by Moxie Mezcal
"Still not seeing how this is relevant," I said.
"It's relevant because you two tried very hard to conceal his identity, and you almost pulled it off." Max pointed back at the man in the chair. "Granted, he was an obvious suspect when I first learned that you had gotten your hands on the e-mails between me and City Hall. So I had my people look into it, but they couldn't find any substantial connection between the two of you since your falling-out after high school. I mean, you really had everyone fooled into thinking you guys hated each other."
"We do hate each other," I said. "Brian only gave me those e-mails because he overheard the Mayor badmouthing him to the chief of staff. They didn't realize he was in the next room listening in."
"Ahh, well, the Commedia strikes again," Max said with palpable satisfaction. "Even in this age of technological wonders, it still boils down the the same base passions."
Max pulled off the mask, revealing Brian's bloody face with two empty eye sockets.
I felt light headed and nauseous. "So how did you figure it out?" I asked Max, managing to somehow keep from getting sick.
"It was Garza actually. He poured through days of surveillance footage to figure out how you coordinated the hand-off."
I looked scornfully back to Garza, who was still skulking in the back of the room, tugging up on his turtleneck nervously, and I wondered what his deal was. "Don't say much, do you?"
"Yeah, what's the matter, Ben? You usually never shut the fuck up." Max chimed in.
Just then something clicked in my head, and I realized that I had in fact never heard Garza speak. I walked over to him and clamped a hand on his shoulder, just at the base of his neck in mock-congratulation, saying, "Nice detective work, asshole."
It was a simple, innocuous gesture, not violent or forceful at all, but Garza winced in pain as my hand touched his neck,
"Sorry," I said, pulling my hand back. "Did you hurt yourself?" I turned back to look at Max, who was wearing an expression of curiosity. "So what's the score? Is this the end of the road for me and Brian?"
Max shook his head. "I think your friend has sufficiently learned his lesson. And as for you – I hope you have learned something as well. I have been indulgent of you up to this point, but there are consequences for going too far."
* * *
35. Just Like in the Movies
After Max let me go, I waited across the street until I saw Garza emerge from the alleyway. I followed him on foot down to the nearest major road, where he flagged down a cab. I flagged down another and told my driver to follow the first one, just like in the movies.
Garza got dropped off in front of the building right next door to the Casa Salvador. It was an old tenement that had been condemned. I followed him inside and up the stairs, taking my shoes off and treading lightly to avoid making any noise.
He was squatting in a number of different units on the top floor. The place was filthy – the floor was almost completely covered in laundry, fast food containers, soda bottles, old mail, and other assorted trash.
One of the rooms had a bare futon mattress, so I took that to be where he slept and started snooping around.
There was one window on the far wall of the room, and through it I could see across into the windows of the flophouse next door. I grinned when I realized that the hallway telephone on the third floor was plainly visible from this vantage point.
Under one of the piles of the dirty laundry strewn about was a cheap metal lock box. After popping the lock open with my knife, I found two interesting things inside – a smooth, featureless gunmetal mask and a Browning 9mm with a silencer. I checked the latter to make sure it was loaded, then took it with me.
I walked into another room and found Garza sitting at a desk that housed six monitors of various shapes and sizes hooked up to a stuffed server rack beside the desk.
I raised the gun and trained it on the back of his head. His eyes shifted over to look at me in the monitors' reflections.
"So what, are you going to shoot me?" he asked in a gruff voice that I instantly recognized.
"There's a good chance."
"Then why don't you stop wasting my time and just get it over with?" he said as he shuffled some papers around on his desktop.
"Because first you have to give me something in exchange for doing you this favor?"
"Favor?" he repeated as he fidgeted with a heavy glass pyramid paperweight.
I nodded, fixing my eyes on his hand. "Compared to what Max would do if I turned you over to him, a quick and clean bullet to the head is a favor."
Suddenly Garza lobbed the pyramid at my head. Thankfully, I anticipated his move and was able to duck out of the way in time. The paperweight flew past, missing only by inches, and put a hole in the drywall behind me. Garza made a move for the door, but I was able to squeeze off a shot from the Browning, which tore right through his midsection.
He doubled over and collapsed to his knees, clutching at his stomach as blood seeped through the front of his shirt. I walked over to him and pressed the muzzle to his temple.
"As I was saying, you are going to repay me for this favor. I want you to tell me who your partner is, the one who drives that blue Chevy."
"Why do you care?" Garza spat derisively. "He's a pawn, a rube. Just like that Lynch bitch and your girlfriend with the purple hair."
"Whose pawns? McPherson's?"
He laughed, "What? You really have no fucking clue what's going on, do you?"
His eyes locked on mine with a gleeful, mischievous twinkle. I didn't respond but instead just kept staring him down. Finally, he looked away and added, "They were all my pawns. It was my plan all along."
I scoffed, "I'm not sure you wanna go around broadcasting that too loudly. Seemed like a pretty dumbass plan to begin with, even before I went and let the cat out of the bag on your secret little flash drive. Which, incidentally, Max doesn't seem to be that bothered by anyways."
Garza bristled at this. "Max is an ass. He's all bluster and bravado, trying to hide how scared he really is. You read the documents, right? Ask him what he's keeping hidden under the Asterion facility, then see how fucking cool he acts."
We were interrupted by the squeak of an opening door and both simultaneously looked up see the ruddy-faced man standing in the doorway, dressed in his usual trench coat and hat. As soon as he saw me, he bolted. I leapt up and chased after him, leaving Garza bleeding on the floor.
I hurtled out into the hallway just in time to see the other man disappear behind a door at the far end. I sprinted across and flung open the door, revealing a flight of stairs leading up.
As I emerged onto the roof, I watched him take a running start and launch himself off the edge, leaping over to the Casa Salvador. Taking a deep breath, I steeled myself to make my own attempt, leaving a trail of profanities in my wake as I jumped the thankfully narrow chasm between the two rooftops, landing just as my quarry began descending the fire escape on the other side of the roof.
I ran and looked over the side of the building, but didn't see him anywhere on the fire escape or the ground. I surmised that he must have gone into the building and, as I flew down the first flight of steps, noticed the third story window was open.
I lunged into the building right as the door of Room 313 slammed shut. Bursting through that door, I found him standing just inside the room with his back to me, and I tackled him onto the bed.
But when I looked down at the man struggling under my weight, I saw that it wasn't a man at all. It was Stella, dressed in the man's coat and hat. Her face was white with shock, and she held out her hands, which were clutching Columbine's Queen of Hearts Russian doll.
"He told me to give this to you," she said.
"Who did?"
"The man in the hallway."
I ran back out through the door and found myself staring down the business end of a can of mace.
He fired, and I howled in pain. I dropped to the floor and writhed in blind agony while the mace
seared my eyes.
Finally, I felt hands gripping me and turning me over to lie on my side.
"Open your eyes," a voice barked.
I obeyed and immediately felt some kind of liquid splashing into them.
"Now blink," the voice said again.
When my vision finally cleared, I saw Stella standing above me, sans the disguise and holding a carton of milk. "Get up, and be careful not to touch your eyes."
She helped me up and guided me to the bathroom down the hall, where she had me wash my hands and face thoroughly.
When I finished, I followed her back to her own room, 309, and sat on the bed with her.
"How are you feeling?"
"Peachy," I replied as I blinked my eyes obsessively and grimaced.
"The effect should wear off gradually, but in the meantime you're gonna want to keep your eyes moist," she said and handed me a small plastic bottle of Visine.
I leaned back on the bed and squeezed a couple drops into each eye. "Thanks. You've done this before, I take it."
"In my line of work, macing's the least of our worries," she replied, shaking her head. "You should see some of the sick shit that happens. Girls are cut up, bruised, burned, broken bones, you name it. But then, you probably don't want to be listening to all this, given the state you're in right now."
"No, it's fine," I replied, still blinking my eyes furiously. "Keep talking; it helps to have something to focus on other than the burning."
Stella shrugged, "If you say so. Myself, I've been knocked around a few times, few bumps and bruises, but I'm lucky.
"I saw one girl with her cheeks sliced open from her mouth like a smile, like in that movie," she continued, drawing invisible lines extending from each corner of her mouth, like a giant smile. "And the little Vietnamese girl down the hall, she's missing part of her nose that a rat chewed off after some guy left her handcuffed to a bed in a flea bag motel. Then another girl I know has scars all over one side of her body, covering her almost from head to toe, from chemical burns."
"Wait," I interjected. "Who's this?"
"The girl from the shelter, Knossos Sanctuary, down on 32nd Street."
"You've stayed in that shelter?" I probed.
"Yeah, a couple times. That's where I first met Isabel, as a matter of fact, she was in and out of there a lot. But anyways, back to this girl who showed up with the burns, that was several years ago, back when she hardly spoke any English and you couldn't understand even the little bit that she did on account of her accent. Not Russian, but something like that. Smart kid, though, really got her life together, and now she works there. Even with that crazy hair of hers – you'll never guess what color it is."
"Purple," I said barely audibly.
"Yeah, how'd you guess? You must know her, huh?"
"I thought so, but I'm starting to realize she's not exactly who I thought she was."
Stella patted me on the knee. "Ain't that just the way of the world?"
---
Meanwhile, a team of men dressed in black Asterion jumpsuits entered the building next door and found Garza on the floor, bleeding profusely and wishing I'd finished him off.
* * *
36. If I Had Been Paying Attention
Once I recovered enough to get on the move, I raced to the Motley Fool as fast as the Volvo would take me, darting in and out of traffic as I careened down Highway 77.
I opened the door to find Violet laying on one of the beds, bound, gagged, and blindfolded. I flew over and helped her get free, then yelled, "What happened?"
"That man just burst in here and hit me, knocked me out. When I came to, I was like this. Where's Col, is she alright?"
"She's gone, they took her," I replied. "Who was it?"
"I think it was the man you talked about before, the one with the scar who wears the long coat and hat."
"Fuck!" I screamed in frustration, then took the Russian doll out of my coat pocket and showed it to her. "He had this. He wanted me to know they had her."
Violet's face sank as she turned the doll over in her hands. "How did they find her? We were so careful."
"I don't know," I admitted. "But we've got to come up with a plan before--"
"Wait, listen," she cut me off, then shook the doll. There was definitely something rattling inside.
We pried the two halves open, revealing a smaller version of the same doll nested inside. We opened that one up, and then another, peeling through several layers of ever-shrinking replicas until finally we opened up the last one and found a micro-SD memory card.
---
Violet and I made it about three paces into Max's office before we both froze in our tracks as Max's chair swiveled around to reveal Saint Anthony sitting behind the desk, grinning from ear to ear.
I drew the Browning and leveled it at his head. "Where's Max?"
A voice behind us called, "Hail, hail, the gang's all here."
I spun around and saw Max perched on a stool at the wet bar, reading Crowley's Book of Lies. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"We need your help," I replied, keeping the gun trained on Anthony. "The blackmailers have Columbine."
"Fascinating," he said with a yawn, then looked down at his hand and started picking miniscule specks of dirt out from under his fingernails. "What's it got to do with me?"
"She's your friend, too," I said. "Don't you want to make sure she's safe."
"She's a plucky gal with a strong sense of adventure," Max replied distractedly.
I set the gun down on Max's coffee table and produced the micro-SD card from my pocket. "You might be interested in hearing what's on this."
He took it from me, then walked over to the wall and pressed lightly on a panel. It slid open mechanically, revealing a flat screen hidden inside.
A video flashed on, showing a deformed, wretched figure that might have at one time been Ben Garza strung up like a side of beef, howling in agony while a group of men in black jumpsuits tortured him. But the image quickly flickered and changed to a computer desktop display as Max inserted the card into a slot on the side of the screen.
He shot me a sideways grin, looking very pleased with himself indeed.
Meanwhile, Violet had stealthily moved to pick up the Browning where I left it. Anthony noticed, however, and as soon she raised it, his hand was gripped tightly around her wrist, digging his thumb into a pressure point until she dropped it.
"Nice try," he muttered quietly to her.
Max and I were oblivious to all this. If I had been paying attention, I would have realized that Violet was not trying to aim the gun at Anthony.
Meanwhile, the screen displayed the memory card's contents, which was a single audio file. He tapped the file's icon, and the recording started to play. It was a man's voice, very deep and digitally processed like a cheap movie effect, so as to obscure the speaker's identity.
"If you want to see your friend again, meet me the San Hermes Park tonight. At the eastern end of Millennial Bridge, 3:30 am. Bring Dylan Maxwell with you. Just him, no one else, and come unarmed."
After it finished, it automatically looped and repeated until Max touched the screen again to silence it. "Intriguing choice of a location," was all he said.
"Why's that?" I asked.
"That's where we held the memorial service for her mother after she died." He paused briefly, then added, "You know, the first time she died."
I arched an eyebrow. "Wait, what do you mean?"
"The 'boating accident,'" Max replied, using his fingers to draw quotation marks in the air as he spoke.
Suddenly, it felt like the ground had dropped out from under me. I was dumbfounded. "You mean Jacinda Ngo?"
Max's eyes grew wide with surprise and a smile spread across his face. He looked over my shoulder to Violet and started to laugh.
Violet stared at me with her mouth hanging open. "I assumed you knew."
I was reeling from this revelation. Why had Columbine kept that from me? Was her co
nnection to Jacinda the reason she had been targeted?
Max clapped his hands together once to get our attention and then tapped on his watch face. "Well, time's a-wastin'. Not that I don't love savoring D's utter humiliation, but we're about to walk into what is absolutely guaranteed to be a trap, and we have very little time to devise a proper strategy of attack."
* * *
37. Past the Point of Pretenses
Max, Violet, Anthony, and I rode together in the Volvo, while an armored car carrying a detail of Abrasax security guards followed behind at a decidedly indiscreet distance. I had seen them loading up before we left and knew they were packing enough firepower to make a Michigan militiaman blush. Somehow this knowledge was not the least bit comforting to me.
Anthony drove with Max riding shotgun and Violet and me in back. We decided to approach the Millennial Bridge from the north, since that would be least visible route and therefore the best bet for concealing the cavalry. This meant taking the winding, heavily-forested roads down Hermosa Ravine. As we entered the park, Max was finishing up on the phone with the two man scout team he had sent ahead of us.
"That's good," he said into his cell, "just make sure you guys pull back far enough to stay out of sight. They probably won't show if they see you there."
"Everything okay?" I asked.
"Well no one's there, so presumably they're waiting for you to arrive first so they can be sure the coast is clear. Once we get there, I'll have the A-Team hang back until they crawl out of the woodwork." He had a gleeful twinkle in his eye, like a kid unwrapping a Christmas present. "This paramilitary stuff is fun. It's giving me all sorts of ideas for games at the next Highwater party."
