he hovered over the second letter with the light, illuminating the words: Patrick Cobb.

  Finally, he moved onto the third letter and revealed the hidden message: Lilian Lynch.

  "Weird," I said, lifting my gaze back to Nick. "So someone wrote the names on the paper, then bleached it out, and then typed another message on top of that."

  He switched off the light and stuffed it back in his pocket. "Now I know the the first name you think is the dead woman from the ditch. And the second is the vagrant whose throat Axelrod thinks you slit. So who's number three?"

  "Someone who may very well soon be dead herself, if she isn't already. All three are related to my story." I paused, taking a moment to process all this, then added, "The thing is, each letter arrived before the person named died."

  "Jesus," Nick said. "So do you think the person who sent these is the killer?"

  I shrugged, "It would stand to reason it's the killer – or at least an accomplice – otherwise how would they know who's next? On the other hand, though, why would the killer tell me who's going to die before it happens and risk me being able to stop them?"

  "Maybe they don't consider you a real threat and they're just trying to taunt you, calling their shots like Babe Ruth pointing to the stands over center field," Nick suggested. "But then the next question is why go through all the trouble of creating these palimpsests in the first place?"

  I tapped my finger on my busted-up nose, indicating that he had indeed hit upon the crux of the matter.

  * * *

  18. Full Contact

  After leaving the bar, I decided to stop by the Concrete Underground office to see if my files could help me figure out who the numbers in Lily's phone belonged to.

  It was after hours, so the place was empty. I took out the phone and fired up my computer, then started searching.

  Columbine was right; nearly all her calls were related to work. All the Abrasax numbers had uniform prefixes, 358 for landlines and 418 for cells, so those were easily set aside. After a few searches, I saw that most of the other numbers were also work-related – ad sales reps, PR consultants, reporters, and a few of her counterparts at other companies.

  Then the phone started ringing again. It was that same number that kept calling – Jeff from the art department. I tapped the "Ignore" key, but then paused. This number didn't have the same prefix as the other Abrasax phone numbers.

  "Fucking hell," I said aloud.

  "Is someone out there?" another voice called out, making me jump up in surprise.

  I followed the voice into Sharon's office, where I found her slumped in her desk chair with the lights out amid the unmistakable smell of pot smoke.

  I switched on the lights. She pinched her eyes shut and let out a hiss. I noticed the ashtray sitting out on her desk with two roaches stubbed out in it, right next to one of her old photos of Patrick Cobb.

  She squinted to see me as I took the seat across the desk and her eyes adjusted to the light. "You got something on your nose," she said.

  I smirked and raised a couple fingers to touch the bandage. "It happens."

  She plucked a sheet of paper out of her in-box and passe
d it over to me. "I'd ask what happened to you, but I honestly don't think I even want to know how you pulled this off."

  I looked down. It was a press release on Abrasax letterhead with Max's statement corroborating my article.

  I gave her a smug grin and said, "Please give my apologies to Ms. Palmer and Ms. Singh for all the money their firm won't be charging you now."

  "I don't think they're too worried about it," Sharon said with a roll of her eyes. "It's only a matter of time before you fuck up again."

  We both shared a soft chuckle, and my eyes fell back to the desk and the photo of Cobb. Sharon followed my gaze and picked up the photo. Her lips curled into a half-smile that threatened to collapse into a frown.

  "He's dead."

  "I know," I said, but decided not to go into it any further than that.

  "You remind me of him a little," she said, proudly regaining her composure. "Like a younger, more obnoxious version. You're both bold, uncompromising, and insufferably arrogant. He showed up with a few of those of his own, from time to time." She pointed at my nose. "He used to say that journalism needs to be a full-contact sport."

  She stood up from her desk and started packing her things to leave. I wandered back to my own desk, fidgeting with Lily's phone in my pocket, thinking about the recurring phone calls and Cobb and full-contact journalism.

  "Fuck," I mumbled under my breath. "I might as well do this fucking thing."

  I pulled out the phone, found the last missed call, clicked "Reply by Text", and typed: Can't talk now. Have the Ariadne Key. Meet me in 2 hrs where Max found Jacinda.

  "What are you doing?" Sharon asked as she locked up her office.

  "Something incredibly stupid," I replied and sent the message.

  "Well, I guess you might as well stick to your strengths."

  ---

  Hastings Airfield was just outside the city limits and had areas designated for both military and private use. A handful of the larger local tech companies kept their corporate jets in the civilian hangers, which while secure, were much easier to sneak into than the military side.

  "Mr. Maxwell sent me to get some files he left on board," I told the security guard, sticking my arm out the car window to show him my Abrasax keycard badge.

  "Do you know where the hanger is?" the guard asked.

  "Actually, he said you could point me in the right direction."

  I followed the guard's instructions to Hanger 8, then decided it was smarter to park the Porsche at the other end of the airfield and walk back, figuring whoever I was meeting might turn tail if they saw it.

  I found Max's plane, and it looked exactly as it had in my dream. I stopped dead in my tracks, feeling a cold chill creep through my body and cause little goosebumps to bubble up through my skin. The air inside the hanger was cold and stale and completely, eerily still, and popped and crackled faintly like a cross between radio static and a dusty old LP stuck in the run-out groove.

  I managed to move the rolling staircase into place and climbed up to the forward hatch.

  Inside, the plane was dark. I made my way through the cabin to the back row of seats and found the one where Jacinda's body had been. I sat down in her seat, and my skin crawled. The air hummed with an electric charge, and the static noise in my head grew louder and took on more clanky, mechanical qualities, like an old film projector.

  I savored the sensation in a macabre way, closed my eyes, felt my heartbeat slow, and wondered what Jacinda's dead flesh had felt like.

  Suddenly, I heard the sound of a door opening behind me. I jumped up and spun around to see a man in a black trench coat and wide-brim hat leaping out of the rear bathroom with his arm raised in an attack position. Before I had a chance to react, he brought the blackjack in his hand down on my temple with a sharp, powerful precision. I only caught a brief of glimpse of his face with its ruddy features, bulbous nose, deeply-dimpled chin, and a long scar down the left cheek.

  Then everything faded to black.

  * * *

  19. Disassembled

  When I regained consciousness, I found myself stripped naked and tied to a chair in a cold, dank room with concrete walls and floor. A large floodlight was shining directly in my face. In the darkness behind it, I could make out the faint shapes of people but couldn't distinguish any details or features. These amorphous dark blobs talked amongst themselves in hushed tones, too quiet for me to clearly hear more than clipped fragments.

  A woman's voice: "--went to his house, I'm sure of it."

  A man's, low and gravely: "--mistake to get him involved--"

  Another woman: "--no more time, Max is getting--"

  "He's awake," the man said, this time loudly.

  The shapes shifted around, and the sound of their shoes clicking against the concrete floor echoed through the room. I was vaguely aware that one of them was coming closer, but still was startled when a large dark form broke out from the shadows and stepped in front of the floodlight's beam.

  "Where is the Ariadne Key?" the gruff man's voice said as he leaned in closer to me. His face was covered by a smooth, featureless gunmetal mask with small slits over the eyes and mouth.

  I jumped back in my seat but couldn't really go far because of the tight bonds. "Jesus-fucking-Christ man, what the fuck are you supposed to be, some kinda kinky steampunk gimp?"

  He reached out with a gloved hand and squeezed my nose through the gauze bandage, causing the cartilage to crack and pop and a fresh jet of blood to squirt out from my nostrils.

  I let out an shrill, agonized yelp. "Fuck, man, I don't really have your stupid fucking key. It was just a trick to lure you out into the open, dumbass."

  "Do you take me for an idiot?" my masked captor replied. "I know you have it."

  "And what are you, a human fucking lie detector? Are you some kind of fruit? Is this your sick way of getting your jollies, tying naked men to chairs?"

  He took a couple steps back and stood beside the floodlight, just at the edge of visibility between the shadow and light. Another man walked up and handed him something. This second man had a smaller, slighter build and wore a trench coat and hat. Though he didn't step fully into the light, I could make out enough of the contours of his face to recognize him as the one who attacked me in the plane.

  The masked man walked back to me, holding his left hand outstretched, clutching the object he had been handed, something black and plastic and about the size of whiteboard eraser.

  "Tell me where you hid it now, or things are going to get unpleasant for you."

  "Okay," I sighed in defeat. "I hid it up my ass. Untie me and I'll let you have a look, as long as you promise to give me a reach-around when you're done."

  He jabbed the plastic something into my chest, and I felt a strong electric shock course through my body. I let out an agonized scream.

  "God damn, man, that feels fucking good," I said and gave as strong a laugh as I could manage without breaking into a cough. "You should have told me you were into rough trade."

  He zapped me again with the taser, then moved it down to my genitals. "Where's the key?" he spat. "Where's the parcel?"

  "Hey, watch it down there," I coughed weakly, "I'm starting to get a little chubby."

  He shocked me again. I gritted my teeth together and felt streams of drool drip down my chin. My nostrils filled with the stench of my own sizzling pubic hair.

  I slumped in the chair, my body searing with pain and instinctively trying to curl into a ball, causing my limbs to strain against the ropes.

  "Wait... wait..." I pleaded weakly, groaning as I lifted my head to look him in his eye slits. "Don't tase me, bro."

  I erupted into feeble, wheezing, laughter. He tased me three times in quick succession. I blacked out again.

  ---

  I was still in the chair, but the floodlight was gone. The room was devoid of light except for a crack under the door, so I let my eyes adjust to the darkness. I was still groggy, just barely holding onto conscious
ness. Over in the corner by the door, I made out a small lump on the floor that was hopefully my clothes.

  I called out for help, but got no response.

  After calling a few more times, I started scooting my chair over in the direction of my clothes, which proved difficult since my arms and legs were still tied to the chair. It didn't help that my head was swimming and my muscles felt like jelly. I managed to make it about a third of the way across the room before I passed out again.

  ---

  The next time I woke up, the light under the door was gone, and the room was pitch black. I called out for help again and got the same results as earlier.

  I scooted the chair in the direction I remembered I was going. Every movement was painful. My muscles burned, my head was throbbing. I tried to push it out of mind and focused on taking it one inch at a time. Finally, after what seemed like ages, I bumped the chair against the wall. In the darkness, I couldn't tell where the clothes were in relation to where I ended up, but figured they had to be close. I positioned myself so my back was facing towards where I thought they'd be, then used my weight to rock the chair. After a couple times, I picked up enough momentum to tip myself over. I hit the hard concrete ground with a thud. My muscles screamed in agony. Once more, I passed out.

  ---

  My phone woke me up. I recognized the strummed guitar intro of The Kinks' "Powerman" as Max's ringtone and was relieved that it sounded close behind me. I nudged and maneuvered myself until my hands, which were still tied behind the chair, finally fell upon the fabric of my jeans. Slowly, painstakingly, I explored with my hands, tracing the seams until I found my front left pocket. Digging inside, I wrapped my fingers around the cool, comforting steel of my pocketknife.

  It took me several minutes to manipulate the knife open and get the blade in position against the ropes. I had the handle gripped between my thumb and index fingers with the blade pointed back up my arm. Slowly, carefully, I began sawing through the bonds.