by Moxie Mezcal
After what seemed like hours, I had one hand free. From there, I was able to cut myself loose fairly quickly, then struggled to my feet and slowly, painfully dressed myself.
I pulled the phone out of my jacket and called Max back. While it rang, I looked around the rest of the room. On one side, there was an open doorway that led out to another, larger room, which looked like it had once been a store of some kind but had long since been abandoned. I guessed the plain concrete room where I'd been held was used for storage or a stock room.
There was a second doorway at the other side of my room, which had a heavy metal door that most likely led outside. I tried it; mercifully, it was unlocked.
I emerged out into a grimy, nondescript downtown alleyway just as Max finally answered the phone. I winced and shielded my eyes from the sunlight.
"D? Where the hell have you been?"
"I don't know. What day is it?"
The metal door slammed shut behind me with a loud bang. The words, "Bell out of order, please knock" were spray painted on it.
On the phone, Max answered, "It's Thursday. Where are you?"
"Jesus, Thursday," I groaned. "Listen, I just spent the last day-and-a-half naked and tied to a chair, getting electrocuted."
There was a long pause on the other end of the phone.
"Wait, what did you just say?"
"Look, come pick me up and I'll explain," I replied while jogging out of the alleyway to look for a street sign. "Looks like I'm at the corner of Mission and 27th."
"I'll be right there," Max said and hung up.
---
Max gave me a ride back to the airfield so I could pick up the Porsche, and on the way I recounted the story of my ambush and kidnapping.
Luckily, the Porsche was still where I left it and didn't look like it had been broken into. Everything inside was untouched – my laptop, Lily's phone, my notes. My kidnappers obviously hadn't found it.
I drove back home with my body aching and my head still swimming, savoring the thought of stretching out on a nice, soft bed.
I hauled myself upstairs with as much enthusiasm as I could muster, but it all sank as soon as I saw the front door to my apartment splintered and hanging off its hinges.
I felt my adrenaline spike as I rushed inside, slamming the door open and switching on the lights.
My apartment had been torn apart just like Lily's, literally turned inside out and searched with a fine tooth comb.
Surveying the disastrous state, for some reason the image of the Tasmanian Devil popped into my head. I pictured that slobbering, whirling tornado of fuzz chewing up and spitting out all my worldly possessions, tearing a hole straight through the very fabric of my existence.
I just laughed – hysterically, bitterly, because I didn't know what else to do. I felt as fragmented and disassembled as everything else in there.
Wearily, I trudged through the debris of my life and laid down in my bed. As my laughter died down and I closed my eyes, I said a little prayer under my breath thanking whoever was listening that my dumb ass at least had the wherewithal to hide Cobb's blue box somewhere else.
* * *
20. This Book Doesn't Make Any Sense
I woke up to the crunchy sounds of mastication and found Columbine sitting on my dresser with a brown bag of Mission tortilla chips in her lap, thumbing through Dhalgren.
"Déjà vu," I said, massaging my temples as I climbed out of my bed. My head was throbbing, and it felt like I had only just barely fallen asleep. Glancing at the clock, I realized that was in fact the case; I hadn't been out more than twenty minutes. My heart sank.
"This book doesn't make any sense," Columbine complained as she hopped off the dresser. She was wearing a blue Chinese silk dress with a dragon print. Her hair was pulled back in a bun and held in place by two chopsticks. "And your front door's busted. You should get it looked at, anyone could just waltz right in here."
"Indeed," I grunted as I threw on some clothes. "So what's up?"
"I've been trying to get ahold of you so I could tell you what happened to me last night. Max told me you finally re-surfaced, so I rushed right over."
I snatched a couple chips from the bag and tossed them in my mouth. "Did he explain why I went missing?"
"Yeah, big whatevs, some mean bully pushed you around a little, boo-hoo. Anyways, I have to tell you what happened, it's really good."
"Well, let's go have a seat then so you can tell me, as long as it's really good," I replied as I headed out to the living room to settle into the couch before realizing the couch could no longer rightly even be called a couch.
"Fuck, on second thought, let's get out of here."
---
I took Columbine downstairs to the little taqueria next to my apartment and proceeded to devour a burrito big enough to club a man dead with while she told me her story.
"So after what we talked about Tuesday, the footprint and my father's number on Lily's phone and all that, I decided to go to his house yesterday to see if I could find out what their connection was.
"At first I didn't see him anywhere, so I figured he was out. I decided to poke around a little in his office, but as I got closer, I heard voices coming from inside. I couldn't make out what they were saying, but I hid down the hall and waited until they came out, and I got a pretty good look at the two men he was with.
"One was a younger guy, about your age, in a suit. The second was shorter and wearing a black trench coat and a hat, which was weird. He also looked older, and his face was really rough and ruddy and had a big scar on one cheek."
I realized that this had to be the same man who attacked me in the plane, and my face must have shown my surprise because Columbine paused and asked, "What is it?"
"Nothing. Go on, what happened next?"
"I followed them, being careful to hang back enough so they wouldn't see me. They went outside and got into a weird, classic fifties-style car with a blue paint job."
The same car I saw the night Cobb visited me, I thought.
Columbine continued, "After they took off, I ran back inside and grabbed the spare keys to my dad's Jaguar from the key hook in the front entryway where he always keeps them. Then I drove after them.
"They headed up into the mountains out past the northeast city limit – I mean way out into the middle of nowhere. They finally stopped in an open clearing, parking next to another car that was already waiting. I stayed hidden behind an outcropping of rocks, close enough though that I could see.
"The other car was a black Escalade, and I recognized it right away as Saint Anthony's. Then I saw him standing a little further past the cars, holding a shovel in his hands. There were two holes in the ground along with something that looked like it could have been a dead body covered in a tarp.
"My father and the other two men got out of the blue car and spoke with him briefly. Anthony made a couple gestures toward the body and the two holes. After a while, the young guy walked over to one of the them and looked down into it. Anthony came up behind him while his back was turned and swung the shovel into his head, sending him toppling over into the hole.
"Anthony tossed the body in the tarp into the other grave, and then started filing them both in with dirt. The man in the trench coat got another shovel out of the Escalade and helped him while my father waited in the blue car.
"I left before they finished burying them, figuring the head start would help me get back without being seen."
"That's incredible," I said when she finished. "So you didn't see who was under the tarp?"
"No."
I pressed, "Could you tell if it was someone big or small, at least, man or woman?"
She shook her head.
"Well, do you think you could find those graves again if we went out there?"
"Why?" she asked, suddenly defensive. "And why do you want to know if it's a man or a woman?"
I opened my mouth to answer, but the look in her eyes said that she already knew why, e
ven if she didn't want to admit the possibility to herself.
I reached across the table and took her hand in mine. "Look, we need to know if it's her. If it's not, we know that we still have a chance to help her. And if it is... well, then at least we can find the bastards responsible."
---
After eating, we hopped in the Porsche and re-traced the way back to the grave site. Before leaving town, we stopped at a hardware store where I picked up a couple shovels, some heavy-duty gloves, and a pack of air filter masks.
The mountains that comprised the northeastern edge of the valley were sparsely developed – a handful of wealthy families owned vast chunks of it. There were some hillside estates and a few solar energy farms on the lower, bare foothills, but beyond that was just dense forest.
We ascended through narrow, winding mountain roads. After about fifteen minutes of climbing, we passed a large metal sign bearing the corporate logo of Asterion Record Management. Just above it on the same post was another, slightly smaller sign warning against trespassing. Soon after ignoring that, we came around a bend and saw a giant monolithic building come into view in the distance. The road leveled off as we reached the top of a plateau hidden amidst the foothills.
"What is that thing?" Columbine asked.
"Well, if this is Asterion's property, that must be one of their storage facilities. I knew they owned a lot of land in these mountains, but I can't imagine what they would need to store all the way out here."
"Well, that's not where we're going, anyways," she replied. "Pull off the road up here and follow those tire tracks."
We drove out a couple more minutes until the tracks stopped. A few yards away, I saw the two graves.
"We're here," Columbine said with sufficient understatement.
I hopped out and circled around to the trunk to get the shovels. I offered her one, but she shook her head emphatically. So I started digging alone.
After about four feet, I hit something. Moving another shovelful of dirt aside, I saw that it was a black tarp. I dug a little further to excavate just enough of the corpse so that I was sure I had the head. As I knelt down to inspect it closer, I noticed a few errant strands of red hair poking out from under the tarp.
I winced, feeling the air escape from my lungs as if I'd been punched in the gut, and I reached out to pull back the sheets of black plastic covering the body's face, despite the certainty that I already knew what I'd find.
I was wrong.
The face underneath the tarp wasn't Lily's; it was a man's. It took me a second to process this initial surprise, but then it dawned on me who exactly I was looking at.
He was Seamus, the bum from the Light Rail. The one who used to work for Max.
"Um, D," Columbine called out. "You'd better get up here."
I climbed out of the grave and followed her gaze down the road to two white vans heading straight for us.
We jumped back into the car and peeled out, frantically speeding back the way we came. Luckily, the Porsche was going to outrun and out-maneuver those vans any day, especially on winding roads like this. The only question was whether I was going to be able to handle the Porsche well enough at top speeds to keep us from taking a turn too wide and launching down an embankment. I gripped the wheel tightly, gritted my teeth, and tried to momentarily forget how spotty my DMV record actually was.
To my astonishment, I didn't kill us, and I almost began to believe I wasn't a complete fuck-up as we approached the final bend before reconnecting with the main highway.
But just as we came around the bend, I saw a roadblock set up ahead of us. I slammed on the brakes and barely avoided plowing into two large armored cars with "Asterion Records Management" painted on the sides, which were parked sideways end-to-end beside the "No Trespassing" sign I ignored earlier. Outside them, four armed security guards were waiting for us.
"Sir, I need you to step out of the vehicle," one of the guards said as he approached the driver's side window. The other three kept their rifles raised and trained on us.
There was really no way of getting out of this mess that I could see, so I figured I'd do the next best thing and make the experience as unpleasant for everyone involved. "Fuck you, you Rent-a-Cop swine," I said, "I'm a member of the press, and I know my rights."
The butt of the guard's rifle came sailing through the open window and connected with my face, spinning my head around and sending blood spurting out across the dashboard. While I reeled from the blow, he opened the door and dragged me out of the car. Then he and another guard pinned me to the ground while a third searched me.
Meanwhile, the fourth went around to the other side and made Columbine get out of the car and searched her.
They tore violently at my clothes, manhandled me roughly while doing a full body search. When I saw the other one was doing the same to Columbine, I redoubled my efforts to break free, prompting the one searching me to stomp the hell out of my face.
Then I was lifted up and tossed into the back of one of the armored cars like a rag doll. Or at least this is what I surmised was probably happening, since I couldn't see a damned thing for all the blood gushing down my face.
---
The giant metal door swung open, and an old man who reminded me vaguely of Bela Lugosi entered. He appeared to be well into his seventies and decidedly worse-for-wear – mostly bald with small tufts of thin, wiry gray hair, his face wrinkled and craggy from years of stress, smoking, and booze. He dragged his shriveled carcass across the room with the manner of someone accustomed to taking his own sweet time about things, puffing on a small, hand-rolled cigarillo as he went.
He hovered over me as I lay on the cold metal examination table, gave me a quick once over, and took a couple more sucks on his pungent little butt before pronouncing his diagnosis.
"Young man, you are severely fucked-up," he said in a thick eastern European accent that did indeed sound a lot like Lugosi.
He thrust a gnarled, nicotine-stained finger into my face and poked several sore spots. I hissed in exactly the kind of throbbing, blinding pain you'd expect to get from some jackbooted fascist dancing an Irish jig on my face.
He slid over a tray of various arcane surgical tools that looked more like twisted metal torture devices than anything else and proceeded to stitch up my face with all the care and sensitivity of a punch-drunk prize fighter.
I passed out a couple times while he worked – not because he bothered to anesthetize me in any way, but just from sheer, overpowering agony.
---
I looked at my reflection in the small handheld mirror and thought for a moment that the sadistic fuck of a doctor had replaced the glass with a photo of ground beef left out to sit for a week.
There were three large, ragged lacerations stitched up haphazardly amid a lot of swelling and bruising. One was a giant gash above my right brow, another was a smaller crescent around the ridge of my left eye socket, and the third was a split in the side of my left cheek. My nose had also been re-broken, sloppily reset, and taped up.
I lifted a hand to trace the swollen, discolored contours of my face and had to actually fight to choke back a hysterical burst of tears.
"Don't touch your face, you'll upset the stitches," the doctor admonished as he bent over the mildewy sink and washed an alarming amount of my blood off his hands and instruments.
Across the makeshift operating room, the metal door swung open again, and Max poked his head in.
"How's he doing?"
"He'll live," the doctor replied as he sparked up another cigarillo. "Although you'd never believe it from the way this little sissy has been carrying on."
Max chuckled and cut across the room. He was pristinely groomed and dressed in a classic black tuxedo with full-length coattails. I strained to hop off the table and groaned as I reached out to grab my shirt off a nearby chair.
"Here, I brought you a get-well-soon gift," Max said and tossed me a little white pill bottle. "Be careful with these, you do
n't want to take more than one or two a day."
I shook four out onto my palm and tossed them into my mouth.
"I hope you didn't have any plans tonight," Max chided as he lifted my jacket off the back of the chair and helped me put it on. He straightened the lapels and then ran his hands down my front to smooth it out. While he did, he found the Abrasax badge sticking out of my pocket and held it up for me to see.
"You're lucky they found this on you. Otherwise you'd be sitting in an interrogation cell right now instead of in the good doctor's operating room." He tucked it back into my coat and patted the pocket, indicating that it was safe and secure.
"Seems like an overreaction for simple trespassing."
He grinned good-naturedly and explained, "They are pretty paranoid about security. Most of the records Asterion keeps up here come from major clients who are worried about corporate espionage and willing to pay top dollar to make sure their trade secrets stay just that. Now admittedly, what happened to you is on the extreme end of things, but you seem to have that effect on people."
"No fucking kidding," I spat back. "Seems like every time I turn around there's someone waiting to kick my face in. It's like my life has suddenly become one of those old pulp detective novels."
"Hipster Philip Marlowe," Max added with an amused snort.
"Yeah, well, it's not a fucking joke, it's my life. And it's getting really fucking old, really fucking fast," I snapped and buried my face in my hands. "It feels like everything is falling apart. Like I'm being disassembled piece by piece, physically, mentally, emotionally. And now I'm so fucking disfigured I can't even recognize myself in the mirror. I'm just so fucking tired of it all."
"Hey, I told you not to touch!" the doctor chastised as he reached out and swatted me in the back of the head, hard.
